UPDATE 2: Buckle Up, Kids, You Ain’t Going to Like this Ride
UPDATED FOR COMMENTS ABOUT BERNIE NOT BEING A DEMOCRAT:
Note: My usual warning…If you are a strong Hillary supporter, and believe her political loss in 2016 was purely the result of misogynist pigs denying her her birthright, please, please, please DON’T read this. You will hate it, guaranteed. However, if you want a little inconvenient truth, buckle up. This one is a bumpy ride, but there is something to learn here…
Remember how all you Hillary supporters dismissed everyone who criticized her during the 2016 election? Remember the way you unfriended people like me on social media and labeled us misogynist pigs who were being too hard on her? Remember insulting Bernie supporters and libeling him at every opportunity? Well, I do, and I have something to say about that and more.
Yesterday, Donna Brazile, who is a really good person, above board, honest, and a loyal Democrat published an excerpt from her new book, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House. The excerpt described what she discovered when she took over the DNC after Debbie Wasserman Schultz was ousted during the Democratic Convention in the summer of 2016. Her revelations about the state of the DNC is nothing short of shocking, but even worse, virtually all of the fears anti-Hillary folks had about how the nomination process was run were well founded. Hillary and her operatives HAD taken over the DNC and then proceeded to destroy every reform that had been implemented by Howard Dean and President Obama.
After Brazile took over the party, she first discovered that it had been deep in debt since the 2012 election and had been starved for cash since. Worse, in September, she found the smoking gun. She unearthed a document known as the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America. The document, negotiated between Robby Mook, Hillary’s campaign manager and the DNC, handed FULL CONTROL of the DNC over to Hillary’s campaign office in August of 2015. You read that correctly. Hillary took full control of the DNC FIVE MONTHS before the primaries even started. The DNC could do nothing without Hillary’s approval, including fund raising, staff hiring decisions, even press releases.
And file this under It Gets Even Worse; the money laundering charge that was asserted by Politico in May of 2016 was true. We’ll let Brazile describe it herself –
“Individuals who had maxed out their $2,700 contribution limit to the campaign could write an additional check for $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund—that figure represented $10,000 to each of the 32 states’ parties who were part of the Victory Fund agreement—$320,000—and $33,400 to the DNC. The money would be deposited in the states first, and transferred to the DNC shortly after that. Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn.”
Money from the lavish fundraisers Hillary was holding all over the country for the DNC was actually laundered from the states, then to the DNC, and then to her own campaign coffers. The state parties got less than ONE HALF OF ONE PERCENT. So all you suckers donating in Texas to rebuild the party were actually backdoor funding Hillary’s campaign. The party sucked wind. As Brazile describes this shameful scheme, the operation wasn’t illegal, but it was certainly unethical.
So let’s recap. The charge that Hillary controlled the party during the primaries is true. She controlled the DNC from the summer of 2015, controlling the primaries, party strategy, fund raising, management, and all other aspects of the DNC’s operation. Her people ran it, including the moron who ignored the FBI’s warning that the DNC’s email system was compromised. The board of the DNC was sidelined. The primaries WERE RIGGED. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was nothing more than a tool for Hillary’s campaign, since she was installed to get Hillary elected. The entire DNC effort from 2015 on had one goal – getting Hillary elected.
This shameful corruption does more damage than even Brazile described; it not only “compromised the party’s integrity” as she said, this documented and incontrovertible evidence of corruption plays directly into the stereotype of the Clintons running right on the edge of ethics and even legality. While Hillary spoke loudly about campaign finance reform, blah, blah, blah, she was doing exactly, no, precisely the opposite.
You wanna know what really pisses me off? These revelations of Hillary’s behavior adds fuel to the “lock her up” fire. It’s going from a bonfire to a 10,000 acre blaze that’s going to rage for months. Trump is already playing with the matches, tweet raging this morning that the FBI should investigate her criminality. Here we go.
Hey, Hillary folks – hate Trump? Well, goddamit, go buy a mirror. Hang it on the wall, and then look into it for a long time. Thanks. For nothing.
UPDATE: Let’s summarize comments from our hardcore Hillary supporters:
- Nothing to see here. Move along.
- So? Doesn’t everybody do it?
- She won by 3 million votes!
- It wasn’t criminal, so it’s OK.
