It would have been funnier at half the length. But yeah.
2.
dmsilev
The bird thing is what really gets me. So a bird landed on his podium once? So what? I once saw a bird land on a airport departure gate counter; that doesn’t mean that Southwest is blessed by the gods.
3.
Wiesman
Here for the shitshow.
4.
hovercraft
I saw that yesterday, so sad but so true.
I think the more virulent berniacs should get in touch with that unskewed polls guy from 2012
@dmsilev:
One bird in the hand equals 25 delegates, so all the delegates earned on the month of April (but not NY because closed primary) count for 2 and a half delegates earned in any other month. So when you do the math Bernie is really ahead by 400 delegates.
Just tilt to the left and you’ll see my calculation is correct.
8.
benw
That was pretty funny.
But Bernie is winning… my heart.
SANDERS 2016
9.
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat: Does Bernie get extra delegates for each comment here? Or does that only apply to Reddit and the Daily Kos Recommended list?
10.
Trentrunner
Don’t know about everyone else, but I’m pretty pissed off at Bernie’s very conditional support should Hillary win the nomination, as he expressed in last night’s town hall w/Chris Hayes.
And Hillary followed up with shade + burn: She said, essentially: Look, in 2008, I was closer to winning against Obama than Sanders is now against me, and in 08 after I lost, I turned and gave my full support to Obama.
Really sick of your shit, Bernie.
11.
Tom Levenson
This could get very ugly around 9 tonight.
12.
Mike J
Claire McCaskill Verified account@clairecmc
As John Kasich considers his VP pick, my 3 year old grandson is considering his career in the NBA.
13.
C.S.Strowbridge
@Trentrunner: “And Hillary followed up with shade + burn: She said, essentially: Look, in 2008, I was closer to winning against Obama than Sanders is now against me, and in 08 after I lost, I turned and gave my full support to Obama.”
And TYT attacked her for saying that. Jesus. Some Bernie Sanders supporters are getting pathetically desperate and they are destroying their credibility as a result.
14.
japa21
@Mike J: That was cruel. Funny but cruel. True, but cruel. I liked it.
15.
MattF
@Tom Levenson: I go vote in the Maryland primary this afternoon.
@dmsilev: We had a bird fly down our chimney once. Can I run for president also?
18.
Emma
@dmsilev: I think they got the presidency confused with the papacy. After all, there’s a legend that one of the popes was a simple priest who was elected when the dove of the Holy Ghost landed on his shoulder during Mass.
19.
dmsilev
@D58826: Only if you (a) had a podium set up in your living room and (b) the bird landed on it.
@C.S.Strowbridge:
I’ve noticed that TYT is an out-and-proud Bernista place. Especially its leader and titular Turk, Cenk Uygur. The hearts Bernie has won are very committed, even though he has exposed himself as hopelessly unprepared to be President, and has no real chance of winning now.
Should all the people who say, “I’m really for HRC, but I will vote for Bernie in the primary” reconsider their position? Isn’t this enabling Bernie’s unrealistic dreams and the worst Berniebot dreams?”
ETA: If Bernie is really and truly your man, I say go for it!
@Amir Khalid: The fact that he will surely lose just makes supporting him more delicious. It enables you to say, “Pfft, I was against her before it was cool.”
@Mike J:
She’s being really unfair to her grandson. At 3 years old, we have no idea whether he has a future as a basketball player, but at this point in the election we know that Kasich has no chance of winning the nomination.
Bernie’s not winning. Bernie can’t win. Bernie probably never had much chance of winning, mostly because so many have bought into the “centrist” belief that no real change is possible so you might as well make sure Leviathan eats the other guy first. Package that up as pragmatism, add a heaping dose of entitlement repackaged as inevitability, and you have your legion of Hillary supporters denouncing healthy debate as disloyalty. It’s amazing how *conservative* some Democrats can be, in all senses of the word. I’ll vote for Hillary if I have to (which seems likely), but I don’t think anyone should be ashamed of having once hoped for better.
31.
Mike J
@FlipYrWhig: Bernie Sanders is the unreleased demo of the Democratic party.
Yeah, I’m no longer planning on voting for Sanders in the CA primary — I’ll be voting for Clinton. I was originally going to vote for him as a nod towards his stances (even the unrealistic ones) but he’s shown that he’s not a responsible steward of the ideas or movement.
33.
MattF
@Brachiator: We shall see. I have a feeling there’s been some recent shifting in preferences towards Hillz– But I’m also, um… suspicious of voting ‘trends’ that are perceived through introspection. And, fwiw, I’m a Hillbot, so there’s that.
Based on Benie and his fans comments he will endorse Hillary if:
1. his policy proposals become the party platform (Bernie ball = Calvin ball)
2. Hillary convinces his fans that she is worthy of their support (aside from the arrogance, If the words President Trump[/Cruz don’t convince them to vote for Hillary nothing she says will).
3. An ironclad guarantee that Hillary will not pivot to the center during the general election but will remain committed to the progressive agenda. (Math is hard but the sucess of the McGovern presidency should prove that there are not enough progressives to win the presidency. The votes are in the middle)
the bestowal of Excalibur onto Arthur by the Lady of the Lake.
Reading that, all I could think of was “Help! I’m being repressed!”
ETA: I see Southern Goth beat me to it.
43.
Emma
@dmsilev: Strange women lying in ponds (tired birds on podiums) distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
3. An ironclad guarantee that Hillary will not pivot to the center during the general election but will remain committed to the progressive agenda. (Math is hard but the sucess of the McGovern presidency should prove that there are not enough progressives to win the presidency. The votes are in the middle)
I actually think she doesn’t need to pivot much if at all. She hasn’t gotten on board with Sander’s flights of fancy, but instead has stayed on the Obama end of progressive policy, which is to say on policies for which there’s probably well over 50% support nationally (if you don’t tell people who is proposing the policy). No need to pivot right.
Some people who dislike her will probably say it’s because of her positions, but I don’t think there are as many in the middle who will be persuaded by a rightward shift from her, whereas the Bernie diehards will care if she extends a few olive branches in their direction (and if Warren helps mend the wounds of the primary).
Bernie probably never had much chance of winning, mostly because so many have bought into the “centrist” belief that no real change is possible so you might as well make sure Leviathan eats the other guy first.
It’s amazing how none of the Bernistas can accept that some people just like Hillary better.
Bernie’s not winning. Bernie can’t win. Bernie probably never had much chance of winning, mostly because so many have bought into the “centrist” belief that no real change is possible so you might as well make sure Leviathan eats the other guy first.
Uh, no.
I gave Bernie a chance early on, but I do not think that he would be the most effective president. Some people seem to think this irrelevant because they see Bernie as the vessel whereby their socialist dreams might be realized.
Secondly, I do not support Bernie’s plan for free college for everyone, and I thought that his wailing about health care was devoid of any thoughtfulness.
Every now and then, Bernie would say something interesting (some of his comments on Israel, for example), but then he would squander his advantage by saying something dumbass.
By the way, do not take me as an enthusiastic Hillary supporter. I just think that right now, she is better than Bernie. And both of them are better than any Republican.
48.
dmsilev
@Southern Goth: But what if it’s a swallow laden with a coconut?
African swallow, obviously.
49.
singfoom
As someone who supported Bernie in the primary but since the NYDN interview, this was hilarious, brutal and accurate.
I can’t wait for this primary to be over. I was also very sad to hear him pissing into the party tent with this answer last night:
And let me answer it, uh, in this way. Um, first, um, I think it is, you know, we are not a movement where I can snap my fingers and say to you or to anybody else what you should do, because you won’t listen to me. You shouldn’t. Uh, you’ll make these decisions yourself.
I think if we end up losing — and I hope we do not — and if Secretary Clinton wins, it is incumbent upon her to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in establishment politics or establishment economics, who have serious misgivings about a candidate who has received millions of dollars from Wall Street and other special interests.
Listen, I don’t like HRCs ties to Wall Street, but can someone please fucking explain to me how Trump or Cruz will be more effective in regulating Wall Street and the financial sector than Hilary?
Please, I’m waiting to hear it, because I don’t think that’s possible in our fucking reality. I don’t know of more than 1 or 2 Bernfeelers who won’t vote for HRC, especially here, but goddamnit, I hope there’s not many of them. The symbolic protest vote is not equal to the consequences this time around.
50.
catclub
I think Obama will be the one whose campaign support will be useful – he has voters behind him. Sanders help will be nice, too.
The number of people who actually think Obama is a sellout, so don’t vote, is not enough to matter.
As long as we’re talking election, Iowa has an actual primary in June by which its House and Senate candidates are chosen. On the Senate side, Grassley will probably get a good D opponent in Patty Judge. On the House side, I heard a report today that Democrats are changing their party registration in Steve King’s district so they can vote for his R opponent. Governor Branstad (R) has declined to endorse anyone in that race.
57.
Cacti
I’m glad Bernie got into the race so Hillary could push him to the left on gun legislation.
58.
dmsilev
Actually, I think we’re all citing the wrong scenes from that film. The video at top could be summarized as ’tis but a flesh wound’.
In yesterday’s Snooze Hour, Beltway hack Amy Walter actually said this, Hillary may be winning but Bernie has the momentum. WTF is that supposed to mean?
OK, since you brought it up, let’s talk about arrogance. Ignore Bernie supporters’ purported faults or motivations for a moment. Let’s just say they behave as they do for ineffable and immutable reasons. What should *Hillary* do, if she doesn’t want to throw the election to Trump (or whichever even-worse alternative the Republicans provide)? Clearly, she’d need to do something to gain their support, which neither she nor her supporters in their over-entitled premature triumphalism seem inclined to do. That’s where arrogance comes into play. What else can you call the certainty that she doesn’t even need progressives to win the general election in 2016, or that she won’t need them again in 2018 or 2020? How is it not arrogant for people like you to flip the bird (heh) to anyone who didn’t share your preference? Those who expect deference always portray its absence as arrogance.
@TriassicSands: Check back this evening and then we will see. Want to make bet in Tunch coins?
68.
Just One More Canuck
@Southern Goth: Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aerial ceremony
eta – Emma beat me to it
69.
singfoom
@Iowa Old Lady: Do you get the sense that Patty Judge can give Grassley a run for his money on the ground? He’s a fucking institution, but it’d be great if he was replaced.
70.
Amir Khalid
If you will all pardon me going off-topic, here’s a long-overdue judgement in a case that’s very close to my heart as a Liverpool FC fan. I watched the Hillsborough Stadium disaster on live television in 1989. The families of The 96 fought 27 years for this, against lies published in the media and what could fairly be called an organised police cover-up.
Translation: “My candidate lost an election! How can you fucking Democrats possibly understand how that feels?”
72.
Germy
It is incumbent upon her to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in Establishment politics or Establishment economics, who have serious misgivings about a candidate who has received millions of dollars from Wall Street and other special interests, she has got to go out to you and to millions of other people and say, you know, “I think the United States should join the rest of the industrialized world and take on the private insurance companies and the greed of the drug companies and pass Medicare for all.”
CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Sanders if he would commit to supporting Clinton unconditionally, even if his preferred policies on health care and climate change did not make it into the Democratic platform.
“Well, then, we’ll see what happens. We’re going to have a lot of delegates there, fighting the fight,” Sanders said. “The winner, whether it is Secretary Clinton or myself, our job is then to go out to the American people on a platform that makes sense to the working families in this country.”
(from NYMag)
73.
D58826
@Obdurodon: Bernie probably never had much chance of winning, mostly because so many have bought into the “centrist” belief that no real change is possible
If I may copy my post from an earlier thread:This is one of the things that really really really gets me about our fellow progressives and Bernie supporters. They make it sound like Obama has done absolutely nothing in his two terms. In fact one writer on Salon referred to him as Bush-lite. Part of Bernie’s stump speech is that access to health care is a right (as if Obama/Clinton ever said it wasn’t) and he will achieve universal health care with single payer. Well maybe he will and maybe he won’t but Obamacare has taken a big bite out of the uninsured and would have covered even more if it wasn’t for the Roberts court and red state governors. Yet somehow that all seems to be lost in the mist of Barniemania.
Now it’s true that Obama hasn’t made water run uphill or the sun stand still at noon on the Christmas day but he has another 8 months to figure that out also.
I might also add, to use a baseball analogy, our system is designed for the singles and doubles hitters. Triples and home runs are much more rare and difficult to achieve. It usually takes a major event like the depression or WWII to make big changes. The problem is that the smaller incremental, changes get lost in the background. It doesn’t mean that Hillary supports don’t believe that change is possible. Or to put it another way someone posted on Twitter that Bernie’s supporters are going to have to learn to get their loaf one slice at a time.
Package that up as pragmatism, add a heaping dose of entitlement repackaged as inevitability, and you have your legion of Hillary supporters denouncing healthy debate as disloyalty.
For what it’s worth, many of us who do not see Clinton as the lesser of evils, but in fact think she will be a fine president and affirmatively support her, never denounced debate as disloyalty. I can’t count the number of times I have heard Clinton supporters in large numbers defend Sanders for running and stood up for his right to do so. Not all, of course, but the center of gravity has been respect for Sanders and what he stands for. I admit, though, that I am losing esteem for him now, and will probably in the future look to others as the leaders of his wing of the party.
78.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
That video is my FB feed all day. Today, Salon had an article that acknowledged that Charles Koch did NOT, i repeat did NOT, endorse Hillary Clinton, after Bernfeeler friends posted it yesterday as evidence of how corrupt $hillary is. I’m tempted to post this video, but it feels like the delusion fever might have broken, and they’ve entered the bargaining stage of grief.
ETA: except for Tim Robbins who apparently is a full blown Sanders nutbag.
Gasp! It sounded in the news that Maryland is doing all it can to actually make voting easier and more convenient. Whats the matter with them?
Inorite?
I was in line for all of ten minutes this morning. Yesterday I warned my boss that I might be late today (actually, I never finished the warning; as soon as it turned out that I was going to vote in the morning, he interrupted me with a chant of “Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote!” until I was gone) on account of long lines, but there were none, and I actually arrived at work half an hour early.
Was driven to the polls by the two Sanders supporters I live with. Checked the boxes for Hillary and her peeps. Chatted about it with one of them outside while we were waiting for the other to be finished, both of us acknowledging that hell yes I’ll vote for your candidate if they’re the nominee. Based on their polling numbers in the Democratic base, I suspect my experience is far more representative than any horror stories about Hillbots or Berniebros.
I was also very sad to hear him pissing into the party tent with this answer last night
Bernie’s correct answer should have been: If I don’t win the nomination, I’ll do everything in my power to persuade every American voter to support the Democratic nominee for president. Just as I hope Secretary Clinton would do were I to win the nomination.
“We’re not a movement, blah, blah, blah…” is a bullshit answer — I grow more disappointed with Sanders with each passing day. Sadly, that doesn’t increase my enthusiasm for HRC.
please fucking explain to me how Trump or Cruz will be more effective
Nobody believes that they will. What some do believe is that Hillary will not prevail against that Ultimate Evil in the general election without the effective support of those who are now Bernie’s supporters. Turnout matters. It’s not enough to get the Bernie supporters to admit that she’s better than Trump or Cruz. They already know that. What matters is that they see enough of a difference to actually go out and vote. Maybe even enough to go out and get others to vote. That means Hillary and her supporters have to do something other than what I’m seeing. The more you call “apostate” against those who might have been your allies in the general election, the more likely you make it that Trump will actually win. That’s not very pragmatic, is it?
82.
ruemara
@Obdurodon: Bernie could have won, even should have won, since many were looking on alternatives to Clinton. If he had presented a thought out peaceful revolution with a structure of who to support, better GOTV operations and less grifting, this would be neck & neck. If he had actually courted the minority vote instead of extending his savior hand for us to kiss, co-opting real activists who spent their lives gaining the incremental progress he spurns and wasn’t tone fucking deaf; this entire post would be wondering when Hillary would just go away already. It ain’t centrists torpedoing your pal. He’s had tons of media coverage, so there’s no blackout. It’s the lack of coherent political strategy and reliance on big showy crap and rhetoric as well as a mighty dose of effete liberal “activism”. Some movement. Primary day and less than 1000 GOTV calls with a target goal of 35k. Bad.
83.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: I still don’t quite follow how the Sanders candidacy morphed from the overdue liberal-populist campaign that was going to do bold brave new things with common purpose for the least among us, which a lot of people still seem to think it is, to the “Wall Street sucks, big money out of politics” 24/7 message machine it now is. Of all the things to settle on as a central message, you pick campaign finance reform, sort of, by eschewing and excoriating the other ways that other candidates raise money? And relish it to the point where it’s your answer to nearly every question? I find that very strange. Not because it’s not a problem in some sense, but it just doesn’t seem like an epoch-defining problem, not when there’s, you know, police murdering people, climate change, Republican governors monkeying around with voting rights, abortion rights, health-care access, etc., etc., etc. I know the story is that if you get big money out of politics it’s easier to address these things, but I want to hear more about the addressing-these-things-HOW part. And that’s so secondary.
hat else can you call the certainty that she doesn’t even need progressives to win the general election in 2016, or that she won’t need them again in 2018 or 2020?
I don’t know about this certainty that you speak of here. In fact, multiple commenters on this blog have expressed concern that Bernie supporters will take their ball home and not vote in the general if he loses.
You know, politics is not tag football. Passion is part of the primary, but after the primary, you support the nominee in the general. It sucks when your preferred candidate doesn’t make it, but your preferences become small when compared to the needs of the electorate at large.
Are you ok with people staying home because their fee fees are hurt? I’m asking this as someone up until about 2 weeks ago supported Bernie and still prefer him ideologically but understand that HRC is capable and a better candidate…
85.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: It’s good the terraces are gone, but I’ve always thought it was more an economic decision than safety.
Those who expect deference always portray its absence as arrogance.
If by “deference” you mean “Bernie supporters should suck it up, hold their figurative (or is it metaphorical?) noses, and vote for Hillary,” and by “its absence” you mean “Bernistas’ willingness to fuck over the country because Hillary isn’t pure enough for them,” then I’m with ya all the way.
Cleek said it better, of course.
89.
liberal
@ruemara: nonsense. It’s pretty clear that, for better or for worse, Bernie didn’t topple Clinton because he didn’t think his campaign would take off as much as it has.
If he had presented a thought out peaceful revolution with a structure of who to support, better GOTV operations and less grifting
If Sanders had done all that, then he wouldn’t be anti-Establishment, hence corrupt. There is no political system pure enough for his supporters to want to work within – that’s the whole point. That’s why his supporters are overwhelmingly white and young and frankly, as we can see by the not quite satirical video, detached from reality.
Clearly, she’d need to do something to gain their support, which neither she nor her supporters in their over-entitled premature triumphalism seem inclined to do.
Where the fuck does this come from? Maybe she can earn their support by standing for the things she’s already standing for. Team Bernie is the one that’s out there pissing and moaning about how they’re not SURE they’ll be PERSUADED because they need so many REASSURANCES that she’s not the devil, hmmph, and it’s not fair, because of Brooklyn and the South and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Are you ok with people staying home because their fee fees are hurt? I’m asking this as someone up until about 2 weeks ago supported Bernie and still prefer him ideologically but understand that HRC is capable and a better candidate…
Patton Oswalt, a Sanders supporter, has been excoriated on twitter for saying that anyone who doesn’t vote for the party’s nominee is “a fucking child.” The hate never ever slowed down when his wife died.
93.
Gin & Tonic
@Chris: Voting is always easy and convenient at my polling place. I expect to hit mine after work and the gym. It’s just that for primaries they consolidate some districts, so I’ll have to drive an extra 5-6 miles to go to the consolidated location.
I hear pundits on the teevee box saying Bernie might win RI. I just don’t see that happening. HRC is popular here.
What matters is that they see enough of a difference to actually go out and vote. Maybe even enough to go out and get others to vote.
If they can’t see a difference between HRC and Cruz/Trump, they need to get their fucking eyes checked. Seriously. I say that as someone who will pull the lever for HRC while not really liking her as a candidate. She’s lightyears better than Trump and Cruz. I can only really speak for myself, but I voted for Bernie in the primary and now I support HRC and wish Bernie would stop. I am EFFECTIVELY supporting HRC and not pissing or shitting on those who continue to support Bernie, but since the NYDN interview where he flubbed his signature issue and some other incidents, I’m done with him. He’s not the better candidate. He’s just not and the math reflects that.
The more you call “apostate” against those who might have been your allies in the general election, the more likely you make it that Trump will actually win. That’s not very pragmatic, is it?
I’m not calling apostate here. I’m sure others have said bad things about Bernie and his supporters here just as the other way around. The central reality is just like the video, Bernie doesn’t have the math. I think that the majority of Sanders supporters will come around and vote for HRC. If they don’t, that’s on them. And it’s on Bernie for not doing what HRC did in 2008 and basically every single primary loser before her…
My oldest has turned into quite the BernieBro — and normally he’s really pragmatic, and very much a feminist supporter. But as time has gone on, I have been stunned by the bullshit talking points he’s taken to spewing. We got into it over dinner the other night and ended up not speaking to each other for a while. THAT is my problem with the Sanders movement — a portion of it has become a cult where people who normally have absolutely no daylight between their positions end up screaming at each other for no reason. I would have supported Bernie happily were he the nominee, and always liked him. But, sheesh, at this point I am just exhausted by all the horseshit surrounding his candidacy and the way it’s turned people into the purity police. Never, not even when he was at the height of hist teenage angst, have I had my child (he’s 26 now), treat me with as much utter contempt as he has over the Sanders campaign.
97.
Cacti
Bernie Math is just the predictable reaction of a generation raised to believe they should get trophies just for showing up.
Sorry kids. The grown up world doesn’t work that way.
@singfoom: I’ve already said that I’d vote for Hillary, and those “expressions of concern” are like the “hopes and prayers” from the NRA’s puppets. They mean nothing, except that the speaker is insincere. Alienation of Bernie’s supporters is a real thing, with potentially real consequences in the general elections. Those who are “expressing concern” by blaming Bernie’s supporters need to start doing something more constructive, or else the outcome in the general election is going to be the one that none of us want. That rage-high isn’t worth it.
LOL. Why would I need that, when I know how much money she’s taken from Wall Street?
Yeah, I know, it’s not corrupt if there’s no quid pro quo. You people are such idiots. (And I say that as someone who’ll vote for Hillary in the general, and probably give her money.)
@Obdurodon: 1, I’m not flipping the bird at anyone. 2. The ‘arrogance’ was in reference to the idea that she had to ‘show she deserved their support’ as if the Bernie supporters are some privileged class. Of course she will reach out to the progressive wing of the party. But she is a political. She puts her pants suit on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. You vote for her because you agree with most of her ideas or you dislike the other guy/gals ideas more. It has nothing to do with ‘deserving’. If the guy writing the article had said that Hillary has to reach out to Bernie’s supporters and show that she will push the country in the same direction as Bernie even if it is in smaller steps. Then that would be fine. I just didn’t like the phrase ‘deserved’. Sounded to much like she had to appear on bended knee in front of Bernie and his supporters at the convention to get his blessing.
102.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: I can kind of understand it, which is why I was team Bernie on here for so long.
For each of those issues, and anything you want to change, the giant fucking obstacle to that change is Congress. And changing congress requires changing congresspeople. Which at the moment, requires giant fucking enormous wads of money.
And the people with the larger amount of money are just FINE FINE with the status quo. So viewed through that simplistic lens that the campaign finance system is preventing us from having nice things, it’s easy for that to become the issue that precedes all other issues.
Patton Oswalt, a Sanders supporter, has been excoriated on twitter for saying that anyone who doesn’t vote for the party’s nominee is “a fucking child.” The hate never ever slowed down when his wife died.
Yeah, that’s fucking stupid. Which is exactly what he’s calling out and I hope he continues to do so.
The ‘arrogance’ was in reference to the idea that she had to ‘show she deserved their support’ as if the Bernie supporters are some privileged class.
I’m sorry. Is there a candidate who doesn’t have to show he/she deserves the support?
106.
SciNY
I would love to know what Bernie would have said if the shoe were on the other foot. “OK, Senator Sanders, let’s say you get the outcome you’re hoping for — winning the most votes, the most delegates, and the Democratic nomination. What aspects of your platform would you be willing to jettison or move towards the Secretary’s positions, as the price of getting her strong and sincere endorsement and active support in the fall?”. I’m guessing he’s got nothing, because He doesn’t believe in consensus and compromise. So if he couldn’t bring himself to do it, why does he expect her to?
107.
gex
@Germy: It is self evident that the platform that has generated more votes in the primaries should be chucked in favor of the platform that has generated fewer votes in the primaries. It would be particularly fun for me as a Hillary supporter to see her make more moves to the left only to hear them call her a lying liar Republican lite scammer.
108.
Applejinx
@Southern Goth: pff! Laughed out loud at that one, no fooling.
Not some… farcical democratic ceremony! XD
Now, about
pretty pissed off at Bernie’s very conditional support should Hillary win
Get real. I want exactly that from him, and if you want to have a prayer, a PRAYER of tapping into what’s half the goddamn party AND skews heavily young, you would see that this is the right thing, probably all the way to California, until every voter has had a chance to have their say.
“It is incumbent upon her to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in Establishment politics or Establishment economics, who have serious misgivings” is the exact reality right now. This is NO time to roll over and go ‘wah, we got beaten, therefore everything is awful forever and let’s stay home and cry, we lose’.
NO. We do NOT lose.
We have documented the leftward swing in terms so intense that we goddamn near took the nomination against the will of the DNC itself, which should be fucking impossible and which it’s been set up so that can’t happen. The voters skew heavily younger and that is a huge opportunity.
Hillary CAN do what Bernie is calling for, and it is indeed her job and not his to do it. It’s fucking insulting to pretend she can’t. Do you think she’s not a liberal, or something? Way back when, in that ‘gotcha’ pic of ‘where was Bernie? Standing behind you!’ there were two proud leftists trying to pass legislation. She gave up for a while, he didn’t but couldn’t do squat.
Hillary CAN do what Bernie asks and it’s disgusting to pretend she can’t. He’s thrown all the shade necessary for her to go the last few steps and accept her new, her REAL constituency. I think it’s even possible she’ll serve ’em better than Bernie possibly could have.
But she has to step into that shade and not look for ‘centrist’ shade out there in the glare of a Trump world. He can’t do it for her. It’s nothing she hasn’t been actively doing ALL THIS TIME. For God’s sake. Okay, I’m getting worked up, time to Python away the rage.
And times were bad, and they were forced to eat Bernie’s Weaver. And there was much rejoicing. (yaaaay!)
I’m sorry. Is there a candidate who doesn’t have to show he/she deserves the support?
Not every Dem candidate can be as progressive as Vladimir Putin, comrade Bob.
110.
negative 1
@FlipYrWhig: Because those things matter to you, and other things matter to other people. That’s why people vote. I for instance care about the economy, the environment and everything else a distant 3rd.
Basically I don’t hold out hope that we will ever have a functional manufacturing sector in this country as long as we continue unchecked free trade, and we won’t ever have that as long as large corporations continue to buy politicians. That’s why it’s important.
Yeah, I know, it’s not corrupt if there’s no quid pro quo.
What’s your point? It is corrupt if there’s no quid pro quo? What about the money she took for speaking to the US Green Building Council? The International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association? The Cardiovascular Research Foundation? The United Fresh Produce Foundation? The Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal? The Institute of Scrap Recycling? She received as much money from them as Wall Street. It’s a bullshit talking point, but you know that.
“expressions of concern” are like the “hopes and prayers” from the NRA’s puppets. They mean nothing, except that the speaker is insincere.
Alienation of Bernie’s supporters is a real thing, with potentially real consequences in the general elections.
Listen, I’ve been here for months defending Bernie and taking giant amounts of shit for it. Everyone is free to vote their conscience and if people are going to stay home because they’re “alienated” need to grow the fuck up. I changed my mind a couple weeks ago after the NYDN article.
Am I happy about it? Fuck no. I don’t like HRC. But she’s the better more effective candidate at this point. Sanders campaign keeps making own goals and then he shits on the party more and more even when the math is pointing to HRC as the nominee. So now she’s got to go hold his supoorters hands?
I get it, I really do. I was a Howard Dean supporter back in the day, that was hard to take. But guess what? It’s not incumbent on the campaign to massage your feelings.
Adults realize that it’s not the responsibility of others for their feelings. Adults try to figure out what the right thing to do is. They do things they don’t want to do because they HAVE to do them.
In this case, in my view, I have to vote for HRC in the general and when I look around I think others who value progress will do the same too.
If they stay home, that’s not on HRC or her campaign or her “mean” supporters. It’s on them.
I still don’t quite follow how the Sanders candidacy morphed from the overdue liberal-populist campaign that was going to do bold brave new things with common purpose for the least among us, which a lot of people still seem to think it is, to the “Wall Street sucks, big money out of politics” 24/7 message machine it now is.
Maybe if you’d read Sanders’ web page last September you wouldn’t have been baffled by this development. Since Balloon Juice villagers seem to have discarded any concerns about the connection between money and politicians I would suggest that you didn’t hear that part of Sanders’ campaign because you weren’t listening. It’s always been an integral part of his campaign.
116.
negative 1
@Cacti: But the idea may be that I and others don’t hold any particular stake in the success or failure of political parties since they are at heart fundraising organizations. I vote for democrats because in general I agree with their ideas, but I wouldn’t vote for Cruz, say, if he switched affiliations tomorrow.
I’ve noticed that TYT is an out-and-proud Bernista place. Especially its leader and titular Turk, Cenk Uygur.
I’ve only run across this program relatively recently, and often find that Cenk and his co-hosts are actually interesting and better informed than many “traditional” news and commentary programs.
118.
Lamh36
ohhh shit…
#Prince’s sister says in court documents that the musician had no known will and she has filed paperwork to be appointed executor
Follow
USA TODAY ✔@USATODAY
#BREAKING Prince had no will, says sister in court documents http://usatoday
119.
Paul in KY
@Emma: He deserved it, because he had worked hard training that dove to land on his shoulder (while abstaining from eating it).
120.
Jeffro
It will be interesting to see how the media reacts after California’s done and the number spell it all out for them – not just that HRC has won, but that for the first time in American history, one of our major parties has a woman heading the ticket.
Even more interesting, if that’s possible, will be once Bernie essentially concedes (much less endorses Clinton) AND we get a chance to see both Warren and Obama jump in, calling for party unity and sounding general quarters. I’m sure they’ll drag out Jim Webb or something (“see? both parties are fractured!!”) but good luck with that, MSM.
121.
AkaDad
If you want a revolution, then it is encumbent upon all of you to get out and vote to make the Republicans a minority party, otherwise it’s just wishful thinking.
122.
starscream
@Jeffro: Yup. The only question left on the Dem side will be how much of an assclown Bernie will be in his concession speech.
@SciNY: Do you think there’s enough projection in your question? In both instances of that question it was posed by the media, but then you made a straw-Bernie, and then laughed at the answer.
125.
Bob In Portland
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: What is your point? That because she takes lots of money from everyone she immune from everyone? Doesn’t work that way, has never worked that way in American politics and won’t work that way the next four years.
Undergirding the majority’s approach to the merits is the claim that the only “sufficiently important governmental interest in preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption” is one that is “limited to quid pro quo corruption.” Ante , at 43. This is the same “crabbed view of corruption” that was espoused by Justice Kennedy in McConnell and squarely rejected by the Court in that case. 540 U. S., at 152. While it is true that we have not always spoken about corruption in a clear or consistent voice, the approach taken by the majority cannot be right, in my judgment. It disregards our constitutional history and the fundamental demands of a democratic society.
On numerous occasions we have recognized Congress’ legitimate interest in preventing the money that is spent on elections from exerting an “ ‘undue influence on an officeholder’s judgment’ ” and from creating “ ‘the appearance of such influence,’ ” beyond the sphere of quid pro quo relationships. Id., at 150; see also, e.g., id., at 143–144, 152–154; Colorado II , 533 U. S., at 441; Shrink Missouri , 528 U. S., at 389. Corruption can take many forms. Bribery may be the paradigm case. But the difference between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind. And selling access is not qualitatively different from giving special preference to those who spent money on one’s behalf. Corruption operates along a spectrum, and the majority’s apparent belief that quid pro quo arrangements can be neatly demarcated from other improper influences does not accord with the theory or reality of politics.
Actionable quid pro quo as the measure is the GOP position.
@starscream: I’d say the questions of what are we going to do about income inequality and ridiculous amounts of college debt are largely unanswered still, unless you’d care to enlighten me.
130.
japa21
I am tired of folks taking about Clinton alienating Sanders supporters. That is a bunch of BS. She has repeatedly reached out to them, expressed understanding for their concerns, produces policies that address those concerns.
The alienation is not due to Clinton but to Sanders creating an image of her in their minds that doesn’t match reality. And his comments last night just reinforced this image.
It is like people saying Obama is a polarizing President when he has been anything but.
I’ve never voted in person (for various reasons I’ve gotten absentee ballots up to this point) and just moved back here from Miami, where I heard horror stories from various people about standing in line for over six hours. So let’s say I was prepared for a holdup. But no, it all went very smoothly.
(The friends I was with commented sadly that there were still a lot more people there today, even though it’s only a primary, than there were the last time they were there for the 2014 midterms).
133.
starscream
@negative 1: First of all, moron, the comment I was responding to was about what the campaign looks like going forward. Second, both candidates have spoken at length on those issues – I suggest Bing or Yahoo if Google is failing you.
134.
D58826
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed. It takes big bucks to run a national campaign. For Hillary to unilaterally disarm simply gives the GOP an undeserved advantage. In reality the GOP will still outspend the democrats. And ‘big money’ doesn’t always mean the rich donor is against the policy issues that you listed. Campaign finance reform is a great idea but improving Obamacare will have a more direct impact on the average american. And something else to consider. Bernie is big on breaking up the big banks and running against wall street. Now there is a lot wrong with the financial sector that should be fixed but it employs millions of ordinary working folks. Start taking a hatchet to the banks and a lot of the little people that Bernie worries about might wind up losing their jobs. It certainly won’t enhance stability in the economy. The financial big wigs certainly won’t suffer. Benie just doesn’t seem to have considered the unanticipated consequences of some of his polices. It might not be an exaggeration to say that if Bernie proposed breaking up the big banks as part of his inaugural address, his presidency would to all intents and purposes end right there. The proposal would be met with universal rejection by the GOP, business across the board, lawsuits that would tie up the plan for years and dead silence from most of the democratic party. Much better to take smaller steps to enhance the regulatory power of the government, reign in the shadow banking sector and selective tax certain aspects of the financial sector, i.e. hedge fund carried interest and a transaction tax.
It’s always been an integral part of his campaign.
Yes, the worst part. Even “break up the banks” is better than that. Or “single payer,” or “free college.” Even if he has no idea how to do any of those things, at least they’re actual proposals or preferences for how to handle actual problems, not a complaint about how things suck and should totally be different already. It seems to connect with many people but I honestly wouldn’t put it in the Top 50 list of problems facing America. Look at how big corporations have responded to the North Carolina bathroom stupidity. Big corporate interests… taking a stand for equality and social justice. As long as the outcome is equality and social justice, I couldn’t give _less_ of a shit about corporate anything. The Sanders campaign has managed to turn the whole thing inside out to the point where the important part is the form instead of the content.
If they stay home, that’s not on HRC or her campaign or her “mean” supporters. It’s on them.
That will be cold comfort if the worst happens. Then it will be on everybody who had a chance to prevent it, and pissed away that chance so they could sneer “bullshit” and “grow the fuck up” and whatnot. Phrases like those are just ways to avoid or deny one’s own responsibility, and that, my friend, is the act of a child.
137.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Sanders is the Google Glass of this election cycle.
Think about it – glib 20 somethings touting about greatness when in fact, he’s stupid, unnecessary and only marginally functional.
138.
AkaDad
@Brachiator: TYT complains about media bias then gives figurative blowjobs to Sanders. Sad!
Imagine, if you will, all the candidates listed by how much money from large donors that each has gotten. (Why not small donors? If you need to ask you aren’t trying.)
Where is H. Clinton? She’s among, if not on top of all the Republican candidates. And her connection with money (money of the 1% flowing her way) is a long and well-established path.
If the Democratic Party insists on thoroughly corrupting itself with the money of the wealthy (hey Debbie, I need a loan until payday) then voters, whether Sanders supporters or not, are under no obligation to support that ticket.
So here’s the math, for me. I’ll be voting for Sanders here in Oregon in the primary, and I suspect he’ll get the majority of votes here. In the fall I’ll scour the ballot for the candidate who isn’t beholden to the monied interests. Guess who that leaves out?
If you try to guilt-trip Sanders supporters by shouting, “Look at the alternative” you have to understand that we see Clinton as no alternative. If you wanted my vote you should have chosen a cleaner candidate. You didn’t. So good luck. I’ll be voting for Dems down the ballot. But how the left side of the Democratic Party votes, or stays home, is on the Democratic Party for pushing their very flawed, generally disliked and untrusted candidate.
141.
Applejinx
@cleek: No, Big Pants would be Christie. He’s shining the shoes of Trump’s gardener, right now.
142.
Linnaeus
As much as I’ve appreciated a reasonably competitive Democratic primary, I’ll be glad when it’s over.
143.
Paul in KY
@TriassicSands: All my comments count for 3 each. Says I.
144.
NR
Boy, I sure hope Hillary and her people are a lot smarter than most of the commenters here, because if they’re not, we’re fucked.
145.
shomi
You know what else is brutal….all the progressives who thought he had a chance to begin with and how that would somehow move us forward being set up for a possible loss against whatever clown puppet the Republicans pick.
I cannot in good conscience call myself a progressive anymore because sadly I realize they are just as stupid as the far right in their own way.
146.
Kay
With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. (Applause.) They should be decided by the American people.
He started this speech with “it begins with the economy”.
147.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: You are closer to being a decision-maker in the Democratic Party than I am, but I don’t care about these spectrum-of-corruption issues whatsoever. I care about outcomes, and if corrupt people produce equitable and just outcomes, great. If incorruptible people don’t have their shit together and can’t make anything come to pass, they’re not doing me or America any good.
148.
Miss Bianca
@Tom Levenson: It isn’t very ugly now? Or is it just ugly? ; )
149.
singfoom
@Obdurodon: I’m not sneering for the fun of it. Or cursing because I like to, even though I do.
Honestly, I don’t understand where you’re coming from. I can agree that after a primary a party needs to heal so it is unified going into the general. I understand that idea.
But can you explain exactly, what my responsibility is in this case, so I don’t “act like a child” in your words?
I have a responsibility to reach out to Bernie supporters who say they won’t vote for HRC? Is that your assertion?
ETA: I’m just some fucking guy commenting on a blog. I would argue that the larger responsibility lays on the shoulders of Bernie should he not win the nomination. It’s incumbent on him to push his supporters to support the nominee.
Something like “I have some large disagreements with Mrs. Clinton, but at this point, I recognize she is the best candidate to continue progress on all the issues I care most deeply about and I implore my supporters to give her their support she’ll need to prevail over the opponents of progress.”
Sanders is the Google Glass of this election cycle.
Think about it – glib 20 somethings touting about greatness when in fact, he’s stupid, unnecessary and only marginally functional.
I hope you feel real good kicking Sanders supporters. Didn’t need them, did you? You see, if you’re going to be an asshole and keep insulting people who want a change in the direction of our country, then go ahead without those kids, and their grandparents.
151.
