Saturday, February 29, 2020

Rat Fuckery in South Carolina

     Here's where we are, folks: the right wing MSM, with just 2% & less than 15k voters weighing in, breathlessly handed the to a guy who lied about getting arrested in South Africa, thought it was 1920 instead of 2020 & said he was running for the US Senate... just this week.
      Sorry, folks, but there was serious, and I mean serious ratfuckery going on in South Carolina, where the latest straw polls had Biden up by just 20%. With less than 10% reporting in, they had him up by as much as 36%. Someone'e either stuffing the ballot boxes for Biden or kinking the hose on Bernie.

Labels: , , ,

Gotham City Digest: Leap Day edition

(We don't dump our Corona beer down the sink.)

     Oh, cripes, I hope he didn't get it.

    Here's an idea- Considering this is a pandemic of a potentially deadly virus that could be worse than the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed millions in 1917, how about we loosen the criteria for testing instead of making it more stringent?

    Great. Now we can add ecological terrorism to the list of other acts of terrorism carried out by Israel.

    This came out nearly two years ago but it seems to be an appropriate way to round out Black History Month.

    Lucian K. Truscott IV is right. So the question remains: Why are we normalizing this kind of fascist behavior for Donald Trump that we wouldn't tolerate from any other president in American history?

    How is it that Cubans live as long as we do at a tenth of the cost? I'll give you a hint: Socialized medicine.

     Gotta love the, uh, pipes on this Golden girl.

    My junior Senator. He's right. It's a bromide, almost an anodyne. But in times of suffocating prejudice and universal gaslighting, sometimes anodyne statements take on the power of incendiary rhetoric. The NBA lost hundreds of millions of dollars because one GM simply supported the Hong Kong protesters on Twitter.
     If this was ever uttered in the Hindu section of New Delhi, the speaker would be stoned to death.

     Dominant life form on the planet, eh?

    Why do I have this sneaking suspicion that this 38% of Americans are also the 38% that still support tRump?

     Because who needs a free and independent press, especially in the military?

     Fuck these Nazi assholes and stop giving them nearly $4,000,000,000 in aid every year.

     "What's in that catalog that's so interesting?"
     "Black & Decker sanders."
    "SANDERS! Slowly, I turned, step by step, inch by inch..." (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader CC.)

    This only goes to show how scummy the Democrat Party has gotten since the Clinton years. Overton's Window has pushed it so far to the right it's exactly like the GOP of the Nixon years. What does it say when Latino Democrats start eating each other?

    "Giuliani claimed enormous private influence. But at the Trump hotel, he sat out in public, spending hours at his “private office,” a table in the lobby steakhouse’s bar. One former Trump hotel staffer said that Giuliani was so comfortable there that he sometimes left without paying — 'like he was at home.' The restaurant often had to eat the bill, the former employee said."

     Any other presidential candidate would've been chased from the race over this. But desperate times call for desperate measures and the crooked Democrat Party is very desperate indeed to stop Bernie Sanders. That's why they're still somewhat propping up this doddering, disingenuous putz.

    “I am a public servant OF the government. The U.S. Constitution, the document this organization holds as sacrosanct, is the foundational document of our GOVERNMENT.”
     Spoken like a true 5th columnist.

     What else can you expect from these racist twats?

     This is according to Trump's favorite pollster, Rasmussen.

     Can we all now please stop pretending that Trump's not the Manchurian Candidate?

     Meme intermission.

    You hear that? It's Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns" all over again. And, yes, it's the Democrats' fault, too. (The fire truck behind him is a nice bit of symbology for what's going on.)
    This is the worst stock market crash since 2008. And I'm sure you all remember what followed that. I'm thinking of Section 6 of the TARP.
    So get ready to be put on the hook for another unnecessary $700,000,000,000 bailout of Wall Street. Section 6 empowers Mnuchin to do just that without Congressional oversight or approval.

     Fear not. Our shockingly brilliant stable genius has it all under control.

     Trump's #coronavirus task force didn't abandon anything. You can't abandon something of which you were never a part. There IS no #Coronavid19 task force. We're on our own, people.

      In case there was any doubt whatsoever in your mind as to whether or not Trumpie the Klown is completely deranged, I give you this from tonight. That sheen that you see busting through his heavy makeup is flop sweat. He actually thinks Obama should be and can be impeached. For lying, no less.

      Yeah, I can see Pence doing this as soon as he gets back from CPAC.

      This article is over two years-old. And it's turning out to be eerily prescient.

      As Harry Truman once said, the only thing that's new under the sun is the history we've forgot.

      I don't know why this guy needs permission from Trump before speaking out about a pandemic that most people on earth already know about. But it only goes to show Trump cares less about American lives than he does about coronavirus killing his much-cherished campaign talking point about a strong economy.

      This is the coolest bus on earth, bar none.

     An article by Bernie explaining why health care is especially important to African American women.

      There's no solidarity like billionaire solidarity. I wonder if Bloomie also gave them advice on how to hide their billions overseas so they could cry poverty when the lawsuits came rolling in.

     People keep wondering why I say there's no difference between the GOP & the Democrat Party. This is why. It's an incestuous relationship with common corporate interests.

