Bernie Sanders seems determined to prove himself to be the most egotistical, hypocritical loser in the history of political campaigns, and he's not above helping Republicans burn down the country to do it.
Sanders returned to Washington today and refused to say he will endorse Hillary Clinton, while offering nothing more than his usual tiresome platitudes. Democrats have lost their patience with him, and he was rightfully booed:
With the Democratic convention just weeks away, Sanders still hasn't endorsed one-time rival Hillary Clinton and dodged questions about when he would during a tense meeting Wednesday morning with House Democrats.
After delivering his opening remarks — which touched on Sanders’ favorite issues including campaign finance, Wall Street reform and trade — lawmakers inside the meeting pressed Sanders during a tense question-and-answer session on whether he would ultimately endorse Clinton and help foster party unity.
House Democrats including John Garamendi of California and Joyce Beatty of Ohio asked Sanders for specifics on when he would ultimately get behind Clinton — questions that were accompanied by some cheers and clapping from other House Democrats, sources inside the room said.
Sanders didn’t give them a clear answer, according to attendees. Instead, the Vermont senator emphasized that elections are not necessarily about winning, multiple sources said, but about transformations — an answer that was met with some boos from lawmakers, one person inside the room said.
"Elections are not necessarily about winning" says the man who lost, but vowed to overthrow the will of the voters in this country by trying to get Democratic super delegates to back him instead of Hillary Clinton.
"Elections are not necessarily about winning" says the man who refused to lend a hand to help down ticket Democrats until late in the primaries and only then helping a few in exchange for their endorsement of him.
"Elections are not necessarily about winning" unless Bernie Sanders is the winner, and if he isn't the winner, the rest of the country can just take a hike.
“My message was a simple message: We have got to fight for the needs of the middle class and working families of this country,” Sanders said as he left the caucus meeting. “We got to get people involved in the political process, we got to get a large voter turnout, and if we have a larger voter turnout, Democrats will regain control of the Senate and I believe they’re gonna take the House back.”
This "message" illustrates the problem many have had with Bernie all along. His promises are really just a lot of words that don't make sense. After all, how exactly are you going to win back the House without helping House Democrats get elected? How are you going to help working families, the middle class, get people involved in the political process, and increase voter turnout while saying "Elections are not necessarily about winning?"
And how in particular is Bernie going to do all these things while inspiring his supporters with the false belief that Hillary Clinton lacks judgment, is corrupt, and doesn't deserve his endorsement? Because that's largely what his so-called "revolution" has done to a majority of his supporters, young ones in particular who are new to the political process. He's spent his entire campaign telling them the "establishment" Democratic Party can't be trusted, that they "rigged" the election against him, and that he and only he can "transform America" even though his plans never held water and he showed he had no idea how to fulfill many of those promises in the first place.
Guess who else wants to "transform America?" Donald Trump. Yet Bernie has sowed such a pessimistic view of elections among his supporters that many of them have vowed "Never Hillary," vowed to just sit out the election, or vowed to teach Democrats a lesson by actually voting for Trump.
Bernie, who's had 30 years as an elected official to bring about the change he speaks of, yet hasn't bothered, seems more than happy to help the Republicans by refusing to embrace the reality of elections and their consequences.
Bernie refuses to help Democrats win in 2016, largely because of his ego. After all, what kind of person stays in a race after he lost while continuing to cost taxpayers $40,000 a day for Secret Service protection (that will climb to $2 million if he stays in the race through the convention), demands concessions after losing, tries to negotiate the terms of his exit from the race, and holds a "victory rally" outside the convention while Democrats nominate the winner inside?
A con man, that's what kind.
Because if Bernie truly wants to bring about the changes he's been talking about in his stump speech for a year now, he's not going to get them from the Republicans and Donald Trump.
But he's ignoring the elephant in the room while instead attacking Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, the only people who are actually working toward those goals and have been for decades.
If Bernie's only goal left is to hurt the Democrats chances in this election, and there's no indication at this point he truly has any other goal, he should just stop "helping" and go home.
And since "elections are not necessarily about winning," let's hope he stays there after losing his next one.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s image shows the words “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” on a red six-pointed star that many have pointed out resembles the Star of David, a symbol that appears on the Israeli flag and is commonly associated with Judaism.
The star is superimposed over an image of $100 bills and an image of Clinton often used by her campaign that reads “History made.”
You know, we've all heard Bernie Sanders proclaim that, in spite of any evidence so far, he'll "do anything" to help defeat Donald Trump.