Ella in New Mexico
Actually, the guy sitting at the table doing his homework reminds me of EXACTLY what I felt like when I first took Calculus. /shivvers/
You’re all forgetting that for Sander’s voters who do the math, the Heartfelt Duplication corollary of the Rainbows and Ponies theorem does state that each vote for Bernie from a state with the letter A or E in it on a Tuesday with an even date is actually worth 2 delegates and one Super delegate.
So you guys just wait. ;-)
152.
ruemara
@NR: They’ve been smarter than you & your preferred candidate. If you couldn’t win against that shill with the negative message and same old Obama policies, why would you be beating whoever comes out of the GOP with a fat dose of angry white privilege?
@MomSense: many thanks. I try to stop shouting into the void, but the vod keeps saying dumb stuff.
153.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: And if a particular corruptible person can be pressured to produce the equitable and just outcome that she’d secretly like to see anyway so long as it doesn’t cost her anything?
Come over to the moonbat side, oh Balloon Juice Third Way ‘back when republicans were good’ers. We have cookies! And a middle class, after enough redistribution. You know, the same way FDR and Eisenhower did it.
We’re STILL enjoying the interstate highway system we got from the last time a ‘Republican’ let himself put Americans to work ;)
154.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Are we talking about good vs. bad things, or important vs. unimportant things? IMHO unbridled campaign spending is a bad thing but an unimportant thing. For Bernie Sanders it is a VERY BAD THING and also VERY VERY IMPORTANT. That just seems crackers to me.
One of my Facebook friends who’s a Sanders supporter posted something last night about liking both of them and that the most important thing was to vote for the Democrat in the general election. The response from the Sanders supporters was kind of stunning – not just the juvenile “I’ll write him in or not vote at all” stuff but lots of attacks on Clinton. And one of the Sanders people even went so far as to say that people had no right to criticize his decision not to vote. I’ve mostly avoided any of the Clinton-Sanders stuff on Facebook, and after this display of entitlement and I’ll-take-my-ball-homeism I think I will work more actively to avoid it.
“When Bernie wrote an op-ed with Charles Koch, that just proved how wide-ranging his support truly is, despite being quashed by corrupt black people er er um um establishment Democrats. But when Charles Koch suggested Clinton might be a better president than Trump ‘if her actions don’t match her rhetoric,’ that proves she’s a neoliberal sellout, Republican-lite, etc. It certainly does not prove that Charles Koch realizes that the national GOP is a dumpster fire and he’s making a play for the No Labels crowd.”
157.
Paul in KY
@singfoom: We’re going to need more than Mr. Oswalt saying it. Those are some mighty hurt fee fees, it appears.
because so many have bought into the “centrist” belief that no real change is possible so you might as well make sure Leviathan eats the other guy first.
So, is like some kind of brain burn applied before or after being for Bernie? The sheer, unmitigated, unhinged, astronomical stupidity of the phrase “no real change is possible” staggers the imagination. Do the slaves get polio where you live? Do the blacks have to be out of town before sundown? Are people dying from or going bankrupt treating preexisting conditions? Gays being dishonorably discharged from the military?
Or are you really saying that nothing You Care About has changed?
I once thought Bernie was good for the left and the party. Geeze, what a fool.
if corrupt people produce equitable and just outcomes, great
I mean this is a weird thing to say, isn’t it? If people who don’t follow rules follow rules, great.
160.
cokane
to be fair, campaign flacks like Weaver are supposed to be blindingly rah rah rah for their candidates. It’s a better criticism of his die hard voters and supporters.
The only question left on the Dem side will be how much of an assclown Bernie will be in his concession speech.
Oh that’s helpful…=)
It dawned on me, while picturing the possibility of Clinton, Sanders, Obama, and Warren standing onstage together at the end of the convention in Philly…and with all the chaos to come in Cleveland…and because I think a certain super-villain-centered movie is coming out about convention-time this summer…and also just because I’m nerdy old me…
…might we see more than a few “JUSTICE LEAGUE” vs “SUICIDE SQUAD” comparisons in July?
It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
162.
Paul in KY
@Bob In Portland: The Democratic candidate running against Trump or Darth Creepy.
Oh, come on Flip. Citizens has been a Democratic talking point since the day it was decided. The idea that they’re obsessed with it or “fringe” is just not true. The nominee runs the platform. I just showed you the 2102 platform. Obama was the nominee.
If it’s bullshit that’s one thing, but it is absolutely the position of the Democratic Party that undue influence is bigger than actionable quid pro quo corruption.
I don’t care about the speeches. I think it was a stupid political decision, but I would prefer if Democrats don’t throw campaign finance reform under the bus along with Sanders and his millions of voters as part of defending these stupid speeches she insisted on making.
166.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I think Democrats — including Clinton — understand that Super PACs and mega-donors corrupt the political process by amplifying the voices of the few over the voices of the many. That’s why the entire party, including Clinton, wants CU overturned and other campaign finance laws enacted. But if Sanders is going to imply that Clinton is corrupt at every turn, he should be able to rattle off some quid pro quo examples. And if Sanders is going to unilaterally disarm in the general while we’re still operating under existing campaign finance laws, he should explain how he’s not going to get squashed like a bug.
167.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: Putin has never struck me as terribly progressive. He’s just defending his country against the US’s new Cold War.
Bernie is progressive. Hillary is to the right of center. She mouths platitudes about social issues when her triangulation says it’s safe, but she has always been to the right of center as far as all other issues. It wasn’t her conversion to the Democratic Party. It was the Democratic Party’s conversion to the monied classes.
TYT complains about media bias then gives figurative blowjobs to Sanders. Sad!
Fortunately, this is not all that they are about.
And they don’t just complain about media bias, they rightfully complain about news media stupidity. I loved their piece that reacted to Fox News reporters and pundits insisting that “yes, kids, Santa Claus is a white man.”
169.
Paul in KY
@Lamh36: Not ‘oh shit’ if you are a close biological relative.
It is incumbent upon her to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in Establishment politics or Establishment economics, who have serious misgivings
I remember reading that in a student newspaper column written by the resident Students for a democratic society president in 1967. I would love to see the country where there isn’t an establishment. And when the younger generation takes over the party, as they eventually will (death and taxes and all of that) they will become the establishment. And I suspect that when Bernie’s grandchild runs for public office he/she will rail against the establishment also. And lets not forget that it is establishment economics with all of its many faults that has created the standard of living that most of us enjoy. Yes it can be made better. Income inequality has to be addressed but unless Bernie is suggesting mobs with pitchforks and torches it will be addressed thru establishment institutions – elections, legislatures, courts,etc.
171.
Vlad
Heading out to vote for Sanders in just a few minutes. I know he’s not winning PA (or the primary), but my vote can still make a statement about the direction I want the party to head in the future, so I’m pulling the lever for him anyway just like I did for Dean in 2004, when his campaign was even deader than Bernie’s.
I think I’m also opting for Sestak for the Senate (I like Fetterman, but don’t think he’s ready for an office of that magnitude yet), and Shapiro for AG, plus a bunch of un-contested stuff, and a “Yes” on the referendum to dissolve the Philadelphia traffic court.
I think a fundamental question in the Dem primaries, a real difference in worldviews, goes something like this:
Sanders – The influence of big money in our politics is the most serious threat facing America.
Clinton – The influence of big money in our politics is a symptom of the most serious threat facing America, which is the great political power of bigoted and cynical wingnut assholes.
Obviously this is simplified to sound like pro-HRC propaganda, because it is. And obviously I support HRC for mostly petty and tribalistic reasons, because that’s how politics works. Still, #ImWithHer, since ‘repeal the 22nd Amendment and appoint Obama as Eternal Defender Of The Republic’ is apparently not on the ballot.
When Sanders said that his agenda would have 90% support if it weren’t for the darned ‘corporate media’ (which apparently includes such shills as Mother Jones and Paul Krugman), I realized he had a disastrous understanding of US politics and US history. Makes HRC’s stupidity about Reagan and AIDS seem mild in comparison.
Clearly, she’d need to do something to gain their support, which neither she nor her supporters in their over-entitled premature triumphalism seem inclined to do.
And the parade of stupid rolls on. What premature???? It’s been obvious Bernie ain’t winning for months. Triumphalism??? Do you even speak English? I’m just not worried that losing the whiny ass titty baby vote is a problem.
180.
NR
@ruemara: The advice given in these comments about how to win over Sanders’ supporters has ranged from “Hillary doesn’t need to do anything, they just need to shut the fuck up and vote for her, she’s entitled to their votes because Trump” to “Fuck ’em, we don’t need their votes anyway.”
Like I said: I really hope Hillary is a lot smarter than you people, because if she’s not, get used to saying “President Trump.”
“The Establishment” is an all-purpose strawman / scapegoat / objet d’hate – as it’s always been.
it’s the term of derision we use for everyone else when we figure out that our own deeply held opinions are in the minority and that, in the end, nobody actually gives a crap what we think.
183.
gogol's wife
“Putin has never struck me as terribly progressive.” Hahahahahaha, that is the funniest sentence I think I’ve ever seen.
I hope you feel real good kicking Sanders supporters. Didn’t need them, did you? You see, if you’re going to be an asshole and keep insulting people who want a change in the direction of our country, then go ahead without those kids, and their grandparents.
Bob, not that engaging with you seriously will produce anything other than goalpost shifting or crazy rants, but I’ll give it this one try. The mistake you make in the above statement is to think that ONLY people who are continuing to support Sanders want a change in the direction of our country.
Guess what Bob, I want a change in the direction of our country. I used to think that Bernie Sanders was going to deliver it. The math and what I see as incompetence of his campaign changed my opinion.
But I still want that change. I think HRC is the best possible candidate to advance that change. Is it incremental? Yes, probably. Is it less than I want? Yes, definitely.
But that’s how societies and governments usually change. Slowly and incrementally. I’m ok with that if not thrilled by it.
So consider the idea that others might be differing in their opinions in good faith and want the same general things as current Sanders supporters.
185.
Paul in KY
@randy khan: Do wish you’d posted something about the stupidity of cutting off your nose to spite your face or some modern version of that.
186.
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin: What does the one have to do with the other? The MacArthur Foundation was founded by a billionaire conservative bankster philanthropist. Ta-Nehisi Coates got a “genius grant” to do whatever he wanted. Is TNC tainted by that award because of where the money originally came from? Should we presume there’s a quid pro quo in the works whereby TNC lavishes praise on conservative banker stuff?
187.
Bob In Portland
@Betty Cracker: I pointed out some here, like the large donations to the Clinton Foundation right after the arms deals to the Sunni supporters of ISIS back in 2011. That was dismissed. We could point to Hillary using her office to promote the oil deal her hubby and the Clinton Global Initiative made with the President of Colombia.
But it doesn’t matter. No matter what anyone produces you and the other true believers here won’t be convinced. I’ve provided links. Most of the villagers here won’t read them. They make fun of books, which I guess is better than burning them, but essentially is the same thing: dismissing out of hand an opinion that differs from yours.
We all know what won’t get done and what will get done in the next four years. Enjoy.
@WarMunchkin: I find true believers scarier than the standard run-of-the-mill somewhat corrupt politicians.
190.
Applejinx
@singfoom: Um… I’m not sure if I’d call it a responsibility.
I’d frame it like this: one way or another, the faction represented by Bernie WILL take over the Dems. It’s demographics and age, age, age. So many of the Juicers taking hard Hilbot positions are old and rich compared to typical Americans. Quite a few older people are rich, especially if they had real estate, which used to be more of a common thing. They’re markedly different from the youngs, their wishes are different, and they are old and much closer to death even when you count suicide skyrocketing for non rich oldsters.
The Bernie left WILL end up running the show because there’s no alternative: reality dictates that the freemarket third way capitalist freight train is no longer able to stay on the tracks. Signs are all around. It’s either make the adjustments now, or get kicked out when everything goes totally fucked and then you’re rightly blamed for not listening. Shit is wildly out of balance, I wouldn’t give it four years before there are huge, massive societal changes.
So, it’s not a ‘responsibility’ to cooperate with the Sanders wing. You are crazy if you think business as usual is headed anywhere but total wreckage, so it’s an ‘opportunity’ to cooperate with the Sanders wing and get involved doing lefty things that might moderate the disasters.
Clinton is already identifying climate change as the disaster Sanders and Obama say it is. It’s not that big of a stretch to also identify speculative capitalism and ‘free market’ ideology as another such catastrophe, and it might get enough of a coalition together to do useful things. Fail, and it will destroy America, and the next Trump will have twice the desperate angry people to rely on.
191.
Paul in KY
@gogol’s wife: I think that’s probably the most realistic/true comment I’ve ever seen Bob make!
Books full of demonstrably false infromation are not entitled to respect simply because they exist. Links provided by an obviously deranged and untrustworthy person need not be followed.
Got it? Credibility, you have not, and have never had. Go peddle your lies somewhere else.
The mistake you make in the above statement is to think that ONLY people who are continuing to support Sanders want a change in the direction of our country.
This is the fundamental mistake made, repeatedly, noisily, by the Sandernista legions for a year, with no signs of abatement.
In the fall I’ll scour the ballot for the candidate who isn’t beholden to the monied interests. Guess who that leaves out?
Hmm I would say just about every one who isn’t running for dog catcher.
If you try to guilt-trip Sanders supporters by shouting, “Look at the alternative” you have to understand that we see Clinton as no alternative. If you wanted my vote you should have chosen a cleaner candidate. You didn’t. So good luck. I’ll be voting for Dems down the ballot.
And you assume they are not taking contributions from monied interests of various sizes. Good luck with that. And don’t complain when President Trump behaves like an ass. Like it or not Hillary or trump/cruz will be sworn in on Jan. 20th 2017. There is no man on a white horse coming to your rescue
196.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Bernie has already lost us the election. Thanks Bob in Portland and NR, you will be directly responsible for President Trump. I hope you fuckers are happy.
@Applejinx: What do you mean by speculative capitalism and how are you going to replace it?
198.
Bob In Portland
@gogol’s wife: I never said he was progressive. He’s representing the interests of his country. And the US is trying a full-court press to wreck Russia’s economy for corporate profits, because the US’s foreign policy has been, since WWII, clearly to increase the profits of its corporations at the expense of the rest of the world.
If my comment made you laugh it only shows how badly you’ve been reading my comments for the last ten years or so that I’ve visited this site.
199.
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: TNC can approve arms deals to kleptocrats? Who knew?
Your transformation to Republican is near complete. Excusing Clintonian venality is just a way station on the route.
Books full of demonstrably false infromation are not entitled to respect simply because they exist. Links provided by an obviously deranged and untrustworthy person need not be followed.
Got it? Credibility, you have not, and have never had. Go peddle your lies somewhere else.
…might we see more than a few “JUSTICE LEAGUE” vs “SUICIDE SQUAD” comparisons in July?
It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
Actually, wouldn’t a “DEADPOOL vs SUICIDE SQUAD” comparison be more apt?
202.
Miss Bianca
@Obdurodon: Bernie supporters who can’t see the forest for the trees, and who have this thing about HRC’s “arrogance” (which is a charge I personally find laced with unreflective misogyny – what is this “arrogance” they speak of? Is it like the Obama’s “uppityness” in daring to seek the Presidency that is the God-given right of the white male?), and who can’t be bothered to examine what HRC’s *actually stated positons* on the issues are, and who uncritically accept and spew every horseshit right-wing talking point about her are, I hope, trust, and pray, in a tiny if tiresomely vocal minority.
Seriously, I’m sick of this. The whiff of self-righteousness coming from Sanders’s most ardent supporters is really starting to stink in my nostrils. The sight of left-wing Tea Partyism on full parade is not terribly attractive.
The Bernie left WILL end up running the show because there’s no alternative: reality dictates that the freemarket third way capitalist freight train is no longer able to stay on the tracks. Signs are all around. It’s either make the adjustments now, or get kicked out when everything goes totally fucked and then you’re rightly blamed for not listening. Shit is wildly out of balance, I wouldn’t give it four years before there are huge, massive societal changes.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you as I ideologically identify with the “Bernie left” more than the freemarket capitalist freight train. Things are happening around the edges.
You are crazy if you think business as usual is headed anywhere but total wreckage, so it’s an ‘opportunity’ to cooperate with the Sanders wing and get involved doing lefty things that might moderate the disasters.
I think as you point out that Sanders has given Hilary the space to take up some of the causes that he hold dear, like climate change. It is within the realm of possibility that she’ll be more lefty economically than we perceive her to be.
I’m totally onboard with the idea that our economy needs to tilt more towards regulation and away from the free market bullshit of the last 25 years. I’m not convinced that shift will be dramatic within the next 4 years regardless of who wins the D nomination because Congress is the roadblock to a lot of the change you’re talking about.
205.
NR
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Hey, lots of people here are saying that Hillary doesn’t need Sanders’ supporters to win. Are you saying they’re wrong?
“The Establishment” is an all-purpose strawman / scapegoat / objet d’hate – as it’s always been.
Don’t forget “The Man!” And as far as the Media giving Sanders short shrift, since Sunday Ive seen nothing but his shaggy mug on all the cable news shows.
207.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: She’s just a pawn of the International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association, I say, seeing as they paid her the princely sum of $200K+ that apparently means you’re infected with the sponsor’s disease forever.
208.
Bob In Portland
@Miss Bianca: Miss Bianca. I don’t really give a shit about your outrage. But thanks for sharing.
209.
ruemara
@NR: your base does not volunteer, and is unreliable in the general. Not ideal and frankly, she’s made multiple statements of acceptance and openness. If you’re an example of the supposed reasonable Bernie supporter being harassed, you’ve failed to read the definition of harassment.
210.
Applejinx
@singfoom: This. I am adamant in getting Hillary to run on a Bernie-lite platform, and triangulating in our favor rather than against us.
In some ways that’s not a problem and is already happening. I don’t think she distrusts the very Republican ‘free markets uber alles’ bias all of Washington has been steeped in for decades, and she should: one way or another it’s going down, either before or after another catastrophic crash and bailout of the insanely wealthy (who already pay less taxes than plumbers and burger flippers, sometimes nothing at all).
Bob will and should vote for Bernie because that does send a message. The message also needs to be heard, not just sent. And he’s correct that this has been a central plank of Bernie’s campaign from the very beginning. It’s sure why I got involved, though I’ve already cast probably the only Bernie vote I’ll get to cast. (but I’ll give him another $10 after he loses, just as a big FUCK YOU to the idea that it’s only about him winning. I’m paying to have that platform listened to, since money is the only thing that talks anymore)
Bernie supporters who can’t see the forest for the trees, and who have this thing about HRC’s “arrogance” (which is a charge I personally find laced with unreflective misogyny – what is this “arrogance” they speak of? Is it like the Obama’s “uppityness” in daring to seek the Presidency that is the God-given right of the white male?), and who can’t be bothered to examine what HRC’s *actually stated positons* on the issues are, and who uncritically accept and spew every horseshit right-wing talking point about her are, I hope, trust, and pray, in a tiny if tiresomely vocal minority.
Seriously, I’m sick of this. The whiff of self-righteousness coming from Sanders’s most ardent supporters is really starting to stink in my nostrils.
If you want to make a Bernfeeler really uncomfortable, ask them why white males have been Bernie’s most consistent supporters vs. everyone else. Doesn’t sound very revolutionary, does it?
213.
dollared
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Right. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the quality of your candidate. It’s the fact that 5% of Berners might not support her.
She could pledge tomorrow: no more free trade agreements during her presidency – and take 10% of Trump’s voters tomorrow. But she’s too much the neoliberal.
and who can’t be bothered to examine what HRC’s *actually stated positons* on the issues are,
The problem with nominating a candidate who two-thirds of the country thinks is dishonest is that their actually stated positions on the issues don’t hold as much weight as they would otherwise.
@FlipYrWhig: Like I said. You are using the exact language the Koch Brothers use to excuse the influence of their money in denying millions of Americans the right to join unions. But carry on – we should just legalize bribery, right? You’re a true libertarian, yes?
It is within the realm of possibility that she’ll be more lefty economically than we perceive her to be.
I agree. The party has been changing, and Clinton is too smart of a politician to not see that.
222.
Bob In Portland
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Yeah, all my fault, because you support the second-most untrusted candidate to run for President. How I managed to work that mojo on you I just don’t know.
Oh, please. Reading you is like reading hardcore Naderites. “If only the Gore supporters had adopted more of St Ralph’s policy ideas … and not worn earth-tones … and refused to accept money from anyone except impoverished families … and SPLUNGE!”
I’m waiting for the next part of St Ralph’s schtick: “Well, it won’t be so bad if Trump/Cruz/Satan gets elected, because it will lead to a New Wave of Liberalism which will sweep the country and last 4evah!” He was certainly right about that, wasn’t he?
It’s not on Hillary to give Bernistas a figurative handjob, it’s on the Bernistas (who need to be stroked before they would deign to vote for Hillary) to get off their purity high horse
@Bob In Portland: Have you figured out what “neoliberal” means yet, Dale Gribble?
226.
Betty Cracker
@Bob In Portland: It was a waste of pixels, Bob. I wrote you off as a crackpot a long time ago.
227.
goblue72
What’s he supposed to do? “The numbers are completely against us. So we won’t win and you can stop sending money”? Morons.
If the original reason you ran for the candidacy was to shift the dynamic of the Democratic primary and shift the policy debate to the Left with a hard shove, then why the hell would you give up now that the policy debate has and is shifting? California hasn’t voted yet, and while the odds are not in his favor to win the state, RCP’s aggregated California poll has Sanders over 40%. Finishing the primary season with a sizable haul in delegates (even if not a winning total) maintains that stake in the ground. And for many on the progressive wing of the party, this isn’t just about 2016, but about the future.
So why the fuck would he give up now?
228.
smith
@Applejinx: I’m old and (relatively) rich, and I REALLY REALLY want the Sanders wing to take control of the party. I’d like to arrive at the same place they’re headed, preferably before I die. However, we need a batch of younger and somewhat more politically astute Sanders-types to get there. This was the time to set that in motion, and I will be forever grateful to Bernie for doing that and showing it can and will be done. What he accomplished makes me guardedly optimistic about our future. But, I reluctantly concluded that I don’t think the man himself would make a good president. If the Sanders supporters today don’t give up because the first try was only partially successful, then in one or a few cycles they will get their wish.
229.
Bob In Portland
@Linnaeus: So are you saying that money has no influence on H. Clinton? The rules changed?
Meet the new boss.
But I like that hope.
230.
NR
@ruemara: Who said anything about harassment? I certainly don’t feel harassed. You guys amuse, nothing more. Now if Hillary follows the advice you’re giving here, then I’ll become extremely worried.
@starscream: Then link away to Hillary’s. I’m too dumb to find anything on her website that even says the words ‘income inequality’ or talks about how to reverse it, even without those words. Her college plan sounds great except for the caveat that
“States will have to step up and meet their obligation to invest in higher education by maintaining current levels of higher education funding and reinvesting over time.” — from Colleges under Issues from Hillaryclinton.com.
Because I see every state legislature lining right up to fund that, as evidenced by the fact that ours in Rhode Island has cut support 8 out of the last 10 budgets and level funded the other 2.
IMHO unbridled campaign spending is a bad thing but an unimportant thing.
Translation: “Citizen’s United is all right with me”. So now it’s “If Sanders Supports Something It’s Unimportant or Wrong”?
That’s just the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever seen posted by someone who claims to be a Democrat. But it makes sense if you are more of a political hack than a person of principle.
Jesus, are we really getting to that point where Hilary supporters are the kind of dumb and mindless drones as IOKIYAR’s are when it comes to really important things? SHE’S EVEN SAID UNBRIDLED MONEY IN POLITICS IS BAD.
ISSSIUW people. ISSSIUW.
Awesome.
234.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: Yes, I can’t even begin to tell you how often I speak up in favor of denying people their human rights. Between that and my billions of dollars, I’m practically a missing Koch Brother.
235.
El Caganer
@Miss Bianca: Philly Traffic Court was actually closed by Gov. Corbett a couple of years ago after a major scandal, and its duties moved to Municipal Court. However, since it still exists in the state constitution, the proposal today is to amend the constitution and get rid of it.
236.
goblue72
@burnspbesq: Arguments proffered by offshore tax shelter lawyers deserve the same fate.
I’d frame it like this: one way or another, the faction represented by Bernie WILL take over the Dems. It’s demographics and age, age, age. So many of the Juicers taking hard Hilbot positions are old and rich compared to typical Americans. Quite a few older people are rich, especially if they had real estate, which used to be more of a common thing. They’re markedly different from the youngs, their wishes are different, and they are old and much closer to death even when you count suicide skyrocketing for non rich oldsters.
The Bernie left WILL end up running the show because there’s no alternative: reality dictates that the freemarket third way capitalist freight train is no longer able to stay on the tracks. Signs are all around. It’s either make the adjustments now, or get kicked out when everything goes totally fucked and then you’re rightly blamed for not listening. Shit is wildly out of balance, I wouldn’t give it four years before there are huge, massive societal changes.
That is … a lot of wishful thinking and handwaving, right there. Coupled with a whole lot of lack of knowledge regarding history. Did you see the 70s and 80s? The counterculture movement of the 60s did not sweep into power, running the show, but they were young, and energetic — and losers politically. They made a lot of the same excuses as I hear today.
Every radical leftist movement in the USA (and here, anyone calling for a “revolution” of any stripe is, by definition, a radical) views itself as vastly larger and more influential than it is. Bernie *could not win the Democratic nomination*. How are his supporters going to “take over the Dems”? They are outnumbered, even when you include the ones who don’t self-identify as Democrats. The olds are going to die, leaving the youngs as a majority? But more youngs are being born every minute, and they aren’t necessarily going to agree with you. Say you do get your hands on the levers of power. How will you accomplish anything without becoming the very Establishment you rail against?
Running a political organization is hard, hard work. We have seen little to no evidence that the revolution has the will for that. Enthusiasm, yes. Rallies, yes. Infrastructure, not so much.
If you want to make a Bernfeeler really uncomfortable, ask them why white males have been Bernie’s most consistent supporters vs. everyone else. Doesn’t sound very revolutionary, does it?
“If the ***** weren’t so stupid they’d vote for us.” Same thing the Republicans say.
240.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: Hey, unbeknownst to you someone apparently used a box to highlight some words, and one of them may be of interest to you in characterizing the views of the person who wrote them. Hint: it’s the word “bad.”
@Obdurodon: Thats not why Bernie is not winning. But at any rate its not a “myth” that we need to actually win the election, not win the prize for the doll with the prettiest eyes.
246.
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: Wikipedia definition of “Neoliberal”:
Its advocates support extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade,
TPP and NAFTA, – free trade
Privatized health care via Obamacare
Fiscal austerity: Clinton had a surplus and cut welfare! Obama had the greatest cuts in federal employees since 1946!
Deregulation: how many – cuts in regulation have Obama and Clinton overseen? Hundreds. Dodd Frank is deregulation compared to the laws on the books in the 1990s. And with all the employee cuts, there is no one to enforce the labor environmental and safety laws. De facto deregulation.
So…….quack quack, it’s a duck.
247.
WarMunchkin
@FlipYrWhig: No – this isn’t the point to make. An abstract indictment of a system is somewhat different than looking at specific actors in a system and accusing them of wrongdoing. You can talk about the subtle influence money in politics (which, as pointed out above, is a top priority of mainstream Democrats) without accusing each individual actor to be a criminal.
In your example, you wouldn’t cast Ta-Nehisi out for accepting grant money from a conservative org; but if the same conservative org or set of billionaire families had purchased major newspapers and media outlets throughout the country, it’s worth raising an eyebrow and talking about how media coverage as a whole could be affected.
@schrodinger’s cat: I agree that transactional politicians likely have more bang-for-buck value than ideological ones, but ideological ones are more frequently willing to make a moral argument for many important issues. One issue that’s incredibly important to me is releasing the immorally detained people from Guantanamo Bay. Transactional politicians are likely to talk about this in terms of materially advancing America’s standing in the world, or repairing its reputation. Ideological ones talk about it by making the case that lawfully detaining people for years without charges is wrong regardless of whether or not it helps America or not.
It was a waste of pixels, Bob. I wrote you off as a crackpot a long time ago.
Of course, you wrote me off. You wrote off The Nation. You wrote off the New York Review of Books. You wrote off Robert Parry. You wrote off anything that might have penetrated the bubble around Balloon Juice. You wrote off Thomas Frank when he wrote a book about you.
It’s beautiful how you close your mind.
249.
D58826
I’ve seen a number of comments about the coming ‘capitalist train wreak’ or ‘there’s no alternative: reality dictates that the freemarket third way capitalist freight train is no longer able to stay on the tracks’. Exactly what do you have in mind replacing the capitalist train wreak? Socialism? that didn’t work out so well where it was tried. Maybe back to mercantilism or even feudalism ?
Now if your talking about the vulture capitalism that has been practiced at least since Reagan then I agree but the for want of a better term values-capitalism of the 40s, 50s 60s and 70s didn’t do such a bad job of spreading the wealth. That seems to be the direction we should move in. I just wonder if Bernie is such an old line socialist, maybe a bit of a Marxist, that capitalism is by definition bad no matter how prosperous the middle class is.
250.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: Hey, an actual definition! Pity Bob, who uses it the way 4-year-olds use “poopyhead.”
That’s the second stupidest statement I’ve read today. Just preposterous.
253.
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig: It means you and the candidate you’re supporting. Thomas Frank, in his book, uses the term to describe socially liberal and economically conservative Dems. Like you. But since you’ll never pick up the book you’ll never know. So repeat to us again how proud you are to remain in ignorance.
I just wonder if Bernie is such an old line socialist, maybe a bit of a Marxist, that capitalism is by definition bad no matter how prosperous the middle class is.
If you look at Sanders’s proposed policies as well as his voting record, he’s pretty much a New Deal Democrat.
255.
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: It starts with money in politics. The money gets what it wants. You accept that in the case of the Koch Bros, but suddenly there’s no problem with Clinton. So you’re not a Republican? You’re just a garden variety hypocrite?
256.
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin: Yes, it’s worth raising an eyebrow. The rest of my face is busy reacting to more important problems.
I think some actually pointed out that Hillary has begun reaching out to Sanders partisans in her public appearances. That’s, of course, part of what she should do.
That said, Sanders supporters seem to have an unusual sense of entitlement to influence over the platform, etc. Since, in practice, Clinton and Sanders agree on probably about 80% of the platform (maybe 90%), there’s really not room to get that much more. Besides, right now she’s on track to win by a bigger margin than Obama in 2008, so claiming the race is extraordinarily close or some such isn’t going to get much traction. (Hint: She’s not going to pledge support for single payer.)
258.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland: Because Thomas Frank is stupid, or, more likely, because you don’t understand him, seeing as you have that problem a lot.
259.
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: It’s a secret formula– unless you broke the code. ;-)
@WarMunchkin: How weird that you would make that argument since the most moral and ideological of people (Bernie) voted against actually closing Guantanamo while the most pragmatic politician ever, President Obama, tried mightily to make the case for the moral issues but his various speeches fell on deaf ears. The moral argument, the bully pulpit argument, doesn’t stand a chance against the fear mongering of the right and the total indifference of the majority of Americans (even the self defined progressives) to the actual moral issues affecting other people. Bernie didn’t waste any tears on the people we wrongfully imprisoned in Guantanamo because for whatever reason it was too big a lift for him to actually vote to close Guantanamo. But his passionate supporters simply don’t care about real world actions–they only want to be sure that big daddy says the things they want to hear. The actual cost of his policies, or cost to others of his failure to pursue his own agenda, vanishes from the discussion.
261.
Paul in KY
@Mike J: Problem (to me) is that a Democratic/Leftist person can’t say that. That’s what will shut up the self-aware ones.
262.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: It doesn’t start with money in politics. For fuck’s sake. It starts with injustice and death. Prioritizing “money in politics” is something only a prissy privileged white dilettante would do, like everyone I’ve ever known who has been a fan of Bernie Sanders, and Bernie Sanders. And a handful of dead-enders here.
“If the ***** weren’t so stupid they’d vote for us.” Same thing the Republicans say.
Sadly enough, there’s been no shortage of that.
But I found it delightfully ironic that the same group who likes to call everyone else “low information voters” couldn’t master the registration schedule for the NY primary election.
I care about outcomes, and if corrupt people produce equitable and just outcomes, great.
Agreed. But you’d have to be an idiot to think that it’s likely that corrupt people will produce such outcomes. Though since you’re an unrepentent supporter of the overthrow of Ghaddafi, you’ve got the “idiot” angle covered. Not to mention that risible “yeah, it’s fine if Obama uses the ‘government should tighten its belt rhetoric'” comment (paraphrased).
I think as you point out that Sanders has given Hilary the space to take up some of the causes that he hold dear, like climate change. It is within the realm of possibility that she’ll be more lefty economically than we perceive her to be.
I’m totally onboard with the idea that our economy needs to tilt more towards regulation and away from the free market bullshit of the last 25 years. I’m not convinced that shift will be dramatic within the next 4 years regardless of who wins the D nomination because Congress is the roadblock to a lot of the change you’re talking about.
Think ‘shock doctrine’ in reverse. It’s proven to work and is the fundamental reason things have got as bad as they have, but it is only a tool.
I would like to say to all in this thread that WE CAN WIN, much like Biden’s veiled criticism of Hillary for not blowing Bernie-like smoke to get elected. We’re looking at dangerous times but if we don’t fuck it up we can win and we’ll get our ‘shock’ opportunities for substantial change.
Will Hillary do that if she thinks it’s what the voters want? Absofuckinlutely. It’s the Clinton way, to do what’s asked and read the tea leaves, and that’s why we’re continuing to count Bernie primary votes: call it electorate research.
Will Hillary do a better job of implementing what needs to happen than Bernie would? I think yes, on the condition that it remains clear what’s expected. If it’s a mandate to ‘screw freemarket capitalism, bail out Americans hopefully without wrecking the entire economy in the attempt’, I think she’s more likely to succeed and Bernie is more likely to try risky things and fail. I buy the argument that he wouldn’t get to turn us into Sweden with a wave of a unicorn hoof.
But there will come an opportunity to make major changes because shock doctrine knows no ideology. It’s used by rightwingers because it’s basically a warlike, fascist mode of doing things. But that’s why I see Clinton as being capable of doing vital things in this very wrong way.
Imagine the Benghazi hearings but instead of republicans getting stonewalled, it’s fat-cat capitalists insisting on another bailout when she KNOWS she can’t possibly get away with giving them that. Hils thinks all the Wall Streeters are essentially good but not wise. She expects them to do their part and not get in trouble and not embarrass her. Many of us are convinced they’re not worth this faith and will inevitably try to exploit her, thinking her a pushover.
Mama SPANK. I honestly believe there are circumstances where Hillary Clinton would scare the crap out of the banksters and win herself truly amazing public accolades and approval ratings for taking the ‘shock’ opportunity and out-Bernieing Bernie, to their horror.
But it can only happen if they are arrogant greedy fools with no morals or sense believing they are entitled to run the world, who’ll blow a bunch of smoke to impress Hillary, promise the world, and then completely betray her in humiliating manner and expect to get away with it, nay, be rewarded hugely for it.
@dollared: No, there’s no problem “with Clinton.” She earned her money, just like I do, by providing a service (speeches). She worked for it. I fail to see why this perfectly ordinary transaction “give speech, earn money” is suddenly fraught with dark portents in the case of a prominent political celebrity like Hillary and not when all the other people on the speaker’s circuit are at issue.
267.
singfoom
@D58826: For myself I’m talking about well regulated capitalism where white collar crime is handled seriously and social/socialist policies blunt the hard edge of capitalism for those who suffer the most from it’s excesses.
So yeah, what you define as “values-capitalism”. But that’s just me. I think eventually due to population growth around the world the United States will have to look at a guaranteed basic income realistically. Politically that’s a giant dead turd right now. But I think Congress is not representative of our population and hopefully that will change given time.
268.
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig: Dont’ say stupid things just to win an argument. Then no one will criticize you for saying stupid things.
But if you do say a stupid thing, and the Grace of God lets you realize it, own it and clarify what you really meant.
I’ve found it’s that simple.
269.
Just One More Canuck
@negative 1: found within 30 seconds on Hillary’s website
Hillary will:
• Give working families a raise, and tax relief that helps them manage rising costs.
• Create good-paying jobs and get pay rising by investing in infrastructure, clean energy, and scientific and medical research to strengthen our economy and growth.
•Close corporate tax loopholes and make the most fortunate pay their fair share
Clinton had a surplus and cut welfare! Obama had the greatest cuts in federal employees since 1946!
I believe the welfare reform predated the budget surplus. And to suggest that Obama is solely responsible for the cuts in government employment is just simply wrong. I’m not sure what the impact of his budget proposals would have been but they were never passed. What was passed, to keep the government running, was largely influenced by the troglodytes in the GOP. A good bit of the decline in government employment was at the sate and local level also pushed by the GOP.
As far as the trade agreements, the term rust belt was coined in the early 80’s long before NAFTA, TPP or most favored nation status for China. I’m not saying these agreements are not to be criticized its just that the problem of income inequality and loss of manufacturing jobs can’t be blamed solely on them
271.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: What evidence do you have that that is going to happen? That somehow campaign finance reform and Citzens United are going t ocease to become issues if (and when, Goddess willing) HRC gets elected? Here’s her position on it, and here is CO Senator Michael Bennet’s position, He’s as mainstream as it’s possible for a Democrat to get, and he was the first to support legislation to overturn CU.
Honestly, it’s as if Bernie supporters are actively finding reasons to support “losing with INTEGERTY, goldang it” as opposed to “winning with any compromise at all.”
272.
Bob In Portland
@singfoom: singfoom. Was the Gulf of Tonkin real or an invention to expand the war?
That government lie killed millions. The US has never admitted that. Were there WMDs in Iraq? Hillary voted for that. No, actually, she didn’t vote for the lie. She voted for the purpose of the lie, for the US to invade Iraq and have tighter control on energy.
So you go on being confident in your ignorance. Ignorance is your strength. Now go away and rearrange the deck chairs.
273.
Paul in KY
@dollared: I think any supposed economic policy wishes of ‘neoliberals’ pale beside their foreign policy concerns.
Also like how removing all economic controls is ‘liberalizing’ the economy. That’s some New Speak right there.
274.
liberal
@FlipYrWhig: Oh, fuck off. Money in politics is important not purely as an end in itself, but because it obviously led to the late 1990s bad decisions on (further) deregulation of finance, which is what led to the crash. But yeah, the crash only hurt white males.
275.
Bob In Portland
@Miss Bianca: Has Obama gotten around to that Employee Free Choice Act yet?
It is like people saying Obama is a polarizing President when he has been anything but.
This is a tough one. I agree that Obama hasn’t behaved in a way that should have caused any significant polarization. But he is not white — at least not 100% — and there is a very large slice of America for whom that fact is incredibly polarizing. In other words, Obama’s mere existence is polarizing. That is hardly his fault.
Unfortunately, the media (and the Republicans) can’t differentiate between what Obama does and what he is. Plus, if Mitch McConnell or Boehner/Ryan says that Obama is polarizing, then the media feel compelled to report that as fact. The lunacy of the right coupled with the worthlessness of the media leave us with a polarized country and for some reason it’s easier to blame that on the president than on the entire Republican Party.
I mean, don’t you remember Obama announcing shortly after his election that his sole purpose in the next two years was going to be to defeat Mitch McConnell and other Republicans in the 2010 midterms?
