Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee. https://t.co/40Jz20OX1q pic.twitter.com/nY2loMiOZq
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 7, 2016
We’re flattered, @AP, but we've got primaries to win. CA, MT, NM, ND, NJ, SD, vote tomorrow! https://t.co/8t3GpZqc1U
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 7, 2016
Claire Landsbaum, at NYMag‘s ladyblog The Cut:
…[A]s Clinton said in her graduation speech at Wellesley College in 1969, “We found — as all of us have found — that there was a gap between expectation and realities. But it wasn’t a discouraging gap, and it didn’t turn us into cynical, bitter old women…It just inspired us to do something about the gap.”
Since last April, Clinton has been doing something about that gap. And with her presumptive nomination tonight, she’s finally shattered “that highest, hardest glass ceiling.”
Remember when AP declared this for Trump and everybody accepted it as reality? Yeah, this won't be like that. https://t.co/ihgxwPV60R
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) June 7, 2016
Still some primaries today, of course — CA and NJ are getting the most attention — and chewing over the results should make for a busy evening regardless.
Apart from that, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Baud
I can’t believe AP undercut Baud! voters like that. If get no votes today, I’ll know who to blame.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
This has the CIA’s fingerprints all over it.
It’s Operation Ajax all over again!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
GOP in DISARRAY!!!
satby
Argh. I’m too crabby to even snark right now. I’m not going to have a good day.
Hope everyone else’s is better.
satby
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Good. Couldn’t happen to more deserving people.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
It wouldn’t be because some one has been desperately stoking conspiracy theories and fake math to bilk his gullible, cult like followers out of $27 donations to pay for lobster appetizers, would it?
Betty Cracker
I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot ever since the news of Hillary Clinton reaching the delegate threshold broke. Mom was about the same age as Hillary Clinton and was a huge fan of both Clintons. She supported Clinton over Obama in 2008, and we had some good natured arguments about that. But she voted for Obama twice and thought he was a good president. I so wish she had lived to see this.
My mom’s mother is still with us, and I’ll be visiting her shortly. She was born the year before women got the right to vote, and now she’s lived long enough to see a woman head up a major party ticket. But she’s an evangelical wingnut who went ape-shit for Sarah Palin, so I don’t think she’ll be voting for Hillary!
Baud
@satby: That stinks. I hope it turns around soon.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: I wish my mother could see this too.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
MattF
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I saw that quote from Graham– and it’s quite amazing. It’s a not-so-subtle suggestion that voting for HRC over Trump is the patriotic thing to do.
BillinGlendaleCA
What’s on the agenda? VOTE!!!
@Betty Cracker: I guess your grandma was born the same year as my dad; dad’s been gone for almost 35 years.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Baud! wouldn’t do the lobster appetizers, now hookers and blow…
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
For the first time in it’s 240 history a woman has been nominated for President of the United States.
But the liberal media is ignoring how white men no longer have any power in this country. We’re slouching to Gomorrah on the road to serfdom.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I knew I could count on you.
.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Hooocoodanode??
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
CarolDuhart2
I so wish my mother, who died on May3rd, could have lived to see at least this day. She probably voted for her in the primary, though, and is an invisible part of this day. She was born in 1920, the year women got the right to vote, and was 45 when the Voting Rights Act was passed. This is truly a new day for women.
Kay
OMG, they couldn’t let her have the normal “we won!” moment when polls close? They have to steal her thunder?
Everyone else gets to have the big rally and declare victory. I’d be pissed, personally. They spend the entire primary pretending it’s close and then they stomp all over her announcement in the last 24 hours.
I expect the full winners hoopla the same as everyone else gets. I’m putting them on notice :)
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
satby
@Baud: ahh, got woken at 4 am for the power gluttony that evidently precedes the day’s fast. Then people get through the day by mostly sleeping, then more power gluttony at night. That doesn’t seem as much like a solemn ritual as it does time shifting meals.
But I can’t sleep all day, so I have tons to do on 4 hours of sleep.
Central Planning
From the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:
So was it a mistake or does Trump really make less than $500k/year. I bet on the latter.
Baud
@Kay: I agree.
Aimai
@Kay: yup!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Tell that truth!!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Kay
@Baud:
Freaking Kasich got confetti and he won one state- his own. It’s time for her to create her reality. Completely ignore the call and do the full winner’s walk. They will not give her one thing that every other candidate gets.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Obama is running up the score like Jimmy Johnson (photo)
rikyrah
@satby:
I know those kinds of days?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Central Planning:
That’s my bet too.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
Sorry to say, one gets used to it.
Baud
@Kay: She will. This won’t change anything for tonight.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are on point, Kay
Schlemazel Khan
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Where is that from?
Schlemazel Khan
@satby:
That is sucky this early – hope things improve as the day goes on.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yep. I suspect that’s what she’ll do, shortly after the polls close in Jersey.
Baud
@satby: That’s why I’ll never have kids.
Schlemazel Khan
@Betty Cracker:
You wrote beautiful, heartbreaking things about your mom & I felt so bad for you. I don’t recall you ever having mentioned that tidbit about her mother though & that makes me sad in a different way.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Schlemazel Khan: from this pretty good story in today’s Times (Democrats Jump On Allies of Donald Trump in Judge Dispute)
satby
@rikyrah: I am a bad tempered person without my coffee. And though I really try to be respectful of others religions, I am not at all religious and have low patience on my good days for some of the pointless rules of many religions, including the Catholic one I left at age 12. That veneer of patience is really tested at 4am when people are rampaging through the kitchen 10 feet away from me.
I’m going to go have more coffee.
Kay
@Baud:
If they switch to a Trump rally or in any way step on it I’m writing an outraged letter. Consider it done :)
Particularly her. This is her second try! She lost one of these. Coming back and winning is a huge accomplishment all by itself.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Try power napping. 15-20 mins can refresh you more than you know. Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets me thru the day.
Baud
@Kay: Agree. If they cut away from her speech, that would be far worse than jumping the gun. I can’t even imagine.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Lotta love between these two (photo)
qwerty42
@rikyrah: Good morning!
Schlemazel Khan
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
thanks! this may be the best election season of my life if it conyinues
BillinGlendaleCA
Joe of the Morning is unhappy about Trump, though he thinks(mistakenly) that the Republican party and Republican Congresscitters can make Trump, eh behave.
burnspbesq
This is also a pretty big deal; it looks like India is going to ratify the Paris Accords.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/us/politics/narendra-modi-us-india.html?_r=0
OzarkHillbilly
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: The Admiral (Mullin?) doesn’t seem to approve. ;-)
Kay
@Baud:
I’m looking forward to it. I had my whole evening planned. I’m going to watch with my 13 year old. He’ll probably be thrilled to get some happy history instead of “let’s you and me watch this documentary on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire!”
Baud
@burnspbesq: Crediting Trump even a little bit was lame.
Baud
@Kay:
That’s how kids in Democratic families grow up to be Republican, Kay. Is that what you want?
PaulWartenberg2016
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
FRANCIS!!!
satby
@burnspbesq: That’s awesome and a very good thing if they do.
@Kay: yeah, they really just screw with her, don’t they? And never even grasp their own bias in how they do it.
satby
@Baud: I did that to my kids and they grew up reliably liberal. But then liberal is the more reason-based, rational choice.
CarolDuhart2
@Kay: Come to think about it, it really is an accomplishment in itself, especially after an 8 year hiatus. The first woman, running for the biggest political prize of all, who has a legitimate chance of winning. I remember the great deal that was made about Thatcher, and even remember Indira Ghandi, and wondering if it would ever happen here.
A toast of Ferraro, and Chisolm, and to all the other lady Dems who ran before.
BillinGlendaleCA
I was thinking of going to Griffith Observatory last night, but decided not to. Watching the evening news I learned that this was a wise decision, HRC was at the Greek Theater(it’s on the drive up to the Observatory).
burnspbesq
@Baud:
I think that Americans who don’t follow foreign media underestimate the fear of Trump that’s out there in the rest of the world. If that’s what it took to get India to move, i can live with that.
Earl
Asking one more time — if I’m going to donate maybe $1 or $1.5k to Hillary, is it better now, over time, to her campaign, or to a super pac? TIA for suggestions.
And I didn’t vote for her in the primary, but it’s a hell of an accomplishment.
Baud
@satby:
This primary has me questioning that.
@Earl:
I say now to her campaign directly.
Patricia Kayden
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Beautiful! What the hell did they expect?
Trump is going to lead them over a cliff by November. That’s what you get when you put an unqualified ignoramus bigot at the wheel of your Clown Car.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Betty Cracker:
Hugs to your mom wherever she is.
satby
@Baud: Liberal, not faux “progressive”.
OzarkHillbilly
@Earl: To her campaign. There are only 2 reasons to give to a pac, one is because you’ve already maxed out to the campaign, the other is because you want to hide your contribution.
Baud
@burnspbesq: Right. The country would never live that down on the international scene.
Schlemazel Khan
For contrast, MN had female Congresswoman in the 1950s, Coya Knutson. She was defeated after “someone” wrote a letter to the paper about how her husband needed her at home! COYA, COME HOME! link here
Kay
@CarolDuhart2:
The ’08 loss had to devastating. To come back and do it again is incredibly resilient. She’s had an amazing life. There’s no one quite like her on the national scene, how it plays out in chapters with REALLY high highs and REALLY low lows.
aimai
@Baud: That’s how kids in democratic jewish families find out about family history.
Iowa Old Lady
The Berners at KOS are convinced this early “coronation” of Clinton was a plot she hatched and the carried out by ordering her supers to notify AP that they were voting for her.
aimai
@Kay: I heard an amazing speech by Swannee Hunt who is an astounding person. When she was ambassador to Austria she had an enormous personal crisis (her daughter was committed and tried to commit suicide in the US) at the exact same moment that she had some major issues in the Embassy to deal with. She recounted to us how she ended up crawling under her desk for some peace and quiet, just sobbing with despair, and looked up from her desk to see Hillary’s picture as First Lady on the Wall, and thought about what a hell she was going through at that moment with the impeachment. And she told us she just pulled herself together, crawled out from under the desk, and went back to work. Saying to hereslf “If Hillary Clinton can keep going, I can keep going.”
Matt McIrvin
Whoa, check out the commenter in this thread for whom the timing of this AP announcement is the last straw preventing him from voting Democratic in November–he knows the nefarious Hillary is behind the AP stomping on her own victory announcement because the AP was also in cahoots with Nazi Germany:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/06/stating-the-obvious
debbie
@Kay:
Kay, I don’t think they’ll switch away. She doesn’t give rambling, aimless speeches the way Trump does. I can’t imagine her speechwriters wouldn’t have planned for the possibility of going off track.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: The front pagers there seem reasonable. Anyone can throw up a dairy.
Kay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Trump is tripping over his giant ego. Trump University is his. It can’t be a pathetic scam to rip off vulnerable people and it is.
He’s a fraud and he’s going to be exposed as one. I personally will enjoy his months-long excruciating fall. It’s about goddamned time this puffed-up phony was brought down to earth.
debbie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Amazing that the GOP still thinks they can control anything, especially when evidence proving otherwise lies in tatters about them.