     And, if you need any further proof the Democrat Party is as rotten & corrupt to the bone as the GOP, then read this. This came as no surprise to me at all. Corporate lobbyists have been infesting the DNC like tapeworms since super delegates were created in the 80's.

      Corporate America strikes again. No student, no person period should have to spend 70% of their income on rent.

      I can't believe this isn't illegal. Since it isn't, it just goes to show you how broken the system is. TX & CA just happen to be the two states with the most delegates- 643 combined. And Bloomberg's continuing to buy his way into the election.

      Of course they are, the 1% elitist scum.

      Alabama Republicans are literally praying Trump doesn't get involved. But you know he will just to kneecap Sessions.

     Of course the Taliban truce is fraudulent, like everything else in this Barnum & Bailey political sideshow. We just admitted that after two decades, we couldn't defeat a rump terrorist organization with the most powerful military on earth. And finally...

      If I was Bernie, I'd consider this a HUGELY major endorsement. The Native American vote is not to be underestimated. They're loyal Democratic voters and in some states in the Upper Midwest such as the Dakotas, they make up most of the voting population.

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Gotham City Digest

(In which we're financially but not morally bankrupt.)

     Boy, Fox must be really, really desperate to maintain their Uncle Tom quota. Otherwise, I cannot imagine how this man hangs onto his job.

     Trump doesn't want women on the Supreme Court ruling on cases involving him. What he really means to say is, he doesn't want liberals or moderates to rule.

     So, to summarize, the wife of a right wing Supreme Court Justice is assembling a hit list targeting people who are "disloyal" to a single man rather than the country. Ginni Thomas plainly has too much time on her hands.

      Ceres, at nearly 1000 kilometers, is the size of a small planet. It would result in an extinction level event.
      And still vastly preferable to a second Trump term.

      Is Trump addled with Adderall?

      I guess Biden decided he doesn't want to be president and instead wants to be a senator again.

      Bernie was right about Cuba, just as President Obama was. He owes no one an apology. Get over it. This isn't 1965 again.

      I can see the right wing going after #Bernie for his 33 year-old comments about Cuba but when the DNC piles on, they've officially merged with the right wing. I'm gladder than ever I left the Democratic Party in 2017.

       Should we be taking advice about anything from a guy named Dick Pound?

     Because this is the worst thing to ever happen to Flint, Michigan.

    The real, undeclared reason for the freakout over #BernieSanders- Most Americans agree with him.

     The silver lining is that days prior to this making national news, this racist pig was fired.

      Another Trumpanzee bites the dust.

     Many of Obama's backers were tickled pink by the ACA, even though, as Howard Zinn said in the last days of his life, "When you start out with a compromise, you end up with a compromise of a compromise." All Obamacare was was a giant gateway to the health care market, placed an $80b cap on drug cost reimbursements, created a mandate enforceable through two laws in the tax code without giving us a public option, allowed states to opt out of Medicare expansion (which virtually every redneck Governor did in their virulent racism) and put the lie to Obama's, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."
     So, yeah, I think Bernie Bros would be tickled pink to get any meaningful compromise on M4A, as long as it has a realistic public option. (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC.)

     This is a pretty accurate, if incomplete, summation of Tuesday's debate. The article doesn't cover other topics, such as accessible health care in rural areas, income inequality across racial lines, education, ending the filibuster, etc. But it was pretty wild, fractious and rude. In other words, the same way the Democrats act in Congress.

      I guess the court system in Utah doesn't believe in recidivism.

      Dracula parrots are actually a thing?

      So, here's where we are as a country-
      A five year-old boy is made to register as a sex offender for hugging and kissing classmates...
     ...while pedophile priests keep getting shuffled from one target-rich environment to another, rarely with exposure or comeuppance.
     Right.

     Meme intermission.

     Damned good idea. So why am I just now seeing this for the first time?

     It must've killed that witch to say that.

     "What do you mean Typhoid Mary's dead? I talked to her on the phone last week."

     Half the US population was born after 1980. Yes, half the population of the US is under 40. And if we want them to get out and vote, we have to make the issues relevant to them and their generation, too. That's what Bernie's doing.

     I don't know why people ignore me when I call the latter-day Democratic Party Tammany Hall 2.0. Take the ticket prices for last Tuesday's #DemDebate. They went for $1750-3200, mostly occupied by Bloomberg stooges. This is the corruption of the Democrat Party on full display.

     I suppose at his next campaign rally, Biden will come out in a seersucker suit, mink coat and a straw boater.

      Holy shit, he used to be one of my FB friends. Rest easy in Davy Jones' locker, Clive.

    Yes, people. Trump made the Coronavirus Czar a guy who thinks science is an evil. liberal. Commie, homosexual plot. Did you honestly expect any better than Pence?

     But, wait! The news gets even better! The latest additions to the task force are Larry the Lush Kudlow and Steve Mnuchin, which ought to give you an idea of where the WH's real priorities lie.

     Joe Biden tried to claim on CNN last night that he's always been considered a liberal & progressive. However, here's a press release from his own office in March 1998 (during the Clinton impeachment) bragging about him being the 5th most conservative Democrat in the Senate.