Also like how removing all economic controls is ‘liberalizing’ the economy. That’s some New Speak right there.
Eh, it’s more like Old Speak – “liberal” in the 19th century sense of the word.
278.
Betty Cracker
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: No need to panic. Bob is a raving crackpot, but luckily, there aren’t many who fit that description, and their effect on the election will be a fart in the whirlwind. NR has said he/she will vote for whomever the Democratic nominee is, as has Applejinx.
279.
NR
@liberal: Also, none of the money from the fossil fuel industry has blocked action on climate change. Because money in politics doesn’t do anything.
Now that Ella in New Mexico, Bob in Portland, Applejinx, and other Bernie supporters are here I predict we will reach +500 in a couple of hours tops.
Naaaa, sorry. Can’t do it today.
I’ve got a froze-then-exploded 12 pack of diet Dr. Pepper oozing onto my kitchen floor from the mini-fridge. Between cleaning up that and making my appointment for a facial at 2:00, I’ve got a full agenda for my only day off this week… ;-)
Online donors fill in the limits box themselves and use variations on their names to make repeat donations. It’s an innocent mistake. The campaigns have to respond to the inquiry and refund excess. Often small donors don’t read the form or they make the donations over a period of months so don’t know they hit the limit.
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has been fined $375,000 by the Federal Election Commission for violating federal disclosure laws, Politico reports.
An FEC audit of Obama for America’s 2008 records found the committee failed to disclose millions of dollars in contributions and dragged its feet in refunding millions more in excess contributions.
The resulting fine, one of the largest ever handed down by the FEC, is the result of a failure to disclose or improperly disclosing thousands of contributions to Obama for America during the then-senator’s 2008 presidential run, documents show.
There was a fake-scandal in ’08 for the same problems with small “foreign” donations to Obama.
282.
liberal
@Paul in KY: while I understand the sentiment, I don’t think foreign policy positions is the key defining feature of neoliberalism, except insofar as it relates to trade and world dominance. Yeah, I know, “except” is doing a lot of work there, but I don’t think a “rational” neoliberalism would be behind the stupidest and most dangerous moves we see in the FP realm, such as the invasion of Iraq and these confrontations with Russia.
283.
Miss Bianca
@Bob In Portland: Bob, who the fuck cares what YOU care about? Oh, I forgot – you’re one of those very, very special, pwecious BS supporters. I’m supposed to care *very* much about what *you* think. My bad.
284.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: Bobo, you take yourself too seriously. I’m not rearranging shit. I’m just a guy commenting on a blog. Collectively we’re basically “old/young guy yells at clouds”
Nice non-sequitur though. If anyone was going to bring up the Gulf of Tonkin in this thread, it was you. Really, collect your trophy.
And no, there were no WMDs in Iraq. I marched against the Iraq war with hundreds of thousands of my fellow Americans.
So you go on being confident in your ignorance. Ignorance is your strength. Now go away and rearrange the deck chairs.
I’m not going anywhere sir, so sit down and eat a bowl of salted dicks.
285.
negative 1
@cleek: Thanks for that — I thought I had seen it, then didn’t when I checked again today. I don’t understand quite how what she is proposing will work — most large corporations already do profit sharing, so what’s the difference between that and what she is proposing to help with her 15% tax credit? Also, creating more jobs is a good thing obviously, but the belief from her seems to be that more jobs equals less income inequality. I suppose your faith in her plan comes down to how much you believe that statement.
edit — seriously I just tried again to get to that link by going to her website first and still can’t find it. I can only get there on a google search, not through the ‘issues’ tab unless it’s called something else.
286.
liberal
@burnspbesq: Hey, Burnsie, how hard is it to figure out that treaties like TPP don’t require the assent of 2/3 of the Senate but are in fact passed like statutes (ie, a simple majority of both houses), especially after people have repeatedly informed you of that fact?
The stupid, it burns. No pun intended.
287.
Bobby Thomson
@dollared: which government function/service was privatized by Obamacare?
And why is the Obama administration going to such lengths in court to defend its new energy regs if he’s such a dirty, dirty deregulator? And why has every budget been an exercise in brinkmanship? And who didn’t vote in 2010 and 2014?
288.
Keith G
Hillary is going to be the nominee. There is no delegate count or rhetorical adventure that will prevent this.
Thus there is no argument against Hillary’s nomination that needs to be listened to. And likewise, since Senator Sanders is well on his way to take his place in history along side the likes of Senator Estes Kefauver, there really is no need to waste time criticizing him or folks still arguing (supposedly) on his behalf.
You were unwilling to reply to a very simple question yesterday — you complain about the potential of use of the military. Sanders has promised to crush and destroy ISIS. Do you oppose him because of his plan to do so?
If you can’t engage honestly with folks, people will ignore you.
It doesn’t start with money in politics. For fuck’s sake. It starts with injustice and death. Prioritizing “money in politics” is something only a prissy privileged white dilettante would do, like everyone I’ve ever known who has been a fan of Bernie Sanders, and Bernie Sanders. And a handful of dead-enders here.
Since you again raise the issue of race, what race are you? Somehow I get the feeling with your constant punching down that you, Whig, are a prissy privileged white dilettante. There seems to be a lot of that around here. Considering how often race is thrown at Sanders supporters it’s like you wear Obama as your cloak of authenticity. Much like if you support Sanders you must be sexist. Really, villagers, you should be embarrassed. You’re acting like Republicans.
What evidence do you have that that is going to happen? That somehow campaign finance reform and Citzens United are going to cease to become issues if (and when, Goddess willing) HRC gets elected?
Bernie didn’t waste any tears on the people we wrongfully imprisoned in Guantanamo because for whatever reason it was too big a lift for him to actually vote to close Guantanamo.
They were only going to move ’em to America and continue to hold them under the exact same grounds. You’re pointing to exactly the sort of ‘shallow empty gesture’ that Bernie would seem to be a sucker for, and pretending that it means ‘close Guantanamo’ in a real sense.
He didn’t fall for it, nor should you. It’s more dangerous to have a class of political prisoners on US soil with the government having voted to continue that status, and the ‘label’ people associate with the practice, no longer available to rally against.
Now and then I have to remind people of this but I think most can figure it out once explained. It was a trick.
293.
liberal
@Southern Goth: Agreed. Though it’s not clear to me that vacuous appeals to “hope and change” are either.
Bob, who the fuck cares what YOU care about? Oh, I forgot – you’re one of those very, very special, pwecious BS supporters. I’m supposed to care *very* much about what *you* think. My bad.
Bob’s an old white dude. Respect his alabaster phallus…err…wisdom.
296.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: Sorry, I deal in Old Math. ; ) Enjoy your facial, sounds delicious! I’m going for a doctor’s appointment, sure you don’t want to switch places?
297.
Vlad
@Miss Bianca: It’s notoriously corrupt, and it’s being dissolved regardless of the outcome of the referendum. This is just removing the state constitution’s justification for them having a separate one, to prevent anyone from reinstating it in the future.
298.
negative 1
@Just One More Canuck: I’ve seen that before but a.) if you think Bernie’s supporters are light on facts I’m all ears as to how HRC will give anyone a raise and b.) more jobs are a good thing, and her plan is for more jobs, and a good thing, but those comments directly correlate more jobs to more pay, and that’s relatively unsupported. That I could find the effect of her tax on ‘high earners’ (over $730K annually) is 5% — good, but not enough to do much to the current system. http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/03/pf/taxes/hillary-clinton-taxes/
299.
dollared
@Bobby Thomson: Health care, stupid. It is a public good, and in many nations it is provided as a public good.
I get that there were political realities, but it is a simple statement of fact that privatized health insurance and healthcare is neoliberal, single payer is a mid case, and national healthcare is socialism.
300.
Bob In Portland
@BR: I answered that yesterday. I don’t support the US military in the region at all.
Again, the House of Saud is behind this Wahhabism. When Sanders calls on Saudi Arabia to fight ISIS he is calling everyone’s bluff. Since Saudi Arabia is behind ISIS it can’t very well attack it. Yesterday I also mentioned that the best way to attack ISIS is to cut off its weapons pipelines from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE et al. The first thing would be to stop making arms deals with those countries. Logical, no? Who approved arms deals to all those countries back in 2011? I’ll give you a hint: She was SOS. I’ll give you another hint: a lot of money flowed from those states to the Clinton Foundation.
Here’s another way to fight ISIS. Admit that Saudi Arabia has been a sponsor of terrorism and begin to bring them to heel.
I can give you plenty of reasons why no one will do that. Want them?
301.
dollared
@D58826: Nope, so there’s no problem with making everything worse in the rust belt, is there. All those people there died in 1982 and you don’t want to think about them.
302.
dollared
@gwangung: Seriously? How credible is HRC going to be on campaign finance reform?
303.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@SciNY: HRC holds almost all the cards that Bernie cares about. The way he burns through money, he’s going to have a big campaign debt when it’s all said and done. He still wants to be effective at the convention. He still wants Team D to win in the fall. He wants to have more power and influence in the Senate come January. All of those things depend on him being a team player long before the convention. He’s not going to burn HRC’s chances down.
He’s trying to keep his voters and donors riled up so that they turn out and so that they continue to give him “$27” multiple times a day. He has to transition to being a team player over time – he’s not going to do it instantly – but he will do it. He’ll be on the Hillary Bus sometime shortly after California.
If you want to make a Bernfeeler really uncomfortable, ask them why white males have been Bernie’s most consistent supporters vs. everyone else. Doesn’t sound very revolutionary, does it?
Look, whether I believe this statement is actually fully factual or not, it’s just another example of why people who are working for Hilary need to stop and think about what kinds of things they say.
The men in my family who have the unfortunate circumstances of birth as “white males” are incredibly liberal, incredibly feminist and incredibly pro-minority. They are not professional party insiders and campaign addicts. They don’t work at Party headquarters during election seasons, but they donate money to campaigns and causes, and vote in every single election. They work, very hard and long hours and have lots of other issues they take care of as part of their responsibilities as fathers and husbands and coaches and volunteers for other equally important activities, eg. environmental protection and animal welfare causes, like my sons do. Or teaching little kids at the Boys and Girls club how to code, like my oldest brother does. They are kind and generous and very good people. They are going to vote Democrat in the fall.
So when people like you make these kinds of snarky, sweeping statements about how unimportant “white males” are as a group, it’s not only insulting and arrogant. It’s really unnecessary.
Wait, so when Sanders is saying he will crush and destroy ISIS, he’s lying (bluffing)? Is that what you’re saying? How is his lying not a sign of bad character?
306.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: How is calling me a white dude as a means for dismissing my opinions any better than, say dismissing someone else because of the color of their skin?
Scratch your surface and there’s a racist. Just like you are a homophobe.
307.
Bobby Thomson
@Linnaeus: I could totally see him supporting internment camps.
308.
Bob In Portland
@BR: I don’t know. I’m not Bernie’s spokesperson. Why don’t you write him a letter. Whatever his plan, it’s got to be better than sending weapons to ISIS’s allies.
I agree. I don’t think stoking intra-party racial animosity is a good idea in either direction — anti-Clinton (as the Sanders folks are doing) and anti-Sanders (as the Clinton folks are doing). The Democratic party is one of the only truly multi-racial political parties in the entire world. We should be proud of that diversity and come together around it.
310.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Bob In Portland: “Waaah, people on the internet were mean to me, so I’m not voting!”
(which apparently includes such shills as Mother Jones and Paul Krugman)
Mother Jones no, but Krugman absolutely is a shill for Clinton. He was terrible in the 2008 primary season. He was blatantly partisan and grossly unfair to Obama, criticizing him for things Clinton was also doing, but ignoring her failings altogether. I pay attention to Krugman on most economic matters and most, if not all, of his criticism of Republicans. But I ignore him when Clinton is a candidate. I suspect he’s lobbying hard for a position — a prominent position — in a Clinton administration.
Foreign fighters entering Iraq and Syria drops by 90% – Obama’s targeted attacks, and blowing up their warehouses of cash and supplies so they can’t pay their fighters sounds like a pretty effective strategy. I doubt Sanders has paid any attention to this, and if he has, I’m sure he’d think Obama’s doin’ it rong, cuz that’s how he rolls.
Ok, so I’ll take your answer to mean: a) either Sanders is planning on a large scale military campaign of the sort that would make him a warmonger in your book if done by anyone else or b) he’s lying about his plan for a military campaign and that is a sign of bad character, just another lying politician.
314.
WarMunchkin
@aimai: I’m well aware of the vote to close Guantanamo – it did not end immoral detention, it just made such detention even more lawful. This is why it was opposed by the ACLU, hardly a get nothing done organization. You accused me of not understanding the actual value and cost to human beings of an ideological standpoint – this is wrong and unfair for you to say.
In my comment, I also said that transactional politicians likely have more bang for buck value. I simply believe that having someone make public and moral cases also have some value, albeit not for the presidency.
315.
singfoom
@dollared: I’m curious about this, because I care a lot about campaign finance reform too…
I agree that the entire configuration of the system is corrupt at this point, no argument there. So how does one go about changing it?
The members of Congress are among the beneficiaries of this current system. You can’t change the system without Congress. If every one of our Congresspeople has participated in this system, then they’re all somewhat corrupted, are they not?
So in order for anything to change, a “corrupt” politician will have to do something within the “corrupt” system to change it, will they not? It’s not as if anyone can wave their hand and make our campaign finance system better.
What do you think needs to be done? What’s a realistic course of action to achieve that?
Oh, sorry, does that not fit the narrative? Well, it happens to be true.
(And before the predictable accusations of racism come from the usual suspects, I don’t blame black people for the 2010 and 2014 elections. I don’t blame any group of voters. I blame the Democratic party leadership for not giving voters a compelling reason to turn out for them.)
Yeah, I saw something about that. It’s the sort of story that nobody will pay any attention to on any side, which is the way Obama’s actions usually end up — he does something, everyone attacks him for it, and then quietly the strategy works (not always, but often) and everyone looks the other way and attacks him about something else.
319.
MomDoc
@Lamh36: What? I can’t believe this! As controlled as he was about everything, I just knew he had a will. Gee, this is going to be a mess!
Nope. Democrats have no campaign finance issues. None. Their giant donations from zillionaires are pure. Show me the actual cash exchange in return for “specific action” or you got nothing.
IN THE FINAL DAYS leading up to Maryland’s Democratic voters going to the polls on Tuesday to choose their U.S. Senate nominee, Rep. Donna Edwards has been barraged by ads and mailers from the Super PAC backing her opponent, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, called the Committee for Maryland’s Progress.
A television ad assails Edwards as “one of the least effective members of Congress,” contrasting her career with Van Hollen’s legislative record. It mentions no foreign policy issues, despite the dominant issue motivating one of the Super PAC’s largest funders.
You have 100,000 to spend on your issue, right? Even-steven. A level playing field.
322.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@dollared: Considering the original Citizens United Not Timid (original acronym) was aimed at her, I suspect she will be quite willing to gut the ruling if she gets a chance. Do you not know the origin of the case? Since you are an insufferable, lecturing, sanctimonious jerk I suspect not.
323.
Bob In Portland
@singfoom: No thanks. And how dare I point out that our government lies us into wars, repeatedly!
Sorry, foom, you don’t earn points for not knowing. Just my pity.
324.
martian
@Brachiator: This is a very late response, but, yeah. I switched from Bern to Hilz to vote in Illinois after it became clear to me that, while Bern’s ideas seem more aligned with mine, there’s just no there there on numbers and follow through. Revolution is not a fucking plan. Even so, I was still leaning Bern just for the symbolism until it seemed possible that Hill would lose Illinois, and *that* symbolism, how it would feed the Bernmentum if Clinton lost a home state, caused me to abandon the urge to make my vote larger than it is by strategizing and game playing.
325.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland: I’m an educated white person from a middle-class background who’s doing OK–AND who doesn’t expect politics to revolve around my tender feelings and unsatisfied longings, the way God knows how many of the Sanders crowd thinks they should, including the people MUCH better off than I am who are all of the ardent Sanders fans I know. I except the young people, who come at things differently; they may be wrong about a lot, but they’re not preachy and malevolent, they’re trying their best and they’re excited about something new. Good for them. The rest of them, feh. It’s a campaign dominated by 30- and 40-something Whole Foods shoppers cosplaying as radicals. It’s embarrassing, or ought to be. That they aren’t embarrassed, and especially that they use the young people as human shields, is creepy.
So when people like you make these kinds of snarky, sweeping statements about how unimportant “white males” are as a group, it’s not only insulting and arrogant. It’s really unnecessary.
Unlike Sanders dismissing the importance of “conservative” southern votes, on several occasions? Don’t want to talk about the importance of race in keeping the winning coalition together in order to win in November? I don’t blame you. There is no excuse for him not trying to appeal to the Democratic base – the most reliable and loyal voters. It was the fatal flaw of his campaign, which was lost, deservedly, as a result, on Super Tuesday.
328.
Emma
@WarMunchkin: Only because you’re conflating “rules” (how one should behave) from “outcomes” (the product of your behavior).
One of our most morally compromised presidents was also the man who helped push through and signed the Civil Rights Act. Why he did it doesn’t really matter as an outcome for millions of Americans who could use that act to push for societal change.
But I think you knew that. :-)
329.
Vlad
The precinct was pretty busy, comparatively speaking, and the volunteers told me it was slammed this morning. My district leans red, though, so hard to extrapolate much from increased turnout.
How is calling me a white dude as a means for dismissing my opinions any better than, say dismissing someone else because of the color of their skin?
There’s no such thing as racism against white people in the US of A, Bob-O, but you know that already.
People dismiss your opinion because you’re a crank, not because you’re white.
Your whiteness, maleness, and oldness, practically jump off the page anytime you deign to speak to us mere mortals here at BJ. You always carry yourself with the sense of entitlement particular to old, white, male lefties, who expect everyone to stop what they’re doing, and listen with rapt attention any time you open your piehole, because you’re just so damned much smarter than the rest of us. ;-)
@Kay: People getting paid for work is not the same as a quid pro quo or campaign finance corruption. There’s shitloads of actual corruption out there thanks to Citizens United but corporations overpaying for celebrity speeches just isn’t one of them. Fox news hiring actual candidates for office as regular speakers–thats corrupt. Corporations and Institutes buying massive quantities of a politician’s book so they can get the royalties, that is corrupt. But being paid to give speeches on the speaker’s circuit–something which has existed almost as long as the country has existed, btw–is not corruption.
333.
Bobby Thomson
@dollared: what government-provided healthcare was privatized by ACA? You can’t privatize what’s already private. Words mean things.
334.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: Bob, I’m well aware of the past actions of our government. I don’t need you to tell me that. I give 0 fucks about your “points”.
You keep fucking that chicken Bobo.
335.
Miss Bianca
@BR: I’m also wondering exactly how we are supposed to be bringing Saudi Arabia “to heel” without any sort of military threat. Boycotts of their oil? (Yay, more domestic production! But totally without fracking or oil shale production, because that’s icky). Wagging our finger at them and saying ‘bad’?
It’s not like Wahabbism doesn’t suck and Saudi Arabia doesn’t suck for exporting it…but…ways and means, how do they work again?
336.
D58826
@dollared: I’m not sure what your point is. The rust belt is bad. It was bad in 1980 and it is bad today. It would be bad today even without NAFTA. Companies would find a way to move jobs off-shore with or without trade agreements. I’m just saying that we are placing to much emphasis on the evils of NAFTA/TPP/etc when there are a lot of other factors that have played a part in the loss of manufacturing jobs.
And if, perish the thought, the trade deals have more winners than losers maybe the problem is that the winners did not do anything to help the losers transition to new jobs
They were only going to move ’em to America and continue to hold them under the exact same grounds. You’re pointing to exactly the sort of ‘shallow empty gesture’ that Bernie would seem to be a sucker for, and pretending that it means ‘close Guantanamo’ in a real sense.
Uh-huh. Can you point to any statement from Bernie that this was his motivation?
How credible is HRC going to be on campaign finance reform?
“The campaign financing system we have now makes running for office an unending chase for contributions. To make sure that my campaigns have been competitive, I have used the means that system allows. I do not think it would be healthy for our democracy for this system to continue down this road, and I support a comprehensive effort to clean up campaign financing by” blah blah blah.
I don’t think it’s that hard. I frankly think the issue makes for low-hanging fruit, because no one thinks it’s a good idea to have money sloshing around in politics, whether it’s _actually_ corrupting or _potentially_ corrupting or just seems icky. That’s why I said before it’s a bad thing but not very high on the list of bad things for politicians to deal with.
341.
Bobby Thomson
And why is everyone feeding the paid Russian propagandist?
@NR: This is so stupid. Democrats, of any color, rarely turn out for midterms when they have the presidency. Thats because stupid motherfuckers like Sanders think that the only job that matters is that of the President. People don’t turn out at midterms to vote for something–they turn out because they are angry and they vote against something. Since we looked like we were in power low information voters–students, for example–stopped worrying about politics and went back to worrying about their schools, grades, debts. Obama gave them plenty of reasons to turn out and they just didn’t.
@Emma: Remember when Obama’s big failing, to “the left,” was that he didn’t twist arms like LBJ would? I can’t remember, is it fair play to threaten the interests of a politician’s district, or is it dirty and corrupt?
Unlike Sanders dismissing the importance of “conservative” southern votes, on several occasions?
Or sending millionaire douche-bros like Tim Robbins out to diss entire states.
Nothing says “revolution” like some Hollywood jet setter sneering from behind his designer sunglasses at how unimportant one of the poorest states in the country is.
347.
cokane
@Cacti: Cacti is pretty much the sad end state of identity politics. Unable to muster arguments beyond ad hominem of someone’s superficial qualities. Self-assured in his superiority merely because he can play identity-politics bingo.
@Applejinx: That is 100 percent wrong. Bringing them to US soil would have utterly transformed their treatement and the rights afforded to them under the constitution. The whole point of putting them offshore, at GITMO, was to evade this constitutional responsibility. Closing Guantanamo and bringing them to the US to actual, legitimate, prisons was the first step towards releasing some and regularizing and humanizing the conditions of others. That Bernie and other Dems were running scared of public backlash and refused to support President Obama is a crying shame. Fuck Bernie for that bit of cowardice.
349.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: And again I ask: why are you talking as if Bernie Sanders is the only Democrat who cares about campaign finance reform? You do remember what the Citizens United case was about, right? You don’t imagine that HRC, for example, might have very personal, as well as political, reasons for making its reversal a priority?
Cacti is pretty much the sad end state of identity politics. Unable to muster arguments beyond ad hominem of someone’s superficial qualities. Self-assured in his superiority merely because he can play identity-politics bingo.
Says the Bernfeeler, from revolutionary headquarters in suburbia.
351.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: I’m not sure you understand. When Bernie Sanders does or doesn’t do things, it’s for good reasons, because he’s Bernie Sanders, the kind of person who has impeccably good reasons for things.
neither characterization is true. But way to prove my point about your intellect’s inability to rise above ad hom.
Cool story bro.
359.
WarMunchkin
@Emma: This is true, though, considering that it took Kennedy getting shot for that to happen, perhaps FDR is a better example of a corrupt politician transactionally creating a kitchen sink full of alphabet soup programs designed to help various sectors of the economy and forming the foundation for modern Democrats. This, by the way, is the same man who transactionally condemned Japanese-Americans, knowing that it would help him shore up political support for the war.
Those examples aside, wouldn’t you agree that disregarding or bending rules for the sake of policy objective is also a nonsense debt? If you’re willing to let people you’re allied with and people you like play by different rules than people you don’t like, for instance, whether it’s a lenient Wall Street settlement or an allied foreign nation whose atrocities we’ll turn a blind eye to, that itself has its own realpolitik costs, as well as being morally wrong.
@WarMunchkin: Shh, we’re not allowed to remember that FDR was up to his eyeballs in corruption and graft and cronyism
361.
cokane
@Cacti: You’d’ve done well to look at my first post in this thread. Let’s hope your reading comprehension can tackle doing that. I, for one, think it can, regardless of what everyone else says about you.
362.
D58826
@aimai: I think the problem is a bit sticker than that. Most of the remaining prisoners can be released once the arrangements are made. A small number, those subject to the military commissions, are probably candidates for Article III trial. There is a group, about 40 I think, where we so badly screwed the pooch that they are to dangerous to release but can never be tried in an Article III court. Whither it is better to close GITMO and house this group in the US in some type of limbo state or just leave them at GITMO is a matter of opinion. Since more than a few democrats showed yellow on the issue because of public outrage Bernie just might be one more. But no profile in courage either
You had one guess, and you blew it. Zero percent. In fact, it’s precisely because I’m a parent that I’m so familiar with the kind of behavior you and your cohorts are exhibiting. It’s also why I find the fiercely anti-progressive content and tone here so troubling.
As for you, Ms. Bianca, your spurious accusation of misogyny just shows how little real thought went into your rant. As it happens, I think Hillary herself is not particularly arrogant. With what she has done, most people – including me – would get far more of a swelled head than she seems to have. I don’t have a problem with her, either individually or as a woman, though if it were all about electing a woman president (as it seems to be for some) I’d prefer Warren. No, it’s her supporters who have been arrogant cobags. I’d even go so far as to say that I might even prefer Hillary to Bernie if followers were factored out. I just don’t want to be complicit in the kind of Inquisition you guys are into.
364.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, that’s right, because pointing this out to the Kidz lamenting that the modern Democratic Party is “no longer the party of FDR” is MEAN and AHISTORICAL. I found out that I was a closet Republican for doing that! Wish I could have told Mom -she’d have been so proud!
365.
Emma
@dollared: Jesus Christ. A large number of the countries that “provide health care” use a combination of public and private means. For example. my cousins who live in Spain have access to the nationally-sponsored asistencia sanitaria publica, but also can purchase separate private health insurance to replace/supplement the government services. That’s just the one I have direct knowledge of. I believe Switzerland is a tightly-regulated private insurance system. So no, “public option” isn’t the only way to go.
@NR: First of all–Black people,and especially black women, turned out in droves for the midterms. It is college students who didn’t. Second of all Bernie (and you) and his supporters consistently blame the electorate when it suits them, and blame “the system” for not encouraging the electorate to vote when it suits them. They are right now practising the worst kind of Presidential fixated politics, just like Nader and the Greens always do. This is not a black person problem since the AA community practices thoughtful, long term, transactional coalition politics. The people who don’t vote in midterms, by and large, are disaffected and uninformed white youths/students and so called progressives who can’t be arsed to vote in what are, to them, unimportant local elections.
367.
Miss Bianca
@Obdurodon: Strangely, that’s how Clinton supporters feel about Bernie supporters wailing that now she has to do *more than she’s already done* to court their very special votes, because they can’t be bothered to read her positions, listen to what she has to say, or do any adjustment in their thinking at all. How do you like *them* apples, Sir William?
I’d have said “I could have gone for BS but for the arrogance and cluelessness of his most ardent supporters” but he’s managed to alienate me all on his own. Not that that would have prevented me from voting for him WITHOUT WHINING.
@D58826: Yeah, that group is the real sticking point for me. If I were a parent punishing a child who’d fucked up that bad, I’d say release them and learn your lesson, as ye sow etc. But um, this is a country on a planet full of people and stuff. I really, really don’t have any idea what to do. We’ve proven that we can do whatever the hell we want with them and nobody relevant will care, but what’s the correct thing to do?
I can think of the ‘right‘ thing to do, but life ain’t that simple.
370.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I just want to do my part in helping this thread get to 500 comments.
I loved the use of “neoliberal” in the Bernie Math video. It is how you know you’re dealing with a true Bernie supporter. Once they throw out the neoliberal charge any chance of a normal conversation is gone.
By the way, Hillary can pretty much reduce her Magic Number to 1 tonight. After tonight she should be no more than 250 delegates away from clinching the nomination. She can lose every state and their delegates and still clinch by earning a split in California. (I know it’s not exact but it’s close enough)
It’s not enough to get the Bernie supporters to admit that she’s better than Trump or Cruz. They already know that. What matters is that they see enough of a difference to actually go out and vote.
First of all–Black people,and especially black women, turned out in droves for the midterms.
No they didn’t. Their turnout was down from the presidential years, just like those other demographic groups you enjoy ranting about so much.
If you’re going to blame the midterm disasters on voters who didn’t turn out, you have to blame all the voters who didn’t turn out. Selective outrage isn’t a good look for anyone.
374.
eclare
@Emma: When I lived in England it was that way too. Didn’t get the supplemental, didn’t need it, NHS was fine by me.
You’d’ve done well to look at my first post in this thread. Let’s hope your reading comprehension can tackle doing that. I, for one, think it can, regardless of what everyone else says about you.
I’ll pencil time for it in between shampooing my crotch and debriding the dead skin from my heels.
376.
D58826
@Emma: From what I’ve read the Swiss system is most like the American system in structure and in cost. The US is number one and the Swiss are number two in healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP. So maybe our type of system is just inherently more expense and not some unique failing of the US.
Bernie has been implicitly using HRC’s donations as a proxy for her Corruption™ Since Citizens United is the law of the land, and everyone (except St. Bernie) is governed by those rules and laws that are active in a post-CU world, then beating up on her about it is selective in the extreme. If he can show a quid-pro-quo, that’s one thing. Pointing to her long list of speeches and donations isn’t, by itself, a sign of her Corruption™.
It would be great to get rid of CU and (at least some aspects of) “Corporations are People”, but I think that’s too big a lift for a while. I want immediate disclosure and no hiding behind Trusts and Corporations and the like. As I’ve said before, if Joe Smith has to be reported to the FEC for a $200 donation, then Billy Bob Walton who gives $10M to some SuperPAC should have to do the same thing. Let’s get it all out there, and fight the “money is speech” argument some other time.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who thinks the “money is speech” trope is bogus, but who doesn’t know where to draw the line…)
378.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Disappointed – I think it is going to stall out short of the magic number.
@Obdurodon: No one can “alienate” Bernie’s supporters but Bernie and Bernie’s supporters. Its just a pathetic myth, a kind of emotional extortion practiced by some of Bernie’s fans and a whole lot of right wing trolls. No one buys your vote and no one woos your vote. You do what you want with your vote. The wails of “so so mean” are meant to retroactively innoculate the speaker from the consequences of continuing to attack, demean, and try to hamstring a perfectly viable and even excellent candidate for President. These accusations that Hillary isn’t “doing enough” or if she is that someone, somewhere, on the internet, wasn’t respectful enough to St Bernie and his weeping, woeful, future-leaders-of-America are all about the massive egos and entitled childhoods of a fraction of Bernie supporters. No one needs to respect it and no one should respect it. There are enough votes for Democrats out there from actual grown ups and new voters who are fired up and enthusiastic about taking this country forward and building on the Obama legacy.
People can just shut the fuck up with demanding that other people wipe their snotty noses and dry their weeping eyes because they didn’t get the perfect grandpa munster of their dreams for the white house this time around.
And for the pissy hell of it:
WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!
KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
@WarMunchkin: I am not much of a believer in morality in politics. I would love for everyone to play by the rules, but it does seem that the allure of power doesn’t attract saints — or it corrupts them completely by giving them the means to enforce “their” rules on the general population. And there is nothing like a saint to make the blood flow “for the soul’s sake.” I prefer Lyndon Johnson to Savonarola. In this case, even if I believed that HRC is as corrupt as the Berniebros accuse her to be, I would prefer her over Cruz or Trump.
Truth hurts, cupcake. I get it. What about my statement is wrong? I’ll wait. I’ve been commenting here for 8 years at least, maybe more, so I’m not going anywhere.
383.
WarMunchkin
@Major Major Major Major: The point wasn’t to illustrate the greatness of transactionality, it’s to understand that both transactional and ideological styles have privilege. That corrupt, transactional guy FDR started the New Deal and won the war. This was great for America, at the expense of the lives and well-being of Japanese-Americans. That is privilege, and transactionality has a blind spot just like ideology does.
I’m saying it because many of Clinton’s supporters are making the argument of the majority in Citizens, that the only possible threat of unlimited money in politics is a straight quid pro quo.
That they’re doing it to defend her tone-deaf, idiotic choice to take all that money for speeches rather than just admitting it looks terrible is just the icing on the cake. The speeches don’t even have anything to do with campaign finance but we all have to adopt this rigid defense and start making fun of anything related to it to minimize any possible political damage.
I’m not doing that, and the Democratic Party shouldn’t either. Special access is a valid issue. Voters are allowed to grill them on it. All of them.
@D58826: France is fairly similar as well. Obamacare though was (IIRC) modeled after the Swiss system and would look a lot like it if Roberts hadn’t swiss-cheesed it (har). Factor in that they’re small, wealthy, and highly educated, and we… aren’t… at least not on a population level…
I’d even go so far as to say that I might even prefer Hillary to Bernie if followers were factored out.
Forgive me for the lack of manners, but that’s fucking nuts. I’m not saying she doesn’t have plenty of arrogant douchebags among her supporters, but her supporters aren’t the ones running for office. Just her.
390.
Emma
@D58826: Definitely. I am not claiming the Swiss system is better — simply that it works for them. I would think that developing a system that work for us should be the goal, not just repeating “single payer, single payer” ad nauseam.
I switched from Bern to Hilz to vote in Illinois after it became clear to me that, while Bern’s ideas seem more aligned with mine, there’s just no there there on numbers and follow through.
Thanks much for the reply. It is very interesting to learn how people are actually making their voting decisions. And interesting to see that it is not just “Bernie vs Hillary” hostility.
@Cacti: Of course there is racism against whites. Maybe you didn’t notice it because of how you use it. The way you dismiss class concerns as complaints of crabby old white guys is racist. You’re a racist, Cacti, and saying that Barack Obama is the best ever President and you love him does not mean that you don’t use the color of someone’s skin as a debating point.
When I show concern about Obama talking about cutting Social Security with Republicans, as he has, it’s not limited to my specific check.
So, yes, racist is a tool that even whites can use against whites in the quest for their particular goals, whether your goals have anything to do with politics or just boosting your ego by a little hippie-punching. You are a racist. Accept it or change it.
@Kay: Nonsense. This is just nonsense. Clinton’s supporters are at the worst saying “we can’t have a level playing field only for Democratic candidates and not for Republican ones.” The entire speeches issue is a complete and utter non issue for most people. Bernie is lumping everything togehter because it suits him to do so, and it riles up his voters, but I don’t think its a legitimate issue on the level of CU at all.
398.
BR
We’re almost at 500…maybe some Clinton supporters can say something condescending to Sanders folks and Sanders folks can say something inflammatory to Clinton folks. Unfounded assumptions about the other person’s identity or character get bonus points.
What matters is that they see enough of a difference to actually go out and vote.
Oh for FSM’s sake. How much of a difference does it take. We are talking night and day differences here, not just whither you stir your coffee with the spoon in your left hand or the right hand.
I agree with many of the Bernie folks that the more liberal youngsters are the future of the party but we are not quite at that future yet. At the very least 2016 is a defensive election. Hillary will defend the gains of the last 100 years. She will see to it that SCOTUS has a majority of judges who live in the 21st century rather than nine Scala’s who want to return to the 19th. It has taken 100 years to create the relatively progressive structure of medicare, soc. security, Obamacare, EPA, etc. A GOP victory in the fall will see it all gone by the the end of 2017. It will take another 100 years to rebuild.
If that isn’t enough of a difference to make you get off you but and vote then I don’t know what will.
@Chris: I suppose I would count among the “arrogant douchebags” among her supporters–at least I’ve been told so by plenty of Bernie voters online. But I take the assessment with a grain of salt. They always say “arrogant” when what they mean is “you aren’t agreeing with me that Bernie is the best and Hillary the worst.” And I’m not going to agree with that because it isn’t true. Not only is she not the worst, he’s not the best.
402.
WarMunchkin
@Emma: Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love LBJ, though unfortunately, I’ve never managed to finish Master of the Senate, which was high school required reading for me; I was a bit of a sleep-deprived delinquent. But I could easily imagine a world where LBJ escalated the Vietnam War to shore up military support and national security credentials so that he had capital to pass social programs and the civil rights act. This is probably a fictional alternative universe, but in that case, we’d be living in our privileged Great Society at the expense of many, many dead kids and Vietnamese people.
all the progressives who thought he had a chance to begin with and how that would somehow move us forward being set up for a possible loss against whatever clown puppet the Republicans pick.
And Nader had nothing to do with Bush2!!! Because reasons!! You guys have the same sense of responsibility for your own behavior as children. You’re not “being set up.” If enough of you climb on your purity ponies and refuse to vote Democratic, and are enough to let Trump/whoever win (which I don’t actually believe), then your behavior will have a consequence. That’s called reality–not that you seem to have more than a nodding acquaintance.
@Cacti: No, we can all see it’s your fictions that are the precious.
406.
Bob In Portland
@aimai: If you keep nominating untrustworthy candidates you shouldn’t expect big voter turnouts. If you don’t address the issues of the voters, or dismiss them, don’t expect them to vote for your candidates.
I suspect that even with alienating half of the Democratic Party Hillary will be successful. And since she’s basically a Republican, she’ll function just like her husband who got all those reactionary and pro-big business laws passed with a Republican/Republican Lite Congress. What does it matter if it’s a Republican or a Wasserman Schultz DINO? They vote the same.
407.
Bob In Portland
@Southern Goth: Nor was the five hundred people who drowned trying to get out of Libya last week.
408.
D58826
@aimai: yes. And it would send a message to the rest of the world, not that they would pay attention, but we have confidence in our system and we walk the walk as well as talk the talk when it involves others. In short it is the right thing to do.
Where did this “half the Democratic party” talking point come from? I’ve seen it around recently. Did Obama “alienate half the Democratic party” in 2008 by winning? Or is this the normal behavior of a political party, you know, you hold primaries, we all get our fee-fees hurt, then we… continue supporting the party?
410.
WarMunchkin
@Major Major Major Major: My roommate is fond of saying: “There is no good and evil in real life, just in the stories we tell”.
Every economic, cultural, and political institution in this country is set up to favor white people by default, and white males more particularly. Someone saying mean things about white dudes =/= racism. That you would think it does shows the level of blinkered privilege that you enjoy in your day to day existence. In your entire life, you have not been, and never will be a victim of racist oppression, barring a complete realignment of our national power structure.
412.
Emma
@WarMunchkin: The might-have-beens are better left to science fiction (though I do wonder about the interesting plot bunnies in your comment). I don’t love LBJ — early training as a historian beat the need to love someone out of me — but I do recognize that his instincts were damn good and he tacked to the winds as necessary. “Real believers” don’t. And they scare me silly.
I honestly wasn’t aiming at anyone in particular. I voted for her this morning, if it matters, so whatever arrogance and/or douchebaggery came out of her supporters hasn’t affected my behavior much. I just know I’ve read plenty of comments both here and elsewhere over the last few months that I thought qualified for both, but I don’t remember whether any of them came out of you.
(And plenty of such comments were made by Sanders supporters as well, yes. That’s probably the most horrific thing about this campaign; I’ve turned into a “both sides do it”-er).
415.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: IMHO the speeches kerfuffle started out as what was supposed to be further proof of her coziness with Wall Street. The big smoking gun used to be that statistic about total dollars given by employees of financial services firms. But I can tell from the way the Sanders people talk about the speeches that a lot of them have heard _only_ about speeches to Wall Street concerns, rather than a speaking tour that included dozens of stops; but other Sanders people talk about the total haul from all speeches, which either by a sleight of hand or a mistake gets turned into “Wall Street” or “corporations” all over again. So at a certain point it just became evidence that Hillary Clinton was greedy and/or corporate and/or corrupt and/or had bad judgment, and it just gets trotted out as an all-purpose cudgel that counterposes good, virtuous, abstemious Bernie Sanders, who has hundreds of millions of dollars now but from everyday people a little at a time so shut up.