Kay
@debbie:
I was actually thinking of the campaign people, who have probably been planning this for 3 months. I thought the foreign policy speech that turned into a delightful attack was very smart. I also think rank and file Democrats will love her and Obama together again. The relationship between those 2 people is fascinating, the twists and turns.
sherparick
@MattF: Well of course it is. Trump is a proto-dictator and if comes into the office of the President, there is no particular reason to think he will ever leave it until dead, and then he will probably want to pass it on to his kids. And 40% of the country is authoritarian enough to believe that destroying the Constitution is a worthwhile price to pay to make the U.S. once again a “herrenvolk” republic/monarchy of white men, the vision of John Calhoun fulfilled. So if you love the United States and the principals in the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, you have to vote against Trump.
And by the way, this guy, who no longer has any fucks left to give, is ready to unload on the Republican and the Right-Wing/MSM media industrial entertainment complex that has enabled Trump the political right for the last 25 years.
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-responds-to-gun-store-owner-2016-6
debbie
Oh, boy. It’s not enough that the GOP claims they’ve got the best healthcare in the world issue, they also intend to reform Dodd Frank.
“Simply put” seems to be the ALEC-inspired catch phrase.
tarragon
Bernie’s lost NPR. This morning Mara Liasson called his plan to get super delegates to switch to him a “preposterous proposition”
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’m sitting in the bar of a Red Lobster, getting paid $14.50 an hour to do absolutely nothing. They have a rule that, if the door is open at any point between 10pm and 8:30am, then either a manager or a security guard must be at the door with the key. So, whenever they have contractors in to do work overnight, they call my company to have a security officer their to hold the key and to watch the door while they come in and out. Sometimes they need to run something in from their truck and the door is open for hours, which is a lot of fun when it’s ten below, but sometimes they come in, the door closes, and then they let me know when they’re done and I let them out. In between, I just sit around reading. It’s about as easy as money gets, but I’m close to the bottom of the list that they call, because we’re paid at the rate of our normal post, and my normal post is paid well above average for the company.
Tonight (last night for most of you, I guess) I arrived at 9:30, and was told people would be cleaning the hoods in the kitchen, but that they wouldn’t arrive until 3-4am. They never showed. I’ve been sitting here by myself all night. I eventually started worrying that I wouldn’t hear the door bell from the back door and that they wouldn’t come around to the front. So I paced nervously back and forth for a while, but as far as I can tell, they just never made it.
The temptation to go behind the bar and pour myself a Knob Creek has been almost overwhelming.
Emma
@Matt McIrvin: Jesus Christ I thought you were joking.
Baud
@tarragon: The conspiracy runs deep.
sherparick
@Iowa Old Lady: Yes, it was a plot by the 13 million of us who voted for Clinton over Sanders who only got 10 million (I rounded them both up). That is the way social democracies work guys and gals, if the other candidate gets more votes, he or she wins (unless it is Gore v. Bush and you get the Supreme Court majority to “rig” your election – if you want to see how an election is “rigged” by definition, study that one.)
Kay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Also, “wah, wah, wah the judge is MEAN to me!” God almighty, he’s supposed to be this international wheeler-dealer. He’s completely undone when someone sues him on one of his scams? He’s a big pampered baby. He even looks like one, jutting his bottom lip out and pouting. He shouldn’t have to PLAY by grownup rules. It’s unfair!
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: It has occurred to me that Trumps entire life is nothing but a pyramid scheme. It works as long as he can get others to keep putting money in and the whole reason for running was to keep the scam going a little longer. But now the long knives are closing in.
I wonder if his empire will survive to November.
Matt McIrvin
@Emma: I was going to ask what he thought Clinton’s motivation was for doing this, but of course the most dead-end of Sanders dead-enders think that a squeaker Sanders win in California would be the first domino leading to Clinton’s indictment and the flipping of the superdelegates. And now they have their way to insist that if it doesn’t happen, the loss was somehow illegitimate.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
You’ve basically just described Corporate America.
sherparick
@Kay: Fraud he may be, but he is candidate of a tribe of at least 40% of the electorate whose bigotry and resentment are as great as his. Add to that misogynists who will never vote for a woman plus fellow travelers and greed heads who think der Trumpster will be their ticket to fortunes free of taxes and no restrictions on their ability to plunder their fellow citizens and the environment with no restraint of law, he may be at 48%. This may be the most gut wrenching election of my life. And remember, there is no such thing as “peak wingnut” and the McConnells and Ryans of the Congress will doing their best to make Hilary a one term President, to hell with the country.
Iowa Old Lady
I don’t think Trump had the faintest idea of the scrutiny he’d be under as his party’s nominee. The public knows him on a celebrity level, so maybe he thought it would be like that.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: Actually it was pointed out on Morning Joe that the trial was supposed to start the week after the Republican Convention and the judge pushed it back until after the election. That judge is sure biased against Trump.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: That would be hell for me.
Jeff Spender
So I had this hilarious conversation with a Bernie or Buster. He started to whine about the southern states voting for Hillary and was intimating how they shouldn’t count because they were “religious and conservative.”
So I said in response that every state gets a vote, and religious and conservative voters are a risk with open primaries.
He replied that “the majority” of the primaries are closed to only Democrats and whined about that.
That’s when I sprung a trap. See, most Busters are convinced that Clinton didn’t win any open primaries. So I linked to a listing of the outcomes for open and closed primaries–Clinton won 13 of 21 open (more than half) and 14 of 23 closed (also more than half). I said that one of the ways to keep unwanted voters out of the primaries so only your people can vote is to have closed down primaries.
And so which is better, I asked. Open primaries that could allow liberal-leaning independents to vote but risks tampering by outside parties, or a closed primary that guarantees a more-or-less pure outcome?
I was putting him in a corner here. Bernie wins open primaries! Open primaries let Clinton win in the south!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Some really creative outfits last night at the fashion awards:
Elvis Presley’s granddaughter actress Riley Keough (Photo)
Everyone’s favorite, the incomparable Tilda Swinton (Photo)
Immanentize
@aimai:
That and the Sorrow and the Pity.
One small oh-so New York City detail in Annie Hall was Alvie Singer’s constant viewing of that documentary. It was a film i watched five times.in my college days. I never will make my son watch it.
But the Triagle Fire doc. Of course!
Meanwhile, I hope Hillary gets the moment she so.richly deserves, Baud! Gets an Ambassadorship to France, and Satby gets a good night’s sleep….
Jeffro
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Wouldn’t surprise me if that number goes way, way higher before next January, either. Most consequential president in over a generation indeed!
Baud
@Immanentize: Better to go as ambassador than as an expat, which is what I’d have to do if Trump wins.
OzarkHillbilly
@sherparick:
And that worked out so well for them the last time they tried that. (actually, I think 2020 will be a much steeper hill FOR US to climb)
ETA: for us
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@OzarkHillbilly:
This. There is great fragility required by the ego large enough to pull off a big con – Mark Cuban has observed the same thing about him.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t know. The way the GOP is going, in 2020, they will literally nominate a howler monkey.
D58826
@sherparick: This really isn’t hard. It’s basic arithmetic. However you divide the pie Hillary has won. She has more popular votes. She has won more states, and she has more pledged delegate. If you eliminate the SD’s and use the winner take all rule she has more pledged delegates. If you assign the SD’s on a proportional basis she has more SD’s.
One Bernie-sis on Chris Hayes was complaining that the system is rigged and the will of the people is being suppressed. Therefore Bernie has no choice but take it to the convention and flip the SD’s. When Hayes asked her how she would feel if the situation was reversed she wouldn’t answer.
I remember the whole issue of the PUMAs in 2008 but I wonder if this is the same. I don’t remember Hillary creating a ‘we were robbed by a fixed system’ narrative. Once you have created that narrative among your supporters its going to be really really hard to turn on a dime and say ‘oh that’s just politics all is forgiven’.
satby
@Immanentize: LOL, thanks. People will be getting introduced to the concept of a packed sandwich for the 4am gluttony call (seriously, pig city this am and last night). Folks are welcome to come down to the kitchen at 5 am, which is a full hour before sunrise here. That’s plenty of time for a meal. And I’m up then.
Sleeping through wasn’t an option, because the dogs thought it was morning and needed to go out. And once I wake up, I’m up.
father pussbucket
I’ve suggested before that Trump is the Republicans’ Id Monster, and this essay nails it, accompanied by an awesome graphic.
D58826
@OzarkHillbilly: Actually it did. Other than Obama winning in 2012 (not an insignificant achievement) the GOP has pretty well rolled up the map at the Congressional/state/local levels since 2010.
MattF
@Baud: Been there, done that.
Baud
@satby:
That doesn’t seem kosher for an Islamic sacrament.
Patricia Kayden
@Iowa Old Lady: And he’s not used to any kind of criticism. I’m sure he’s shocked that everyone is not buying his b.s. just based on his say so. He doesn’t understand that it’s going to get worse as Secretary Clinton and her supporters scrutinize every inch of his past.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: They didn’t bother waiting till 2020.
Amir Khalid
@satby:
I don’t do the gluttony thing myself for Iftar and Sahur. I stick to a normal dinner, and cereal and toast for the latter. My parents taught me that feasting by night kind of defeats the meaning of fasting by day.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Paul Ryan? By linking himself to Trump, he’ll be doing a lot of howling by November.
Just One More Canuck
@Iowa Old Lady: That’s particularly unhinged, even for a DK diary
Reggie Mantle
So, good for you Clintonites. You don’t have to worry about voting today and can just stay home. Isn’t that a relief?
Betty Cracker
@Iowa Old Lady: Agreed. Trump coasted along on celebrity-style coverage throughout the Republican primaries because no one took him seriously. What other candidate could have gotten away with brushing off questions about his birther activities by saying, “I don’t talk about that any more”?
When the history of Trump’s epic flame-out is written, I think his decision to attack journalists last week for asking questions about his much-ballyhooed veterans fundraising activities will be seen as a turning point. It really comes down to his compulsion to deflect criticism by framing himself as the victim, which is what led him into his spectacularly ill-advised attacks on the judge too.
He can’t STFU, and that will be his downfall.
aimai
@Matt McIrvin: Yup. Been having the exact same argument at Kos all morning. They are convinced that its oligarchs all the way down and the AP did this to squelch Sanders’ support in California, which was going to turn the whole thing around.
gogol's wife
GO HILLARY
CRUSH TRUMP
father pussbucket
@Patricia Kayden:
Yep. No matter how the GOP tries to decorate him, he will “speak his mind”, and his mind is not pretty.
OzarkHillbilly
@D58826:
Have to disagree. They said they were going to make Obama a one term president. They didn’t. While
is certainly true (and shame on us for not GOTV), it is not what they said they would do.
SiubhanDuinne
Nancy SMASH! just endorsed Hillary.
aimai
@Betty Cracker: I actually don’t think the attacks on journalists was the turning point. I think HRC’s speech was the “Emperor Has No Clothes” moment. I think absent that journalists would have kept on ducking away from Trump and merely making fun of him privately. As they did all the time they knew that he was sock puppetting them years ago. There was just no point in ripping the mask off of such good entertainment. But now HRC has put it to the press and the public bluntly: are you a fool? Because only a fool would believe this guy, or publicly support him. That’s going to be the turning point. As it becomes too embarrassing to side with Trump and more and more people just stop being willing to support him publicly.
Kay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That kind of analysis lends legitimacy to Trump. His attacking the judge is outrageous. Morning Joe shouldn’t indulge him with ‘is the judge biased because he’s of Mexican heritage?” This is how the sleaze spreads and the bar gets lower.
