So last night on Jimmy Kimmel, Donald Trump kinda agreed to debate Bernie Sanders “for charity,” and Sanders tweeted, “Game On. I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7th primary.” Two questions — the first rhetorical, the second sincere:
1) Is Sanders out of his fucking mind?
2) Any chance this debate actually happens?
Fox News is the network that was going to sponsor the California Clinton-Sanders debate before Clinton declined to participate, which is what frontrunners do when they develop an insurmountable lead. I’m sure Fox News would field impeccably impartial moderators with 100% fair questions that advanced no partisan agenda whatsoever. Not.
Trump left himself plenty of wiggle room in his comment to Kimmel, but if I were him, I’d damn sure try to make this thing happen – what a golden opportunity to ingratiate himself to Sanders dead-enders while bashing Clinton nonstop. It’s all upside for Trump.
Oh, and let’s pause for a moment and imagine the ear-splitting hissy fit the Sanders people would pitch if Hillary Clinton agreed to debate Trump before the primary ends. This kind of shit right here is what made me evolve from “I’m glad Sanders is in the race — he’s pulling Clinton to the left” to “STFU and go away, Bernie.”
UPDATE: From CBS: “Multiple sources told CBS News Thursday morning, however, that the presumptive nominee [Trump] was just kidding about debating Sanders — it will never happen, they said.” H/T: Commenter Mike J.
Double E.
“Oh, and let’s pause for a moment and imagine the ear-splitting hissy fit the Sanders people would pitch if Hillary Clinton agreed to debate Trump before the primary ends.”
Perfect.
John
Fox Moderator: “Senator Sanders, do you believe that you’d be a better candidate in the general election against Donald Trump?”
Sanders: “Yes, I do.”
Fox Moderator: “Mr. Trump, how would you respond?”
Trump: “I agree with Bernie.”
Jerzy Russian
What is the blog-commenting equivalent to being “speechless”? Writeless? Whatever that is, I am that.
schrodinger's cat
Pathetic. Who will outshout the other? Battle of the index fingers. Loathsome vs. Clueless.
rikyrah
what a clown show that would be- this ‘ debate’.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
so it’s like Billie Jeanne King and Bobby Riggs (I think I have that name right), they’d sell tickets and I guess auction off the ads?
Hunter Gathers
I imagine that the Vulgar Talking Yam and America’s Crazy Sociamalist Grandfather will get along swimmingly. They both complain an awful lot, think very highly of themselves and hate them some Hillary Clinton. I’m going to stay clear of it, for I have no desire to watch two old men jerk each other off.
Litlebritdifrnt
They were speculating on MJ this morning that Trump is torpedoing his own campaign because he really doesn’t want to be POTUS.
rikyrah
Political Animal Blog
May 26, 2016 8:30 AM
Here’s How Clinton Will Take On Trump
By Nancy LeTourneau
There is a lot of chatter going on right now about how Hillary Clinton will take on Donald Trump. Of course, everyone has an opinion on that. Phillip Rucker identifies the challenge.
Rucker goes on to describe the campaign’s overall message:
Soylent Green
Fox Moderator: Senator Sanders, do you believe that Secretary Clinton is ahead because she rigged the system, and is therefore corrupt and untrustworthy?
Bernie: Yes, I’ve been saying that all through my campaign.
Moderator: Your view, Mr. Trump?
Trump: What he said.
WarMunchkin
A testosterone filled shoutfest between two hurtful people who won’t be President.
American politics, everybody.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah:
That’s about 32 words too long:
Better!
Mike J
Twitter is saying Trump says the Bernie debate was a joke. If somebody was dumb enough to think it was going to happen it would certainly say a lot about their judgement, huh?
marduk
Yeah, appeal to Sanders voters while Sanders is beating you like a piñata. How could that brilliant plan possibly fail?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Litlebritdifrnt: I’ve had that thought off and on for a while, Jeet Heer called it the Producers theory.
Myself I think his harping on BUbba’s wiener and doubling down on the vulgarity and bigotry (“Pocahontas”? your lazy Latina food stamp governor? really?) is a non-winning strategy– it won’t hurt him with most Rs and his howler monkeys, but it will probably alienate true indies (tote-baggers) and soft Republicans– but I can’t imagine what he could say that could actually drive away people who are already voting for him
Jeffro
I’m trying to picture how this will go, and can’t quite envision it, but I can generally see it going one of two ways (or perhaps both ways, back and forth, throughout the debate).
1) Sanders goes on the offensive against Trump for being an uber-Republican when it comes to advancing the 1% and screwing the little guy…Trump takes advantage of this to point out all the ways he’s supposedly looking out for the little guy (all lies of course, but it’s not like the moderators will correct Trump); lather, rinse, repeat.
2) Trump keeps needling Sanders about how bad Clinton is (for workers, for the Dem party and/or the US and/or the world)…Sanders agrees, then keeps saying, “But…”, only to be drowned out in additional Trump bombast and insults.
I’m not seeing this end well here. However, I also don’t think it’s a major game changer if Clinton simply steers clear, does her own thing, and continues to pound Trump’s negatives into the ground.
Just campaign hard with Obama & Biden and the veep pick, let tons of surrogates tout her experience, and keep up the ad war (like the one w/ actual Trump quotes towards women)
The Dangerman
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I think his VP pick will define that once and for all; Senator Corker’s name got floatered yeterday and the Right (that I read anyway) went nuts.
cokane
I think it could be a good idea. It’s becoming stupidly conventional wisdom that Trump taps into working class angst. I think a debate against someone who isn’t calling for tax breaks for the wealthy (the other R’s) could drop the mask on Trump’s shtick.
But I think there’s zero chance this happens. There’s just no upside for Trump and he has to know this. One extra debate only exposes him to a possible Perry-level gaffe. And if he’s seen as “winning” this debate, that fact will be unmemorable come November.
dr. bloor
Watching two white, lame-ass septuagenerians try to boost their testosterone levels by bitch-slapping* HRC in absentia would be the most pathetic thing in the universe. In other words, ratings gold for Faux News.
*Yeah, I know it’s a disgustingly offensive, misogynistic phrase. Perfect for the context, though, no?
Chris
This. Given how cranky he’s becoming, it seems like it wouldn’t take much for Donny to wind him up.
Elie
Poor Bernie. He’s come to this — anything for attention. Yes, this primary season did what it was supposed to do for the Democrats anyway. It revealed the character and fitness for office of our candidates. Bernie has proven he has poor character and is unfit for the presidency. If he keeps up, he will prove that he shouldn’t be senator either. He will make it from hero to goat… sad that he and his inner circle couldn’t avoid this outcome. Fatal flaws as they say in Greek drama.
Betty Cracker
@The Dangerman: Went nuts how? They don’t like Corker?
Mike J
hovercraft
@Litlebritdifrnt:
According to Paul Manafort Trumps VP will do the actual work of Presidenting, Trump will be like a Chairman of the Board not a CEO or COO. His strength is concepts and messaging. An entirely new kind of president. Though I would say been there done that, looking at you Cheney.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Litlebritdifrnt: I think this, from Steve Benen, gets to the heart of the Trump wants to win, but doesn’t want the job conundrum
The Dangerman
@Betty Cracker:
Hate him. Something about the Iran Nuke deal; I don’t wade too far into that swamp so I can’t tell you much more.
Frankensteinbeck
I honestly don’t think Sanders will be interested in using this to bash Hillary. For all I have contempt for his whiny ‘Don’t mistreat my supporters!’ non-apology over NV, he’s been avoiding going after Hillary personally, lately. He may not be able to stop himself, but I think he’ll try to make Trump the enemy.
Not going to happen, although Trump is probably idiotic enough to think he can. Trump is no leftist, and his asshole nature will prevent him from even pretending to agree with Sanders’ political views. The only Sanders voters who would vote for Trump were already going to vote for Trump even if Sanders won.
It’s possible Trump will make Sanders look weak and clumsy by repeatedly getting under Sanders’ skin. Sanders doesn’t really have any accusations Trump gives a damn about. ‘Corrupt plutocrat and tool of Wall Street’ isn’t an insult to Trump or to Trump’s supporters, although he may deny it when the whim takes him. Mostly I expect two old men to shout past each other and convince no one of anything.
TaMara (HFG)
@dr. bloor: You know, being a female, I’ve never looked at that phrase as being offensive. I personally mean it as – if I hit you, you’re gonna know it and it’s gonna leave a mark.
Mama don’t mess around.
gf120581
@hovercraft: Now we know why Gingrich wants the gig so badly.
Josie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The trouble with that setup is that Trump’s hordes will not like the idea of someone running the country that they didn’t vote for. it’s a bit too much like the scam the Republicans have been running on them for years.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Too sane, for the insane? Quick Google search showed that SEC is investigating him on inside trading charges.
ETA: Is it just me or do everyone’s edited comments trip the moderation filter?
hovercraft
@Mike J:
It could happen, Bernie benefits from the free media and gets to show he’s of equal stature to Trump. Trump gets to get up there and say he’s showing Bernie the respect that the democratic party is not.
Trump bashes Hillary while Bernie fails to defend her. Even if Bernie bashes Trump the Bernie Bros appreciate the fact that he was willing to debate their guy while she was not. Win win.
Randy P
@srv: And you believe this shows a problem with the Predident and not the focus of the “reporter”?
You think there’s something new to say about the STANDARD PRACTICE of Secretaries of State using outside email servers?
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat: *Insider not inside.
Mike J
@hovercraft: It won’t happen if Trump is saying it was a joke.
hovercraft
@Josie:
I think as long as their hero is out there bashing the right people they won’t care. They are all about feeling and message, policy details don’t interest them just like Trump. Plus I don’t think he’ll advertise the fact that he’s just a figurehead.
Immanentize
True Facts —
1) Bernie has no money and needs free media
2) Trump probably has money but doesn’t want to spend any and is King of free media.
3) Fox wants eyeballs for ad revenue estimates.
4) None of these three entities take direction from others
They will probably “debate” even if it is one of those sequential town hall thingies
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You got Bobby Riggs right, but Billie Jean King wrong.
D58826
A quote from an an Atlantic artile on how the Bernie supporters view the primary
Sarah Palin would have trouble topping that. Given that the Donald made mincemeat out of 16 other challengers, some with pretty good debating skills (even if their ideas sucked) it is more than likely Bernie will be number 17. Will that convince the Bernie bros, I have no idea but it won’t help the party in November. It will make it that much harder to welcome Bernie onto the Hillary team. Imagine – 2 hours of loud Hillary basing by Trump. At best Sanders offers a mild defense once in a while. If Bernie say’s little or nothing to defend Hillary then the visual (and fall ad) will be he agrees with Trump. A full on defense by Bernie will simply undercut his entire campaign that Hillary and the democrats are corrupt and not fit to lead the nation.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/bernie-sanders-clinton/484439/
hovercraft
@Mike J:
Probably not, but with mister suggestion you never know. If he has any sense he won’t do it.
NonyNony
@hovercraft:
The “BernieBros” are already not planning on voting for Clinton. They’re like the PUMAs in 2008 who wouldn’t vote for Obama – a small number of loudmouthed people on the internet. Or like my libertarian acquaintance who was “Bernie curious” and was willing to register as a Democrat in the primary but will be casting his ballot for the Libertarian party this year if Clinton is the nominee (if he bothers to vote). To be scrupulously fair – he likely would not have actually voted for Bernie in the general anyway because by the time Sanders were to get to the general election he’d be the Democratic Candidate and this guy won’t vote for Democrats. (You know those stories of Sanders voters who show up, vote for Sanders and then leave the rest of the ballot blank? That’s this guy – he’s proud of it too.)
scav
@srv: So we’re back to a choice between tire irons and anthrax when most people are hoping for an actual meal. Because evertyhing is always about your getting your oar in. delusions of supreme authority, actively cherished and nurtured to the exclusion of all else. I fully expect to see both of them, swinging from the infrastructure, wrestling the gaffers and each other for the spotlights.
rikyrah
@The Dangerman:
Did Corker sign Tom Cotton’s letter about the Iran Deal?