     Donald Trump is the coronavirus of bigotry. He leaves death and destruction in his wake no matter where he goes.

      Another mass shooting, this time in Milwaukee.

      "The (anti-lynching) vote was 410-4. The members who voted against were Independent Rep. Justin Amash and Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert, Thomas Massie and Ted Yoho."
       Remember those four names, people.

      "Two hundred percent it's not anti-Semitic," says the gentile mayor of a bigoted city.
      Oh, did I mention the guys in Nazi uniforms?

      I don't recall corporate investment, shareholders and pricing controls being mentioned when Dr. Salk invented the polio vaccine.

     Reading this article is like slipping into an alternate universe where nothing and no one makes sense any more. How could Joy, Whoopie and Sunny be so completely fooled by a con man like Bloomberg? Don't they know his "apologies" were done out of political expediency? (Another tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC.)

      AOC's right, as usual. (A third tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC.)

      And annoying them, they are. Just read the comments of Trump's snowflake supporters.

     But we #BernieBros are the conspiracy theorists when we say the party will subvert democratic principles to stop #Bernie. Then the NY Times publishes pieces like this. No one calls them conspiracy theorists.
      Let's get one thing clear- Super delegates were created by party insiders, with party insiders, for party insiders to keep a real progressive from getting the nomination so the corporate interests of their benefactors aren't threatened. This is why most of the super delegates are corporate lobbyists. Not homeless people, not working class people, not grassroots activists.
       Corporate lobbyists and party hacks whose sole agenda is to keep each other in business.

      "Candidates aren’t allowed to pack the debate hall."
      Candidates also aren’t allowed to bribe the DNC with $800,000 to have the rules changed for them so they can buy their way on the debate stage but here we are. And finally...

       Why a jailbird grifter like James O'Keefe still gets results is beyond me. His latest video just got ABC's David Wright suspended & banned from covering politics for the rest of his tenure for admitting he was a leftist. But what can one expect from a network that's owned by a mouse?

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

A Party Like it's 1949

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)
So, I think we can safely say the collegiality of the first two debates is long since a thing of the past.  By last night's debate in Charleston, SC, #10, it was essentially an off Broadway stage adaptation of Knives Out, with Bernie Sanders playing the elderly victim.
     At least, that was how it was supposed to be staged. Instead, it was more like the assassination of Julius Caesar with collapsible stage props.
     This was to be expected. Middle and bottom tier candidates fly under everyone's radar and excite no one's interest or jealousy. Bernie won the raw vote count in Iowa, New Hampshire and especially in Nevada. In this current round of King of the Hill, Bernie's the guy to topple as the others claw at his ankles like extras in The Walking Dead.
     And, as politicians are nothing if not predictable, the early salvos against Sanders were predicted then seen with yawns. Bloomberg, having bought his way onto a second debate stage, went after Bernie over his 60 Minutes interview which included a clip of him from 1987 praising Cuba's literacy program. Bloomberg squeaked about a "dark legacy", seemingly oblivious to his own dark legacy as New York's mayor that included smashing Occupy Wall Street, Stop and Frisk that victimized over 5,000,000 people of color, opposing a higher minimum wage, campaigning for HW Bush at the 2004 GOP convention and defending tax cuts for his fellow one percenters.
     Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Berlin, Hillary stated she'd support Bernie Sanders if he was the nominee. This was before the debate that aired at eight PM last night, EST. It seems everyone is jumping on Bernie's bandwagon. Everyone, that is, except Michael Bloomberg, who clearly stacked the audience with his own ideologues at a debate in which the tickets went from $1750-3200. The entire purpose of these glorified bleacher bums was to boo Sanders when he hit Bloomberg and to cheer when Bloomberg returned the fire.
     And it was Buttigieg, surprisingly, who unwittingly put the lie to the machine Democrats' piling on Sanders for his remarks on Cuba, although it was meant to be a salvo aimed at Sanders. At one point, Mayor Pete said,
The only way you can [restore American credibility] is to actually win the presidency, and I am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the ’50s and Bernie Sanders with a nostalgia for the revolution politics of the ’60s. This is not about what coups were happening in the 1970s or 80s, this is about the future. This is about 2020.
     Now, let's unpack that a bit. The former South Bend mayor's intent was to say, essentially, "Let's just forget everything that happened in American history prior to tonight and stop this silly talk of revolution." The intended point was that Bernie should stop all this silly, nostalgic talk of Cuban and Nicaraguan revolution even if Bernie's taking the side of the good guys in the latter. And then, of course, there was Russia. As if Bernie's to blame for their cynical involvement in the 2020 election.

     But unintentionally, Buttigieg was also putting his finger squarely on the Democratic Party's own hypocrisy in taking Sanders to task for something laudatory he said about Cuba a full generation ago (long before Obama said it without challenge in 2016) when Pete was five years-old and just starting kindergarten. In its desperation, machine Democrats, not being able to assail Sander's policies geared toward the far future which a majority of us support, began acting like McCarthyites as if it was 1949 again.

