Saturday, May 21, 2016

Bernie's Endgame Failure

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As the 2016 Democratic Primary season winds down, it's obvious that Bernie Sanders has lost his once rather noble narrative.

His surrogates have been a hot mess - Obama critics such as Cornel West and Cenk Uygur - Naderites such as Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore - and befuddled pundits who have garbled the message such as Nina Turner and Shaun King. There have been several disastrous demonstrations of Bernie-Bro chaos, such as the protest at a Clinton rally in California during which children were screamed and cursed at and signs were destroyed, along with the latest debacle at the Nevada State Democratic Convention which ended in police action.

Bernie doesn't seem concerned with uniting the Democratic Party. Instead he is vowing to plow ahead to California, win by miracle or (more likely) lose to Hillary, then somehow persuade the super delegates to flip to him at the Philadelphia convention this summer (and please send money!). He's just doubling down on his campaign spin, and seems to believe every pipe-dream his followers espouse:

Update: Bernie doubled down on Sunday Talk Shows:

Interview with Jake Tapper 5-22-2016 on CNN



Jake Tapper: Now you were making a point about the superdelegates, but what you left out of that data is that while it’s true – you have roughly 46 percent of the pledged delegates, Secretary Clinton has roughly 54 percent of them. It seems unlikely that you’ll actually achieve the majority of the pledged delegates.

Sanders: I assume that most of the people who come to my rallies can do arithmetic!
The point that I was making is there’s something absurd when I get 46 percent of the delegates that come from real contests — real elections, and 7 percent of the superdelegates. I am the stronger candidate because we appeal to independents, people who are not in love with either the Democratic or the Republican Party,”


From This Week with George Stephanopoulos: Will he be Hillary's running mate? Um...

STEPHANOPOULOS: If you don't, sir, and this is my final question.
Are you hoping to be considered if Secretary Clinton's running mate?

SANDERS: It's a little bit early to talk about that. Right now, our function is to do everything I can, George. And you're going to see me running all over California; we're in New Mexico now. We're going to do everything that we can to get every vote and every delegate that we can and go into that convention with as much momentum as is possible.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Didn't hear a no. Senator, we'll be talking to you soon. Take care.

On Hillary as the "lesser of two evils" compared with Trump:

We need a campaign, an election, coming up which does not have two candidates who are really very, very strongly disliked. I don’t want to see the American people voting for the lesser of two evils. I want the American people to be voting for a vision of economic justice, of social justice, of environmental justice, of racial justice. That is the campaign we are running, and that’s why we are getting the support we are.




From Yahoo News
Sanders insisted there is a “possibility” he could pull ahead of Clinton. He acknowledged this would be improbable and would take multiple major victories among the six states that will vote on June 7. Nevertheless, Sanders vowed to take his “fight” to the party’s nominating convention, which will take place in Philadelphia in late July.
“We have the possibility. It will be a steep climb, I recognize that, but we have the possibility of going to Philadelphia with a majority of the pledged delegates,” Sanders said. “Some people say that we’ve got a steep hill to climb to do that. And you know what? That is absolutely true. But you know what? Together we have been climbing that steep hill from day one in this campaign.”

Yeah, okay - a steep hill to nowhere because Hillary Clinton will win California, and also New Jersey and Washington D.C.

And along comes Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver to refute the Math, which "media narrative" instead of reality:

From NPR Interview
AUDIE CORNISH: But if he has to win 68 percent of all the delegates going forward, in all the races, and he falls short of that — you know, do you have an obligation to be honest about what his path is?
JEFF WEAVER: Well, no, but see, but that’s a media narrative from people who think that politics is just standing at a board, doing mathematics. But it’s much more than that.

And about that Convention:

CORNISH: So for the record, you are planning to contest the convention?

WEAVER: Well, I think what is going to happen is at the end of the District of Columbia, which is the last jurisdiction to vote in this process - and once that happens, if the senator has substantial momentum, if he has substantially closed the gap in terms of pledged delegates, if the public polling continues to show that he's a much stronger candidate, I think there's a strong argument to be made to superdelegates that they should take another look.
I mean, there are hundreds of superdelegates who support Hillary Clinton who announced their endorsement for her before the race even started, before they even knew Bernie Sanders was in the race. So...

CORNISH: Right, that's why I'm asking. So essentially, you're saying, yeah, if all of these things line up the way you're describing, you want - you're saying that your campaign will - you guys will raise your hand and say, yes, we want to contest this. This is not over.