If this doesn't convince him that he needs to quit playing games to bolster his ego, you have to really wonder how far Donald Trump will have to go before Bernie will finally put his money where his mouth is and say "I'm With Her" instead of "let's wait and see if I can get the proper carbon tax language into the Democratic platform."
Where does "Bernie Or Bust" himself draw the line?
Because I think he's about to cross it if he hasn't already.
When Trump talks, it makes news. Doesn't matter what he says, it's worthy of broadcast. Same these days for Bernie Sanders, the candidate who lost months ago but refuses to accept reality and vows to fight Hillary Clinton's nomination on the convention floor.
If you listen to Bernie's endless complaints, Trump's observation is one thing he's said so far that's believable.
When it comes to Donald Trump's contention that Bernie Sanders "hates" Hillary Clinton, the Vermont senator chalked it up to Trump being Trump.
"I know, he has read my mind. What a man, what a genius," Sanders remarked sarcastically in an interview Thursday night on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes." "No, the answer is of course, Trump is lying as he always does."
He continued, explaining: "No, I do not hate Secretary Clinton. I've known her for 25 years. I have a lot of respect for her. We've worked together."
"And yet— I have to say one thing about Bernie — he, you know, he'll be nasty and say, 'Oh, I'd never vote for Trump,' but that's OK. I know what he thinks inside." Trump said. "He hates her. He hates her."
Trump continued, "I mean, he cannot stand her."
"I'm pretty good with people," the Manhattan businessman declared. "Bernie Sanders cannot stand Hillary Clinton."
Hmm, where on earth would Trump get that idea?
Bernie can laugh this off all he wants with like-minded progressive network hosts, but the truth is Bernie has worked hard to craft this narrative and those same hosts have helped him with it. Perhaps instead of merely asking Bernie if this is true, they should point out that Bernie's words and actions have sowed the seeds of this idea in the first place, and it's hurting Clinton and the Democrats while helping Trump. Why else would Trump jump to take advantage of it? He may not be the brightest person on the planet but he isn't stupid when it comes to capitalizing on misinformation and the misfortune of others. Bernie's ego is a willing participant, and merely pointing out the observations without pointing out why it exists in the first place is part of the problem. Bernie unchecked by the MSM is part of how we got here in the first place.
It's hardly shocking that conventional wisdom suggests that Bernie in fact loathes the presumptive nominee. Worse, if Bernie truly doesn't "hate" Hillary Clinton, that is certainly news to the majority of his supporters.
Bernie lost the primaries in every category, yet he's pretending he's entitled to shape the Democratic platform, and in the past has suggested he should quite possibly be the nominee anyway, or be Hillary's VP, or barring that, should have a hand in choosing her VP and every move she makes going forward.
During the primaries and the debates, all along the way he's been increasingly arrogant not only towards Clinton, but the very party who allowed him to run with them in the first place. Bernie never became a Democrat (He's still registered as "I" for his Senate reelection run.) but he was quick to take advantage of its perks, infrastructure, and fundraising, not just during his primary run, but in the past. He never turned down money that flowed to him via the Democratic National Committee and yes, some via Wall Street donations.
Bernie ran with the Democratic Party's support, yet he condemned them as evil all along the way. He's railed at Democrats, President Obama and Hillary Clinton while co-opting and/or taking credit for a majority of what they've accomplished and their policies. In other areas, he complains that nothing they've done is enough, from the Affordable Care Act right up to the policies in the current Democratic platform that his people voted for this past week.
Yet Bernie has spent months telling anyone who will listen that Hillary Clinton can't be trusted. That voting for her or any Democrat means your children and grandchildren's future will be in jeopardy at the hands of the very same evils he himself has dipped his hands and his investments in.
But again, where on earth would Trump or anyone else get the impression that Bernie hates Hillary?
Just ask any one of Bernie's shrinking circle of supporters and they'll tell you not only that he hates her, but they'll recite endless reasons why. It doesn't matter that they aren't true, it's just enough to "believe" them to be true. They're the result of fictional fairy tales he's spun since he announced he was running and only grew larger in comparison to the size of his growing national spotlight.
You can try and tell his supporters the truth, but they won't believe you. In fact, not only will they ignore the truth, they'll happily make up their own versions of the truth. In fact, his celebrity surrogates were busy telling supporters this week that the Dem platform committee voted against the fracking ban, the $15 minimum wage and carbon tax. (Not true.)