CONGRATULATIONS!
Indefensible. And Bernie’s going to get his ass handed to him.
Frankensteinbeck
@hovercraft:
I don’t know. If Trump attacks Sanders – and ‘brag’ and ‘attack’ are his only two modes – the Sanders supporters won’t like it. If he refrains and focuses on Hillary, he’ll be ignoring Sanders and they won’t like that. The only people who will approve of either result are the ones who are only in this because of their irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton, and they’d be voting for Trump regardless. I don’t think Trump is smart enough to think beneath the surface, though, and I still see no downsides for him, just not much gain.
hovercraft
@D58826:
This.
TaMara (HFG)
Kinda like “for veterans” in which no veteran charities were actually beneficiaries.
Elie
@Frankensteinbeck:
I disagree that he hasn’t been attacking her. You remain fearlessly optimistic about Bernie and his intentions. I think he is quite unsteady and delusional — not sure even HE knows what he wants and how to get it. He has the limelight and like a junkie, doesn’t want it to end — indeed he wants more….. however.
gratuitous
All upside for Trump? I disagree. In a debate, I think Sen. Sanders would chop him up into little bite-sized Donald pieces and force feed them to Trump’s adoring followers. Trump would be well advised to keep his distance.
Josie
@rikyrah: Seven Republicans declined to sign Cotton’s letter; Corker was one of the seven
Frankensteinbeck
@gratuitous:
I can’t see that at all. Sanders is neither thick-skinned nor quick on the draw. Sanders supporters will absolutely think he won, because the kinds of things Trump says don’t matter to them. Trump supporters will absolutely think Trump won, because the kinds of things Sanders says don’t matter to them. Everybody else… it will depend on how well Trump effectively needles Sanders and gets him to defensively rage. The reverse is possible, but not likely. Sanders just doesn’t have the attacks Trump gives a damn about.
Roger Moore
@Mike J:
Shorter Trump: You should know better than to believe anything I say!
yellowdog
@The Dangerman: The latest name I’ve heard floated is Kobach. Well at least it might get him off the backs of the poor (in several senses of the word) people of Kansas.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
on the one hand, his new CA ad doesn’t allude to HRC’s Wall St ‘corruption’, OTOH: contesting Kentucky, Cornel West, and his apparent unwillingness to rein in nutty Jeff Weaver
different-church-lady
Anyone started a pool on what time we achieve a TBogg unit?
D58826
@gratuitous: Maybe but Ted Cruz was supposed to be a pretty good debater. Hillary went soft on him most of the time and Bernie’s one debate skill seemed to be wagging his finger at the camera. Not sure how well he will do when Trump starts to needle him. Besides I don’t think either man views this a a debate between the two candidates. For Trump it’s one more platform to attack Hillary and for Bernie it’s free air time and a chance to go after Hillary on national TV. They are useful idiots for each other
Mike J
@D58826: Bernie burned through the bulk of his money trying to train more birds to land on lecterns on cue.
schrodinger's cat
@different-church-lady: Bernistas are running out of steam, so it may take a while if it happens at all.
Elie
I think that the damage has already been done. Bernie eagerly jumped on the offer — really stupid but now he looks eager — too eager and the poorly thought out reflex will end with him looking like he’s been had — again. Remember the deal with the pope? God, what an idiot! I would be embarrassed to have ever backed him for anything! He’s nuts and getting nuttier!
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
That seems to me to be by far the most likely outcome.
The Dangerman
I either need a shower or shots as I waded into the swamp for y’all; this seems to be the bug up their ass about Corker:
http://spectator.org/63960_we-can-thank-bob-corker-ratifying-obamas-iran-deal/
ETA: KKKobach? Could Trump get a single non-caucasian vote? OK, excluding Clarence Thomas.
negative 1
@D58826: I feel like last week we were saying the only reason for Sanders to stay in the race was to be an attack proxy against Trump. I mean, if you were trying to get your supporters to vote for someone why would you debate them? You just endorse them, and move on. Incidentally I hope Sanders gets a little more free press, because this is just fantastic:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a45169/bernie-sanders-debbie-wasserman-schultz/
I’m the cynical type so my bet is that this goes nowhere, but boy I can dream. When people say some Democrats are sell-outs, they mean Wasserman-Schultz.
hovercraft
@NonyNony:
It would be an exercise in reinforcing each ones supporters, but for the rest of us it would be a spectacle. Two old thin skinned white dudes, one from Queens and one from Brooklyn, what could go wrong ?
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
It’s not a strategy that works against Clinton. She has mastered ‘amused, barely-paying-attention contempt’ and that’s pretty much the only strategy that works on a troll like Trump.
permafrost
Bernie Sanders: Useful Idiot
SRW1
@The Dangerman:
As the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Corker made the deal with Obama that would allow the Senate to only derail the Iran deal by overcoming a presidential veto, i.e. Obama only needed 34 votes in the Senate to make sure the deal could not be blocked.
msdc
You know, I can see the faintest glimmer of how this could be good for Democrats if Sanders seizes on the opportunity to really go after Trump, highlighting all the major policy differences between them for any supporters who still say it’s #BernieorBust. And attacking Trump would certainly provoke him into abandoning the unctuous me-tooism that Trump would no doubt be adopting for those same supporters. It could actually help unify the party.
Except that assumes a Sanders who puts unifying the party and defeating Trump ahead of his own dwindling electoral prospects. I have no confidence that Sanders is that disciplined or that selfless; everything in his campaign so far suggests otherwise.
Best-case scenario, this is a total clusterfuck that embarrasses both participants. Worst-case, Sanders joins Trump in bashing the only person who can stop Trump from becoming president. I suspect the truth lies somewhere between those extremes, but with those as the limits there are no good options.
hovercraft
@Mike J:
But Mike that was a sign don’t you see it means that he’s the one. If only more people could have witnessed this phenomena first hand he would have won.
schrodinger's cat
@yellowdog: His has impeccable anti-immigrant bona-fides and he is the architect of many Voter-ID laws too.
SRW1
@rikyrah:
Nope.
Motivated Seller
But imagine the ratings!!! How else is the media supposed to make money? By reporting on a boring old election? Boo!
But seriously, if Bernie really punches Trump into the floor, then Hillary has to show she can do the same.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@srv: Hate to say it, troll, but you nailed it in two sentences here. Unlike most here, I actually watched the RNC debates. Trump can fake being really charming and can convincingly fake a sense of humor – something Bernie was born without. He’ll be nice and reasonable, and Bernie will be shouting and pointing, and all Trump has to say is “tell me more about how you are going to pay for that, Senator” and “today’s Democrat party, ladies and gentlemen.” Bernie will have thrown the whole party an anvil and Trump walks away looking like a nice guy. He’ll never even have to mention Hillary once. Bernie will do it for him.
negative 1
@Motivated Seller: Why? Trump will already be on the floor. I feel like the comment section is schizophrenic — last week everyone was hoping that Sanders would unify the party by going after Trump, now he wants to debate him and somehow that’s an attack on HRC? I’m getting confused.
Psych1
The Bernie hate on this blog is hurting Hillary. Why don’t you see that?
chopper
so sanders just got trolled. jesus, this is amateur hour shit.
msdc
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“I love and respect blacks, women, and Jews.”
Amir Khalid
@gratuitous:
I said a few threads down that Trump would likely come at Bernie with a Gish gallop and/or a barrage of playground taunts. Hillary hasn’t tried to rattle Bernie in their debates, she has stuck to matters of substance. So Bernie is untested against opponents who try to mess with his head.
permafrost
Hillary should go out and schedule one with Rubio.
D58826
@srv: You are kidding
Bernie probably Trump never.
Haydnseek
@gf120581:Now Gingrich wants the gig even more to compensate for losing out to the bison in his quest to be named Americas National Mammal.
Matt McIrvin
@chopper: No, no! Pivot!
Trump’s scared even to debate the primary loser who he keeps calling “crazy Bernie”. Weak!
negative 1
@srv: Wouldn’t the worst case for Trump be that the debate explains to Bernie’s backers why they don’t agree with Trump? In a contest for votes all either candidate in the general has available to them is the supporters of the losing primary candidate. Trump supporters will support Trump, HRC supporters will support HRC. Trump has to try and appeal to Bernie’s supporters and HRC has to try and appeal to the non-Trump GOP.
Immanentize
meanwhile, did people see the NYT today saying that Cornell West (and Zogby too, it was implied) is planning to make a big deal about Israel in the platform fight? I do not see good coming from that….
Iowa Old Lady
Have you all seen the interview with Manafort on HuffPo today? Here’s Manafort’s take on what Trump’s looking for in a VP:
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I have said repeatedly that nobody in the GOP Clown Car actually wanted to do THE WORK of the President.
They just wanted TO BE President.
But…..
What the everloving PHUCK?!?!?
Chairman of the Board?
Da phuq?
Da hail?
I just can’t.
And, I say, without equivocation,
that, if this had come from then Senator Obama’s ‘team’…..
Or if anyone from Hillary’s team had said this about her…
it’d be front and center on every newscast.
negative 1
@chopper: Or ‘tell it like it is Trump’ is afraid to debate. There’s always 2 ways to spin, I imagine the Clinton campaign could get a few digs in at Trump pretty easily.
Lizzy L
Why would Trump debate Bernie? (And indeed, he won’t, as the update makes clear.) Bernie’s a loser, and (channeling here) Trump is not going to waste time debating losers unless he has to. I am sure it irritates him that people expect him to debate Hillary, about such irrelevancies as policy. He’d like to just keep on as he has been, making contradictory promises and giving speeches at rallies to his fans.
Poopyman
Jeebus! Two shouty old white men yelling at each other. If I wanted to see that, I’d go yell in a mirror.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: Dick Cheney is still available!
EZSmirkzz
Of course the only thing that matters in the election is your narrow perspective, unless it collides with mine, then I trump! Or something, something.
Hillary ain’t going to debate Bernie because as the front runner she can only be hurt. There’s that old, “Same as it ever was …” again. Bernie could, if he were debating a normal candidate, put some serious dings into Trmp, but you gotta know the players . Debating, He, Trmp is pretty much what he intends to govern like
This of course is a low accountability position, as anything goes wrong will be the fault of someone else, and of course He, Trmp, will take credit for anything that goes right. Great job if you can get it.
Even if I were a Hilbot I wouldn’t spend another minute worrying about what Bernie and the Bernibros are or aren’t doing, when Stumpy Motormouth is giving one such a target rich environment.
YMMV
also, too, yes Trmp is the correct spelling.
eric
@chopper: I disagree. i would use this to go after Trump HARD as scared of the democrats. Particularly, if he tries to avoid debating Hillary, which is not an absurd position for an absurd man to take. i would go after to him as weak for backing down, and suggest that he backs down from real opponents, so when he says he would do this or that and sound tough, he is just masking his inner weakness. Start the narrative now. Just like the muslim ban, the wall. everything. He is a coward, just like when he served in the military school. ;)
amk
Imagine being rickrolled by trump of all people.
