Tuesday Reads: Bernie Sanders, Demagogue
Posted: February 16, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 Democratic nomination fight, Bernie Sanders, demagogues, dirty tricks, Hillary Clinton, ratfucking, smear campaign 66 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
Once again, I had to give myself several pep talks before I could get started writing this post. The attacks on Hillary Clinton from all sides are getting louder and meaner, but the nastiest rat-fucking is coming from people who claim to be “progressives.” Republicans might as well just sit watch and watch, because Bernie Sanders and his supporters are doing their work with incredible zeal.
I wish the DNC had just let Bernie Sanders run a third party campaign. I really believe trying to hand the White House to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. Maybe he thinks that would trigger his livelong fantasy of a “political revolution.”
I know you all have seen these quotes from Sanders and his attack dog Tad Devine in the NYT by now, but I’m going to post it here again because it is simply shocking and unprecedented for a Democrat to attack another Democratic candidate in this manner.
But Mr. Sanders said the idea that voters would see Mrs. Clinton as better suited to win in November and do battle with a petulant Republican Congress was “quite a stretch,” adding, “There are people supporting Secretary Clinton who will spin anything for any reason.”
His advisers used the vacancy to highlight Mr. Sanders’s promise to overhaul the campaign finance system. Both he and Mrs. Clinton have vowed to appoint only justices who would overturn the 2010 Citizens United ruling, which allowed for unlimited political contributions. But Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders, pointed to Mrs. Clinton’s support from a “super PAC” and her acceptance of donations from Wall Street executives.
“She cannot be trusted to appoint someone to the Supreme Court who will take the issue of campaign finance seriously,” he said.
Nevada supporters of Hillary Clinton have reported on Twitter about numerous dirty tricks on the part of the Sanders campaign. Today, @stylistkavin who describes himself as a “Proud SuperVolunteer” for Hillary has been posting about some really slimy behavior by the Sanders campaign, if true.
https://twitter.com/stylistkavin/status/699621020588646400
Kavin said he listend to this call himself. He is also reporting that Sanders supporters are knocking on people’s doors late at night and pretending to be canvassing for Clinton. Voters in Nevada have received calls from the Sanders campaign saying that Hillary is under investigation by the FBI. Finally, I’ve heard that Sanders people are calling. Republicans and asking them to vote for Bernie.
Obviously none of this has been verified, and I don’t expect the mainstream media to investigate; but these reports definitely fit a pattern of dirty tricks on the part of the Sanders campaign going back to Iowa.
Peter Daou: Bernie’s Dark Side: The Reckless War on Hillary’s Integrity.
Democrats have two candidates. Assume for the sake of argument that they each have a 50% chance of winning the nomination. And assume the Democratic nominee will face someone like Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the general election.
With so much on the line, why is one of them waging an all-out war on the other’s integrity?
Why on earth would Bernie Sanders run a campaign premised on the destruction of Hillary’s public image?
As we’ve written: Hillary let Bernie off the hook in the last debate. She could have asked him a simple question: Does he believe President Obama is corrupt because of financial industry contributions? It’s a yes or no question that is central to the 2016 race.
Does Bernie think President Obama is compromised by Wall Street contributions? If so, he should have the courage to say it. If not, he shouldn’t imply that a female candidate would be influenced by donations or speaking fees. There’s a word for that.
The endless drumbeat that Hillary is dishonest is now driven directly from the top of Bernie’s campaign. The candidate doesn’t say it in so many words, but the inference is crystal clear. It is an “artful smear” where any mention of the “establishment” or Wall Street is a Pavlovian trigger designed to impugn Hillary’s character. The Wall Street Dog Whistle.
No matter how lofty and inspiring Bernie’s message, no matter how much he motivates younger voters, it is deeply unjust – and frankly, reckless – to run a campaign premised on the destruction of Hillary’s character through false innuendo. And make no mistake, Bernie’s campaign message and the behavior of his supporters have become less about something and moreagainst someone. His path to victory runs right through Hillary’s integrity. It’s a deeply regrettable turn of events in an election where Bernie had initially vowed to stay positive and issue-driven.
Daou may be biased toward Hillary, but he speaks the truth.
We can only hope that voters in Nevada and South Carolina will see through Bernie’s smear campaign. I never thought 2016 could get worse than 2008, but it is much worse. I just hope Sanders and his progs don’t force a repeat of what happened in Florida in 2000. The only difference between Sander and Ralph Nader at this point is that Sanders has access to DNC voter data.
There are a few journalists questioning the Sanders campaign’s tactics, but I don’t know if that will filter down to voters who get most of their information from TV and newspapers.
From Buzzfeed: Sanders Campaign Missteps With Influential Nevada Union And DREAMers Anger Activists.
Against the tightening race in Nevada, the Sanders campaign is still trying to catch up organizationally — and the battle for every Latino and union voter has become critical. At a union rally outside Palace Station Hotel on Friday, staffers for both campaigns were handing out leaflets. Some Hispanics approached by the Sanders campaign could be heard saying, “Si ya estoy con el,” or “Yes, I’m already with him.” Others, mainly Latinas, said they’re with “La Hillary.”
Behind the scenes, the Sanders campaign has angered people inside the Culinary Union — in instances both reported and previously unreported. The campaign has also unleashed demolition derby tactics on the DREAMers who have endorsed Hillary Clinton. Both have given the battle for Nevada a harder edge, and made activists, members of the union, and supporters of both candidates question the Sanders campaign’s tactics in the key state.