A Shade He Will Never Enjoy
By now, I'm sure many of us have heard the old Greek proverb that states, "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." And if I may venture a definition that distinguishes politicians from statesmen, here's one: The former thinks only as far as the next election cycle and is influenced by polls while the latter thinks in terms of generations regardless of the zeitgeist.
   Bernie Sanders' positions and policy proposals extend clear into 2070, long past what will be Sanders' lifetime and perhaps even Ocasio-Cortez's. (Another DNC-RNC talking point is Bernie doesn't know how he's going to pay for his ambitious programs. That's a lie. He knows exactly how he'll pay for them and here's how.)
     And if politicians can be defined and faulted as not thinking past the next election cycle, then the mainstream media is especially egregious as television networks never think beyond the next 24/7 news cycle. This was actually put up on CBS' chyron during the debate when the moderators asked Sanders if he'd give authoritarian rulers "a free pass."

     You know, just like Trump.
     It was absolutely the nadir in a debate that should've seen a subtraction in the contenders, not the addition of billionaires like Bloomberg and Steyers on the debate stage. It was somewhat reminiscent of the recent debate in which Bernie categorically denied telling Elizabeth Warren that a woman couldn't win the presidency only to have a moderator ask him why he'd said that.
     The CBS moderators were blasted in real time on social media for losing control of the debate. But what no one seems to have considered is that perhaps CBS didn't lose control of the debate and that allowing the candidates to speak for much longer than their allotted 75 seconds and to constantly interrupt Bernie was the intent all along.
      And, lest you think the anti-Sanders bias in the self-interested corporate mainstream television media is solely to blame, consider this hit piece in the Amazon-owned Washington Post:
    Sure, Fred, let's talk about rejecting reality, since the Green New Deal's sole reason for being is to keep the oil, coal and gas companies rich and unregulated for as long as possible.
     The bottom line is the DNC and establishment Democrats are as incoherent at countering Sanders' proposals as they are Trump's neonazi policies. And this is much more a reflection on where the Democratic Party now stands than on Bernie, which is pretty much where the Republican Party stood a couple of generations ago at the height of its HUAC/McCarthy fever dreams. Bloomberg's screaming about Communists and Russians, the others are screaming about Cuba. And all in a mad, mindless attempt to tear down a man who could rebuild the Democratic Party and stands for ideals that are more American and Democratic than all of them put together.

Monday, February 24, 2020

Gotham City Digest

(A Green New Deal You Can't Refuse)

     Breaking: Bloomberg to release three hostages who can't harm him. Film @ 11.

   What piece of shit would encourage a Nazi hate rally crowd to boo a 17 year-old girl with Aperger's? Come on, do I really have to answer that?

    "I once shared a cell with Nelson Mandela. God, that guy could snore. But during the day, we'd rub each other's hairy legs. Mine stood up higher. Jill, where the fuck am I today?"

     No one can possibly get me to believe this genocidal maniac isn't out to kill us all.

     Maybe he should have contributed to Bill Lee's election campaign.

    Next after the commercial break, Trump makes Blago the new Acting Director of the Bureau of Prisons.

    Oh, I wouldn't go there if I was him. Especially since the difference is that Sanders warned Putin not to interfere with the 2020 election. Trump?
     "Russia, if you're listening..."

     "The billionaire presidential candidate has fully or partially reversed himself on stances he took as recently as 2019."

     "Expired contracts, no paid sick leave policy, and an un-unionized presidential campaign staff." But what do you expect from a right wing billionaire?

      Well, so much for all Canadians being polite, eh?

      This Customs and Border Patrol guy murdered his wife and both his sons before turning the gun on himself. You have to ask- What the fuck is going on at CBP?

       You know those stories we hear of animals turning on their hunters and killing them?
       Grizzlies, if you're listening...

      Now the DNC will bring out its REALLY long knives.

      And I'm sure if it could talk, this 22 foot tall baby Jesus would sound just like Peter Gabriel.

      This guy Haney sounds as if he was an anti Muslim right wing ideologue. But the stark contrast between his violent, abrupt end and plans for the future sure make for some food for thought.

        Shut the fuck up, Tweetie.

        Greyhound just put the skids to warrentless checks on its buses. Good on them.

      The Wisconsin State Journal grudgingly admits #Bernie's leading there & that no one's within 15 points of him. With three out of three wins, they're also not factoring in momentum.

      Meme intermission.

       Another Darwin Award winner. They better not bury this flat earther too deeply or he'll fall out the other side.

       Now Israelis are dragging the bodies of Palestinians with bulldozers. When is the world going to finally stand up to these fascist assholes?

      So his own former acting DNI was secretly a Democrat?

      Wow. Trump pardoned a fellow crook and tax dodger whose family gave him money. Shades of Matt Bevin.

       There's a new sheriff in town. And he has brain damage.

       I'm not a hockey fan by any stretch of the imagination but this is a fairy tale come true story for this Zamboni driver.

