MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Hits of the Day
Donna Brazile's "Inside Hillary Clinton's Secret Takeover of the DNC"
By HSG on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:01am |Donna Brazile, a Clinton partisan, deserves great credit for her candor in this article.
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"I had to keep my promise to Bernie. I was in agony as I dialed him. Keeping this secret was against everything that I stood for, all that I valued as a woman and as a public servant. Hello, senator. I’ve completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer,” I said. “But I will not kill the patient.”
I discussed the fundraising agreement that each of the candidates had signed. Bernie was familiar with it, but he and his staff ignored it. They had their own way of raising money through small donations. I described how Hillary’s campaign had taken it another step.
I told Bernie I had found Hillary’s Joint Fundraising Agreement. I explained that the cancer was that she had exerted this control of the party long before she became its nominee.
URL:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774
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Comments
Additional money quotes:
"How much control Brooklyn had and for how long was still something I had been trying to uncover for the last few weeks. By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart."
"If the fight had been fair, [the Clinton] campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead."
by HSG on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:41am
Hal, Donna Brazile was fired from CNN because it was known that she shared debate questions with the Clinton campaign. Obviously, I haven’t read her book but I wonder if she includes her complete role in events.
https://www.snopes.com/donna-brazile-leaves-cnn/
Edit to add:
Tad Devine, a member of the Sanders campaign actually defended Brazile.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-former-senior-aide-to-bernie-sanders-1476297181-htmlstory.html
Note to Hal.It is 2017. Bernie Sanders will not win the 2020 campaign.
Your link doesn’t work, I think this is what you wanted
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:25am
The link works for me. I'm not sure why you're having a problem.The link in the main box works for me but the link in the actual text of the post does not. I'm not sure why. In the article, Brazile acknowledges that she determined, while serving as Interim DNC Chair, that the Committee, at the time it was refereeing the Democratic primaries, was under the control of the Clinton campaign. Given her close relationship to both Clintons, she advised Bill in both 1992 and 1996, this is powerful confirmation that the DNC did in fact materially assist Hillary defeat Bernie.by HSG on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:37am
Hal it is 2017. Sanders lost. We have a bigger danger now in Trump. Hillary is not running. Keith Ellison is number two at the DNC. Ellison is a BernieBros. You have security now at the DNC. Democrats have to unite to win. Sanders is not part of the uniting process.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:41am
RMRD - he got 43% of the popular vote in the Democratic primaries last year and did much better in the caucus states despite the fact that the DNC was, per Brazile, under Hillary's thumb. He is easily the most popular politician in America. If he's not part of the unification process, there can't be unification.
by HSG on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:46am
It is 2017. He will not be the choice in 2020. Democrats will look for new blood.
Edit to add:.
90% of Bernie supporters voted for Hillary. Democrats will move forward without you, Nina Turner, and the BernieBros.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:50am
Hillary got 52% of the vote, but you've never shown her any respect - why should you expect any different with Bernie at 43%? (BTW, she ran out the clock - if she didn't have to attract his supporters for the next round, she could have taken off the gloves. And those caucuses? Really, not very democratic or representative of the populace at large - a parlor trick to give the underdogs a better chance.)
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 9:26am
Hillary got 52% of the Democratic vote. Trump did even better, he won the election. His tactics were disgraceful but he won. Does that earn him respect by the same metric? Not by mine.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 9:39am
I really love this slaloming - Hal will say something, then Lulu will argue a different point. Peter will say something, then Hal will come in and argue the opposite under the same banner.
But no, Trump didn't win - he cheated - not just ethically, but legally. He's disqualified. It will take time for our system to come to grips with that, if it ever does, but no, he lost.
And no, winning per se doesn't draw respect or allegiance, nor does drawing 43%.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 9:45am
Thanks Lulu. There's a very instructive passage at the end of Brazile's article that demonstrates both Bernie's class and his commitment to the Democratic values of FDR and LBJ. It also by the way calls into serious question the sincerity of those leading the efforts to blame Russia for Trump:
by HSG on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 9:46am
I fixed the link. Regardless of what you think of Hillary or Bernie, this is a cautionary tale. A primary candidate should not be able to hijack the finances of the party, and we must make sure that it doesn't happen again.