- Bernie’s not a Democrat and wouldn’t have won anyway.
- El Jefe is an asshole.
- Brazile is a LIAR!
- Nuh Uh!
First, I didn’t believe Bernie would win the general, but I voted for him in the Texas primary. What’s more important, and most Clintonistas IGNORE, is that the wall of money Hillary had erected scared off really good candidates like Joe Biden. No one can deny that if Biden had run he would have decisively won.
Second, I’m always amazed at the prevarication and excuses from Hillary supporters. Since when is corruption OK? Trump and other Republicans are excoriated for this kind of conduct. When it’s a Clinton, its like, “What? That’s a problem?” I personally find it shocking the lengths Clintonistas reach defending her Highness, no matter the scale of the offense.
I personally witnessed the lengths that Howard Dean went to in 2006 and 2008 to make it clear that the DNC supported ALL candidates and was diligently neutral in partisan races. He steadfastly defended neutrality and honesty. Hillary poured kerosene all over those principles and struck the match herself. Those who dismiss this kind of conduct are nothing short of radical hypocrites, and are no better than the hypocrites on the other side.
So there.
UPDATE 2: Lets talk about Bernie not being a Democrat.
This is the stupidest argument forwarded by Clintonistas. “Bernie’s not a Democrat!” “He should have run on his own!” “He should have not been allowed to run!” And other BS. OK, let’s settle this – BERNIE RAN UNDER THE RULES OF THE DNC. HE QUALIFIED UNDER THE RULES OF THE DNC. Period, end of story. YOU may not like it, but he ran under the rules and qualified for the primaries. He had EVERY RIGHT to run, even though YOU want to deny him that right. The laws of the United States are stacked against independent runs. It’s virtually impossible for an independent to qualify in all 50 states. The state governments even pay for the major party primaries. An independent run is virtually impossible to pull off. You may hate him, but Bernie ran under the only rules that allowed him to run, AND HE QUALIFIED. Don’t like that? Then get all 50 states to make it easier for independent runs. Until then, get over yourself and stop making stupid, irrelevant arguments.
Damn! Here I am first in line, and can’t think of a damn thing to day……….Shocked, I tell you, shocked.
1I was a Bernie supporter. I held my nose and voted for Hillary in the Nov. election. The other choice was worse.
2For over 20 years Hillary had worked with many (I don’t know the exact number but a lot of them) Democratic party members to help them raise money for their own campaigns and interests. To the extent they were successful in politics they owed a big chunk of it to her and to WJC.
Many ended up as delegates and super delegates.
Now on primary night they are all supposed to dump her and go for Bernie on ideological issues on a platform, admittedly noble to some of us, but still of dubious viability. For a candidate that never helped them with anything. Against a candidate that got more non super-delegate votes. Now THAT would be a fix.
Sorry. That’s just not how it works. I know it, Hillary knew it, Donna knew it and El Jefe should know it if he is going to pop off with opinions like this. Maybe he is in denial I don’t know.
And she won. For all her mistakes and lousy speeches and whatever else you can criticize she was 6 points ahead up until the point that Comey torpedoed her. 6 points is a blow-out election not a maybe. After his letter her lead had eroded down to 3 points and that put it into the range of electoral college magic.
And Bernie would have won. Riiiiight. You think single-payer and gun control and LGBT rights and all that would have won those critical Fox-News-saturated states that thought Obamacare was a disastrous attempt at socialism.
Now I agree with you that Donna is a nice person and I don’t like how the DNC money is spent and there is a lot to fix there. But Hillary didn’t do it all herself. Where was Donna durning all of this perfidy for five months? I don’t know enough to get into it but I can tell you this: like everyone else like Fox News to 538 she thought Hillary was going to win. She didn’t resign. She didn’t make a lot of noise. Short of them taking her to the basement and gagging her she presided over all of this and was as complicit as HRC herself.
Now, however, it is safe to point fingers.
Victory has a thousand parents. She thought she was going to have them. Defeat is an orphan.
Let’s see the rebuttal to this explosive expose before deciding. Like Whitewater I will bet it turns out to be nothing like what El Jefe is assuming it is here.
P.S. I would have loved to have Bernie as president.