    Another thing that no one, not even I, have mentioned is the enforcement of the tax code. A huge part of the funding for the Green New Deal will be levying higher taxes on the 1%. You can literally bet your bottom dollar that if Bernie gets elected, he WILL lobby to raise their taxes. Even with a Democrat-dominated Congress, that'd be a tough sell among Blue Dogs, multimillionaire Democrats and those vulnerable ones in red districts.
    But just for the sake of argument, say we retake the Senate, hold the House, elect Bernie despite the DNC's best efforts to scuttle his campaign and actually pass a tax increase with the 1% as a hard target, what then?
    This is why I mentioned enforcement of the tax code which, as far as the 1% goes, is literally nonexistent. Trump's own IRS commissioner admitted they'd go after the 1% if they had the enforcement mechanisms in place but don't because of Republican lack of funding (which was the whole idea).
    And then, even if the funding were given by, again, a highly problematic and fractious Democrat-led Congress, the 1% can and will use their tried-and-true method of tax avoidance...
    Offshore accounts. Tax shelters. Remember: Tax evasion=illegal. Tax avoidance=Legal.
    So, to put it mildly, I'm skeptical this Green New Deal will ever get off the ground, which is why I've never bothered to write about it at any great length. And even if Bernie DOES get this GND passed by, once more, an unreliable Democrat Congress, if the 1% hoard and hide their wealth, who's gonna be left holding the bag?
    We could have 535 AOCs in Congress and it STILL wouldn't guarantee funding for the GND unless we seriously, and I mean SERIOUSLY overhaul the tax code to the point of preventing tax-dodging, right wing scumbags from offshoring assets overseas or at least getting access to those assets and freezing or taxing the shit out of them.

     So he went from one New York right wing scumbag billionaire to another. Real heroic stretch that was toward the end of his life.

     So the next time you hear the pundits say #Bernie can't win and white, working class voters might go for the Republican unless the establishment-favored Blue Dog doesn't get the nod, just remember this Guardian article from 2008 that's aged really well.

      Let him eat shit in India. That's vegetarian.

      This is a shame. RIP, Katherine Johnson.

     Hahahahaha!!!

     Guilty!!! Harvey Weinstein will now be officially known forevermore as "convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein." That's permanent, like "impeached President* Donald Trump."

     While fucking around with a married man behind her husband's back, too.

     What do you expect? He can't even speak English properly.

     As the pardon offer fell through, naturally the mafia thug in the Oval Office defaulted to extortion. Of course he did.

     #Bernie, "the weakest possible candidate"? The guy who's 3 for 3 and is leading in a dozen other states. These right wing nut jobs really do live in an alternate universe, don't they?

     Does it really surprise you what a petty piece of dog shit Trump is?

     This what you get for doing the right thing. If you're worried you're going to get hit with a $3300 bill for a blood test and a nasal swab, you're not going to bother, thereby exacerbating a threat to public health.

      So, essentially, our top spy was a spy for fascist Hungary, giving them access to Washington, and without even registering as a foreign agent under FARA. Thanks again, Donnie Dumbo.

     More rich, white privilege. This asshole slammed his wife's head into the tarmac of their driveway so hard, her head left imprints in two places.
     He got community service and house arrest in a gated golf course community.

     Greg Sargent is right. This isn't merely revenge. This is Trump laying the groundwork for even more unchecked corruption for a second term.

     The "Oracle of Omaha" thinks Bernie Sanders wants to do away with capitalism. But that's not what democratic socialism is about. (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader CC). And finally...

       Defend themselves against whom? The non white people who are in the vast minority in Idaho?
       I can't even get into my local courthouse without a virtual strip search. We have a metal detector at the door. No metal gets in until it's vetted. Until recently, we weren't even allowed cell phones during jury duty. And we don't even have a gun problem in Massachusetts.
       But if you're in Idaho, what the fuck, just let an 11 year-old girl into a courtroom with a loaded AR 15. That's a good way to dispel fear. (Another tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader CC).