Another fairy tale that lives on in the hearts and minds of the Bernie faithful is his whirlwind manufactured adventure with the Pope in April. His campaign flew an entourage of the Sanders family to Rome tossing back lobster sliders courtesy of his "small donors." The truth of the entire debacle is well documented, but his supporters will hear none of it. Why, just yesterday one told me Bernie and Jane stayed in the Pope's private residence! I'm sure it's merely a coincidence that the whole of the American and international media got it wrong when they reported that Bernie stalked the Pope for a handshake in a hotel lobby, rather than Bernie dropping everything to "meet with the Pope" via personal invitation. Also in on the conspiracy no doubt are FEC documents disclosing the charges for his family's $13,758 stay in a luxury hotel in Rome.
Bernie's campaign has also been flagged over campaign contribution violations numerous times and received warning from the FEC over them, yet because Bernie is pure, the campaign has written them off as something that "happens all the time" in campaigns. Pshaw!
While Bernie goes on and on about everyone's right to being entitled free college and the problem of mounting student debt, his supporters want to hear nothing of the debts of Burlington College, now closed in part thanks to Jane Sanders and her magical math. Sanders, who walked away with a golden parachute of sorts isn't talking either, nor will Bernie discuss it, which works out fine in the world of see no evil, hear no evil Bernie-World. Dare to even mention the possible pending investigation and you'll be met with screams of "Hillary for prison!"
While Bernie seems to have given up his hopes of a flat-out magical coronation at the convention next month, his supporters still believe. Why? Just because. If you don't "get it" then you're not a real progressive, nor a real Democrat. This, according to people who had no clue they had to register as a Democrat to vote for one in some places, to those who don't care to read up on voting rules and requirements, those who ran over Hillary Clinton supporters like steamrollers and banshees at state caucuses, and those who will swear despite visual evidence that chairs in the air got there by themselves rather than being thrown, and someone attempting to stop non-existent chair throwers were merely giving them "a hug."
Nope. You cannot tell Bernie supporters, who are all but praying for some form of indictment or prison sentence for Hillary merely because she exists, that Bernie won't ascend to the Democratic throne next month. But if he doesn't, well, the fix is in don't you know? After all, it was rigged all along by the party that disguised what they were up to by letting Bernie run as a Democrat in the first place. It was all part of the plan! Hillary supporters merely covered their tracks by voting for her. It's not Bernie's fault he had to steal data from the Democrats, sue them over it, and then declare himself in the right when he was actually found to be in the wrong. It was the fault of Democrats who fell under the spell of the ever-powerful Clinton mind games, not to mention women and POC who don't know any better and neglected to vote for the guy who just noticed a few of them here and there when it was politically expedient.
Nope. The whole thing is rigged against Bernie, and that's why the tinfoil hat brigade are going to head to Philly to fight for their hero just as soon as someone donates the money for their plane fare and a hotel room, because "get the money out of politics," am I right? After all, real revolutionaries never pay their own way, they learned that from Bernie! Dare to question the "See You In Philly" crew and they'll scream Bernie Or Beans Bust!
Because anyone who dares to disagree with them is the establishment, Hillary Clinton is evil because, whatever, (just ask the right-wingers who wrote Bernie's hijacked narratives) and if "bust" means giving Donald Trump the nuclear codes, so be it?
Yes, Bernie, where did Donald Trump or anyone else ever get the impression that you hate Hillary Clinton?
"That's All Folks!" No Really, That's All There Is
There are plenty of good reasons why Democrats overwhelmingly want Hillary Clinton as their nominee and President rather than Bernie Sanders, the larger ones being that dreams and fairy dust aren't a substitute for governing. After a year in the race, and a year of people saying exactly this as an answer to Bernie's ongoing platitudes and resistance to reality, it says a lot about Bernie that this is still all he has to offer.
Rolling Stone conducted an interview with Sanders earlier this month and published the Q & A today, which proves that Bernie is still all talk, if there was anyone out there who still hasn't gotten the memo. The entire piece is well worth the read for those mentioned above, but these were the questions, and Bernie's answers that really stood out to me:
[Q.] The question is: Assuming you're president and you're dealing with a Congress that looks like the one we have today...
[Bernie:] Let me just comment on that. If I am elected president, the odds of the Senate remaining Republican would be minimal. You'd have very large turnout helping Democrats up and down the line.
First of all, Bernie's been saying he does better when there's a large turnout, which has been proven to be false, and second, Bernie has done nothing until recently to even give a nod to any other Democrats running down ticket, and even then he's only chosen a select few who support Bernie Sanders. So unless Bernie's saying Democrats would take back the Senate based on his magical powers alone, that's a pretty small handful of supporting Democrats who would also need to posses magical powers.
[Q.] But you'd still likely face Paul Ryan as your negotiating partner. And I'm trying to figure out how you get something like public-college-for-all passed with Paul Ryan as your counterpart. Given that you just said today that they won't play ball.