There have been concerns that the campaign has at times not used union labor. There was the time Sanders was set to stay at a non-union hotel, a big no-no among people close to labor groups, and Yvanna Cancela, the union’s political director called the campaign with a list of hotels he could stay at instead. Sanders never stayed at the non-union hotel. (“I would have done that for any campaign as a courtesy,” Cancela said, when asked to confirm it happened.)
There was the time — last week — when a reporter called Culinary officials to ask: Was it true that Bernie Sanders had personally convinced the powerful Nevada union to stay out of the race and not endorse Clinton, in effect helping him? The union official, according to someone with knowledge of the conversation, said no and asked where the reporter had gotten that information. It came from the Sanders campaign, the reporter said.
In the most publicized instance, in late January, two Sanders staffers wore Culinary Union pins to gain access to employee-only areas in four hotels in an effort to persuade union members to support Sanders. The union was “disappointed and offended,” leader Geo Arguello-Kline said at the time.
Read more at the link about Sanders’ attacks on DREAMers.
From Salon, a mild but interesting pro-Bernie critique: The Sanders campaign is flirting with danger: The two big warning signs coming out of last week’s debate.
It would be extremely premature to say that the media’s begun to turn against Sen. Bernie Sanders. But coming out of Thursday’s Democratic debate, there were signs that, on both the superficial and the substantive level, the media’s treatment of the Sanders campaign is about to lose some of its (relatively) soft touch….
During one of the few tense moments of PBS’s generally “chill” debate, Sanders, responding to Clinton’s explanation of how she will use her “political capital” once she is “in the White House,” sniped, “Secretary Clinton, you’re not in the White House yet.” The remark inspired some audible expressions of displeasure from the audience, and reminded some media observers of Obama’s “likable enough” moment in 2008….
Sanders has profited from the media’s lack of interest in challenging his self-presentation as a kind of non-politician. He’s similarly benefitted from his mostly-unchallenged self-presentation as a kind of happy warrior — angry and loud, yes, but in a lovably earnest kind of way. The Clinton campaign has desperately tried to get the media to challenge this image. Sanders has to be careful not to do it for them.
That brings us to the more substantive criticism that’s dogged Sanders in the past few days; and it’s one, I’d argue, that is more likely to resonate if the campaign press is already becoming less sympathetic toward Sanders on a personal level. It had to do with one of Sanders’ signature big, bold promises — namely, that he’d all but end mass incarceration before wrapping up his first term….As Mark Kleiman, Leon Neyfakh, John Pfaff, Chris Hayes, Tim Murphy and German Lopez all noted, this is not simply a very ambitious goal. It is absurd, outlandish, ridiculous, disconnected — you name it. And not for the usual reasons that people say such things about Sanders’ promises, either. Not because it’s hard to imagine, but because it is impossible, full stop.
I believe that we have got to pass comprehensive immigration reform, something that I strongly supported. I believe that we have got to move toward a path toward citizenship. I agree with President Obama who used executive orders to protect families because the Congress, the House was unable or refused to act. And in fact I would go further….
“Somebody who is very fond of the president, agrees with him most of the time, I disagree with his recent deportation policies. And I would not support those. Bottom line is a path towards citizenship for 11 million undocumented people, if Congress doesn’t do the right thing, we use the executive orders of the president.”
This seems to come close to a promise to use executive action to defer the deportation of all of the undocumented immigrants who would be legalized under the legislative proposals Democrats have championed. (The Senate comprehensive immigration bill aspires to place 11 million on a path to legalization, but in practice would lead to legalization for closer to nine million people, by some estimates.) And indeed, this is what immigration advocates think they heard Sanders say last night….
In saying this, Sanders confirms that he believes the president has significantly more executive authority to grant deportation relief than President Obama believes he has. Obama’s most recent executive action — which is being legally challenged by two dozen states and will come before the Supreme Court this spring — seeks to defer the deportations of some five million people who are the parents of children who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. But the administration deliberately excluded parents of DREAMers — people who were brought here illegally as children — because administration lawyers thought going that far would be legally questionable.
It seems clear to me at this point that Bernie Sanders is every bit as much of a demagogue as Trump or Cruz. He is making promises he can never fulfill; should be get the Democratic nomination, he may end up breaking the hearts of his young followers and driving them away from politics altogether.
I’ll share more links in the comment thread. What stories are you following today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: Media Belatedly Begins Vetting Bernie
Posted: February 13, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Politics | Tags: 6th Democratic Debate 2016, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Income Inequality, Racism, tone-deaf, Wall Street billionaires 47 Comments
Good Morning!!
Before I get started, I want to thank Delphyne for posting the above photo on Facebook. I just couldn’t resist it. Now to the news of the day.
After his big win in the New Hampshire primary, Bernie Sanders is finally beginning to get some serious vetting from the media. It will be interesting to see how he handles the pressure.
Last night, this story popped up at The New York Times: FEC Tells Sanders Campaign That Some Donors May Have Given Too Much. The FEC found more than 100 “small contributors” had given more than the legal limit of $2,700 to Sanders’ campaign. It’s not a huge deal according to the Times, but to me it seems to be part of a pattern of dishonesty on the part of the Bernie’s campaign.
Here’s a more critical take on this story from the Daily News Bin: FEC launches inquiry into hundreds of “excessive” contributions to Bernie Sanders campaign.
In what the FEC has titled “Excessive, Prohibited, and Impermissible Contributions” to the Bernie Sanders campaign, it lists nearly a thousand contributions from hundreds of donors, some of them repeat offenders. Sanders is accused of failing to provide adequate detail on who the contributors are beyond their names, which campaigns are required to make their best effort to do under federal law. The FEC is also informing Sanders that he “may have to refund the excessive amount” if he can’t adequately explain where all the money came from….