Jinchi
That’s ridiculous. Hillary didn’t ingratiate herself with the Sanders groupies when she agreed to debate with him. I don’t remember Jeb’s people, or Rubio’s or Kasich’s singing Trump’s praises after the Republican debates, either. And those are groups that agree with one another on 80% of the isssues. The cross-section of Sanders voters who will ever vote for Trump in the general election is sliver thin. They’ll have less of an impact than the PUMA voters did in 2008. A Fox news debate is not going to change that.
Lamh36
for you ole BJ foagies, The Weekend is a pop artist
huskydown
Trump would get creamed. And Sanders wouldn’t put up with him. The idea that Trump would get away with ingratiating himself to Sanders supporters is delusional.
LongHairedWeirdo
I agree, Sanders would probably look great… sorry.
It’s a good point – low information is vital for Trump’s support because… um… sorry.
The thing is, with Trump being a master (de)bater… damn it!!!!!
TRUMP?
It’s all UPSIDE for TRUMP?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
I’m sorry – you have a point about Bernie, I get you being annoyed, I don’t agree, but I *really* get it, I *really* sympathize.
But you think *TRUMP* could ingratiate himself with Bernie supporters? You think he could rein in his ego and his desire to hippie-punch?
No. No. I mean, *NO*.
Seriously: with all due respect, the notion that a Sanders vs. Trump debate is any “upside” for Trump for BERNIE supporters is damfoolishness. I think you’re letting your annoyance with Bernie-dead-enders color your view of human nature. You think Trump would praise Bernie? You think he’s got balls enough to do that? I mean, that they’re tin (but exquisitely electroplated with brass, at great expense), but they *ain’t* that big.
Which doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with your feelings about the Democratic primaries. I just found the particular complaint you brought up broke my suspension of disbelief.
(Side note: yes, I am very angry we didn’t get a full, fair primary battle. I’m angry that Bernie Sanders wasn’t more than an asterisk in the primaries until he won enough contests that he couldn’t be ignored. And I’d like there to have been a clear winner, where the Bernie folks didn’t have to eat a, uh, fecal-sandwich over how Hillary got tons of free publicity from the news media. I think Hillary still would have won – but I think it’d be easier for the losing side to be gracious if she won a hard, knock-down, drag-out fight against someone who clearly stood on equal footing – rather than winning in part -yes, ONLY “in part” – by default.)
D58826
@Haydnseek: esp. true since Ted Cruz has a lock on the National Reptile
Quinerly
A must!http://gawker.com/is-donald-trump-s-hair-a-60-000-weave-a-gawker-invest-1777581357
Ultraviolet Thunder
We live in such interesting times.
I mean, our politics is a slap fight on a space shuttle tumbling into the ocean but at least it isn’t boring.
D58826
@LongHairedWeirdo:
And I’m still annoyed that Harold Stasson (may his ghost RIP) is still only an asterisk because he never got the publicity that his presidential runs deserved.
It’s how the game is played. Hillary was the front runner based on name recognition in 2008 and 2016. While Obama was a bit more than an asterisk, until he starting winning he wasn’t considered a challenger either. Serine was a backbencher from a small state with beautiful scenery and lots of maple syrup. He wan’t a household name. Nobody was plotting against him any more than they plotted against Jim Webb and Marty O’Malley. Outsiders have to earn their way in by winning elections. Bernie did that in a big way and has gotten the attention. Did the party pooh bahs prefer Hillary and an uncontested primary season, sure, they didn’t want a clown car show like the GOP had. I suspect that the Bernie folks would not have been in the least bit happy if the rles had been reversed. Not because they are evil but because that is the way human nature and politics work.,
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
My favorite was the line about not picking a woman or a minority, because that would be pandering. Hasn’t his entire campaign been one long panderfest ?
I guess it’s only pandering when it’s women and minorities, when it’s bigoted white people that’s telling it like it is.
EBT
@chopper: Pretty much, the whole offer was damned if you do damned if you don’t. He simply would have characterized both of them as being afraid of debating him if they both said no. Really this is probably the best outcome. Octothorpe AnnoyingOrange
Steve Crickmore
May 23, 2008, Hillary Clinton “No one has the nomination, you should be willing to campaign for every vote, you should be willing to debate every time, everywhere.” May 23, 2016, Hillary Clinton, to hell with that. I’m the entitled nominee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjLikcIEEbU
Cacti
For all of the resident Bernfeelers who castigated me for saying that Bernie was just the left wing Trump, and the other side of the white male resentment politics coin…
The line to kiss my gorgeous keester forms to the left. Both cheeks, please.
Chyron HR
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Me too, but fortunately Bernie’s ability to win caucuses by having his supporters tell people “I know where your children go to school” didn’t have an effect in the long run.
Cacti
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Sure do.
There’s a reason the GOP has handled Bernie with kid gloves for the past year, and it ain’t fear of his mighty revolution.
Mike J
@Steve Crickmore: and you saw how much attention the winner paid to the loser’s argument.
Lynn Dee
Nice. A beauty pageant for two in which both contestants get a participation trophy.
Steve Crickmore
@Mike J: That’s true, cynical politics seems to prevail and there is no one who is more cynical than Hillary, with the possible exception of Hillary’s good friend, Henry Kissinger, but it shouldn’t be the reason why we must vote for her or why most of us follow politics.
Mike J
@LongHairedWeirdo: .
You’re nuts. He tied in Iowa and won in NH. He was in it from the very start. Clinton didn’t win in any part by default. The biggest reason she won was the African American community knew they could trust her to listen and respond to their needs and were told over and over by Sanders not to worry their pretty little heads about racism because after we fix economics that won’t be a problem any more.
Haydnseek
@D58826: Well played, sir!
Elie
This whole thing just makes me cringe for Bernie and also the Democrats. He is a sad person and there is no way to recover from this unless he stops doing what he is doing — it just reeks of desperation and loser-ness… I feel sorry for him….
Aimai
@Elie: this. Too eager. A sucker. Trumps people live for the idea that trump cons, insults, or psyches out mere politicians. Look gor trump to quinble endlessly sbout petty details of a future debate with hillary. Engsge in wrestling style pre show insults and dramatics, snd then try to psyche her out or humiliate her by pretending to shske her hand and pulling his own back or other high school tricks go undercut her serious, silly, politics is real attitude. His supporters will love it.
chopper
@eric:
well, you would, and clinton would (although i expect clinton wouldn’t have so enthusiastically agreed, she’d have given trump some side-eye instead). but bernie is a bush-league fucking politician, so instead he’s gonna look like a chump.
rikyrah
Team Trump’s ‘seething mosh pit’ forces key staffer out
05/26/16 12:30 PM
By Steve Benen
Just six weeks ago, Donald Trump’s campaign announced an important new hire: it was bringing on Rick Wiley, Scott Walker’s former campaign manager, to serve as Trump’s national political director. That was April; this is May.
By all accounts, Team Trump is divided into two warring factions: a contingent that sides with Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski and another backing Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort.
A source close to the campaign told NBC News that the Riley announcement is “a win for Corey.”
As a rule, it’s tough to care about which faction is up or down on any given day, but there is something important about the larger dynamic. The Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman, a veteran political reporter who’s seen a lot of campaigns come and go, yesterday described “TrumpWorld” as “a seething mosh pit of ambitious egos.”
SFAW
@Lamh36:
Careful. Having the a niece who is Too Damn Cute does not get you a pass re: insulting us old fogies. Besides, we old farts know all the “pop artists” — the Beatles, Shirelles, Glenn Miller, Snooky Lanson, Meyer Davis, Toad the Wet Sprocket — so knock it off! Right after you get off my lawn!
Cacti
@Steve Crickmore:
Did you get lost on your way to DU this morning?
negative 1
@srv: Serious question — don’t you think that hurts him worse among the non-Trump GOP primary voters than buys him votes among Sanders’ supporters? I have yet to see a poll that places the % of Sanders supporters who vote HRC at less than 70%. Meanwhile ‘I dig the idea of a socialist’ hurts him among Cruz-enders.
This is why I think even saying yes to the debate in the first place was a bad idea for Trump. He can’t appeal to Sanders’ folks and the GOP base at the same time, so the debate has the potential to be a landmine to him. At the same time, the HRC campaign should have a field day with ‘mr. tough guy straight talk’ chickening out on a debate in a day.
TriassicSands
Game on?
Sanders’ ego is running the show and we can’t expect anything but crap from here on out unless someone gets through to him that what he’s doing is bad for everything he claims to care about.
Aimai
@LongHairedWeirdo: if bernie debated trump he would not be talking only to his own supporters. His goal would have to be to convert trumps white supporters to his class analyss. Bernie and his people think he can do it. Thats the logic of bernies eagerness to debate trump. But he cant get over on enough of trumps followers.
huskydown
@Cacti: You haven’t proved shit. You’re the same moron you always are. The Democratic leadership could come out with a plan to fingerprint all Muslims in the U.S. and half of you would twist yourselves into a pretzel justifying it.
Cacti
@Elie:
You’re a kinder person than I am.
I’d say it’s another instance of Bernie confirming that Barney Frank had his number. The reason he has few legislative accomplishments, and seemingly few friends in Congress isn’t because he’s anti-establishment. It’s because he’s a self-righteous a**hole.
Elie
@Aimai:
My gut on this feels like a terrible mistake for Bernie and that it just hurts him, his followers and a little, the Democrats. He is clearly a mope loser, groveling for a little crust.
He could have done so much. He could have been such a wonderful asset to the political debate and elevated it from the swamp it was in due to Trump. Now he is just a fellow pig in the ditch with the master pig, Trump. There is no positive argument that makes this even neutral for Bernie, much less any kind of win. This was a deep “tell” on his character…. This is the kind of thing that the word “shame” is used for — He shamed himself.
Cacti
@huskydown:
Hello unfamiliar person.
Are you angry that Hillary has stolen the nomination from Bernie by the nefarious act of getting more votes? Your feelings are important to me. Tell me all about them so I can help you feel validated.
Just kidding. GFY.
bemused
@rikyrah:
Steve Benen has a post that Obama is eager to get on campaign trail and tackle Trump. This I will be just as eager to watch.
Mike J
Elie
…And with his selections for the platform committee, and their statement of Israel’s war crimes — we have a nice battle right at the best time, of course.. Bernie is blowing things up best he can. He must be on Trump’s payroll or maybe Trump is promising to pay off his campaign debts.
Steve Crickmore
@Cacti: Has Balloon Juice in its wish to go all in with Hillary, adopted Henry Kissinger as it’s eminence grise like Mrs. Clinton, too? http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/hillary-clinton-kissinger-vacation-dominican-republic-de-la-renta
Cacti
@TriassicSands:
Remember when Susan Sarandon said that Bernie “doesn’t have any ego in this thing”?
I think NASA announced that Bernie’s ego is visible from deep space.
Bob In Portland
@Double E.: Well, sometimes you need to debate someone and the first person you want to debate doesn’t want to debate. She can sit on the sidelines and stew.
Cacti
@Steve Crickmore:
Do you Bernie bots get a prize for the number of times you say Henry Kissinger?
eclare
@rikyrah: No, but he was against the deal. Neither TN senator signed the letter, only know because I live here.
hueyplong
It might have been fun to witness actual Democratic officeholders’ real-time reactions to news of a prospective Sanders-Trump event. Presumably, any reaction other than a variant of “WTF?” would be evidence that the listener had misheard the news.
redshirt
Welcome, new Bernistas!
Dear Leader’s VICTORY depends on you making numerous blog posts on the subject. Good luck!