It’s the same fucking thing they did with Trump and the birth certificate. A birth certificate is THE record of birth. It’s accepted in every court in the country with no further inquiry, along with every other federal and state agency. Birtherism is bigoted. It was a special bar the African American had to jump over. This is the same thing.
Bobby Thomson
@Reggie Mantle: fuck the tucking Yankees.
Amir Khalid
@Reggie Mantle:
Weak.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Ouch.
OzarkHillbilly
Hmph, I distinctly felt a damp fetid miasma wafting across the internet just now.
Betty Cracker
Damn, y’all! It’s raining so hard! Thought that storm would be outta here by now!
@aimai: Good point. Clinton made it impossible to ignore the fraud and incompetence. But Trump did himself no favors by attacking journos — free and remarkably gentle media coverage was his best asset.
Kay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
About once a month I change someone’s parents with a birth certificate stapled to a petition. I don’t have to bring in the Keeper of Records and check the kerning. The whole country would grind to a halt if everyone got the Trump/media birth certificate analysis. They’re not stupid. They know what this sleaze is- it’s an attempt to deny legitimacy. That is taking something from someone else. Trump has to discredit this judge because Trump is a fraud and he’s being exposed. The judge had absolutely nothing to do with that,yet he’s the one they’re questioning.
Peale
“Super delegates don’t vote until July” is this year’s $2Trillion Platinum Coin.
sherparick
One of the ways I find myself “gobsmacked” in 2016, and think that Hilary will have a difficult time winning this election is the way outright misogyny and contempt for women has become common place among millennial men, as this thread on theAtlantc web page on the Brock Turner rape conviction and slap on the wrist verdict reveals. http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/06/stanford-sexual-assault-letters/485837/#article-comments. Yep, in 2016 we have a candidate basically running on a platform of restoring a herrenvolk state of White Male Supremacy and he get 48% of the vote, if we are lucky. And apparently, its okay to gets “20 minutes of action” if the victim is drunk and still capable of slurring single word responses. And as she wrote in her letter, if it had not been her that night, this creep would have found some other woman at the party who was having one drink to many and would have made a suitable victim to his predatory way he was taught to view women. Also, I would love to see this judge’s sentencing record involving perpetrators of color or from a working class background.
Reggie Mantle
Question: has this ever happened before–a major news outlet declaring one candidate the overall victor on the eve of a major primary?
kd bart
Twenty years from now, we’re going to discover Bernie or Busters living in enclaves in the Green Mountains of Vermont still fighting the Primary War of 2016.
germy
@sherparick:
I remember over the years every election season, when the local races were ramping up. I’d get a ton of campaign material in the mail. I recall several judges who basically came out and said words to the effect of “I can tell the difference between mixed-up kids who made one mistake and criminal thugs.” It was sort of a dogwhistle saying “If your (white exurban) son does something dumb, don’t worry I won’t ruin his life. I’ll save that treatment for the minority kids in the city next door.”
Reggie Mantle
Sanders to ‘reassess’ candidacy after today:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/282380-sanders-to-assess-path-after-california
And the hated Yglesias thinks he’ll bow out by Friday.
So you folks have only a few days to spew your bile and vitriol and talk about what a horrible vile person Sanders is. Don’t forget to attack his wife! That’ll show everyone who the real liberals are.
aimai
@sherparick: This a thousand times. But you know what? I actually draw comfort from the fact that we have such a divided electorate,and divided along these lines. Because I would rather be in coalition with other women, POC, LGBTQ and other people in the Obama coalition than relying on the votes of angry white males. And we don’t have to. When some angry white dude tells me he doesn’t want to vote for Hillary because reasons I just laugh, and pat his hand, and say “We can win with you, or without you. Your choice. You can align yourself with Trumps racist, sexist, mouth breathing neo nazis or you can come on over and sit with us. But no one is going to cater to your worst and stupidest impulses. Get with the program or get run over.”
Mark B
@Reggie Mantle: Given how closely the primaries are spaced late in the season, I’m sure that a winner has been declared shortly before a primary vote, but not on the eve. This happened because the Puerto Rico primary on a Sunday almost closed the deal, and a few more superdelegates came out on a Monday to put her over the top. It’s just an artifact of the math, I don’t see any particular timing conspiracy happening. If anything, Hillary probably wanted to wait until tonight to declare victory, when it could be done at a big event. The cable news shows and phone calls to news desks were kind of anti-climactic.
Quinerly
Might be the first time I have ever given The Washington Examiner a click. Always found York sleazy but definitely worth a read. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2593163
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I smelled the same thing. Dank it was…
MattF
@Reggie Mantle: Good to see you’re facing this with good cheer and an open heart.
Immanentize
@kd bart: we will find them by following the espresso trail from SouthCentral America to their war dens.
NotMax
@Kay
Will she wait until all the polls close before speaking? I’d give it a 40-60 chance.
By the time CA polls close and a call is made it’s beddy-bye time on the east coast. Time zones are a nefarious plot to squelch victory, I tells ya!
The question is what the Rs will do on Wednesday to draw the media’s mics and lenses away by waving something cheap and shiny.
The Golux
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yes, and now he’s madoff with the Republican nomination.
FlipYrWhig
@Reggie Mantle: Question: has this ever happened before, one candidate actually achieving the magic number before a major primary?
In my Facebook feed, the raving Berniacs are all sure that Big Media is in cahoots with the Clinton campaign. Presumably it’s only the most recent occurrence of the 25-year-long passionate and uncritical love affair between Hillary Clinton and the media.
aimai
@The Golux: Golf claps. Also–that is an indescribable hat, you mere device.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Oh good, I thought it was just me.
D58826
@OzarkHillbilly: I did say that Obama’s re-election was a significant achievement. But the two wipe outs in 2010/2014 made it almost impossible for him to get anything done. It will limit a President Hillary to largely defensive battles for the next 4 yours. And Turtle will be just as set on limiting her to one term as he was Obama
gvg
@Quinerly: /That Trump speech transcript…..boy is he an idiot. By the way, I have no idea what his point was.
different-church-lady
@FlipYrWhig: @Reggie Mantle: I know. And such small portions.
bystander
My comments keep getting swallowed.
FlipYrWhig
@Reggie Mantle: Buck up, Reggie. One day people will look back on the Sanders campaign as a valiant effort to force to the surface such vital concerns to American democracy as how many Republicans ought to be able to vote in a Democratic Party primary.
Mark B
@OzarkHillbilly: One basic principle of a con game is that you have to skedaddle before the mark catches on. Unfortunately, Trump can’t move onto the next town to find more victims, because he’s reached a saturation point where almost everyone knows who he is. Even so, there are still some gullible souls who will still fall for his con.
aimai
@FlipYrWhig: Bwhahhhaha
bystander
Here we go again: I wanted to vote for Combover Caligula as Sobriquet of the Year. The Little Boots/little hands thing, too.
sigaba
@Reggie Mantle: I assure you I will be spewing bile about Sanders for some time to come. I have yet to forgive Ralph Nader and that was like 16 years ago.
OzarkHillbilly
@The Golux: Ouch.
MattF
@Mark B: Also, Trump is surrounded by reporters all the time, and will be for the next six months. No place to hide.
–And– those reporters aren’t so sure he’s really their newest bestest new friend, or even quite as entertaining as he was a few weeks ago.
different-church-lady
@Mark B:
Yeah but Puerto Rico is one of those southern places no bigger than Guam that distort the primary process, so it doesn’t count, and Super Delegates are undemocratic.
Did I leave anything out?
D58826
@Reggie Mantle: Hmmm. Does Bernie have a dog? We haven’t kicked him. What about a cat? We could set it’s tail on fire. I’m sure we can find all manners of mean thing to say about Bernie and his family just to make your day.
germy
@FlipYrWhig: But would a Sanders supporter really call himself Reggie Mantle? In the Archie comics, the upper-class Reggie would be either a Trump supporter (“He’s a businessman!”) or perhaps a Rand Paul supporter (“Stop giving my tax money to the poors!”). Wouldn’t a true Sanders fan pick the name Jughead, since Jughead is the nonconformist of the comic?
rikyrah
@burnspbesq:
The rest of the world lived through Shrub also…and were relieved at the past 7 years with PBO.
Then, they look at Trump and go ‘REALLY, AMERICA?”
Amir Khalid
@Reggie Mantle:
Bernie has no real path to the nomination now. The story at your link notes as much. I suggest you console yourself however you wish, then pull yourself together and do whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. Trump is the real danger to your republic.
sigaba
@MattF: “And– those reporters aren’t so sure he’s really their newest bestest new friend, or even quite as entertaining as he was a few weeks ago.”
Reporters made bank over the last six months covering Trump as an Alpha Dog. They might just discover that covering Trump the Disaster is actually better for ratings than even that.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@SiubhanDuinne:
Pelosi is just a neoliberal corporatist shill who isn’t a real democrat, like Jill Stein…
Mark B
@different-church-lady: It’s just a territory, those people can’t even vote in November. It’s unfair to Bernie that they’re allowed to vote for Hillary.
@D58826: Instead of attacking Bernie, can we go after the clueless millennials who bought his line of bullshit?
aimai
@Amir Khalid: You are such a lovely person! I don’t think he should console himself. i think he should allow himself to explode in a ragegasm of mammoth proportions, like a dynamited whale,and leave the rest of us in peace.
SiubhanDuinne
@aimai:
Hagga laughs.
rikyrah
@Kay:
So true, and there was someone over at TPM, I think, who was like, Trump was so successful in turning away the attention from Trump University by his attack on the judge.
I totally disagreed. The attack on the judge only brings more attention to the Trump University case. The judge’s life story is wonderful. It’s American. And,Trump attacking him, feeds the base only. Plus, how many times can he malign the judge before folks go ‘ that’s all you got?’
The Golux
@aimai: I am the only Golux in the world, and not a mere device.
germy
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@sigaba:
Disaster Donnie is ratings gold. He could well be the apex-over-the-top reality figure of all time, as this devolves.
NotMax
@Mark B
Yes. It’s a running tally. One cannot shoot the messengers for reporting when the numbers cross the threshold just as they have reported every previous time the numbers changed.
Mark B
@germy: I believe Nelson from the Simpsons said it best. “Ha HA.”
Edit: Although the superdelegates are just a red herring. Hillary was winning this with or without them, they just gave it to her a day earlier.
FlipYrWhig
@Jeff Spender:
The most lopsidedly Republican states in the 2012 election, in order, were Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Nebraska, and Kansas. Among the states Bernie Sanders won: Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, West Virginia, Nebraska, and Kansas.
MattF
@rikyrah: At some point– people are going to notice that Der Trump’s ‘arguments’ consist entirely of name-calling. Nyah-nyah-nyah may be entertaining. But nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah is a form of pathology.
ETA: It’s called ‘perseveration’, and it’s a sign of neurological damage.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Mark B:
Nope, “free college for all, paid for by the wealthy” was a con designed to lure them in, just like ant bait. That’s on him – it is a Trumpworthy con, and fuck him for doing it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mark B:
They are US citizens. OF COURSE they can vote.
Applejinx
@Kay: You know what? Go out and vote. Win those last primaries, I know deep in my heart you can (not that it was a picnic, but that’s why there’s a primary).
And then rejoice, and I promise some corporate fools starting the festivities a day early won’t have ruined a thing. I kinda suspect there will still be women with joy and delight at a day they never thought they’d see, by sundown. You’re not going to RUN OUT of emotion. (I share some of that. What a gift that either way it would have been historic: either a giant stride for American equality, or a humongous political revolution beyond sense or planning!)