416.
Bob In Portland
@NR: Selective outrage is the style here in Balloon Juice Village.
@Miss Bianca: I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with that last one. Are there people on both sides of this who have failed to do their research on the other candidate? Sure. Are there people on both sides of this who have made sweeping negative generalizations about the other candidate’s supporters? Of course. Seems like you’re just playing the “both sides do it” card from the Republican deck. It hasn’t been the “Bernie bros” making incorrect and unfounded guesses about people’s personal situations (that was Bobby) or making up sexism/racism allegations from nothing (that was you). The few Bernie supporters who have seemed willing to enter this obviously Hillary-slanted dive bar have generally seemed more civil than average, only to be met with increasing levels of invective when they didn’t immediately offer penance for their sins. “Inquisition” might have been more accurate than I meant it to be. I really do get the impression that, if Hillary does win, former Bernie supporters will be even more excluded than the Republicans themselves. Hatred for the heathens could never match hatred for the heretics, then or now.
@WarMunchkin: It’s why I’m not big on purity, and find it generally counterproductive, though such a view requires annoying amounts of self-examination and the observing facts.
@Emma: Escalating a war in Vietnam in order to win an election is, alas, not the realm of science fiction; see Nixon, Richard.
The people who don’t vote in midterms, by and large, are disaffected and uninformed white youths/students and so called progressives who can’t be arsed to vote in what are, to them, unimportant local elections.
I am not sure why people continue to say this, because it just does not appear to be true. Here is what PewResearch says:
Voter turnout regularly drops in midterm elections, and has done so since the 1840s. In 2008, for instance, 57.1% of the voting-age population cast ballots — the highest level in four decades — as Barack Obama became the first African American elected president. But two years later only 36.9% voted in the midterm election that put the House back in Republican hands. For Obama’s re-election in 2012, turnout rebounded to 53.7%.
Youth turnout was low, but so was that of other groups as well.
424.
Emma
@Kay: @Kay: Now that’s one that flew right by me. What do you mean by Google getting access once a week?
425.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: I wasn’t discussing Nixon. I was discussing a “might-have-been” situation involving LBJ. I am not unaware that there’s evil in the world or that human beings can take evil actions.
426.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: I taught race relations back in the army in the early 70s. Yes, almost all levers of power are against the little guy, and racism has historically been a tool to separate the haves from the havenots.
But when you deride Sanders’ supporters concern for the underclass and try to convert it into white racism you are being a racist. You use race as a cudgel. You are, therefore, a racist. At least around here you are.
Hey, you designate a group of people, for ex, old white people, and make presumptions that they are racist. Sorry, you are being a racist, using race as a tool to demean me. Sort of like when you and your ilk talk about sexual equality and then make jokes about me sucking Putin’s dick. Or eating a bag of salted dicks. If you don’t want to be sexist leave sex out of your taunts and accusations.
I realize that these will be hard habits to break, but if you want to stop being a racist and a sexist, then you have to stop.
427.
Andrey
The idea that Hillary is a “Republican lite” is just bizarre to me.
I think both Hillary and Bernie would be great candidates, and I will fully support whichever wins the Democratic primary. I expect that will be Hillary, but if it turns out to be Bernie, I’m going to campaign for him just as hard.
If it was just down to me, I would choose Hillary because I think she’s the more progressive candidate. Bernie is more progressive than her on a single issue – economics – but she is more progressive on most other issues, including the ones that I currently find to be most critical: racial equality, sexual equality, gender equality, and so forth. Yet despite that, there’s a nearly universal framing of the race as “Clinton to the right of Sanders”.
I wish Sanders would pull Clinton to the left on economics. I also wish Clinton would pull Sanders to the left on all the other issues.
But I could easily imagine a world where LBJ escalated the Vietnam War to shore up military support and national security credentials so that he had capital to pass social programs and the civil rights act
? I was just sayin’.
ETA: Jeez, that wasn’t a slight.
429.
Bob In Portland
@aimai: Give the people what they want and they’ll come, unless, of course, they’ve been dropped off the voter rolls.
What does it matter if it’s a Republican or a Wasserman Schultz DINO? They vote the same.
Do you honestly believe a putative President Cruz and a putative President Clinton would sign and/or veto all the same legislation? You’re smarter than that.
431.
D58826
@Obdurodon: I’m sure Hillary will throw Bernie under the bus just like Obama threw Hillary under the bus. Oh wait…. the SoS gig hmmm.
It is not exactly unprecedented that the person elected in November populates the upper reaches of his administration with his/her supporters. I suspect a Bernie administration will be long on Bernie’s supporters and short on Clinton and Obama types. Its not an inquisition its the way the system has worked for, well forever. I doubt that Augustus stocked his inner circle with Marc Antony supporters.
The idea that Hillary is a “Republican lite” is just bizarre to me.
Since a lot of people are saying that, instead of trying to rationalize in your mind how it can’t be perhaps you should try to figure out why people are saying that. I would suggest that you read LISTEN, LIBERAL by Thomas Frank, but the villagers around here say it’s on the banned book list.
@Andrey: I used to think that, but now I think Bernie would be a terrible president. Better then Trump or Cruz, for sure. But still terrible.
436.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: I didn’t take it as one, really. It’s just that you kinda rang two of my bells at once: morality in politics, and basing political decisions on might-have-beens.
But when you deride Sanders’ supporters concern for the underclass and try to convert it into white racism you are being a racist.
Then maybe the working class hero (who never held a steady job) should be a little more cognizant of sending out a white millionaire to scoff at the unimportance of the silly little people in the South Carolina Dem Primary (most of whom weren’t white). At best it makes him look like an elitist snob. At worst, a condescending liberal racist.
439.
NR
@Brachiator: Apparently white liberal Millenals are the new Dirty Fucking Hippies. The chosen scapegoat for everything that ever goes wrong for the Democratic party.
440.
WarMunchkin
@Emma: It’s almost like these things aren’t binaries and both ideology and compromise have roles to play in politics.
441.
cokane
@Cacti: As I stated initially, you’re unable to rise above ad hom. Even worse, you invent stories about your opponents. This is the natural end state of faux-liberals unable to form actual arguments without cribbing from their identity-politics bingo card.
442.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: I have no idea what a Trump will do, but I suppose as far as the war agenda and the economic winnowing of the bottom 80%, I suspect Cruz and Clinton will get similar results, like Bill and Dubya got similar results.
But here’s a question for the villagers here to ponder: Why didn’t Dubya make a hard push to outlaw abortion? Think hard, villagers.
As I stated initially, you’re unable to rise above ad hom. Even worse, you invent stories about your opponents. This is the natural end state of faux-liberals unable to form actual arguments without cribbing from their identity-politics bingo card.
Yes, yes, you’ve said this before.
It didn’t get any more interesting since the last time.
449.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: Clean up your own act before you see the evil in others.
450.
D58826
@Kay: Of course its a real question. And why did the Chamber of Commerce have access to W once a week, and the Slave Dealers of Mississippi have access to Andrew Jackson once a week. Money unfortunately talks, it always has and always will. And if Bernie is elected he will have to figure out a way to give access to people/interest groups that he has rarely associated with. With out those groups he will have no chance of getting anything done. The GOP is constantly harping on the fact that the democrats are in the pocket of the teachers unions while ignoring that the GOP is in the pocket of Big Oil. And as much as it may be a cliche at this point taking their money, drinking their booze and then doing the public’s business is probably the best we can hope for.
451.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: I honestly don’t see anyone making the argument that “the only possible threat is quid pro quo”.
You want me to say it’s terrible and “Tone deaf” for HRC to be accepting so much money for speeches? OK, it’s terrible. I think it’s terrible that that’s her market price for getting up in front of a bunch of Wall Streeters and Big Campers and Big Dairy-ers and Big Car Dealers and giving a speech. I think it’s terrible of her to accept it. I think it’s even more terrible that no one is offering to pay *me* that kind of money to get up on my hind legs and yap something anodyne about teamwork and The American Way for forty minutes. I also think it’s terrible that A-list Hollywood actors and professional athletes get paid millions more per year than teachers. And God help them if they decide they want to run for office, because of the corrupting influence of all that money.
I’m sorry, but…it’s true. You’re right. I might think it looks bad, but in the end I just don’t care nearly as much about the price of Wall Street Speechifying and What It Looks LIke as I do about actual pressing issues facing this country, to say nothing of my personal economic situation. t have enough faith that Hillary Clinton is going to make a good-faith effort to solve some of *those* problems – and that for all Bernie Sanders’s posturing, I have very *little* any faith at all in *his* ability to do so – that I’m willing to give her a pass on the money. As I’ve had occasion to note before, I trust her ability to “take their money, drink their liquor and (metaphorically) screw their women, and vote against ’em anyway.”
And I happen to believe she is on board with campaign finance reform. And I also happen to be very excited by what Bernie Sanders has been able to accomplish with small donations, even if I’m not psyched about him as a candidate. I think it would be great if a lot of small donations can add up to being a big collective player, and the sooner we get there, the better. But I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or even the “good enough”. I can’t afford to.
452.
D58826
453 and counting. still time to be the person to hit 500 and win a gold flaked
pink unicorn
I suppose as far as the war agenda and the economic winnowing of the bottom 80%,
Way to not answer. If I were a woman, or if I were gay (I am neither) I doubt I’d be as complacent as you are about the differences between President Cruz and President Clinton.
@Major Major Major Major: I didn’t take it as one, really. It’s just that you kinda rang two of my bells at once: morality in politics, and basing political decisions on might-have-beens.
It was me who did that, not Major^4. I’m sorry to have brought up a fictional LBJ – but what FDR did (and what Truman did) should be clear enough, real examples.
456.
Bob In Portland
The standard fee [for Hillary Clinton’s speeches] and her demands are outlined in a memo from the Harry Walker Agency in New York. According to the memo, Clinton requires travel by private jet, and even specifies that she prefers a Gulfstream 450 or larger. Her staff requires first class and business class tickets. And two members of her staff require up to three days on site to prepare, with all local transportation and meals included. The memo states Clinton should be booked into a presidential suite with up to three separate rooms attached. Clinton also requires a flat fee of $1,000 to pay for an onsite stenographer to record everything she says. However, Clinton is not required to provide the host with a copy, according to the memo. Costs associated with her demands are on top of her speaking fee. – See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/#sthash.YWJp9ngD.dpuf
@Gin & Tonic: Why didn’t Bush ban abortion? I asked above, I’ll try again. By the way, how’s things going for gays in the South, the wheelhouse of the great liberal progressive Hillary Clinton?
459.
Paul in KY
@liberal: To me, neolibaerals are the asswipes who got us into Iraq (or helped out).
@Obdurodon: Well, whatever, sunshine. You’re gonna believe what you beleive, and so am I. I notice it’s somehow always the Sanders supporters who come here to lecture earnestly about how Sec. Clinton needs to pay more attention to *them* who are the ones who end up squalling like scalded cats about the “incivility” of her supporters when they provide pushback in proportion against this narrative. Why are you here, anyway? That’s what I can’t figure out. If the tone of the joint stinks so much, why are you here complaining that the portions are so small? : )
462.
Bill Arnold
@dollared:
That list reads like a parody of honesty. (Maybe that’s a little blunt, if so, sorry.) Needs work.
Seriously, the only thing in the list with legs is NAFTA, and that depends on which economists you believe.
463.
D58826
@Bob In Portland: There is a thriving business in people giving paid speeches. I suspect that Romney had his agreement as does Newt, Rudy, and most of the other GOP contenders over the years.
Jane Sanders said today that Bernie will not release any of his tax returns until Hillary releases her speeches. Is this a new standard? Romney certain was beaten up over his tax returns but I don’t remember any one complaining about speeches he made as a private citizen. Hillary should probably release the damn things just to make it go away, but Obama released his birth certificate in 2008 and that didn’t work out so well. On the other hand candidates have been releasing tax returns for years so why does Bernie get a pass on this.
I’m saying it because many of Clinton’s supporters are making the argument of the majority in Citizens, that the only possible threat of unlimited money in politics is a straight quid pro quo.
That they’re doing it to defend her tone-deaf, idiotic choice to take all that money for speeches rather than just admitting it looks terrible is just the icing on the cake.
When will the stupid stop? Tone deaf? Umpty posts in this thread to the effect that quid pro quo is the Repub position, Clinton and Dems say not good enough. Only the Berners are stupid enough to equate getting paid for a speech with Citizens. The endless screeching of SPEECHES is all you got, and it’s shit. You can’t find horror in her positions–the apparently small number of you who can find her positions–you can’t find a pro Wall Street scandal in her actual, you know, legislative or administrative career, you can’t cite a speech or policy proposal or anyfuckingthing, so SPEECHES. I’d be surprised Bernie doesn’t slink back home in shame at the quality of his support, if I could see he was any better.
@Kay: Its so far down on my list of priorities that I can’t even see it. Google is enormous, its like a country, very large financial and economic concerns, and countries, are going to get special attention from the government because their interests/needs and agressive acts have enormous consequences for everyone else. I elect my President to protect my interests even though I don’t have enough money or power to talk to the office directly. The way I do that is I work with other people who are in the same boat: parents, democrats, liberals, people with mortgages, people with college debt, people in the ACLU or whatever and I 1) try to get the best person I can into the office and 2) try to hold their feet to the fire and send my lobbyists to influence them when I can. I just don’t find this at all shocking. The Presidency isn’t really like some kind of holy populist temple. The Presidency has to ride herd on an enormous, 300 million person strong country with cross cutting interests and ties that make the treaties before WWI look like nothing. Touch one part of the web and the entire thing gets shocky. If I were President you can be sure I’d keep my friends close and my enemies closer.
What matters is that they see enough of a difference to actually go out and vote.
Oh for FSM’s sake. How much of a difference does it take. We are talking night and day differences here, not just whither you stir your coffee with the spoon in your left hand or the right hand.
Dude. I was quoting Orobouros or whatever that fool’s name is, and I swore at him/her way better than you just did, but apparently got FYWP’d.
Not your fault, but I ain’t owning that blind bullshit.
I suspect a Bernie administration will be long on Bernie’s supporters and short on Clinton and Obama types.
Strawman (subspecies: false dichotomy). Nobody’s suggesting that a Clinton administration should appoint a ton of Sanders supporters. What I’m saying is that it seems like Sanders supporters will be even less welcome than “moderate” Republicans. That fabled Overton Window has been drifting ever rightward for a while now. Somebody has to pull it leftward again, but the “centrists” and “incrementalists” keep chasing it to the right. In order to seem (or feel) all bipartisan and pragmatic, they actively shun anyone on their own left. They chase the center, and by doing so help move the center ever rightward. Republican strategists figured this out ages ago. They’ve been letting the line out, then reeling it back in with a “centrist” on the hook, time after time after time. Sanders supporters (and others) have figured this out and started to resist, but apparently that has only made them outcasts in their own party. Thanks for that.
@Miss Bianca: If they can build on that small donor model that would be great but how many of those donors can keep giving year in and year out to candidates up and down the ballot. Will they disappear, like their votes, during off year elections? Once upon a time when 1/3rd of the labor force was unionized, the unions could act as a way to channel the money of the little guy into effective political action. And I suspect that there was a time when the UAW or the mine workers union got the see the president, at least if he was a democrat, on a weekly basis as well.
@D58826: I don’t understand (well, I do) why Jane Sanders thinks there is some kind of quid pro quo for Bernie to release his taxes. Taxes are taxes and Presidential candidates have been releasing them for years. It has nothing to do with Hillary’s speeches and trying to turn it into a trade is just bizarre. If Bernie also wants her speeches released he can keep demanding that. But releasing the taxes is just Bernie’s obligation as a candidate. The fact that he and Jane want to evade it is both highly suspicious and downright disgusting. They would be the first in line criticizing Hillary if she had refused to release hers.
Bob Reich, when running for Governor here (and I was one of his supporters) got into trouble because his taxes showed that he had overclaimed a charitable donation–he’d donated some crappy drum set and given it an absurd value. People made fun of him for weeks. Kerry was hammered because it came out that he had tried to save some money (what a Wasp thing to do) by taking his boat down to harbor it in a state that didn’t have the yacht tax MA has. Oh well! As the writer of The Kabballah of Money points out–the pocket is a very revealing moral place. When you put your hand in your pocket before giving money to a beggar only you know how much money you have. You make the choice about what to do knowing that no one else knows whether you are giving justly or cheaply. Bernie seems to be needing the same kind of cloak. If he were proud of his personal finances and his economic moral behavior he’d release the taxes.
@Obdurodon: The overton window has not been moving rightward. This is just absurd. The country as a whole, and the Democratic party, are far more to the left than they have ever been since the fall of the USSR put communism out of the picture. However, this is complicated by the fact that the press and the right wing are more strongly partisan than ever (thanks, among other things, by the killing of equal time and the rise of fox news). However we didn’t need Bernie and his followers to instruct us on what a progressive society would look like. And they haven’t done much more than tout a strict marxist economic line. People have been trying to tell Bernie and his fans that there is more to life than trade agreements and white progressive pain about college debt. There are a lot of different, suffering, communities and they all have demands and needs that need to be met by a Democratic Presidency.
476.
les
@Obdurodon:
My god. After all the sorry stupidity you’ve produced, you come up with a veritable masterpiece. Every sentence drips butthurt. Every thought permeated with the unearned suffering of the true, the pure, the (only)real liberal. Every line about how the terrible mean Hillarybeast attacks your feelings.
My god just stay home election day and cry, already, do you have to publish this drivel?
Nobody’s suggesting that a Clinton administration should appoint a ton of Sanders supporters. What I’m saying is that it seems like Sanders supporters will be even less welcome than “moderate” Republicans.
Based on what?
The more asshole supporters will certainly be unwelcome, but that’s par for the course….
Good question. I’ve been here quite a long time, actually. Before this election season, I felt pretty welcome and had many good interactions here. Maybe the place will regain some of its lustre after the election. Meanwhile, though, it seems like it might be time to take a vacation. Life’s too short to spend it around intolerant and vicious people like you.
If they can build on that small donor model that would be great but how many of those donors can keep giving year in and year out to candidates up and down the ballot.
The notion that Bernie and his revolution care about “up and down the ballot” assumes facts not in evidence. It is a great thing to have accomplished; I fear neither Bernie nor his supporters are too concerned they’ll run out of small donations for him because they gave to too many down ballot.
@D58826: Those small donors will not be giving to the Democratic Party. Their donations were like religious offerings. You give to your particular saint, with the expectation and hope of a particular reward. That doesn’t translate to a broader acceptance of the needs of the Church. I’d also like to add that people give in a way that is simultaneously transactional and passionately ideological. They chose Bernie as the vehicle of their desires and, on the one hand, imagined a pay off (like gambling) if he hit it big and took the Presidency. On the other hand they gave, passionately and lovingly, as a token of fealty and shared identity. They gave at the urging of other people they knew, and friends they felt accountable to. It was a mass crowd event. That probably can’t be repeated with an ordinary politician, or at any rate with someone else’s chosen political vehicle.
I pay attention to Krugman on most economic matters and most, if not all, of his criticism of Republicans. But I ignore him when Clinton is a candidate. I suspect he’s lobbying hard for a position — a prominent position — in a Clinton administration.
Reasonably sure you’re wrong on this. I think P. Krugman is mostly concerned about not electing a Republican POTUS, with a side of real distaste for policy positions that don’t align well with reality. (And might even refuse if approached for such a position in a Clinton administration.)
Just a different read, FWIW.
485.
Cacti
Fun fact: Bernie was once kicked out of commune for not working.
Jane Sanders said today that Bernie will not release any of his tax returns until Hillary releases her speeches. Is this a new standard?
I’m pretty sure the political tactic here is: when people see how much faith she places in Wall Street as an engine to drive economic prosperity, she’ll be compelled to repudiate that sort of talk for sheer self-protection. If she doesn’t reveal the speeches, she can get away with generalities.
I don’t think that would really be the most important mechanism for a ‘position reversal’, though. I do honestly feel that seeing the Wall Streeters not live up to her lofty knob-slobbering rhetoric, is what would flip her. Pretty sure she assumes that because she’s praised the crap out of them in private and said ‘now fair’s fair, regulate yourselves for the good of the country and the world economy because wonk wonk wonkity wonk’, therefore they’re going to do as she said and straighten up and fly right.
I think they won’t. And I think she’s gonna be double pissed when it’s made obvious that they won’t.
However, it is still necessary to apply political pressure to Clinton just to make sure she understands that she daren’t release those speeches. It will only heighten her MAMA SPANK reaction when the Wall Streeters betray her and come for another bailout.
487.
Miss Bianca
@Obdurodon: “intolerant and vicious”? My, the things I learn about myself! : )
ETA: If it’s “vicious” to be intolerant of bullshit then yes…guilty as charged.
Ok, lets game this out. Hillary releases the texts of the speeches. They show that they are 40 minutes of mom, apple pie, the american way and what a wonderful group the people in the audience are. But But you are missing the REAL corruption here. Before or after the speech there is a dinner. She is sitting at the head table with the top honchos of whatever organization she is speaking to. Surely that must be where the plans for bribes, money laundering and baby killing are being discussed. And of course she is staying in the same hotel so that provides even more time to hatch nefarious plots against the people. So even if she releases the secretly taped dinner table conversations we will never know the true depth of her depravity,
only partially snark.
491.
Applejinx
@Cacti: No, it’s because he did nothing but argue politics all day.
After the primary, he should come HERE! He’s just like us! :D
To me, neolibaerals are the asswipes who got us into Iraq (or helped out).
That’s neoconservatives.
493.
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: SHOW US THE LONG-FORM TRANSCRIPTS HILLARY!
494.
Cacti
My favorite part of the Sanders campaign to date:
After beating feet out of NY nearly 50 years ago, Bernie tries to run as a hometown hero and Brooklyn’s favorite son against “carpetbagger” Hillary.
Reality: Clinton is a NYer by choice. Bernie chose to leave NY. Bernie gets thumped.
495.
Applejinx
@Cacti: Yeah, that it no longer matters so they can use their taxes as a lever to try and pry Hillary’s speeches into the open, with no real downside. He ain’t gonna win so now it’s all about defining the terms under which Hillary wins (not runs, wins. Fuck no we’re not going to elect President Trump. Bernie will wait for everyone to cool off and BEG them not to elect President Trump. What a psychotic rich fuck he is.)
To me, neolibaerals are the asswipes who got us into Iraq (or helped out).
Never heard of PNAC, eh? Bernie and the army of the naive. The Children’s Crusade. Revolution of the uninformed, by the uninformed and for the uninformed. Not to mention SPEECHES.
Reality: Clinton is a NYer by choice. Bernie chose to leave NY. Bernie gets thumped.
As Cole wrote not one week ago, Clinton’s performance in NY was basically unchanged from 2008. I’m partially thinking that campaigns don’t really matter.
Did you follow him closely in 2008? He was irresponsibly partisan in favor of Clinton. He has not been so bad this year regarding Sanders, but then there is the difference now that Clinton’s ultimate nomination has never been in serious question.
503.
Gravenstone
Alright people, we have a TBogg unit! Can we go for a double before the Primary threads later tonight?
@Applejinx: Knob slobbering rhetoric? What the fucking fuck? Do you have any idea how grotesque that comment is? Or how stupid you sound? HRC has never said, or even hinted, at the notion that political change or economic regulation comes from talks given in quiet rooms, or speeches given at large corporate retreats. her entire fucking life has been bare knuckled political brawling to get concrete things done while in power using perfectly ordinary political means: negotiating, trading, wheeling and dealing, within the legislative arena. You are responding to the voices in your head at this point.
Obama wrote in one of his (best-selling) books that fundraising made him less responsive to the concerns of most people because he spent most of his time with people who were comfortably well off.
This is no longer a problem or certain, special people are just not vulnerable to the failings of ordinary mortals?
507.
D58826
@Kay: Of course its a problem. I don’t know how you fix it. People run for office. It takes money. People,esp those with money, like to be around famous people, esp. those who are running for office. In an eight hour day it is easier for the politician to meet with 4 people who can give 10k each, then 40k people who can only give a dollar. I can give Hillary $100 and not much else. The teachers union can give her 100k and provide GOTV help, contacts for people to put in the new administration, etc.
I don’t know how you fix that. As to your question, I guess some people might have their heads screwed on a little tighter and are less taken in by the hype but no as a general rule there are no special people
Obama wrote in one of his (best-selling) books that fundraising made him less responsive to the concerns of most people because he spent most of his time with people who were comfortably well off.
This is no longer a problem or certain, special people are just not vulnerable to the failings of ordinary mortals?
There’s a good noun in English: nonsequitor. I can’t tell whether your (to be generous) point is that Hillary has the same potential problems with fundraising that Obama has, and attempts to recognize them as he does, or that Obama too is a corrupted lying captive of the corrupt scheme that has corrupted every politician except Bernie, who apparently has managed a life long (and he’s old!) political career while never fundraising.
Hardly matters, though, does it? There’s purity of essence, and there’s everything else.
509.
Applejinx
@aimai: Mom and Apple Pie don’t interest Wall Streeters at all. They are slavering sadistic animals utterly devoted to destroying each other in that special kind of rahge, ‘ARBITRAGE’, for the good of themselves alone: and equally devoted to the idea that this somehow benefits the economy, justice, and the world. They really do believe that carrying on that way is virtue itself, and they want everything done in that model.
Look to the techno-utopians in Silicon Valley for things like ‘universal basic income’ or the idea that consumer economies only work when there’s someone to consume products: the Wall Street guys want darwinian ultracompetition from top to bottom.
Hillary will have told them that indeed they are the future of capitalism and the engine of the universe. Apple Pie ain’t got nothing to do with it. She will have ingratiated herself with praise for their ethic and their toughness, and then talked up the virtues of not cheating: of rules, and checks and balances (i.e. REGULATION) but regulation that is on their side and working in their interests so the whole ‘game’ continues to function.
I’d bet you ten dollars there’s at least a little in there, arguing for self-regulation and acceptance of common rules. It might be sort of laughably weak, but it’ll be there, and to Hillary that will have been the payload: get ’em listening and then suggest what her own ex-Goldman Sachs, regulation-curious friends passed along.
The reason she can’t release the speeches is, the half an hour of capitalist knob slobbering in this political environment is explosive, scandalous. Unfair, but there it is. You can’t butter people up and get them hanging on your words, if those words are going to be presented in another context. And I flat guarantee she’s outright celebrating their whole way of life, maybe even joking about how she shares it now and is loving it.
Again: there will be things in the speeches that are consistent with her befriending regulation-friendly ex-Wallstreeters. But the butter-people-up component is way too toxic to ever see daylight in this election season.
510.
Unknown known (formerly known as Ecks, former formerly completely unknown)
And I flat guarantee she’s outright celebrating their whole way of life, maybe even joking about how she shares it now and is loving it.
And then she says, “And I also killed Vince Foster because he was talking about Mena Airport and the CIA drugs, and then I pushed a reporter in front of a train, like Frank Underwood, because that was based on me. No one’s writing this down, right?” And then there’s a sound like MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH and a peal of thunder. That’s what I heard.
513.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: Because saying I’m sure there was a ‘payload’ of advocating regulation in there, is TOTALLY the same as killing Vince Foster and eating his face. Suuuuure. *backs away quietly*
Did you follow him closely in 2008? He was irresponsibly partisan in favor of Clinton.
Fair comment; no, I don’t much recall his columns about Hillary/Obama in 2008.
Anyway, I do appreciate having a public intellectual of his caliber as a pundit; we need more such.
515.
D58826
@les: I’ll give Bernie a bit of the benefit of the doubt here. Running for office in a small, homogeneous, retail politics orientated state like Vermont is probably a lot less expensive that running in New York, let alone a national campaign.
On the other hand in his first campaign he said something that upset the NRA and they backed his opponent. In his second campaign he changed his tune about the NRA and they backed him, as they have ever since. Now the article did not go into details about what ‘NRA backing’ consisted of but money seems the obvious thing. quid pro quo anyone.
516.
D58826
@Gravenstone: Maybe Cole can donate some of Steve’s excess fur as a prize
517.
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: Bernie Sanders’s Vermont has very few local interests to placate, very few media troublemakers, and very few kinds of people. I think he thinks everyone can be as unsullied as he is if they only had the same commitment to principle. This is what emerges from his “Outsider” book and the Matt Taibbi essay I’ve cited before. Everyone else, he thinks, chooses to be dirtied in some way by the process of fundraising and influence-peddling. They should turn to the people instead! But think of Joe Biden, working-class hero, once derided as “the Senator from MBNA” because Delaware is in the grip of banking interests, and he needed to be mindful of that, or they’d throw their weight behind a competitor and bounce him and, with him, all the good he could do for everyday joes, which relative kindness to Delaware banks empowers him to keep doing.
I get the sense that Bernie Sanders thinks everyone else is tainted by playing a game they don’t have to play, because he hasn’t played it. But he hasn’t HAD to play it. He’s one of the lucky ones, not one of the elect. Big difference.
Bernard Sanders lost by not receiving enough votes to win. He needs to do whatever Hillary Clinton tells him to do from now until the day after the next president has been selected and her inauguration is scheduled. If that means sucking hind tit in public, that is what he needs to do. And YOU need to shut the fuck up about it and go along with the winner of the primaries.
I’m sure Ms Clinton will adopt some of Sanders’ platform ideas, not that it is a necessary thing for her to do, but because she is a politician, and that is what politicians do. But if Sanders does anything that hinders the election of someone other than a Republican, he should get to be king of the fucking broom closet in the capital basement. Or retire to Vermont.
Mom and Apple Pie don’t interest Wall Streeters at all. They are slavering sadistic animals utterly devoted to destroying each other in that special kind of rahge, ‘ARBITRAGE’, for the good of themselves alone: and equally devoted to the idea that this somehow benefits the economy, justice, and the world. They really do believe that carrying on that way is virtue itself, and they want everything done in that model.
This is so far past hyperbole that I seriously question your mental stability.
Do you honestly believe the drivel you posted?
521.
Guam guy
@Mike J: BS was gonna lose Guam even without that asshat’s own goal
RE: Jane Sanders said today that Bernie will not release any of his tax returns until Hillary releases her speeches. Is this a new standard?
I’m pretty sure the political tactic here is: when people see how much faith she places in Wall Street as an engine to drive economic prosperity, she’ll be compelled to repudiate that sort of talk for sheer self-protection. If she doesn’t reveal the speeches, she can get away with generalities.
This is a losing strategy. Release of tax returns is more or less expected of presidential candidates. It is not a demand that one candidate makes of another.
For me personally, Bernie had until the New York primary to release his returns. This would have given voters of the remaining primaries time to factor in this information in their assessment of his character. I still don’t presume that he is hiding anything. But his failure to comply invalidates much of his rhetoric about corruption and politicians hiding stuff. He simply cannot do this and remain credible.
There is no tradition of candidates releasing transcripts of speeches they give to groups. And for me, this goes beyond Clinton. I ask, do we, as citizens have a right to demand that every speech a politician make be on the record? Because I cannot single out Wall Street bankers just because this is currently the group that we hate.
I also have to ask, are people making special demands on a candidate because of gender? Because asswipes certainly made specious demands of candidate and later president Obama because of his race.
I have not answered all of these questions for myself yet. For others, your mileage may vary.
But on tax returns, I am clear. It is a current standard. Neither Trump nor Sanders gets to redefine it.
Not if they want to be seriously considered to be a presidential candidate.
@Bob In Portland: Her conversion the Democratic Party as the supporter of the monied class – you do know the first presidential candidate she voted for was McGovern right?
Bob says “If you wanted my vote you should have chosen a cleaner candidate. You didn’t. So good luck. ”
Bob, no one wants your vote. Your vote is a dirty piece of crap floating down stream in a sewer. So your vote won’t be counted, no matter who it is for.
@Kay: Sure, Obama wrote that, and I’m sure its true. On the other hand he has taken specific steps to combat this by, for instance, reading letters sent to him by both supporters and opponents. In addition, when campaigning, all candidates come in contact with a huge swathe of American life–they are approached by all kinds of people with all kinds of problems and experiences. This, too, has the potential to change them and illuminate the choices ahead of them. The leader of an enormous country has a duty to be aware of his/her biases, to try to correct for them, and to work for the common good–if they are the Democrat. I just don’t see any other option than trying to choose someone you think will try honesty to do a good job. And the reverse of this–choosing someone who doesn’t know what that job is like, doesn’t have any track record in office, has never had to raise money, but has a lot of poor people as friends isn’t really an option. Its just a reality that the kind of person you are imagining–Bernie for example but of course not real world Bernie, imaginary Bernie–doesn’t really exist as a viable candidate. And its not clear that even if this imaginary “untouched by money and power” candidate appeared they would be any good at all at governing. Obama is a ferociously well educated, well travelled, and thoughtful person. Hillary Clinton has been middle class and then governing class her entire adult life. These are things that matter in running a country. No one untouched by the world is going to be catapulted into the office of President and the idea that anyone who has been around the block is debarred is just weird.
Of course we’ve had many meetings at the White House over the years. But when it comes to the information the Journal provided to Google about these meetings, our employment records show that 33 of the White House visits were by people not employed here at the time. And over five visits were a Google engineer on leave helping to fix technical issues with the government’s Healthcare.gov website (something he’s been very public about). Checking through White House records for other companies, our team counted around 270 visits for Microsoft over the same time frame and 150 for Comcast.
And the meetings we did have were not to discuss the antitrust investigation. In fact, we seem to have discussed everything but, including patent reform, STEM education, self-driving cars, mental health, advertising, Internet censorship, smart contact lenses, civic innovation, R&D, cloud computing, trade and investment, cyber security, energy efficiency and our workplace benefit policies. For example:
Several visits were advertising industry meetings attended by Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others. Yes, Microsoft, the main complainant in the FTC’s antitrust investigation;
Over a dozen visits were for production crews covering the YouTube interviews with the President following the State of the Union and photographing the White House art collection for Google’s Art Project;
One of the meetings specifically called out by the Journal was actually a meeting with our Chairman, Eric Schmidt, and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, with several other technology companies to discuss copyright legislation (the draft SOPA/PIPA laws that were ultimately dropped by Congress).
As the FTC has said, the Journal “makes a number of misleading inferences and suggestions about the integrity of the FTC’s investigation. The article suggests that a series of disparate and unrelated meetings involving FTC officials and executive branch officials or Google representatives somehow affected the Commission’s decision to close the search investigation in early 2013. Not a single fact is offered to substantiate this misleading narrative”.
Yes, donors get access. Yes, large companies get access. But every visit isn’t due to a donation or due to a company being large. And it’s not like Barack himself was sitting down with Google’s PR people at breakfast once a week.
People have a constitutional right to lobby the government. Everyone does. And the government works with the private sector to do stuff.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who wishes we had public financing, but we don’t.)
I just came on and saw this thread. Then I saw the comment count. Then I saw your comment predicting 500 comments.
Done well you have.
530.
Bill Arnold
@John D:
I maybe live closer to The Belly of the Beast than you do (or not), and hear toned-down self-justifying versions of that more than occasionally. They sometimes know they’ll get mocked back, hard, but still say it because in their hearts, they believe it. (That greed is almost always a force for good, basically.)
531.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bill Arnold: PK has served in government (under Reagan). He has no interest in doing so again and has said so many times (on his blog). IIRC, he said he doesn’t have the personality for it.
Okay, but then Democrats probably can’t run against the evil Koch Brothers and their nefarious schemes.
There’s nothing intrinsically pure about the corporations who lobby Democrats.
533.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kay: Eh? Of course Democrats can run against the evil Koch Brothers. It’s not their donations that make the Koch Brothers evil, it’s who they donate to and why.
I’m not sure what point your trying to make. Was Obama actually corrupted by raising $750M in his 2008 campaign? Or did he do what he needed to do to get elected under the laws that existed at the time. (Yes, he said in the book that he didn’t like it, but AFAIK, he didn’t change his policy positions based on a nefarious donation.) If not, why is Hillary being treated differently when she’s operating in a post-CU world (where the other side can raise and spend unlimited amounts with no disclosure)?
Cheers,
Scott.
534.
Eric
@D58826: Did you learn that last truism under President Humphrey or during the Gore Administration?
It’s not their donations that make the Koch Brothers evil, it’s who they donate to and why.
Count me in the camp that thought the issue was that high dollar actors got outsized say in influence. I wouldn’t be happy if it were the liberal Koch brothers.
Actually, going even further… by that logic, why was Citizens United wrong again?
536.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WarMunchkin: IMHO, Citizens United is wrong because there’s little or no disclosure of where the big money comes from and where it goes. The ruling says that disclosure rules are fine, but the FEC can’t implement them due to GOP intransigence. I also don’t like the fact that CU effectively guts spending limits for some (but not for others), but I remember when PACs were touted as a great advance for “little people” because they could pool their donations and have as much clout as some cigar chomping CEO. Now, PACs have some reputation as being a tool of the Devil, and SuperPACs even more-so.
I don’t like perpetual campaigns and perpetual fundraising, but I want relative unknowns to be able to find a way to let voters know about him/her. If we clamp down too much on political spending, then we’re setting ourselves up for machines and dynasties of politicians who have already climbed to the top of the hill. That’s dangerous. (Obama could not have succeeded without the ability to raise lots of money.)
I don’t think that people donate to a candidate to Corrupt™ them. I think they (mostly) donate to a candidate because they like the person’s views and want to support them. I’m sure that’s why most of us here donate to candidates when we do.
Of course, there are counter-examples. Gov. McDonnell of Virginia, for instance. But those weren’t campaign contributions (VA limits governors to one term). They were for favors (hold up this “supplement” and say nice things about it; let me make a pitch to some committee; etc.). There was clear quid-pro-quo corruption, and McDonnell didn’t declare the gifts properly (if at all).
Like you, I’d be happier if our political system didn’t depend on big checks from rich people to: bail out political parties; pay for inauguration parties; fund conventions; fund parties to enable national campaigns; etc. I would be happier if the money raised didn’t go to TV networks to turn every contest into a horse-race and a gaffe-hunt rather than to actually inform the public about the issues and the candidates. I would be happier if a lot of things were different. But they aren’t.
The fate of the country and the world depends on preserving and extending Obama’s, Nancy’s, and Harry’s gains over the last few years. We have a campaign finance system that is sub-optimal in many ways. But it is probably less Corrupt™ than in any other time one could point to.
And HRC, private citizen, earning money from speeches isn’t Corrupt™ anyway. Why can’t she earn money giving speeches as a private citizen??
Let’s not lose track of the big picture….
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
537.
WarMunchkin
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: So if I could summarize – your primary issues are that spending limits are unfairly limited for some actors but not others and that, separately, money cannot be tracked?
538.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WarMunchkin: I thought I was pretty clear. I wasn’t?
If not, I don’t think (at this time) that I could explain it better by trying again.
Since you again raise the issue of race, what race are you? Somehow I get the feeling with your constant punching down that you, Whig, are a prissy privileged white dilettante.
How is calling me a white dude as a means for dismissing my opinions any better than, say dismissing someone else because of the color of their skin?
I see no inconsistencies here.
541.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WarMunchkin: Sorry – I didn’t mean to seem annoyed. I think campaign finance in the US is complicated. It’s hard for me to pick any particular thing as being my “primary issue”. I thought McCain-Feingold was a decent law. I think Citizens United opened the door to lots of mischief. As I recall, I liked Stevens’ dissent when I read it at the time.