Elie
@bemused:
Yeah but he will have to be careful not to let the pig slop get on him. The only direction Trump goes in is down and dirty. Countering that with even slick responses just gets you more sucked in. Trump has to be made to implode from his own internal issues — like his very dicey campaign organization. I don’t want Obama to start this until after the conventions are over — not now…
Cacti
@redshirt:
And be sure to talk about Henry Kissinger a lot.
It’s high on the list of voter concerns nationally in 2016.
Felonius Monk
If there was any doubt about Trump getting the nomination:
Steve Crickmore
@Cacti: @Cacti: He should be bringing it up more. Once upon a day, Balloon Juice would have been raising these matters of the Clinton lovefest with Kissinger.
Cacti
Show of hands:
Who thinks Bernie would be this unhinged if he was losing by a similar margin to a male opponent?
Just One More Canuck
@Lynn Dee: Neither one of them would win Miss Congeniality, that’s for sure
Captain C
@Elie:
This seems unlikely on the grounds that if it ever came out (and it would), it would pretty much ensure that he would be stripped of his seniority in the Dem caucus and assigned to be the sole member of the toilet scrubbing committee. For all his faults that have been exposed this campaign, I would still be surprised if he was that dim and short-sighted.
Cacti
@Steve Crickmore:
Could you point me to a source that shows where Henry Kissinger ranks among the top 10 voter issues in the current cycle.
For geriatric hippies, it’s still 1968 and always will be. The rest of the country moved on.
Socraticsilence
I guess I’m kind of confused as to why you’d see the upside for Trump– to me it seems like a massive, massive risk for him with little upside. I know that Bernie is starting to annoy people but let’s try and remember that Trump is essentially everything he’s hated his entire career. This debate wont happen but if it did I fully expect Sanders would just lay into Trump with a vengeance.
Chyron HR
@redshirt:
Attn: Steve Crikins and the rest, this person is a troll trying to distract you so that Bernie doesn’t get the 15 million Facebook faves he needs to win the nomination. Please ignore them and return to your 24/7 canvassing of Facebook. You’re welcome.
Elie
@Captain C:
I wasn’t actually serious but every time that I think Bernie won’t go further to debase himself and his campaign, I end up wrong. Trump can’t bail out Bernie — he has his own financial issues and he is a cheap con artist to boot… He might say he would help and then change his mind. But then Bernie seems to be the ultimate sucker, so who knows. Remember the millions he blew on a Vatican conference to have a fleeting hallway introduction to the pope. Really, that was bad enough and now this? We should ask that Oregon Congressman who endorsed Bernie what he thinks these days….
Comrade Mary
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Cacti
@Socraticsilence:
Yeah, meanwhile, in the real world, Bernie’s attacks on Trump’s wealth wouldn’t bother him in the least. OTOH hand, Trump could easily boomerang those types of attacks back on Bernie in a way that Hillary never has (e.g.) “I understand that you’re jealous of my success, since you were a bum until your 40s.”
Hillary hasn’t gone for any of the easy attacks on Bernie, and has mopped the floor with him 9-times on substance. Trump would have no constraint on bringing up any number of things, like: Bernie and Jane’s honeymoon to the USSR, his fulsome praise of Latin American dictators, his weird stalking of the Pope, Jane’s liar loan, etc.
El Caganer
I think the debate is a great idea – provided that Larry David subs for Bernie.
D58826
@Haydnseek: Now I suggest we open the floor for nominations to the National amphibian. I’m torn about the National Fish. Do we have just one overall category or do we allow votes for the National Shark and the National jawless lamprey? Democracy is so hard
daves09
@msdc: and his supporters would laugh, while winking and nudging each other.
Emma
@huskydown: You know, this is the over-the-top sort of thing that makes me write off a lot of the anti-Hillary types.
Chyron HR
@Comrade Mary:
Is Sarah Palin the gay baby of Bernie Sanders and Mike Huckabee? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
negative 1
@srv: I admit I don’t get your last sentence, but I’ll respond to the rest in kind —
The thing is ‘people who hear what they want to hear’ already have their vote made up, so to them whoever debates or doesn’t is pointless. The general is the fight for the few people still in play, so your assumption makes no sense on that level, they won’t ‘hear what they want to hear’ because they have no pre-existing bias (which is what that means).
hovercraft
@Cacti:
Per Steve M, Bernie is supposedly now trying to pressure Trump to “keep his word” he’s that desperate. And the Trump campaign has responded that he is willing to debate Bernie at any time. So who knows.
Steve Crickmore
@Cacti: I agree that the country has moved on, but Hillary is still mired in the past with her with her style and illiberal methods of secretive reaipolitic… and its emblematic practioners.
Capri
@Mike J: Sanders just demonstrated how you treat a bully. You say, in not so many words, “Bring it”
To quote noted political commentator Bart Simpson, in response Trump folded faster than Superman on laundry day.
D58826
@Socraticsilence: That worked so well for Lyin Ted Cruz and Lil Marco.
Captain C
@Elie: I think Bernie may be approaching the Tyson Zone* when it comes to things like this. I’ve actually been aware of him for a couple decades, having some Vermont connections of my own, and I’ve been quite disappointed by how his campaign has gone the last few months.
*TV Tropes link. Follow at your own risk.
Emma
@Steve Crickmore: Have you ever given any thought about the fact that the upper classes interact with the upper classes on a regular basis that might have nothing to do with politics? Or that someone saying “she’s good” and she saying to third person “he thinks I’m good” does not mean they’ve signed a blood-pact to commit folie a deux?
maryQ
Wondering when Trump and Sanders will stop their boyish hijinks and let the rest of us elect a president who is serious about governing.
Cacti
@Steve Crickmore:
Since you agree that the country has moved on, why should we care that your candidate is forever stuck in the 1960s?
No election in this century is going to be decided by public sentiment about Henry Kissinger.
But I hope you get a nice prize if you hit your target number of mentions.
D58826
bottom feeders gotta keep bottom feeding
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-north-patterson/clinton-versus-trump-pred_b_9848032.html
Cacti
@maryQ:
The whole thing has the feel of Spanky and Alfalfa convening a meeting of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club.
Maybe they could wear propeller beanies for the occasion.
Robin G.
Lucy held up the football, and Charlie Brown ran for it. Utterly predictable to everyone but Charlie Brown.
Death Panel Truck
@Cacti: If Sanders were the nominee, all the GOP would have to do is trot out the hammer and sickle flag, and Bernie is toast.
Or say, “Atheist Jew? In a Christian nation?”
Elie
@Robin G.:
THIS… LOL….
D58826
@Cacti:
Ah memories of my misspent youth
Ultraviolet Thunder
So bored at work. How bored? I’m reading about dark matter on Wikipedia.
I am astrophysics theory bored.
Elie
@Emma:
Don’t waste your time on the purists who believe that you only have friends who think just like you and only stay with your own kind like in their little worlds. It is unthinkable that all the former Secy of States would know each other and probably some would become friends independent of the administrations and political parties they once were associated with — that there might be a reality independent of their fixed view of good and bad…
By the way, Bernie is not so pure anyway… he has plenty of “friends” (read donations) from the military industrial complex and also from the NRA. But oh, that’s different because reasons.
maryQ
@Cacti: Right?
Elie
@Death Panel Truck:
He honeymooned in the then Soviet Union and had a child out of wedlock… they would LOVE it! And lets not forget Jane’s little shenanigans with the missing money at the college and all….
Cacti
@Death Panel Truck:
The adults have known this for months.
For all of his plaintive whining about what meanies the Dems have been to him, none of the “corrupt establishment” has touched any of the embarrassing stuff about him, and neither has the media for the most part, who have treated him as a novelty.
Make Bernie the Dem nominee, and you’ll see a billion dollars worth of ads showing his face with Mao and Stalin, and putting up embarrassing quotes like his support of press crackdowns and praise for bread lines in Marxist dictatorships.
Bartholomew
@Elie: You and Cactus are the monkeys that drove the now quite apparent split in the Dems. Enjoy them … bring the vipers to your chest, pretend liberals, they are yours. Yes, right by your punchable neck, thanks.
Question: is there anything that Trump ever says that DOESN’T punk our angry Lady of Krackerstan? She seems glued to the goon’s every utterance, and falls for it every time. Yes, Sanders will debate Trump any time any day, as he has always said. It is Trump who ran away from his own comment. Only people can see this, though, not the Hillbullies.
Whatever. Not everyone is on the DLC payroll. (But good ol boy Cole is, and it shows. Once a warblogger always a warblogger amirite? Guess the green spends however you get it.)
In reality, outside of this ugly self-imposed isolation chamber of fake liberals/real shits: Hillary Clinton’s email problems just got much worse.
When the Hillbullies have lost Cillizza … LOL. Sorry, one moment. I dropped my bag of popcorn.
I’m guessing you chimp-o-matic tools don’t know much about ‘negative favorability ratings’? Well, it means that support increases for the candidate that whacks you down, the harder the better. Bernie resisted this path to victory, to his credit, not that the monkeys-for-Cole brigade ever figured it out. Trump is probably willing to forego victory in order to be nice, huh, I guess that’s the idea you are going on. That horrible, horrible Bernie.
And lucky me, I am graced with the ability to bring out your inner monkey for all to see … not that I ever wanted this. I just dropped in a little truth (I can’t vote Hillery, it’s her war vote, sorry, thanks for all the spit my dear allies) and your epic shit machine started pelting. It is still going. But it was really Elie and suchlike soandforths that get the credit. Now excuse me, I have to take a shower.
D58826
Ky. Sec. of State has announced that the great momentum changing super delegate flipping re-canvas of the democratic primary is complete. The results —- crickets please — no change. Hillary still stole the election from Bernie fair and square by the underhanded trick of getting more votes. .
Jim, Foolish Literalist
me too, I wish Clinton could have run a full campaign against him, every time anyone hinted at discussing the fact that all his ponies would come with flies and stink and stalls to clean out, the hothouse orchids of Bernie!-land would turn into the screaming mandrakes from that Harry Potter movie, threatening to stay home in November because how dare you! Bernie! is magic and I guess you just hate all real progressives and young people. I wish she could have responded in kind against his (if memory serves) two hundred million dollar negative campaign
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That he swore up and down he wouldn’t run.
Much like his tax info that he promised he’d release.
D58826
@Bartholomew: Sarah Palin ghost write your stuff?
Elie
Boy, we are attracting some terrible quality trolls these days…
For all trolls, I do not respond to any of your comments — EVER.
different-church-lady
@D58826:
You’re saying that as though more were necessary in life.
Cacti
@D58826:
Cut him some slack. He’s not used to having a discussion. Most of the “progressive” Bernfeeling type sites have a practice of alert swarming anyone who disagrees with Dear Leader.
different-church-lady
@Bartholomew:
The evidence thus far suggests he resisted all paths to victory.
maryQ
@D58826: Thank you for this.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Steve Crickmore: @Cacti: Has Balloon Juice in its wish to go all in with Hillary, adopted Henry Kissinger as it’s eminence grise like Mrs. Clinton, too?
I don’t think you know what eminence grise means, and that’s just the top of the list.
poe’s-law-a-palooza
chopper
@Bartholomew:
tell us more, your superiorness. it’s so unfair that we should wallow in our ignorance while a true genius sits on the sidelines.
NR
@Death Panel Truck: Yeah, when the Republicans got through with Sanders, he might end up with astronomically high unfavorable ratings and two-thirds of the country thinking he’s a liar or something. And that would be really bad.
Good thing Hillary isn’t already there or anything.
burnspbesq
@marduk:
Talk about assuming facrs not in evidence …
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@burnspbesq: facts are so fucking bourgeois, they’re practically neo-liberal.