[Bernie:] To answer that question successfully requires us to think outside of a zero-sum game. You're saying to me, and it's a fair question: "Bernie, if you sit down with Paul Ryan and say, 'Paul, I want a tax on Wall Street speculation to make public colleges and universities tuition-free and to lower student debt,' the likelihood is that Paul won't say, 'Hey, Bernie, why didn't I think of that? Fantastic idea! Let's go forward together.'" So what's the strategy? The strategy – which is unprecedented, and this is where we're talking about thinking outside the box – is to have a president who actually, vigorously goes around the country and rallies the American people, who are in favor of this idea. This is not some sort of fringe idea. The American people want it. And [the president] rallies the American people and makes it clear that people in the Republican Party – or Democratic Party – who are not sympathetic will pay a political price. That changes the dynamics.
Shorter Bernie: Barring reality, turning a Sanders presidency into a continuation of the Sanders campaign with rallies and large crowds would magically move the GOP into submission. Poof! End of the problem and bring on the rainbows!
Let me also point out that this idea of rallying the country around specific issues isn't "unprecedented" as Bernie claims, unless you ignore President Obama, which Bernie often does, and seems to be a requirement in Bernie's circle. President Obama has taken many an issue on the road in his eight years. Sometimes it worked, but sometimes it didn't, specifically because he still had overwhelming opposition and unprecedented GOP obstruction to deal with. Just because a bird landed on Bernie's podium once doesn't mean that things would be any different with Sanders. All Bernie's crowds and rallies haven't even moved Democratic voters, and no act of Congress is needed for a Democratic nomination.
And if you thought to yourself "surely he's come up with substantive plans to back up all those goals he's been promising for a year now on the campaign trail," you lose. We rejoin Bernie's answer above, already in progress::
Everything that I campaign on – they're not fringe ideas. They're not radical ideas. They're ideas that the American people support. What we've got to do now is close the gap that currently exists between the American people over here [gestures to one side of the table], who have needs and goals and desires, and a Congress [gestures to other side], which in almost every instance is ignoring what the American people want.
Now, is it easy to do? No. How do you do it? It's a good question. And the truth is, right now I'm a bit busy running for president to have figured that out...
Sorry folks, but there really is no pony in there somewhere. It's still a unicorn. But Bernie-I'm-A-Bit-Busy-Running-For-President-To-Have-Figured-That-Out-Sanders, who's been in the House and the Senate for 30 years now, says he's the best candidate to beat Donald Trump, as opposed to Hillary Clinton who's managed to come up with some pretty solid plans while running herself? I don't think so. The voters and the math say otherwise.
But Bernie wasn't finished. There were plenty of other questions he had no specific answers to:
[Q.] Your fundraising network gives you a tremendous bargaining chip in an endgame in which you're not the nominee. What kind of promises or concessions might you be looking for from Secretary Clinton for her to start enjoying dividends from those relationships?
[Bernie] It's premature to talk about. And I don't think it works quite like that.
[Q.] How's that?
[Bernie] Right now, I'm running for president, and that's what we have to focus on.
[Q.]You've lit a fire under a young generation of progressives – brought them out in droves to the Democratic Party's primary process. What does the party have to do to keep them there?
[Bernie] That's a good question. Unlike all your other dumb questions.
OK then! And with that, Bernie reverts to his stump speech about crowd size and math that doesn't add up.
Since this interview, Bernie has made several demands for concessions, like trying to get DNC committee picks thrown out because they've criticized him in the past, and he's made platform demands which, oddly enough, don't include his pet priority: Wall Street.
But I guess getting down to specifics really doesn't matter in Bernie World, as long as you talk a good game and draw crowds. It's just what you have in mind for the Presidency if you're in the market for electing an ego.
Bernie Sanders is losing, although he refuses to accept that.
Instead, he campaigns on, in spite of math and reality, and making the argument that he's the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump based on polls conducted six months before the general election when he's barely been touched by negative ads, much less vetting of any kind. And like Trump, he's still hiding his tax returns, save a partial filing from 2014, from voters.
He's pulled every stunt in the book, from pretending he was taking a meeting with the Pope to misleading his supporters to believe the election is rigged against him, that they are the victims of voter suppression in states he loses, and orchestrating meritless lawsuits to interfere with elections in states that he isn't favored to win, at taxpayer's expense, no less. Just this week taxpayers in Kentucky had to foot the bill for his request to recanvass their contest in the hopes of gaining one delegate that wouldn't have made a difference. Hillary Clinton was merely confirmed the winner as a result.