3So now we know. Hillary isn’t going to jail for any of this. She is also not going to be running for office again. It’s up to Perez and Ellison and the rest of the DNC to fix this mess and I sure hope they are working on it. I just don’t see the point in publicly rehashing the last election. Donna Brazile may well be the wonderful person you and JJ think she is; but, she also has a book to sell. All this controversy is helping on that score.
In the meantime, the election schedule is proceeding as usual and there is a gubernatorial election in Virginia–which seems to be going South because of atrocious, lying ads by the Rethug candidate. Virginians seem to be apathetic about the whole thing and hate all the ads. Well, I have to see all those ads, too, and can’t even vote in that election.
Let’s not forget the special Senate election in Aladamnbama. I can’t believe even they would elect a certifiable nincompoop like Roy Moore, but they did elect the Orange Moron. So there’s that.
4I read this from Charlie Pierce after having posted the above. As usual, he is spot on:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13148225/donna-brazile-dnc/
5No, no, no and no.
Noting described i the excerpt of Brazille’s book is a crime. The internal operating procedures of the national committees are not governed by statute. They can and do, distribute funds the way the leadership wants. Bernie’s campaign had the same agreement, but chose not to raise funds for state parties. To suggest criminality where none exists is completely irresponsible and suggests a lack of understanding which makes me take your other thesis less seriously.
Your second point that the primaries were rigged is just downright loony. First, you don’t support it with any evidence other than that Hillary had influence in the party. Of course she did – she’s been in the thick of things for years with the Democratic Party. Bernie, on the other hand, only became a Democrat for the purpose of running for president and immediately dropped his affiliation with the party after the election (which everyone knew he would do). To suggest that the DNC should treat him as an equal to an actual Democrat shows little understanding of party politics. Finally, there is nothing – NOTHING! – that shows the party interfered in any way with the voting process. The voters were free to buy into Bernie’s message and they didn’t. Hillary beat Bernie significantly in the primaries and beat Trump by 3 million votes in the general. If you are going to allege such slanderous things, show me some proof, not just some hot-headed allegations completely unsupported by fact or reason.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to enjoy the Friday Toons.
6Too many politicians think that the ends justifies anything. But the real culprit is too damn much money in politics. Remove that and major problems disappear. Smart politicians know how to game the system. Hillary is very smart. Wise, not so much. Many mistakes especially as far as Sanders and his supporters concerned. Bernie couldn’t win, but marginalizing his supporters was not smart. No one I know thought Hillary was anything other than a smart, very intelligent in fact, very tough politician. She was blamed for things the Republican Congress did and handled their interminable witch hunts well. But she’s not a saint. She plays for keeps. As said, Donna has a book to sell and she’s hard at pushing it. But what does all this prove but the corrupting influence of too much money. Hillary would have made a good president. If she were, our country wouldn’t be a laughingstock, led by a demented ignorant of just about everything but how to use Twitter dotard. The Democratic Party needs total regrouping and NOW.
7Now all we need is some PROOF that what she says is true. One big problem I had with Bernie and Trump supporters in 2016 is that BOTH treated ALLEGATION exactly the same as PROOF. El Jefe routinely has the same problem.
Where are these documents?
8Calm down. Like 865Dem says: Bernie Sanders was never a Democrat, and still isn’t one today, and has never raised money for Democrats. He was nothing but an opportunist and yet we, the Democrats, let him horn in on our primaries and become the spoiler. THAT’s the real crime.
9El Jefe, sounds like you’re going to really enjoy Brazile’s book. I bet if you put some effort into it, you’ll enjoy it half as much as trump does. Perhaps we Democrats have been given the president we deserve. Maybe that’s the one thing you and I can agree on, at the moment.
10As your opening sentence is dishonest, you’re darn tooting that I’m not reading your latest screed. Juanita Jean’s article, in contrast, was fair and useful. You could learn a lot from her, if you tried.
11Jeez. You’re acting as if the way party front-runners tend to handle things in most elections and in many parties is a revelation. Candidates get frozen out. Money is directed to the fair-haired boy or girl. People get screwed by the national organizations. Whiners whine and blamers blame. So what else is new?
12The interesting fact which floated to the surface is that the Democratic Party was almost bankrupt after supporting Obama’s second election. Given that situation, the DNC, was lucky to get Hillary’s financial support. She actually set about to raise the money and Bernie didn’t. There was a signed agreement which allowed the major money raiser to call the shots in the general election. Bernie is a great guy, but did not contribute to the financial stability of the Dem Party, which was absolutely necessary. The fact that Bernie’s supporters are still wasting time and energy blaming Hillary does not bode well in the coming war against Trump.