But equality for women IS sense (and planning. whoof! It was incredibly hard to run against Hillary, not because she’s a woman but because she’s bloody good at this and figures stuff out!)
I do hope one thing, and I hope people are cluing in to this, even people less sharp and attentive than Hillary.
Corporate capitalism is the enemy and will fuck with you no matter who you are, because it’s just made to do so. We need better and we need different. Hillary, hear me out as you ride the final wave of emotional, human votes to victory: the force that’s threatened this day by messing with the optics and undermining how things should go is not wicked AP stringers. It is the underlying force whereby some news organization MUST beat the others even if it means harming the Republic and the process of our elections, MUST go against everything all of us want from the process, because there are ratings in it, and their system is designed around ratings or death.
Just like so many of our systems are designed around getting the big win, or death.
So if ever a Clinton had a long memory for treachery, this would be a good time. Remember how corporate capitalism personified in the Associated Press, got in the way when the election process was running smoothly toward a goal best for everyone: remember how the pressures of competition got the AP to break ranks because they could, because they had to be the first, had to win. The health and safety of the Republic did not come first. Winning came first, because that’s the ocean in which they swim, and from AP to Wal-Mart to Uber to everything else, that is the ocean you’re going to govern and the seas you must calm.
Holding a grudge against the AP won’t help. It’s the whole system under which they’re all fighting to be the biggest cancer on the block, and that’s the rules, and you can see by Bernie’s run how ready we are for a change of the rules (not that he is as good at thinking out interconnected systems as you and Big O).
Time for change, Mrs. Clinton. I think you may be our best hope for it, if you’re game :)
gvg
@Kay: I have to say, I think its just an all the time thing with journalism to announce things like that. Most of the time the candidate would be happy about it and I am not sure I think journalist should give too much weight to the strategic considerations of any campaign. I already think they give too much at times…..but since most of the time a campaign would like to sew it up and make their rivals go away quickly, it might not occur to them that it was an issue.
Every race I remember the candidate sewed up the nom before the last races and the voters in those states were left feeling disgruntled for both parities. that is the motivation that makes many states try to move their primaries up such as Florida and Michigan in 2008. Therefore it’s always announced before the last primary. I admit this year I was kind of pleased that the last states would see that they mattered even though they don’t and it’s only Sanders being stubborn that gave that impression. I can be sentimental that way. I was pleased Obama visited so many states including alaska in his first election. I thought it would have been nice if he had been able to make all 50 but it wasn’t quite possible or the most effective use of his time.
She’ll have her celebration. I think its not as unfun as it could have been since it’s only 24 hrs “too soon” and it’s better than planning a celebration but then not winning.
magurakurin
@aimai: I’m pretty sure AP did this because they wanted to be first and get eyeballs and clicks. They did the very same thing with Trump and Rachael Maddow even predicted this would happen last Friday. If there was any other motive I find it highly unlikely they did it to help Clinton. It is more likely that they got a little miffed at big tough Sanders warning them not to call the election on Wednesday morning. So they did it on Monday morning to spite his ass. Let’s face this thing has been over for months. It is really only thanks to the horse race narrative of the AP and the rest of the media that Sanders has been in this until now. They could have pulled the plug on his ass anytime after Acela Tuesday, but they went along with the whole momentum bullshit at the end of April and into May.
whatever. None of it really matters. Gonna be a big, big party tonight. Miles of smiles.
MomSense
@Central Planning:
Wouldn’t it just be delicious if Sanders had more bank than Trump? HA! Sanders dropped the millyanaires from the millyanaires and billyanaires line and switched his 1% to 1/10th of 1% when people started pushing back on his reasons for not releasing his taxes.
I still think the income taxes would show that Trump is worth a lot less than his brags would suggest and Sanders is worth a lot more.
D58826
@germy: You have to keep bring up history. Rachel asked the Sanders spokesperson last night if Bernie could declare the primary season over after Calif.,in 2008 then what is different about 2016. After he sputtered a bit, gulped twice he said the rules have changed because of the revolution or something.
rikyrah
@debbie:
uh huh
uh huh
They are ridiculous.
Mark B
@OzarkHillbilly: They don’t vote for federal offices, only local offices. Only states (and the District of Columbia) have electoral college votes.
Applejinx
@Baud: Count on Trump to pull something, and the craven corporate networks to want to do just that. Because of what I just posted.
Funny how it’s becoming obvious that the Hilbots and the Berniacs have some common enemies once you poke your head out of the trenches. You watch and see what our money-controlled, corporate media does to screw with Hillary, and remember. Remember both the joy of this achievement… and remember what centralized market-driven corporate media power tries to do to it.
I would bet a small sum of money that Trump tries to pull something to get the networks to cut away. He almost can’t NOT take that bait, and you’ll see what it means for the networks to be compelled by market forces and competition… to take that bait, even when it’s completely stupid and obvious.
magurakurin
@aimai:
That’s where I am with this. We’re gonna win. You wanna be with the winners hop on. If not, your choice….but think long and hard before let this train go by.
Betty Cracker
@aimai: Okay, that “dynamited whale” made me laugh so hard I cried. Thanks! I needed that!
satby
@Baud: oh, don’t start me on the pork thing. I’m cool with pork being Harman, or on-board, but what’s the point of eating a lot of imitation pork stuff instead? Beef pepperoni, turkey bacon. If something is forbidden, shouldn’t the taste of it be forbidden?
And we thought buying indulgences was corrupt.
Ignore me, I am seriously sleep deprived.
germy
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/long-shot-candidate-claims-trump-operative-made-a-ham-handed-threat-against-his-in-laws/
dmsilev
According to TPM, Nancy Pelosi just officially endorsed Hillary Clinton.
magurakurin
@sigaba:
sadly, yes. For me as well. This ended badly. It won’t be forgotten over night.
D58826
@OzarkHillbilly: They are citizens and can vote in federal elections when they move to the mainland. They can vote for local candidates in November but not for president.
rikyrah
@Kay:
yep.
yep.
and more yep.
Pure-D unadulterated racism that they coddled for YEARS with the birther issue.
different-church-lady
@MattF:
His supporters already know that. It’s his most appealing quality for them.
MattF
@germy: So, Trump is going to end up making French into a hero to conservatives. Good work!
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid:
and to your religion. Trump will be bad for every living thing on the planet. Keep sending those positives State side, they are needed and appreciated.
rikyrah
@sherparick:
me too.
this entire case was FOUL.
germy
@dmsilev: Any word yet from Elizabeth Warren? I checked her twitter but didn’t see anything new.
Matt McIrvin
At this point, I kind of want Bernie Sanders to win California. It won’t actually make any difference to the nomination, and it’ll mean his dead-enders won’t have Hillary somehow stealing California to hang over everyone’s heads as the reason she won.
Just One More Canuck
OT but Helen Chavez (Cesar’s widow) passed away yesterday
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-helen-chavez-20160606-snap-story.html
Elmo
I can’t be the first to have thought of this. Has anybody bought “Bernieis45.com”?
rikyrah
@aimai:
Amen.
that’s how I feel.
D58826
@Applejinx:
And I would add common goals. I doubt that there is a Hillbot on this blog that doesn’t want to see every American with good affordable healthcare. They just differ on how to get to that goal.
germy
@MattF: It’s such a strange election season. When something like that gets reported, and the reaction is “yep. that’s trump.”
NotMax
Earworm for the Bernistas.
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons
Out of time
germy
@Matt McIrvin:
Mike R
@Matt McIrvin: Do you really think the dead enders can be satisfied by anything less than the entire country prostrating themselves at their feet while saying we’re not worthy.
germy
@NotMax: You Terry Jacksed the thread!
Applejinx
@aimai: You don’t HAVE to be an ‘angry white male’ even if you are white. And old. And male. AND angry.
I am so white even my beard is turning white, I’m old enough (48 as of June 5, woot!) for that to be a thing, I’m male enough to have spent far too much of my life practically suicidal over not being able to get any, and you wouldn’t believe how angry I am most days: I have to constantly manage that and sometimes step away from the world I face, lest I just plain stroke out in an orgy of hate for what our system has become.
And I am god damn not voting for Trump, and I see a lot of people like me and a lot of Millenials who don’t intend to vote for Trump.
Mr. Rogers said look for the helpers. Today I am going to look for the hope-ers, and I’m going to look for the joy. Won’t be all that hard, I can just glance at many (not all) women today and that will do the trick. Today isn’t a day for angry.
magurakurin
@MomSense:
I honestly believe this is the truth and is the basic reason why both of them refused to release their returns. Ironic, funny and pathetic all at the same time.
satby
@Amir Khalid: Thank you! It’s what I expected based on what other people I know had done. I don’t see how it’s much of a fast if you’re just flipping your schedule and stuffing. And struggling to hold my tongue about it.
I’m just seriously exhausted and naps aren’t going to be an option for several hours, if at all.
Weaselone
@Reggie Mantle:
Are you suggesting that the AP and Sander’s campaign are collaborating in an effort to depress the turnout of Hillary’s supporters so he can win the State?
D58826
from huffington
When you lose the ghost of Saint Romulus the Unready then you are toast.
Aimai
@germy: im betting she comes out on stage wirh hillary or that hillary is going to do a staged series of rallies around thd country with her shortly.
A Ghost To Most
@satby:
You are searching for sense where there is none.
El Caganer
@germy: Should never have gone with French; if Kristol wanted a NR candidate, he should have picked Jonah Goldberg. “A chicken in every pot and a pantload on every TV.”
Cat48
Bernie’s behavior is not surprising. I don’t think he respects anyone but himself. This primary has been very strange from the beginning. Everyone, even the press, keeps telling me to be cautious. Don’t upset Bernie or his young supporters, just let them have their way. I think that was a mistake. It’s just the feeling I have personally.
Rachel & others were so worried about Bernie’s feelings last night. Don’t be happy Hillary has won.bc — Bernie. Ughh
Aimai
@Applejinx: look–I’m married to a white male, have fathers and brothers in the tribe. But its a demographic fact that trump supporters and many dead end bernie bros are drawn specifically from the ranks of white males. Trump supporters wont vote for hillary because she is the democrat. But progressive white males who wont vote for the democrat because its clinton are just as bad. If not worse. And they exist.
germy
@Aimai:
Keith G
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: My first bartending job was in a restaurant in 1978. At 4 o’clock in the morning the manager of the place called everyone who was on his phone list asking them to come in if they possibly could. A contract crew was using a steam hose to clean the hoods and filters in our kitchen (full service haute cuisine). A miss-aimed steam hose set off the fire suppression unit spraying fine white powder everywhere in the kitchen.
Aimai
@A Ghost To Most: this is very insulting.
germy
@El Caganer: Didn’t Jonah call a lady “sir” during a panel discussion and then panicked and pooped when he was corrected?
Miss Bianca
@Kay: I plan to hoopla the hell out of it, personally.
NotMax
@satby
Serious question – are their fingers broken? Can see providing meal fixings or already prepared stuff that just has be be heated rather than be rousted out of slumber.
Nice to share with them on the first day but after that it really is an imposition, IMHO.
Regardless, this too shall pass and years from now you’ll look back and smile about it.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Elmo: I beat you to this a couple of months ago.
By the way, check out HillaryIs44.com. That site has been going strong for over 8 years.
