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Bernie Sanders HQ! *A decent human being. (5 Viewers)

Sinn Fein said:
Well, I am sure he is offering his input into the language of the bills/amendments.

Either way - just a really odd time for a reporter to be pestering about the campaign.  There will be a better time to ask those questions.
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The timing might have to do with him getting swept in 3 important primaries yesterday. It isn't that odd.

 
Drunken Cowboy said:
The timing might have to do with him getting swept in 3 important primaries yesterday. It isn't that odd.
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Yes and no.  

The writing is on the wall for Bernie - he knows that.  But there is so much else going on in the immediate moment, that a Dem primary, is very much an afterthought right now.

I get that reporters have a job to do, and asking tough questions is part of that - I don't begrudge the reporter - I just don't mind, and kind of like, the feisty reply from Sanders.  :shrug:

 
Peter Daou @peterdaou 3h

BRILLIANT

Unbelievable. A #pandemic hits and nearly every one of #Bernie's policies is going to be enacted in the short term. Doesn't that say everything about whose ideas are best for America?

 
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Got this email earlier today... good on Bernie for putting his massive list to good.

In just a minute, I’m going to ask you to split a contribution between five charities helping people deeply affected by the coronavirus pandemic. First, please let me explain why this ask is so important.

We are likely already in a recession because of the coronavirus. It's been estimated that the unemployment rate could hit 20% if we don't act boldly.

All across the country, stores, bars, restaurants, and other small businesses are closing their doors. Many are laying off workers, reducing hours, or going out of business entirely.

What is brewing is an economic crisis that, without bold action, will leave many people behind. While Bernie is working to find solutions to help people at scale, we wanted to ask you to support five charities who are assisting those who need help right now.

These five groups — Meals on Wheels, No Kid Hungry, Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund, One Fair Wage Emergency Fund, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance — are helping people affected. And they can use your financial support right now. That is why I’m asking:

Please split a $50 contribution between these five charities right now to immediately help those who need food and financial support.
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Just reading this piece, How It All Came Apart for Bernie Sanders, which is more or less a postmortem for the campaign at this point.  There's a lot of nyt/centrist logic in it, I don't agree with all of it, but there's also some insights on what they were thinking.  These two passages are just infuriating to read:

In mid-January, a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Senator Bernie Sanders’s pollster offered a stark prognosis for the campaign: Mr. Sanders was on track to finish strong in the first three nominating states, but Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s powerful support from older African-Americans could make him a resilient foe in South Carolina and beyond.

The pollster, Ben Tulchin, in a meeting with campaign aides, recommended a new offensive to influence older black voters, according to three people briefed on his presentation. The data showed two clear vulnerabilities for Mr. Biden: his past support for overhauling Social Security, and his authorship of a punitive criminal justice law in the 1990s.

But the suggestion met with resistance. Some senior advisers argued that it wasn’t worth diverting resources from Iowa and New Hampshire, people familiar with the campaign’s deliberations said. Others pressed Mr. Tulchin on what kind of message, exactly, would make voters rethink their support for the most loyal ally of the first black president.

Crucially, both Mr. Sanders and his wife, Jane, consistently expressed reservations about going negative on Mr. Biden, preferring to stick with the left-wing policy message they have been pressing for 40 years.

The warnings about Mr. Biden proved prescient: Two months later, Mr. Sanders is now all but vanquished in the Democratic presidential race, after Mr. Biden resurrected his campaign in South Carolina and built an overwhelming coalition of black voters and white moderates on Super Tuesday. //
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It was late January when Zephyr Teachout, a liberal law professor allied with Mr. Sanders, wrote a column in The Guardian alleging that Mr. Biden had “a big corruption problem.” Mr. Sirota, the Sanders aide, who is known for his voluble and combative online persona, quickly blasted out her column to his large email list. A new phase of conflict between Mr. Sanders and Mr. Biden seemed to be underway.

But Mr. Sanders put a stop to it. “It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way,” Mr. Sanders told CBS News.