Cacti
@different-church-lady:
His current path consists of demanding he be awarded a win, even though he lost.
When you played Chutes and Ladders as a kid, Bernie was the boy who’d throw the board in the air when he saw someone else winning. Because if he can’t win, nobody can.
glory b
@Steve Crickmore: Well, all we black (and Hispanic and Muslim and women and Asians and LGBT and disabled) folks THOUGHT that you’d vote for her because you’d care about what would happen to us in a Trump administration.
I guess your telling us that we really don’t matter, not compared to your feelings. Okay, got that….
Bartholomew
This is more like what actual politicians are like … Sanders camp urges Trump not to ‘chicken out’ of debate
Meanwhile Hillery Clinton is talking behind her hands to the oligarchy and shelling payouts through her ‘Foundation’ … blech.
Oh and for Jim the Foolish, if your queen had ‘run a full campaign’ against Bernie then he probably wouldn’t have stopped talking about the walking security breach She represents. Or the war vote, or the Goldman Sachs connection, or the Libya debacle, etc, etc, etc. Etc etc etc. ETC ETC ETC.
Hillary Clinton is hated across the world for very, very real and quite serious reasons … how hilarious to think that a negative campaign would have been in her favor. She would have if she could have, rest assured. The only people she ignores and spits upon are actual liberals.
As an aside, I’m SO GLAD we are not on the same side anymore, it was hard being with such nasty idiots who are using liberalism as a cloak to gain power. I had thought a *little* better of you, but not much, so I’m very happy we don’t get along. I would hate to think it, now.
chopper
@glory b:
you’re forgetting, the thing that matters most are white male fee-fees. explains most of the crazy-ass bullshit that happens in this country every day.
Emma
@Bartholomew:
Funny you should say that. Twenty years and counting.
Cacti
@Bartholomew:
Yep, it’s a real mystery why Bernie’s revolution couldn’t capture a majority.
Maybe if you just scolded a little harder.
Steve Crickmore
@Emma: I guess now our ‘upper class’ as you say Democrat standard bearer who gleefully hobnobs with the American with the most blood on his hands, is one of the perks of being in the Establishment and one of her ‘progressive’ (as she describes herself) steps, to securing the nomination with the full approval of Balloon Juice, removes any stain of Kissinger’s deeds such as Chile: Nixon and Kissinger plotted to thwart the democratic election of a socialist president. The eventual outcome: a military coup and a military dictatorship that killed thousands of Chileans.
Argentina: Kissinger gave a “green light” to the military junta’s dirty war against political opponents that led to the deaths of an estimated 30,000.
East Timor: Another “green light” from Kissinger, this one for the Indonesian military dictatorship’s bloody invasion of East Timor that yielded up to 200,000 deaths.
Cambodia: The secret bombing there during the Nixon phase of the Vietnam War killed between 150,000 and 500,000 civilians.
Bangladesh: Kissinger and Nixon turned a blind eye to—arguably, they tacitly approved—Pakistan’s genocidal slaughter of 300,000 Bengalis, most of them Hindus.
Elie
@Cacti:
I think he is past that and just ready to throw the board in the air, so to speak. He is a very sad/sick person and its being revealed… He must have been embarrassed to have his “win” in Washington turn to ashes in his mouth since we now know that the broader Democratic electorate repudiated the results of the caucus. And that KY is not giving him anymore delegates …
He is a loser and deepening that judgement about him with every move he makes. If so much were not at stake, I would just shake my head and feel sorry for him. How do you get him to stop abusing himself and by extension, all the people who voted for him in good faith, thinking he was the real deal. What a sad con he pulled. I would not be surprised at this point that he won’t make a third party run…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@chopper: well, that and apparently Oscar de la Renta’s vacation home is the lair of fascist war-mongering, just in case you’re trying to suggest that our Teenage Mutant Emo-progs are not serious students of geopolitics.
Cacti
@Steve Crickmore:
Have you reached your target yet?
What’s the prize?
Emma
@Steve Crickmore: For crying out loud. I will be sixty years old in October, and I studied history and political science for my undergraduate degree. I know all that. This is how you and your ilk fail. You think we’re either stupid or ignorant. On the other hand, we know you are.
Elie is right; best thing to do is not to engage trolls.
NR
@glory b: If you think Trump is going to be so bad for you, you should direct your anger at the Democratic party, who decided to nominate the only candidate in the whole country who could possibly lose to him.
hovercraft
So Trump just said in his presser that he is willing to debate Bernie if someone will sponser it for charity, maybe women’s health. So there’s a chance.
cleek
looks like Trump already knows how to push Sanders’ buttons
Cacti
I previously thought that it couldn’t get more embarrassing for Bernie than stalking the Pope.
His 11th hour attempt to glom onto the Republican candidate in hopes that it helps him win the Democratic nomination makes the former episode seem relatively graceful.
Cacti
@NR:
Seriously GOPer, nobody’s buying it anymore.
hovercraft
What ‘s going on here, it’s like all the trolls have come out of the woodwork at the same time.
Did a call go out or something ?
Elie
Instead of opening the way for other socialists to become a more active part of the progressive movement, Bernie will set that back years with his shenanigans… He is no model candidate — just a shameful self promoter con man huckster with a crabby personality and bad suits. His wife is ugly on the outside and inside and may also be a crook. Fine job, Mr Sanders…
Cacti
@hovercraft:
If Bernie’s fantasy came true, and he was somehow given the nom despite losing the national race…
How would it help his case that he should be POTUS when he’s showing that a huckster like Trump can lead him around by the nose.
Elie
@hovercraft:
This is their “damage control” to defend their cringeworthy con man candidate by taking a play out of his playbook: calling people names. Bernie and Trump are two sides of the same loser coin…
NR
@Cacti: Go back to 4chan where you can worship your god emperor in peace.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hovercraft: it is kind of an interesting look into TRump’s mind that he sees a political debate primarily as a prime time special, like a Carol Burnett reunion show or a Really This Is The Last Time Farewell Concert by What Remains of the Grateful Dead, Feartuing John Mayer.
D58826
@hovercraft: Well I guess if Bernie can get Trump to ‘keep his word’ that would be his best argument to be given the nomination.
redshirt
@NR: Is there anything more important to you in judging a candidate than favorability ratings?
You do realize you refer to them all the time, right?
Andy
“His wife is ugly on the outside and inside and may also be a crook”….Who said that? Oh yeah…Elie.
shortribs
@hovercraft:
Maybe someone should sponsor it on behalf of Planned Parenthood.
NR
@Elie:
This is pretty disgusting even for you guys. Any other BJers want to call this out? Or are you all okay with these kinds of slimy attacks?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Davis X. Machina
Steel-cage dialectic. Marx meets MacMahon. The WWE against the DSA.
Two modes of production go in — only one comes out!
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Progressive hero Bernie wants to 3/5 the vote of the minorities who rejected him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Trump will debate Bernie! for “$10-15 million”… so he’s baiting the media with a payday so high nobody will take it?
NR
@redshirt: I’m making the point that the argument that the Republicans might be able to make the country hate Bernie Sanders don’t hold much water, because the country already hates Hillary Clinton.
hovercraft
@Cacti:
When he’s losing some of his biggest fans on this C Pierce) and he doesn’t accept escape hatches like just a joke, it’s no longer just a fantasy it’s clinical. Desperation and delusion let BS convince himself that it is for the good of the party and the nation. He thinks he’s in charge.
different-church-lady
@NR:
I thought about it, and then said, “Eh, fuck it, let the trolls eat it.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
MSNBC chyron
good thing they got rid of all that icky opinion and decided to concentrate on hard news
ETA: Elizabeth Warren ‘has a big mouth’. I keep repeating, and I may go broke overestimating the American voter, but I do not see this as a winning strategy
(and he’s back to “Pocahontas”… I’ve got it muted cause I hate the sound of his voice)
Brachiator
I would have loved to have seen this debate. Too bad it will likely never happen.
The advantage would have been Bernie’s. A debate with Trump would have made Sanders look more presidential. But it would have done nothing for Trump, or for Clinton for that matter.
Clinton’s best path is to wear that mantle of presumptive nominee and wait for the final primaries and for the inevitable primary victory. Even if Sanders won big in California and New Jersey, he can’t win enough regular delegates to go over the top.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I was listening to some of Trump’s Anaheim appearance. It reminded me of a concert or a wrestling event. There were protesters and Trump ordered them out. The crowd cheered and went wild when Trump kept shouting “Out! Out!” They came for the performance of his greatest hits, which included this little pantomime.
I could easily imagine him hiring protesters that he could kick out and show what a big man he was. His fans want spectacle; and he knows how to provide it.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He’s not a cheap prime time special, he’s a classy telethon who is willing to lower himself to debate a loser who was cheated out of the nomination for a mere 10 to 15 million.
Cacti
@hovercraft:
He’s flown completely off the rails.
When he was campaigning in Puerto Rico, he was basically promising to free them from the colonial oppression of their US citizenship.
Independence doesn’t even register double digit support among Puerto Ricans, but there was Bernie, promising to be the Libertador they never asked for.
Felonius Monk
@Bartholomew:
Yes, you do need a shower — inside and out. You are so full of shit, you’re stinking up the intertoobs.
Steve Crickmore
@NR: @hovercraft: The praise of all things Hillary Clinton was starting to get nauseous, especially as she hung on for dear life in the 2008 campaign and was flinging everything at Obama but the kitchen sink. “He’s not muslim, as far as I know”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tweety thinks making debates into fund-raisers is a winning strategy with suburban women. It’s smart to play Don King
good lord
ETA: Mark Halperin says he’s building a center-right coalition that can win. I feel a little better now… but my god Halperin and Williams are normalizing Trump in a way that actually surprises me even though I despise these two. Good god, this is a horrific segment. I can’t decide who’s the biggest nitwit on the panel, but I think Ben Ginsberg may be the most lucid voice they have.
Elie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I never watch MSNBC anymore. Never. Used to be a regular…..
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You are so missing out, he fully supports keystone but he will renegotiate it so we can get a cut of the action because of eminent domain! Huh? Wind is bad because it kills eagles, yet killing eagles is illegal but nothing happens to the windmills! Huh? But he supports wind and everything.
It’s like watching a train wreck at high speed, it’s a blur.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hovercraft: according to the entire MSNBC panel, this was a brilliant performance that had great appeal to a winning center right coalition, and Obama is ‘playing politics’ while overseas.
Iowa Old Lady
@Brachiator: Actually, I wondered if such a debate would help Clinton’s team coach her for her own debates with Trump because they’d get a chance to see him in a one-on-one debate (which I don’t think we’ve seen before) where the other debater tried to bring up substance (I hope).
Cacti
February 20, 2016
That’s the date when Bernie went behind in the delegate count for good.
He’s never seriously threatened to overtake Hillary since then, despite having 45 subsequent contests since then to make it happen.
But he should be the nominee, because revolution and feelings.
Elie
@Iowa Old Lady:
Normally I would agree but I think that it would be a disaster as Bernie would not attack Trump as much as he would use to attack Hillary and the Democrats. It would give him oxygen of exposure and fuel more donations. His campaign needs to be smothered and put out its misery — not attenuated in any way. Ended.
redshirt
@Steve Crickmore: I didn’t like Hillary in 2008, either. Guess what? It’s not 2008. Though I sure do wish Barack Hussein Obama were running for President again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
tastytone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not so different, I suspect, than how the Sanders campaign sees it. They’re doing anything and everything to stay in the news, and the stunts and statements are getting cringe-worthy. (Speaking as someone who had high-hopes for the campaign, and for him, it does not make me happy to see him go out like this.)