What's most remarkable to me is the source. Brazile is neither a doe-eyed idealist nor a bomb-throwing insurgent. She's a long-time DNC insider who served twice as interim chair, the second time immediately after Wasserman's disgrace. As you note, she herself made an effort to tip the scales to Clinton during a primary debate. So the fact that she has published this detailed and scathing account of what happened is remarkable.
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:54am
"A primary candidate should not be able to hijack the finances of the party, nor be saddled with covering for its debts and malfeasance" - fixed that for you.
Typically the party is there to help the candidates, not to drag them down. Bernie didn't share the pain of the bankruptcy bailout. Aside from arguments over # of debates he eventually won, I still don't see how he was hurt, whereas his opponent was stuck with huge extra expenses.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 9:19am
It only cost the HRC campaign $20 million to buy control of DNC finances, including the abilty to use it as a fundraising vehicle for the campaign. I'd call that a great investment from their point of view--which is obviously why they did it and why they kept the arrangement secret. If you don't see a problem with this, we are so far apart that there is nothing more to discuss. I agree with Donna Brazile's choice of words. It's a cancer.
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 9:49am
$20 million and likely $2-3 million a month that largely got flushed down the sewer if I read correctly.
$3.5m-$4m was the DNC's spend rate, and DWS was crap at fundraising. So that's $42-48million over 1 year, minus anything she managed to raise.
Hillary could have easily raised that money without the DNC, and the DNC was largely bad publicity for her -certainly most of Bernie's followers assumed it was her gang when they were largely useless to her, and Trump spread that same "rigged" meme - rigged what, pray tell? Her largest fundraising month was $86 million - more than the *ENTIRE* DNC fundraising over this electon cycle. How much you think DWS or Brazile assisted with that?
This really goes back to Obama dismantling his ground game a few months after he won in 2008, leaving all the independent groups he'd aggregated to wither. Since then, the DNC became the Obama support group with not much to do. I think he understood he screwed up hiring DWS, but being Obama, he was reluctant to make a stir firing her, so just let her dawdle on painfully a few years.
Maybe Hillary should have run as an independent.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 10:12am
You're right, the Clinton campaign probably made this deal with Wasserman all from their sweet little hearts. And they kept it a secret from from the other DNC officers and the public because they didn't want to brag about it, bless 'em. And the fact that Donna Brazile found it so alarming that she called it a cancer, well, she was just an interim chair of the DNC, what could she possibly know?
Nothing to see here, folks, move along. Stronger together!
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 11:43am
Months ago during the campaign this very story came out with, I believe, even more detail. I cannot remember where so as to provide a link, probably at what gets branded an agitprop site, but with the intense coverage that we can expect maybe it will turn up again. I am glad that Brazile has broken this story widely but I very much doubt she was as ignorant at the time as she claims.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 12:03pm
This is known info
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 12:31pm
Thanks, you ignore the points I made and just launched into tut-tut/mocking mode. So sure, it's possible that smearing herself with dogshit would also bring in more donors. And maybe bailing out the DNC for $20 million+ was a canny piece if intrigue. But WHAT THE FUCK DID IT BUY HER? Fewer debates until it didn't? More face time with DWS? Association withe the efficiency and likeability of the DNC's juggernaut of campaign wow? An extra $30 million out of a half billion or more spent (because holding more DNC events with DWS is just so much more efficient than having Beyoncé or Katie Perry or JLo fill a stadium or having her husband work a room of rich insiders). C'mon, mike, tell me about 8-balls and chippendale gigolos or something. Enquiring minds want to know. What was the big quid pro quo?
I mean, you may be right, but there are easier ways to success than bailing out a cripple to the tune of $20million bucks plus hoping you get the money back?
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 12:59pm
What was the quid pro quo? Did you read the piece?
So the Clinton campaign directed maxed-out donors to write big checks to the DNC, covered the debt, left a bit in the battleground states, and funneled the rest to the campaign. DNC gets bailed out; Clinton evades contribution limits. Quid. Pro. Quo.
If she were the nominee, this would be standard practice. But she wasn't the nominee. She was still in the primary, using the money to defeat her opponent and win the Democratic nomination.