A Ghost To Most
@Aimai:
Tough – the religious have spent the bulk of my life insulting my beliefs. I now have no respect for the standard “Murrican” religions; it would be discrimination on my part to respect Islam, as nice a guy as Amir is. People disrespect my beliefs on a daily basis; I’m just returning the favor.
Amir Khalid
@satby:
It’s pork itself that is forbidden, not things that taste like pork. The latter is just too subjective a test, I think. I mean, cooking methods can disguise the taste of all kinds of things. Besides, how would the imams know what tasted enough like pork to forbid, unless they were themselves very familiar with the taste of pork?
magurakurin
Michael Moore just twitted this shit pile.
This is why Americans can’t have nice things, because a lot on the left are as brain dead as the fascists on the right. Mike, there is a hell of lot more on California’s ballot than the race between Clinton and Sanders, a race, by the way, that Sanders lost way back after the NY primary. People need to vote, in every election, for every office, every time.
Miss Bianca
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: awesome photo!
@magurakurin: you know, every time I start thinking it’s time to like Michael Moore again, he pulls some shitty stunt like this. Ugh. Out of patience with the man, tho’ I will always appreciate the best of his work.
El Caganer
@germy: Hadn’t heard that, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me coming from the author of “Liberal Fascism.” I wonder if it bothers him that he’s been replaced by David French as the NR object of Roy Edroso’s interest.
Immanentize
@satby: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted”
satby
@NotMax: yes, it will pass. Hopefully the last days of stress won’t put shade on the whole year.
I had stuff prepared and was trying just to wait it out, after 30 minutes of rummaging and clanking I got up. Tonight it will be carrying a sandwich to the room for 4 am and open kitchen after 5 am. I have tried pretty hard to accommodate their sensibilities in spite of my own atheism; this morning just got off to a really bad start.
satby
@Amir Khalid: yeah. I’m sorry Amir, I just am really crabby. And tired. I’m usually cooler with things.
Eric U.
@FlipYrWhig: as usual, the Bernistas have it backwards. As our friend Reggie points out above, it’s just as likely to suppress Clinton voters as Sanders voters.
Betty Cracker
@A Ghost To Most: I’m an atheist, but I don’t need religion to know this: Two wrongs don’t make a right.
@magurakurin: What a fucking crybaby.
Chyron HR
Man, if you think the whining is bad now, just wait until the convention when they officially announce that ALL TEN MILLYUN of Bernie’s votes didn’t count.
schrodinger's cat
@satby: I was shushed by vegans on the blog when I asked the question about imitation meat like tofurkey.
schrodinger's cat
@magurakurin: I am so not a fan of MM or his schtik.
NotMax
@satby
Next week, cook yourself a nice juicy loin of pork.
:)
Immanentize
Satby, I just wrote a long post — a joke — to cheer you up. But my ‘puter jumped and I lost it! I assure you it was very funny and would have put you into a better mood….
A Ghost To Most
@Betty Cracker:
Yea, but daily insults and disrespect over 60 years change ones outlook. Ever made fun of Scientologists? You did the same thing I did, just to a smaller cult. Slavish adherence to the nonsensical is the cause of much of the misery in this world. Love you Betty, but I’m done being nice to people who insult and disrespect my (and your) beliefs on a daily basis. It’s people like me who have stood up for our beliefs, so that other atheists can be nice. The final civil rights cause will be for those who don’t believe in sky fairies, and are willing to admit it, not live in the closet.
The Thin Black Duke
@magurakurin: It was bad enough when Michael Moore claimed that “there wasn’t a dime’s difference between Bush and Gore” during the presidential election back in 2000. But what made it worse was that Moore never apologized for spewing this bullshit, even after the catastrophic Bush administration proved how goddamned wrong he was. Fuck him, Michael Moore has been dead to me a long time ago.
satby
@NotMax: Ironic thing? I mostly eat vegetarian left to my own devices ?
Iowa Old Lady
Just back from voting in the Iowa primary for Senate, House, etc. At 8:30, I was voter #4. This is what happens when you separate the presidential vote from everything else.
Also, you request a D or R ballot, and it turns out you can get either one. If you declare a different party than the records show, the computer just changes your party affiliation. The three voters ahead of me all took D ballots (it shows on the list where I sign), and the workers were talking about how they didn’t have the form to change your affiliation back when you left because the first voter on the list wanted to change back to R.
satby
@Immanentize: Thanks! I have had a pot of coffee and I am getting there. Just knowing people sympathize helps too.
Talk about being a whiny baby.
Iowa Old Lady
As for how Trump will try to step on Clinton’s celebration tonight, isn’t he supposed to give a speech answering the one in which she shredded him? When is that scheduled?
Applejinx
@Matt McIrvin:
@Mike R:
I know a woman who won’t be celebrating, or thrilled, tonight. Maybe just a little bit of ‘woot, probable woman president’, perhaps not even that.
She’s a phlebotomist whose kid was born with hemophilia. As such his life has been a living hell. Back in the day, Bill Clinton cut a deal with a friend to sell blood plasma donated by prisoners. US regulations didn’t allow this but it could be sold in Canada. Some of the blood was tainted with hepatitis and AIDS. Hemophiliacs need blood transfusions in emergencies (for obvious reasons) so my friend is more aware than most of this situation, and it caused her to hate the Clintons and treat both Hillary and Bill as if they intentionally put the whole hemo community at risk for personal gain.
I’m not her. From my point of view it looks like it was a Clintonian learning experience: cutting deals, becoming aware of consequences, running a bullshit investigation to cover up the problem and then leaving it behind. I think everybody in politics has a closet of horrors they don’t want opened, such as Bernie’s ties to Burlington College and probable wealth: it’s funny how Hillary is personally responsible for sleazy things Bill did when he was a governor, but I’d like to think it was a lesson in ‘don’t do this again’ for ’em.
In that light, it becomes a good example of the Clinton playbook: be ruthlessly loyal to those who helped you, don’t do terrible things again if you can possibly help it, and cover up the damage at all costs, never admit fault. It’s a winning and (I certainly hope) a learning strategy: means if Hillary is running away from past indiscretions or missteps (praising Goldman Sachs is nowhere near as harmful as the Arkansas blood thing) she’ll avoid repeating the mistake at the cost of stifling any publicity about it. The price of Hillary changing direction is you don’t get to talk about the previous direction like it’s a thing. Given how our politics works, that seems like an acceptable tradeoff given the alternatives.
There are people who are dead-enders for a reason. The rest of us gotta try and look on the bright side, and of course some people don’t even need to ‘get political’ about it because they just say you’re making it up. I’d rather have a Hillary that learns and adapts, but it comes at a price, and the price is you don’t talk about things she or Bill have left behind.
And it gets really awkward when you combine that with the Clinton loyalty towards those who helped them. This is why I’d like to make the case that the progressive Left can and should help Hillary become President. If you do that, the Clintons will never forget your support or let you down. It’s just tragic that, early on, some of the people who helped Bill when he needed it most, were fricking douchebags.
But that’s politics. Let’s give ’em better supporters to be loyal to, ‘k?
scav
@rikyrah: The judge, the perpetrator, the father of the perp: solid little nest of self-justifying, self-re-enforcing male, economic and racial privilege. Where’s Daddy’s little bit of happy action etc.
SFAW
@Emma:
I also went over there, just to see. Jesus H. Christ, that guy is in Alex Jones territory.
I also liked the zipperhead who was talking about Hillary being part of the “new aristocracy.” [To which Hillary responded “We are not amused.”]
Eric U.
@The Thin Black Duke: I bought “stupid white men,” and I never finished it. It was bad enough that it was rehashed version of dKos, but there were multiple misrepresentations in the first chapter. I just don’t need that kind of crap from someone that nominally is on our side. The left needs propagandists, but the truth is bad enough, no reason to lie.
NotMax
What will be entirely glossed over today:
Iowa primaries for House seats + 1 Senate seat
North Carolina primaries for House seats
Ohio special election to fill Boehner’s former House seat for 6 months
SFAW
@Iowa Old Lady:
I’m sure that Racist Hump will be along any minute to tell us when Mr. INVINCIBLE will be spewing.
hovercraft
The defense of a two year old I know what I am but what are you? His strategy to blame everyone else was on CNN this morning in the form of Jeffery Lord, and boy was it a train wreck.
He forced a latina republican defending Sotomayor.
Gretchen
@Betty Cracker: Samantha Bee did a good bit yesterday, showing all the networks spending an hour on Donald Trump’s empty podium while they waited for him to arrive to announce victory. They ignored the speech Clinton was making at the very same time. They literally broadcast an hour of empty Trump-related air rather than Clinton news.
Jeffro
@Baud:
That would be a step up at this point.
I think they’re going down in flames this cycle, whether they keep Trump or dump him. And they may well be in their own civil war for years. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch.
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
He may try to bigfoot her by going on while she’s speaking, but by holy FSM if they have the gall to cut away from her making history, I think people would go nuts. Even they are not that dumb. It would also have the added bonus of Trump realizing that he is not always the biggest draw. Imagine He Trump not being the biggest thing on TV, the horror.
Aimai
@A Ghost To Most: splash damage to friends and allies is not a winning strategy. If you want to get into online battles with dpecific muslims over specific incidents have at it. As a fellow atheist I’ll back you to the hilt. But if you don’t like the way person X treats you it doesnt help matters to turn around and slap your friend to punish X. Your friend gets a sore face and your enemy just shrugs and says “see! i was right! That atheist deserves all the hate we throw at him.”
Jeffro
@aimai:
Agreed and it was brilliant. Rubio and Cruz learned the hard way – you can’t out-Trump Trump, and you can’t play along with him hoping he’ll flame out on his own. You have to put up the man’s own words and express the shock/disgust that a majority of this country actually feels.
Btw the ad that just came out today, with the footage of Trump mocking a disabled reporter (one who’d had the audacity to note Trump’s lies), is unbelievably powerful.
What odds are we giving that he either strokes out before the convention or faces a convention ‘coup’ after all? ‘Cause both of those possibilities entered my mind today.
satby
@Applejinx: Did you get that story out of World Nut Daily? Because the prison blood program started in Arkansas in 1964. In 1985 then Gov Clinton ordered a state police investigation. It’s a sad story with lots of details, but it wasn’t
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=3732
hovercraft
Trump announces who really broke the glass ceiling. This cannot last till November it can’t.
A Ghost To Most
@Aimai:
Lots of folks said the same the thing about the civil rights marchers in the 60s, and lots of folks said the same thing about ERA marchers in the 70s, and lots of folks said the same thing about people campaigning for gays in the military, and for gay marriage.
We now have all those things, including a two-term black president, and likely our first women president, because impolite people were willing to stand up.
Are the polite people really the folks you want to align with? Polite people rarely change things. Impolite people change the world; polite people maintain the status quo. Fuck polite. Change the world.
The Thin Black Duke
Unfortunately, I think the best we can hope for at this point is Trump having a “medical emergency” to stop him because the Republican party won’t do it, no matter how dangerous a Trump presidency would be to the United States and the rest of the world. And the only reason they won’t stop him is because Republicans hate Hillary Clinton (and everybody else who isn’t a god-fearing straight white male) more than they love their country. And that’s terrifying.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
Zero. Don’t you remember that his doctor (or someone who played a doctor on TV) issued a statement saying that a 70-year-old with a BMI of 32 or so will be the healthiest Preznit EVAH (when he gets
crownedelected)?hedgehog the occasional commenter
Um–open thread?