But, I’m suspicious of simple solutions to complicated problems. I don’t think reversing Citizens United is going to do much to fix the problems with lack of transparency and people not knowing who is trying to influence their vote. And the idea that someone can’t show a movie (even if it’s really a hatchet job on a political candidate) within 30 days of an election just seems wrong. Let them show the movie, but require that they put their names on it an not hide behind some organizational name, seems to me to be the best way to address the issue.
If an organization doesn’t have to pay taxes, then they should be forced to strictly obey the rules. Too many “educational” and “public service organizations” aren’t.
My $0.02. HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
542.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: 2 heads of same coin. A neoliberal is a person who used to have liberal views of stuff & now has views that are what I would call ‘reactionary’ & voila they are now ‘neo’ in their thinking!
543.
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: Guess I just hate all those neoers ;-)
544.
Paul in KY
@les: I may nave got my neoers mixed up, I may have not…
IMHO unbridled campaign spending is a bad thing but an unimportant thing.
Translation: “Citizen’s United is all right with me”.
The point was made more succinctly above – unbridled campaign spending isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom of the problem. Campaign finance laws only address the sypmtom, not the cause.
We’ve seen that UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH, by itself, does not guarantee victory, otherwise Walker would still be in the race, or we’d be talking about President Romney’s re-election.
So, while I don’t deny that Citizen’s has had a negative affect on politics, I don’t see it as a problem with the same immediacy as, say, fixing the ACA, taking serious action on climate change, etc. It is an issue, and it will eventually affect the Democratic party as there are plenty of stupid, woo-infested billionaires on the left, but it’s not the most important issue we’re facing right now.
Ironically, the decision has done the most damage to the GOP; the RNC has zero control over the process right now.
So now it’s “If Sanders Supports Something It’s Unimportant or Wrong”?
Not at all. It’s that we disagree that this particular issue is the issue that has to be addressed right now.
Let’s change corporate money in politics at some later unnamed date. After all, H. Clinton & hubby have received billions from rich people and it’s never affected her judgment on anything. It’s like she’s a fucking saint.
It doesn’t start with money in politics. For fuck’s sake. It starts with injustice and death. Prioritizing “money in politics” is something only a prissy privileged white dilettante would do, like everyone I’ve ever known who has been a fan of Bernie Sanders, and Bernie Sanders. And a handful of dead-enders here.
Bob:
Since you again raise the issue of race, what race are you? Somehow I get the feeling with your constant punching down that you, Whig, are a prissy privileged white dilettante. There seems to be a lot of that around here. Considering how often race is thrown at Sanders supporters it’s like you wear Obama as your cloak of authenticity. Much like if you support Sanders you must be sexist. Really, villagers, you should be embarrassed. You’re acting like Republicans.
As you can see, FlipYourWhig was calling me a “prissy privileged white dilettante.” Is that racebaiting or not? And if it’s not racebaiting, what the hell is it?
Apparently it was because FlipYourWhig didn’t see any economic connection between racism and the state of America’s minorities. Now, on its face and stripped of ad hominems and curses it’s simply ridiculous to maintain that. People were kidnapped, brought across the Atlantic, and forced to work for free. I know, some of you have curious ideas about how money doesn’t have any effect on politics, but really, has the Village voted that there is no connection between racism and money? Racism has been exploited in every way imaginable to make money.
So, again, you were about to tell me how I was racebaiting.
549.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: Church Lady, FlipYourWhig made an insulting comment about my race. How is that racebaiting? People who use race to attack others are racists. FlipYourWhig is a racist. I’m just on the receiving end. You, using FlipYourWhig’s racism to attack me, are a racist. That makes you a disgusting person. Try to do better.
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Technocrat
It would have been funnier at half the length. But yeah.
dmsilev
The bird thing is what really gets me. So a bird landed on his podium once? So what? I once saw a bird land on a airport departure gate counter; that doesn’t mean that Southwest is blessed by the gods.
Wiesman
Here for the shitshow.
hovercraft
I saw that yesterday, so sad but so true.
I think the more virulent berniacs should get in touch with that unskewed polls guy from 2012
Pee Cee
@dmsilev:
If you compare them to Delta, you might be forgiven for thinking that. Or for thinking that Delta is run by Cthulu, at least.
schrodinger's cat
I predict 500+ comments.
hovercraft
@dmsilev:
One bird in the hand equals 25 delegates, so all the delegates earned on the month of April (but not NY because closed primary) count for 2 and a half delegates earned in any other month. So when you do the math Bernie is really ahead by 400 delegates.
Just tilt to the left and you’ll see my calculation is correct.
benw
That was pretty funny.
But Bernie is winning… my heart.
SANDERS 2016
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat: Does Bernie get extra delegates for each comment here? Or does that only apply to Reddit and the Daily Kos Recommended list?
Trentrunner
Don’t know about everyone else, but I’m pretty pissed off at Bernie’s very conditional support should Hillary win the nomination, as he expressed in last night’s town hall w/Chris Hayes.
And Hillary followed up with shade + burn: She said, essentially: Look, in 2008, I was closer to winning against Obama than Sanders is now against me, and in 08 after I lost, I turned and gave my full support to Obama.
Really sick of your shit, Bernie.
Tom Levenson
This could get very ugly around 9 tonight.
Mike J
C.S.Strowbridge
@Trentrunner: “And Hillary followed up with shade + burn: She said, essentially: Look, in 2008, I was closer to winning against Obama than Sanders is now against me, and in 08 after I lost, I turned and gave my full support to Obama.”
And TYT attacked her for saying that. Jesus. Some Bernie Sanders supporters are getting pathetically desperate and they are destroying their credibility as a result.
japa21
@Mike J: That was cruel. Funny but cruel. True, but cruel. I liked it.
MattF
@Tom Levenson: I go vote in the Maryland primary this afternoon.
Jeffro
@Mike J: YeOWch
D58826
@dmsilev: We had a bird fly down our chimney once. Can I run for president also?
Emma
@dmsilev: I think they got the presidency confused with the papacy. After all, there’s a legend that one of the popes was a simple priest who was elected when the dove of the Holy Ghost landed on his shoulder during Mass.
dmsilev
@D58826: Only if you (a) had a podium set up in your living room and (b) the bird landed on it.
Shell
@MattF: Gasp! It sounded in the news that Maryland is doing all it can to actually make voting easier and more convenient. Whats the matter with them?
Mr. Mack
“Caucuses count double”. I’ve made that same mistake.
dmsilev
@Emma: Either that, or it’s a retelling of the bestowal of Excalibur onto Arthur by the Lady of the Lake.
MattF
@Shell: And they’re using paper ballots, so the resident evil geniuses at Big Voting Machine won’t be able to mess with the results.
D58826
@dmsilev: bummer all he did was sh+t on the rug
Amir Khalid
@C.S.Strowbridge:
I’ve noticed that TYT is an out-and-proud Bernista place. Especially its leader and titular Turk, Cenk Uygur. The hearts Bernie has won are very committed, even though he has exposed himself as hopelessly unprepared to be President, and has no real chance of winning now.
Brachiator
@MattF:
Should all the people who say, “I’m really for HRC, but I will vote for Bernie in the primary” reconsider their position? Isn’t this enabling Bernie’s unrealistic dreams and the worst Berniebot dreams?”
ETA: If Bernie is really and truly your man, I say go for it!
Davebo
@Amir Khalid: What is TYT?
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: The fact that he will surely lose just makes supporting him more delicious. It enables you to say, “Pfft, I was against her before it was cool.”
Roger Moore
@Mike J:
She’s being really unfair to her grandson. At 3 years old, we have no idea whether he has a future as a basketball player, but at this point in the election we know that Kasich has no chance of winning the nomination.
Obdurodon
Bernie’s not winning. Bernie can’t win. Bernie probably never had much chance of winning, mostly because so many have bought into the “centrist” belief that no real change is possible so you might as well make sure Leviathan eats the other guy first. Package that up as pragmatism, add a heaping dose of entitlement repackaged as inevitability, and you have your legion of Hillary supporters denouncing healthy debate as disloyalty. It’s amazing how *conservative* some Democrats can be, in all senses of the word. I’ll vote for Hillary if I have to (which seems likely), but I don’t think anyone should be ashamed of having once hoped for better.
Mike J
@FlipYrWhig: Bernie Sanders is the unreleased demo of the Democratic party.
BR
@Brachiator:
Yeah, I’m no longer planning on voting for Sanders in the CA primary — I’ll be voting for Clinton. I was originally going to vote for him as a nod towards his stances (even the unrealistic ones) but he’s shown that he’s not a responsible steward of the ideas or movement.
MattF
@Brachiator: We shall see. I have a feeling there’s been some recent shifting in preferences towards Hillz– But I’m also, um… suspicious of voting ‘trends’ that are perceived through introspection. And, fwiw, I’m a Hillbot, so there’s that.
catclub
@Davebo: The Young Turks, I suspect.
Trinity
Hilarious. Thanks for sharing John.
Southern Goth
@dmsilev: Tired avians landing on podiums is no basis for a system of government.
J.
Wow, wouldn’t have expected College Humor to do that piece. Bravo — and brave. (Wonder how many subscribers they lost.)
Amir Khalid
@Davebo:
It stands for The Young Turks.
Obdurodon
@Southern Goth: LOL. Thanks for that.
amk
too long to be funny.
D58826
Based on Benie and his fans comments he will endorse Hillary if:
1. his policy proposals become the party platform (Bernie ball = Calvin ball)
2. Hillary convinces his fans that she is worthy of their support (aside from the arrogance, If the words President Trump[/Cruz don’t convince them to vote for Hillary nothing she says will).
3. An ironclad guarantee that Hillary will not pivot to the center during the general election but will remain committed to the progressive agenda. (Math is hard but the sucess of the McGovern presidency should prove that there are not enough progressives to win the presidency. The votes are in the middle)
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Reading that, all I could think of was “Help! I’m being repressed!”
ETA: I see Southern Goth beat me to it.
Emma
@dmsilev: Strange women lying in ponds (tired birds on podiums) distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
BR
@D58826:
I actually think she doesn’t need to pivot much if at all. She hasn’t gotten on board with Sander’s flights of fancy, but instead has stayed on the Obama end of progressive policy, which is to say on policies for which there’s probably well over 50% support nationally (if you don’t tell people who is proposing the policy). No need to pivot right.
Some people who dislike her will probably say it’s because of her positions, but I don’t think there are as many in the middle who will be persuaded by a rightward shift from her, whereas the Bernie diehards will care if she extends a few olive branches in their direction (and if Warren helps mend the wounds of the primary).
Facebones
@Obdurodon:
It’s amazing how none of the Bernistas can accept that some people just like Hillary better.
MattF
@Emma: This qualifies as Topic Drift. I like it.
Brachiator
@Obdurodon:
Uh, no.
I gave Bernie a chance early on, but I do not think that he would be the most effective president. Some people seem to think this irrelevant because they see Bernie as the vessel whereby their socialist dreams might be realized.
Secondly, I do not support Bernie’s plan for free college for everyone, and I thought that his wailing about health care was devoid of any thoughtfulness.
Every now and then, Bernie would say something interesting (some of his comments on Israel, for example), but then he would squander his advantage by saying something dumbass.
By the way, do not take me as an enthusiastic Hillary supporter. I just think that right now, she is better than Bernie. And both of them are better than any Republican.
dmsilev
@Southern Goth: But what if it’s a swallow laden with a coconut?
African swallow, obviously.
singfoom
As someone who supported Bernie in the primary but since the NYDN interview, this was hilarious, brutal and accurate.
I can’t wait for this primary to be over. I was also very sad to hear him pissing into the party tent with this answer last night:
Listen, I don’t like HRCs ties to Wall Street, but can someone please fucking explain to me how Trump or Cruz will be more effective in regulating Wall Street and the financial sector than Hilary?
Please, I’m waiting to hear it, because I don’t think that’s possible in our fucking reality. I don’t know of more than 1 or 2 Bernfeelers who won’t vote for HRC, especially here, but goddamnit, I hope there’s not many of them. The symbolic protest vote is not equal to the consequences this time around.
catclub
I think Obama will be the one whose campaign support will be useful – he has voters behind him. Sanders help will be nice, too.
The number of people who actually think Obama is a sellout, so don’t vote, is not enough to matter.
BR
@Brachiator:
This.
Emma
@MattF: When it comes to this subject, any drift is a good drift.
SFAW
@Facebones:
I hope you realize that they’re not “real Americans.”
cleek
@Facebones:
and now you’ve said a mean thing about them so they’re going to vote for Jill Stein. then you’ll see! then you’ll all see!
catclub
@dmsilev: Depends how fast it can fly. What IS the airspeed velocity of a unladen swallow?
Iowa Old Lady
As long as we’re talking election, Iowa has an actual primary in June by which its House and Senate candidates are chosen. On the Senate side, Grassley will probably get a good D opponent in Patty Judge. On the House side, I heard a report today that Democrats are changing their party registration in Steve King’s district so they can vote for his R opponent. Governor Branstad (R) has declined to endorse anyone in that race.
Cacti
I’m glad Bernie got into the race so Hillary could push him to the left on gun legislation.
dmsilev
Actually, I think we’re all citing the wrong scenes from that film. The video at top could be summarized as ’tis but a flesh wound’.
benw
@catclub: Blue! No, red! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
SFAW
@cleek:
You might need to come up with a Bernista corollary to your Law.
TriassicSands
@schrodinger’s cat:
That looks like more Bernie Math to me. Oh, wait, I wasn’t counting the “super comments.” Sorry.
schrodinger's cat
In yesterday’s Snooze Hour, Beltway hack Amy Walter actually said this, Hillary may be winning but Bernie has the momentum. WTF is that supposed to mean?
Obdurodon
@D58826:
OK, since you brought it up, let’s talk about arrogance. Ignore Bernie supporters’ purported faults or motivations for a moment. Let’s just say they behave as they do for ineffable and immutable reasons. What should *Hillary* do, if she doesn’t want to throw the election to Trump (or whichever even-worse alternative the Republicans provide)? Clearly, she’d need to do something to gain their support, which neither she nor her supporters in their over-entitled premature triumphalism seem inclined to do. That’s where arrogance comes into play. What else can you call the certainty that she doesn’t even need progressives to win the general election in 2016, or that she won’t need them again in 2018 or 2020? How is it not arrogant for people like you to flip the bird (heh) to anyone who didn’t share your preference? Those who expect deference always portray its absence as arrogance.
Mike J
@dmsilev:
It won’t vote for Bernie.
cleek
@Obdurodon:
the other option is PRESIDENT DONALD FUCKING TRUMP.
how hard is that to figure out?
here’s the formula: TRUMP < CLINTON
do the math
Mike J
@Cacti:
And immigration.
schrodinger's cat
@TriassicSands: Check back this evening and then we will see. Want to make bet in Tunch coins?
Just One More Canuck
@Southern Goth: Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aerial ceremony
eta – Emma beat me to it
singfoom
@Iowa Old Lady: Do you get the sense that Patty Judge can give Grassley a run for his money on the ground? He’s a fucking institution, but it’d be great if he was replaced.
Amir Khalid
If you will all pardon me going off-topic, here’s a long-overdue judgement in a case that’s very close to my heart as a Liverpool FC fan. I watched the Hillsborough Stadium disaster on live television in 1989. The families of The 96 fought 27 years for this, against lies published in the media and what could fairly be called an organised police cover-up.
Chyron HR
@Obdurodon:
Translation: “My candidate lost an election! How can you fucking Democrats possibly understand how that feels?”
Germy
(from NYMag)
D58826
@Obdurodon: Bernie probably never had much chance of winning, mostly because so many have bought into the “centrist” belief that no real change is possible
Iowa Old Lady
@singfoom: I want Grassley gone so badly that I’m like the Sanders supporter in that video on the math. You can’t trust me.
Cacti
@Obdurodon:
Why?
The deep red states he won won’t be voting for the Dem candidate anyway. The solid blue ones won’t be voting for the Republican.
The major swing states went big for Clinton.
The Bernie or Bust contingent won’t be missed.
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
Maybe she meant “inertia.” Lots of people get those terms mixed up.
PST
@Obdurodon:
For what it’s worth, many of us who do not see Clinton as the lesser of evils, but in fact think she will be a fine president and affirmatively support her, never denounced debate as disloyalty. I can’t count the number of times I have heard Clinton supporters in large numbers defend Sanders for running and stood up for his right to do so. Not all, of course, but the center of gravity has been respect for Sanders and what he stands for. I admit, though, that I am losing esteem for him now, and will probably in the future look to others as the leaders of his wing of the party.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
That video is my FB feed all day. Today, Salon had an article that acknowledged that Charles Koch did NOT, i repeat did NOT, endorse Hillary Clinton, after Bernfeeler friends posted it yesterday as evidence of how corrupt $hillary is. I’m tempted to post this video, but it feels like the delusion fever might have broken, and they’ve entered the bargaining stage of grief.
ETA: except for Tim Robbins who apparently is a full blown Sanders nutbag.
Chris
@Shell:
Inorite?
I was in line for all of ten minutes this morning. Yesterday I warned my boss that I might be late today (actually, I never finished the warning; as soon as it turned out that I was going to vote in the morning, he interrupted me with a chant of “Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote!” until I was gone) on account of long lines, but there were none, and I actually arrived at work half an hour early.
Was driven to the polls by the two Sanders supporters I live with. Checked the boxes for Hillary and her peeps. Chatted about it with one of them outside while we were waiting for the other to be finished, both of us acknowledging that hell yes I’ll vote for your candidate if they’re the nominee. Based on their polling numbers in the Democratic base, I suspect my experience is far more representative than any horror stories about Hillbots or Berniebros.
TriassicSands
@singfoom:
Bernie’s correct answer should have been: If I don’t win the nomination, I’ll do everything in my power to persuade every American voter to support the Democratic nominee for president. Just as I hope Secretary Clinton would do were I to win the nomination.
“We’re not a movement, blah, blah, blah…” is a bullshit answer — I grow more disappointed with Sanders with each passing day. Sadly, that doesn’t increase my enthusiasm for HRC.
Obdurodon
@singfoom:
Nobody believes that they will. What some do believe is that Hillary will not prevail against that Ultimate Evil in the general election without the effective support of those who are now Bernie’s supporters. Turnout matters. It’s not enough to get the Bernie supporters to admit that she’s better than Trump or Cruz. They already know that. What matters is that they see enough of a difference to actually go out and vote. Maybe even enough to go out and get others to vote. That means Hillary and her supporters have to do something other than what I’m seeing. The more you call “apostate” against those who might have been your allies in the general election, the more likely you make it that Trump will actually win. That’s not very pragmatic, is it?
ruemara
@Obdurodon: Bernie could have won, even should have won, since many were looking on alternatives to Clinton. If he had presented a thought out peaceful revolution with a structure of who to support, better GOTV operations and less grifting, this would be neck & neck. If he had actually courted the minority vote instead of extending his savior hand for us to kiss, co-opting real activists who spent their lives gaining the incremental progress he spurns and wasn’t tone fucking deaf; this entire post would be wondering when Hillary would just go away already. It ain’t centrists torpedoing your pal. He’s had tons of media coverage, so there’s no blackout. It’s the lack of coherent political strategy and reliance on big showy crap and rhetoric as well as a mighty dose of effete liberal “activism”. Some movement. Primary day and less than 1000 GOTV calls with a target goal of 35k. Bad.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: I still don’t quite follow how the Sanders candidacy morphed from the overdue liberal-populist campaign that was going to do bold brave new things with common purpose for the least among us, which a lot of people still seem to think it is, to the “Wall Street sucks, big money out of politics” 24/7 message machine it now is. Of all the things to settle on as a central message, you pick campaign finance reform, sort of, by eschewing and excoriating the other ways that other candidates raise money? And relish it to the point where it’s your answer to nearly every question? I find that very strange. Not because it’s not a problem in some sense, but it just doesn’t seem like an epoch-defining problem, not when there’s, you know, police murdering people, climate change, Republican governors monkeying around with voting rights, abortion rights, health-care access, etc., etc., etc. I know the story is that if you get big money out of politics it’s easier to address these things, but I want to hear more about the addressing-these-things-HOW part. And that’s so secondary.
singfoom
@Obdurodon:
I don’t know about this certainty that you speak of here. In fact, multiple commenters on this blog have expressed concern that Bernie supporters will take their ball home and not vote in the general if he loses.
You know, politics is not tag football. Passion is part of the primary, but after the primary, you support the nominee in the general. It sucks when your preferred candidate doesn’t make it, but your preferences become small when compared to the needs of the electorate at large.
Are you ok with people staying home because their fee fees are hurt? I’m asking this as someone up until about 2 weeks ago supported Bernie and still prefer him ideologically but understand that HRC is capable and a better candidate…
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: It’s good the terraces are gone, but I’ve always thought it was more an economic decision than safety.
redshirt
I had a bat in my hallway once while I was watching Batman.
Clearly, I am Batman.
liberal
@Iowa Old Lady:
I grew up in IA (born in ND, though). Dad pointed out that Bransted is a [google says 2nd] cousin of Merrick Garland.
SFAW
@Obdurodon:
If by “deference” you mean “Bernie supporters should suck it up, hold their figurative (or is it metaphorical?) noses, and vote for Hillary,” and by “its absence” you mean “Bernistas’ willingness to fuck over the country because Hillary isn’t pure enough for them,” then I’m with ya all the way.
Cleek said it better, of course.
liberal
@ruemara: nonsense. It’s pretty clear that, for better or for worse, Bernie didn’t topple Clinton because he didn’t think his campaign would take off as much as it has.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@ruemara:
If Sanders had done all that, then he wouldn’t be anti-Establishment, hence corrupt. There is no political system pure enough for his supporters to want to work within – that’s the whole point. That’s why his supporters are overwhelmingly white and young and frankly, as we can see by the not quite satirical video, detached from reality.
FlipYrWhig
@Obdurodon:
Where the fuck does this come from? Maybe she can earn their support by standing for the things she’s already standing for. Team Bernie is the one that’s out there pissing and moaning about how they’re not SURE they’ll be PERSUADED because they need so many REASSURANCES that she’s not the devil, hmmph, and it’s not fair, because of Brooklyn and the South and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Mike J
@singfoom:
Patton Oswalt, a Sanders supporter, has been excoriated on twitter for saying that anyone who doesn’t vote for the party’s nominee is “a fucking child.” The hate never ever slowed down when his wife died.
Gin & Tonic
@Chris: Voting is always easy and convenient at my polling place. I expect to hit mine after work and the gym. It’s just that for primaries they consolidate some districts, so I’ll have to drive an extra 5-6 miles to go to the consolidated location.
I hear pundits on the teevee box saying Bernie might win RI. I just don’t see that happening. HRC is popular here.
singfoom
@Obdurodon:
If they can’t see a difference between HRC and Cruz/Trump, they need to get their fucking eyes checked. Seriously. I say that as someone who will pull the lever for HRC while not really liking her as a candidate. She’s lightyears better than Trump and Cruz. I can only really speak for myself, but I voted for Bernie in the primary and now I support HRC and wish Bernie would stop. I am EFFECTIVELY supporting HRC and not pissing or shitting on those who continue to support Bernie, but since the NYDN interview where he flubbed his signature issue and some other incidents, I’m done with him. He’s not the better candidate. He’s just not and the math reflects that.
I’m not calling apostate here. I’m sure others have said bad things about Bernie and his supporters here just as the other way around. The central reality is just like the video, Bernie doesn’t have the math. I think that the majority of Sanders supporters will come around and vote for HRC. If they don’t, that’s on them. And it’s on Bernie for not doing what HRC did in 2008 and basically every single primary loser before her…
SFAW
@Obdurodon:
I don’t think Hillary suggesting that the intransigent Bernista “grow the fuck up” will play well, but that doesn’t make it less true.
Or maybe she should suggest they read this.
jacy
@amk:
much like the primary season
My oldest has turned into quite the BernieBro — and normally he’s really pragmatic, and very much a feminist supporter. But as time has gone on, I have been stunned by the bullshit talking points he’s taken to spewing. We got into it over dinner the other night and ended up not speaking to each other for a while. THAT is my problem with the Sanders movement — a portion of it has become a cult where people who normally have absolutely no daylight between their positions end up screaming at each other for no reason. I would have supported Bernie happily were he the nominee, and always liked him. But, sheesh, at this point I am just exhausted by all the horseshit surrounding his candidacy and the way it’s turned people into the purity police. Never, not even when he was at the height of hist teenage angst, have I had my child (he’s 26 now), treat me with as much utter contempt as he has over the Sanders campaign.
Cacti
Bernie Math is just the predictable reaction of a generation raised to believe they should get trophies just for showing up.
Sorry kids. The grown up world doesn’t work that way.
Obdurodon
@singfoom: I’ve already said that I’d vote for Hillary, and those “expressions of concern” are like the “hopes and prayers” from the NRA’s puppets. They mean nothing, except that the speaker is insincere. Alienation of Bernie’s supporters is a real thing, with potentially real consequences in the general elections. Those who are “expressing concern” by blaming Bernie’s supporters need to start doing something more constructive, or else the outcome in the general election is going to be the one that none of us want. That rage-high isn’t worth it.
liberal
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
LOL. Why would I need that, when I know how much money she’s taken from Wall Street?
Yeah, I know, it’s not corrupt if there’s no quid pro quo. You people are such idiots. (And I say that as someone who’ll vote for Hillary in the general, and probably give her money.)
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: It’s a Clinton-specific cudgel.
D58826
@Obdurodon: 1, I’m not flipping the bird at anyone. 2. The ‘arrogance’ was in reference to the idea that she had to ‘show she deserved their support’ as if the Bernie supporters are some privileged class. Of course she will reach out to the progressive wing of the party. But she is a political. She puts her pants suit on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. You vote for her because you agree with most of her ideas or you dislike the other guy/gals ideas more. It has nothing to do with ‘deserving’. If the guy writing the article had said that Hillary has to reach out to Bernie’s supporters and show that she will push the country in the same direction as Bernie even if it is in smaller steps. Then that would be fine. I just didn’t like the phrase ‘deserved’. Sounded to much like she had to appear on bended knee in front of Bernie and his supporters at the convention to get his blessing.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: I can kind of understand it, which is why I was team Bernie on here for so long.
For each of those issues, and anything you want to change, the giant fucking obstacle to that change is Congress. And changing congress requires changing congresspeople. Which at the moment, requires giant fucking enormous wads of money.
And the people with the larger amount of money are just FINE FINE with the status quo. So viewed through that simplistic lens that the campaign finance system is preventing us from having nice things, it’s easy for that to become the issue that precedes all other issues.
gogol's wife
Just voted for H. Clinton. Felt good.
singfoom
@Mike J:
Yeah, that’s fucking stupid. Which is exactly what he’s calling out and I hope he continues to do so.
Bob In Portland
@D58826:
I’m sorry. Is there a candidate who doesn’t have to show he/she deserves the support?
SciNY
I would love to know what Bernie would have said if the shoe were on the other foot. “OK, Senator Sanders, let’s say you get the outcome you’re hoping for — winning the most votes, the most delegates, and the Democratic nomination. What aspects of your platform would you be willing to jettison or move towards the Secretary’s positions, as the price of getting her strong and sincere endorsement and active support in the fall?”. I’m guessing he’s got nothing, because He doesn’t believe in consensus and compromise. So if he couldn’t bring himself to do it, why does he expect her to?
gex
@Germy: It is self evident that the platform that has generated more votes in the primaries should be chucked in favor of the platform that has generated fewer votes in the primaries. It would be particularly fun for me as a Hillary supporter to see her make more moves to the left only to hear them call her a lying liar Republican lite scammer.
Applejinx
@Southern Goth: pff! Laughed out loud at that one, no fooling.
Not some… farcical democratic ceremony! XD
Now, about
Get real. I want exactly that from him, and if you want to have a prayer, a PRAYER of tapping into what’s half the goddamn party AND skews heavily young, you would see that this is the right thing, probably all the way to California, until every voter has had a chance to have their say.
“It is incumbent upon her to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in Establishment politics or Establishment economics, who have serious misgivings” is the exact reality right now. This is NO time to roll over and go ‘wah, we got beaten, therefore everything is awful forever and let’s stay home and cry, we lose’.
NO. We do NOT lose.
We have documented the leftward swing in terms so intense that we goddamn near took the nomination against the will of the DNC itself, which should be fucking impossible and which it’s been set up so that can’t happen. The voters skew heavily younger and that is a huge opportunity.
Hillary CAN do what Bernie is calling for, and it is indeed her job and not his to do it. It’s fucking insulting to pretend she can’t. Do you think she’s not a liberal, or something? Way back when, in that ‘gotcha’ pic of ‘where was Bernie? Standing behind you!’ there were two proud leftists trying to pass legislation. She gave up for a while, he didn’t but couldn’t do squat.
Hillary CAN do what Bernie asks and it’s disgusting to pretend she can’t. He’s thrown all the shade necessary for her to go the last few steps and accept her new, her REAL constituency. I think it’s even possible she’ll serve ’em better than Bernie possibly could have.
But she has to step into that shade and not look for ‘centrist’ shade out there in the glare of a Trump world. He can’t do it for her. It’s nothing she hasn’t been actively doing ALL THIS TIME. For God’s sake. Okay, I’m getting worked up, time to Python away the rage.
And times were bad, and they were forced to eat Bernie’s Weaver. And there was much rejoicing. (yaaaay!)
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Not every Dem candidate can be as progressive as Vladimir Putin, comrade Bob.
negative 1
@FlipYrWhig: Because those things matter to you, and other things matter to other people. That’s why people vote. I for instance care about the economy, the environment and everything else a distant 3rd.
Basically I don’t hold out hope that we will ever have a functional manufacturing sector in this country as long as we continue unchecked free trade, and we won’t ever have that as long as large corporations continue to buy politicians. That’s why it’s important.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s in the top tier of the Democratic Party platform right below economic issues, which are first.
gogol's wife
@Cacti:
He was overwhelmingly supported by the русский народ in their last election.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@liberal:
What’s your point? It is corrupt if there’s no quid pro quo? What about the money she took for speaking to the US Green Building Council? The International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association? The Cardiovascular Research Foundation? The United Fresh Produce Foundation? The Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal? The Institute of Scrap Recycling? She received as much money from them as Wall Street. It’s a bullshit talking point, but you know that.
singfoom
@Obdurodon: Bullshit.
Listen, I’ve been here for months defending Bernie and taking giant amounts of shit for it. Everyone is free to vote their conscience and if people are going to stay home because they’re “alienated” need to grow the fuck up. I changed my mind a couple weeks ago after the NYDN article.
Am I happy about it? Fuck no. I don’t like HRC. But she’s the better more effective candidate at this point. Sanders campaign keeps making own goals and then he shits on the party more and more even when the math is pointing to HRC as the nominee. So now she’s got to go hold his supoorters hands?
I get it, I really do. I was a Howard Dean supporter back in the day, that was hard to take. But guess what? It’s not incumbent on the campaign to massage your feelings.
Adults realize that it’s not the responsibility of others for their feelings. Adults try to figure out what the right thing to do is. They do things they don’t want to do because they HAVE to do them.
In this case, in my view, I have to vote for HRC in the general and when I look around I think others who value progress will do the same too.
If they stay home, that’s not on HRC or her campaign or her “mean” supporters. It’s on them.
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig:
Maybe if you’d read Sanders’ web page last September you wouldn’t have been baffled by this development. Since Balloon Juice villagers seem to have discarded any concerns about the connection between money and politicians I would suggest that you didn’t hear that part of Sanders’ campaign because you weren’t listening. It’s always been an integral part of his campaign.
negative 1
@Cacti: But the idea may be that I and others don’t hold any particular stake in the success or failure of political parties since they are at heart fundraising organizations. I vote for democrats because in general I agree with their ideas, but I wouldn’t vote for Cruz, say, if he switched affiliations tomorrow.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
I’ve only run across this program relatively recently, and often find that Cenk and his co-hosts are actually interesting and better informed than many “traditional” news and commentary programs.
Lamh36
ohhh shit…
Paul in KY
@Emma: He deserved it, because he had worked hard training that dove to land on his shoulder (while abstaining from eating it).
Jeffro
It will be interesting to see how the media reacts after California’s done and the number spell it all out for them – not just that HRC has won, but that for the first time in American history, one of our major parties has a woman heading the ticket.
Even more interesting, if that’s possible, will be once Bernie essentially concedes (much less endorses Clinton) AND we get a chance to see both Warren and Obama jump in, calling for party unity and sounding general quarters. I’m sure they’ll drag out Jim Webb or something (“see? both parties are fractured!!”) but good luck with that, MSM.
AkaDad
If you want a revolution, then it is encumbent upon all of you to get out and vote to make the Republicans a minority party, otherwise it’s just wishful thinking.
starscream
@Jeffro: Yup. The only question left on the Dem side will be how much of an assclown Bernie will be in his concession speech.
Mike J
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Sucking on the teat of big milk.
negative 1
@SciNY: Do you think there’s enough projection in your question? In both instances of that question it was posed by the media, but then you made a straw-Bernie, and then laughed at the answer.
Bob In Portland
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: What is your point? That because she takes lots of money from everyone she immune from everyone? Doesn’t work that way, has never worked that way in American politics and won’t work that way the next four years.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
This is the Democratic Party’s position on campaign finance and influence:
Actionable quid pro quo as the measure is the GOP position.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: VILLAGERS!
NEOLIBERAL!
CIA CREATED AIDS!
Your drinking game sucks.
cleek
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
and The Gap! because she’s in the pockets of Big Pants.
negative 1
@starscream: I’d say the questions of what are we going to do about income inequality and ridiculous amounts of college debt are largely unanswered still, unless you’d care to enlighten me.
japa21
I am tired of folks taking about Clinton alienating Sanders supporters. That is a bunch of BS. She has repeatedly reached out to them, expressed understanding for their concerns, produces policies that address those concerns.
The alienation is not due to Clinton but to Sanders creating an image of her in their minds that doesn’t match reality. And his comments last night just reinforced this image.
It is like people saying Obama is a polarizing President when he has been anything but.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@cleek:
American Camping Association – Big Tent! National Automobile Dealers Association – Big Car!
Chris
@Gin & Tonic:
I’ve never voted in person (for various reasons I’ve gotten absentee ballots up to this point) and just moved back here from Miami, where I heard horror stories from various people about standing in line for over six hours. So let’s say I was prepared for a holdup. But no, it all went very smoothly.
(The friends I was with commented sadly that there were still a lot more people there today, even though it’s only a primary, than there were the last time they were there for the 2014 midterms).
starscream
@negative 1: First of all, moron, the comment I was responding to was about what the campaign looks like going forward. Second, both candidates have spoken at length on those issues – I suggest Bing or Yahoo if Google is failing you.
D58826
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed. It takes big bucks to run a national campaign. For Hillary to unilaterally disarm simply gives the GOP an undeserved advantage. In reality the GOP will still outspend the democrats. And ‘big money’ doesn’t always mean the rich donor is against the policy issues that you listed. Campaign finance reform is a great idea but improving Obamacare will have a more direct impact on the average american. And something else to consider. Bernie is big on breaking up the big banks and running against wall street. Now there is a lot wrong with the financial sector that should be fixed but it employs millions of ordinary working folks. Start taking a hatchet to the banks and a lot of the little people that Bernie worries about might wind up losing their jobs. It certainly won’t enhance stability in the economy. The financial big wigs certainly won’t suffer. Benie just doesn’t seem to have considered the unanticipated consequences of some of his polices. It might not be an exaggeration to say that if Bernie proposed breaking up the big banks as part of his inaugural address, his presidency would to all intents and purposes end right there. The proposal would be met with universal rejection by the GOP, business across the board, lawsuits that would tie up the plan for years and dead silence from most of the democratic party. Much better to take smaller steps to enhance the regulatory power of the government, reign in the shadow banking sector and selective tax certain aspects of the financial sector, i.e. hedge fund carried interest and a transaction tax.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland:
Yes, the worst part. Even “break up the banks” is better than that. Or “single payer,” or “free college.” Even if he has no idea how to do any of those things, at least they’re actual proposals or preferences for how to handle actual problems, not a complaint about how things suck and should totally be different already. It seems to connect with many people but I honestly wouldn’t put it in the Top 50 list of problems facing America. Look at how big corporations have responded to the North Carolina bathroom stupidity. Big corporate interests… taking a stand for equality and social justice. As long as the outcome is equality and social justice, I couldn’t give _less_ of a shit about corporate anything. The Sanders campaign has managed to turn the whole thing inside out to the point where the important part is the form instead of the content.
Obdurodon
@singfoom:
That will be cold comfort if the worst happens. Then it will be on everybody who had a chance to prevent it, and pissed away that chance so they could sneer “bullshit” and “grow the fuck up” and whatnot. Phrases like those are just ways to avoid or deny one’s own responsibility, and that, my friend, is the act of a child.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Sanders is the Google Glass of this election cycle.
Think about it – glib 20 somethings touting about greatness when in fact, he’s stupid, unnecessary and only marginally functional.
AkaDad
@Brachiator: TYT complains about media bias then gives figurative blowjobs to Sanders. Sad!
MomSense
@ruemara:
I like your comment so much. Damn, that was good.
Bob In Portland
Imagine, if you will, all the candidates listed by how much money from large donors that each has gotten. (Why not small donors? If you need to ask you aren’t trying.)
Where is H. Clinton? She’s among, if not on top of all the Republican candidates. And her connection with money (money of the 1% flowing her way) is a long and well-established path.
If the Democratic Party insists on thoroughly corrupting itself with the money of the wealthy (hey Debbie, I need a loan until payday) then voters, whether Sanders supporters or not, are under no obligation to support that ticket.
So here’s the math, for me. I’ll be voting for Sanders here in Oregon in the primary, and I suspect he’ll get the majority of votes here. In the fall I’ll scour the ballot for the candidate who isn’t beholden to the monied interests. Guess who that leaves out?
If you try to guilt-trip Sanders supporters by shouting, “Look at the alternative” you have to understand that we see Clinton as no alternative. If you wanted my vote you should have chosen a cleaner candidate. You didn’t. So good luck. I’ll be voting for Dems down the ballot. But how the left side of the Democratic Party votes, or stays home, is on the Democratic Party for pushing their very flawed, generally disliked and untrusted candidate.
Applejinx
@cleek: No, Big Pants would be Christie. He’s shining the shoes of Trump’s gardener, right now.
Linnaeus
As much as I’ve appreciated a reasonably competitive Democratic primary, I’ll be glad when it’s over.
Paul in KY
@TriassicSands: All my comments count for 3 each. Says I.
NR
Boy, I sure hope Hillary and her people are a lot smarter than most of the commenters here, because if they’re not, we’re fucked.
shomi
You know what else is brutal….all the progressives who thought he had a chance to begin with and how that would somehow move us forward being set up for a possible loss against whatever clown puppet the Republicans pick.
I cannot in good conscience call myself a progressive anymore because sadly I realize they are just as stupid as the far right in their own way.
Kay
President Obama, aka, Berniebro.
He started this speech with “it begins with the economy”.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: You are closer to being a decision-maker in the Democratic Party than I am, but I don’t care about these spectrum-of-corruption issues whatsoever. I care about outcomes, and if corrupt people produce equitable and just outcomes, great. If incorruptible people don’t have their shit together and can’t make anything come to pass, they’re not doing me or America any good.