13Going into the election, I was not a Clinton supporter and hoped a better candidate would step up to the plate. Unfortunately, no better candidate appeared. Sanders was a more flawed candidate than Clinton and he would have done worse in the national election. I didn’t mind voting for Clinton (albeit holding my nose) in the national, even though it couldn’t help her electoral vote. I would have voted for the write-in candidate if Sanders had been the candidate.
14what msb said. i already knew all this, didn’t need to get yelled at by an obnoxious boor. i come here for the humor. you sure you are posting in the right place?
full disclosure: i still have BOTH bernie and hillary stickers on my car. an o’malley sticker was there first, but it was cheap and fell off. (seriously.)
15This piece confirms what I have always thought to be true; Hillary–as qualified and as capable as she is–carries too much baggage to have united the Party or the country.
It is NOT baggage she earned, but baggage bestowed or inherited. Bestowed by 18+ years of right-wing sliming, or inherited from her husband’s baggage pile. The load was always going to be too much.
16And Perez? Please don’t make the mistake of assuming he will act any different than DWS.
17Thanks for the info El Jefe!
Still trying to figure this crap out.
Watch first clip, Keith explains a little about DNC then gets attacked by white entitlement Meghan McCain, all while playing the patriot VICTIM card. Hint, common ground is love, tolerance, compassion,respect and understanding, Something Trump and your ilk try endlessly to destroy.
“ATCH: Keith Olbermann and Meghan McCain battle over Trump being more damaging to US than bin Laden”
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/watch-keith-olbermann-and-meghan-mccain-battle-over-trump-being-more-damaging-to-us-than-bin-laden/
“Donna Brazile Needs to Back Up Her Self-Serving Claims”
18http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/donna-brazile-needs-to-back-up-her-self-serving-claims
In the past few years my biggest influence in voting for Hillary was Trey Gowdy. My God! How that man liked beating up on women! So I stuck it to him by voting for the woman he hates the most. Now the Libyans have come up with two guys who are directly responsible for the attack on the consulate and the loss of life. At least one of them will probably be extradited to this country. Haven’t heard one damn peep out of Gowdy about this. As far as I am concerned, that speaks volumes!
19A neutral point of view; http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/donna-brazile-needs-to-back-up-her-self-serving-claims
Josh Marshall does it right.
20I agree with 865dem and the others. Bernie never was a Democrat and never will be, but he glommed onto the party when it was convenient for him to do so. And I really take umbrage at all the accusations of a “rigged” election. A rigged election to me is where the outcome has been tampered with after the vote has occurred so that the real winner becomes the loser. No votes were changed after the fact here to favor Hillary over Bernie. I know Hillary haters would like to think she has the power to do that, along with murdering Vince Foster and being responsible for Benghaaaazi, but…sorry, no.
21I don’t know why Ms. Brazile picked the eve of an upcoming election to re-litigate this. Oh, right, to sell her book, maybe. Fair enough, but we have other things to worry about.
Yes, Clinton had a home-field advantage. Yes, she’s politician to her bones and took full advantage. Yes, it wasn’t “fair” to the upstart socialist.
But she won the popular vote in the primaries. She won the popular vote in the general election. Are you advocating for a primary EC, or just bitching because your purer candidate lost?
22It’s courageous of you to post this rundown of Clinton’s strategy. While Sanders was building a large and broad based populist coalition, she was playing hardball machine politics, especially within the beltway. I think a lot of her most ardent fans don’t want to admit it but she did damage the party as a whole to nail down the nomination. Would she have made a decent prsident? Of course she would have. Unfortunately, she’s left us with a party more determined than ever to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in upcoming elections. Business as usual just isn’t a very good selling point these days.
23I’d have happily and enthusiastically voted for Joe Biden.
24Joe Biden didn’t run because he was in extreme mourning after the death of his son. I believed him at the time, and I believe him now. Too bad, but his time has passed.
Had he decided to run, he would have had no problem raising the funds. Until the Supremes decided that money is NOT speech, we will have to deal with this corrupt system.