And then there's that whole "let's overthrow the will of the voters by letting the establishment super delegates I used to hate choose me in spite of the three million voters who prefer Hillary Clinton" argument he's making.
Bernie's latest stunt was to challenge Donald Trump to a debate, something never heard of before in an election where a candidate who has no chance to win the nomination proposes a debate with the presumed nominee of the other party. Because Bernie is bleeding funds, many saw this as an attempt to gain free media attention.
It backfired.
And here's the kicker. Everyone saw this coming, except Bernie Sanders, the guy who's trying to make the case that he's the only one who can beat Trump. He got played for a fool in his first attempt to go after Trump and he seems to be the only person on the planet who seemed to believe the debate would actually happen.
Brilliant.
Trump put Bernie on a short leash and let him run with the idea for a couple days and then gave that leash a nice hard yank this afternoon with this:
Not only did Trump play Bernie for a fool, he also did what many predicted would happen, he used the entire thing against Hillary Clinton and the Democrats while making a play for Bernie voters with Bernie's own false narrative about rigged elections, dinging Sanders one more time on the way out by pointing out the ridiculous notion of one presumptive nominee debating the loser from the other party.
Well done Bernie, you certainly showed him!
And because Bernie never knows when to quit, he's not about to let the dream go, because fundraising opportunities and free media attention:
Anyone paying attention could recite that last paragraph in their sleep because they've heard Bernie say it ad nauseam for months now. However, repeating it doesn't make it true, and Bernie's debate stunt only gave us another way to prove it isn't. He hasn't faced scrutiny for much of anything in his past yet, and there's a treasure trove the Republicans would salivate over, I might add. He's also basing it on polls that have yet taken into account that Bernie's first test against Trump failed miserably and Bernie never saw it coming. Worse, he's only enabling Trump, and as evidenced above, he's not finished doing so.
Bernie's not equipped to grasp reality any more than Trump is and he's certainly proved that again today.
Bernie Sanders' downward spiral is getting uglier every day. Aside from pushing to overturn the will of the voters and trying to jump on the Trump train clown show by pushing for a debate with him even though he's losing against Hillary Clinton, his comic book aficionado turned campaign manager certainly isn't doing him any favors.
Here's what rumored kin to Karl Rove Jeff Weaver is up to now:
According to Bernie Sanders' campaign manager, the Democratic National Committee needs a leader who is willing to unify, one who is willing to bridge divisions and bring people from different parts of the party together. Someone, Weaver suggested Thursday, like Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.
Yes, that's the same Reince Priebus who's famous for losing elections by a landslide. Weaver is, of course, using this to get in another dig at Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the DNC, who Bernie's has long claimed was "rigging the election for Hillary Clinton," which means Weaver's latest argument makes that much less sense. Here is a bit of Weaver's latest "logic:"
What Wasserman Schultz did is "really not the role a party chair should traditionally play," he continued. "I mean, if you look at the Republican side, the party chair there has been working day and night to try and you know, keep everybody together and to try unify the party."
"And I think we need a similar effort on the Democratic side," he said.
This is just kind of ridiculous. First of all, the role of both the RNC and the DNC is to remain neutral during the primaries. I'm no big fan of Wasserman Schultz, and there are plenty of reasons to complain about her leadership tactics, but I haven't seen any evidence to back up the notion that she's rigged the game for Clinton. Sure, you can complain about the number of debates and the scheduling, but if she were going to rig the election, why let someone who isn't even a member of the Democratic Party run as one while using the party infrastructure and funds in the first place, while remaining neutral?
Further, Weaver is praising Priebus, the guy who bent over backwards trying to make sure Trump wouldn't become the nominee while pretending to remain neutral. You know, nearly the exact thing Weaver's accusing Wasserman Schultz of doing to Bernie.
As for unity, Weaver is in front of the television cameras almost daily now trying to fan the flames and start fires every time any Democrat even hints at unity. For instance:
Jeff Weaver told MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" that she [Wasserman Schultz] "really escalated the situation."
Weaver dismissed the notion that there are back-channel conversations about replacing her as chairwoman but remarked that, "I think unity in the party is much easier to achieve if we have consensus and a chair who was committed to playing the traditional role that the chairs of parties play."
Weaver would have us believe he's a fly on the wall to all things DNC, and thus can assure us there is no talk of removing her, but he just knows she's "throwing gasoline" on the fire that came out of Nevada where Sanders supporters threatened Democrats because Hillary won there fair and square, buy hey, all Weaver wants to say is "can't we all just get along?"
Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said Tuesday he doesn’t think Barbara Boxer is telling the whole truth on what went down in Nevada.
