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15 comments:
I paused a few minutes in to clarify something about Bernie which you may not be aware of. He is the presumed nominee of the Vermont Democratic Party. And yeah, he absolutely has the right to tell the DNC to go fuck themselves.
They didn't hurt him in the primary, he was never going to win it, they screwed Hillary. It started with the kerfuffle over the data breach, which Bernie's techs discovered. They quietly informed the proper authorities, only to have that frizzy headed blabbermouth expose what was already a perceived weakness of Hillary's, that she can't protect her computers against cyber-attacks. You think the Russians didn't know this?
Then you had the DNC scheduling the debates when nobody was watching. Telling him to withdraw before the largest state, where I happen to live got a chance to vote. They turned the lights out on and booed his delegates. His surrogates treated the Millennials who supported him with condescension, yet they voted for HRC in the general election at a higher rate than Obama's 2012 White suburban voters.
I'm not a Democratic Primary reenactor, neither is Bernie. By changing the letter after his title back to (I), he's signaling he will not be running for President in 2020.
There's your scoop, he will announce this a year from now at what will hopefully be his victory party. I was at his first one, when he won the Burlington Mayor's race by ten measly votes. You know who plotzed when that happened? The Burlington Democrats. At lot has changed since then.
Bernie and Angus King and all but one New England Senator have forged an alliance with your Senators, the Western States, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Minnesota. They're running the show now. If Bernie or Elizabeth Warren, or Tammy Duckworth tells the DNC how to run the campaign to win back Congress and the White House, they need to listen. Hillary can help too, but she ain't the boss of the rank and file anymore.
A few Machine Politic Strongholds aside, at the local level the Democratic Party across the country is wide open to be conquered by the "revolution" the Sanderista Commentariat keeps harping on about.
So when people get done masturbating to the Brazile article, maybe we can actually get started the vaunted bottom up revolution cause as BongoShaftsbury1 pointed out Sanders started as a Mayor of midsize city.
It is frustrating to keep reading this stuff because the opportunity is sitting RIGHT THERE! Should also seriously consider showing up for a midterm or two, sure as hell would of helped in 2009.
Until that day, forgive me if I find motives, at best, suspect.
Dude, take up architecture, build a bridge, and get the fuck over it.
Weird rebuttal trgahan, it doesn't pass the Turing test. You left out a critical possessive pronoun at the end. Whose motives are you talking about?
Putting ego aside, (all politicians and HUMAN members of the online commentariat are driven by ego to a certain extent), Bernie has been saying pretty much the exact same things for 40 years: single-payer health care, fair unpaid for elections, revenue neutral tax policies that benefit the middle and working class. That's it. It's boring as fuck actually.
Personally, I was only motivated by one thing, that the Democratic nominee and Senate candidates win the election. Even though I know Bernie and consider him a mentor, my first choice was Joe Biden. He would have been the most electable and possesses the quality I most admire in a person,a sense of bonhomie
In 2014, I received an e-mail from Bernie asking me if I would support him in a run for President. My response was only if he ran as a Democrat. So I guess butt hurt Democratic pedants can blame me for that decision.
I left his Bay Area campaign early on when I felt we were being manipulated by Republican operatives. The only way Bernie could have won the primary was to focus soley on registering voters, going to swing states to support Democratic candidates for Congress, AND WAIT FOR IT, emphasize the issues on which he and Hillary agreed. The tenor of his campaign should have been, "Look, I know she's probably going to win the nomination, I want to help her be a better candidate" Quite frankly, she needed his help.
When the Bernie Bros crap started, I knew it doomed what little chance he had of winning. When Joan Walsh and Joy Reid and Nicole Belle started arguing with his supporters, I knew it would hurt Hillary.
Anyway, I spent the war working for Kamala Harris, but because her opponent in the general election was also a Democrat, the stakes weren't as high. Diane Feinstein is going to be primaried in 2018, I will remain neutral.
If you have been paying attention, you see the "bottom up" something something happening right the fuck now. There are more brand new Democratic candidates for state and local level offices preparing to run than there have been for decades.
The question, the way I see it, is are you going to help them win? Or are you gonna screw it up and (try to) live not just through two terms of Fergus, but another decade fighting uphill against impossibly gerrymandered districts and crosscheck voter purges until there are none of us left to resist the goddamn fascists.
Thank you again for the podcast, it really does help.
-Doug in Oakland
"Boring as fuck…"
Also, true…and it also helped him crank up a grassroots campaign that had our democratic "centrists"
shitting green nickels.
Somehow, someway, Sanders beat Clinton in the red-state Kansas caucuses by 26 points.
What he could have done against Trump, we won't know, but as an erstwhile supporter of Clinton, and lifelong lefty, I would have liked to have had a candidate whom has been outspoken for single-payer, and who didn't have that vote, and years-long support for, Operation Enduring Clusterfuck on his track record.
I, too, like Kamala Harris, and/or Kirsten Gillebrand, but staying neutral about Feinstein, when she's saying that we just need to give Trump a chance, and he might turn out to be a decent preznint, won't fly with me, and I hope, not with California voters.
I will admit this: we need him until the mid-terms, which is why the republicans are crapping their pants about going in, in 2018, with him still in the White House.
When I called Bernie's policies 'boring as fuck' that's a good thing. It's as exciting as doing my taxes and balancing my checkbook.
Re what Feinstein said about Trump. She was asked about impeachment. As a member of the Senate Committee investigating Trump's campaign ties to Russia and who would be deciding whether or not to convict him, should he be impeached, she was circumspect. It would have been inappropriate to answer the question. You want someone who shoots their mouth off without considering the consequences, you got him.