25Rather interesting comments. IMO, what makes the Clinton defenders any different than the repub defenders; ie, ‘my party, right or wrong’? And the Bernie bashers – if he ran as a socialist democrat, he’d never made it to first the same as all 3d party attempts. Where’s the comparison of record between Clinton and Bernie? Who has the least baggage over their careers? Who has made the most money outside of public office salaries?
26I don’t give a damn about party labels. I do care about words, actions and the background history. Until the dem party gets back to Dean’s approach of openness and fairness (which degenerated under Obama), they’ll keep being one of the more successful failures. So, until then, break out the poxes!
BarbinDC –
You’re right about Charlie Pierce’s column. Especially the last paragraph, which feels disturbingly like an epitaph.
And Annabelle Lee, I share your dismay at the timing of Brazile’s disclosure. What, she couldn’t wait another week?
My other comments are on JJ’s post.
Just one observation. The GOP keeps beating us. Why? Their candidates aren’t any better. God knows, their ideas are worse. Part of the answer is that that they’re willing to steal, cheat, lie, and bend or break the law: anything to ensure victory. And we shouldn’t stoop to that. We shouldn’t become what we despise.
But they do one other thing. Once the choice is made, they hold their noses, swallow their bile, and support their candidate. Against all comers, and publicly presenting a united front, despite their private misgivings. Some of us, OTOH, tend to parade around in public, wearing our hair shirts and bemoaning our fate.
So, am I happy to learn of this? Obviously not. Of all the things that Hillary’s been accused of, this has the ring of truth. And I don’t like it. But she did nothing illegal; just unsavory. And nothing comparable to the cesspool of deception, corruption, compromise, and outright crime on the GOP side.
So, I’m going with moral relativism on this one. Not entirely comfortable, but I can live with it.
27It is time to start over, and let the lessons of the past be our guide.
Or something…
I voted for Bernie, in MA, and still believe HRC may be the best qualified person to run for POTUS in my memory. She was just the worst candidate^, even losing to a cheeto tinted fascist.
Debbie W-S, however, was as inept as she was gutless. And she didn’t take security seriously enough to catch her IT thief. There must be modern professionals, somewhere (even if we have to “grow” them).
^ The vast rightwing conspiracy coated HRC with 30 years of tar, and yet nobody could find a better candidate?
28I wish Sec.Clinton had been more successful and that Sen.Sanders had been told up front, ” … You’re not a Democrat aand thernd have never been one. Run on your own dime, not loyal party money.” Donna may have a point, but Sanders never belonged in Demo primaries.
29Yeah, I’ll go with #5 and #6. Do you think by listing off the problems we might have with this, you negate them? No, you don’t. Bernie does not get to waltz into the Democratic party and expect full access to the war chest, generated in no small part by the Clintons, then leave again. Hang up a mirror? No, we’re done here.
30I am shocked, shocked I tell you that politics was going on in a political party! And the Democrats were supporting the actual Democrat! I love you Jefe, but it’s past time for Berniebots to get over themselves.
31Jonathan Hubbert: If the Democrats had excluded Bernie, he would have been on the general election ballot. Explain how that works to elect Hillary to this unapologetic Nader supporter. I voted Hillary.
32As for why Biden didn’t run, here’s what he had to say in a recent interview with David Kamp in Vanity Fair magazine where he spoke of his son’s death and being ambivalent about running for president:
“Biden spent the summer of 2015 in a peculiar state of simultaneously grieving and mulling a late entry into the presidential race. This emotional high-wire act reached its climax on September 10 of that year, when he appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and laid bare his ambivalence, telling Colbert, “I don’t think any man or woman should run for president unless, number one, they know exactly why they would want to be president, and, two, they can look at the folks out there and say, ‘I promise you, you have my whole heart, my whole soul, my energy, and my passion to do this.’ And I’d be lying if I said that I knew that I was there.”
All that said, a few weeks after his Late Show appearance, in October, standing in the White House Rose Garden flanked by his wife and President Obama, Biden announced that he would not be running. “I realized that I just wasn’t ready,” he told me. For one thing, he was not so naïve as to believe that he would be treated with kid gloves just because he had recently buried his son. “It was clear that there was a lot of negative research being done on me, coming from my own party,” he said, citing reports that the pro-Clinton political operative David Brock was gathering oppo materials on him.