Miss Bianca
@Tom Levenson: It isn’t very ugly now? Or is it just ugly? ; )
singfoom
@Obdurodon: I’m not sneering for the fun of it. Or cursing because I like to, even though I do.
Honestly, I don’t understand where you’re coming from. I can agree that after a primary a party needs to heal so it is unified going into the general. I understand that idea.
But can you explain exactly, what my responsibility is in this case, so I don’t “act like a child” in your words?
I have a responsibility to reach out to Bernie supporters who say they won’t vote for HRC? Is that your assertion?
ETA: I’m just some fucking guy commenting on a blog. I would argue that the larger responsibility lays on the shoulders of Bernie should he not win the nomination. It’s incumbent on him to push his supporters to support the nominee.
Something like “I have some large disagreements with Mrs. Clinton, but at this point, I recognize she is the best candidate to continue progress on all the issues I care most deeply about and I implore my supporters to give her their support she’ll need to prevail over the opponents of progress.”
YMMV
Bob In Portland
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
I hope you feel real good kicking Sanders supporters. Didn’t need them, did you? You see, if you’re going to be an asshole and keep insulting people who want a change in the direction of our country, then go ahead without those kids, and their grandparents.
Ella in New Mexico
Actually, the guy sitting at the table doing his homework reminds me of EXACTLY what I felt like when I first took Calculus. /shivvers/
You’re all forgetting that for Sander’s voters who do the math, the Heartfelt Duplication corollary of the Rainbows and Ponies theorem does state that each vote for Bernie from a state with the letter A or E in it on a Tuesday with an even date is actually worth 2 delegates and one Super delegate.
So you guys just wait. ;-)
ruemara
@NR: They’ve been smarter than you & your preferred candidate. If you couldn’t win against that shill with the negative message and same old Obama policies, why would you be beating whoever comes out of the GOP with a fat dose of angry white privilege?
@MomSense: many thanks. I try to stop shouting into the void, but the vod keeps saying dumb stuff.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: And if a particular corruptible person can be pressured to produce the equitable and just outcome that she’d secretly like to see anyway so long as it doesn’t cost her anything?
Come over to the moonbat side, oh Balloon Juice Third Way ‘back when republicans were good’ers. We have cookies! And a middle class, after enough redistribution. You know, the same way FDR and Eisenhower did it.
We’re STILL enjoying the interstate highway system we got from the last time a ‘Republican’ let himself put Americans to work ;)
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Are we talking about good vs. bad things, or important vs. unimportant things? IMHO unbridled campaign spending is a bad thing but an unimportant thing. For Bernie Sanders it is a VERY BAD THING and also VERY VERY IMPORTANT. That just seems crackers to me.
randy khan
One of my Facebook friends who’s a Sanders supporter posted something last night about liking both of them and that the most important thing was to vote for the Democrat in the general election. The response from the Sanders supporters was kind of stunning – not just the juvenile “I’ll write him in or not vote at all” stuff but lots of attacks on Clinton. And one of the Sanders people even went so far as to say that people had no right to criticize his decision not to vote. I’ve mostly avoided any of the Clinton-Sanders stuff on Facebook, and after this display of entitlement and I’ll-take-my-ball-homeism I think I will work more actively to avoid it.
Nick
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
“When Bernie wrote an op-ed with Charles Koch, that just proved how wide-ranging his support truly is, despite being quashed by corrupt black people er er um um establishment Democrats. But when Charles Koch suggested Clinton might be a better president than Trump ‘if her actions don’t match her rhetoric,’ that proves she’s a neoliberal sellout, Republican-lite, etc. It certainly does not prove that Charles Koch realizes that the national GOP is a dumpster fire and he’s making a play for the No Labels crowd.”
Paul in KY
@singfoom: We’re going to need more than Mr. Oswalt saying it. Those are some mighty hurt fee fees, it appears.
les
@Obdurodon:
So, is like some kind of brain burn applied before or after being for Bernie? The sheer, unmitigated, unhinged, astronomical stupidity of the phrase “no real change is possible” staggers the imagination. Do the slaves get polio where you live? Do the blacks have to be out of town before sundown? Are people dying from or going bankrupt treating preexisting conditions? Gays being dishonorably discharged from the military?
Or are you really saying that nothing You Care About has changed?
I once thought Bernie was good for the left and the party. Geeze, what a fool.
WarMunchkin
@FlipYrWhig:
I mean this is a weird thing to say, isn’t it? If people who don’t follow rules follow rules, great.
cokane
to be fair, campaign flacks like Weaver are supposed to be blindingly rah rah rah for their candidates. It’s a better criticism of his die hard voters and supporters.
Jeffro
@starscream:
Oh that’s helpful…=)
It dawned on me, while picturing the possibility of Clinton, Sanders, Obama, and Warren standing onstage together at the end of the convention in Philly…and with all the chaos to come in Cleveland…and because I think a certain super-villain-centered movie is coming out about convention-time this summer…and also just because I’m nerdy old me…
…might we see more than a few “JUSTICE LEAGUE” vs “SUICIDE SQUAD” comparisons in July?
It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
Paul in KY
@Bob In Portland: The Democratic candidate running against Trump or Darth Creepy.
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s a big “if”, though.
A good policy outcome based on a corrupted policymaking process isn’t on a stable foundation. The corruption that produced it can also take it away.
gindy51
@jacy: Just tell him he sounds and acts like a Trump supporter… he may shut his face and think.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh, come on Flip. Citizens has been a Democratic talking point since the day it was decided. The idea that they’re obsessed with it or “fringe” is just not true. The nominee runs the platform. I just showed you the 2102 platform. Obama was the nominee.
If it’s bullshit that’s one thing, but it is absolutely the position of the Democratic Party that undue influence is bigger than actionable quid pro quo corruption.
I don’t care about the speeches. I think it was a stupid political decision, but I would prefer if Democrats don’t throw campaign finance reform under the bus along with Sanders and his millions of voters as part of defending these stupid speeches she insisted on making.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I think Democrats — including Clinton — understand that Super PACs and mega-donors corrupt the political process by amplifying the voices of the few over the voices of the many. That’s why the entire party, including Clinton, wants CU overturned and other campaign finance laws enacted. But if Sanders is going to imply that Clinton is corrupt at every turn, he should be able to rattle off some quid pro quo examples. And if Sanders is going to unilaterally disarm in the general while we’re still operating under existing campaign finance laws, he should explain how he’s not going to get squashed like a bug.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: Putin has never struck me as terribly progressive. He’s just defending his country against the US’s new Cold War.
Bernie is progressive. Hillary is to the right of center. She mouths platitudes about social issues when her triangulation says it’s safe, but she has always been to the right of center as far as all other issues. It wasn’t her conversion to the Democratic Party. It was the Democratic Party’s conversion to the monied classes.
Brachiator
@AkaDad:
Fortunately, this is not all that they are about.
And they don’t just complain about media bias, they rightfully complain about news media stupidity. I loved their piece that reacted to Fox News reporters and pundits insisting that “yes, kids, Santa Claus is a white man.”
Paul in KY
@Lamh36: Not ‘oh shit’ if you are a close biological relative.
D58826
@Applejinx:
I remember reading that in a student newspaper column written by the resident Students for a democratic society president in 1967. I would love to see the country where there isn’t an establishment. And when the younger generation takes over the party, as they eventually will (death and taxes and all of that) they will become the establishment. And I suspect that when Bernie’s grandchild runs for public office he/she will rail against the establishment also. And lets not forget that it is establishment economics with all of its many faults that has created the standard of living that most of us enjoy. Yes it can be made better. Income inequality has to be addressed but unless Bernie is suggesting mobs with pitchforks and torches it will be addressed thru establishment institutions – elections, legislatures, courts,etc.
Vlad
Heading out to vote for Sanders in just a few minutes. I know he’s not winning PA (or the primary), but my vote can still make a statement about the direction I want the party to head in the future, so I’m pulling the lever for him anyway just like I did for Dean in 2004, when his campaign was even deader than Bernie’s.
I think I’m also opting for Sestak for the Senate (I like Fetterman, but don’t think he’s ready for an office of that magnitude yet), and Shapiro for AG, plus a bunch of un-contested stuff, and a “Yes” on the referendum to dissolve the Philadelphia traffic court.
Paul in KY
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: National Automobile Dealers Association = ‘Big Dealer’.
Miss Bianca
@redshirt: I knew it! I KNEW IT! This whole “redshirt” business is a ruse, isn’t it?
@Vlad: What’s the deal with the Philly traffic court?
Shell
Oh great. Those annoying self-starting video ads, now I can’t even turn them off or mute them.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kay:
You know who’s been having trouble with illegal and foreign campaign money according to the FEC, and who hasn’t resolved it? St. Sanders of the Grift.
Linnaeus
@Brachiator:
I agree that TYT is generally a good program. I part ways with Cenk Uygur’s enthusiasm for Sanders, but as you say, that’s not all he does.
gindy51
@SciNY: Because she is female.
Nick
@FlipYrWhig:
I think a fundamental question in the Dem primaries, a real difference in worldviews, goes something like this:
Sanders – The influence of big money in our politics is the most serious threat facing America.
Clinton – The influence of big money in our politics is a symptom of the most serious threat facing America, which is the great political power of bigoted and cynical wingnut assholes.
Obviously this is simplified to sound like pro-HRC propaganda, because it is. And obviously I support HRC for mostly petty and tribalistic reasons, because that’s how politics works. Still, #ImWithHer, since ‘repeal the 22nd Amendment and appoint Obama as Eternal Defender Of The Republic’ is apparently not on the ballot.
When Sanders said that his agenda would have 90% support if it weren’t for the darned ‘corporate media’ (which apparently includes such shills as Mother Jones and Paul Krugman), I realized he had a disastrous understanding of US politics and US history. Makes HRC’s stupidity about Reagan and AIDS seem mild in comparison.
les
@Obdurodon:
And the parade of stupid rolls on. What premature???? It’s been obvious Bernie ain’t winning for months. Triumphalism??? Do you even speak English? I’m just not worried that losing the whiny ass titty baby vote is a problem.
NR
@ruemara: The advice given in these comments about how to win over Sanders’ supporters has ranged from “Hillary doesn’t need to do anything, they just need to shut the fuck up and vote for her, she’s entitled to their votes because Trump” to “Fuck ’em, we don’t need their votes anyway.”
Like I said: I really hope Hillary is a lot smarter than you people, because if she’s not, get used to saying “President Trump.”
burnspbesq
@cleek:
You’d be surprised how hard it is to figure out, for those who are determined to not figure it out. See, e.g., NR.
cleek
“The Establishment” is an all-purpose strawman / scapegoat / objet d’hate – as it’s always been.
it’s the term of derision we use for everyone else when we figure out that our own deeply held opinions are in the minority and that, in the end, nobody actually gives a crap what we think.
gogol's wife
“Putin has never struck me as terribly progressive.” Hahahahahaha, that is the funniest sentence I think I’ve ever seen.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland:
Bob, not that engaging with you seriously will produce anything other than goalpost shifting or crazy rants, but I’ll give it this one try. The mistake you make in the above statement is to think that ONLY people who are continuing to support Sanders want a change in the direction of our country.
Guess what Bob, I want a change in the direction of our country. I used to think that Bernie Sanders was going to deliver it. The math and what I see as incompetence of his campaign changed my opinion.
But I still want that change. I think HRC is the best possible candidate to advance that change. Is it incremental? Yes, probably. Is it less than I want? Yes, definitely.
But that’s how societies and governments usually change. Slowly and incrementally. I’m ok with that if not thrilled by it.
So consider the idea that others might be differing in their opinions in good faith and want the same general things as current Sanders supporters.
Paul in KY
@randy khan: Do wish you’d posted something about the stupidity of cutting off your nose to spite your face or some modern version of that.
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin: What does the one have to do with the other? The MacArthur Foundation was founded by a billionaire conservative bankster philanthropist. Ta-Nehisi Coates got a “genius grant” to do whatever he wanted. Is TNC tainted by that award because of where the money originally came from? Should we presume there’s a quid pro quo in the works whereby TNC lavishes praise on conservative banker stuff?
Bob In Portland
@Betty Cracker: I pointed out some here, like the large donations to the Clinton Foundation right after the arms deals to the Sunni supporters of ISIS back in 2011. That was dismissed. We could point to Hillary using her office to promote the oil deal her hubby and the Clinton Global Initiative made with the President of Colombia.
But it doesn’t matter. No matter what anyone produces you and the other true believers here won’t be convinced. I’ve provided links. Most of the villagers here won’t read them. They make fun of books, which I guess is better than burning them, but essentially is the same thing: dismissing out of hand an opinion that differs from yours.
We all know what won’t get done and what will get done in the next four years. Enjoy.
PaulWartenberg2016
According to the Bernie Math, I’ve had 255 girlfriends and all of them still love me.
schrodinger's cat
@WarMunchkin: I find true believers scarier than the standard run-of-the-mill somewhat corrupt politicians.
Applejinx
@singfoom: Um… I’m not sure if I’d call it a responsibility.
I’d frame it like this: one way or another, the faction represented by Bernie WILL take over the Dems. It’s demographics and age, age, age. So many of the Juicers taking hard Hilbot positions are old and rich compared to typical Americans. Quite a few older people are rich, especially if they had real estate, which used to be more of a common thing. They’re markedly different from the youngs, their wishes are different, and they are old and much closer to death even when you count suicide skyrocketing for non rich oldsters.
The Bernie left WILL end up running the show because there’s no alternative: reality dictates that the freemarket third way capitalist freight train is no longer able to stay on the tracks. Signs are all around. It’s either make the adjustments now, or get kicked out when everything goes totally fucked and then you’re rightly blamed for not listening. Shit is wildly out of balance, I wouldn’t give it four years before there are huge, massive societal changes.
So, it’s not a ‘responsibility’ to cooperate with the Sanders wing. You are crazy if you think business as usual is headed anywhere but total wreckage, so it’s an ‘opportunity’ to cooperate with the Sanders wing and get involved doing lefty things that might moderate the disasters.
Clinton is already identifying climate change as the disaster Sanders and Obama say it is. It’s not that big of a stretch to also identify speculative capitalism and ‘free market’ ideology as another such catastrophe, and it might get enough of a coalition together to do useful things. Fail, and it will destroy America, and the next Trump will have twice the desperate angry people to rely on.
Paul in KY
@gogol’s wife: I think that’s probably the most realistic/true comment I’ve ever seen Bob make!
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig: Philanthropists at War. It’s an essay about twenty years old. The answer to your question is in it.
burnspbesq
@Bob In Portland:
Books full of demonstrably false infromation are not entitled to respect simply because they exist. Links provided by an obviously deranged and untrustworthy person need not be followed.
Got it? Credibility, you have not, and have never had. Go peddle your lies somewhere else.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom:
This is the fundamental mistake made, repeatedly, noisily, by the Sandernista legions for a year, with no signs of abatement.
D58826
@Bob In Portland:
Hmm I would say just about every one who isn’t running for dog catcher.
And you assume they are not taking contributions from monied interests of various sizes. Good luck with that. And don’t complain when President Trump behaves like an ass. Like it or not Hillary or trump/cruz will be sworn in on Jan. 20th 2017. There is no man on a white horse coming to your rescue
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Bernie has already lost us the election. Thanks Bob in Portland and NR, you will be directly responsible for President Trump. I hope you fuckers are happy.
schrodinger's cat
@Applejinx: What do you mean by speculative capitalism and how are you going to replace it?
Bob In Portland
@gogol’s wife: I never said he was progressive. He’s representing the interests of his country. And the US is trying a full-court press to wreck Russia’s economy for corporate profits, because the US’s foreign policy has been, since WWII, clearly to increase the profits of its corporations at the expense of the rest of the world.
If my comment made you laugh it only shows how badly you’ve been reading my comments for the last ten years or so that I’ve visited this site.
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: TNC can approve arms deals to kleptocrats? Who knew?
Your transformation to Republican is near complete. Excusing Clintonian venality is just a way station on the route.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
Tax lawyer with the TKO.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
Actually, wouldn’t a “DEADPOOL vs SUICIDE SQUAD” comparison be more apt?
Miss Bianca
@Obdurodon: Bernie supporters who can’t see the forest for the trees, and who have this thing about HRC’s “arrogance” (which is a charge I personally find laced with unreflective misogyny – what is this “arrogance” they speak of? Is it like the Obama’s “uppityness” in daring to seek the Presidency that is the God-given right of the white male?), and who can’t be bothered to examine what HRC’s *actually stated positons* on the issues are, and who uncritically accept and spew every horseshit right-wing talking point about her are, I hope, trust, and pray, in a tiny if tiresomely vocal minority.
Seriously, I’m sick of this. The whiff of self-righteousness coming from Sanders’s most ardent supporters is really starting to stink in my nostrils. The sight of left-wing Tea Partyism on full parade is not terribly attractive.
Bob In Portland
@Applejinx: Thank you.
singfoom
@Applejinx:
I don’t necessarily disagree with you as I ideologically identify with the “Bernie left” more than the freemarket capitalist freight train. Things are happening around the edges.
I think as you point out that Sanders has given Hilary the space to take up some of the causes that he hold dear, like climate change. It is within the realm of possibility that she’ll be more lefty economically than we perceive her to be.
I’m totally onboard with the idea that our economy needs to tilt more towards regulation and away from the free market bullshit of the last 25 years. I’m not convinced that shift will be dramatic within the next 4 years regardless of who wins the D nomination because Congress is the roadblock to a lot of the change you’re talking about.
NR
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Hey, lots of people here are saying that Hillary doesn’t need Sanders’ supporters to win. Are you saying they’re wrong?
Shell
Don’t forget “The Man!” And as far as the Media giving Sanders short shrift, since Sunday Ive seen nothing but his shaggy mug on all the cable news shows.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: She’s just a pawn of the International Deli-Dairy-Bakery Association, I say, seeing as they paid her the princely sum of $200K+ that apparently means you’re infected with the sponsor’s disease forever.
Bob In Portland
@Miss Bianca: Miss Bianca. I don’t really give a shit about your outrage. But thanks for sharing.
ruemara
@NR: your base does not volunteer, and is unreliable in the general. Not ideal and frankly, she’s made multiple statements of acceptance and openness. If you’re an example of the supposed reasonable Bernie supporter being harassed, you’ve failed to read the definition of harassment.
Applejinx
@singfoom: This. I am adamant in getting Hillary to run on a Bernie-lite platform, and triangulating in our favor rather than against us.
In some ways that’s not a problem and is already happening. I don’t think she distrusts the very Republican ‘free markets uber alles’ bias all of Washington has been steeped in for decades, and she should: one way or another it’s going down, either before or after another catastrophic crash and bailout of the insanely wealthy (who already pay less taxes than plumbers and burger flippers, sometimes nothing at all).
Bob will and should vote for Bernie because that does send a message. The message also needs to be heard, not just sent. And he’s correct that this has been a central plank of Bernie’s campaign from the very beginning. It’s sure why I got involved, though I’ve already cast probably the only Bernie vote I’ll get to cast. (but I’ll give him another $10 after he loses, just as a big FUCK YOU to the idea that it’s only about him winning. I’m paying to have that platform listened to, since money is the only thing that talks anymore)
burnspbesq
@Applejinx:
Wow. ‘Assumes facts not in evidence” seems like an appropriate response.
Cacti
@Miss Bianca:
If you want to make a Bernfeeler really uncomfortable, ask them why white males have been Bernie’s most consistent supporters vs. everyone else. Doesn’t sound very revolutionary, does it?
dollared
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Right. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the quality of your candidate. It’s the fact that 5% of Berners might not support her.
She could pledge tomorrow: no more free trade agreements during her presidency – and take 10% of Trump’s voters tomorrow. But she’s too much the neoliberal.
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig: dollared said this to you:
That’s pretty much it.
The fact that you don’t see it makes you all that more pathetic.
dollared
@Cacti: No, it would sound like standard unsupported bullshit from you. Show the math.
Aimai
@Southern Goth: perfection!
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: BECAUSE CORPORATE MEDIA DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ SOUTHERN STATES
NR
@Miss Bianca:
The problem with nominating a candidate who two-thirds of the country thinks is dishonest is that their actually stated positions on the issues don’t hold as much weight as they would otherwise.
Paul in KY
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Now, now, let’s wait till November to hang them.
You may be surprised!
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: Like I said. You are using the exact language the Koch Brothers use to excuse the influence of their money in denying millions of Americans the right to join unions. But carry on – we should just legalize bribery, right? You’re a true libertarian, yes?
Linnaeus
@singfoom:
I agree. The party has been changing, and Clinton is too smart of a politician to not see that.
Bob In Portland
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Yeah, all my fault, because you support the second-most untrusted candidate to run for President. How I managed to work that mojo on you I just don’t know.
SFAW
@Obdurodon:
Oh, please. Reading you is like reading hardcore Naderites. “If only the Gore supporters had adopted more of St Ralph’s policy ideas … and not worn earth-tones … and refused to accept money from anyone except impoverished families … and SPLUNGE!”
I’m waiting for the next part of St Ralph’s schtick: “Well, it won’t be so bad if Trump/Cruz/Satan gets elected, because it will lead to a New Wave of Liberalism which will sweep the country and last 4evah!” He was certainly right about that, wasn’t he?
It’s not on Hillary to give Bernistas a figurative handjob, it’s on the Bernistas (who need to be stroked before they would deign to vote for Hillary) to get off their purity high horse
dollared
@Obdurodon: this.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland: Have you figured out what “neoliberal” means yet, Dale Gribble?
Betty Cracker
@Bob In Portland: It was a waste of pixels, Bob. I wrote you off as a crackpot a long time ago.
goblue72
What’s he supposed to do? “The numbers are completely against us. So we won’t win and you can stop sending money”? Morons.
If the original reason you ran for the candidacy was to shift the dynamic of the Democratic primary and shift the policy debate to the Left with a hard shove, then why the hell would you give up now that the policy debate has and is shifting? California hasn’t voted yet, and while the odds are not in his favor to win the state, RCP’s aggregated California poll has Sanders over 40%. Finishing the primary season with a sizable haul in delegates (even if not a winning total) maintains that stake in the ground. And for many on the progressive wing of the party, this isn’t just about 2016, but about the future.
So why the fuck would he give up now?
smith
@Applejinx: I’m old and (relatively) rich, and I REALLY REALLY want the Sanders wing to take control of the party. I’d like to arrive at the same place they’re headed, preferably before I die. However, we need a batch of younger and somewhat more politically astute Sanders-types to get there. This was the time to set that in motion, and I will be forever grateful to Bernie for doing that and showing it can and will be done. What he accomplished makes me guardedly optimistic about our future. But, I reluctantly concluded that I don’t think the man himself would make a good president. If the Sanders supporters today don’t give up because the first try was only partially successful, then in one or a few cycles they will get their wish.
Bob In Portland
@Linnaeus: So are you saying that money has no influence on H. Clinton? The rules changed?
Meet the new boss.
But I like that hope.
NR
@ruemara: Who said anything about harassment? I certainly don’t feel harassed. You guys amuse, nothing more. Now if Hillary follows the advice you’re giving here, then I’ll become extremely worried.
Bobby Thomson
@Obdurodon: you’re not a parent, are you?
negative 1
@starscream: Then link away to Hillary’s. I’m too dumb to find anything on her website that even says the words ‘income inequality’ or talks about how to reverse it, even without those words. Her college plan sounds great except for the caveat that
“States will have to step up and meet their obligation to invest in higher education by maintaining current levels of higher education funding and reinvesting over time.” — from Colleges under Issues from Hillaryclinton.com.
Because I see every state legislature lining right up to fund that, as evidenced by the fact that ours in Rhode Island has cut support 8 out of the last 10 budgets and level funded the other 2.
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig:
Translation: “Citizen’s United is all right with me”. So now it’s “If Sanders Supports Something It’s Unimportant or Wrong”?
That’s just the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever seen posted by someone who claims to be a Democrat. But it makes sense if you are more of a political hack than a person of principle.
Jesus, are we really getting to that point where Hilary supporters are the kind of dumb and mindless drones as IOKIYAR’s are when it comes to really important things? SHE’S EVEN SAID UNBRIDLED MONEY IN POLITICS IS BAD.
ISSSIUW people. ISSSIUW.
Awesome.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: Yes, I can’t even begin to tell you how often I speak up in favor of denying people their human rights. Between that and my billions of dollars, I’m practically a missing Koch Brother.
El Caganer
@Miss Bianca: Philly Traffic Court was actually closed by Gov. Corbett a couple of years ago after a major scandal, and its duties moved to Municipal Court. However, since it still exists in the state constitution, the proposal today is to amend the constitution and get rid of it.
goblue72
@burnspbesq: Arguments proffered by offshore tax shelter lawyers deserve the same fate.
cleek
@negative 1:
FFS. i typed “hillary clinton income inequality” into Google, scrolled down five links to see the one on her page.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/plan-raise-american-incomes/
scroll about halfway down the page.
John D
@Applejinx:
That is … a lot of wishful thinking and handwaving, right there. Coupled with a whole lot of lack of knowledge regarding history. Did you see the 70s and 80s? The counterculture movement of the 60s did not sweep into power, running the show, but they were young, and energetic — and losers politically. They made a lot of the same excuses as I hear today.
Every radical leftist movement in the USA (and here, anyone calling for a “revolution” of any stripe is, by definition, a radical) views itself as vastly larger and more influential than it is. Bernie *could not win the Democratic nomination*. How are his supporters going to “take over the Dems”? They are outnumbered, even when you include the ones who don’t self-identify as Democrats. The olds are going to die, leaving the youngs as a majority? But more youngs are being born every minute, and they aren’t necessarily going to agree with you. Say you do get your hands on the levers of power. How will you accomplish anything without becoming the very Establishment you rail against?
Running a political organization is hard, hard work. We have seen little to no evidence that the revolution has the will for that. Enthusiasm, yes. Rallies, yes. Infrastructure, not so much.
Mike J
@Cacti:
“If the ***** weren’t so stupid they’d vote for us.” Same thing the Republicans say.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: Hey, unbeknownst to you someone apparently used a box to highlight some words, and one of them may be of interest to you in characterizing the views of the person who wrote them. Hint: it’s the word “bad.”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Paul in KY:
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation – Big Heart
The Institute of Scrap Recycling – Big Junk
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: Is *that* how it works? Why did they leave that part out?
liberal
Obama: good or great?
schrodinger's cat
Now that Ella in New Mexico, Bob in Portland, Applejinx, and other Bernie supporters are here I predict we will reach +500 in a couple of hours tops.
*Doing my bit to add to the comment score.
aimai
@Obdurodon: Thats not why Bernie is not winning. But at any rate its not a “myth” that we need to actually win the election, not win the prize for the doll with the prettiest eyes.
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: Wikipedia definition of “Neoliberal”:
TPP and NAFTA, – free trade
Privatized health care via Obamacare
Fiscal austerity: Clinton had a surplus and cut welfare! Obama had the greatest cuts in federal employees since 1946!
Deregulation: how many – cuts in regulation have Obama and Clinton overseen? Hundreds. Dodd Frank is deregulation compared to the laws on the books in the 1990s. And with all the employee cuts, there is no one to enforce the labor environmental and safety laws. De facto deregulation.
So…….quack quack, it’s a duck.
WarMunchkin
@FlipYrWhig: No – this isn’t the point to make. An abstract indictment of a system is somewhat different than looking at specific actors in a system and accusing them of wrongdoing. You can talk about the subtle influence money in politics (which, as pointed out above, is a top priority of mainstream Democrats) without accusing each individual actor to be a criminal.
In your example, you wouldn’t cast Ta-Nehisi out for accepting grant money from a conservative org; but if the same conservative org or set of billionaire families had purchased major newspapers and media outlets throughout the country, it’s worth raising an eyebrow and talking about how media coverage as a whole could be affected.
@schrodinger’s cat: I agree that transactional politicians likely have more bang-for-buck value than ideological ones, but ideological ones are more frequently willing to make a moral argument for many important issues. One issue that’s incredibly important to me is releasing the immorally detained people from Guantanamo Bay. Transactional politicians are likely to talk about this in terms of materially advancing America’s standing in the world, or repairing its reputation. Ideological ones talk about it by making the case that lawfully detaining people for years without charges is wrong regardless of whether or not it helps America or not.
Bob In Portland
@Betty Cracker:
Of course, you wrote me off. You wrote off The Nation. You wrote off the New York Review of Books. You wrote off Robert Parry. You wrote off anything that might have penetrated the bubble around Balloon Juice. You wrote off Thomas Frank when he wrote a book about you.
It’s beautiful how you close your mind.
D58826
I’ve seen a number of comments about the coming ‘capitalist train wreak’ or ‘there’s no alternative: reality dictates that the freemarket third way capitalist freight train is no longer able to stay on the tracks’. Exactly what do you have in mind replacing the capitalist train wreak? Socialism? that didn’t work out so well where it was tried. Maybe back to mercantilism or even feudalism ?
Now if your talking about the vulture capitalism that has been practiced at least since Reagan then I agree but the for want of a better term values-capitalism of the 40s, 50s 60s and 70s didn’t do such a bad job of spreading the wealth. That seems to be the direction we should move in. I just wonder if Bernie is such an old line socialist, maybe a bit of a Marxist, that capitalism is by definition bad no matter how prosperous the middle class is.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: Hey, an actual definition! Pity Bob, who uses it the way 4-year-olds use “poopyhead.”
aimai
@cleek: I LoL’d.
Ella in New Mexico
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
That’s the second stupidest statement I’ve read today. Just preposterous.
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig: It means you and the candidate you’re supporting. Thomas Frank, in his book, uses the term to describe socially liberal and economically conservative Dems. Like you. But since you’ll never pick up the book you’ll never know. So repeat to us again how proud you are to remain in ignorance.
Linnaeus
@D58826:
If you look at Sanders’s proposed policies as well as his voting record, he’s pretty much a New Deal Democrat.
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: It starts with money in politics. The money gets what it wants. You accept that in the case of the Koch Bros, but suddenly there’s no problem with Clinton. So you’re not a Republican? You’re just a garden variety hypocrite?
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin: Yes, it’s worth raising an eyebrow. The rest of my face is busy reacting to more important problems.
randy khan
@NR:
I think some actually pointed out that Hillary has begun reaching out to Sanders partisans in her public appearances. That’s, of course, part of what she should do.
That said, Sanders supporters seem to have an unusual sense of entitlement to influence over the platform, etc. Since, in practice, Clinton and Sanders agree on probably about 80% of the platform (maybe 90%), there’s really not room to get that much more. Besides, right now she’s on track to win by a bigger margin than Obama in 2008, so claiming the race is extraordinarily close or some such isn’t going to get much traction. (Hint: She’s not going to pledge support for single payer.)
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland: Because Thomas Frank is stupid, or, more likely, because you don’t understand him, seeing as you have that problem a lot.
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: It’s a secret formula– unless you broke the code. ;-)
aimai
@WarMunchkin: How weird that you would make that argument since the most moral and ideological of people (Bernie) voted against actually closing Guantanamo while the most pragmatic politician ever, President Obama, tried mightily to make the case for the moral issues but his various speeches fell on deaf ears. The moral argument, the bully pulpit argument, doesn’t stand a chance against the fear mongering of the right and the total indifference of the majority of Americans (even the self defined progressives) to the actual moral issues affecting other people. Bernie didn’t waste any tears on the people we wrongfully imprisoned in Guantanamo because for whatever reason it was too big a lift for him to actually vote to close Guantanamo. But his passionate supporters simply don’t care about real world actions–they only want to be sure that big daddy says the things they want to hear. The actual cost of his policies, or cost to others of his failure to pursue his own agenda, vanishes from the discussion.
Paul in KY
@Mike J: Problem (to me) is that a Democratic/Leftist person can’t say that. That’s what will shut up the self-aware ones.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: It doesn’t start with money in politics. For fuck’s sake. It starts with injustice and death. Prioritizing “money in politics” is something only a prissy privileged white dilettante would do, like everyone I’ve ever known who has been a fan of Bernie Sanders, and Bernie Sanders. And a handful of dead-enders here.
Cacti
@Mike J:
Sadly enough, there’s been no shortage of that.
But I found it delightfully ironic that the same group who likes to call everyone else “low information voters” couldn’t master the registration schedule for the NY primary election.
liberal
@FlipYrWhig:
Agreed. But you’d have to be an idiot to think that it’s likely that corrupt people will produce such outcomes. Though since you’re an unrepentent supporter of the overthrow of Ghaddafi, you’ve got the “idiot” angle covered. Not to mention that risible “yeah, it’s fine if Obama uses the ‘government should tighten its belt rhetoric'” comment (paraphrased).
Applejinx
@singfoom:
Think ‘shock doctrine’ in reverse. It’s proven to work and is the fundamental reason things have got as bad as they have, but it is only a tool.
I would like to say to all in this thread that WE CAN WIN, much like Biden’s veiled criticism of Hillary for not blowing Bernie-like smoke to get elected. We’re looking at dangerous times but if we don’t fuck it up we can win and we’ll get our ‘shock’ opportunities for substantial change.
Will Hillary do that if she thinks it’s what the voters want? Absofuckinlutely. It’s the Clinton way, to do what’s asked and read the tea leaves, and that’s why we’re continuing to count Bernie primary votes: call it electorate research.
Will Hillary do a better job of implementing what needs to happen than Bernie would? I think yes, on the condition that it remains clear what’s expected. If it’s a mandate to ‘screw freemarket capitalism, bail out Americans hopefully without wrecking the entire economy in the attempt’, I think she’s more likely to succeed and Bernie is more likely to try risky things and fail. I buy the argument that he wouldn’t get to turn us into Sweden with a wave of a unicorn hoof.
But there will come an opportunity to make major changes because shock doctrine knows no ideology. It’s used by rightwingers because it’s basically a warlike, fascist mode of doing things. But that’s why I see Clinton as being capable of doing vital things in this very wrong way.
Imagine the Benghazi hearings but instead of republicans getting stonewalled, it’s fat-cat capitalists insisting on another bailout when she KNOWS she can’t possibly get away with giving them that. Hils thinks all the Wall Streeters are essentially good but not wise. She expects them to do their part and not get in trouble and not embarrass her. Many of us are convinced they’re not worth this faith and will inevitably try to exploit her, thinking her a pushover.
Mama SPANK. I honestly believe there are circumstances where Hillary Clinton would scare the crap out of the banksters and win herself truly amazing public accolades and approval ratings for taking the ‘shock’ opportunity and out-Bernieing Bernie, to their horror.
But it can only happen if they are arrogant greedy fools with no morals or sense believing they are entitled to run the world, who’ll blow a bunch of smoke to impress Hillary, promise the world, and then completely betray her in humiliating manner and expect to get away with it, nay, be rewarded hugely for it.
So all right then! Looking forward to it! ;D
aimai
@dollared: No, there’s no problem “with Clinton.” She earned her money, just like I do, by providing a service (speeches). She worked for it. I fail to see why this perfectly ordinary transaction “give speech, earn money” is suddenly fraught with dark portents in the case of a prominent political celebrity like Hillary and not when all the other people on the speaker’s circuit are at issue.
singfoom
@D58826: For myself I’m talking about well regulated capitalism where white collar crime is handled seriously and social/socialist policies blunt the hard edge of capitalism for those who suffer the most from it’s excesses.
So yeah, what you define as “values-capitalism”. But that’s just me. I think eventually due to population growth around the world the United States will have to look at a guaranteed basic income realistically. Politically that’s a giant dead turd right now. But I think Congress is not representative of our population and hopefully that will change given time.
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig: Dont’ say stupid things just to win an argument. Then no one will criticize you for saying stupid things.
But if you do say a stupid thing, and the Grace of God lets you realize it, own it and clarify what you really meant.
I’ve found it’s that simple.
Just One More Canuck
@negative 1: found within 30 seconds on Hillary’s website
Hillary will:
• Give working families a raise, and tax relief that helps them manage rising costs.
• Create good-paying jobs and get pay rising by investing in infrastructure, clean energy, and scientific and medical research to strengthen our economy and growth.
•Close corporate tax loopholes and make the most fortunate pay their fair share
D58826
@dollared:
I believe the welfare reform predated the budget surplus. And to suggest that Obama is solely responsible for the cuts in government employment is just simply wrong. I’m not sure what the impact of his budget proposals would have been but they were never passed. What was passed, to keep the government running, was largely influenced by the troglodytes in the GOP. A good bit of the decline in government employment was at the sate and local level also pushed by the GOP.
As far as the trade agreements, the term rust belt was coined in the early 80’s long before NAFTA, TPP or most favored nation status for China. I’m not saying these agreements are not to be criticized its just that the problem of income inequality and loss of manufacturing jobs can’t be blamed solely on them
Miss Bianca
@Kay: What evidence do you have that that is going to happen? That somehow campaign finance reform and Citzens United are going t ocease to become issues if (and when, Goddess willing) HRC gets elected? Here’s her position on it, and here is CO Senator Michael Bennet’s position, He’s as mainstream as it’s possible for a Democrat to get, and he was the first to support legislation to overturn CU.
Honestly, it’s as if Bernie supporters are actively finding reasons to support “losing with INTEGERTY, goldang it” as opposed to “winning with any compromise at all.”
Bob In Portland
@singfoom: singfoom. Was the Gulf of Tonkin real or an invention to expand the war?
That government lie killed millions. The US has never admitted that. Were there WMDs in Iraq? Hillary voted for that. No, actually, she didn’t vote for the lie. She voted for the purpose of the lie, for the US to invade Iraq and have tighter control on energy.
So you go on being confident in your ignorance. Ignorance is your strength. Now go away and rearrange the deck chairs.
Paul in KY
@dollared: I think any supposed economic policy wishes of ‘neoliberals’ pale beside their foreign policy concerns.
Also like how removing all economic controls is ‘liberalizing’ the economy. That’s some New Speak right there.
liberal
@FlipYrWhig: Oh, fuck off. Money in politics is important not purely as an end in itself, but because it obviously led to the late 1990s bad decisions on (further) deregulation of finance, which is what led to the crash. But yeah, the crash only hurt white males.
Bob In Portland
@Miss Bianca: Has Obama gotten around to that Employee Free Choice Act yet?
TriassicSands
@japa21:
This is a tough one. I agree that Obama hasn’t behaved in a way that should have caused any significant polarization. But he is not white — at least not 100% — and there is a very large slice of America for whom that fact is incredibly polarizing. In other words, Obama’s mere existence is polarizing. That is hardly his fault.
Unfortunately, the media (and the Republicans) can’t differentiate between what Obama does and what he is. Plus, if Mitch McConnell or Boehner/Ryan says that Obama is polarizing, then the media feel compelled to report that as fact. The lunacy of the right coupled with the worthlessness of the media leave us with a polarized country and for some reason it’s easier to blame that on the president than on the entire Republican Party.
I mean, don’t you remember Obama announcing shortly after his election that his sole purpose in the next two years was going to be to defeat Mitch McConnell and other Republicans in the 2010 midterms?
Linnaeus
@Paul in KY:
Eh, it’s more like Old Speak – “liberal” in the 19th century sense of the word.
Betty Cracker
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: No need to panic. Bob is a raving crackpot, but luckily, there aren’t many who fit that description, and their effect on the election will be a fart in the whirlwind. NR has said he/she will vote for whomever the Democratic nominee is, as has Applejinx.
NR
@liberal: Also, none of the money from the fossil fuel industry has blocked action on climate change. Because money in politics doesn’t do anything.