Quick bosscat update – talked to the specialty vet; bosscat will go in next week for his initial evaluation, then the injection itself (if he’s a good candidate) the week after.
Thanks everyone for listening to me.
HILLARY SMASH!
chopper
@Reggie Mantle:
who’s that up on the roof? is it a cat? is it a squirrel? IT’S CAPTAIN BUTTHURT
The Thin Black Duke
@A Ghost To Most: Huh? Are you really equating atheists with women, people of color and the LGBT community who have been struggling since forever against the Rich Old White Guys who rule the world? Really?
A Ghost To Most
@The Thin Black Duke:
Oh, I see. Equality for thee, but not for me? Good to know.
eta: At least a black man could be elected president, and a woman can be elected president, but not if they admit that they don’t believe in sky fairies
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
Right. Because atheists continue to face all sorts of discrimination. Or not. Outside of running for political office, what avenues have been cut off to us? Not corporate, not voting, not getting a mortgage or loan, not speech or protesting. Maybe I live in the wrong part of
GileadAmerica, but I can’t recall being shit on or discriminated against because I’m an atheist. Maybe if I wore a sign that said “I’m a fucking atheist, what’s your damn problem?” I might get people giving me a hard time.Not to put words in her mouth, but I think aimai is making a distinction between fighting for one’s rights, and being an asshole to someone for no reason other than that’s how one was treated by others in the past.
The Thin Black Duke
@A Ghost To Most: Get back to me when an atheist is killed by a white cop who gets to walk away from his crime. I’ll wait.
Applejinx
@satby: I concede. This isn’t the place. I’m just saying this is why my very decent friend will never stop being a dead-ender. Her son has hemophilia, and it’s not about parsing words for her, it’s about Bill’s loyalty to this old political ally of his who was responsible for horrors. And Bill did not break faith with the guy, ever.
We have to go forward without the various dead-enders who have legit grievances, because IN POLITICS a person is not simply the sum total of their past. They’re also the prediction of their future and BY GOD I’m not giving Hillary Clinton reason to believe the Left abandoned her. I should think that sticking with her in spite of a rocky past is worth some consideration, and I am going to vote for Hillary in the general election even if it gives my very smart, compassionate, loving friend a big ol’ sad.
I’ll not tell her that’s what I’m doing, and I completely understand if she can’t go along with stuff I say on Facebook suggesting that position.
But it’s the future we need and I don’t care so much how we get there so long as we do get there.
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
Please enlighten us about the multitudinous types of discrimination you have faced as an atheist. Outside of having zero chance at being President, what might those be?
ETA: And not being allowed to get married to the person you love due to your atheism, I forgot that one.
rikyrah
@scav:
Did you see the mugshot?
There are celebrities making millions that didn’t get as good a mugshot as this rapist.
hovercraft
@The Thin Black Duke:
Republicans don’t care about the country, they are all about power and enriching themselves and their friends/ benefactors. Everything else is just window dressing to placate the rubes who vote for them. If a baby eating black female monster was the best candidate for their bottom line they would support her. Clarence Thomas is loved more by the right than any other supreme because he spouts the right nonsense. They are willing to suppress their racism and misogyny for the sake of power and to keep democrats down. The concept of loyal opposition is alien to them.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
They couldn’t do it, and I hate to keep on repeating myself, but I will.
There were NO POLICY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THEM AND TRUMP.
NONE of them could/would stand up and say..
What Donald Trump is saying is NOT MY Republican Party!
Phuck yeah, what Trump was saying is EXACTLY their Republican Party.
They just did not like THE WAY HE SAID IT.
POLICY – NO DIFFERENCE.
They just wanted him to SAY IT DIFFERENTLY.
Hillary has no such constraints, because she not only is offended by HOW he says it…she’s offended by THE POLICY POSITIONS too.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@rikyrah: Yup and I suspect that for all the claims that the behavior of a Candidate’s supporters shouldn’t influence who you vote for (which is great in principle), there are alot of fence-sitters who could have gotten behind Bernie who were completely turned off by the worst behavior of the BBros. Who wants to be in a coalition with people like that? Who wants to be in a coalition with the non-BBros who hand-waved away the problem, said nothing, deflected to WhatAboutHillary?!! etc., every time concerns were raised about the abuse being heaped disproportionately on Women and Black people? You only get one chance to make a first impression and for many voters harassment from BernieBros was their first real impression of Sanders. I’m sure some of the BernieBros were in fact Republican trolls and Randites, but I know enough passionate Bernie supporters in life and on FB and have seen enough froggy behavior (or tolerance of it on their pages) to be confident that an unhealthy amount of the toxic behavior was indeed coming from sincere Bernie supporters as well. Anyways, totally agree with both you and Amai. I want to stand with minorities rather than angry/bitter White dudes.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
this this and more this.
THIS is WHO THEY ARE.
Mike R
@Applejinx: Okay let us be better supporters. But those who chose to leave the effort and leave the republican party stronger should have no expectation of adoration for their purity.
Bartholomew
So this is the person that will represent women in power. It is sadly fitting: it must be said that the two frontrunners in our replay of Rome do represent our citizens in thrall quite well.
Too bad the moment went to such a person … the ensuing free-for-all may well set back the ’cause’ of women’s rights a century. Of course women’s rights haven’t existed for a century, but most women don’t actually know this, or even realize it was liberalism that established the basis for their rights. Well done! Winners!
Maybe we need another holiday besides Veterans day and Armistice day and Memorial day and Armed Forces day and what have you … a special day of pre-remembrance for all those killed in our wars to come. Cole’s monkeys emphatically supported the only viable candidate who has voted directly for war, and did this within the one political grouping that signals itself ‘liberal’ and anti-war. So now there is no where to go for your trapped ex-allies. Very good, Kissinger-like even. Israel’s hard Right smiles along with you, too.
Celebrate! It’s a big day, corruption wins! The corporate media celebrates with you … temporarily, for it’s all a staged play. Soon Hillary will disappear behind a wall of scandal as she enacts the will of the corporate state. Republicans are already embracing her, as if there isn’t even a dime’s worth of difference between them. Nader was being kind imo.
trollhattan
@Bartholomew:
Your crocodile tears add a certain umami to my breakfast smoothie.
hovercraft
Damn, when Buzzfeed won’t take your stinkin’ money you’re doing something wrong.
The Lodger
@Baud: Throw up a dairy? That’s some serious lactose intolerance.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Heh. I think this is my favorite part:
Peak dudebro? There’s no such thing.
Shell
Waiting on the plumber for a wobbly toilet that needs to be recaulked.
Pretty sure Clintons gonna take NJ in a landslide.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Until the polls start to show her beating him consistently, the stupid media will keep telling us that he’s teflon. Which I think is a good thing because he will continue to show his ass. Showing his ass worked with the base it won’t work with America. Carry on Mr Trump, it will look great in the ads.
trollhattan
@magurakurin:
Is this the first primary cycle these asshats actually paid attention to? Do they intuit how the process functions? Does Boxer’s senate seat have zero value in their crowded little universe?
Deliver us from these experts.
A Ghost To Most
@SFAW:
I don’t know where you grew up, but I grew up surrounded by racist, gundamentalist religious bigots, and basically left the family because I was tired of being worn down by the disrespect and hate. At one job (recently), I left after being abused by a Southern Baptist and a Mormon who I was ostensibly on team with. When I took my concerns to HR, the HR person quit rather than having to take my concerns seriously. When it became clear that HR would do nothing, I left. When I was in the Air Force, my sargent leaned on me heavily to join his bible study group, and made my life difficult until I separated. My first fiance became my ex-fiance, after her parents leaned heavily on me to become born-again if I was going to marry her.
Do you ask people of color and women to justify their desires for equality? To justify the circumstances that led them to demand change? Do you ask Muslims to justify their desire to live in this country free of harassment from Christians? Do you defend them when Christians say stupid hateful things about them? If so, what is the difference?
Chyron HR
@trollhattan:
This would be the Barbara Boxer that they literally called a “bitch” for not getting on the Bernie Train? I’m going to go with… no.
hovercraft
@Bartholomew:
I’m a woman, and will proudly be going to vote with my mom and sister this evening for Hillary. While I appreciate your kind lament for us not knowing what’s best for us and the causes we believe in (combined age 142 years), kindly f**k off.
dmsilev
@trollhattan: It’s part and parcel of a fundamental problem with the Sanders campaign: The Sanders “revolution” was all about Bernie and had almost nothing to do with down-ticket seats. Sure, once enough people started pointing this out sufficiently loudly, Sanders did endorse a few people, but only a small handful. He, and his supporters, really seemed to buy into that “with sufficient WILL, the President can accomplish anything” idea. That’s not sustainable as a movement.
Gin & Tonic
@A Ghost To Most: I’m thinking you should have stuck with the decaf this morning.
SFAW
@Bartholomew:
Thank you for your insightful and perceptive comment.
It will be given all the consideration it merits.
El Caganer
@The Lodger: More serious version of crying a river, perhaps.
Chyron HR
@Bartholomew:
“What is really dumb, is that you have closed primaries, like in New York State, where Republicans could not participate.” – Bernie Sanders, May 28, 2016
So are you one of Bernie’s many Republican supporters, or just a proud ally of theirs?
The Thin Black Duke
@A Ghost To Most: I’m not saying that you don’t have a right to be angry, but I do think that it’s not fair for you to take out your anger on the wrong people. Being an atheist is a choice. So is not being a jerk.
burnspbesq
@Reggie Mantle:
Fuck you. I was at my polling place at 7:15, was happy to be there, and was even happier to vote for the next President, Hillary Clinton.
And I did it to spite assholes like you.
trollhattan
@Chyron HR: @dmsilev:
The poor things will be mightily displeased with their new Indian-Jamacian American woman senator, then. They can primary her in 2022.
A Ghost To Most
@Gin & Tonic:
Probably. Many people here rail about inequality and bias and bigotry, but can’t admit that atheists take a lot of abuse from the religious. Shit, I believe that Obama is an atheist who could not admit it and be elected president. He could be black, but not atheist.
burnspbesq
@A Ghost To Most:
I’m sure you know how offensive that terminology is to people of faith, and I’m equally sure you intended the offense, so you can just GFY. And as long as we represent the overwhelming majority of the American electorate …
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
Not quite sure what that has to do with the questions I asked.
You have been using the various slights — however great or small they have been — to justify being an asshole to members of groups (primarily religious, it appears) who were assholes to you. That’s certainly your prerogative, but the assholic behavior of which you are (apparently) proud is hardly different from the treatment given you by others, and which you are railing against.
I specifically asked what discrimination you have faced; you were not denied a job, you were allowed to serve in the armed forces, you have probably not been prevented from buying a house in an all-religious-freaks area, you were not prevented (by the State) from marrying because you’re an atheist, and, as The Duke pointed out, you’re probably not at risk for getting pulled over (and beyond) for Driving While Atheist — unless you also happen to be black or some other “undesirable” race.
And being an asshole to others, just because they were assholes to you, is really NOT the same as civil rights protests and so forth. And it’s pretty fucking offensive that you are trying to claim — or at least heavily imply — that it is.
Miss Bianca
@Bartholomew:
That’s right, ain’t it grand, Sad Trombolomew? HRC, proud liberal warrior for the rights and concerns of women and children. Oops – I used the term “liberal” and “warrior” in the same sentence – silly little woman! Oh well, I’m sure we can count on you to swoop in and mansplain for us how us silly little women are just Liberaling All Wrong.