California has a Non-Partisan Blanket Primary, meaning all the candidates appear on a single ballot. We vote for one, regardless of our party affiliation and the top two go on to the general election.
By neutral, I don't mean I'm not going to vote in the primary. If there's a strong Republican candidate, say Schwarzenegger, and I think Feinstein has the best chance of winning, I'll vote for her. Hell, if Schwarzenegger ran as an Independent and promised to caucus and vote with Senate Democrats, I could even live with that. If she's running against another Dem in the general election whom I prefer, then I'll likely vote for them.
"I just hope he has the ability to learn and to change, and if he does, he can be a good president."
I don't think he can change; I think, to use Steve Gilliard's term, that he's as crazy as a shithouse rat.
If Feinstein doesn't know this, she's a fool. If she does and is just doing "centrist" pimping, then that's even worse.
Faced with the ongoing, incessant, vicious arrogance and ignorance of Trump, you can call her comments circumspect, but at this point, I'd prefer someone who "shoots off her mouth" and speaks the truth about Trump.
Hello. A person who normally sends a monthly contribution.
I'm glad you don't believe a decentralized democratic party is a bad thing. I also support that.
Of course what I don't agree with is how you treat Bernie Sanders and your continue respect for the DNC. I do understand you are a Bernie Sanders household. But your criticism of him and the people who follow him is unfair.
I agree that the Republican Party is a threat to the USA and the world. I have always believed when a republican win, people will die. But I have no faith that the people with control over the democratic party is interested in destroying the threat. In fact, I think the major game plan is to use republican insanity as the only reason to vote democratic and keep that insanity healthy enough to be a visible threat.
I started to vote in 2000. I was 19 year old at the time. So I managed to see a decade and a half of politics. I even saw when the democratic won major victories over the republican party. But at no point have I seen the democratic party try to over turn or reverse the actions of the republicans.
Every time you mention the centrist people in the media, I can't help but think of the democratic party being run by centrists, which are enabling the republican party.
I'm glad Bernie Sanders remain an independent and that he is not being quiet. He is a clear example on how democrat should be. And he seems to be a good test on if a politician is serious about helping the american people and defeating republicans.
On your talk on commitment... when it comes to people who want free college and legalize pot. Maybe i'm stupid, but i thought that was the idea of campaigning. that you offer people things that they want in exchange for votes. I would think the people who criticized the DNC is shit for the simple fact that offering those things is a struggle for a party that is supposed to opposed the opposite of those ideas.
You both expect people to look deep down in themselves and give up things in order to vote democratic, but none of that sentiment come for ruling democratic members. Many years ago, Driftglass said about the republicans that if their party lie to them, undermine them, and can't live up to their own values, why stay with them? I believe every citizen should have clean water... in Michigan, which is being controlled by the dems, they're having problems with clean water -- am I supposed to ignore that and just look at the republicans?
I do understand there are good people in the democratic party, but those people aren't the ones running the show. And as much as you want to insist that the democratic party simply don't know how to tell a story, I see them as trying to prevent giving us any promises because they know we would hold them accountable. I don't think you have much of a right to criticize republicans voters for ruining teh country when you ignore the democrats when they had the power to undermine and destroy the republican party.
The crack about the "buggy whip maker" is comedy AND political gold.
"If Feinstein doesn't know this, she's a fool. If she does and is just doing "centrist" pimping, then that's even worse."
You do realize there's a difference between anonymously commenting on Driftglass' blog and answering a loaded question with a room full of reporters present.
She's a Senator on the committee overseeing the Mueller Investigation. Furthermore, as a Senator, she doesn't vote to impeach, she rules based on the evidence presented, whether or not to convict.
A centrist, yeah, but a fool? That's a word that in no way applies. Don't like her? Move to California and vote for someone else.
Lived there for 17 years…but I think I'll just keep pointing out some of her positions, such as her support for capital punishment…
Sorry it bothers you. If you don't like the debate, I assure you, you're on the wrong blog. :o)
Also, if she was deceived into answering a "loaded" question by stating that if Donald Trump can just learn and change, he can become a good president, then I would say that whether it was foolish and/or centrist, that it's toxic bullshit. The republicans hearing it must have gotten a little thrill of joy.
But, perhaps, you think that at some point, he can become a good president. If so, please tell us how that might work.
"Senator Feinstein! Should Trump be impeached?"
"Oh hell yeahs! If the House refuses to do their job, Imma gonna have Donna Brazile go down there and fuck their shit up!
"Senator! What do you think about Bongo Shaftsbury ducking the debate with Tanbark?"
"Isn't he the douchebag who's always ragging on Driftglass for his Bernie impersonation? Fuck him! If I wanted to hear simpering apologists, I'd go on Meet The Press"
With the Russian lawyeress, Natalia Veselnitskaya (and Boris Baddenoff), from the Trump tower meeting with Coffee boy Donald Jr, cabana boy Jared and the low level campaign volunteer Manafort.
A change of what took place is now offered of Donnie Coffee boy recommending a payment for their help to be "reviewing sanctions" when "We" come into power. Who the "WE" that the coffee boy meant is unclear? I understand the President says he doesn't remember ever knowing or meeting this coffee boy Don Jr , Believe me?! Trup says.
Which brings me to my own thoughts and prayers for such a massive tragedy.
Since I can recall. Republicans never like the arts. How they screamed in the ‘60’s about radical music.
Among the many fantastic musicians was Warren Zevon. One of his songs took a while to catch on.
Called “lawyers, guns and money”
Beginning lyrics;
I went home with a waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians too.
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