US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[Phoenix Dark]

Convinced as Sanders is that he’s realizing his lifelong dream of being the catalyst for remaking American politics—aides say he takes credit for a Harvard Kennedy School study in April showing young people getting more liberal, and he takes personal offense every time Clinton just dismisses the possibility of picking him as her running mate—his guiding principle under attack has basically boiled down to a feeling that multiple aides sum up as: “Screw me? No, screw you.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/bernie-sanders-campaign-last-days-224041#ixzz4AxWuNxnR

[Human Snorenado]

It's all over for. Time to apply salve to them Berns.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/statement-released-by-president-obama

In addition, at Senator Sanders' request, the President and Senator Sanders will meet at the White House on Thursday to continue their conversation about the significant issues at stake in this election that matter most to America's working families. The President looks forward to continuing the conversation with Senator Sanders about how to build on the extraordinary work he has done to engage millions of Democratic voters, and to build on that enthusiasm in the weeks and months ahead.

[bluemax]

Convinced as Sanders is that he’s realizing his lifelong dream of being the catalyst for remaking American politics—aides say he takes credit for a Harvard Kennedy School study in April showing young people getting more liberal, and he takes personal offense every time Clinton just dismisses the possibility of picking him as her running mate—his guiding principle under attack has basically boiled down to a feeling that multiple aides sum up as: “Screw me? No, screw you.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/bernie-sanders-campaign-last-days-224041#ixzz4AxWuNxnR

This is kinda eerily similar to reading about the Trump campaign. The same arrogance and lack of self awareness.

Top Sanders aides admit that it’s been weeks, if not months, since they themselves realized he wasn’t going to be win, and they’ve been operating with a Trump’s-got-no-real-shot safety net. They debate whether Sanders’ role in the fall should be a full vote-for-Clinton campaign, or whether he should just campaign hard against Trump without signing up to do much for her directly.

Nevermind, there's the self awareness that even Reddit doesn't have.

[Joe Molotov]

[benjipwns]

Sanders and aides laugh at the idea that he’s damaging the party and hurting Clinton. They think they don’t get enough gratitude for how much they held back, from not targeting more Democratic members of the House and Senate who opposed him to not making more of an issue out of Clinton’s email server investigation and Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, all of which they discussed as possible lines of attack in the fall. They blame Clinton going after him on gun control for goading him into letting loose on her Goldman Sachs speeches.

“If they hadn’t started at it by really going hard at him on guns, raising a series of issues against him, that really was what led to him being much, much more aggressive than he otherwise would have been,” said Devine, the consultant who helped engineer Sanders’ plans for a protest candidacy into a real campaign (and convinced him to run as a Democrat).

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s call was part advice, part asking a favor, urging Sanders to use his now massive email list to help Democratic Senate candidates. Russ Feingold in Wisconsin was the most obvious prospect, and Reid wanted to make introductions to Iowa’s Patty Judge and North Carolina’s Deborah Ross—to help Democrats win the majority, but also to give Sanders allies in making himself the leader of the Senate progressives come next year.

Reid, according to people familiar with the conversation, ended the discussion thinking Sanders was on board. He backed Feingold. But that’s the last anyone heard.

Word got back to Reid’s team that Weaver had nixed the idea, ruling out backing anyone who hadn’t endorsed Sanders. Weaver says it’s because the Senate hopefuls had to get in line for Sanders’ support behind top backers like Gabbard and Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.)—though neither has a competitive race this year.

Sanders never followed up himself.

There’s also the issue of payback. Campaign aides say that whatever else happens, Sanders wants former Congressman Barney Frank and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy out of their spots as co-chairs of the convention rules committee. It’s become a priority fight for him.

Sanders, the aides say, believes Frank has hated him for years, but the former Massachusetts congressman’s calling him a “McCarthyite” pushed him over the edge. He never really registered who Malloy was, despite his being from a neighboring home state and his status as one of the most liberal governors in the country, but Sanders was enraged to hear the governor say he had blood on his hands for not supporting the gun manufacturer liability law.

this is the kind of stuff Corrupt Hillary's team was doing in 2008 that probably cost them the nomination

[benjipwns]

Congrats Walrus on the new job with the Detroit Free Press:

MACKINAC ISLAND — We really ought to round up the lawmakers who took money to protect and perpetuate the failing charter-school experiment in Detroit, sew them into burlap sacks with rabid animals, and toss them into the Straits of Mackinac.