? Martin
I don’t recall any stories like this in 2008.
Sure, there was online disagreement, but did Clinton supporters or Obama supporters ever counter-protest the other Dem nominee in a manner like this?
different-church-lady
@tastytone: This election is panning out the same way it would if Paddy Chayefsky were writing it.
D58826
another day in the oldUSA, this time in Utah
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/26/maniac-attacks-dad-with-daughter-in-men-s-room-at-walmart.html
redshirt
@? Martin: Precisely, and the reason is clear: There were no (or very very few) “HillaryBros” in 2008. But in 2016 the MRA’s have aligned nicely with Sanders doomed “revolution”.
Cacti
@redshirt:
Sanders revolution is a brogressive revolution at its heart. It has a place for diversity as long as the chicks, blacks, browns, homos, etc. understand that the straight white dudes should be in charge.
different-church-lady
@NR:
You keep saying this and it’s ridiculous. O’Malley could have lost to Trump easily.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So maybe your first instinct was right not to listen to them. I still think despite the brilliance they saw, most people will have seen something different. Tweety seems to be a big fan of the Donald, he admires his instincts for channelling real Americas sentiments and building real things like buildings.
El Caganer
Why would anybody want to watch a debate between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump? I can’t think of anything interesting that would come out of it.
Captain C
@Cacti:
An unscrupulous opponent might spin this as “Bernie wants to strip you Puerto Ricans of your citizenship!”
BillinGlendaleCA
@NR:
Did Bernie win the nomination?
Gelfling545
@Steve Crickmore: I believe what she has actually said this campaign is that Senator Sanders should conduct his campaign it whatever way he sees fit. I can’t manage to construe this in any way that indicates she feels entitled and that he should quit.
different-church-lady
@Cacti: Look, I know you were tongue in cheek, but to be serious, what was pretty obvious from the very beginning was that Sanders had figured out a way to take the “angry white male” energy source and put a liberal spin on it.
I’ve been saying it over and over and over again: Sanders plays the politics of resentment. It’s not that he’s interested in cultivating a white-angry-bros only base, it’s that white-angry-bros align with his temperament the most naturally.
Keith G
Meh.
The debate that I would pay to see is Hillary vs the State Department Inspector General….with John G Cole as moderator.
She will be president, but I want her to be cross examined…”You knew of the guidance. You knew of the warnings. And yet you did your own thing and later issued misleading statements in order to try to cover your ass. What the fuck were you thinking?”
I tend to like Hillary. I think she could be a strong president, but this kind of bull shit is so maddening.
Stupidity? Carelessness? Willful misconduct?
hovercraft
@? Martin:
The media is exaggerating these isolated incidents because they are biased against Bernie. These are a few overzealous supporters being used to make him look bad. Bernie has done nothing to encourage this type of behavior he is a saint.
hovercraft
@El Caganer:
Since they have the most passionate and deranged supporters it would be a ratings giant. Plus a lot of normal people would tune in to watch the spectacle.
Shell
So, they did the canvas and it looks like Hillary won Kentucky after all.
different-church-lady
@hovercraft: Being unfamiliar with your oeuvre, I’m going to invoke Poe’s Law here.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Halperin’s the guy who thinks that CA will be in play in the general election.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: I ran into one of them at Shakey Knees music fest. He was selling hippy stuff & a lot of Bernie merch. I think the businessman in him doesn’t want it to end. I let him & his squeeze know that A) primary is over, twill be Hillary vs Trump and B) If they ended up not voting for Hillary in Fall, then they are fools.
We ended up with him (selling a lot of political stuff) saying that he was at a music fest & not there to talk politics!
Cacti
@different-church-lady:
I’d say we’ve reached a point where we could safely call the Sanders campaign a racist/sexist backlash against the emerging 21st century Dem coalition. Even ostensibly liberal white men have never had to share power in any meaningful way, prior to the last decade. Now that it’s apparent they have to, they’re having a big old snit about it.
Juju
@hovercraft: the batsh*t signal went up.
hovercraft
@different-church-lady:
Yes that was sarcasm.
I was channeling a Bernbot
BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: What, you don’t remember the Obama supporters in 2008 throwing dollar bills at Sen. Clinton like she was doing a stage dance at a gentleman’s club?
redshirt
@different-church-lady: LOL. Same.
Paul in KY
@Lamh36: I saw The Weeknd at Hangout Music fest. Had been watching another act (The Chainsmokers) and they were blah, so I went over & caught last 3rd of his set. Must say I was quite impressed. Young man has a great voice & crowd was loving his performance.
Reggie Mantle
@Randy P:
I laughed when some reporter mentioned the part of the report where Hillary never met with the IT people to go over the security rules.
Because, really, does anyone ever WANT to meet with the IT guys?
Paul in KY
@LongHairedWeirdo: Uh…were you selling merch at Shakey Knees music fest a couple of weeks ago?
Cacti
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Or the time enraged Obama supporters called to threaten the families of Dem officials who supported Clinton?
Bob In Portland
@schrodinger’s cat: Really? That’s the best you can do?
jl
” Oh, and let’s pause for a moment and imagine the ear-splitting hissy fit the Sanders people would pitch if Hillary Clinton agreed to debate Trump before the primary ends. ”
I guess it would depend on whether Sanders had previously backed out of an agreement to debate Hillary Clinton, which is my understanding of what happened here, Clinton backed out of a debate with Sanders.
I find it hard to believe how deranged the HRC/Sanders fight squad has become. Fanatics on both sides saying asinine things at this point.
Steve Crickmore
@redshirt: @Gelfling545: And she said she had instructed her assistants to cooperate with the Inspector General taking her lead. Neither any of them would even fill out questionnaires and she declined to be interviewed. Great public servant! https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/26/clintons-imperious-brush-off-of-email-rules/
Ultraviolet Thunder
@El Caganer:
Why would anybody want to watch a debate between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump? I can’t think of anything interesting that would come out of it.
Rooting for injuries?
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: The whole “Bernie Bros” meme is a regurgitation of Clinton’s
I guess the villagers here missed that last time around. And considering the implication of calling Obama’s supporters “boys” you’d think that such defenders of civil discourse here in the BJ Village would have at least pointed it out.
But hypocrisy and outrage are the coins of the realm here.
Cacti
@jl:
Partially true.
She never agreed to a debate on Fox News, which is what Sanders accepted after Fox’s invite.
Cacti
I wonder when the lump from Oregon will recognize that I don’t speak to it anymore.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ultraviolet Thunder: It’d have to be good, it’s on a network who’s motto is “Fair and Balanced”.
glory b
@NR: Now, if there are some grown ups who can decide that we count more than their fee fees and taking their ball and going home, we wouldn’t have that to worry about, would we?
Bernie and Hillary voted the same 97% of the time and she was rated the 10th most progressive senator.
He voted with the NRA to relieve itself of products liability and with it the vast majority of the time, up to a year or two ago. For African Americans and Latinos, those votes matter enormously. Why are we supposed to be content with him hand-waving us away on them, telling us our votes in the south don’t matter but the votes of white folks in Wyoming do? Why is that not supposed to matter?
Hillary spoke to us and said our concerns would be her concerns. He didn’t.
The vote against the Iraq war is the only anti-military vote he took in the last few decades. Why do things like that not matter?
Bob In Portland
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Nothing interesting? Just imagine the ratings. Certainly much better than those Demo debates that Wasserman Schultz scheduled to run against infomercials during the holiday season. You can sit incuriously. A lot of people here at phlegm central are incurious about a lot of things.
redshirt
@Bob In Portland: Bob, in all the wrongness you deal, you don’t understand what the term “Villagers” refers to and your frequent misuse of the term makes you look foolish. Though I doubt that’s a concern of yourse.
Paul in KY
@hovercraft: I’m back in town, baby!!!
Miss Bianca
@? Martin: you know, it’s discouraging reading the comments on that article as well. So much ill-informed bullshit, from blaming HRC for the coup in Honduras (uh, no) to “well, so what if we have to have four years of a Republican president if it gets rid of corrupting money in politics!” (uh, WHAT? So much derp and cluelessness in *that* one that I can’t even begin to unpack it) to just “I don’t TRUST her – no reason given, just REASONS.” (uh, yeah…what did someone say once about a vast right-wing consipracy? Funny, that.).
I think I agree with the author – just as Barack Obama’s candidacy was the occasion for a huge stinky geyser of racism to come belching forth from the underground of the American psyche, so is Hillary Clinton’s bringing forth the sexist, misogynist one. And before anyone starts with “it’s not sexist or misogynist to say I hate Hillary Clinton!” I’d say…consider the possibility, sport. Consider the possibility. Particularly if you’re holding her feet to the fire for shit that her male colleagues have *also* done, or been doing, or will still be doing.
different-church-lady
@Cacti: You have to not speak to it frequently, with much apology.
Paul in KY
@NR: She’s decent looking.
different-church-lady
@redshirt: Pro tip: trolls will use wrong terms deliberately because they know it’s a kind of trolling people cannot resist.
NR
@different-church-lady: Even O’Malley could have wiped the floor with Trump. Only Hillary is hated enough to make it a race.
Mike J
NR
@glory b:
If the “grown ups” hadn’t decided to nominate a weaker candidate than McGovern to run against Trump, we wouldn’t have to worry about him winning.
Unfortunately, they did, and now we are where we are. Blame the Democrats. They’re the ones who insisted on such a terrible candidate.
Paul in KY
@Keith G: Repeated refusal to understand that there are rules for Republicans & rules for Clintons & that she can’t do what they do & expect that no one will get on her about doing the same thing they did.
Miss Bianca
@glory b:
Because REASONS is why.
I’m really getting disgusted by leftists who are, whether they realize it or not, allowing that white male resentment bs to poison their thinking.
Cacti
@Miss Bianca:
How’s this for optics:
To punish the uppity woman candidate for not agreeing to a debate on the right wing propaganda network, the shouty male Democratic candidate now wants to debate the shouty male Republican candidate on said network, presumably to discuss their shared disdain for the uppity woman.
Nope, nothing problematic about that scenario.
SFAW
@Bob In Portland:
Maybe you can convert yours into bitcoin(s), and retire soon.
glory b
@NR: Okay, I will.
No attractiveness shaming.
The ugly on the inside and possible crook statements seem to be backed up the facts, though.
Myself, I’d rather be ugly on the outside than the inside and not a crook.
glory b
@NR: This seems to be getting circular.
I never thought about whether a candidate was “weak.”
Is this person the one who comes closer to my beliefs than the other one?
They get my vote.
why is that so hard? Why care so much what someone else thinks?
SFAW
@Cacti:
Popular tho’ it is to ascribe to and believe the worst about Bernie, I would think that he has enough strength of character not to pull that kind of shit.
Look, I’m as tired of the “Bernie or Bust” crowd as most commenters here, but assuming Bernie would try to destroy Hillary that way — kissing up to the Trumpsters, on Fox — is kind of silly.
tastytone
A personal plus about reading Clinton bashing/trolling: there’s very little to feel that emotional about. She’s such a known quantity, and literally no-one holds her above reproach. Even with her copious negatives, and all the bad blood from 2008, she still makes Sanders look like a pissy philosophy student, and Trump…like Trump.
Keith G
@NR:
I think that this is overstating it by a quite a bit.
I think the polls at this stage of the contest would be quite similar no matter who was leading our side. The deep data still favors Hillary and I think it will to the end – assuming that she doesn’t find a way to fuck it up.