The FEC report also accuses the Bernie Sanders campaign of widespread “incorrectly reported” reimbursements for travel purposes and other costs. Sanders has been warned that if he cannot explain the stunningly long laundry list of violations, “failure to adequately respond by the response date noted above could result in an audit or enforcement action.” Read the full FEC report.
Then there’s this from the Wall Street Journal: Sanders’s Record, Filings Show Benefits From Super PACs, Links to Wall Street Donors.
In nearly every speech, Bernie Sanders reminds voters that he doesn’t have a super PAC, doesn’t want money from Wall Street and rejects establishment politics.
Yet the Vermont senator has benefited from at least $1.5 million in backing from super PACs and from political groups that don’t have to fully disclose their donors, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission….
He may not have formed one of his own, but Mr. Sanders is getting help from National Nurses United for Patient Protection, a super PAC that gets its money from the nation’s largest nurses’ union, with nearly 185,000 members.
The union doesn’t have to disclose its donors, but a spokesman said the super PAC money comes exclusively from members’ dues. Representatives from the union have frequently joined the senator at events and this week launched a bus tour across South Carolina ahead of the state’s Feb. 27 primary. At an Iowa campaign stop, Mr. Sanders thanked the group for being “one of the sponsors” of his campaign.
In a five-minute video posted online by the nurses union in October, Mr. Sanders said he was “honored” to have the union’s support and highlighted his work on its members’ behalf.
The rest of the article provides details on Sanders’ fundraising from big donors to the DSCC, which has supported in his House and Senate campaigns.
“He was just like any other senator hobnobbing with lawyers and lobbyists from DC,” said Rebecca Geller, a Washington attorney who attended with her husband, a financial services lobbyist. Ms. Geller, who has donated to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, said Mr. Sanders was happy to take photos with her family. “My kids have fond memories of him hanging out by the hot tub.”
In addition, Sanders’ claims in debates and other forums are getting more fact checking and scrutiny. Here’s one example from The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler: Bernie Sanders’s claim that Hillary Clinton objected to meeting with ‘our enemies.’ This is refeering to the exchange in which Sanders claimed that Clinton said that Obama’s proposal to talk to Iran’s leaders without preconditions was troubling. Kessler:
Some arguments never die. For readers who may not recall a pivotal exchange between then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, here’s what Clinton and Sanders are arguing about.
In a debate on July 24, 2007 hosted by CNN, a question came to the candidates from YouTube:
In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since. In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?
Obama took the question first and answered emphatically yes:
I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.
Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.
And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We’ve been talking about Iraq — one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they’re going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.
They have been acting irresponsibly up until this point. But if we tell them that we are not going to be a permanent occupying force, we are in a position to say that they are going to have to carry some weight, in terms of stabilizing the region.
Closeup of ginger cat lying on old book near spectacles on books background
Then Clinton responded, saying that before any such high-level meetings, diplomatic groundwork first would be necessary:
Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are.
I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don’t want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration.
And I will purse very vigorous diplomacy.
And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we’re not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.
As president, Obama took the path that Clinton had recommended.
During the PBS debate on Thursday night, Sanders tried to explain away his no vote on a comprehensive immigration bill that was sponsored by Ted Kennedy and supported by most Democrats. Matt Yglesias responded at Vox: What Bernie Sanders told Lou Dobbs in 2007 about why he opposed the Kennedy-McCain immigration bill.
In Thursday night’s debate, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders briefly exchanged words over his vote against the 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill that John McCain and Ted Kennedy wrote and that both Clinton and Barack Obama supported, while Sanders and most Republicans plus some Democrats were opposed. Sanders cited as his motive opposition to the bill’s guest worker provisions, which he said were bad because a Southern Poverty Law Center investigation had likened conditions in existing agricultural guest worker programs to slavery.
It’s interesting to compare this with what he said about the bill at the time on Lou Dobbs’s show. Dobbs, for those who’ve forgotten, was a business news broadcaster who refashioned himself as a somewhat Trump-esque anti-immigration, anti–trade deal populist in the mid-aughts.
If you watch the interview you’ll see that Sanders isn’t particularly interested in working conditions for guest workers and he’s also not narrowly focused on the H2 programs the SPLC report was about — he also talks about H1 programs for skilled workers that, whatever their flaws, are clearly not slavery.
Dobbs is opposed to the whole idea of “amnesty,” which Sanders was not, but Sanders also doesn’t argue with Dobbs about it. Sanders doesn’t really say anything about the costs and benefits to immigrants themselves — whether that’s people who’ve been living illegally in the United States or potential future guest workers — one way or another. His focus is on the idea that “what happens in Congress is to a very significant degree dictated by big-money interests” and that “I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are now.”
Finally, Sanders got himself in some hot water at the Black citizens’ forum in Minneapolis yesterday. Politico reported on the meeting and Twitter went nuts.
Sanders criticism grows pointed at black community forum
MINNEAPOLIS – A warm, welcoming African-American crowd grew increasingly frustrated with Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday evening, complaining that he’s too scared to talk about specifically black issues.
Sanders was here for “A Community Forum on Black America,” introduced by the local congressman, Rep. Keith Ellison, one of Sanders’ only two endorsers in the House, But unlike many of the packed rallies that have greeted Sanders in other parts of the country, neither the folding chairs nor the bleachers in the gym here at Patrick Henry High School were full….