That’s harsh. Maybe.

But isn’t that what the Romans or Greeks or some other early practitioners of democracy used to do with solicitous and unprincipled public officials?

...

It is every bit deserving of an old-school retributive response.

A sack. An animal. A lake.

No lover of actual democracy could weep at that outcome.

It was a good idea to warm up your readers to your style rather than plunging them into the Straits of Mackinac right away.

[Joe Molotov]

Bernie's in it to win it, baybee!

[VomKriege]

Sanders supporters to graduate soon enough from mathematics to quantum physics if they want to keep their hopes up.

[benjipwns]

The AP showed a serious lack of scientific knowledge. We can't tell whether or not Sanders won the nomination until the nomination is decided. The AP changed the outcome by observing the result.

[Tasty]

They blame Clinton going after him on gun control for goading him into letting loose on her Goldman Sachs speeches.

“If they hadn’t started at it by really going hard at him on guns, raising a series of issues against him, that really was what led to him being much, much more aggressive than he otherwise would have been,” said Devine, the consultant who helped engineer Sanders’ plans for a protest candidacy into a real campaign (and convinced him to run as a Democrat).

"That bitch was asking for it."

[Mandark]

It's pretty similar to the Clinton campaign's statement that they'd reconsider additional debates with Bernie if he played nicer.

I'm sure both sides feel as if the other has been unfair and over-aggressive, which is silly if you zoom out and take the long view.  They've both been using kid gloves compared to how hard Clinton and Obama went at each other, much less how things went down on the GOP side, or how it's going to be in the general.

[Phoenix Dark]

Congrats Walrus on the new job with the Detroit Free Press:

MACKINAC ISLAND — We really ought to round up the lawmakers who took money to protect and perpetuate the failing charter-school experiment in Detroit, sew them into burlap sacks with rabid animals, and toss them into the Straits of Mackinac.

That’s harsh. Maybe.

But isn’t that what the Romans or Greeks or some other early practitioners of democracy used to do with solicitous and unprincipled public officials?

...

It is every bit deserving of an old-school retributive response.

A sack. An animal. A lake.

No lover of actual democracy could weep at that outcome.

It was a good idea to warm up your readers to your style rather than plunging them into the Straits of Mackinac right away.

Will they at least be given a piece of fudge before being hurled into the Straights of Mackinac?

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Apparently Bernie is not backing down

He must really be hoping that the FBI comes through with an indictment.

[Tasty]

I had been bracing for Cali to be <5% difference but Hillary outright slaughtered Bernie there, almost 13%.

[TakingBackSunday]

On NPR this morning:

If he doesn't end up winning, I'm voting for Trump...to pop the zit of this country and start the revolution.

Fuck off, Bernie bros.

[Joe Molotov]

I had been bracing for Cali to be <5% difference but Hillary outright slaughtered Bernie there, almost 13%.

[Tasty]

Sanders could have won if he won NY 70-30.

Sanders could have won if we won CA 80-20.

Sanders could win if he flips 35% of Hillary's superdelegates.

Sanders could win if Hillary gets indicted.

Sanders could win if mind control technology becomes available in the next couple weeks.

Sanders could win if his bird friend Birdie flies down with a flock of angry sparrows to lift Hillary into the sun.

[Madrun Badrun]

I'd vote for a wizard with the ability to control birds as long as he isn't running against one who can do better magic. 

[Joe Molotov]

I'd vote for a wizard with the ability to control birds as long as he isn't running against one who can do better magic. 

Bernie is like Radagast the Brown, except he could also control squirrels and jackalopes.

[CatsCatsCats]

People on my Facebook posting all sorts of don't give up on Bernie crap still, like seriously? It's just sad at this point

[Tasty]

People on my Facebook posting all sorts of don't give up on Bernie crap still, like seriously? It's just sad at this point

Screencaps plz

[Madrun Badrun]

You going into the salt business or something Tasty? 

[Tasty]

You going into the salt business or something Tasty?