“I don't want to see Sen. Barbara Boxer walking off the stage claiming she's in fear of her life while she's contemptuously blowing kisses at Sanders supporters,” Weaver said to Berman.
Yes, nothing will unify the party more than accusing Sen. Barbara Boxer of being a liar, but it sure will play into the "rigged election" narrative if Bernie loses in her home state of California in their upcoming primary.
After Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) campaign manager questioned Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) account of feeling threatened by voters in Nevada, claiming she “blew kisses” at angry Sanders supporters, Boxer said Wednesday she was trying to de-escalate a tense situation.
"I just tried to defuse it every way I could," Boxer said in an interview on CNN. “I was heading to the exit and they were following me with more of these vile comments. I used a sense of humor and I blew them kisses.”
“I don’t know why Mr. Weaver, whom I don’t know, wants to pick a fight with me,” Boxer said.
She went on to say: “Let me be clear, I did not defuse the situation. So where are we now? Why are we looking back, I say to Mr. Weaver. We need to be working to win this election to unify, not go back and pick fights with one another and I'm not picking a fight with him. He wasn't there."
There are videos that show Boxer leaving the stage while blowing those kisses, and those she's blowing them to, as she's escorted from the stage for her protection, are Bernie supporters who are ranting, screaming, and completely out of control. But don't believe your lying eyes and ears, says Weaver. He's too busy praising the kind of unity only the Republicans can brag about.
Invoking Gun Violence "Revolution" Imagery Prior To Connecticut/Sandy Hook Primary?
It's hard to remember these days that Bernie Sanders once vowed to run an "issues only" campaign and vowed he had "never run a negative campaign before" and he wasn't going to start now.
His supporters have long been attacking anyone who disagrees with him or them, and many have threatened Hillary Clinton supporters, myself included. It's long forgotten that his campaign once made a weak statement on Twitter that he preferred civility from his supporters rather than vitriol.
My how times have changed.
Losing has proved to push his campaign to ugly desperation, and his surrogates, and Bernie himself have now lowered themselves to the ugly Twitter troll behavior they once claimed to dislike.
Bernie has said in the past that his surrogates don't necessarily share the same views he does, (one has to wonder just what his definition of a campaign surrogate is, at this point) and yet time after time as they share their increasingly vitriolic views, Bernie turns a blind eye while they continue their ugly attacks on Hillary Clinton and anyone who supports her.
Who can forget Bernie surrogate Susan Sarandon implying that women who vote for Hillary are too stupid to vote with their brains and vote with their lady parts instead?
Then there was Sanders surrogate Tim Robbins who insulted South Carolina and Guam voters, saying that a Hillary Clinton victory in South Carolina would be "about as significant" as winning Guam.
Of course, Robbins was only echoing the Bernie campaign's now standard talking point that losing southern states is understandable because the South "doesn't count."
Then there was surrogate Rosario Dawson who's been making a point to erase President Obama's achievements at the same time she attacks Hillary Clinton on Bernie's behalf. Her latest comments went the extra right-wing mile when she managed to squeeze in a mention of Monica Lewinsky.
Those are just a few of the attacks by Sanders surrogates leading up to the one above by "progressive" radio host Thom Hartmann, who Tweeted an image of Bernie Sanders with an assault weapon prior to the Connecticut primary, the state where an assault weapon was used to gun down 20 6-and-7-year-old children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School nearly four years ago. The same victims whose families are now suing gun manufacturers, something that Sanders voted against, along with all his other pro-NRA gun votes.
It's pretty hard to imagine that any more of the coming attacks will be more repulsive than Hartmann's, but given the history of the downward spiral of the Sanders campaign, I hesitate to predict they won't be.
After all, Bernie is losing, and he's losing ugly. He's gone from campaigning on the issues to basically orchestrating a months-long personal attack on Hillary Clinton, period, just because he is losing, and since he began his attacks, they've only hurt him more. He and the people running his campaign have blamed everyone but themselves for the results at the polls. They've blamed Clinton, the Democratic Party and the voters. They've blamed losing on race, age, gender, geography and now even income level.
Yes. Yesterday Bernie actually blamed his lack of votes on "poor people" because "poor people don't vote." Even if that were true, and it's not, what does that say about Bernie, who's message is supposed to be largely about income inequality? I'd venture to say he's not very good at his core message if he can't even inspire those he claims to be fighting for, nor figure out a way to direct them to the polls. Instead, he's chosen to insult them.
This "poor people don't vote" excuse makes about as much sense as Bernie's plans to "take on Wall Street."
Perhaps that was part of Thom Hartmann's reasoning for trying to make Bernie look tough against "the banksters" on Wall Street with his shameless imagery above.