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 1:25pm
You miss the point where people actually donate. Where do you see those $353k checks coming in? Who is the DNC hobnobbing for this money that Hillary couldn't get for her "Victory Fund" all by her lonesome?
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 2:35pm
Of course Hillary solicited those checks. But without funneling the money through the DNC, she wouldn't be able to bank them without violating campaign laws. The arrangement with the DNC enabled her to accept much bigger checks than her opponent.
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 2:46pm
Bernie was using the DNC. He is not a Democrat. In turn, Bernie got used by the DNC. He left the party to be free to criticize the party.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 2:52pm
Forget Bernie. It doesn't matter who's running against her. The DNC should not be cutting secret deals with one candidate to give them a financial advantage. It's not democratic, and it undermines mutual trust within the party. If Hillary had made this arrangement in 2008 and used the campaign money to defeat Obama, you'd be up in arms, and rightly so.
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:14pm
The also shouldn't be running out of money and having to go into firesale mode. She bailed them out, for fuck's sakes. If she had told them to go fuck themselves, she'd be a cold witch for being stingy. Was Soros giving the DNC money? Did they ask?
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:22pm
Hillary worked to block Obama in South Carolina. Blacks were outraged. Obama still won.Hillary had to work to win those voters back in 2016.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/clinton-south-carolina/471276/
Sanders supporters can keep whining or they can work to get their candidate a win. Bernie has Keith Ellison in a key role. His supporters can unite with the Democrats or they can whine. When Jon Ossoff was running in Georgia, the first words out of his mouth was that Ossoff may not be pure enough. The discussion is about Bernie Sanders. The discussion is not about a Democratic Party member.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:24pm
Let me substitute a few words for you. "The DNC worked to block Sanders in the primary. Sanders supporters are outraged. The DNC will have to work to win those voters back in 2020."
And they can start by acknowledging the error of this arrangement and guaranteeing a level playing field for primary candidates in the future.
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:50pm
Ok. But to be a Democratic candidate you have to be a Democrat. That should always have been the case. Oh! And to decide who is the candidate of the Dem Party (ie: to vote in the Primary) you have to bea DEMOCRAT.
by CVille Dem on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:59pm
Please expand on how they "worked to block Sanders". A suggestion of using Bernie'es atheism and then rejecting that idea is of course not blocking. AFAIK debate schedules were set before Bernie threw his hat in the ring, but I may be wrong, but in the end they compromised with him. What else ya got?
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 4:00pm
Bernie friggin’ Sanders signed the same friggin’ agreement. When asked if he provide the DNC with funding for Democrats (you know the people who were not pure enough) he said, “We’ll see”
https://thedailybanter.com/2017/11/donna-brazile-rewrites-history-with-anti-hillary-backstabbing/
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 4:14pm
Yes the Democratic Party will havre to do this, and they should get on with it right away. The goal should not be, deny and do nothing. The goal should be growing a new loyal base of voters, those young people are getting older and in order not to let the cynical “both sides suck that’s why I don’t vote” spread through yet another generation of American voters.
by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 11:06pm
Wikipedia notes $62 million raised by the Victory Fund through May 2016. $20+ million ponied up to get back $62million (with a lot of effort) isn't the simplest, most attractive deal I've seen, though it might have been worth it financially, though undoubtedly pissing off a lot of states and party advocates in the process. Perhaps Hillary was callous and oblivious and didn't think laundering money through states and giving them a shotty commission wouldn't raise hackles. Perhaps something else. I don't have enough non-contentious details to judge yet.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:19pm
While I think it's quite evident why the campaign did this, I don't ultimately care what the thought process or calculus was. The point is that secret deals with the DNC favoring a particular candidate should not happen--in any presidential primary. It's undemocratic, and it erodes trust in the party. When people say elections are "rigged," this is what they mean.
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:43pm
Well no, when they say "rigged" they mean many different things. Hal means they didn't let the more progressive candidate win, period. Many Obama supporters thought "rigged" meant not letting the first serious black candidate win. The GOP thinks it means anything they make up about Dems bot not keeping minorities from voting. Etc, etc. I don't deny there are more or less neutral and accurate uses of the word, but in common parlance it's taken some beating.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:55pm
This really goes back to Obama dismantling his ground game a few months after he won in 2008, leaving all the independent groups he'd aggregated to wither.