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
Agreed. But that’s not a function of law, it’s a function of prejudices.
Relatively germane to this topic: do you believe that public opinion re: marriage equality changed so quickly because “The Gays” decided “Hey, people have been assholes to us for hundreds of years, so let’s give it right back”? And that their subsequent collective “fuck you” to “The Straights” is what did the trick?
A Ghost To Most
@The Thin Black Duke:
Being Christian or Muslim or Mormon or Scientologist is a choice as well. What’s your point?
Christians are jerks to others in a public way every day, and apparently, that is no issue, but make a remark about eating pork, or eating meat on Fridays, or drinking a Coke or a beer, and you are insensitive and a jerk. Telling someone “You are condemned to hell for your beliefs” ,or “You can’t marry my daughter because you do not accept Jebus as your personal savior”, or you can’t be a real american soldier because you don’t pray with me” is just someone exercizing their religious beliefs.
trollhattan
@A Ghost To Most:
Now that’s how projection is done.
I’d like to note the Republicans recent string of electing tea-totalers: Donny–claimed non-drinker, Willard–de facto non-drinker, Dubya–reformed drunk, while remembering the KKK supported prohibition. It’s a tell.
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
Can I mansplain it for you, instead of Barty Grouch? Because I know how to talk to the little wimmins, without them going all “female” on me.
Sorry, I can’t write any more of that shit and keep a straight face.
A Ghost To Most
@SFAW:
No, I believe that a lot of impolite people said “FUCK NO”, and made a lot of noise for a very long time. It certainly wasn’t accomplished by people being nice. And as for turning the other cheek, I only have four to turn. After that, I’m done being slapped.
SFAW
@trollhattan:
Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence!
burnspbesq
@A Ghost To Most
Would you like to tell us about some of your other fantasies?
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
You’re so cute when you’re clueless.
YOUR CIVIL RIGHTS HAVE NOT BEEN RESTRICTED BECAUSE YOU’RE AN ATHEIST. STOP PRETENDING THAT THEY HAVE BEEN.
People are assholes to you? Sucks, but until they deny you 14th-Amendment-related (etc) rights, that’s their prerogative. Just as you can be an asshole right back at them, or at people who were never assholes to you. But lashing out because of how people were assholes to you in the past is not the same as fighting for civil rights.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: Sad Trombolomew — LOL!
A Ghost To Most
@SFAW:
I was never referring to state or federal regulations, and the pork remark was not directed at government (and you knew that). Racism is not a government function, but that makes it no less real. Misogyny is not a government function, but it surely exists. Religious bigotry is the same. It is a cultural problem. I would be willing to bet you have taken the piss out of Scientologists at least once; what is the difference? Why is what I say about mainstream religions more heinous than what many say about religions that don’t have the power of culture behind them?
FlipYrWhig
@Bartholomew:
gwangung
@Uncle Ebeneezer:
And the fact that a lot of supporters dismissed the reports of harassments or called them lies didn’t help; acting just like the patriarchy (however unaware it was) is a turnoff.
trollhattan
@SFAW:
I don’t believe Donny’s drug and alcohol-free either, but it seems to be a party requirement the last couple decades so they claim to be.
trollhattan
@FlipYrWhig:
Pesky facts are pesky.
Bobby Thomson
@Bartholomew: you don’t have the votes; you don’t have the votes; ha-ha-ha-ha-HA!!
Emma
@Miss Bianca: I’ll just co-sign and save myself from trying to deal with the mainsplainer. My digestion can’t afford going around in a rage all day.
Frankensteinbeck
@satby: and @Amir Khalid:
It depends on whether the ban is a display of ascetic, symbolic abstinence, or if it’s a judgment on the morality of the materials. The pigs themselves are unclean, so non-pig products similar to pig products satisfy both the letter and spirit of the law.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Thank you, ma’am. : ) Your shining example has led us all to aspire to be Better Cracksters.
Chyron HR
@FlipYrWhig:
DELETE THIS POST
A Ghost To Most
@trollhattan:
Not sure I follow the logic here. If the tell is mine, yes, guilty, I haven’t had a drink for quite a while, but that is because I am abstaining, since my son who lives with us is an alcoholic. Maybe I need a drink. Not about to vote for any Republican, though.
singfoom
Good morning everybody…
So glad it is today. Let the remaining states vote. Good job to both the Sanders and the Clinton campaign. Here’s hoping that the party comes together rather quickly. I would prefer that Sanders stop campaigning after today as HRC’s lead will continue to grow as the results come in.
However, if he wishes to continue until the convention it is his right and his prerogative. I don’t think it’ll help him, help the Democratic party or help defeat Trump, but he’s free to do it.
As for Trump the Feminist, I’ll say this. I find the man despicable on so many levels and an awful human being but I cannot help but being impressed at how powerful his narcissism is. I wish I could live in a bubble that strong, yuuuge and classy. But then I’d be a dick so I don’t really wish that.
germy
@trollhattan:
I remember seeing an account of his first meeting with Melania’s parents and he didn’t even drink coffee.
I suspect he’s on a variety of medications that would interact ungenerously with alcohol and perhaps caffeine. I was a village voice reader in the early 1980s and it seemed every week they were doing another exposé of him. I recall one of them included a list of all the prescriptions he was on. Pills for sleep, pills for anxiety, etc. I have no idea where they got this info, so take it with a grain of salt I suppose.
J R in WV
@Central Planning:
I think most of Trump’s income in into his wholly owned companies, which then spend whatever Trump wants them to spend. Like the Airplane, no doubt owned and operated at the expense of one of his companies. When he gets tired of that plane, he can declare bankruptcy again, shut that company down, and have another company get a newer or shinier plane.
His personal income may well be relatively peanuts, it’s the companies he controls where all the real money sloshes around. All that said, he probably doesn’t have that much income, just lots of capital and hence a huge commercial credit line.
Don’t know how much of that is legal, according to election laws. Would be funny for him to lose the election, and then get busted for using his companies to fund his run for the presidency.
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
Look, you were the one who compared yourself to civil rights: “The final civil rights cause will be for those who don’t believe in sky fairies, and are willing to admit it, not live in the closet.” It was apparently an end-around attempt to justify you being an asshole to the religious, because some of them have been assholes to you. But, institutionally, atheists have not been discriminated against. And institutional racism, misogyny, homophobia is what civil rights struggles have been about.
What rights have you been denied — by any governmental body, whether actively or passively, because that’s what civil rights struggles were about — because you’re an atheist? None of the examples you’ve provided rise to that level. People treat you like shit because you’re an atheist? As I wrote earlier, it sucks. But you being a dickhead right back at them is not a civil rights struggle, it’s just showing you can be as much of an asshole as they can be.
It would be great if everyone respected everyone else’s beliefs. [ETA: Well, except for climate change deniers and various assorted wingnuts. Fuck them.] Probably not going to happen in my lifetime.
J R in WV
@Earl:
Earl, I plan to set up a monthly fixed contribution to run out in October, as that gives them a known income stream through the election. I’ve given a couple small contributions for the primaries, but will do the real deal for the general election.
Marc McKenzie
@Amir Khalid:” Trump is the real danger to your republic.”
Exactly. But you know, in the eyes and minds of folks like Reggie here, it’s really Hilary and that Black Guy in the White House who didn’t go all John Shaft on the GOP. I mean, you have Walker Bragman and H.A. Goodman and other such luminaries penning shit in Salon or, like Susan Sarandon, claiming that Trump would be a better choice because he’ll bring the “revolution” or some other stupid shit like that, never mind the horrific consequences of a Trump Presidency.
Hillary is a helluva lot more progressive than people give her credit for. And unlike the jerks mentioned above, I remember the harsh price in lives and national well-being we paid for Bush’s bullshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost To Most:
Why do you believe that? Because he is too smart not to be an atheist?
Captain C
@SFAW: If that doctor’s as competent as the rest of Trump’s people, I hope he has good malpractice insurance.
St. A
@Reggie Mantle: Are you kidding? Voting is fun!
Applejinx
@Bartholomew:
Yes. Yes it bloody is. This is an ugly, fucked-up country and it is not going to be fixed by the timid, or by wishful thinkers, or those who give up easy, nor will it be fixed by playing to the applause moments: because we’ve had right wing thugs poisoning the populace for decades and we are a representative democracy. The system is broken and you CANNOT prevail in this country other than by brute force.
But brute force alone isn’t going to do it. The Jeb Bush campaign had the brute force of capital and a relatively innocuous candidate and they crashed and burned. Sanders had the brute force of ideas for these times plus a mass movement, and he’s berned (if not quite crashed: the Sanders wing of the party is quite large) because he and his people could not engage with the system as it is, and we don’t get to just replace it with something else because we don’t like the looks of what we got.
Here’s why Hillary Clinton is a fitting person to represent women in power, and represent this country.
Black rights, and black lives. Voters know Hillary is not going to break faith with them, and I’ve come to believe they’re right. People forget that black communities desperately wanted severe law-n-order policy back when Hillary was vowing to bring human dogs to heel, because they bore the brunt of the damage done by the lawlessness. Might not be the right answer in the long run, but the tough talk was responsive.
Women’s rights. Little more need be said. I don’t think Hillary will break faith with women’s rights. I expect backlash but we’re already surviving that and backlash is a choice, a bigotry one doesn’t have to support.
Lastly: exceptionalism, adaptability and sheer stubborn grit. I’m hoping that, much like Trump is fucking up right and left through sheer arrogance, other harmful forces manage to screw themselves with the Clintons through being unwilling and unable to keep faith.
To my mind, if Hillary comes to speak at your investment bank and says ‘you’re awesome, self-regulate and be good so we can keep having nice things’, you had better fucking do so or you will end up crying bitter tears of ‘it’s not fair mooommm!’ as your toys are taken away.
Faith goes both ways, and the stakes are high. I really, truly, do not believe Hillary Clinton is going to keep faith with entities that betray her, and I can name a whole BUNCH that she’s currently being friendly with in hopes they get a clue. There’s the financial sector. There’s the fracking industry (though some of that might be ‘go frack other countries to bring money back to the US’ as we sell those deadly technologies, and Hils has always been cool with us selling deadly technologies). There could even be Israel. Even Israel could end up overstepping.
Faith goes both ways and it’s a question of whether all these entities in the world are as irredeemably evil as us Berniacs often see ’em. If it’s possible for them to dial things back and keep the world turning for us all, Hillary will be encouraging that. In so doing, they would be keeping faith with her, much as black voters kept faith with her, and it’s as simple as that. Do what you promised and Hillary has your back, and Clintons do not forget their friends.
I think a lot of people might end up with a rude shock (accompanied by squees of shock and delight from the leftosphere) if they think they can just turn around, screw Hillary and get away with it. I don’t think Clintons forget those who are supposed to be their friends and act like enemies.
Nor should they. And there will be a lot of them about, because this is a mighty sick country we’ve built, and it’ll take a lot of work to get it better.
A Ghost To Most
@Omnes Omnibus:
Mainly I believe Obama is an atheist because I haven’t seen him act like a Christian (my view), and projects beliefs I don’t often encounter with Christians. They don’t attend church regularly, and don’t make a big pushy deal about it when they do It seems that he is doing just the formalities, the things you have to say and do to get elected. Possibly, perhaps even probably wrong, but I haven’t seen anything that leads me to believe that religion plays a large or significan part in their lives, other than the formalities that need to be done to get elected to office, and the cultural “niceties”. If he is, great and no biggie; at least he can look beyond it. It does bother me that people have to lie about their beliefs to get elected, because of culttural bias. It reminds of the genuflecting GOPers do to the NRA; gotta bow to the almighty gun lobby, or you can’t get elected as a Republican.