Ella in New Mexico
@schrodinger’s cat:
Naaaa, sorry. Can’t do it today.
I’ve got a froze-then-exploded 12 pack of diet Dr. Pepper oozing onto my kitchen floor from the mini-fridge. Between cleaning up that and making my appointment for a facial at 2:00, I’ve got a full agenda for my only day off this week… ;-)
Kay
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Online donors fill in the limits box themselves and use variations on their names to make repeat donations. It’s an innocent mistake. The campaigns have to respond to the inquiry and refund excess. Often small donors don’t read the form or they make the donations over a period of months so don’t know they hit the limit.
There was a fake-scandal in ’08 for the same problems with small “foreign” donations to Obama.
liberal
@Paul in KY: while I understand the sentiment, I don’t think foreign policy positions is the key defining feature of neoliberalism, except insofar as it relates to trade and world dominance. Yeah, I know, “except” is doing a lot of work there, but I don’t think a “rational” neoliberalism would be behind the stupidest and most dangerous moves we see in the FP realm, such as the invasion of Iraq and these confrontations with Russia.
Miss Bianca
@Bob In Portland: Bob, who the fuck cares what YOU care about? Oh, I forgot – you’re one of those very, very special, pwecious BS supporters. I’m supposed to care *very* much about what *you* think. My bad.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: Bobo, you take yourself too seriously. I’m not rearranging shit. I’m just a guy commenting on a blog. Collectively we’re basically “old/young guy yells at clouds”
Nice non-sequitur though. If anyone was going to bring up the Gulf of Tonkin in this thread, it was you. Really, collect your trophy.
And no, there were no WMDs in Iraq. I marched against the Iraq war with hundreds of thousands of my fellow Americans.
I’m not going anywhere sir, so sit down and eat a bowl of salted dicks.
negative 1
@cleek: Thanks for that — I thought I had seen it, then didn’t when I checked again today. I don’t understand quite how what she is proposing will work — most large corporations already do profit sharing, so what’s the difference between that and what she is proposing to help with her 15% tax credit? Also, creating more jobs is a good thing obviously, but the belief from her seems to be that more jobs equals less income inequality. I suppose your faith in her plan comes down to how much you believe that statement.
edit — seriously I just tried again to get to that link by going to her website first and still can’t find it. I can only get there on a google search, not through the ‘issues’ tab unless it’s called something else.
liberal
@burnspbesq: Hey, Burnsie, how hard is it to figure out that treaties like TPP don’t require the assent of 2/3 of the Senate but are in fact passed like statutes (ie, a simple majority of both houses), especially after people have repeatedly informed you of that fact?
The stupid, it burns. No pun intended.
Bobby Thomson
@dollared: which government function/service was privatized by Obamacare?
And why is the Obama administration going to such lengths in court to defend its new energy regs if he’s such a dirty, dirty deregulator? And why has every budget been an exercise in brinkmanship? And who didn’t vote in 2010 and 2014?
Keith G
Hillary is going to be the nominee. There is no delegate count or rhetorical adventure that will prevent this.
Thus there is no argument against Hillary’s nomination that needs to be listened to. And likewise, since Senator Sanders is well on his way to take his place in history along side the likes of Senator Estes Kefauver, there really is no need to waste time criticizing him or folks still arguing (supposedly) on his behalf.
Let’s move on.
BR
@Bob In Portland:
You were unwilling to reply to a very simple question yesterday — you complain about the potential of use of the military. Sanders has promised to crush and destroy ISIS. Do you oppose him because of his plan to do so?
If you can’t engage honestly with folks, people will ignore you.
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig:
Since you again raise the issue of race, what race are you? Somehow I get the feeling with your constant punching down that you, Whig, are a prissy privileged white dilettante. There seems to be a lot of that around here. Considering how often race is thrown at Sanders supporters it’s like you wear Obama as your cloak of authenticity. Much like if you support Sanders you must be sexist. Really, villagers, you should be embarrassed. You’re acting like Republicans.
gwangung
@Miss Bianca:
Hm. Who WAS the target of Citizens United again?
Applejinx
@aimai:
They were only going to move ’em to America and continue to hold them under the exact same grounds. You’re pointing to exactly the sort of ‘shallow empty gesture’ that Bernie would seem to be a sucker for, and pretending that it means ‘close Guantanamo’ in a real sense.
He didn’t fall for it, nor should you. It’s more dangerous to have a class of political prisoners on US soil with the government having voted to continue that status, and the ‘label’ people associate with the practice, no longer available to rally against.
Now and then I have to remind people of this but I think most can figure it out once explained. It was a trick.
liberal
@Southern Goth: Agreed. Though it’s not clear to me that vacuous appeals to “hope and change” are either.
gwangung
@Bob In Portland: Laughable white twit speaks again.
Cacti
@Miss Bianca:
Bob’s an old white dude. Respect his alabaster phallus…err…wisdom.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: Sorry, I deal in Old Math. ; ) Enjoy your facial, sounds delicious! I’m going for a doctor’s appointment, sure you don’t want to switch places?
Vlad
@Miss Bianca: It’s notoriously corrupt, and it’s being dissolved regardless of the outcome of the referendum. This is just removing the state constitution’s justification for them having a separate one, to prevent anyone from reinstating it in the future.
negative 1
@Just One More Canuck: I’ve seen that before but a.) if you think Bernie’s supporters are light on facts I’m all ears as to how HRC will give anyone a raise and b.) more jobs are a good thing, and her plan is for more jobs, and a good thing, but those comments directly correlate more jobs to more pay, and that’s relatively unsupported. That I could find the effect of her tax on ‘high earners’ (over $730K annually) is 5% — good, but not enough to do much to the current system.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/03/pf/taxes/hillary-clinton-taxes/
dollared
@Bobby Thomson: Health care, stupid. It is a public good, and in many nations it is provided as a public good.
I get that there were political realities, but it is a simple statement of fact that privatized health insurance and healthcare is neoliberal, single payer is a mid case, and national healthcare is socialism.
Bob In Portland
@BR: I answered that yesterday. I don’t support the US military in the region at all.
Again, the House of Saud is behind this Wahhabism. When Sanders calls on Saudi Arabia to fight ISIS he is calling everyone’s bluff. Since Saudi Arabia is behind ISIS it can’t very well attack it. Yesterday I also mentioned that the best way to attack ISIS is to cut off its weapons pipelines from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE et al. The first thing would be to stop making arms deals with those countries. Logical, no? Who approved arms deals to all those countries back in 2011? I’ll give you a hint: She was SOS. I’ll give you another hint: a lot of money flowed from those states to the Clinton Foundation.
Here’s another way to fight ISIS. Admit that Saudi Arabia has been a sponsor of terrorism and begin to bring them to heel.
I can give you plenty of reasons why no one will do that. Want them?
dollared
@D58826: Nope, so there’s no problem with making everything worse in the rust belt, is there. All those people there died in 1982 and you don’t want to think about them.
dollared
@gwangung: Seriously? How credible is HRC going to be on campaign finance reform?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@SciNY: HRC holds almost all the cards that Bernie cares about. The way he burns through money, he’s going to have a big campaign debt when it’s all said and done. He still wants to be effective at the convention. He still wants Team D to win in the fall. He wants to have more power and influence in the Senate come January. All of those things depend on him being a team player long before the convention. He’s not going to burn HRC’s chances down.
He’s trying to keep his voters and donors riled up so that they turn out and so that they continue to give him “$27” multiple times a day. He has to transition to being a team player over time – he’s not going to do it instantly – but he will do it. He’ll be on the Hillary Bus sometime shortly after California.
That’s my guess anyway.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ella in New Mexico
@Cacti:
Look, whether I believe this statement is actually fully factual or not, it’s just another example of why people who are working for Hilary need to stop and think about what kinds of things they say.
The men in my family who have the unfortunate circumstances of birth as “white males” are incredibly liberal, incredibly feminist and incredibly pro-minority. They are not professional party insiders and campaign addicts. They don’t work at Party headquarters during election seasons, but they donate money to campaigns and causes, and vote in every single election. They work, very hard and long hours and have lots of other issues they take care of as part of their responsibilities as fathers and husbands and coaches and volunteers for other equally important activities, eg. environmental protection and animal welfare causes, like my sons do. Or teaching little kids at the Boys and Girls club how to code, like my oldest brother does. They are kind and generous and very good people. They are going to vote Democrat in the fall.
So when people like you make these kinds of snarky, sweeping statements about how unimportant “white males” are as a group, it’s not only insulting and arrogant. It’s really unnecessary.
BR
@Bob In Portland:
Wait, so when Sanders is saying he will crush and destroy ISIS, he’s lying (bluffing)? Is that what you’re saying? How is his lying not a sign of bad character?
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: How is calling me a white dude as a means for dismissing my opinions any better than, say dismissing someone else because of the color of their skin?
Scratch your surface and there’s a racist. Just like you are a homophobe.
Bobby Thomson
@Linnaeus: I could totally see him supporting internment camps.
Bob In Portland
@BR: I don’t know. I’m not Bernie’s spokesperson. Why don’t you write him a letter. Whatever his plan, it’s got to be better than sending weapons to ISIS’s allies.
BR
@Ella in New Mexico:
I agree. I don’t think stoking intra-party racial animosity is a good idea in either direction — anti-Clinton (as the Sanders folks are doing) and anti-Sanders (as the Clinton folks are doing). The Democratic party is one of the only truly multi-racial political parties in the entire world. We should be proud of that diversity and come together around it.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Bob In Portland: “Waaah, people on the internet were mean to me, so I’m not voting!”
TriassicSands
@Nick:
Mother Jones no, but Krugman absolutely is a shill for Clinton. He was terrible in the 2008 primary season. He was blatantly partisan and grossly unfair to Obama, criticizing him for things Clinton was also doing, but ignoring her failings altogether. I pay attention to Krugman on most economic matters and most, if not all, of his criticism of Republicans. But I ignore him when Clinton is a candidate. I suspect he’s lobbying hard for a position — a prominent position — in a Clinton administration.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@BR:
Foreign fighters entering Iraq and Syria drops by 90% – Obama’s targeted attacks, and blowing up their warehouses of cash and supplies so they can’t pay their fighters sounds like a pretty effective strategy. I doubt Sanders has paid any attention to this, and if he has, I’m sure he’d think Obama’s doin’ it rong, cuz that’s how he rolls.
BR
@Bob In Portland:
Ok, so I’ll take your answer to mean: a) either Sanders is planning on a large scale military campaign of the sort that would make him a warmonger in your book if done by anyone else or b) he’s lying about his plan for a military campaign and that is a sign of bad character, just another lying politician.
WarMunchkin
@aimai: I’m well aware of the vote to close Guantanamo – it did not end immoral detention, it just made such detention even more lawful. This is why it was opposed by the ACLU, hardly a get nothing done organization. You accused me of not understanding the actual value and cost to human beings of an ideological standpoint – this is wrong and unfair for you to say.
In my comment, I also said that transactional politicians likely have more bang for buck value. I simply believe that having someone make public and moral cases also have some value, albeit not for the presidency.
singfoom
@dollared: I’m curious about this, because I care a lot about campaign finance reform too…
I agree that the entire configuration of the system is corrupt at this point, no argument there. So how does one go about changing it?
The members of Congress are among the beneficiaries of this current system. You can’t change the system without Congress. If every one of our Congresspeople has participated in this system, then they’re all somewhat corrupted, are they not?
So in order for anything to change, a “corrupt” politician will have to do something within the “corrupt” system to change it, will they not? It’s not as if anyone can wave their hand and make our campaign finance system better.
What do you think needs to be done? What’s a realistic course of action to achieve that?
gwangung
@dollared: A hell of a lot more than you seem to think
NR
@Bobby Thomson:
Black people.
Oh, sorry, does that not fit the narrative? Well, it happens to be true.
(And before the predictable accusations of racism come from the usual suspects, I don’t blame black people for the 2010 and 2014 elections. I don’t blame any group of voters. I blame the Democratic party leadership for not giving voters a compelling reason to turn out for them.)
BR
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Yeah, I saw something about that. It’s the sort of story that nobody will pay any attention to on any side, which is the way Obama’s actions usually end up — he does something, everyone attacks him for it, and then quietly the strategy works (not always, but often) and everyone looks the other way and attacks him about something else.
MomDoc
@Lamh36: What? I can’t believe this! As controlled as he was about everything, I just knew he had a will. Gee, this is going to be a mess!
TriassicSands
@Keith G:
That kind of arrogance won’t unite any party.
Kay
@dollared:
Nope. Democrats have no campaign finance issues. None. Their giant donations from zillionaires are pure. Show me the actual cash exchange in return for “specific action” or you got nothing.
You have 100,000 to spend on your issue, right? Even-steven. A level playing field.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@dollared: Considering the original Citizens United Not Timid (original acronym) was aimed at her, I suspect she will be quite willing to gut the ruling if she gets a chance. Do you not know the origin of the case? Since you are an insufferable, lecturing, sanctimonious jerk I suspect not.
Bob In Portland
@singfoom: No thanks. And how dare I point out that our government lies us into wars, repeatedly!
Sorry, foom, you don’t earn points for not knowing. Just my pity.
martian
@Brachiator: This is a very late response, but, yeah. I switched from Bern to Hilz to vote in Illinois after it became clear to me that, while Bern’s ideas seem more aligned with mine, there’s just no there there on numbers and follow through. Revolution is not a fucking plan. Even so, I was still leaning Bern just for the symbolism until it seemed possible that Hill would lose Illinois, and *that* symbolism, how it would feed the Bernmentum if Clinton lost a home state, caused me to abandon the urge to make my vote larger than it is by strategizing and game playing.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland: I’m an educated white person from a middle-class background who’s doing OK–AND who doesn’t expect politics to revolve around my tender feelings and unsatisfied longings, the way God knows how many of the Sanders crowd thinks they should, including the people MUCH better off than I am who are all of the ardent Sanders fans I know. I except the young people, who come at things differently; they may be wrong about a lot, but they’re not preachy and malevolent, they’re trying their best and they’re excited about something new. Good for them. The rest of them, feh. It’s a campaign dominated by 30- and 40-something Whole Foods shoppers cosplaying as radicals. It’s embarrassing, or ought to be. That they aren’t embarrassed, and especially that they use the young people as human shields, is creepy.
Major Major Major Major
Some days I just want to pie this entire blog
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Ella in New Mexico:
Unlike Sanders dismissing the importance of “conservative” southern votes, on several occasions? Don’t want to talk about the importance of race in keeping the winning coalition together in order to win in November? I don’t blame you. There is no excuse for him not trying to appeal to the Democratic base – the most reliable and loyal voters. It was the fatal flaw of his campaign, which was lost, deservedly, as a result, on Super Tuesday.
Emma
@WarMunchkin: Only because you’re conflating “rules” (how one should behave) from “outcomes” (the product of your behavior).
One of our most morally compromised presidents was also the man who helped push through and signed the Civil Rights Act. Why he did it doesn’t really matter as an outcome for millions of Americans who could use that act to push for societal change.
But I think you knew that. :-)
Vlad
The precinct was pretty busy, comparatively speaking, and the volunteers told me it was slammed this morning. My district leans red, though, so hard to extrapolate much from increased turnout.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
There’s no such thing as racism against white people in the US of A, Bob-O, but you know that already.
People dismiss your opinion because you’re a crank, not because you’re white.
Your whiteness, maleness, and oldness, practically jump off the page anytime you deign to speak to us mere mortals here at BJ. You always carry yourself with the sense of entitlement particular to old, white, male lefties, who expect everyone to stop what they’re doing, and listen with rapt attention any time you open your piehole, because you’re just so damned much smarter than the rest of us. ;-)
Major Major Major Major
#notallwhitemales
aimai
@Kay: People getting paid for work is not the same as a quid pro quo or campaign finance corruption. There’s shitloads of actual corruption out there thanks to Citizens United but corporations overpaying for celebrity speeches just isn’t one of them. Fox news hiring actual candidates for office as regular speakers–thats corrupt. Corporations and Institutes buying massive quantities of a politician’s book so they can get the royalties, that is corrupt. But being paid to give speeches on the speaker’s circuit–something which has existed almost as long as the country has existed, btw–is not corruption.
Bobby Thomson
@dollared: what government-provided healthcare was privatized by ACA? You can’t privatize what’s already private. Words mean things.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: Bob, I’m well aware of the past actions of our government. I don’t need you to tell me that. I give 0 fucks about your “points”.
You keep fucking that chicken Bobo.
Miss Bianca
@BR: I’m also wondering exactly how we are supposed to be bringing Saudi Arabia “to heel” without any sort of military threat. Boycotts of their oil? (Yay, more domestic production! But totally without fracking or oil shale production, because that’s icky). Wagging our finger at them and saying ‘bad’?
It’s not like Wahabbism doesn’t suck and Saudi Arabia doesn’t suck for exporting it…but…ways and means, how do they work again?
D58826
@dollared: I’m not sure what your point is. The rust belt is bad. It was bad in 1980 and it is bad today. It would be bad today even without NAFTA. Companies would find a way to move jobs off-shore with or without trade agreements. I’m just saying that we are placing to much emphasis on the evils of NAFTA/TPP/etc when there are a lot of other factors that have played a part in the loss of manufacturing jobs.
And if, perish the thought, the trade deals have more winners than losers maybe the problem is that the winners did not do anything to help the losers transition to new jobs
Bobby Thomson
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: you’re forgetting that he doesn’t think things through.
aimai
@les: Beautifully put!
Redshift
@Applejinx:
Uh-huh. Can you point to any statement from Bernie that this was his motivation?
FlipYrWhig
@dollared:
“The campaign financing system we have now makes running for office an unending chase for contributions. To make sure that my campaigns have been competitive, I have used the means that system allows. I do not think it would be healthy for our democracy for this system to continue down this road, and I support a comprehensive effort to clean up campaign financing by” blah blah blah.
I don’t think it’s that hard. I frankly think the issue makes for low-hanging fruit, because no one thinks it’s a good idea to have money sloshing around in politics, whether it’s _actually_ corrupting or _potentially_ corrupting or just seems icky. That’s why I said before it’s a bad thing but not very high on the list of bad things for politicians to deal with.
Bobby Thomson
And why is everyone feeding the paid Russian propagandist?
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Just doing my bit.
aimai
@NR: This is so stupid. Democrats, of any color, rarely turn out for midterms when they have the presidency. Thats because stupid motherfuckers like Sanders think that the only job that matters is that of the President. People don’t turn out at midterms to vote for something–they turn out because they are angry and they vote against something. Since we looked like we were in power low information voters–students, for example–stopped worrying about politics and went back to worrying about their schools, grades, debts. Obama gave them plenty of reasons to turn out and they just didn’t.
Major Major Major Major
@Bobby Thomson: Gotta get that Tbogg unit somehow
FlipYrWhig
@Emma: Remember when Obama’s big failing, to “the left,” was that he didn’t twist arms like LBJ would? I can’t remember, is it fair play to threaten the interests of a politician’s district, or is it dirty and corrupt?
Cacti
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Or sending millionaire douche-bros like Tim Robbins out to diss entire states.
Nothing says “revolution” like some Hollywood jet setter sneering from behind his designer sunglasses at how unimportant one of the poorest states in the country is.
cokane
@Cacti: Cacti is pretty much the sad end state of identity politics. Unable to muster arguments beyond ad hominem of someone’s superficial qualities. Self-assured in his superiority merely because he can play identity-politics bingo.
aimai
@Applejinx: That is 100 percent wrong. Bringing them to US soil would have utterly transformed their treatement and the rights afforded to them under the constitution. The whole point of putting them offshore, at GITMO, was to evade this constitutional responsibility. Closing Guantanamo and bringing them to the US to actual, legitimate, prisons was the first step towards releasing some and regularizing and humanizing the conditions of others. That Bernie and other Dems were running scared of public backlash and refused to support President Obama is a crying shame. Fuck Bernie for that bit of cowardice.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: And again I ask: why are you talking as if Bernie Sanders is the only Democrat who cares about campaign finance reform? You do remember what the Citizens United case was about, right? You don’t imagine that HRC, for example, might have very personal, as well as political, reasons for making its reversal a priority?
Cacti
@cokane:
Says the Bernfeeler, from revolutionary headquarters in suburbia.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: I’m not sure you understand. When Bernie Sanders does or doesn’t do things, it’s for good reasons, because he’s Bernie Sanders, the kind of person who has impeccably good reasons for things.
SiubhanDuinne
@PaulWartenberg2016:
Now all you need is a McMegan calculator and you’ll be a regular DonJuanCasanova.
NR
@aimai:
What the fuck does Bernie Sanders have to do with black turnout in 2010 and 2014?
cokane
@Cacti: neither characterization is true. But way to prove my point about your intellect’s inability to rise above ad hom.
chopper
brilliant video. posting it is tossing chum in the derp pond, but it’s brilliant nonetheless.
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: At the current it won’t be long until we reach 500. By 3 probably.
NR
@cokane: Cacti is just a garden-variety troll. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was from 4chan and is a Trump supporter.
Cacti
@cokane:
Cool story bro.
WarMunchkin
@Emma: This is true, though, considering that it took Kennedy getting shot for that to happen, perhaps FDR is a better example of a corrupt politician transactionally creating a kitchen sink full of alphabet soup programs designed to help various sectors of the economy and forming the foundation for modern Democrats. This, by the way, is the same man who transactionally condemned Japanese-Americans, knowing that it would help him shore up political support for the war.
Those examples aside, wouldn’t you agree that disregarding or bending rules for the sake of policy objective is also a nonsense debt? If you’re willing to let people you’re allied with and people you like play by different rules than people you don’t like, for instance, whether it’s a lenient Wall Street settlement or an allied foreign nation whose atrocities we’ll turn a blind eye to, that itself has its own realpolitik costs, as well as being morally wrong.
Major Major Major Major
@WarMunchkin: Shh, we’re not allowed to remember that FDR was up to his eyeballs in corruption and graft and cronyism
cokane
@Cacti: You’d’ve done well to look at my first post in this thread. Let’s hope your reading comprehension can tackle doing that. I, for one, think it can, regardless of what everyone else says about you.
D58826
@aimai: I think the problem is a bit sticker than that. Most of the remaining prisoners can be released once the arrangements are made. A small number, those subject to the military commissions, are probably candidates for Article III trial. There is a group, about 40 I think, where we so badly screwed the pooch that they are to dangerous to release but can never be tried in an Article III court. Whither it is better to close GITMO and house this group in the US in some type of limbo state or just leave them at GITMO is a matter of opinion. Since more than a few democrats showed yellow on the issue because of public outrage Bernie just might be one more. But no profile in courage either
Obdurodon
@Bobby Thomson:
You had one guess, and you blew it. Zero percent. In fact, it’s precisely because I’m a parent that I’m so familiar with the kind of behavior you and your cohorts are exhibiting. It’s also why I find the fiercely anti-progressive content and tone here so troubling.
As for you, Ms. Bianca, your spurious accusation of misogyny just shows how little real thought went into your rant. As it happens, I think Hillary herself is not particularly arrogant. With what she has done, most people – including me – would get far more of a swelled head than she seems to have. I don’t have a problem with her, either individually or as a woman, though if it were all about electing a woman president (as it seems to be for some) I’d prefer Warren. No, it’s her supporters who have been arrogant cobags. I’d even go so far as to say that I might even prefer Hillary to Bernie if followers were factored out. I just don’t want to be complicit in the kind of Inquisition you guys are into.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, that’s right, because pointing this out to the Kidz lamenting that the modern Democratic Party is “no longer the party of FDR” is MEAN and AHISTORICAL. I found out that I was a closet Republican for doing that! Wish I could have told Mom -she’d have been so proud!
Emma
@dollared: Jesus Christ. A large number of the countries that “provide health care” use a combination of public and private means. For example. my cousins who live in Spain have access to the nationally-sponsored asistencia sanitaria publica, but also can purchase separate private health insurance to replace/supplement the government services. That’s just the one I have direct knowledge of. I believe Switzerland is a tightly-regulated private insurance system. So no, “public option” isn’t the only way to go.
aimai
@NR: First of all–Black people,and especially black women, turned out in droves for the midterms. It is college students who didn’t. Second of all Bernie (and you) and his supporters consistently blame the electorate when it suits them, and blame “the system” for not encouraging the electorate to vote when it suits them. They are right now practising the worst kind of Presidential fixated politics, just like Nader and the Greens always do. This is not a black person problem since the AA community practices thoughtful, long term, transactional coalition politics. The people who don’t vote in midterms, by and large, are disaffected and uninformed white youths/students and so called progressives who can’t be arsed to vote in what are, to them, unimportant local elections.
Miss Bianca
@Obdurodon: Strangely, that’s how Clinton supporters feel about Bernie supporters wailing that now she has to do *more than she’s already done* to court their very special votes, because they can’t be bothered to read her positions, listen to what she has to say, or do any adjustment in their thinking at all. How do you like *them* apples, Sir William?
I’d have said “I could have gone for BS but for the arrogance and cluelessness of his most ardent supporters” but he’s managed to alienate me all on his own. Not that that would have prevented me from voting for him WITHOUT WHINING.
Mike J
@Cacti:
He also pretty much lost Guam for Bernie single handedly.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: Yeah, that group is the real sticking point for me. If I were a parent punishing a child who’d fucked up that bad, I’d say release them and learn your lesson, as ye sow etc. But um, this is a country on a planet full of people and stuff. I really, really don’t have any idea what to do. We’ve proven that we can do whatever the hell we want with them and nobody relevant will care, but what’s the correct thing to do?
I can think of the ‘right‘ thing to do, but life ain’t that simple.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I just want to do my part in helping this thread get to 500 comments.
I loved the use of “neoliberal” in the Bernie Math video. It is how you know you’re dealing with a true Bernie supporter. Once they throw out the neoliberal charge any chance of a normal conversation is gone.
By the way, Hillary can pretty much reduce her Magic Number to 1 tonight. After tonight she should be no more than 250 delegates away from clinching the nomination. She can lose every state and their delegates and still clinch by earning a split in California. (I know it’s not exact but it’s close enough)
Ella in New Mexico
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: go be a mindless hack and troll someplace else.
You’re wasting precious electrons here.
les
@Obdurodon:
Damned out of your own mouth.
NR
@aimai:
No they didn’t. Their turnout was down from the presidential years, just like those other demographic groups you enjoy ranting about so much.
If you’re going to blame the midterm disasters on voters who didn’t turn out, you have to blame all the voters who didn’t turn out. Selective outrage isn’t a good look for anyone.
eclare
@Emma: When I lived in England it was that way too. Didn’t get the supplemental, didn’t need it, NHS was fine by me.
Cacti
@cokane:
I’ll pencil time for it in between shampooing my crotch and debriding the dead skin from my heels.
D58826
@Emma: From what I’ve read the Swiss system is most like the American system in structure and in cost. The US is number one and the Swiss are number two in healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP. So maybe our type of system is just inherently more expense and not some unique failing of the US.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Betty Cracker: This.
Bernie has been implicitly using HRC’s donations as a proxy for her Corruption™ Since Citizens United is the law of the land, and everyone (except St. Bernie) is governed by those rules and laws that are active in a post-CU world, then beating up on her about it is selective in the extreme. If he can show a quid-pro-quo, that’s one thing. Pointing to her long list of speeches and donations isn’t, by itself, a sign of her Corruption™.
It would be great to get rid of CU and (at least some aspects of) “Corporations are People”, but I think that’s too big a lift for a while. I want immediate disclosure and no hiding behind Trusts and Corporations and the like. As I’ve said before, if Joe Smith has to be reported to the FEC for a $200 donation, then Billy Bob Walton who gives $10M to some SuperPAC should have to do the same thing. Let’s get it all out there, and fight the “money is speech” argument some other time.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who thinks the “money is speech” trope is bogus, but who doesn’t know where to draw the line…)
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Disappointed – I think it is going to stall out short of the magic number.
aimai
@Obdurodon: No one can “alienate” Bernie’s supporters but Bernie and Bernie’s supporters. Its just a pathetic myth, a kind of emotional extortion practiced by some of Bernie’s fans and a whole lot of right wing trolls. No one buys your vote and no one woos your vote. You do what you want with your vote. The wails of “so so mean” are meant to retroactively innoculate the speaker from the consequences of continuing to attack, demean, and try to hamstring a perfectly viable and even excellent candidate for President. These accusations that Hillary isn’t “doing enough” or if she is that someone, somewhere, on the internet, wasn’t respectful enough to St Bernie and his weeping, woeful, future-leaders-of-America are all about the massive egos and entitled childhoods of a fraction of Bernie supporters. No one needs to respect it and no one should respect it. There are enough votes for Democrats out there from actual grown ups and new voters who are fired up and enthusiastic about taking this country forward and building on the Obama legacy.
People can just shut the fuck up with demanding that other people wipe their snotty noses and dry their weeping eyes because they didn’t get the perfect grandpa munster of their dreams for the white house this time around.
And for the pissy hell of it:
aimai
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Not if I have anything to say about it!
Emma
@WarMunchkin: I am not much of a believer in morality in politics. I would love for everyone to play by the rules, but it does seem that the allure of power doesn’t attract saints — or it corrupts them completely by giving them the means to enforce “their” rules on the general population. And there is nothing like a saint to make the blood flow “for the soul’s sake.” I prefer Lyndon Johnson to Savonarola. In this case, even if I believed that HRC is as corrupt as the Berniebros accuse her to be, I would prefer her over Cruz or Trump.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Ella in New Mexico:
Truth hurts, cupcake. I get it. What about my statement is wrong? I’ll wait. I’ve been commenting here for 8 years at least, maybe more, so I’m not going anywhere.
WarMunchkin
@Major Major Major Major: The point wasn’t to illustrate the greatness of transactionality, it’s to understand that both transactional and ideological styles have privilege. That corrupt, transactional guy FDR started the New Deal and won the war. This was great for America, at the expense of the lives and well-being of Japanese-Americans. That is privilege, and transactionality has a blind spot just like ideology does.
geg6
@singfoom:
Late to the party, but I just gotta say…
BRAVO, GOOD SIR!
cokane
@Cacti: A solid comparison! For you, seeking the truth is uncomfortable.
aimai
@D58826: Nevertheless the rationale for bringing them to the US was to bring them under the constitutional protections afforded all persons in the US.
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
I’m saying it because many of Clinton’s supporters are making the argument of the majority in Citizens, that the only possible threat of unlimited money in politics is a straight quid pro quo.
That they’re doing it to defend her tone-deaf, idiotic choice to take all that money for speeches rather than just admitting it looks terrible is just the icing on the cake. The speeches don’t even have anything to do with campaign finance but we all have to adopt this rigid defense and start making fun of anything related to it to minimize any possible political damage.
I’m not doing that, and the Democratic Party shouldn’t either. Special access is a valid issue. Voters are allowed to grill them on it. All of them.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: France is fairly similar as well. Obamacare though was (IIRC) modeled after the Swiss system and would look a lot like it if Roberts hadn’t swiss-cheesed it (har). Factor in that they’re small, wealthy, and highly educated, and we… aren’t… at least not on a population level…
Chris
@Obdurodon:
Forgive me for the lack of manners, but that’s fucking nuts. I’m not saying she doesn’t have plenty of arrogant douchebags among her supporters, but her supporters aren’t the ones running for office. Just her.
Emma
@D58826: Definitely. I am not claiming the Swiss system is better — simply that it works for them. I would think that developing a system that work for us should be the goal, not just repeating “single payer, single payer” ad nauseam.
Brachiator
@martian:
Thanks much for the reply. It is very interesting to learn how people are actually making their voting decisions. And interesting to see that it is not just “Bernie vs Hillary” hostility.
redshirt
I’m sure we’re going to get this resolved today.
Keep up the good work everyone.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: Of course there is racism against whites. Maybe you didn’t notice it because of how you use it. The way you dismiss class concerns as complaints of crabby old white guys is racist. You’re a racist, Cacti, and saying that Barack Obama is the best ever President and you love him does not mean that you don’t use the color of someone’s skin as a debating point.
When I show concern about Obama talking about cutting Social Security with Republicans, as he has, it’s not limited to my specific check.
So, yes, racist is a tool that even whites can use against whites in the quest for their particular goals, whether your goals have anything to do with politics or just boosting your ego by a little hippie-punching. You are a racist. Accept it or change it.
Cacti
@cokane:
Your truths are just that important to me, little violet.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Especially the Fresh Produce group. That really makes her look terrible.
Major Major Major Major
@WarMunchkin: I wasn’t saying it was great, just that it isn’t evil, at least not if you take a consequentialist bent. Not everybody seems to agree.
aimai
@Kay: Nonsense. This is just nonsense. Clinton’s supporters are at the worst saying “we can’t have a level playing field only for Democratic candidates and not for Republican ones.” The entire speeches issue is a complete and utter non issue for most people. Bernie is lumping everything togehter because it suits him to do so, and it riles up his voters, but I don’t think its a legitimate issue on the level of CU at all.
BR
We’re almost at 500…maybe some Clinton supporters can say something condescending to Sanders folks and Sanders folks can say something inflammatory to Clinton folks. Unfounded assumptions about the other person’s identity or character get bonus points.
Chris
@Kay:
Yarp.
D58826
@les:
Oh for FSM’s sake. How much of a difference does it take. We are talking night and day differences here, not just whither you stir your coffee with the spoon in your left hand or the right hand.
I agree with many of the Bernie folks that the more liberal youngsters are the future of the party but we are not quite at that future yet. At the very least 2016 is a defensive election. Hillary will defend the gains of the last 100 years. She will see to it that SCOTUS has a majority of judges who live in the 21st century rather than nine Scala’s who want to return to the 19th. It has taken 100 years to create the relatively progressive structure of medicare, soc. security, Obamacare, EPA, etc. A GOP victory in the fall will see it all gone by the the end of 2017. It will take another 100 years to rebuild.
If that isn’t enough of a difference to make you get off you but and vote then I don’t know what will.
aimai
@Chris: I suppose I would count among the “arrogant douchebags” among her supporters–at least I’ve been told so by plenty of Bernie voters online. But I take the assessment with a grain of salt. They always say “arrogant” when what they mean is “you aren’t agreeing with me that Bernie is the best and Hillary the worst.” And I’m not going to agree with that because it isn’t true. Not only is she not the worst, he’s not the best.
WarMunchkin
@Emma: Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love LBJ, though unfortunately, I’ve never managed to finish Master of the Senate, which was high school required reading for me; I was a bit of a sleep-deprived delinquent. But I could easily imagine a world where LBJ escalated the Vietnam War to shore up military support and national security credentials so that he had capital to pass social programs and the civil rights act. This is probably a fictional alternative universe, but in that case, we’d be living in our privileged Great Society at the expense of many, many dead kids and Vietnamese people.
les
@shomi:
And Nader had nothing to do with Bush2!!! Because reasons!! You guys have the same sense of responsibility for your own behavior as children. You’re not “being set up.” If enough of you climb on your purity ponies and refuse to vote Democratic, and are enough to let Trump/whoever win (which I don’t actually believe), then your behavior will have a consequence. That’s called reality–not that you seem to have more than a nodding acquaintance.
planetjanet
@Southern Goth: This. Just won my day. Thanks.
cokane
@Cacti: No, we can all see it’s your fictions that are the precious.
Bob In Portland
@aimai: If you keep nominating untrustworthy candidates you shouldn’t expect big voter turnouts. If you don’t address the issues of the voters, or dismiss them, don’t expect them to vote for your candidates.
I suspect that even with alienating half of the Democratic Party Hillary will be successful. And since she’s basically a Republican, she’ll function just like her husband who got all those reactionary and pro-big business laws passed with a Republican/Republican Lite Congress. What does it matter if it’s a Republican or a Wasserman Schultz DINO? They vote the same.
Bob In Portland
@Southern Goth: Nor was the five hundred people who drowned trying to get out of Libya last week.
D58826
@aimai: yes. And it would send a message to the rest of the world, not that they would pay attention, but we have confidence in our system and we walk the walk as well as talk the talk when it involves others. In short it is the right thing to do.
Major Major Major Major
Where did this “half the Democratic party” talking point come from? I’ve seen it around recently. Did Obama “alienate half the Democratic party” in 2008 by winning? Or is this the normal behavior of a political party, you know, you hold primaries, we all get our fee-fees hurt, then we… continue supporting the party?
WarMunchkin
@Major Major Major Major: My roommate is fond of saying: “There is no good and evil in real life, just in the stories we tell”.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
False, Bob-o.
Every economic, cultural, and political institution in this country is set up to favor white people by default, and white males more particularly. Someone saying mean things about white dudes =/= racism. That you would think it does shows the level of blinkered privilege that you enjoy in your day to day existence. In your entire life, you have not been, and never will be a victim of racist oppression, barring a complete realignment of our national power structure.
Emma
@WarMunchkin: The might-have-beens are better left to science fiction (though I do wonder about the interesting plot bunnies in your comment). I don’t love LBJ — early training as a historian beat the need to love someone out of me — but I do recognize that his instincts were damn good and he tacked to the winds as necessary. “Real believers” don’t. And they scare me silly.
Bill Arnold
@cleek:
Seconding aimai’s LOL.
More please from whatever head-place this came from. (Even just “pockets of Big Pants” is google-unique!)
Chris
@aimai:
I honestly wasn’t aiming at anyone in particular. I voted for her this morning, if it matters, so whatever arrogance and/or douchebaggery came out of her supporters hasn’t affected my behavior much. I just know I’ve read plenty of comments both here and elsewhere over the last few months that I thought qualified for both, but I don’t remember whether any of them came out of you.
(And plenty of such comments were made by Sanders supporters as well, yes. That’s probably the most horrific thing about this campaign; I’ve turned into a “both sides do it”-er).
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: IMHO the speeches kerfuffle started out as what was supposed to be further proof of her coziness with Wall Street. The big smoking gun used to be that statistic about total dollars given by employees of financial services firms. But I can tell from the way the Sanders people talk about the speeches that a lot of them have heard _only_ about speeches to Wall Street concerns, rather than a speaking tour that included dozens of stops; but other Sanders people talk about the total haul from all speeches, which either by a sleight of hand or a mistake gets turned into “Wall Street” or “corporations” all over again. So at a certain point it just became evidence that Hillary Clinton was greedy and/or corporate and/or corrupt and/or had bad judgment, and it just gets trotted out as an all-purpose cudgel that counterposes good, virtuous, abstemious Bernie Sanders, who has hundreds of millions of dollars now but from everyday people a little at a time so shut up.
Bob In Portland
@NR: Selective outrage is the style here in Balloon Juice Village.
Cacti
@cokane:
I’m sorry to tell you I’m really not interested in the Watchtower Society, nor the truths in your pamphlets. But I’ll give you an A for persistence.
FlipYrWhig
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s almost like Team Bernie likes to exaggerate its importance!
Obdurodon
@Miss Bianca: I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with that last one. Are there people on both sides of this who have failed to do their research on the other candidate? Sure. Are there people on both sides of this who have made sweeping negative generalizations about the other candidate’s supporters? Of course. Seems like you’re just playing the “both sides do it” card from the Republican deck. It hasn’t been the “Bernie bros” making incorrect and unfounded guesses about people’s personal situations (that was Bobby) or making up sexism/racism allegations from nothing (that was you). The few Bernie supporters who have seemed willing to enter this obviously Hillary-slanted dive bar have generally seemed more civil than average, only to be met with increasing levels of invective when they didn’t immediately offer penance for their sins. “Inquisition” might have been more accurate than I meant it to be. I really do get the impression that, if Hillary does win, former Bernie supporters will be even more excluded than the Republicans themselves. Hatred for the heathens could never match hatred for the heretics, then or now.