I agree with this. Seemed real clear to me that when all the Obama fans invaded TPM Cafe in 2008 during the primaries, they were not Democratic party stalwarts, but one man fans and many of them willing to work for him alone, damn the Democratic party, who cares about them? Many seemed to be insurgents, really liked the whole Obama campaign program, really seeing it as a the beginning of a revolt against the old party system, liked that it didn't I.D. with the Dem party so much. And the younger ones just wanted Obama, badly. After that was done, nobody else around was of much interest. Waiting on another charismatic they like to come round before they get active again. (The Bernie fans I see as a different demographic, but no less fervent. Rather than personality, more accurately described as they just like the shtick, as it were, the independent, feisty fighter thing.)
My point now: Just like Trump fans now. Not at all loyal to the GOP, actually many probably hate the GOP just as much as they hate the Dems. Drain the swamp.
I saw the Obama campaign game winning in 2008 as the beginning of the end of the two parties, and I still see it now. It was clear as a bell that most of the Obama fans were not loyal Dems and saw him as an alternative to the Dem. party.
My personal feeling is that It's unfortunate that politics of personality goes along with this, but that's what happens in a democracy when all the voters, including the uneducated, come out. You just have to deal with that somehow. I think our system was founded on thinking this would happen, as not all of the founders wanted there to be political parties, and they also saw the problem inherent in that of demagogues winning. So they created things like the Electoral College as safeguards. Like I said another thread, ironic that the Electoral College is recently backfiring as to its intent.
Brings to mind this:
Joe Biden’s Platform for 2020: Anti-Populism
now there's a true Dem Dem if ever there was one....
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 12:50pm
P.S. Obama fans, 2008, it was in a nutshell: who needs a party system when you've got the internet? we love this man,dream the impossible dream, black man, funny name, cool cat, good resume, let's make him president
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 12:52pm
and Obama won both the primary and general in 2008 selling post-partisanism, remember y'all? That's how he got the Independents. And the fans working for him since primary time knew that and wanted that and thought that would work. The labels were like this: Hillary was the old style partisan Dem and Obama was the post-partisan open to everyone's ideas.
BTW, I note that Trump still talks the post partisan game even though it has no meaning as he doesn't get policy and he is perhaps the most divisive president evah and there are zero liberal fans involved this time. There might have been some at the voting booth, hugely disappointed now....
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 1:04pm
Yes, also if the fight had been fair, the prior president wouldn't have left the party in poverty with a ditz at its helm, and the new contender stuck propping up the foundations. Hillary didn't appoint DWS but had her wrapped around her ankle with every bone-headed move. Now we found out HRC had to pay for her financial malfeasance and Obama wasn't much help taking care of his ownpart of the debt (remember what a scanfal it was that Hillary took a year to pay off debts in 2008 - mostly to a single contractor, Mark Penn. Now that the shoe's on other feet, Hillary's still the bitch).
So Hillary paid off $20 million, then covered a burn rate of $45million for the year, so that's like $65m of the $82m. So yeah, sucks to be the states, sucks to be her, sucks to be anyone but a Republican. Maybe if Bernie had been part of the party rather than an independent, he could have helped make the party solvent, though it likely just needs another restructuring if Brazile didn't do it. Anyway, this pisses me off towards everyone, but I imagined it drastically curtailed Hillary's plans. Brazile notes the arrangement was unusual, but Gore didn't have a bankrupt party to cover for (and hide as well - how are donors going to react to profligate spending. Brazile can complain Hillary was spending too much at events, but it was H's money she'd raised.
BTW, Brazile seems more sympathetic towards Bernie - is that "unfair", or just normal that people in politics will naturally choose favorites, whether they act on them or not?
As for the questions, the one I heard going into Flint was "a question about lead in water". - hardly a revelation. Devine seems to clear up it wasn't a big deal. Bernie (and Trump) may feel otherwise. Bring back Howard Dean?