As for that, I think her standing now is largely due to how she is running this campaign. If she ever would get the stick out of her ass and run to win instead of running not to lose, I know she would be doing a lot better.
different-church-lady
@NR:
I remind the chair that Poe’s Law remains in effect.
Chyron HR
@NR:
If Hillary wins, promise you’ll spend the day after the election here liveblogging your psychological breakdown and eventual but unavoidable suicide? After over 12 straight months (by then) of incessant pissing and moaning that we don’t love your God enough, you OWE us front-row seats to the grand finale.
Keith G
@Paul in KY:I have been nabbed for speeding by a cop who let other speeders go by. I was still speeding and I had to pay the ticket.
negative 1
@glory b: Because the second you do they’ll use demographic slurs to debase you.
The irony is that the HRC supporters probably think I’m talking about Bernie’s folks.
Miss Bianca
@glory b: Yeah, I’ll say “word” to all that.
Cacti
@SFAW:
Right, it’s not like he recently made all sorts of excuses for his supporters spewing gendered slurs and making threats to Barbara Boxer and Roberta Lange.
Miss Bianca
@Keith G:
I can’t imagine why HRC hasn’t hired you to be one of her campaign strategists. \\
Reggie Mantle
@Cacti:
Considering how thoroughly he’s schooling you, I imagine you don’t.
Bob In Portland
@redshirt: Redshirt, the term “villagers” arose from “village” which arose in Middle English, the word being carried to England probably through the influence of the French language after the Norman Invasion.
You may think that you own the term, that you can limit its use. You can’t. “Villagers” has for years been used as a term describing uninformed residents of a small community who can be moved to collective action and violence against what they consider to be threats to their selves and their beliefs. You know, like villagers burning women for witchcraft. The term villagers is used in the game Warcraft. I don’t play the game so I don’t know if that’s your “official” use of the term. Perhaps you use the term as synonym for those pundits “inside the Beltway”, but considering your adherence to H. Clinton’s bullshit and your avoidance of money changing hands from the ultra wealthy to her, and her devotion to PNAC, I guess you could consider yourselves as a subset of that group if you were more honest in self-evaluation.
I use the term “villagers” because of the tendency of the frequent commenters here to attack and disparage people who hold different views, especially political views. Closed-minded self-referential people with little self-awareness outside their closed circle.
So, redshirt, go fuck yourself. Vigorously. Make it count. May I suggest a corncob?
Raven Onthill
@Cacti:
The South moved on from the War of Northern Aggression, too.
Half a million lives here, half a million lives there, pretty soon we’re talking a real body count.
And yet I have little doubt that Trump is the greater evil in this election.
What have we become?
Chyron HR
@Reggie Mantle:
So we can add you to the list of people who share BiP’s sincerely held delusion that Joe Biden’s son shot down MH17 and faked his own death afterwards? Noted.
different-church-lady
No internal inconsistency between these two paragraphs WHATSOEVER!
different-church-lady
@Raven Onthill: Yeah, you’re right: Kissinger doesn’t stand a chance against Trump.
Keith G
@Paul in KY: More about this:
The above is not on point, as we now know that there was more guidance given to State Dept. leadership than Hillary originally let on.
Link
I do not think that this is remotely disqualifying, but this is a pile of shit that Hillary willfully walked into, and despite her efforts to side step it, it does seem that she behaved with some purposeful disregard for State Department guidelines.
Cacti
@Chyron HR:
Assuming that poster isn’t just a sock puppet. Can’t say that I’ve ever seen him prior to now.
tastytone
@Bob In Portland:
Constantly. Incessantly. Like a tic. I can’t imagine why people don’t want to engage in civil conversation with you.
different-church-lady
@Keith G: Well, in the face of all that it’s pretty clear we’re gonna have to suspend Tom Brady another four games.
glory b
@different-church-lady: Pot, kettle, black?
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: I was with Boxer when she first ran for Congress in the late eighties. I can remember her coming to speak at a state meeting of my union held at the Hilton on Kearney Street in San Francisco.
Whether or not Boxer has been corrupted, and after so long inside Washington with all the money being thrown around it’s pretty difficult not to be influenced by money, or if she is necessarily in the Clinton camp because of a marriage between the families, is irrelevant. Like the corrupt Feinstein she has outlasted her time in public service.
Considering that H. Clinton has a PAC that works on “correcting the record” on the internet (ie, circulating her propaganda) who do not identify themselves as employed by her allies, who made death threats becomes harder to determine. Much like the kerfluffle about “Obama boys” back in 2008.
I also am curious how a group of vulgar haters here in the BJ village can even get upset about bad behavior. Anywhere. But then, it came out of the H. Clinton propaganda machine and Cole and his minions have been well-trained to repeat these things.
Cacti
@Raven Onthill:
Thank you for that short, and yet pointless insight.
Keith G
@Miss Bianca: Our likelihood is pretty much equal.
different-church-lady
@tastytone:
Well, for one thing the event you’re describing doesn’t exist outside of the realm of the hypothetical.
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
I agree with everything you just said, so much.
Bobby Thomson
@Bob In Portland: paid Russian propagandist says what without a trace of irony?
Keith G
@different-church-lady: A Wolverine. Fuck him.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: Difficult church lady, I am glad that you scan my comments to find curse words, but if you follow the links I include you might find their origins as terms directed against me. But thanks again for reading my comments. I hope you eventually are able to understand them.
Cacti
@different-church-lady:
Conversation on BJ with lump from Oregon is the equivalent of a real-time conversation with the guy walking up and down the sidewalk in a “The End Is Near!” sandwich board.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
So either Sanders becomes Clinton’s de facto surrogate on that stage or he takes a gas can to his bridges with the Democratic party. Because there’s no way Fox or especially Trump are going to stay away from talking about Hillary Clinton.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Does this mean you want me to stop not replying to you?
Bob In Portland
@Bobby Thomson: The money I get is from the old civil service retirement pension and social security. Neither is dependent on what my opinions are. I am amazed how consistently logic fails the villagers here when they’ve got plenty of examples of their government lying to them.
different-church-lady
@Cacti: Just saying.
Bobby Thomson
@Reggie Mantle: you were funny in that Super Bowl ad. How’s Ms. Rosh?
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland:
And it’s a good thing, or you’d be dead-ass broke.
Brachiator
@Iowa Old Lady:
It might have been more useful to just watch Trump and Bernie go at it.
Besides, they have a number of GOP debates to observe Trump. The only question now might be whether “advisers” convince Trump that he needs to come across as more mature and “presidential” in debates against Clinton.
I think in the end, Trump will rely on his informal, brutish attack style. It’s worked for him so far. The Democrats should not treat him like a mainstream politician, of assumed that he will be bounded by any constraints or decency.
Bob In Portland
I use “villagers” because when a flurry such as just occurred on this thread happens I can picture you folks boiling the hot tar, gathering up the feathers and lighting the torches.
But if the official meaning of “villagers” here at Balloon Juice threatens or greatly offends you more than you are offended by the difference of opinions then I can try out other terms. Patriots of the Phlegm work?
Bobby Thomson
@Cacti: and it’s not like he just appointed a committee member who called Trump authentic and President Obama . . . something else.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: That’s why Bernie fights for pensions. That’s why Clinton not so much.
singfoom
@Blowjob In Portland:
Oh Bob. I don’t even…. The phrase….”hoist on your own petard” comes to mind. Pot, kettle, black doesn’t even begin to describe it. Something like Pot, kettle, radar-absorbing black that sucks in light.
You’re not disparaged and attacked because of your different views, due to some groupthink here that just hates outsiders. It’s because you’re a crackpot crank. What do you think people are going to do when you link to some random newsletter from 25 years ago about the CIA and point to how it has relevance to today’s current events.
You keep on being you though, despite all the horrible oppression that you suffer in this hellhole of uncivil Neoliberal Villagers (who aren’t even reporters!) who have the audacity to laugh at your bullshit.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: God bless you, Bob — you’re the Margaret Dumont of Balloon Juice.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: Well, now that I no longer have free and open opinions exchanged with Cacti…
Miss Bianca
@different-church-lady: Oh, YOU!! LOL! My comic-acting avatar ruthlessly dragged out of her respectably bewildered grave as BiP’s doppelganger!
I was seeing more of a Gabby Hayes, vibe, myself, but thank you for that wonderful, horrifying image…
cleek
@Bartholomew:
christ, that’s a lot of agitprop.
D58826
couple of Bernie/Hillary points. According to Chris Cilizza’s reporting Bernie ius making DWS a nake or break point witrh thge Hillary camp. Why? She will be gone from the DNC by Jan. 99% of the population has no idea who she is. It looks like a five year old throwing a tantrum
2nd point Five thrityeight has a piece that the rules are rigged but they worked in Bernie’s favor. For a number of reasons he was able to use the caucus rules to his advantage. Ok that politics. There has been a lot of pixels burned about whither the race would be different if those caucus had been primaries. Well on Tue., for the second time there was a real world experiment to test that idea. In the state of Washington 230k voters turned out for the caucus which Bernie won easily and thereby getting the bulk of the delegates. On Tues. there was a non-bind beauty pageant election that Hillary won handily with a turnout of over 700k voters. If there had been delegates at stake she would have picked up the majority of them. Something similar happened in Nebraska a couple of weeks ago. When five thiry eight crunched the numbers converting all of the caucus states to primaries Hillary picks up half a million votes and with the super delegates included would have clinched the nomination.
Obvious these types of models are imperfect but it seems that now matter how you do the math Bernie is losing.
cleek
@D58826:
these jackasses don’t care about the actual process or the actual rules. they just can’t stand the idea that people disagree with their nihilism.
Bob In Portland
@singfoom:
‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ – Faulkner.
You’ve read the newsletter? Of course not. So pointing out articles from 25 years about the work of the NED, imported Nazis and other fascist residua groomed for politics and reinserted into Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union has no relationship to the guys wearing Nazi insignia while burning people alive in Odessa? Is your position?
You are announcing your ignorance, your self-enforced ignorance, which should secure your status here in the Village.
The fact that you can continuously talk about politics here on Balloon Juice Island and avoid the JFK assassination is absurd, but when you live inside an absurdity that’s what you learn to do and how to behave. The fact that there was someone impersonating Oswald in Mexico City weeks before the assassination is proof of a criminal conspiracy before the fact. But you cannot deal with it, so you point and jeer. Like the scared, ignorant villagers you are.
Psych1
http://22i18l42a516x0glw28vyk8x4k.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/5-13-16.jpg
Bob In Portland
@cleek: Yeah, people who want less war and more healthcare and better living conditions and money out of politics are nihilists. We don’t know the rules. Hillary knew the rules when she laundered money through the state Democratic parties, didn’t she?
Bob In Portland
@D58826: Latest poll has him within 2% in California.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: I read about half the newsletter Bob, then I found other things I needed to do.
My position is that I don’t think you know what you think you know in Ukraine or Russia. I don’t know what your preoccupation is with that area of the world, but if you’re really that interested, you might want to learn more about the language and the culture. I could recommend some good books to you in that regard if you’re so inclined.
It might be that some people in Odessa are burning people while wearing Nazi insignias. But what does that mean? You ascribe some deeper meaning to it, but as far as I’m concerned the Ukranians are fighting a war against Russian, one that isn’t officially a war, but the stakes are still the same. Guess what happens in warzones? Crazy shit that nobody every really sanctioned. If you want to point to that and say “Hey look, we’re supporting Nazis in the Ukraine”, go ahead, but you’re taking a leap that nobody is making. And then the NED angle, sure it reads like a Clive Cussler novel starring Dirk Pitt ready to fight the neo-nazis, but it’s crazy.