On Sunday George Clooney appeared on Meet The Press to respond to the reaction of the Bernie Sanders' campaign and those of his supporters to the fundraisers he held for Hillary Clinton in California over the weekend.
The Sanders campaign and his supporters have made it a point to attack both Clinton and Clooney over the events, using the now standard vitriol against Clinton, as well as branding Clooney a "corporate shill." What Sanders refuses to acknowledge is that the fundraisers are largely held to raise money for down ticket Dems in Congress and state party candidates, the support of which Sanders would need to get his policies passed if her were to become President. His supporters parrot his talking points and Bernie has done nothing to discourage the misinformation.
Yesterday Sanders released yet a second fundraising email using Clooney's MTP interview.
In the interview, Clooney had this partial response to Chuck Todd's question about the fundraisers:
Yes. I think it's an obscene amount of money. I think that, you know, we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and they're right to protest. They're absolutely right. It is an obscene amount of money. The Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right. It's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree completely.
But, you know, I think what's important and what I think the Clinton campaign has not been very good at explaining is this and this is the truth: the overwhelming amount of money that we're raising, and it is a lot, but the overwhelming amount of the money that we're raising, is not going to Hillary to run for President, it's going to the down-ticket.
It's going to the congressmen and senators to try to take back Congress. And the reason that's important and the reason it's important to me is because we need, I'm a Democrat so if you're a Republican, you're going to disagree but we need to take the senate back because we need to confirm the Supreme Court justice because that fifth vote on the Supreme Court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again. And that's why I'm doing it.
The Sanders campaign is now seeking to raise funds off Clooney's statement, but once again, they are refusing to acknowledge that the money raised was for down ticket Democrats, a necessity in a fight against Citizens United, as stated above by Clooney, and something that many have been saying all along, myself included. Until we elect enough Democrats to take Congress back, Citizens United isn't going away. You can't take back control from the Republicans by throwing pots at them. The reality right now is you have to fight back with money, something the GOP is never short of.
This is the only part of Clooney's statement Bernie quoted in his latest campaign fundraising email to supporters:
"It is an obscene amount of money, the Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right. It’s ridiculous that we have this kind of money in politics." - George Clooney
Once again Bernie fails to set the record straight, and worse, he continues to mislead his supporters in order to get them to send him money, not to mention the fact that while Clinton has raised millions for other Democrats, Bernie refuses to do the same, even though he takes money from the party himself all the time, and yes, he's taken plenty from Hillary's PAC in the past.
It's a common refrain of Bernie's to demand Hillary Clinton release the transcript of speeches she gave as a private citizen. So the question to Bernie, if he's going to be the "honest and trustworthy" candidate as he claims to be, why not release the transcript of the George Clooney MTP interview to his supporters while asking him them for money?
Wednesday night Bernie Sanders was interviewed by Rachel Maddow, and she asked him a couple of tough questions he didn't like. One was about his campaign's new strategy to go on a super delegate grab even though Hillary Clinton is way ahead of him, and the other concerned his lack of fundraising for down ticket Democrats.
Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign has signed a joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee, the DNC confirmed to POLITICO.
The move, which comes more than two months after Hillary Clinton's campaign signed such an agreement in August, will allow Sanders' team to raise up to $33,400 for the committee as well as $2,700 for the campaign from individual donors at events.
The candidate rarely headlines fundraising events, and is not close with many big-money Democratic donors, but he has been working to prove his proximity to the party in recent months as he competes with Clinton.
The Vermont senator, who is an Independent but caucuses with Senate Democrats, also recently lent his name to a fundraising letter for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to a campaign adviser, in another indication of his slowly growing ties to the party's infrastructure.
While Bernie has certainly benefitted from his "proximity to the party" and his "ties to the party's infrastructure," so far he hasn't reciprocated on the fundraising part of that agreement. While he's bragged of the millions he's raised, he hasn't lifted a finger to help other Democrats, nor has he given them a dime.
"Right now, our job is to, what I'm trying to do is win the Democratic nomination," Sanders said.
He said he is "blown away" by his campaign's small-dollar fundraising.
"Without that type of support, we would not be where we are right now," he said.
Host Rachel Maddow said rival Hillary Clinton has been fundraising for her campaign as well as the Democratic Party. Will the Sanders campaign begin this type of fundraising as well, Maddow asked.
"We'll see," Sanders said. "Right now, our focus is on winning the nomination."
"We'll see."