Kay
@aimai:
Okay, aimai. That’s why I’ve now read that quote about how “if you can’t take their money and drink their liquor” whatever, whatever 500 times.
It’s not a joke. We’re allowed to ask why Google gets access to the Obama Administration once a week. That’s a real question.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie is the candidate of the 99 percent.
Although substantially less than 50 percent have actually voted for him.
Major Major Major Major
@WarMunchkin: It’s why I’m not big on purity, and find it generally counterproductive, though such a view requires annoying amounts of self-examination and the observing facts.
@Emma: Escalating a war in Vietnam in order to win an election is, alas, not the realm of science fiction; see Nixon, Richard.
Brachiator
@aimai:
I am not sure why people continue to say this, because it just does not appear to be true. Here is what PewResearch says:
Youth turnout was low, but so was that of other groups as well.
Emma
@Kay: @Kay: Now that’s one that flew right by me. What do you mean by Google getting access once a week?
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: I wasn’t discussing Nixon. I was discussing a “might-have-been” situation involving LBJ. I am not unaware that there’s evil in the world or that human beings can take evil actions.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: I taught race relations back in the army in the early 70s. Yes, almost all levers of power are against the little guy, and racism has historically been a tool to separate the haves from the havenots.
But when you deride Sanders’ supporters concern for the underclass and try to convert it into white racism you are being a racist. You use race as a cudgel. You are, therefore, a racist. At least around here you are.
Hey, you designate a group of people, for ex, old white people, and make presumptions that they are racist. Sorry, you are being a racist, using race as a tool to demean me. Sort of like when you and your ilk talk about sexual equality and then make jokes about me sucking Putin’s dick. Or eating a bag of salted dicks. If you don’t want to be sexist leave sex out of your taunts and accusations.
I realize that these will be hard habits to break, but if you want to stop being a racist and a sexist, then you have to stop.
Andrey
The idea that Hillary is a “Republican lite” is just bizarre to me.
I think both Hillary and Bernie would be great candidates, and I will fully support whichever wins the Democratic primary. I expect that will be Hillary, but if it turns out to be Bernie, I’m going to campaign for him just as hard.
If it was just down to me, I would choose Hillary because I think she’s the more progressive candidate. Bernie is more progressive than her on a single issue – economics – but she is more progressive on most other issues, including the ones that I currently find to be most critical: racial equality, sexual equality, gender equality, and so forth. Yet despite that, there’s a nearly universal framing of the race as “Clinton to the right of Sanders”.
I wish Sanders would pull Clinton to the left on economics. I also wish Clinton would pull Sanders to the left on all the other issues.
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: I imagine you were referring to
? I was just sayin’.
ETA: Jeez, that wasn’t a slight.
Bob In Portland
@aimai: Give the people what they want and they’ll come, unless, of course, they’ve been dropped off the voter rolls.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland:
Do you honestly believe a putative President Cruz and a putative President Clinton would sign and/or veto all the same legislation? You’re smarter than that.
D58826
@Obdurodon: I’m sure Hillary will throw Bernie under the bus just like Obama threw Hillary under the bus. Oh wait…. the SoS gig hmmm.
It is not exactly unprecedented that the person elected in November populates the upper reaches of his administration with his/her supporters. I suspect a Bernie administration will be long on Bernie’s supporters and short on Clinton and Obama types. Its not an inquisition its the way the system has worked for, well forever. I doubt that Augustus stocked his inner circle with Marc Antony supporters.
Bob In Portland
@Andrey:
Since a lot of people are saying that, instead of trying to rationalize in your mind how it can’t be perhaps you should try to figure out why people are saying that. I would suggest that you read LISTEN, LIBERAL by Thomas Frank, but the villagers around here say it’s on the banned book list.
Glad to help.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: Ew, Bernie would make a terrible SoS.
Bob In Portland
@D58826: Well, we know that Larry Summers wouldn’t be in a Sanders Administration. You want him in a Hillary Administration?
redshirt
@Andrey: I used to think that, but now I think Bernie would be a terrible president. Better then Trump or Cruz, for sure. But still terrible.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: I didn’t take it as one, really. It’s just that you kinda rang two of my bells at once: morality in politics, and basing political decisions on might-have-beens.
redshirt
@Major Major Major Major: I’m learning he’s pretty much terrible in every position. I hope gets replaced as Senator in Vermont by an actual Democrat.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Then maybe the working class hero (who never held a steady job) should be a little more cognizant of sending out a white millionaire to scoff at the unimportance of the silly little people in the South Carolina Dem Primary (most of whom weren’t white). At best it makes him look like an elitist snob. At worst, a condescending liberal racist.
NR
@Brachiator: Apparently white liberal Millenals are the new Dirty Fucking Hippies. The chosen scapegoat for everything that ever goes wrong for the Democratic party.
WarMunchkin
@Emma: It’s almost like these things aren’t binaries and both ideology and compromise have roles to play in politics.
cokane
@Cacti: As I stated initially, you’re unable to rise above ad hom. Even worse, you invent stories about your opponents. This is the natural end state of faux-liberals unable to form actual arguments without cribbing from their identity-politics bingo card.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: I have no idea what a Trump will do, but I suppose as far as the war agenda and the economic winnowing of the bottom 80%, I suspect Cruz and Clinton will get similar results, like Bill and Dubya got similar results.
But here’s a question for the villagers here to ponder: Why didn’t Dubya make a hard push to outlaw abortion? Think hard, villagers.
Major Major Major Major
@NR: You forgot heterosexual, cisgendered, & able-bodied
Bob In Portland
@cokane: And Cacti’s also a racist.
Bob In Portland
@NR: All the way back to 1840.
Emma
@WarMunchkin: Ya know? If being centrist means “compromising enough to move the baseline forward” (Obamacare) count me a centrist.
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: @WarMunchkin: Second :)
ETA: It also makes you an evil corrupt establishment neoliberal squish Republican-lite DINO
Cacti
@cokane:
Yes, yes, you’ve said this before.
It didn’t get any more interesting since the last time.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: Clean up your own act before you see the evil in others.
D58826
@Kay: Of course its a real question. And why did the Chamber of Commerce have access to W once a week, and the Slave Dealers of Mississippi have access to Andrew Jackson once a week. Money unfortunately talks, it always has and always will. And if Bernie is elected he will have to figure out a way to give access to people/interest groups that he has rarely associated with. With out those groups he will have no chance of getting anything done. The GOP is constantly harping on the fact that the democrats are in the pocket of the teachers unions while ignoring that the GOP is in the pocket of Big Oil. And as much as it may be a cliche at this point taking their money, drinking their booze and then doing the public’s business is probably the best we can hope for.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: I honestly don’t see anyone making the argument that “the only possible threat is quid pro quo”.
You want me to say it’s terrible and “Tone deaf” for HRC to be accepting so much money for speeches? OK, it’s terrible. I think it’s terrible that that’s her market price for getting up in front of a bunch of Wall Streeters and Big Campers and Big Dairy-ers and Big Car Dealers and giving a speech. I think it’s terrible of her to accept it. I think it’s even more terrible that no one is offering to pay *me* that kind of money to get up on my hind legs and yap something anodyne about teamwork and The American Way for forty minutes. I also think it’s terrible that A-list Hollywood actors and professional athletes get paid millions more per year than teachers. And God help them if they decide they want to run for office, because of the corrupting influence of all that money.
I’m sorry, but…it’s true. You’re right. I might think it looks bad, but in the end I just don’t care nearly as much about the price of Wall Street Speechifying and What It Looks LIke as I do about actual pressing issues facing this country, to say nothing of my personal economic situation. t have enough faith that Hillary Clinton is going to make a good-faith effort to solve some of *those* problems – and that for all Bernie Sanders’s posturing, I have very *little* any faith at all in *his* ability to do so – that I’m willing to give her a pass on the money. As I’ve had occasion to note before, I trust her ability to “take their money, drink their liquor and (metaphorically) screw their women, and vote against ’em anyway.”
And I happen to believe she is on board with campaign finance reform. And I also happen to be very excited by what Bernie Sanders has been able to accomplish with small donations, even if I’m not psyched about him as a candidate. I think it would be great if a lot of small donations can add up to being a big collective player, and the sooner we get there, the better. But I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or even the “good enough”. I can’t afford to.
D58826
453 and counting. still time to be the person to hit 500 and win a gold flaked
pink unicorn
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Oh Bob, there you go with your old white man routine. Thinking people should care what you have to say, because you’re you.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland:
Way to not answer. If I were a woman, or if I were gay (I am neither) I doubt I’d be as complacent as you are about the differences between President Cruz and President Clinton.
WarMunchkin
@Emma:
It was me who did that, not Major^4. I’m sorry to have brought up a fictional LBJ – but what FDR did (and what Truman did) should be clear enough, real examples.
Bob In Portland
Paul in KY
@Linnaeus: Good point.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Why didn’t Bush ban abortion? I asked above, I’ll try again. By the way, how’s things going for gays in the South, the wheelhouse of the great liberal progressive Hillary Clinton?
Paul in KY
@liberal: To me, neolibaerals are the asswipes who got us into Iraq (or helped out).
planetjanet
@Mike J: Oh, you guys are killing me today.
Miss Bianca
@Obdurodon: Well, whatever, sunshine. You’re gonna believe what you beleive, and so am I. I notice it’s somehow always the Sanders supporters who come here to lecture earnestly about how Sec. Clinton needs to pay more attention to *them* who are the ones who end up squalling like scalded cats about the “incivility” of her supporters when they provide pushback in proportion against this narrative. Why are you here, anyway? That’s what I can’t figure out. If the tone of the joint stinks so much, why are you here complaining that the portions are so small? : )
Bill Arnold
@dollared:
That list reads like a parody of honesty. (Maybe that’s a little blunt, if so, sorry.) Needs work.
Seriously, the only thing in the list with legs is NAFTA, and that depends on which economists you believe.
D58826
@Bob In Portland: There is a thriving business in people giving paid speeches. I suspect that Romney had his agreement as does Newt, Rudy, and most of the other GOP contenders over the years.
Jane Sanders said today that Bernie will not release any of his tax returns until Hillary releases her speeches. Is this a new standard? Romney certain was beaten up over his tax returns but I don’t remember any one complaining about speeches he made as a private citizen. Hillary should probably release the damn things just to make it go away, but Obama released his birth certificate in 2008 and that didn’t work out so well. On the other hand candidates have been releasing tax returns for years so why does Bernie get a pass on this.
les
@Kay:
When will the stupid stop? Tone deaf? Umpty posts in this thread to the effect that quid pro quo is the Repub position, Clinton and Dems say not good enough. Only the Berners are stupid enough to equate getting paid for a speech with Citizens. The endless screeching of SPEECHES is all you got, and it’s shit. You can’t find horror in her positions–the apparently small number of you who can find her positions–you can’t find a pro Wall Street scandal in her actual, you know, legislative or administrative career, you can’t cite a speech or policy proposal or anyfuckingthing, so SPEECHES. I’d be surprised Bernie doesn’t slink back home in shame at the quality of his support, if I could see he was any better.
aimai
@Kay: Its so far down on my list of priorities that I can’t even see it. Google is enormous, its like a country, very large financial and economic concerns, and countries, are going to get special attention from the government because their interests/needs and agressive acts have enormous consequences for everyone else. I elect my President to protect my interests even though I don’t have enough money or power to talk to the office directly. The way I do that is I work with other people who are in the same boat: parents, democrats, liberals, people with mortgages, people with college debt, people in the ACLU or whatever and I 1) try to get the best person I can into the office and 2) try to hold their feet to the fire and send my lobbyists to influence them when I can. I just don’t find this at all shocking. The Presidency isn’t really like some kind of holy populist temple. The Presidency has to ride herd on an enormous, 300 million person strong country with cross cutting interests and ties that make the treaties before WWI look like nothing. Touch one part of the web and the entire thing gets shocky. If I were President you can be sure I’d keep my friends close and my enemies closer.
les
@D58826:
Dude. I was quoting Orobouros or whatever that fool’s name is, and I swore at him/her way better than you just did, but apparently got FYWP’d.
Not your fault, but I ain’t owning that blind bullshit.
Obdurodon
@D58826:
Strawman (subspecies: false dichotomy). Nobody’s suggesting that a Clinton administration should appoint a ton of Sanders supporters. What I’m saying is that it seems like Sanders supporters will be even less welcome than “moderate” Republicans. That fabled Overton Window has been drifting ever rightward for a while now. Somebody has to pull it leftward again, but the “centrists” and “incrementalists” keep chasing it to the right. In order to seem (or feel) all bipartisan and pragmatic, they actively shun anyone on their own left. They chase the center, and by doing so help move the center ever rightward. Republican strategists figured this out ages ago. They’ve been letting the line out, then reeling it back in with a “centrist” on the hook, time after time after time. Sanders supporters (and others) have figured this out and started to resist, but apparently that has only made them outcasts in their own party. Thanks for that.
Applejinx
@BR: Nah, that never happens
D58826
@Miss Bianca: If they can build on that small donor model that would be great but how many of those donors can keep giving year in and year out to candidates up and down the ballot. Will they disappear, like their votes, during off year elections? Once upon a time when 1/3rd of the labor force was unionized, the unions could act as a way to channel the money of the little guy into effective political action. And I suspect that there was a time when the UAW or the mine workers union got the see the president, at least if he was a democrat, on a weekly basis as well.
aimai
@D58826: I don’t understand (well, I do) why Jane Sanders thinks there is some kind of quid pro quo for Bernie to release his taxes. Taxes are taxes and Presidential candidates have been releasing them for years. It has nothing to do with Hillary’s speeches and trying to turn it into a trade is just bizarre. If Bernie also wants her speeches released he can keep demanding that. But releasing the taxes is just Bernie’s obligation as a candidate. The fact that he and Jane want to evade it is both highly suspicious and downright disgusting. They would be the first in line criticizing Hillary if she had refused to release hers.
Bob Reich, when running for Governor here (and I was one of his supporters) got into trouble because his taxes showed that he had overclaimed a charitable donation–he’d donated some crappy drum set and given it an absurd value. People made fun of him for weeks. Kerry was hammered because it came out that he had tried to save some money (what a Wasp thing to do) by taking his boat down to harbor it in a state that didn’t have the yacht tax MA has. Oh well! As the writer of The Kabballah of Money points out–the pocket is a very revealing moral place. When you put your hand in your pocket before giving money to a beggar only you know how much money you have. You make the choice about what to do knowing that no one else knows whether you are giving justly or cheaply. Bernie seems to be needing the same kind of cloak. If he were proud of his personal finances and his economic moral behavior he’d release the taxes.
Cacti
@D58826:
I think it’s more a case of they know it’s all but over for them, so there’s no downside to any continued obfuscation on their personal finances.
redshirt
I wonder what Sanders is hiding in those tax forms.
Just another lying politician, right Bob and the Bros?
D58826
@Obdurodon:
I would say that is an assumption on your part.
gwangung
@Bob In Portland: Son, this just plain shows your ignorance if you think this says anything about Hilary, other than that she’s an A-list speaker.
aimai
@Obdurodon: The overton window has not been moving rightward. This is just absurd. The country as a whole, and the Democratic party, are far more to the left than they have ever been since the fall of the USSR put communism out of the picture. However, this is complicated by the fact that the press and the right wing are more strongly partisan than ever (thanks, among other things, by the killing of equal time and the rise of fox news). However we didn’t need Bernie and his followers to instruct us on what a progressive society would look like. And they haven’t done much more than tout a strict marxist economic line. People have been trying to tell Bernie and his fans that there is more to life than trade agreements and white progressive pain about college debt. There are a lot of different, suffering, communities and they all have demands and needs that need to be met by a Democratic Presidency.
les
@Obdurodon:
My god. After all the sorry stupidity you’ve produced, you come up with a veritable masterpiece. Every sentence drips butthurt. Every thought permeated with the unearned suffering of the true, the pure, the (only)real liberal. Every line about how the terrible mean Hillarybeast attacks your feelings.
My god just stay home election day and cry, already, do you have to publish this drivel?
gwangung
@Obdurodon:
Based on what?
The more asshole supporters will certainly be unwelcome, but that’s par for the course….
schrodinger's cat
@Paul in KY: Aren’t those the neocons?
Obdurodon
@Miss Bianca:
Good question. I’ve been here quite a long time, actually. Before this election season, I felt pretty welcome and had many good interactions here. Maybe the place will regain some of its lustre after the election. Meanwhile, though, it seems like it might be time to take a vacation. Life’s too short to spend it around intolerant and vicious people like you.
schrodinger's cat
Twenty minus one to 500.
les
@D58826:
The notion that Bernie and his revolution care about “up and down the ballot” assumes facts not in evidence. It is a great thing to have accomplished; I fear neither Bernie nor his supporters are too concerned they’ll run out of small donations for him because they gave to too many down ballot.
aimai
@D58826: Those small donors will not be giving to the Democratic Party. Their donations were like religious offerings. You give to your particular saint, with the expectation and hope of a particular reward. That doesn’t translate to a broader acceptance of the needs of the Church. I’d also like to add that people give in a way that is simultaneously transactional and passionately ideological. They chose Bernie as the vehicle of their desires and, on the one hand, imagined a pay off (like gambling) if he hit it big and took the Presidency. On the other hand they gave, passionately and lovingly, as a token of fealty and shared identity. They gave at the urging of other people they knew, and friends they felt accountable to. It was a mass crowd event. That probably can’t be repeated with an ordinary politician, or at any rate with someone else’s chosen political vehicle.
aimai
@Obdurodon: She’s not vicious. She likes a good argument. Hyperbole is a kind of agressive act, too, you know.
Bill Arnold
@TriassicSands:
Reasonably sure you’re wrong on this. I think P. Krugman is mostly concerned about not electing a Republican POTUS, with a side of real distaste for policy positions that don’t align well with reality. (And might even refuse if approached for such a position in a Clinton administration.)
Just a different read, FWIW.
Cacti
Fun fact: Bernie was once kicked out of commune for not working.
Even Vermont hippies thought he was lazy.
Applejinx
@D58826:
I’m pretty sure the political tactic here is: when people see how much faith she places in Wall Street as an engine to drive economic prosperity, she’ll be compelled to repudiate that sort of talk for sheer self-protection. If she doesn’t reveal the speeches, she can get away with generalities.
I don’t think that would really be the most important mechanism for a ‘position reversal’, though. I do honestly feel that seeing the Wall Streeters not live up to her lofty knob-slobbering rhetoric, is what would flip her. Pretty sure she assumes that because she’s praised the crap out of them in private and said ‘now fair’s fair, regulate yourselves for the good of the country and the world economy because wonk wonk wonkity wonk’, therefore they’re going to do as she said and straighten up and fly right.
I think they won’t. And I think she’s gonna be double pissed when it’s made obvious that they won’t.
However, it is still necessary to apply political pressure to Clinton just to make sure she understands that she daren’t release those speeches. It will only heighten her MAMA SPANK reaction when the Wall Streeters betray her and come for another bailout.
Miss Bianca
@Obdurodon: “intolerant and vicious”? My, the things I learn about myself! : )
ETA: If it’s “vicious” to be intolerant of bullshit then yes…guilty as charged.
Cacti
@Applejinx:
Or there’s a simpler explanation that Bernie and Jane are hiding something.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Miss Bianca:
I’m a troll and a waste of pixels! Do I win?
D58826
Ok, lets game this out. Hillary releases the texts of the speeches. They show that they are 40 minutes of mom, apple pie, the american way and what a wonderful group the people in the audience are. But But you are missing the REAL corruption here. Before or after the speech there is a dinner. She is sitting at the head table with the top honchos of whatever organization she is speaking to. Surely that must be where the plans for bribes, money laundering and baby killing are being discussed. And of course she is staying in the same hotel so that provides even more time to hatch nefarious plots against the people. So even if she releases the secretly taped dinner table conversations we will never know the true depth of her depravity,
only partially snark.
Applejinx
@Cacti: No, it’s because he did nothing but argue politics all day.
After the primary, he should come HERE! He’s just like us! :D
FlipYrWhig
@Paul in KY:
That’s neoconservatives.
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: SHOW US THE LONG-FORM TRANSCRIPTS HILLARY!
Cacti
My favorite part of the Sanders campaign to date:
After beating feet out of NY nearly 50 years ago, Bernie tries to run as a hometown hero and Brooklyn’s favorite son against “carpetbagger” Hillary.
Reality: Clinton is a NYer by choice. Bernie chose to leave NY. Bernie gets thumped.
Applejinx
@Cacti: Yeah, that it no longer matters so they can use their taxes as a lever to try and pry Hillary’s speeches into the open, with no real downside. He ain’t gonna win so now it’s all about defining the terms under which Hillary wins (not runs, wins. Fuck no we’re not going to elect President Trump. Bernie will wait for everyone to cool off and BEG them not to elect President Trump. What a psychotic rich fuck he is.)
Applejinx
And, hello TBogg Unit! *drumroll* Who will it be?
schrodinger's cat
500 achieved, now on to 1000, yes we can!
les
@Paul in KY:
Never heard of PNAC, eh? Bernie and the army of the naive. The Children’s Crusade. Revolution of the uninformed, by the uninformed and for the uninformed. Not to mention SPEECHES.
TriassicSands
@schrodinger’s cat:
I didn’t doubt your prediction. Just making light of it.
WarMunchkin
@Cacti:
As Cole wrote not one week ago, Clinton’s performance in NY was basically unchanged from 2008. I’m partially thinking that campaigns don’t really matter.
aimai
Is it me? I hope its me!
TriassicSands
@Bill Arnold:
Did you follow him closely in 2008? He was irresponsibly partisan in favor of Clinton. He has not been so bad this year regarding Sanders, but then there is the difference now that Clinton’s ultimate nomination has never been in serious question.
Gravenstone
Alright people, we have a TBogg unit! Can we go for a double before the Primary threads later tonight?
Major Major Major Major
Damn it! I go out for a quick 40-minute workout and I miss it!
aimai
@Applejinx: Knob slobbering rhetoric? What the fucking fuck? Do you have any idea how grotesque that comment is? Or how stupid you sound? HRC has never said, or even hinted, at the notion that political change or economic regulation comes from talks given in quiet rooms, or speeches given at large corporate retreats. her entire fucking life has been bare knuckled political brawling to get concrete things done while in power using perfectly ordinary political means: negotiating, trading, wheeling and dealing, within the legislative arena. You are responding to the voices in your head at this point.
Kay
@D58826:
Obama wrote in one of his (best-selling) books that fundraising made him less responsive to the concerns of most people because he spent most of his time with people who were comfortably well off.
This is no longer a problem or certain, special people are just not vulnerable to the failings of ordinary mortals?
D58826
@Kay: Of course its a problem. I don’t know how you fix it. People run for office. It takes money. People,esp those with money, like to be around famous people, esp. those who are running for office. In an eight hour day it is easier for the politician to meet with 4 people who can give 10k each, then 40k people who can only give a dollar. I can give Hillary $100 and not much else. The teachers union can give her 100k and provide GOTV help, contacts for people to put in the new administration, etc.
I don’t know how you fix that. As to your question, I guess some people might have their heads screwed on a little tighter and are less taken in by the hype but no as a general rule there are no special people
les
@Kay:
There’s a good noun in English: nonsequitor. I can’t tell whether your (to be generous) point is that Hillary has the same potential problems with fundraising that Obama has, and attempts to recognize them as he does, or that Obama too is a corrupted lying captive of the corrupt scheme that has corrupted every politician except Bernie, who apparently has managed a life long (and he’s old!) political career while never fundraising.
Hardly matters, though, does it? There’s purity of essence, and there’s everything else.
Applejinx
@aimai: Mom and Apple Pie don’t interest Wall Streeters at all. They are slavering sadistic animals utterly devoted to destroying each other in that special kind of rahge, ‘ARBITRAGE’, for the good of themselves alone: and equally devoted to the idea that this somehow benefits the economy, justice, and the world. They really do believe that carrying on that way is virtue itself, and they want everything done in that model.
Look to the techno-utopians in Silicon Valley for things like ‘universal basic income’ or the idea that consumer economies only work when there’s someone to consume products: the Wall Street guys want darwinian ultracompetition from top to bottom.
Hillary will have told them that indeed they are the future of capitalism and the engine of the universe. Apple Pie ain’t got nothing to do with it. She will have ingratiated herself with praise for their ethic and their toughness, and then talked up the virtues of not cheating: of rules, and checks and balances (i.e. REGULATION) but regulation that is on their side and working in their interests so the whole ‘game’ continues to function.
I’d bet you ten dollars there’s at least a little in there, arguing for self-regulation and acceptance of common rules. It might be sort of laughably weak, but it’ll be there, and to Hillary that will have been the payload: get ’em listening and then suggest what her own ex-Goldman Sachs, regulation-curious friends passed along.
The reason she can’t release the speeches is, the half an hour of capitalist knob slobbering in this political environment is explosive, scandalous. Unfair, but there it is. You can’t butter people up and get them hanging on your words, if those words are going to be presented in another context. And I flat guarantee she’s outright celebrating their whole way of life, maybe even joking about how she shares it now and is loving it.
Again: there will be things in the speeches that are consistent with her befriending regulation-friendly ex-Wallstreeters. But the butter-people-up component is way too toxic to ever see daylight in this election season.
Unknown known (formerly known as Ecks, former formerly completely unknown)
@schrodinger’s cat in comment #6:
Win.
Unknown known (formerly known as Ecks, former formerly completely unknown)
@Mr. Mack:
Slight misstatement. Per the constitution, primaries get 3/5 of a vote.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx:
And then she says, “And I also killed Vince Foster because he was talking about Mena Airport and the CIA drugs, and then I pushed a reporter in front of a train, like Frank Underwood, because that was based on me. No one’s writing this down, right?” And then there’s a sound like MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH and a peal of thunder. That’s what I heard.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: Because saying I’m sure there was a ‘payload’ of advocating regulation in there, is TOTALLY the same as killing Vince Foster and eating his face. Suuuuure. *backs away quietly*
See ya at post 1000 o_O
Bill Arnold
@TriassicSands:
Fair comment; no, I don’t much recall his columns about Hillary/Obama in 2008.
Anyway, I do appreciate having a public intellectual of his caliber as a pundit; we need more such.
D58826
@les: I’ll give Bernie a bit of the benefit of the doubt here. Running for office in a small, homogeneous, retail politics orientated state like Vermont is probably a lot less expensive that running in New York, let alone a national campaign.
On the other hand in his first campaign he said something that upset the NRA and they backed his opponent. In his second campaign he changed his tune about the NRA and they backed him, as they have ever since. Now the article did not go into details about what ‘NRA backing’ consisted of but money seems the obvious thing. quid pro quo anyone.
D58826
@Gravenstone: Maybe Cole can donate some of Steve’s excess fur as a prize
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: Bernie Sanders’s Vermont has very few local interests to placate, very few media troublemakers, and very few kinds of people. I think he thinks everyone can be as unsullied as he is if they only had the same commitment to principle. This is what emerges from his “Outsider” book and the Matt Taibbi essay I’ve cited before. Everyone else, he thinks, chooses to be dirtied in some way by the process of fundraising and influence-peddling. They should turn to the people instead! But think of Joe Biden, working-class hero, once derided as “the Senator from MBNA” because Delaware is in the grip of banking interests, and he needed to be mindful of that, or they’d throw their weight behind a competitor and bounce him and, with him, all the good he could do for everyday joes, which relative kindness to Delaware banks empowers him to keep doing.
I get the sense that Bernie Sanders thinks everyone else is tainted by playing a game they don’t have to play, because he hasn’t played it. But he hasn’t HAD to play it. He’s one of the lucky ones, not one of the elect. Big difference.
J R in WV
@Applejinx:
Bernard Sanders lost by not receiving enough votes to win. He needs to do whatever Hillary Clinton tells him to do from now until the day after the next president has been selected and her inauguration is scheduled. If that means sucking hind tit in public, that is what he needs to do. And YOU need to shut the fuck up about it and go along with the winner of the primaries.
I’m sure Ms Clinton will adopt some of Sanders’ platform ideas, not that it is a necessary thing for her to do, but because she is a politician, and that is what politicians do. But if Sanders does anything that hinders the election of someone other than a Republican, he should get to be king of the fucking broom closet in the capital basement. Or retire to Vermont.
D58826
@FlipYrWhig:
Yep, and a lot of folks that worked for MBNA or Dupont, or whatever were also Joe’s constituents. American democracy is messy
John D
@Applejinx:
This is so far past hyperbole that I seriously question your mental stability.
Do you honestly believe the drivel you posted?
Guam guy
@Mike J: BS was gonna lose Guam even without that asshat’s own goal
Brachiator
@Applejinx:
RE: Jane Sanders said today that Bernie will not release any of his tax returns until Hillary releases her speeches. Is this a new standard?
This is a losing strategy. Release of tax returns is more or less expected of presidential candidates. It is not a demand that one candidate makes of another.
For me personally, Bernie had until the New York primary to release his returns. This would have given voters of the remaining primaries time to factor in this information in their assessment of his character. I still don’t presume that he is hiding anything. But his failure to comply invalidates much of his rhetoric about corruption and politicians hiding stuff. He simply cannot do this and remain credible.
There is no tradition of candidates releasing transcripts of speeches they give to groups. And for me, this goes beyond Clinton. I ask, do we, as citizens have a right to demand that every speech a politician make be on the record? Because I cannot single out Wall Street bankers just because this is currently the group that we hate.
I also have to ask, are people making special demands on a candidate because of gender? Because asswipes certainly made specious demands of candidate and later president Obama because of his race.
I have not answered all of these questions for myself yet. For others, your mileage may vary.
But on tax returns, I am clear. It is a current standard. Neither Trump nor Sanders gets to redefine it.
Not if they want to be seriously considered to be a presidential candidate.
SFAW
@John D:
Forget it, Jake, it’s
ChinatownApplejinx.Tegdirb
@Bob In Portland: Her conversion the Democratic Party as the supporter of the monied class – you do know the first presidential candidate she voted for was McGovern right?
Christ, you’re a dumb asshole.
aimai
@John D: I honor you for even trying to read that screed. I didn’t bother.
J R in WV
@Bob In Portland:
Bob says “If you wanted my vote you should have chosen a cleaner candidate. You didn’t. So good luck. ”
Bob, no one wants your vote. Your vote is a dirty piece of crap floating down stream in a sewer. So your vote won’t be counted, no matter who it is for.
aimai
@Kay: Sure, Obama wrote that, and I’m sure its true. On the other hand he has taken specific steps to combat this by, for instance, reading letters sent to him by both supporters and opponents. In addition, when campaigning, all candidates come in contact with a huge swathe of American life–they are approached by all kinds of people with all kinds of problems and experiences. This, too, has the potential to change them and illuminate the choices ahead of them. The leader of an enormous country has a duty to be aware of his/her biases, to try to correct for them, and to work for the common good–if they are the Democrat. I just don’t see any other option than trying to choose someone you think will try honesty to do a good job. And the reverse of this–choosing someone who doesn’t know what that job is like, doesn’t have any track record in office, has never had to raise money, but has a lot of poor people as friends isn’t really an option. Its just a reality that the kind of person you are imagining–Bernie for example but of course not real world Bernie, imaginary Bernie–doesn’t really exist as a viable candidate. And its not clear that even if this imaginary “untouched by money and power” candidate appeared they would be any good at all at governing. Obama is a ferociously well educated, well travelled, and thoughtful person. Hillary Clinton has been middle class and then governing class her entire adult life. These are things that matter in running a country. No one untouched by the world is going to be catapulted into the office of President and the idea that anyone who has been around the block is debarred is just weird.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Late to the party, but…
@Kay: Google Public Policy:
Yes, donors get access. Yes, large companies get access. But every visit isn’t due to a donation or due to a company being large. And it’s not like Barack himself was sitting down with Google’s PR people at breakfast once a week.
People have a constitutional right to lobby the government. Everyone does. And the government works with the private sector to do stuff.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who wishes we had public financing, but we don’t.)
Xantar
@schrodinger’s cat:
I just came on and saw this thread. Then I saw the comment count. Then I saw your comment predicting 500 comments.
Done well you have.
Bill Arnold
@John D:
I maybe live closer to The Belly of the Beast than you do (or not), and hear toned-down self-justifying versions of that more than occasionally. They sometimes know they’ll get mocked back, hard, but still say it because in their hearts, they believe it. (That greed is almost always a force for good, basically.)
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bill Arnold: PK has served in government (under Reagan). He has no interest in doing so again and has said so many times (on his blog). IIRC, he said he doesn’t have the personality for it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Okay, but then Democrats probably can’t run against the evil Koch Brothers and their nefarious schemes.
There’s nothing intrinsically pure about the corporations who lobby Democrats.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kay: Eh? Of course Democrats can run against the evil Koch Brothers. It’s not their donations that make the Koch Brothers evil, it’s who they donate to and why.
I’m not sure what point your trying to make. Was Obama actually corrupted by raising $750M in his 2008 campaign? Or did he do what he needed to do to get elected under the laws that existed at the time. (Yes, he said in the book that he didn’t like it, but AFAIK, he didn’t change his policy positions based on a nefarious donation.) If not, why is Hillary being treated differently when she’s operating in a post-CU world (where the other side can raise and spend unlimited amounts with no disclosure)?
Cheers,
Scott.
Eric
@D58826: Did you learn that last truism under President Humphrey or during the Gore Administration?
WarMunchkin
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Count me in the camp that thought the issue was that high dollar actors got outsized say in influence. I wouldn’t be happy if it were the liberal Koch brothers.
Actually, going even further… by that logic, why was Citizens United wrong again?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WarMunchkin: IMHO, Citizens United is wrong because there’s little or no disclosure of where the big money comes from and where it goes. The ruling says that disclosure rules are fine, but the FEC can’t implement them due to GOP intransigence. I also don’t like the fact that CU effectively guts spending limits for some (but not for others), but I remember when PACs were touted as a great advance for “little people” because they could pool their donations and have as much clout as some cigar chomping CEO. Now, PACs have some reputation as being a tool of the Devil, and SuperPACs even more-so.
I don’t like perpetual campaigns and perpetual fundraising, but I want relative unknowns to be able to find a way to let voters know about him/her. If we clamp down too much on political spending, then we’re setting ourselves up for machines and dynasties of politicians who have already climbed to the top of the hill. That’s dangerous. (Obama could not have succeeded without the ability to raise lots of money.)
I don’t think that people donate to a candidate to Corrupt™ them. I think they (mostly) donate to a candidate because they like the person’s views and want to support them. I’m sure that’s why most of us here donate to candidates when we do.
Of course, there are counter-examples. Gov. McDonnell of Virginia, for instance. But those weren’t campaign contributions (VA limits governors to one term). They were for favors (hold up this “supplement” and say nice things about it; let me make a pitch to some committee; etc.). There was clear quid-pro-quo corruption, and McDonnell didn’t declare the gifts properly (if at all).
Like you, I’d be happier if our political system didn’t depend on big checks from rich people to: bail out political parties; pay for inauguration parties; fund conventions; fund parties to enable national campaigns; etc. I would be happier if the money raised didn’t go to TV networks to turn every contest into a horse-race and a gaffe-hunt rather than to actually inform the public about the issues and the candidates. I would be happier if a lot of things were different. But they aren’t.
The fate of the country and the world depends on preserving and extending Obama’s, Nancy’s, and Harry’s gains over the last few years. We have a campaign finance system that is sub-optimal in many ways. But it is probably less Corrupt™ than in any other time one could point to.
And HRC, private citizen, earning money from speeches isn’t Corrupt™ anyway. Why can’t she earn money giving speeches as a private citizen??
Let’s not lose track of the big picture….
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
WarMunchkin
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: So if I could summarize – your primary issues are that spending limits are unfairly limited for some actors but not others and that, separately, money cannot be tracked?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WarMunchkin: I thought I was pretty clear. I wasn’t?
If not, I don’t think (at this time) that I could explain it better by trying again.
Cheers,
Scott.
WarMunchkin
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I meant no insult. Just repeated my understanding.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland:
@Bob In Portland:
I see no inconsistencies here.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WarMunchkin: Sorry – I didn’t mean to seem annoyed. I think campaign finance in the US is complicated. It’s hard for me to pick any particular thing as being my “primary issue”. I thought McCain-Feingold was a decent law. I think Citizens United opened the door to lots of mischief. As I recall, I liked Stevens’ dissent when I read it at the time.
But, I’m suspicious of simple solutions to complicated problems. I don’t think reversing Citizens United is going to do much to fix the problems with lack of transparency and people not knowing who is trying to influence their vote. And the idea that someone can’t show a movie (even if it’s really a hatchet job on a political candidate) within 30 days of an election just seems wrong. Let them show the movie, but require that they put their names on it an not hide behind some organizational name, seems to me to be the best way to address the issue.
If an organization doesn’t have to pay taxes, then they should be forced to strictly obey the rules. Too many “educational” and “public service organizations” aren’t.
My $0.02. HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: 2 heads of same coin. A neoliberal is a person who used to have liberal views of stuff & now has views that are what I would call ‘reactionary’ & voila they are now ‘neo’ in their thinking!
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: Guess I just hate all those neoers ;-)
Paul in KY
@les: I may nave got my neoers mixed up, I may have not…
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Ella in New Mexico:
The point was made more succinctly above – unbridled campaign spending isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom of the problem. Campaign finance laws only address the sypmtom, not the cause.
We’ve seen that UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH, by itself, does not guarantee victory, otherwise Walker would still be in the race, or we’d be talking about President Romney’s re-election.
So, while I don’t deny that Citizen’s has had a negative affect on politics, I don’t see it as a problem with the same immediacy as, say, fixing the ACA, taking serious action on climate change, etc. It is an issue, and it will eventually affect the Democratic party as there are plenty of stupid, woo-infested billionaires on the left, but it’s not the most important issue we’re facing right now.
Ironically, the decision has done the most damage to the GOP; the RNC has zero control over the process right now.
Not at all. It’s that we disagree that this particular issue is the issue that has to be addressed right now.
Bob In Portland
@Paul in KY: That would be Hillary, then.
Bob In Portland
@Ella in New Mexico: There’s a lot of hypocrisy here.
Let’s change corporate money in politics at some later unnamed date. After all, H. Clinton & hubby have received billions from rich people and it’s never affected her judgment on anything. It’s like she’s a fucking saint.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: I’ll ask again. Who was I racebaiting. FlipYourWhig?
@FlipYrWhig:
Bob:
As you can see, FlipYourWhig was calling me a “prissy privileged white dilettante.” Is that racebaiting or not? And if it’s not racebaiting, what the hell is it?
Apparently it was because FlipYourWhig didn’t see any economic connection between racism and the state of America’s minorities. Now, on its face and stripped of ad hominems and curses it’s simply ridiculous to maintain that. People were kidnapped, brought across the Atlantic, and forced to work for free. I know, some of you have curious ideas about how money doesn’t have any effect on politics, but really, has the Village voted that there is no connection between racism and money? Racism has been exploited in every way imaginable to make money.
So, again, you were about to tell me how I was racebaiting.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: Church Lady, FlipYourWhig made an insulting comment about my race. How is that racebaiting? People who use race to attack others are racists. FlipYourWhig is a racist. I’m just on the receiving end. You, using FlipYourWhig’s racism to attack me, are a racist. That makes you a disgusting person. Try to do better.