Meat needs salt in order to stay tasty, breh.

[Phoenix Dark]

You going into the salt business or something Tasty?

Meat needs salt in order to stay tasty, breh.

[Tasty]

You going into the salt business or something Tasty?

Meat needs salt in order to stay tasty, breh.

 

[Kara]

I'm banking this victory vigor for when the Republican Congress is still refusing to confirm President Clinton's SCOTUS nomination(s?) two years on. Into her second term.

[Madrun Badrun]

I thought it was looking good for the Dems to take the senate?

[studyguy]

Ruth Ginsberg gonna be on life support still clawing on to that bench along with those 2 other old fucks about to turn 80 as congress continues to refuse to give in to confirming a new justice. We're gonna be 8 years down the road when we hear 'THE AMERICAN PUBLIC DESERVES TO HAVE THEIR VOICES HEARD, again, IN REGARDS TO THIS MATTER, WE SHALL LET THE NEXT PRESIDENT DECIDE. OR MAYBE THE NEXT ONE AFTER THAT, FUCK IT! JUST GIVE US A TURN BREHS"

[Brehvolution]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/opinion/dump-the-gop-for-a-grand-new-party.html?&_r=0

But this Republican Party is none of those things. Today’s G.O.P. is to governing what Trump University is to education — an ethically challenged enterprise that enriches and perpetuates itself by shedding all pretense of standing for real principles, or a truly relevant value proposition, and instead plays on the ignorance and fears of the public.

It is just an empty shell, selling pieces of itself to the highest bidders, — policy by policy — a little to the Tea Party over here, a little to Big Oil over there, a little to the gun lobby, to antitax zealots, to climate-change deniers. And before you know it, the party stands for an incoherent mess of ideas unrelated to any theory of where the world is going or how America actually becomes great again in the 21st century.

[Kara]

One-party rule paving the way for democratic centralism.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0YT16J

[Mandark]

(mislabeled as 2015, actually current)

In case we needed a reminder that people's opinions of politicians are really contextual and tribal.  There's really no ideological justification why Clinton would have such a different rating than Obama and especially Biden.

[Phoenix Dark]

And let's not forget the sexism angle there. I've heard so many people slam Hillary for being a conservative or disparage the Crime Bill...then say they wish Biden had run for president.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

that Trump rates ahead of Hillary among Bernie supporters is unbelievable to me. As in, I don't actually believe it, they can't possibly be that dense. And yes, I've got many friends who are Bern-ed out, but that's just way too much irrationality for me to handle.

"Well, there's this lady who's 85% similar to my preferred candidate, or this transparently awful man who's the physical embodiment of everything my guy has been railing agaisnt for the last year. I think I'll go with him."

I just don't buy it.

[Kara]

However effective her policies would be, they're very much a continuation of what's been done for some time now (e.g. middle class--or, more accurately, debt-encumbered breeder--tax cuts).

We didn't have a primary season with a self-described democratic socialist and an individual who prompted debates about the exact definition of fascism because meaningful segments of the voting public are satisfied with what's been done for some time now.

[Phoenix Dark]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGaflfAA-O6/

only benji can explain this

[Oblivion]

 

[bluemax]

So much salt on FB this morning. Best thing I saw was some dude whining about the Bernie loss, then an hour later posting a thing about how Bernie is gonna run as an independent saying The Ole Berninator is a genius and this was the plan all along.

Way too many people screaming conspiracy and posting Dewey v Trump pictures.

Also just before I got to my apartment at the stop light there was a brand new Fiat mini thingy (still had the dealer plates on it) with no less than THREE Bernie stickers and 2 Bernie things in the window. I looked over to see the driver, it was some bimbo blonde in her early 20s.

[Trent Dole]

Here's some fun from my twitter feed

[VomKriege]

Since Sanders has lost, the rhetoric is now that he's the best at losing and the DNC cannot ignore his electorate (no doubt the essential vanguard of the revolution)... or else !

[Joe Molotov]

Both candidates suck, just vote for Nader Bernie, what's the worst that could happen?

[octopushover]

guess the candidate who's next to be sacrificed to the great god SANDRO

[Tasty]

They best not be talking shit 'bout Warren.