“The other thing,” Biden said, shifting to the grieving process, “is that the second year is harder than the first. That’s a fact. Anybody I know who’s gone through serious tragedy, the first year, there are so many people around you, propping you up. But after a year, your family, your close friends—I mean, it’s normal, they’ve got to get back to their lives. But then the reality of it sets in, in a profound way.”
Still, Biden insists that his support for Clinton was genuine, noting that he made 83 appearances on behalf of her campaign. And even if he had challenged her, there’s no telling—in an election year that defied polling forecasts and the societal norms of advanced civilizations—what might have happened. He might well have been whomped by Hillary. Then again, he might have turned out to be the old white man whom much of America was evidently looking for, the suspension bridge between the Trump base and the Bernie base. The point is, he didn’t run.”
33In general I oppose this public airing of dirty laundry. No one will benefit from this, it will not build goodwill and better relationships, and there is no way to guarantee that it is fair to all concerned. Whether this laundry is truly dirty or merely recently worn is immaterial. Democrats should not cannibalize other Democrats. Now, if the sncilbupeR were eating themselves I’d be opening tins of popcorn, but THIS does not amuse.
34Lless . Bernie ran as a Democrat because that was the only path for him.
Study up on ballot access in all states. It ain’t easy.
Hindsight, he should have been told to KMA. I voted for him in the primary. He didn’t stand a chance, and I knew it. Hillary was the most qualified person to be POTUS in my lifetime. Scafie and company and the Republican party just threw up too many obstacles for too many years.
Like it or not, the Rs are way better than Dems at throwing shit that sticks.
35I don’t have anywhere near enough knowledge about political organization and financial distribution to know what’s considered normal. But Lunargent makes a great point about repugnantcans standing together on election day. I feel like Ross Perot drove that one home. So hopefully this last election will do it for us. And I’ve got to go with Micr about dirty laundry and eating our own, with an exception. We do need to know how things were handled if for no other reason than how to improve. But stirring the pot and pointing fingers this far after the fact seems to accomplish keeping resentments alive and people pissed off at the wrong people more than solving problems.
36Another vote in agreement with Micr! More musings on HRC for those with time to read a thread https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/926568362376859648
I wish we could look forward instead of backwards. We have an election to deal with- and still have voter suppression and no doubt more Russian interference. Bernie lost, Hillary lost- let’s move on.
37This one’s for you. I am suffering from PTSD and can’t summon enough whatever to answer in my own words.
38https://storify.com/ahumorlessfem/the-hillary-victory-fund
It would seem a 3rd update is in order here. I mean, purely for intellectual honesty purposes.
39There is nothing Republicans enjoy more than the tendency of Democrats to engage in circular firing squads.
There are important elections in Virginia and New Jersey next week but feel free to litigate 2016 AGAIN. There is an important election in Alabama but let’s rehash 2016.
The most corrupt administration in American history got there because they ACTUALLY did RIG an election with RUSSIA but hey, let’s beat the damn dead horse and anyone who rode in on it one more time.
So you hate the DNC? Well get in line. You despise DWS? Our name is legion. But the place to lay the blame is squarely on Obama’s doorstep. He was the one who could have reorganized it but he let it go because he doesn’t like politics and by 2015 the DNC was on the verge of bankruptcy.
You want to get ticked at me because the guy who wasn’t a democrat, decided to run as a democrat, but was too busy to bother reading the rules or to play by them, who didn’t give a dime to the party, who after the election decided he still wasn’t a democrat – LOST? But you are angry that Hillary bailed out the DNC and had the temerity to try to solidify her election by securing delegates who actually knew her because she’s been a democrat and had worked with them and paid her dues as a democrat.
The election didn’t go the way you wanted, put on your big boy pants and get to work. Try building some bridges instead of pointing fingers, you’re going to need to because the people you are screaming at repeatedly are the ones who were out knocking on doors, making phone calls, driving people to polls, and yes footing the bill. And they won the popular vote by 3 million votes.
Because the thing is if you keep engaging in this circular firing squad you are just doing the Republicans job for them. I’m, old, I’ve got cancer, and I’m just doing my best to live long enough to undo the damage of 2016. Presumably most of you have potentially longer lifespans than I do, if that’s the case stop sniping at each other and pointing fingers and pull together because if we don’t do exactly that there isn’t going to be a democracy here and we will have no one but ourselves and our circular firing squad to blame.