Questions from a panel and the crowd drilled down on felon voting rights — which Sanders said he strongly supported restoring — but turned to environmental racism and reparations for slavery, with demands for more exact answers about actions the candidate for the Democratic nomination would take if he was elected president.
The tension quickly rose over his 40-minute appearance, with moderator Anthony Newby repeatedly calling for “specific redress.”
“I know you’re scared to say ‘black,’ I know you’re scared to say ‘reparations,’” said Felicia Perry, a local entrepreneur and artist on the stage. “Can’t you please specifically talk about black people?”
Sanders responded:
“I said ‘black’ 50 times,” he said. “That’s the 51st time.”
But, Sanders said, the issues at hand are more about economics than race.
“It’s not just black,” he said. “It’s Latino. In some rural areas, it is white.”
WTF?! Could this guy be any more tone deaf? Even though he has to know he needs black voters to win Southern primaries, Sanders just can’t break away from his obsession with Wall Street billionaires and income inequality to see that racism is a separate though related issue that affects how people fare in our culture.
You can read about the exchange in a little more detail in this CNN article: Bernie Sanders faces frustrated crowd at race forum in Minneapolis. The story ends with this interesting description of the chaos:
The forum finished inconclusively when activist Clyde Bellecourt commandeered the microphone to talk about issues relating to Native Americans being what he called “completely forgotten” by the federal government.
His statement drew on for several heated and emotional minutes as moderators asked him to get to his question and Bellecourt declared, “If you have to carry me out of here, carry me out of here!”
Sanders rose from his chair, thanked the crowd and scurried offstage.
Sanders simply doesn’t understand racism. As a white person, I can’t claim a deep understanding either, but at least I get that racism is a powerful force keeping Black people down and the problem won’t be solved by breaking up big banks or raising taxes on the wealthy and middle class to pay for free college and single payer health care.
Sanders’ tunnel vision on the income inequality issue blinds him to the systemic effects of racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice, which interact with economics but cannot be solely explained or remedied by economic policies.
This attitude goes along with Sanders’ odd statement at the debate when he was asked what he would do about systemic racism. From USA Today:
The African-American community lost half of their wealth as a result of the Wall Street collapse, says Sanders. When “you have unbelievable rates of incarceration,” which leaves children without their parents, “clearly we are looking at institutional racism” and an economy in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, he says. Race relations would be better under a Sanders presidency, he says, because he’d create millions of jobs for low-income kids “so they’re not hanging out on street corners.”
How does Bernie expect to pull in Black voters when he claims he would do better on this issue than the first Black American president and when he characterizes Black kids as “hanging out on street corners.” Good grief. Kids hang out on street corners in my middle class town and the even wealthier communities nearby. Kids in cities tend to do that.
Bernie just doesn’t get it, and he doesn’t even seem able to tailor his message to groups whose votes he desperately needs.
What stories are you following today? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great weekend!
Thursday Reads: I’ve Had it with the Haters.
Posted: February 11, 2016 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Cliven Bundy, FBI, Hillary Clinton, Hillary haters, Oregon standoff 47 Comments
Good Morning!!
This morning I feel as if I’ve gone through a long dark tunnel and come out the other side. I’ve finally accepted that Hillary Clinton will be continue to be attacked unmercifully by the media and her opponents on both the right and left forever. I’m sure the attacks will continue if she gets the Democratic nomination and even if she becomes President of the United States. I don’t care anymore.
Can you imagine if Bernie Sanders–or Donald Trump for that matter–were being attacked as personally and as relentlessly as Hillary is? They would both be screaming bloody murder. In fact, they both whine and complain at the slightest criticism. Hillary is strong as steel. She never gives up. She will fight for the presidency so she can fight for us from the most powerful position in the world. She will fight for women and children around the world as she did for four years as Secretary of State.
I’ll stand with her to the end, through thick and thin. I’ve had it with the haters, especially the fake “progressive” ones.
There is another Democratic debate tonight, this one in Milwaukee. Someone will start a live blog to discuss it later tonight.
Now to the news.
Oregon Standoff
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton greets the children of U.S. Embassy employees at the embassy in Tokyo Sunday, April 17, 2011. Clinton is on a brief visit to Tokyo intended as a morale boost to the crucial U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
The Oregonian reports: Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy arrested by FBI in Portland.
Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who touched off one armed showdown with federal authorities and applauded another started in Oregon by his sons, was arrested late Wednesday at Portland International Airport and faces federal charges related to the 2014 standoff at his ranch.
Bundy, 74, was booked into the downtown Multnomah County jail at 10:54 p.m.
He faces a conspiracy charge to interfere with a federal officer — the same charge lodged against two of his sons, Ammon and Ryan, for their role in the Jan. 2 takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns. He also faces weapons charges.
The Bundy Ranch Facebook page reported Cliven Bundy was surrounded by SWAT officers and detained after his arrival from Nevada.
He was arrested at 10:10 p.m., authorities said.
The Bundy patriarch had traveled to Portland with plans to go on to Burns, where four occupiers had been the remaining holdouts of the refuge occupation.
Bundy has been under federal scrutiny since his ranch standoff with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. He has not paid grazing fees on federal land and he owes the agency $1 million in unpaid fees and penalties. He and militia supporters confronted federal agents who had impounded Bundy’s cattle that were found on federal property.
The FBI is getting more confrontational with the occupiers Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Again from The Oregonian: Oregon standoff: FBI moves in on last refuge occupiers. The story begins with two recent updates:
UPDATE: 5 a.m. THURSDAY Franklin Graham, North Carolina evangelist, said on his Facebook page this morning that he was on his way to Oregon to help end the refuge standoff. He said he was on the phone with the remaining four last night as the FBI closed in. He expects to reach the refuge around 7 a.m.