[Tasty]

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/4n8u0t/how_bernie_will_win_california_crucial_info/

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/4n9axg/bernie_knows_things_we_dont_know_wipe_those_tears/

[Tasty]

President Obama has formally endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Can't wait for the Sandersistas to throw him under the bus and call him a hack fraud corrupt shill.

[Tasty]

[Steve Contra]

The biggest Bernie or Buster on my facebook feed admitted today that he'll be voting for Hillary because he's not actually an idiot turns out.  I suspect lots of this will happen in the coming months.

[Phoenix Dark]

[octopushover]

(Image removed from quote.)

 

[Steve Contra]

Fucking savage.

[Kara]

Thought of your blood pressure when I saw this on the front page of MSN today, Walrus.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/06/09/It-s-Time-Blame-Obamacare-Losing-So-Many-Full-Time-Jobs

Who cares about full-time jobs that couldn't pay for health insurance (i.e. weren't even subsistence wages) in the first place?

Are we going to see a return to vintage "X IS JOBS KILLING POLICY" this electoral season? Is anyone going to point out that the oil industry rewarded the faith placed in it to create jobs by over-producing, over-leveraging and subsequently collapsing, killing jobs of its own volition and stupidity? Is this all too subtle for the ca. 2016 body politic?

[Tasty]

(Image removed from quote.)

Holy fucking shit.

[Mandark]

Are we going to see a return to vintage "X IS JOBS KILLING POLICY" this electoral season? Is anyone going to point out that the oil industry rewarded the faith placed in it to create jobs by over-producing, over-leveraging and subsequently collapsing, killing jobs of its own volition and stupidity? Is this all too subtle for the ca. 2016 body politic?

Maaaaan, I'm old enough to remember circa 2004 when conservative analysts were arguing that we should look at the household survey instead of the payroll survey for monthly jobs numbers, which happened (at that time) to be much more favorable to the Bush administration.  Five or six years later they discovered that U6 was the real measure of unemployment.

Politics have a way of making people develop deeply held beliefs about obscure topics very suddenly and conveniently.

[Steve Contra]

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/06/read-joe-bidens-open-letter-stanford-suvivor-sexual-assault

Good lord I'm going to miss Joe Biden.

[Tasty]

[Tasty]

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/06/08/reluctant-hillary-clinton-supporters-say-girliguessimwithher/?mod=e2fb

These tweets. 

Welcome aboard, fam

[Phoenix Dark]

Are we going to see a return to vintage "X IS JOBS KILLING POLICY" this electoral season? Is anyone going to point out that the oil industry rewarded the faith placed in it to create jobs by over-producing, over-leveraging and subsequently collapsing, killing jobs of its own volition and stupidity? Is this all too subtle for the ca. 2016 body politic?

Maaaaan, I'm old enough to remember circa 2004 when conservative analysts were arguing that we should look at the household survey instead of the payroll survey for monthly jobs numbers, which happened (at that time) to be much more favorable to the Bush administration.  Five or six years later they discovered that U6 was the real measure of unemployment.

Politics have a way of making people develop deeply held beliefs about obscure topics very suddenly and conveniently.

Gotta admire conservatives' ability to play the long game. I can imagine that writer waiting years for a <60k jobs report so he could finally post this opus.

He's probably writing a "Why Obama Was The Most Conservative President Since Reagan" article as we speak, to be released sometime during midterm season in 2018.

[studyguy]

Sanders stans concede and affirm what everyone expected they'd do. 
#PUMAsLOL #WeLizardMenNow

[Tasty]

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

(Image removed from quote.)

Holy fucking shit.

I don't use twitter, I don't get it. Is Hillary just lobbing an insult at Don? That's it?

[Mandark]

Also, how much obvious effort he put into combing the data to paint the worst possible picture.  "Sure, the headline numbers look better than under Bush, but what about average hours worked in the leisure and hospitality sector!?"

Also, the idea that businesses can't possibly function without paying employees absurdly low wages and benefits seems more of an indictment of the private sector than of labor law to me.  To echo Kara, if the only jobs you can create are ones that don't even adequately cover health costs, why should we defer to your wisdom as a Job Creator?