WEAVER: Right, we'll go there. And, you know, superdelegates don't vote until they actually go to the convention. So let's see where the race stands at the end of the voting process. And then let's see what happens when the superdelegates actually vote in Philadelphia.

But slowly some past Bernie supporters are coming to their senses and realizing Bernie's day is done and we should be focused on Trump.

This week the Twitter hashtag #BernieLostMe trended for several days. And while the faithful keep their spirits up by vowing #BernieOrBust, signs are that the "revolution" may be coming apart at the seams.



















Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Bernie Supporters Trash the Nevada Dem Convention

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Previous Related Posts:
Bernie the Sore Loser
Bernie Brats Need to Stop Dissing South
Desperation in Bernie Land
Susan Sarandon Likes Trump Over Hillary
Bernie Camp Blames Hillary for AZ Loss
Bernie Gives Hillary the Hand of Silence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Hillary Clinton won the Nevada Caucus so the state convention should have been a simple matter of dividing up delegates between herself and Bernie Sanders.

But nothing in the 2016 election is EVER that simple. In fact, the Nevada Democratic Convention turned ugly due to the sore-loser attitude of his followers.

From Washington Post
Prior to the state convention, some Sanders supporters began an effort to shift the convention rules in a way that they viewed as more favorable to their candidate. One of those changes, the Las Vegas Sun reported, was a process for verifying voice votes; another took issue with the state party chairwoman, Roberta Lange, heading up the convention. Supporters at the event circulated petitions to the same end. The scene was set.

The first report from the credentials committee on Saturday morning indicated that Clinton had a slight edge in delegates. Sanders fans voted against that report, per Jon Ralston, and then demanded a recount – but this was simply a preliminary figure…. That was when the vote to approve the rules as written – Roberta’s Rules versus Robert’s Rules, as some Sanders backers dubbed them – was conducted by voice vote. The motion, seconded by a Sanders supporter, passed – which is when the room, in Ralston’s phrasing, “erupts.”

Jon Ralston had it right - the Bernie delegates "erupted" into anger, shouting, name-calling, and even chair-tossing. Eventually the place had to be shut down and the police were called in to make people leave the venue. Video of the melee is below. None of it bodes well for the Philadelphia Democratic Convention later this summer.

One of the problems was that 64 delegates for Bernie showed up, some of them apparently bused in from California. Obviously they couldn't participate in the Nevada Caucus, but that didn't stop them from shouting and raising a ruckus about how unfair the establishment is.


People behaved so badly, even shouting down Senator Barbara Boxer of California, that the police were called in to clear the building. The next day, Nevada Democratic Headquarters had to be closed due to threats.

From Las Vegas Review Journal
The convention is over, but the wider battle for order continues within the Nevada State Democratic Party. It’s playing out not in the shuttered headquarters, but on social media, where some Sanders backers relentlessly criticize and insult state party Chairwoman Roberta Lange. The outcry turned ugly over the weekend, when Lange’s cellphone number was posted online and she received death threats.
A Metropolitan Police Department spokesman confirmed Monday that the agency is investigating the threats. He declined to comment further, as the investigation continues.
Scores of voicemails and texts left on Lange’s cellphone and provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal show that some came from out-of-state people.
“I’m a Democrat from Ohio,” one texted her. “What you did yesterday was despicable. Please resign and turn yourself over to authorities.”
Another texted: “Are you scared of us? Of Bernie? Are you that big of a coward?” Yet another texted: “You’re a piece of trash. You are embarrassing to this country. You make Americans look bad and make women look worse. Hillary isnt going to win!”

Scroll down this post for more examples of death threats and insults.



Update: John Oliver on Comedy Central Points Out
That the Whole Caucus System is a Failure



By Monday, outrage from the rest of the Democratic Party reached fever pitch. Everyone has heard enough shouting from the Bernibros, bots, and gals, thank you very much. No one has patience anymore for this crazy-ass takeover of our party by Independent Rand-Paul-Nader Libertarian types, and no one gives a crap about their "Revolution."

The Sanders team put out a statement on Monday, but it was too little, too late:



The Nevada Dems formally lodged a complaint with the DNC:





Chanting "Recount, Recount"

Note:
This video wrongly states that Bernie won Nevada.
Hillary actually won - this is posted for the background.












Senator Barbara Boxer begs crowd for civility
"Bernie is my friend. You want to boo me? You're booing Bernie."
"Keep on booing, and boo yourselves right out of this election."




One man in the crowd yelled at Boxer:
"Who gives a sh*t, b*tch?!!"
Charming.