UPDATE 10 p.m.: The live stream that broadcast online what appears to be the last stage of the refuge occupation stopped after more than five hours. The phone feed ended as the occupiers headed to their night camp, preparing to surrender Thursday morning. They said they have a promise that the encircling FBI agents would leave them alone overnight.
BURNS – FBI agents in armored vehicles moved in Wednesday night on the last four occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, hemming them into their rough camp and insisting they put down their guns and surrender.
The occupiers rejected the demands for hours before one of them said they will turn themselves in at a checkpoint once a national religious figure and a Nevada state legislator arrive. It was scheduled for 8 a.m. Thursday, but it wasn’t clear if the deal involved all of the four occupiers.
The standoff played out for hours through an open phone line being streamed to YouTube. At one point, an estimated 60,000 people listened as the occupiers displayed anger and panic, prayed with those on the phone and yelled at the FBI agents surrounding them.
They’re the remainders of a group of anti-government militants who took over the wildlife refuge headquarters Jan. 2. The four have been on their own since Jan. 28 — two days after the occupation leaders were arrested on a highway north of Burns and protest spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was shot and killed.
Those left at the refuge 30 miles southeast of Burns are David Fry, 27, of the Cincinnati area, Jeff Banta, 46, of Elko, Nevada, Sean Anderson, 47, and his wife Sandy, 48, of Riggins, Idaho.
Sanders Campaign Updates
CNN has finally reported on the Sanders campaign’s vile treatment of a Nevada DREAMer: Sanders campaign touts another endorsement that didn’t happen.
Brenda Romero, a Nevada student leader and DREAMer that Bernie Sanders’ campaign touted as someone who endorsed their campaign, tells CNN she never endorsed the Vermont senator and is backing Hillary Clinton.
Romero said Monday she had agreed to be part of Sanders’ Nevada Latino Steering Committee, but that she never endorsed the senator.
Sanders released the list of activists and elected officials on his Latino committee in January.
“Tomorrow, a group of highly respected community leaders will announce their support for Bernie Sanders for president,” said a statement about the press conference.
The list included Lucy Flores, former Nevada state assemblywoman and congressional candidate, and Romero, a undocumented DREAMer and class president at College of Southern Nevada.
“I didn’t agree to such an endorsement,” Romero said Monday, noting that while she agreed to be part of the steering committee, she was told that the role would be advising the “campaign and potentially Sen. Sanders about immigration issues.”
The Sanders campaign retaliated by releasing private emails between Romero and a Sanders staffer.
In an emails provided by the Sanders campaign, Romero did agree to be part of the steering committee, telling a Sanders staffer that she would be “honored to be part of this.” ….
Nowhere in the email exchange, though, does Romero agree to endorse Sanders. In fact, Romero asked not to have her title included in any campaign lists because as student body president, she has “to stay neutral to candidates.”
But because Romero has grown frustrated with the Sanders campaign, she said Monday that she is backing Clinton.
“I believe that Hillary has my back, and that she is the only candidate capable of accomplishing things in the face of Republican obstruction,” Clinton said. “She will get things done for immigrants families.” ….
I’m also disappointed by the attacks from senior staffers on the Sanders campaign on Astrid Silva,” she said. “It shows how disconnected they are from Nevada, and they should apologize to her. There is no room for hate between DREAMers in this campaign.”
In other Sanders News, there was quite a reaction on Twitter yesterday when the United Nurses superpac that supports Bernie tweeted that it was holding an education session in South Carolina for Sanders supporters on how to talk to black women. There wasn’t a single black woman in attendance. The tweets was resoundingly mocked and then deleted, but there are screenshots all over the place.
If you search for “how to talk to black women” on Twitter, you’ll see some hilarious responses.
Clinton Campaign News
Yesterday, President Obama essentially endorsed Hillary for the Democratic nomination. He had already indicated as much in an interview with Politico’s Glenn Thrush in January.
Huffington Post: Obama Speech Sure Sounds Like A Tacit Endorsement Of Clinton.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday gave a rousing speech on America’s political culture, decrying the influence of big money, encouraging compromise and warning people against believing in absolutes from either party.
“Trying to find common ground [with Republicans] doesn’t make me less of a Democrat or less of a progressive,” Obama told an audience in Springfield, Illinois. “It means I’m trying to get stuff done.”
The speech was delivered the day after two ideologues, billionaire Donald Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), won the New Hampshire primaries by harnessing voter anger at the perceived “establishment” in politics. But Obama’s words on Wednesday sounded like a tacit endorsement of his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton….
Obama, who appointed Clinton his first secretary of state after defeating her in the 2008 Democratic primary, seemed on Wednesday to clearly fall on the Clinton side of the ideological divide.
He said that labels, such as “not a real progressive” — which Sanders has used against Clinton — are damaging to the national discourse.
“So when I hear voices in either party boast of their refusal to compromise as an accomplishment in and of itself, I’m not impressed,” Obama said. “All that does is prevent what most Americans would consider actual accomplishments, like fixing roads, educating kids, passing budgets, cleaning our environment, making our streets safe.”
And from Politico: Jay Carney: Obama wants Clinton to win.
“I think the president has signaled while still remaining neutral that he supports Secretary Clinton’s candidacy and would prefer to see her as the nominee,” Carney said on CNN Wednesday following coverage of the president’s speech to the Illinois state Senate in Springfield.
Obama will not “officially embrace her unless and until it’s clear she is going to be the nominee,” Carney said.
