The NYTimes is reporting what all of us can just imagine, that Biden is pissed about his long term allies abandoning him after long years of loyal public service.  He’s still isolating at his Delaware beach home, trying to get over yet another case of Covid as his campaign crumbles around his ears.  What’s happening is tragic, and most certainly not fair to Biden, especially after the events of 2016.  2016?  Read on.

I find it pretty rich that the very people who are whining and hissing through gnashed teeth about the calls for Biden to step aside in 2024 are the very ones who gleefully celebrated pushing him aside during the 2016 election because it was Hillary’s “turn”.  It was unfair, unwise, and strategic blunder.  Pushing Hillary in front of Biden is the precise reason that TFG is even around today.  Let’s review: Immediately after the 2012 election, Obama handed Hillary the keys to the DNC.  She immediately fired all of the senior staff, installed her loyalists, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, unwound all the reforms that Obama had put in place, and began building a huge wall of money to keep out all other viable candidates before the primaries even started.  Those efforts were aimed directly at Biden to push him aside and keep other candidates like Bernie at arm’s length.  How?  I’ll tell you how.

The Joint Fundraising Agreement Hillary forced onto the DNC in 2015 was actually a giant money laundering operation that washed money from donations to state parties through the DNC and then immediately to her campaign coffers.  That kept the DNC and state parties starving for money and all of the control in Brooklyn, not in DC.  DNC staff had to run EVERYTHING by Brooklyn, including hiring, press releases, primary process, EVERYTHING. The result was that a candidate, who had not even been nominated yet, was in total control of the primary process.  Another irony is that all of this was discovered through WikiLeaks’ leaking of DNC emails which marked  the trail that Donna Brazile later followed to get to the bottom of the corruption.  The public scandal was “Hillary’s emails;” the actual scandal was Hillary’s complete control of the DNC and rigged primary process fully ONE YEAR before she won the nomination.

Mad about Biden now?  Blame Hillary.  And those who supported her.  The Queen of Coasting blew it by pushing Biden to the curb, and not taking TFG seriously, and not campaigning in battleground states when she desperately needed to as she started slipping in the polls.  Add her incompetence to meddling by the Russians, Clinton Foundation scandals, and the ridiculous “Hillary’s emails” scandal, and you get the disaster we all witnessed live on national television.  Hillary was clearly qualified to be president, but as I’ve said many times before, a TERRIBLE candidate and incompetent manager.  Oh, and one last thing; Biden didn’t pull out of the 2016 campaign because his son Beau died; that was a diversion.  Biden bowed out because Hillary boxed him out with Obama’s assistance.  Those are the facts.

So, while you’re all pissed off about Biden being treated unfairly in 2024, remember that you probably supported him being treated REALLY unfairly in 2015.  And, in 2015, he was a vibrant well conditioned, fast on his feet 72 year old.  The tragedy is that, but for Hillary’s corruption and mismanagement, added to Obama’s benign neglect of the DNC, Trump would still be playing golf and losing money while putting his name on cheesy buildings in Asia rather than getting ready to waltz back into the White House in 2024.

So, get over yourself and read the objective numbers.  It’s a cold hard truth, but the 2024 election is already lost unless Dem leaders move quickly and decisively.  After all, they’re 4 years behind, and they’ve got three months to have any chance of pulling this out.

Hillary’s now saying she hasn’t ruled out running in 2020.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.  That’s ALL we need.

File under What a Coingkidink, Trump’s State Department has been notifying former Clinton aids that emails sent to Hillary years ago have be RETROACTIVELY CLASSIFIED and that the investigation into her private email server has been reopened.  Of course, this new very serious “investigation” has nothing to do with Trump’s woes, I’m sure.  Not passing the straight faced test, a senior State Department official said, “This has nothing to do with who is in the White House.  This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about 3½ years.” Uh-huh. Right.

This feels like yet another abuse of power by Trump’s goon squad, whipped back up to give him more manure to throw against the wall on Fox Noise.