Sunday, February 23, 2020

What Happens in Vegas Doesn't Stay in Vegas

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)
I’m reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940, and the Gen. Renault calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘How can it be? You got the greatest army in Europe. How could it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’ So I had that suppressed feeling.” - Chris Matthews, 2/22/20
After kinking the delegate and voter hose on him in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada was won by Bernie Sanders. That would be the same Nevada that, four years ago, pulled a Brock Turner on Bernie and literally and publicly stole his delegates from him. The same Nevada in which John Ralston spread the lie that got him fired that Bernie delegates were throwing chairs. The same Nevada in which Barbara Boxer gave Bernie Bros the finger as she stormed out.
    Yes, that Nevada, the Mafia-midwifed desert wasteland where millions flock every year to seek their fortunes and few succeed, provided they don't win too big or often.
     For once, the polls taken weeks ago showing Bernie winning Nevada on a blue wave of minority support were uncannily accurate. With just 60% of precincts reporting in (The Nevada Democratic Party, surprise, surprise, isn't using the same failed Shadow app that was used in Iowa), Bernie now enjoys a 25.4% lead over Joe Biden. Pete Buttigieg is, naturally, calling on the state's Democratic officials to investigate "irregularities" in the results despite him trailing Bernie at a distant third by over 30%.
    Nevada was also the first minority-majority state to weigh in during the presidential election season. With Sanders polling strongly with both minorities and the large food service unions plus with a record-setting 70,000 early votes, it's no surprise that Bernie won so decisively. The Nevada caucus also put the lie to the same anti-Sanders talking points:
     Bernie's only popular among white male "Bernie Bros", which is why he won lily white Iowa and New Hampshire. "Bernie Bros" harassed union officials. And it also put the lie to the right wing obsession with stopping early voting at all costs. Bernie's so far won the first 10 delegates up for grabs and he did it through mass appeal across a broad multi cultural coalition.
    That, however, didn't stop the increasingly right wing MSNBC from bellyaching, doom-saying and downplaying the caucus results that, even with just 4% of the precincts reporting, showed Bernie was going to win the state in a landslide. Fox "News", of all places, which has actually been more fair and factual about Bernie's campaign than the sons and daughters of Phil Griffin, declared Sanders the winner almost immediately.
     Chris Matthews, aka Tweetie, has cold sweats about a Sanders presidency and proved it last night when he compared Sanders, a Jewish presidential candidate who lost his family to the Holocaust, to the Nazis crossing the Maginot Line and invading France from the north. This was the same guy who was raving on national TV about Socialist public executions in Central Park after the New Hampshire Democratic debate and implied this is what a Bernie presidency would bring. Joy Reid was hardly more celebratory. She said that Bernie's supporters in Nevada were driven by their hunger and anger and concluded, "Democrats need to sober up and figure out what the hell they're going to do about that."
     Well, they could get behind the only guy who genuinely cares about their economic plight and has advanced policy proposals for addressing those same issues. But this is the neoliberal Democratic Party we're talking about, a political machine that would make Boss Tweed weep with envy.

Tuesday at Bernie's
Every time, it seems, that Chris Matthews talks about Bernie Sanders, a little bit of him painfully withers and dies. But at least Tweetie can take comfort that he wasn't alone. The rest of MSNBC was thisclose to committing ritual seppukku on live national TV. 

    Claire McCaskill was officially put on suicide watch as the caucus results streamed in. Reliable Clinton stooge James Carville, suddenly relevant again and channeling his right wing wife Mary Matelin, was on the sound stage literally calling Bernie voters "stupid" and that the caucus results were "going very well for Putin."
    Here's what's getting the MSNBC multimillionaires whose taxes would go up under a Sanders administration up in arms- The fact that Bernie got more votes than his top three closest rivals combined. So what else is there for the sour-pussed talking heads when downplaying or ignoring the election results isn't an option but to attack Sanders' popularity? Which is the same exact tactic the McCain campaign used against Barack Obama in 2008.
     And it's not getting any better for the DNC's talking heads or Bernie's Democratic rivals, either (or Trump). Bernie's already polled as having a huge lead in the next primary state, South Carolina. Without Hillary Clinton and her inexplicable Svengali effect over an electorate that she'd once called "super predators", Bernie's cleaning up among African American voters. Buttigieg is notoriously weak in that demographic and Biden's fading faster than his own hair.
   Then there's South Carolina's reverse migration accounting for over one million new African American voter registrations this year alone. South Carolina's the sixth fastest-growing state by population and the reverse migration from northern cities to African American ancestral roots in the south has much to do with it.
   And the news just keeps on getting better for Sanders. The Wisconsin State Journal reluctantly reported that Bernie has a better than 15 point lead over Biden in advance of their own primary on April 7th.  And a wider-reaching report in Newsweek states that Sanders is leading in all 10 states that were polled. 
    With this kind of momentum building, it's easy to envision Bernie sweeping all 14 states on March 3rd, Super Tuesday. So don't be surprised when you hear more stories about MSNBC or CNN once again colluding with party officials to feed in advance questions to debates they happen to be moderating to one or another candidate who isn't an old Democratic Socialist Jew from Brooklyn. The self-interested corporate mainstream media will never get over the Sanders momentum and viability no matter what. And I can perfectly see them supporting Trump over Bernie when and if he gets the nomination.

Addendum, 7:35 PM:
      Make it 26.7% with 72% reporting.