“I think he is maintaining that tradition of not intervening in a party primary,” he added. “But I don’t think there is any doubt that he wants Hillary to win the nomination and believes she would be the best candidate in the fall and the most effective as president in carrying forward what he has achieved.”
Today the Congressional Black Caucus will endorse Hillary. Politico: Congressional Black Caucus PAC to endorse Clinton. Bernie’s supporters are busy tweeting that the CBC doesn’t represent Black people, lol.
The Congressional Black Caucus PAC will formally endorse Hillary Clinton on Thursday.
It’s a coup for the Democratic presidential contender, as many of the black lawmakers can help leverage support for Clinton in African-American communities that will be critical during her primary battle against Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), a former CBC chair said the former Secretary of State is a better candidate for African-Americans on national security and economic security.
“It is really, really clear to people who are paying attention at this point that she probably knows more about how to move us forward,” said Fudge. “As I look at her history, she has worked with people who are undeserved for her entire career…she’s been talking about this for her entire life. I’ve only heard about it from Sanders in the last year.”
This endorsement has been planned for some time, but many in the media are reporting that the CBC is rushing to rescue a struggling Hillary Clinton. ROFLOL!
Sen. James Clyburn has not yet officially endorsed Hillary, but he made no objection to the CBD endorsement. He is reportedly thinking about endorsing her soon, and says he could never endorse Sanders.
What stories are you following today?
Live Blog/Open Thread: New Hampshire Primary Results
Posted: February 9, 2016 Filed under: U.S. Politics | Tags: Exit Polls, live blog, New Hampshire Primary results, open thread 138 Comments
Here we Go!
New Hampshire is still voting, but the results will be coming in soon. As promised, here’s a fresh thread to discuss the outcomes on both sides, but feel free to discuss anything you wish. This is an open thread. Information is coming in from exit polls.
According to CNN, half of NH voters decided on a candidate in the past couple few days, just as I have been saying all along. CNN reports: Early exit polls: N.H. voters concerned with economy, government.
The early results of the New Hampshire exit polls find a Republican race centered on discontent with both the federal government and the Republican Party, where voters’ preferences remained unsettled until the final days of the contest.
Nearly half of GOP voters interviewed as they left their polling places around New Hampshire Tuesday said they didn’t make a final decision about whom to support until the last few days, and about two-thirds said recent debates were important to their choice.
Republican voters expressed deep worries about both the economy (three-quarters were very worried) and the threat of terrorism (6-in-10 very worried). About 9-in-10 said they were dissatisfied with the federal government, including about 4-in-10 who were angry about the way it was working. And for many, the dissatisfaction extends to the GOP itself. Half said they felt betrayed by politicians from the Republican Party, and about the same share said they wanted the next president to be from outside the political establishment.
Though Democrats voting on Tuesday were less apt to say they felt betrayed by their party or to express anger with the federal government, about three-quarters said they were worried about the economy. About 4-in-10 said they thought life for the next generation of Americans would be worse than life today, and 9-in-10 said they thought the nation’s economy favored the wealthy.
Still, Democrats who went to the polls Tuesday — to vote in a race featuring two seasoned politicians — were more apt than Republicans to say they wanted the next president to have experience in politics, only about one-quarter said they preferred a president from outside the political establishment.
Only about one-quarter of Democrats said they made up their minds in the final days of the contest, well below the share of Republicans deciding late.
It also appears that independents have tended to vote Republican, which makes sense. It is more of a horse race than the Democratic side where Sanders has for some time been predicted to win handily.
NBC News: New Hampshire Exit Poll Results: Independent Voter Participation.
Early exit poll results show that 42 percent of Republican primary voters in this year’s race consider themselves to be political independents, and a similar 39 percent of voters in the Democratic primary think of themselves as independents.
In 2008, the last time both parties had an open nomination contest, slightly more voters in the Democratic primary (44 percent) identified themselves as independents than did voters in the Republican primary (37 percent).
In 2000, the share of independents in each primary was fairly comparable, just like this year — 40 percent in the Democratic primary and 41 percent in the Republican race.
The LA Times has a different take: The independent, all-knowing New Hampshire voter and other election myths.
While voters in other states are accustomed to receiving a certain level of puffery, the New Hampshire voter is put on a pedestal that would make a Nobel laureate jealous….
“While there is a kernel of truth to many aspects of this caricature, it is primarily a myth,” write David Moore and Andrew E. Smith, a pair of University of New Hampshire professors who may not be invited to many more faculty teas.
Moore, a former senior editor of Gallup Poll and founder of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, and Smith, a pollster who directs the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, lay out their case in a chapter of “The First Primary: New Hampshire’s Outsize Role in Presidential Politics,” released late last year, just in time to take all the joy from the primary season.
Their biggest beef is with the so-called independence of the New Hampshire voter. Though about 44% of the state’s residents are registered “undeclared,” only 15% actually call themselves independent in polls. They blame journalists for confusing the term “independent” with “undeclared,” a status many voters take either to avoid being identified publicly as a partisan or so they can vote in whichever party’s primary is most competitive.
But these undeclared voters may not have the impact they are credited with because they tend to show up at the polls less often than registered partisans.
The idea that independent voters can swing a primary election is also overstated, the authors conclude. Exit polls consistently show that candidates never win the top spot in their primaries without garnering the most support from registered members of their own parties.
And there is little evidence supporting the theory that undeclared voters use the open primary system to cause mischief by supporting a dolt in the party they most dislike.
Mediaite has suggestions for live-streamng the results: How to Watch the New Hampshire Primary Results Live Stream Online.