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:

1. Nothing to see here.  Move along.
2. So?  Doesn’t everybody do it?
3. She won by 3 million votes!
4. It wasn’t criminal, so it’s OK.
5. Bernie’s not a Democrat and wouldn’t have won anyway.
6. El Jefe is an asshole.
7. Brazile is a LIAR!
8. 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.

Yesterday, Newsweek published a story accusing Bernie voters of tipping the 2016 election to Trump.  It uses data from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, compiled by Political Wire, that showed that, indeed, 10% of Bernie primary voters went for Trump in the general. It then goes into a swing state analysis that showed that Trump’s winning margin was less than the Bernie’s voters who went for Trump.  The implication was clear – stubborn Bernie voters wrecked Hillary’s bid for the presidency.  How evil they were and inconsiderate of Hillary and all of her supporters.  Fair enough.

There was an interesting mention, though, of a few not insignificant details at the very end of the article…First, the 10% of Bernie voters that went for Trump paled in comparison to the TWENTY FIVE percent of Hillary voters who went for McCain in 2008 (hypocrisy, anyone?).  More important, and one that I hadn’t realized was so large, was that almost 30% of Bernie voters were actually self identified Republican or leaned Republican.  Conversely, Hillary only attracted about 6 or 7% of the same demographic.

So, was it Bernie and his evil bots who wrecked Hillary’s election, or was it actually the fact that Hillary failed to attract the same demographic that Bernie did?  Trump certainly attracted a wide demographic of support.  Bernie attracted a wide demographic of support.  Hillary simply did not.  So, should the headline of the Newsweek article have been BERNIE SANDERS VOTERS HELPED TRUMP WIN AND HERE’S PROOF,  or should it have been HILLARY CLINTON LOST BECAUSE SHE FAILED TO ATTRACT A WIDER DEMOGRAPHIC THAN TRUMP?

I know the answer, but Hillary’s supporters, and many in the party, still cling to the myth that Bernie wrecked her election.  The inconvenient truth is that the numbers are the numbers and they speak for themselves; this lesson must be learned by the Democratic party lest it have to re-learn it in 2020.

I’m not holding my breath.

You know the old saying:

When you’re in a hole, stop digging.

Hillary could well take that old saying to heart.  Yesterday, during an appearance at a women’s rights conference, she was asked about the election.  Rather than demure and speak about the issues of the conference, she went to DefCon 4 and started into launch mode.  In doing so, she yet again put on display her utter tone-deafness and why she is a terrible campaigner.  She blamed the Russians.  She blamed FBI director Comey.  She groused about Trump.  While offhand acknowledging that her “campaign wasn’t perfect,” she placed the blame for her loss on everyone but herself.

She didn’t take responsibility for losing the Rust Belt by ignoring those voters.  She didn’t take responsibility for letting number grunts override the instincts of her twice elected husband.  She didn’t acknowledge rigging the primaries and packing the DNC with loyalists. She falsely accused debate moderators for not asking Trump the hard questions.  She didn’t take responsibility for being incapable of articulating exactly why she wanted to be president.

But she showed in high definition and full color the reasons why she really lost – she was a awful candidate.  She was a terrible campaigner.  Her campaign, just like in 2008, was in chaos most of the time with staff in conflict and competing against one another.  But most of all she did, and indeed still does believe it was her turn.  This was her election, and it was pre-ordained that she would win.  There was no reason to campaign in Michigan; the number grunts said it was hers.

It should have never been close enough for Russian interference or FBI letters to make a difference.  Hillary Clinton lost to the worst presidential candidate in US history.  Period.  Yeah, yeah, she got more votes in the popular, because of big turnout in New York and California, but that doesn’t count, does it?  She lost because, as Glen Thrush of Politico put it last September – she was (and is) the “Queen of Coasting”.  It was on full display yesterday.

Well, the Queen needs to stop digging and put down her shovel.  She’s not helping.