Saturday, February 22, 2020

Open Letter to the DNC


 (Actually sent off to DNC HQ in Washington)
Dear Tammany Hall 2.0
      I have just gotten your fake census-looking survey/beg for money in the mail. Time and again, I see progressive individuals and websites railing about the GOP and RNC sending out exactly the same types of surveys engineered to look like the census forms the government has actually yet to send out. So, considering the “Democratic” Party and the DNC are nothing more or less than the new Republican Party, it shouldn’t surprise me when I see you guys resorting to same sleazeball tactics as the official right wing.
      Your long survey sure gives the impression that the “Democratic” National Committee sure gives a shit about what those in and on the peripheries of your organization feel about certain issues. However, the reality belies the illusion. Because if you people gave a fuck about what the people and not the corporations and billionaires to whom you suck up really wanted, we wouldn’t have had the nightmarish debacle that was the 2016 “Democratic” National Convention in Philadelphia.
      Your disgraced and expelled Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, stacked the three pertinent rules committees governing your Republican-financed convention with right wing ideologues and Blue Dogs. Their intent was to draft rules that were more aligned with the GOP’s positions from a generation or two ago. Among them was advocating for a much lower minimum wage for which Bernie Sanders had advocated ($15 an hour. Your Goldwater girl Hillary wouldn’t go higher than $12.). You studiously and strenuously weeded out as many Sanders loyalists as humanly possible from the committees so the “Democratic” platform wouldn’t alienate moderate and Independent voters. And that’s just where the jack-booted fascism began.
      Let’s take the Washington delegation from 2016. The delegation went for Bernie by a margin of no less than 4-1. Yet the Bernie delegates were pushed to the back of the delegation so only the Clinton delegates that were actually in the vast minority would be seen and heard. The Washington state delegation would prove to be merely a synecdoche of the misleading optics that would rule the entire convention.
      By day three, the fix was already in and Bernie Sanders delegates were literally denied their seats and filled with paid actors. Noise suppressors were bolted to the walls in the nosebleed section to drown out the protests of the Sanders delegates who’d been thrown out of their seats by muscle hired by the DNC. The MSM, already complicit by feeding questions in advance to Donna Brazille, your equally corrupt acting DNC chair, dutifully complied with misleading tight shots of the convention floor in a pathetic and transparent attempt to manufacture consensus and party “unity.”
      All throughout the campaigns, Bernie would beat Hillary by double digits in state after state yet walk away with few to no delegates (such as in Wyoming), thereby preventing him from achieving the 1991 minimum to get the majority on the first ballot. And, to hedge your bets, even if Bernie had met that threshold, the shockingly, staggeringly and stupendously corrupt Super Delegates, most of which having already pledged fealty to Queen Hillary eight months before the first caucus or primary ballot had been cast, had their say. After the Sanders campaign complained about it, the DNC grudgingly changed its rules. But even this time around, they’ll have a say on the second ballot when the log-jammed field of Democratic hangerson essentially will prevent Bernie from achieving the 1991 delegate threshold on the first ballot.

      Then, to prove that the “Democratic” National Committee has veered even more rightward in accordance with Overton’s Window, you accepted what amounted to a naked bribe from right wing billionaire Michael Bloomberg to the tune of $319,500 over three disbursements two days before he threw his hat in the ring. Another half a million was disbursed to other Blue Dog campaigns. In response, you right wing scum changed the rules for Bloomberg who gave you that largesse with the intent of buying his way onto the debate stage in Las Vegas last Wednesday even though he blew off the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary.
      It seems that not only does money talk in the DNC, it screams through a bullhorn at 300 decibels. And you people listen.
      So, you take vast sums of money from right wing entities and billionaires who cynically run as Democrats and whose racist and fascist positions have magically “evolved” almost literally overnight, you deny credentials to people holding up anti-TPP signs and rip the signs out of their hands, throw people out of their seats for which they’d paid, use hired muscle to that effect and essentially used every dirty trick in the book to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination so Queen Clinton could have her fucking coronation.
      How did that work out for you, guys?
     And now, you’re using the same old dog-eared playbook from 2016 just like the actual Republican Party and their dirty tricks (fake census forms, voter suppression legislation, gerrymandering, hacking into voting machines, Crosscheck purge lists and other crimes too numerous to list). You know damned good and well Bloomberg’s in the race to defeat not Trump but Sanders. Yet we’re still treated to a daily spectacle of shadow-boxing between these two fascist New York billionaires as if they’re actually running against one another.
      But we Sanders supporters are wise to your tricks. Tom Perez has stacked the rules committees, again, with right wing operatives and convicted felons. In fact, Sander’s official campaign song should be The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” You didn’t fool us four years ago but this time Bernie and we are wise to your dirty, duplicitous right wing tricks that are right out of Lee Atwater’s, Karl Rove’s or Roger Stone’s playbook. When your pre-anointed Queen Hillary reached out to Sanders supporters, after she’d called us “Bernie Bros”, “residue” and “basement dwellers”, she’d said, “I’ll take your vote but I neither need nor want them.”
      Clinton’s arrogance in not going to that union rally in Michigan on election night and telling Sanders’ tens of millions of supporters that she didn’t need nor want our votes were just two factors in her losing what should’ve been a cakewalk. Instead she suffered perhaps the most humiliating defeat in the history of American politics by losing to a child molesting game show host who can’t spell “hamburger” and thinks wind mills cause brain cancer. This was your anointed one, who’s still whining that the man to whom tens of millions had pledged their devotion and whom she called names didn’t endorse her quickly enough.
      Now, I can’t speak for all Sanders supporters but I’m followed by many of them on social media and many of us are saying the same thing and issuing the same warnings- If you anoint Bloomberg or any of the other assclowns on the “Democratic” side when Sanders clearly would’ve won the number of delegates without interference from the DNC or the corporate lobbyists and party insiders who make up the Super Delegates, then we will again withhold our votes from that person. You will give Trump another four years to build up his 4th Reich. And you will go down in history as being the political party who brought that about by hamstringing a man who’s projected to beat Trump in almost all polls, a man who truly has our nation’s best interests at heart but who was judged much too “radical” in wanting health care for all.
            Robert Crawford

KindleindaWind, my writing blog.