I guess I’ll watch MSNBC unless it gets too unbearable. How do you plan to follow the results?
Again, use the comment thread to discuss the NH primary or any other topic that interests you. Frankly, I’ll be glad when we move on to Nevada and South Carolina.
Have fun!
Tuesday Reads: New Hampshire Primary Edition
Posted: February 9, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics 36 Comments
Good Morning!!
I didn’t realize that the New Hampshire primary is 100 years old this year. Maybe it’s time to let another state go first–maybe one with a more diverse population? But for now, New Hampshire is what we’re stuck with.
Lately, every morning I have to psych myself up all over again to deal with the sexism and misogyny against Hillary. I never thought it could get worse than it was in 2008, but it really is a lot worse. That’s why my posts are always late these days. It takes me awhile to get my equilibrium back after reading political news and commentary the night before and then checking the headlines in the morning.
I could stop reading the news, but I feel it’s important to keep up what what’s happening in real time. I have pretty much stopped watching TV though. Actually I never got back to watching TV much after I shut it off in 2008.
Maybe the fact that the misogyny is worse this year has something to do with the person at the top? As Michael Dukakis used to say, “The fish rots from the head down.”
Tom Watson tweeted about this today.
I’m going to share some of the things I’ve been reading, and get this thing posted. We will have a live blog tonight to discuss the NH results.
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the recent pile-on over remarks by Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright. Last night, Jill Filipovic published an important defense of Steinem–not that it will have any impact on the Bernie bros.
Why Everyone’s Wrong About Gloria Steinem’s Controversial Comment.
Our feminist foremother has misbehaved. Gloria Steinem said young women only support Bernie Sanders because they want attention from boys. Can you believe it?
Don’t, because it’s not true. Despite media panting over feminist icons “scolding” young women,as the New York Times put it, and telling Sanders supporters “shame on you” (the Times, again), it’s not exactly the case that two batty old nags set out to wag their fingers at the sprightly young Bernie Babes. And those kinds of inaccurate, divisive characterizations do a disservice to honest political discourse about gender, feminism, and electoral politics.
Far from jumping on her soapbox to trash “kids today,” Steinem actually went on Bill Maher’s show last Friday to promote her new book, My Life on the Road, and had a bunch of good things to say about young women and feminism.“I find the young women very activist and they’re way more feminist,” Steinem said. “We were, like, 12 crazy ladies in the beginning, and now it’s the majority. I do think that gratitude never radicalized anybody. I did not say thank you for the vote. I got mad on the basis of what was happening to me, and I think that that’s true of young women too. So they’re mad as hell because they’re graduating in debt, and they’re gonna earn a million dollars less over their lifetime to pay it back, they’re mad about what’s happening to them.”
Interesting how that context has been left out of the media reports, isn’t it? So what did Steinem really say? Again, the context matters.
Maher pressed her on Sanders versus Clinton, saying that young women “really don’t like Hillary.” Steinem responded that overall, women and African-American voters strongly support Clinton, and that, unlike men, “women get more radical as we get older.”
“Men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, and women tend to get more radical because they lose power as they age,” Steinem said. “It’s not fair to measure most women by the standard of most men, because they’re gonna get more activist as they grow older, and when you’re young, you’re thinking, Where are the boys, the boys are with Bernie.“
It’s that last admittedly awkward line that got Steinem in hot water. Steinem “suggested younger women were just backing Mr. Sanders so that they could meet young men,” alleged the Times. According to Politico, “Feminist icon Gloria Steinem said that young women are supporting Bernie Sanders because they’re looking for boys.”
Bernie fans demanded an apology and Steinem did apologize–not that that will make the slightest difference to Sanders’ entitled, privileged followers.
Another great read: a case for Hillary Clinton written by Ohio State graduate student Zachary Leven. I learned some things I didn’t know about Hillary’s actions and votes around bankruptcy from this excellent essay. This is a long excerpt, but I hope you’ll still go read the whole thing.
The case for Hillary Clinton is mostly a matter of rebutting the case against her. Once that’s done, you’re simply left with the most qualified candidate, and someone who is, by all reality-based measures, progressive (ranked the tenth most liberal senator). And just as important, someone who is capable of achieving results (I’ll conclude with the case against Sanders, and there’s a very, very strong case to make against him). We’ll start with this specific example, which I think is illustrative of the sorts of attacks we see made on Hillary. It begins with this video of an interview with Elizabeth Warren that’s been making its rounds on the internet….
Warren tells a story about the bankruptcy bill initially supported by the Clinton administration in the 1990’s. Warren wrote an op-ed opposing the bill on the grounds that it offered deadbeat dads a mechanism for cheating their ex-wives out of child support, along with a few other issues. After the op-ed was published, Hillary phoned Warren requesting a meeting. They met in private, and Warren proceeded to educate Hillary on this issue. She said that Hillary was a “quick study” and really “got it.” Hillary returned to Washington, and by all accounts, single-handedly turned around the administration’s support of this legislation. When the bill reached Clinton’s desk, he vetoed it….
The second part of the interview is where it gets quite damning. According to Warren, First Lady Clinton became Senator Clinton of New York, and then things changed. The same bankruptcy bill came through congress, and this time Hillary voted for it. When Warren is asked what changed, she replies (paraphrasing), “Hillary started receiving all this money from Wall Street, and they became her constituency.” ….
Did Hillary vote for this bill because she became beholden to special interests on Wall Street? What excuse does she have? Here’s her explanation in her own words:
I rise today in support of final passage of S. 420, the Bankruptcy Reform Act. Many of my colleagues may remember that I was a strong critic of the bill that passed out of the 106th Congress.