Calling it crazy and judging the veracity of different sources is not self-enforced ignorance. It’s called critical thinking.
So, you may think it’s absurd that we’re NOT talking about the JFK assassination while discussing modern US politics. I argue the opposite, that talking about the JFK assassination while discussing current US politics is the height of absurdity.
But even then, guess what? This entire exchange is equivalent to “old man yells at clouds”. It’s not that important, it’s just commenting on a random blog. (No offense to John and the other FPers).
But if you want to place it within a cosmology about the fate of the world and how people thinking you’re a crank for well, displaying cranky crazy tendencies and conspiracy theories, you go do that. I will sleep well at night, safe in my “self-enforced ignorance”.
A good day to you sir.
SFAW
@Cacti:
You don’t see a difference between the two situations? Responding defensively (in both senses of the word) after being put on the spot for something his followers did, versus aiding-and-abetting the neo-fascist’s attacks on Hillary? Because for most of the world, those are different situations, with different “ground rules” (for lack of a better term).
Being defensive rarely reflects well on that person, but it’s not the same as a gratuitous attack.
Bob In Portland
@Chyron HR:
When you outright lie you betray your high ground. I said Biden’s son was on the board of a natural gas company in Ukraine. Do you deny it? No, then, asshole, you are lying again.
MH17 was shot down. The Ukrainian army had jets in the area when it happened. The Ukrainian army had the missiles alleged to have been used to shoot down the airliner. Despite a couple of pictures showing a missile launcher being moved (and not where they were claimed it to be) there is no proof that the rebels or the Russians ever had a missile capable of taking out that airliner in the area.
Further, there was a recording immediately released by the Ukrainians which used a recording from another battle event to forge “evidence”. Forging false information immediately after the event is proof of a propaganda campaign already afoot before the plane was ever shot down.
Further, although SOS Kerry said that the US had absolute proof about the exact location where the missile was fired from, two years later that information is still unreleased, means that Kerry and US intelligence are withholding that from the Dutch investigation and the families of the victims. If you followed the case on ConsortiumNews, which is not on the allowed reading list for villagers here, you’d see how Kerry turned down the family of the only US citizen on the plane.
We also know that Ukraine first made its radar readings secret, then “lost” them. They also seem to have lost the air traffic controller tapes too.
Immediately after the incident the US began a propaganda campaign blaming Russia for downing the airliner. The relationship between the CIA, the US embassy in Kiev and the propaganda campaign has never been proven, but the aforementioned bit of propaganda cobbled together by the Ukrainian government the same day the the plane was shot down has all the marking of a CIA false flag operation.
Considering that Operation Northwoods was a US false flag suggested back in the 60s means that blowing up airliners and blaming the attacks on others (in the 60s it was going to blame Castro) has been part of the US’s plans for a long time.
We have long lists of false flags that seem to coincide with US attempts at regime change. Gulf of Tonkin for one. Pan Am 103 was used to point the finger at Libya, but the facts do not prove that. In fact, the same set of facts had been used to point to a PFLP-GC cell in Frankfurt until the connection between their benefactor Monzer al-Kassar and his heroin importation operation and his part in Iran-contra became apparent.
Remember when the former Ukrainian government shot on the demonstrators (and their own cops) in Maidain Square? Well, there are now several documentaries circulating in Western Europe pointing to the fascist forces at the square, not the pro-Russian government. What is intriguing is that this same scenario was used in Venezuela to attack that anti-US government, and used in Syria to paint tar on Assad.
I’m always glad to help out the ignorant, but if you are willfully ignorant there is nothing I can do for you.
Cheers.
Bob In Portland
@SFAW: Subtlety is often rejected in favor of false parallels here on Balloon Juice Island.
NR
@glory b: Sure, what you said is a totally valid reason to vote for a candidate in the primary.
But if you don’t consider how likely that candidate is to win the general election, you don’t get to complain when they lose.
tastytone
@Psych1:
I know, right? Terrible. Lots of dead muslims. Lot’s of dead brown folks. Lots of dead everybody.
And Bernie still couldn’t turn it into a primary win:
I sincerely think it’s a shame he couldn’t explain his Middle East policies in a way that didn’t make him sound like a stoned teenager on his way to a debate tournament.
Or his healthcare policies…
Or his big bank policies…
But he couldn’t. He had his time with the massive microphone, and he couldn’t lay a path forward that was feasible, so he lost.
He could’ve helped provide solutions, but solutions aren’t his bag–protests are. He’s not an organizer, he’s an activist. He’s had access to levers of power–ones we little concerned plebs can only dream of–for a very long time. So many, politicians or otherwise, have done so much more with far, far less.
NR
@Chyron HR:
If Hillary wins, I’ll breathe a big sigh of relief that we avoided President Trump.
Now in the increasingly likely event that Trump wins, will you televise your meltdown for us?
chopper
@Bob In Portland:
care to show us all where redshirt said ‘go fuck yourself’ first?
also, telling someone to shove a corncob up their ass sounds pretty homophobic. i guess that makes you a homophobe.
NR
So far, exactly one person has called out the disgusting sexist attack against Jane Sanders that Elie made in this thread. All credit to Glory B for that.
But I guess the rest of you folks are totally cool with sexist attacks just as long as they’re against women you don’t like.
Bob In Portland
@chopper: If I had the time or inclination I could. I could probably show where you got all homophobic in your insults. But I choose not to.
Why? Are only villagers here on Balloon Juice Island authorized to insult others?
different-church-lady
@NR: I’m not cool with it at all, but if it gets on your nerves I’m willing to let it go.
Bob In Portland
@singfoom: So do you think that 25 years ago a group of investigators, some being former CIA agents, invented it all? Do you not see a connection between the 70-year history of the US supporting fascist movements and inserting them into the politics of Eastern Europe and the guys with the swastikas on their helmets?
Okay, the US lied to us about the Gulf of Tonkin, the assassination of JFK, RFK and MLK, both political parties have shifted further to the right. But that doesn’t mean that the people responsible for the assassinations and wars of the sixties are still alive. In fact, they all went back to their cubicles the Monday after JFK’s assassination and haven’t been heard from again.
Because you are unable to understand the repercussions of political assassination you can remain comfortably safe in your continued ignorance. You live inside the absurdity. You are the reason I suggested that the villagers here look up the Italian film “The Conformist”.
redshirt
@Bob In Portland:
I rarely swear and never insult people, so this response of yours was rather shocking, especially since you often disparage other people for using the same words.
For shame, Bob. You’re a hypocrite – remember this the next time you start lecturing someone about language.
NR
@different-church-lady: It’s cute that you think anything said here gets on my nerves.
chopper
@Bob In Portland:
sounds like you’re full of shit, bob.
and yet in this here thread we have an example of you making a homophobic remark against redshirt.
Elie
@NR:
I don’t want to hide. NR — got eff yourself. BTW — are you pretty or ugly? My guess is ugly — inside and out. One thing effects the other. Jane could look like a model and she would be ugly to me because who she is, how she behaves, is as ugly as ugly can get. She has chosen to do and say ugly things and if tells me about her inner reality. I could care less about what you think cause I know, as a empathizer for the Bernie slime machine, you are all down with anything they do or say. Yes, its not politic to speak of someone’s appearance. But in the instance that a person behaves in an ugly way over and over — they need to be called what they are : ugly. Don’t like it? I DON CARE!!!
SFAW
@Bob In Portland:
Well, thank Heaven, the FSM, and the spirit of Vladimir Vladimirovich that you are here to be above all that.
J R in WV
@Steve Crickmore:
Nope, on May 23rd, 2016 Hillary Clinton was the elected nominee, and hence done with it at that point.
Scotian
I know this is very late, and likely nearly the last post for the thread, but I wanted to raise a point I didn’t see really looked at regarding a Trump/Sanders debate on FOX. If Trump played it smart, he could make himself look to lose, or at least only very narrowly beat Sanders/fight him to a draw making Sanders look that much like the better candidate for the General to bolster Sanders argument to superdelegates in this regard in the hopes this would cause Sanders to somehow pull out that win, really divide the Dems, as well as give him the weaker of the two candidates for the General. And Sanders *IS* the weaker of the two, not only because he has such unused dirt in his history, but because for most Americans he is still undefined, which makes negatively defining him so much easier, which means we have no idea what his true floor is. Clinton on the other hand has been negatively defined for a quarter century and we have some idea of her floor, and that is actually fairly high, especially given all factors considered.
Now, could Trump control his natural domination temperament to pull this off? That is anyone’s guess, but the fact that so many would refuse to believe he could would make it that much more effective if he did, and given what kind of a showman Trump has been throughout his life I would not say the ability is beyond him, especially if he sees this as a way of really working to his long term advantage. I’m one that never wrote Trump off from the outset, a long shot early on yes, but could never do it, no. I also believe that it is foolish to underestimate Trump’s real abilities AND his private face/nature, I am not as convinced as some that with Trump what we see is what we get, no I am not at all convinced. If I am wrong, no real harm done, but if I am correct, yet most fail to consider this possibility seriously, that sets up the potentials to be blindsided in some really nasty ways.
So I thought I should put this notion out there for people to chew on, assuming anyone is left to read this at this point (I would have done so earlier but I was out all day until middle of the evening, I was only able to start reading this post and thread a little over a half hour ago). In military thinking one of the worst sins is to allow one’s contempt/disrespect for an enemy to interfere with assessing potentials for causing your side harm. It is also better to somewhat overestimate capabilities (giving yourself some fudge factor in your planning) than it is to EVER underestimate an opponent/foe, and I think this is something Dems need to really watch in themselves when it comes to Trump.
Just my opinion, but as a Canadian who is going to have to live with whatever you choose I really would prefer not to live in the world of President Trump, the potentials for global instability and long term chaos will make what we got out of the Cheney Presidency look like a pillow fight in my estimation. Thanks but no thanks!
NR
@Elie:
I can see that. You’re loud and proud with your vile, sexist, hate-filled rhetoric.
And the other Hillary supporters here are curiously silent about it. That’s pretty sad.
FIBark
@Elie: –You just described yourself with that post, congrats!
Paul in KY
@Keith G: Technically she was a ‘classifying authority’, so on her own volition, she could declassify certain documents, or classify them as she wished.
However, that point is very down-in-the-weeds.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland:
History is useful for understanding context and comparing the current context to the historical context none of this is relevant at all. Most of the U.S. support for rightwing governments was done during the cold war in South and Central America. It’s a stain on our history. That’s the cold war era. We’re past that. The cold war is over.
You can draw parallels and tell me how the 25 year old newsletter proves something to you, that’s fine, but just because I don’t believe you doesn’t mean I believe everything the government says. It’s not a binary decision of “Believe BiP or believe the government / bury my head in the sand.”
Go fuck yourself Bob. My not believing in your conspiracy theories doesn’t equal ignorance. My mistake again for trying to have a rational conversation with you.
Miss Bianca
@NR: For the record, NimRod, I’m not cool with attractiveness attacks. But I think it’s slightly rich of *you* to be clutching your pearls over “sexist attacks”, Mr. “Oh, who cares about where Judge Merrick stands on reproductive rights, the only issue that matters is his stand on Guantanamo!” You don’t actually give a rat’s ass about women or sexist smack-talk – you just want to screech about how sexist *HRC supporters* are. So, off you may fuck.
Cleos
@Cacti:
His generation has to be taken into account: Sanders came of age within comfortable boundaries of the era when women in college were presumed to be “working for an MRS degree.”