Police Action and Shut Down




Berners began to use social media to threaten Nevada Democratic Officials as well as Superdelegates.






Saturday, May 14, 2016

Trump, Alias John Somebody

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Previous Related Posts
The Trump Taco Bowl
Trump Looms Over GOP Convention
 Nazi Trump Demands Sieg Heil from Crowd - But Not Racist Of Course
Chris Christie as Trump's Toadie

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


It's been brought to light that in the past, specifically during the 1990s after his break-up with wife Ivana, Donald Trump liked to play phone games with reporters, pretending to be his own publicist. He used the aliases John Miller and John Barron. When asked about it in the past, Trump admitted that he pranked the reporter, but now he denies it ever happened.

TRUMP: "No, I don't know anything about it - you're telling me about it for the first time and it doesn't sound like my voice at all. I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice - you can imagine that. And this sounds like one of the scams. One of the many scams. This doesn't sound like me.





From the Washington Post:
A recording obtained by The Washington Post captures what New York reporters and editors who covered Trump’s early career experienced in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s: calls from Trump’s Manhattan office that resulted in conversations with “John Miller” or “John Barron” — public-relations men who sound precisely like Trump himself — who indeed are Trump, masquerading as an unusually helpful and boastful advocate for himself, according to the journalists and several of Trump’s top aides.

In 1991, Sue Carswell, a reporter at People magazine, called Trump’s office seeking an interview with the developer. She had just been assigned to cover the soap opera surrounding the end of Trump’s 12-year marriage to Ivana, his budding relationship with the model Marla Maples and his rumored affairs with any number of celebrities who regularly appeared on the gossip pages of the New York newspapers.

Within five minutes, Carswell got a return call from Trump’s publicist, a man named John Miller, who immediately jumped into a startlingly frank and detailed explanation of why Trump dumped Maples for the Italian model Carla Bruni. “He really didn’t want to make a commitment,” Miller said. “He’s coming out of a marriage, and he’s starting to do tremendously well financially.”

From NorthJersey.com by writer Abbott Koloff
As a sportswriter more than 30 years ago, I called Donald Trump’s office in New York and was put on the phone with a man who said he was John Barron, a spokesman for Trump who sounded so much like his boss and used many of the same phrases that I kept interrupting him.
“Wait, is this Donald?” I asked at least three times during the interview.
“Oh, no” the man calling himself John Barron said, adding something along the lines that it was an interesting thought.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported what sports writers covering the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League discovered in 1985 — that Trump, who owned the Generals at the time, often posed as someone else in order to praise himself or to say something he could later deny.
Trump’s apparent ghost spokesman sometimes spelled his name “Barron” — Trump named his youngest son Barron and reportedly admired hotel magnate Barron Hilton — and sometimes Baron. He also used the name John Miller, according to the Washington Post.
After that phone call from 1985, I called Trump’s secretary and was told that John Barron was not on any of the company’s organizational charts but was Trump’s right-hand man. You could almost hear the wink in her voice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript of "John Miller" call with WaPo ~ Read it Here

Interviewer: What is your position there?

John Miller: Well, I’m sort of handling PR because he gets so much of it. And frankly, I mean, I could tell you off the record. Until I get to know you, off the record, I can tell you that he didn’t care if he got bad PR until he got his divorce finished.

So when he got a lot of bad financial stuff, he liked it because, you know, it was good because he could get a divorce finished. And once his divorce is finished, if you noticed since then he’s doing well financially and he’s doing well in every other way. The licensing was five to nothing. And people are saying how come all of a sudden he’s doing so well? And then I guess Newsday about two weeks ago did a story on that. So I’ve sort of been put in here to handle because I’ve never seen anybody get so many calls from the press.

Interviewer: Where did you come from?

John Miller: I basically worked for different firms. I worked for a couple of different firms, and I’m somebody that he knows and I think somebody that he trusts and likes. So I’m going to do this a little part time, and then, yeah, go on with my life, too.