All Time Classics

  • Our Worse Half: The 25 Most Embarrassing States.
  • The Missing Security Tapes From the World Trade Center.
  • It's a Blunderful Life.
  • The Civil War II
  • Sweet Jesus, I Hate America
  • Top Ten Conservative Books
  • I Am Mr. Ed
  • Glenn Beck: Racist, Hate Monger, Comedian
  • The Ten Worst Music Videos of all Time
  • Assclowns of the Week

  • Links to the first 33 Assclowns of the Week.
  • Links to Assclowns of the Week 38-63.
  • #106: The Turkey Has Landed edition
  • #105: Blame it on Paris or Putin edition
  • #104: Make Racism Great Again Also Labor Day edition
  • #103: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Toilet edition
  • #102: Orange is the New Fat edition
  • #101: Electoral College Dropouts edition
  • #100: Centennial of Silliness edition
  • #99: Dr. Strangehate edition
  • #98: Get Bentghazi edition
  • #97: SNAPping Your Fingers at the Poor edition
  • #96: Treat or Treat, Kiss My Ass edition
  • #95: Monumental Stupidity double-sized edition
  • #94: House of 'Tards edition
  • #93: You Da Bomb! edition.
  • #92: Akin to a Fool edition.
  • #91: Aurora Moronealis edition.
  • #90: Keep Your Gubmint Hands Off My High Pre'mums and Deductibles! edition.
  • #89: Occupy the Catbird Seat/Thanksgiving edition.
  • #88: Heil Hitler edition.
  • #87: Let Sleeping Elephants Lie edition.
  • #86: the Maniacs edition.
  • #85: The Top 50 Assclowns of 2010 edition.
  • #(19)84: Midterm Madness edition.
  • #83: Spill, Baby, Spill! edition.
  • #82: Leave Corporations Alone, They’re People! edition.
  • #81: Hatin' on Haiti edition.
  • #80: Don't Get Your Panties in a Twist edition.
  • #79: Top 50 Assclowns of 2009 edition.
  • #78: Nattering Nabobs of Negativism edition.
  • #77: ...And Justice For Once edition.
  • #76: Reading Tea Leaves/Labor Day edition.
  • #75: Diamond Jubilee/Inaugural Edition
  • #74: Dropping the Crystal Ball Edition
  • #73: The Twelve Assclowns of Christmas Edition
  • #72: Trick or Treat Election Day Edition
  • #71: Grand Theft Autocrats Edition
  • #70: Soulless Corporations and the Politicians Who Love Them Edition
  • Empire Of The Senseless.
  • Christwire.org: Conservative Values for an Unsaved World.
  • Esquire's Charles Pierce.
  • Brilliant @ Breakfast.
  • The Burning Platform.
  • The Rant.
  • Mock, Paper, Scissors.
  • James Petras.
  • Towle Road.
  • Avedon's Sideshow (the new site).
  • At Largely, Larisa Alexandrovna's place.
  • The Daily Howler.
  • The DCist.
  • Greg Palast.
  • Jon Swift. RIP, Al.
  • God is For Suckers.
  • The Rude Pundit.
  • Driftglass.
  • Newshounds.
  • William Grigg, a great find.
  • Brad Blog.
  • Down With Tyranny!, Howie Klein's blog.
  • Wayne's World. Party time! Excellent!
  • Busted Knuckles, aka Ornery Bastard.
  • Mills River Progressive.
  • Right Wing Watch.
  • Earthbond Misfit.
  • Anosognosia.
  • Echidne of the Snakes.
  • They Gave Us a Republic.
  • The Gawker.
  • Outtake Online, Emmy-winner Charlotte Robinson's site.
  • Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo
  • No More Mr. Nice Blog.
  • Head On Radio Network, Bob Kincaid.
  • Spocko's Brain.
  • Pandagon.
  • Slackivist.
  • WTF Is It Now?
  • No Blood For Hubris.
  • Lydia Cornell, a very smart and accomplished lady.
  • Roger Ailes (the good one.)
  • BlondeSense.
  • The Smirking Chimp.
  • Hammer of the Blogs.
  • Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
  • Argville.
  • Existentialist Cowboy.
  • The Progressive.
  • The Nation.
  • Mother Jones.
  • Vanity Fair.
  • Salon.com.
  • Citizens For Legitimate Government.
  • News Finder.
  • Indy Media Center.
  • Lexis News.
  • Military Religious Freedom.
  • McClatchy Newspapers.
  • The New Yorker.
  • Bloggingheads TV, political vlogging.
  • Find Articles.com, the next-best thing to Nexis.
  • Altweeklies, for the news you won't get just anywhere.
  • The Smirking Chimp
  • Don Emmerich's Peace Blog
  • Wikileaks.
  • The Peoples' Voice.
  • Dictionary.com.
  • CIA World Fact Book.
  • IP address locator.
  • Tom Tomorrow's hilarious strip.
  • Babelfish, an instant, online translator. I love to translate Ann Coulter's site into German.
  • Newsmeat: Find out who's donating to whom.
  • Wikipedia.
  • Uncyclopedia.
  • anysoldier.com
  • Icasualties
  • Free Press
  • YouTube
  • The Bone Bridge.
  • Powered by Blogger