Human rights are not just matters of law; there is the “no religious test” clause in the Constitution, but that is of no use in overcoming cultural bigotry; people voting are not held to that standard. They are using a cultural standard, and changing a culture is not done by just passing a law or being nice, but by being loud and persistent. The Civil Rights Act may be law, but it didn’t change the culture overnight; we are 50 years in, and it is still a work in progress. I don’t get why people can be flat out dicks in service to their religion, and the rest of us have to be nice and polite. I’ve never heard (in person) a Christian say they respect my beliefs, but they demand I respect theirs.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost To Most: Or maybe…Occam’s Razor suggests…Obama and his family are simply what they appear to be: nice, moderate – hell, let’s go out on a limb here – liberal Christians. They do actually exist.
Uncle Ebeneezer
I’m not going to wade into the tone-policing aspect of vocal Atheist advocacy (sorry I just don’t have the energy) but I just want to point out: There definitely are real ways in which Atheists are subject to discrimination. Here’s a pretty good article by Greta Christina on the topic. I would add that I’ve also read numerous examples of employment discrimination/firings when an employer discovered their employee’s Atheism. Anyways, here’s a couple excerpts:
…
J R in WV
@Applejinx:
Welll said, AJx, very well put.
Carl W
You know, A Ghost To Most’s initial comment in this thread strikes me as about the most anodyne, least offensive anti-religious comment imaginable. (I’ve certainly read much worse comments against atheists, or from one religion against another, that were still considered an acceptable part of mainstream discourse.)
Is there any statement at all that you folks would consider acceptable (not being a jerk), that actually advocates against religion and for atheism?
Because if he can’t ever talk about an issue that’s important to him, that does seem like an important civil rights issue. (I hadn’t heard before that civil rights were only a legal battle, and that once non-discrimination laws were in place you can’t call any remaining discrimination a civil rights issue. Are you sure that’s the position you want to take?)
A Ghost To Most
@Miss Bianca:
Could very well be. We all have our fantasies; this is mine. I haven’t met many liberal Christians; most that I have met are either agnostic or secretly atheist, just trying to keep up appearances with the pious. Quick question: we were sort of close with a very religious couple, mostly liberal (very pro-life), nice. We went to dinner at their house, and when they said Grace, we bowed our heads until the prayer was over. They came to dinner at our house, and demanded that I say Grace before we eat. I did it (“thank you for this food”), said nothing, but was not happy about it afterwards. My beliefs weren’t even considered; the ritual had to be performed. What is the “nice” way of dealing with that?
SFAW
@Carl W:
For what it’s worth: I didn’t have a problem with his “trying to make sense” comment. It was when he started equating shitty treatment by religious assholes with a civil rights movement that I got annoyed.
I have asked multiple times, and have yet to receive an answer (as best as I can tell): what exactly has any atheist been prevented from doing (e.g., marriage, dining in a restaurant, getting a job, getting a mortgage, being prevented from living in an area where everyone is is a “god-fearin’ ‘Murican”), because of their atheism? Being told by prospective in-laws that they don’t want their daughter marrying an atheist is not a civil rights violation, etc. As The Thin Black Duke alluded to, when has an atheist been stopped (and worse) by the police for Driving While Atheist?
I guess it’s possible that some day, long after we are gone, there will be a Constitutional Amendment forbidding people being assholes to someone else. But for right now, I’m not sure such an Amendment — or a reasonable interpretation of one — exists.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Uncle Ebeneezer: The endless times I was beaten up in school, until I got too big to pound on, I would enter as exhibit A.
The skull fracture my little brother got from a fellow kindergartner irate at his choice of beliefs would be exhibit B, the inaction taken by everyone involved exhibit C.
I don’t think “give as good as you receive” bullshit by AGTM is helpful at all, it just makes you “just another asshole no different than the people who abused you” – but atheists are discriminated against. Legally and otherwise. Still laws on the books saying you can’t run for office or hold a state job in quite a few states if you’re an atheist, and not all of them are in the South.
A Ghost To Most
@SFAW:
I doubt it, but you took my relatively benign comments and took offense. I don’t see you complaining when people say shitty things about Republicans, or BernieBros, or gun-nutters (myself included). What is it about religion that makes it off limits? People here get rightly upset when someone accuses them of being ‘politically correct’, but you appear to have no issue with ‘religious correctness’. To me, it is the other side of the same coin. What’s the difference?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@A Ghost To Most: Say “Sorry, we don’t do that here. Grub’s up!” If they want to throw a fit about it that is their problem.
No wonder you’re so damn mean to people of faith online: you don’t have the guts to do in real life what you preach. You should. You’ll feel better. Even if they punch you in the face.
A Ghost To Most
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
So damn mean: “You’re trying to make sense of the nonsensical”. Really? I’m just a fucking tyrant.
You’ve probably said far worse to a troll in the last day (and I know I have). Mean on my part, or overly sensitive on yours?
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost To Most: I don’t know that there *is* a nice response to a demand to say Grace. Grace ain’t Grace when it’s forced out of you. “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do. Amen”?
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
Do you even bother to read what I write? Here, let me cut-and-paste what I wrote in 333:
And, by the way, you will notice that NOWHERE IN THIS STRING did I give you a hard time about your initial comment. Of course, if you think that your various comments re: “lots of them were assholes to me, so I’m going to be an asshole toward all of them” is “relatively benign ” — well, I guess they are, relative to a call for their extermination, but in general discussion, they ain’t.
A Ghost To Most
@Miss Bianca:
True, and my effort showed it. These are really nice people, but the ritual is the ritual, and the ritual MUST be observed. Had I refused, it would have been my fault, not theirs. Being nice left them feeling superior, and me feeling like shit.
I really fucking hate meaningless rituals. They seem to be about nothing more than forcing people to obey authority, and authority and I have never been on good terms.
A Ghost To Most
@SFAW:
And you keep trying to equate the law with culture. They are not the same. Just because laws get passed, doesn’t mean things change overnight. The civil rights cause is still working to change the culture; the law is 50 years old.
Don’t treat trolls like dog shit, and then get bent when someone mildly scolds on religion. At least be consistent.
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
As a follow-up: I don’t give a shit about “religious correctness.” People that know me, know that I have little love for organized religion, as well as the license some people apparently feel that it gives them to be assholes. But I don’t say to my very Catholic in-laws that their religion is evil or a joke or whatever, just because of X, or because they’re religious, or take-your-pick.
There’s a difference between standing up for yourself (e.g., CONGRATULATIONS!) and being an asshole to people just because someone else (singular or plural) was an asshole to you 5/10/20/50 years before. You appear to have chosen the latter, and you appear to relish it. I have, far more often than I care to remember, been an asshole to various persons. But it’s generally been a “heat of the moment” thing, not getting back at some disinterested third party because of something someone else did to me years ago. Doesn’t make me a saint (so to speak), but I don’t go looking to take my anger out on the world.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost To Most: FWIW, I have a hard time imagining that PBO would force you to say grace in your own house or anyone else’s. : )
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
GMAFB. Stop equating your being an asshole to people with fighting for civil rights, and I’ll stop with the laws thing.
Carl W
@SFAW:
Well, I’ve seen at least two answers given; maybe you weren’t paying attention?
1) Keep custody of their children in custody cases. (Did you read the Greta Christina excerpts that Uncle Ebeneezer posted?)
2) Become President. You seemed to acknowledge that this was true, but still treat it as unimportant; which seems pretty odd this year. Lots of people (including me) think it’s a Big Deal that this year, very likely, a woman will be elected president. Why is “a woman could never be President” a disgrace, but “an atheist could never be President” unimportant?
And even if you ignore the office of President, (open) atheists are vastly underrepresented in other elected offices. Why isn’t that a civil rights issue?
A Ghost To Most
@Carl W:
Thanks.
Have you ever had a son deeply interested and involved in Scouting? I had one; then the leadership of the Scout Troop was taken over by a church, and my son was asked to leave because he would not profess belief in a deity. No law against it. Just culture.
A Ghost To Most
@SFAW: Right back atcha, asshole. Nice blind spot.
Carl W
@A Ghost To Most: Nope, no children. (I do have a vague memory that my Presbyterian parents didn’t want me to join the scouts because the local troops were controlled by the Mormons, but it was a long time ago and I could be mis-remembering.)
A Ghost To Most
@Carl W:
It was a very small, very insular Maryland community. At around the same time, because of my family connections (racists network!), I was recruited for the League of the South. That was an awkward dinner, and an early exit. Did give me a new view of the village, though.
I moved there amused and disinterested by religion, and left 18 years later no longer amused or disinterested.
Whatever.
SFAW
@A Ghost To Most:
In other words, you got nothin’.
Uncle Cosmo
@Drudgie Mottle: Question: When are you going to do the decent thing & step in front of a speeding semi & get your pathetic excuse for a brain smeared over the asphalt, you worthless fuck?
SFAW
@Carl W:
No. Perhaps I will at some point.
I have been saying for years that an atheist — in the then-and-now political climate — could not get elected President. But I don’t confuse prejudice/bigotry with civil rights issues. Fifty years ago, the idea of a Jew, or a Muslim, or a woman, or someone openly gay, running for President would have been considered ludicrous — but not because they were prevented from doing so by law (which is where civil rights holds sway). You can hate me because I’m an atheist, and there’s not much I can do about it; but if you prevent me from exercising my Constitutional rights because of my atheism, that’s a different story.
Look, this whole pissing contest got started because AGTM tried to conflate lashing out at people who hate/dislike/disrespect atheists with the battle to secure “civil rights” for atheists. Apparently, I am the only one who thinks that it’s a bullshit conflation. As the hipsters used to say: “Whatevs.”
But I will keep scouring the news feeds and newspapers, to be sure that I haven’t overlooked an incident of someone harassed by police for Driving While Atheist. And when I find one of those, I will try to remember to come back here to apologize.
SFAW
@Uncle Cosmo:
Hey Cosmo –
For what it’s worth, he’s not completely irredeemable. There was a comment on one of the other threads (no, I don’t remember which, I’m too fucking old to remem … where was I? Oh yeah) which not only was NOT his standard “Fuck all of you for hating on Bernie’s 10 gazillion supporters,” but was actually a reasonable statement, to which I replied (in a reasonable manner)!
I still think he’s a troll, who just comes here looking to start a fight, but now … well, now, I’m only 99 percent sure.
Racist hUmP, on the other hand, can go fuck himself eight ways from Sunday.
SFAW
@Carl W:
Overlooked this the first time:
Uh, because there’s no law that says that atheists must be represented proportional to their numbers in the country? Just as there’s no (Constitutionally valid) law saying atheists are not allowed to run for office nor be elected.
Muslims are underrepresented, shall we mandate that people elect them?
Gay persons are (probably) underrepresented, shall we mandate that people elect them?
Women are underrepresented, shall we mandate that people elect them?
Zoroastrians are (probably) underrepresented, shall we mandate that people elect them?
Blacks may be underrepresented, shall we mandate that people elect them?
Latinos may be underrepresented, shall we mandate that people elect them?
and so on, ad infinitum.
It’s a prejudice/bigotry issue, not a civil rights issue. The two are not the same thing.