PS - I am pissed about the states keeping 1 1/2%. I figured that was a joke. I don't know what the solution should have been, but this was not it.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 9:12am
Speaking of questionable money issues, there were two candidates who refused to put their taxes out for scrutiny. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Of course they both (falsely and absurdly offered to do so if Hillary would jump through some hoops for their entertainment)
edited for spelling
by CVille Dem on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 4:21pm
The reaction to this news will be interesting. I don’t think that the Democratic Party base will be shocked or deterred from voting.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 11:00am
Analysis by Aaron Blake @ The Fix @ WaPo does not come out kindly for Brazile:
Etc.
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 1:56pm
Idunno, Home Depot CA sold out of tiki torches - there could have been a revolution in thw streets...
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 2:38pm
billionaires bought them up for the anti-party-establishment populist mobs
Back to Brazile: note the subtle suggestion by Blake that she's trying to sell her book. I looked it up, she's 57, time to start worrying about boosting the nest egg for retirement, look out for #1 for a change.Controversy sells, go ahead and call me and Blake cynical.
Really, the future is here, and while it eventually may be anti-Trump, I can't see how it's going to be party based. The American millenials think they can run the elections on Facebook, it was just that the Russian kids were ahead of them on that?
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 2:54pm
Here's what the Obama's are up to; see "Democratic party" mentioned anywhere? No parties, rather: "leaders". And a "network".
Chance, Gloria Estefan, Aziz Ansari, Nas Close Out Obama Summit
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 3:10pm
Brazile's piece is comprehensive and clear and needs little elucidating. Still, I decided to respond to a few of the points here that may not have not been addressed. I will try to avoid areas that Michael Wolraich has covered since I concur with his remarks. I do not anticipate commenting further on this post or on comments herein.
1) Aaron Blake's contention in the Washington Post that Brazile breaks no new ground and relies on impressions is unpersuasive and his point that she is inflaming Sanders supporters is silly. Brazile indeed breaks new ground when she reveals the secret agreement that the Clinton campaign reached with the DNC in the summer before the primaries began under which the campaign took effective control of the DNC and thence used it to launder money. The article also bolsters the claims Sanders supporters expressed in late 2015 and 2016 that the DNC, through its debate schedule, and its decision to deny Sanders access to key Iowa data for a brief period, were unfairly helping Clinton.
Regarding inflamed Sanders supporters, we are justly angry because the supposedly impartial Dem primary referee was controlled by Hillary Clinton and used by her to access more money to wield against Bernie than she would have otherwise been able to use. We are not angry because Donna Brazile divulged these facts.
2) The decision by Bernie Sanders not to release his tax returns - and I think he was wrong - has no relevance and is not analogous. Primary voters knew in real time when Clinton divulged her tax returns and that Sanders didn't. Neither voters nor Sanders knew of the agreement between the DNC and Clinton. Moreover, voters and Sanders had a reasonable but ultimately false expectation that the DNC would act impartially.
3) Whether Brazile's motives are impure is irrelevant. The only question to be asked about her is whether she is telling the truth. There is no reason to believe otherwise. As Blake points out, much of what she wrote was, to an extent, already known to be true. If she's lying about the secret agreement, you can be sure Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz will call her out.
4) I do not believe I have used the term "rigged" to describe the 2016 Democratic primaries. I know I have not claimed that Hillary prevailed because of cheating or because the DNC put its thumb on the scale. I still do not call them rigged because I think Bernie could have won if he had been able to secure just a few more votes. I consider Iowa to have been a missed opportunity. My impression is that Nevada may have been a state where Clinton's control over the DNC made the difference.
Likewise, I still do not claim that the material assistance to the Clinton campaign that control over the party apparatus afforded her made the difference. The primaries were much closer than anybody had any reason to expect. But ultimately she did win by a convincing margin. We cannot know what would have happened if the primaries had been on the up and up. We do know that the primaries were not fairly conducted and that the thumb on the scale was that of wealthy and powerful interests trying to secure the nomination for a wealthy neolib/neocon former first lady rather than a progressive populist. This is obviously not going to sit well with the roughly 50% of Americans who are struggling economically and with Bernie's many more affluent supporters.