40Deb:
41Thank you.
I haven’t been much on praying for decades, but I just said one for you. Given my track record for spirituality, I’m sincerely hoping that’s a positive thing. El Jefe, you listening?
Deb–thank you from me also. You are a voice of reason and sanity. Prayers coming your way.
42Elizabeth Rogers on Twitter: “Okay, I am at home, I got a bunch of links open and I am ready to start explaining in mindnumbing detail the HVF.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/ahumorlessfem/status/926249997376638976
Elizabeth Rogers on Twitter: “Needed that extra oomph. So as I said earlier-this is why I think Bernie Sanders can go to hell.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/ahumorlessfem/status/926256607327084545
Hillary Victory Fund: Joint Fundraising Committee Summary | OpenSecrets
https://www.opensecrets.org/jfc/summary.php?id=C00586537
43Just what “rules within the party did Sanders meet to qualify” if he had never been registered as a Democrat. I have believed myself to be a large tent Democrat. But to be a Democrat, remove the old stain and wear the label. Stealth Democrats aren’t democrats. Our votes are private and ‘secret ballot’ is Constitutional. Political support is neither a Constitutional issue, nor subject to regulation beyond financial, but is highly emotional – bereft of fact-based support – and openly partisan. No support for Sec.Clinton is either implied or expressed … for the tactics employed, although I don’t know they are so unethical. The issue is – what is the party affiliation of Sen.Sanders – he has none. His single-payor is not a plan. He never has a plan. He has ideas that aren’t complete. He has no record I can find of planning to pay for his ideas. Democrats pay as we go and pay-off the largess of republi-cons who have saddled us with their ideas for which they didn’t pay.
44Thanks, Deb. Praying for you.
Any chance of JJ making your response its own post? It deserves wider reading.
And to make thing more cheerful, ACLU and Joaquin Castro got Rosamaria Gonzalez out of ICE’s clutches and back to her family.
45UPDATE: Where’s your category for those saying “Where are the documents”, El Jefe.
In BernieWorld ACCUSATION IS PROOF?
46@Deb: I don’t pray. But I do wish you well in your battle. Thank you for sparing a bit of energy to try to teach us.
47Thank you, Deb. You nailed it. Also just read Joy Reid’s twitter summation, which is excellent.
48@ Deb – I take a different position as to the DNC. I am thoroughly convinced that Obama’s deal to get Hillary’s support in ’08 and ’12 was SOTUS for the first term and control of the DNC to Hillary after the ’12 election. The DNC collapsed under DWS who Hillary installed. They took out a loan without notifying the board. AND, Hillary didn’t bail out the DNC, did she? She funneled all of the money into her own campaign coffers after lying that it was going to the party. She left nothing but a shell in 2016 and loaded it up with consultants who were working for her campaign. Brazile found it a wreck when she took over after the 2016 convention, so Hillary made matters worse, not better.
Second, Bernie ran in every state under the primary rules of the DNC. He earned every vote that he got, so screaming he’s not a “real Democrat” is silly. Fighting against the gigantic wall of money in Hillary’s coffers PLUS fighting the DNC itself, Bernie accomplished a lot. My main point that Hillary supporters ignore is that by taking over the DNC a YEAR before she was the actual nominee Hillary cheated us out of more choices by keeping other candidates away.
49I get the part where Bernie went by the party rules.
I did that, too. A long time ago i wrote a $500 check, waltz down to the Harris county Democratic party office, presented myself and the check to Carl Whitmarsh. Poor Carl, took the check and signed me up. That’s all he could do. I knew not one official Democrat in the county. More important, they didn’t have a clue about somebody on their ticket.
Dan Patrick got his best friend to file as a Democrat against him for the state senate seat. It was a ruse so Patrick could continue his radio program
That experience and a couple more caused me to long for smoke filled rooms full of party loyalist.
My thought on Bernie is that he should have expected it. I don’t think he ever thought his candidacy to get as far as it did. The fact that his delegates we not schooled on convention rules, etc. told me that the Bernie delegates did not give a damn about the Democratic party and it showed all over the tv.
My son has been to many, many National political conventions, both parties. He said the Bernie state delegations didn’t even have floor leaders.
Texas Democrat. Always have been, always will be.
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