While we have yet to achieve the kind of bankruptcy reform I believe is possible, I have worked with a number of people to make improvements that bring us closer to our goals, particularly when it comes to child support. Women can now be assured that they can continue to collect child support payments after the child’s father has declared bankruptcy. The legislation makes child support the first priority during bankruptcy proceedings.
This year, we have made more progress. The Senate agreed to include a revised version of Senator Schumer’s amendment to ensure that any debts resulting from any act of violence, intimidation, or threat would be nondischargeable.
Earlier today, this body agreed to include a cap on the homestead exemption to ensure that wealthy debtors could not shield their wealth by purchasing a mansion in a state with no cap on homestead exemption.
In addition, I was concerned about competing nondischargeable debt so I worked hard with Senator Boxer to ensure that more credit card debt can be erased so that women who use their credit cards for food, clothing and medical expenses in the 90 days before bankruptcy do not have to litigate each and every one of these expenses for the first $750.
Let me be very clear — I will not vote for final passage of this bill if it comes back from conference if these kind of reforms are missing. I am voting for this legislation because it is a work in progress, and it is making progress towards reform.
Now I deeply respect and admire Elizabeth Warren — but it seems she left out some important details from her account. Clinton, in fact, worked with other members of congress to include amendments that addressed Elizabeth Warren’s concerns. And the bill passed 83–15. So why didn’t Warren mention this? I really have no idea — I’d love to ask her. Maybe she became so locked into this anti-bankruptcy bill stance, she couldn’t free herself from an oppositional frame of mind. Maybe Warren didn’t feel these amendments went far enough (but if that were true, why not mention that?) For whatever reason, the story Warren tells in this interview is incomplete. Clinton’s position on this bill was no different than that uber-conservative, Barbara Boxer.
Here’s what happened next — the bill went to the Republican controlled congress, they stripped out those amendments, sent the bill back to the senate, the Democrats filibustered the bill, and Clinton voted to uphold the filibuster. Another version of the bill later passed that Hillary opposed. So that woman Warren describes in the first part of her interview — the woman who “really gets it” — turns out that woman never changed after all (and currently, Warren speaks very highly of Hillary).
Also well worth reading is Melissa McEwan’s take on the bankruptcy story: Sure, But What About the Important People Who Matter?
We’ve all noticed that Bernie Sanders knows very little about foreign policy. Now Wall Street expert William Cohan writes at Vanity Fair that: Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Know Diddly-Squat About Wall Street.
Sanders is right that Wall Street still needs reform. The Dodd-Frank regulations fail to measure up; Wall Street lobbyists and $1000-an-hour attorneys work away each day to gut the meager reforms signed into law by President Barack Obama in July 2010. It is also unconscionable that Wall Street’s compensation system continues to reward bankers, traders, and executives to take big risks with other people’s money in hopes of getting big year-end bonuses. Thanks to this system, which has been prevalent since the 1970s, when Wall Street transformed itself from a bunch of undercapitalized private partnerships (where those partners had serious capital at risk every day) to a group of behemoth public companies (where the risk is borne by creditors and shareholders while the rewards go to the employees), Wall Street has become ground zero for one financial crisis after another.
But Sanders never talks about the compensation system on Wall Street. In fact, he rarely mentions anything concrete at all. Instead, he dwells on bizarre and nebulous notions such as imposing “a tax on Wall Street speculation,” as he did during his speech on Monday night. This tax, Sanders noted, will generate “hundreds of billions” of dollars in annual revenue and help pay for his proposed program to make tuition free at public colleges and universities.
But what exactly is Sanders proposing and does it make any sense? The answer to the first question is: it is difficult to tell. The candidate’s website does not really flesh out the idea, other than to say that the tax “will reduce risky and unproductive high-speed trading and other forms of Wall Street speculation.” If one goes back to a bill that Sanders introduced in the Senate last May, there is slightly more meat on these bones; still, the proposed legislation seems to have very little to do with actually taxing “Wall Street speculation” and more to do with taxing every trading transaction—the buying and selling of stocks and bonds and derivatives—that Wall Street and hedge funds engage in. This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever—why tax the very behavior the system depends upon?—and it is probably why Sanders’s legislation went nowhere and why he doesn’t talk about it anymore.
Even if Sanders eventually elaborates on his plan more fully, does taxing Wall Street speculation even make any sense? That one is simple: nope, and it actually reveals the candidate’s ignorance about our banking system.
Please read the rest at the link.
I’m running out of space, so I’ll just share a few more links, headlines only.
Newsweek: The Best Historical Moments of the New Hampshire Primary.
Washington Post: A black Princeton professor says she was handcuffed to a table for her unpaid parking tickets. This woman has been tweeting that the cops are still harassing her, even calling her cell phone!
Ta-Nehisi Coates: A History of Liberal White Racism. How bigotry enabled progressive domestic policies of the early 20th century.
Huffington Post: #ItsNotOver: Why the One Year Anniversary of Natasha McKenna’s Death Matters. Natasha was tasered to death by police officers.
The People’s View: #DontBernMeBro: Why Sanders is Parroting GOP Talking Points on Obama’s Jobs Record.
Mike Konzal at the Roosevelt Institute: Why I (Still) Think Shadow Banking is Key to Financial Reform.
Alex Seitz-Wald at MSNBC: For Sanders, campaign finance purity not always possible.
Dana Millbank: Bernie Sanders is no revolutionary.
Hillary Clinton after winning the NH primary in 2008
Have a great day, Sky Dancers and don’t let the haters get you down. What stories are you following today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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