When might that be? After all, there are still seven months before the general election, and so far, despite the fact that he's losing, Bernie has vowed to stay in the race. But even if he weren't losing, Sanders would need the help of every Democrat in Congress we can get if he had any hopes of making any of his grandiose campaign promises a reality. Yet he's done little towards that goal. Instead, he's benefitting from the "Democratic" label to run behind while suing the party after his own campaign stole data from Hillary Clinton's campaign, complaining about the party's debate schedule, made claims that the party has "rigged the system" against him via those same super delegates he now demands support him instead, and yes, raking Clinton and the party over the coals for their big "establishment" fundraisers. All while using these narratives to raise money for his own campaign.
He has especially focused on the "evil establishment fundraiser" bit to raise money for himself. Here he was doing it just days ago at a campaign rally in Wisconsin:
So from his point of view, fundraising for the Democratic Party would put a real dent in his messaging against the party in general, and against Clinton in particular, not to mention it might put a dent in his own fundraising. After all, that's part of his shtick at reeling in those "small donors" to his campaign. He asks for more and more money to "fight the establishment," while chastising the same establishment for their fundraising with millionaires and billionaires. Here he was doing just that again this past Sunday:
Bernie Sanders slammed Hillary Clinton on Sunday for holding a pricey fundraiser hosted by George Clooney and the actor's wife, Amal.
“It is obscene that Secretary Clinton keeps going to big money people to fund her campaign,” Sanders said on CNN's "State of the Union."
This is a Clinton fundraiser that will also raise money for down ticket Democrats whose help he needs. But Bernie tells his supporters this is obscene, and please send ME more money right now!
Few will argue, absent the Republicans, that there is too much money in politics. Both Clinton and Sanders say so, and both have vowed to work to change that. But the reality is, until that happens, Citizens United isn't going away. As much as I or anyone else hates the issue, no one can get elected today without lots of money. To fight the Republicans, we need every Democrat we can get, and we can't put them into office without it, and you can't get it without fundraisers, the ones Sanders is telling his supporters are "obscene." All while telling "hard working families struggling to put food on the table" to send more of their hard earned cash his way. Because that isn't "obscene?"
These are things Sanders doesn't mention to his supporters, and many are somewhat new to politics who may not be aware of them. Better to keep it that way, otherwise they might not keep donating to his campaign, which the math proves has virtually no path to the nomination. Still, Sanders keeps fueling the belief that he can win, which brings in more donations for him, to finance another rally in a big, expensive venue, another chartered flight, and more fundraising emails to keep the cycle going. All while ignoring that his "one man revolution" can't go anywhere alone.
But Sanders says "we'll see" about honoring that Democratic fundraising agreement. "We'll see," maybe some day.
Right now Bernie Sanders' only focus is on Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders' entire campaign revolves around going after big banks, financial institutions, millionaires and billionaires. So you would think that an endorsement from Alan Grayson, who is undergoing an ethics investigation for possibly violating hedge fund rules, would be an unwelcome addition for his campaign, but you would be wrong.
At issue: Grayson’s name was on three hedge funds and a management company that oversaw them.
House ethics rules prohibit a sitting member of Congress from using his name on financial vehicles to prevent members from using their elected offices for financial gain. Grayson has said this rule does not apply to him because he had no “fiduciary responsibility” over the funds. Experts, however, dispute his claim.
Grayson, who started the funds in 2011 before he was re-elected to Congress in 2012, struck his name from the funds after he was hit with the ethics complaints.
The hedge fund manager boasted that he had traveled to “every country” in the world, studying overseas stock markets as he fine-tuned an investment strategy to capitalize on global companies’ suffering because of economic or political turmoil.
Said hedge fund manager would indeed be Alan Grayson. But there's more:
But the fund manager had an even more distinctive credential to showcase in his marketing material in June 2013: He was a “U.S. congressman,” Representative Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Now he is also among the leading Democratic candidates for one of Florida’s United States Senate seats.]
[Interviews and the documents show that Mr. Grayson told potential investors in his hedge fund that they should contribute money to the fund to capitalize on the unrest he observed around the world, and to take particular advantage when there was “blood in the streets.”
Capitalize from the unrest of others where there is "blood in the streets."
I don't recall hearing calls for that from Bernie Sanders. In fact, Sanders' campaign professes to be all about "the little guy" standing up to the big banks, and the "big guys" like Grayson, who would profit to the detriment of others.
This is absolutely utter hypocrisy coming from Bernie Sanders. It certainly isn't the first time for that, and undoubtably won't be the last.
But accepting this endorsement while ignoring Grayson's investigation, not to mention his views of profiting from "blood in the streets," would disqualify candidate Bernie in the eyes of the "purist" Bernie Sanders.