Interviewer: Is he trying to -- I mean, is Marla trying to reconcile all this or is this --

John Miller: Marla wants to be back with him and he wants to be with her, but he just, he just feels it’s too soon.

~~~~~~~~~








Interviewer: What about this Ivana thing? It says in the Newsday Trump also told friends that when he and Ivana met last week, she indicated that she would be interested in reconciliation?

John Miller: Ivana wants to get back with Donald, but she --

Interviewer: Really? After saying on Barbara Walters that she never would?

John Miller: What is she going to say? What is she going to say? She’s going to say when he’s with somebody else and had other people lined up, is she going to say, “Yes, I want to get back. I want to get back.” You know, she’s a pretty savvy woman and she’s not going to say -- I mean, he’s living with Marla and he’s got three other girlfriends, and then, and she’s not going to say, I really want to get back, you know? She wants to get back, she’s told it to a lot of her friends and she’s told it to him, but it’s so highly unlikely. That’s off the record. He left. I mean, it was his choice to leave and he left.

Interviewer: He left for Marla.

John Miller: No, he didn’t leave, no. See, that’s the biggest misconception of this whole thing. The second question I asked about after the ring was the biggest misconception is he left. He didn’t leave for Marla. He really left for himself. He didn’t leave for Marla. He never left for Marla. He was going to leave anyway. Marla was there, but he was going to leave anyway. Whether there was a Marla or not he was going to leave anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~























Friday, May 6, 2016

The #TrumpTacoBowl for Cinco De Mayo

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Trump tweeted a picture of himself eating a "taco bowl" on the fifth of May, otherwise known as the Mexican (and American) holiday Cinco de Mayo. Yes, the King of All Hypocrites thought it would be appropriate to revel in Hispanic culture even though he has accused all Mexican immigrants of being killers and rapists, and he wants to build his giant wall on the border.

Hypocrisy never bothers a man like Donald Trump. But this time the internet had a good time calling him out on it.












































Thursday, May 5, 2016

Hillary Running Against Bernie and Trump

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In spite of not winning the Indiana Primary, Hillary Clinton had a strong week as a candidate.

After Donald Trump accused her of playing the Woman Card, Hillary raised 2.4 million dollars by offering supporters a literal Woman Card for a donation.







She began the vetting process for Vice President, and of course Twitter had a few suggestions.











And she turned towards the general election in a big way with two ads targeting Trump:





Unfortunately for the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders is still a major stumbling block for Hillary. He won Indiana possibly due to Independent and GOP cross-over votes. Even though the state was a virtual tie in delegates and Bernie's lead was slim, his followers once again saw it as "momentum" leading to the big prize of California at the end of the primary season.

And Bernie came out swinging at Hillary, telling her he wasn't going anywhere.








However, those able to #FeelTheMath and accept reality are realizing that the numbers are not in Bernie's favor, and he probably won't catch Hillary on delegates.











However, the Berniebot Believers are never going to give up, and most of them are never going to vote Hillary in the general election. And Bernie's surrogates are still calling for increased donations to keep them going, while building up hopes for a longshot win. It's a con game, and it isn't helping the Democratic Party.

The main lessons from this election year are clear: the Democratic Party needs to fix several things before next time. No more support for Independents pretending to be Democrats. No more open primaries allowing Republicans to tamper with our primaries, and hopefully no more unfair caucuses keeping turnout low.

As it stands now, Hillary and her supporters are having to turn toward the general election and Donald Trump while dealing with rabid Berniebots who basically regurgitate far-right memes about Hillary.

Indiana: Cruz, You Lose And Trump Wins

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Donald Trump won the Indiana Primary and within a few hours his only real competition, Senator Ted Cruz, made a concession speech and announced he was dropping out. The next day, John Kasich of Ohio became the last competitor to give up and let Donald become the anointed one of the GOP.

So Trump is what they've got and they are stuck with him.









~~~~~~~

Cruz can blame it on Mike Pence, the unpopular governor of Indiana, who gave him a lukewarm endorsement also "commending" Donald Trump.





But voters might point to Cruz himself, who made the unthinkable unforced error in the Hoosier state of calling a basketball hoop a "basketball ring." Did he bother to watch the movie "Hoosiers" before campaigning there? Has he ever heard of "Hoop Dreams?"









Cruz Ends Campaign





Ted also pummeled his wife on stage:





This followed a week in which John Boehner called Ted "Lucifer in the Flesh" and Trump accused his father, Rafael, of somehow being involved in the JFK assassination.



























One of the people dragged down by Ted Cruz in all this was Carly Fiorina, his erstwhile "running-mate" for a week. Her own run for the nomination failed because she is as unlikable as Cruz himself. But becoming Cruz's partner was worse as she embarrassed herself singing a creepy song to the Cruz children, and then ignored by everyone except Heidi Cruz when she suddenly fell from the stage while introducing the family. You really can't make this stuff up.

Will Fiorina be working for Trump soon like everyone else in the GOP? Probably. She is clearly desperate for attention, even negative attention - much like Chris Christie. But her run with Cruz will go down in history as a bizarre footnote to a crazy ill-fated campaign.