5) Bernie comes out of all of this smelling like a rose. The fact that he was before the primaries and is now an independent is of no moment. He ran in the Democratic primaries, as party rules allowed, rather than an independent in the general election because the last thing he wanted to be was a spoiler in the Nader mode. He did campaign for Hillary and ask his supporters to vote for her. Indeed, even after Donna Brazile told him that the DNC had been for all intents and purposes an arm of the Clinton campaign, he held his peace and supported her.
by HSG on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 8:21pm
OK, Hal. Don't respond. But your comments are Bull Shit. Since you are not responding I won't bother to explain, but seriously....smelling like a rose? I feel as though trump (just as sanders) is hiding things with his taxes. I think trump has no better understanding of policies than sanders does; I think sanders was completely dishonest when he ran as a Democrat -- the same as trump running as a republican. Sanders pretended he was a Dem and then whined when that very same party stuck to rules that preceded his fake candidacy, and didn't consider him equally valuable as someone who had worked for Democratic causes since forever. That isn't the same as screwing him over. His refusal to give out his tax forms has no relevance in your mind, but it actually does in mine and many others. Your excuses about that are the same as Kelly Conway's about trump: "They voted for him anyway." I don't think that should be the new standard. So now it is trump and sanders...what a great new low.
The latest thing that infuriates me about this narcissistic, self-aggrandizing Bull-shitter (that would be Bernie), is the fact that the critical governorship in Virginia is very close, and he has withheld his support from Northam on ONE ISSUE: the energy pipeline, which, BTW, is a done deal. Northam is pro women's rights. Pro-health care, pro-public education, pro-public transportation, etc etc etc, and his GOP opponent is the opposite. But Bernie is withholding his support because he is an asshole.
And Hal, assholes don't smell like roses. So glad you are not going to respond "herein."
Edited for stupid stuff. Nothing important.
by CVille Dem on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 10:20pm
Times change and heroes flare and fade. I remember when Sanders won in Vermont as an Independent and then declared he would caucus with the Democrats. He was a hero here at dag. Then he fought hard for a better health care bill and his star rose further. He carried out a mini-filibuster over health care just before the crucial vote when lives were in the balance and was nearly canonized. I do not recall a single disparaging voice turned against him. Well, except a bit from me and there well may have been at least some other slight caveats suggested to his shining image. Certainly not much though and there was no such thing as a Berniebro until he carried his same platform into a race against Hillary. Oh well, the wind blows one way and then it sucks the other way. That's politics.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 11:33pm
Excellent analysis!
And....OMG, Bernie's guy loses in the VA primary, so Bernie and the Bro's furtively hope the race baiting Republican wins...!
Because quoting Hal, "The worldviews of the pro-Clinton and pro-Sanders supporters are simply incompatible".......and the Bernie world view is "my way or the highway to hell with the Republicans." Sabotage the opposition Party is the scheme.
As Driftglass opined on Purity Seekers:
Once purity itself becomes all you care about -- once it becomes a distillery race to see who can get to 100% -- the chicken farmers are never far behind:
by NCD on Thu, 11/02/2017 - 11:47pm
Joy Reid brings some reality to this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/926329971588714496
In other words, she refutes the Brazille article, line by line.
by CVille Dem on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 8:28am
Brazile is trying to sell a book. Joy Reid focuses on reality. Hopefully, Elizabeth Warren will rethink her position on “rigging”.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 9:26am
Just a follow up / apologia. I've read a number of criticisms of Brazile's piece since yesterday. I remain concerned about this issue, but I also acknowledge that I put too much faith in Brazile's analysis of what happened. The reality seems to be a lot murkier than the way she presented it.
by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 3:24pm
I just appreciate knowing that, cause I was second guessing my own analysis of the situation based on yours. Whatever, it caused a ruckus, water over the damn, especially after Warren piped up. There's gonna be fighting and one way or another, and something will come of it and we'll all see....
by artappraiser on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 3:50pm
On the plus side, the brouhaha has made it abundantly clear that the DNC is fubar. I hope it prompts some reform.
by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 5:17pm
From NBC:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/memo-reveals-details-hillary-...
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/TODAY/z_Creative/DNCMemo%20(002).pdf
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 11/03/2017 - 6:54pm