In private, Mr. Sanders’s campaign went further, according to two people familiar with the internal turmoil. As punishment for stirring the controversy, Mr. Sirota, who is based in Colorado, was barred from traveling for the campaign outside of visits to its Washington headquarters.

The conflict over Ms. Teachout’s column was part of a long-running debate within the Sanders campaign about what approach to take with Mr. Biden. A small group of advisers — including Mr. Tulchin, Ms. Turner and Mr. Sirota — regularly pleaded with Mr. Sanders to attack the former vice president.

But Mr. Sanders resisted, giving speech after speech scorching unnamed establishment Democrats but declining to pursue Mr. Biden directly. He ruled out several lines of attack against the former vice president because they touched on Mr. Biden’s role in the Obama administration, which Democratic primary voters revere.

Mr. Shakir and a second senior aide, Ari Rabin-Havt, took Mr. Sanders’s side and repeatedly reminded other campaign officials that Mr. Sanders was the ultimate decision maker on the campaign. In conversations with associates, both men agreed that it might make sense to criticize Mr. Biden in a sharper way. But they said Mr. Sanders could not be persuaded to do so: He and Jane liked the Bidens personally, and their word was final. //
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They should have exposed Biden's record when they had the chance.  And if Sanders didn't have the spine to do that, to tell the truth about what a Biden presidency would mean for his ideas, then he deserves to lose.  It was going to come out either way- either here & now in a primary process where Democratic voters could level with it, or in a general election scenario with Trump.  As a result, the GOP will have tons of ammunition to unload on Biden.  At least Trump won't go out weak to Joe ********** Biden.  

The decision to throw their most loyal surrogates under the bus to please badfaith actors was massively disappointing.  Zephyr Teachout, Matt Orfalea, Cenk Uygur- the campaign distanced itself from all of them just to placate people that wanted to tear him down.  But she was right.  Joe Biden is corrupt.  He has HUGE liabilities that the punditry won't talk about.  And they STILL trash Sanders with the 'divisive' nonsense, no matter how many times he throws his own people under the bus, no matter how many times he bends the knee to the party. 

There were a lot of decks stacked against them, and they ran an admirable campaign, but their refusal to confront Biden will go down as one of the worst strategic mistakes of all time.  

 
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hagmania said:
I kid no one when I say he is one of my heroes. Thank you, Senator Sanders.
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I don't always agree with him and many of his over the top supporters...but always believed he cares and is a good man.  A guy who wants what is best for this country and the American people.

Definitely deserving of thanks for the issues he has raised during the campaigns for the service he has provided to this country and will continue to provide.

 
This was always the outcome post-Super Tuesday

The coronavirus really killed off any chance for Sanders to find a spark, and he seemed to have less fire in his belly this cycle than in 2016.

 
msommer said:
Congratulations to Bernie for rediscovering his common sense
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I think this results from Wisconsin yesterday. I may be completely wrong, but from what Bernie has shown me in his character, I imagine he truly wants everyone to stay healthy, which means staying home.

If not for the pandemic, I highly doubt he drops before the convention.

 
ShamrockPride said:
The only thing that stands between Trump and reelection is how quickly he can get this virus under control.
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KiddLattimer said:
Agreed. I would have bet the house on him before the virus, now who knows
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Why? I don't see polling that suggests this will be any kind of landslide or guaranteed victory for Trump. 

And the betting sites seem to have it a horserace. Or perhaps Trump a very slight favorite.

 
whoknew said:
Why? I don't see polling that suggests this will be any kind of landslide or guaranteed victory for Trump. 

And the betting sites seem to have it a horserace. Or perhaps Trump a very slight favorite.
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Playing around with the interactive map on the "270 to win", seemed like Trump had an easier road.  Really seemed like it came down to winning Pennsylvania for the Democrats but Trump seemed to have other paths. 

Like I said now it's totally blown to pieces so who knows what will happen... could be a 5% turnout for all we know.

 
KiddLattimer said:
Playing around with the interactive map on the "270 to win", seemed like Trump had an easier road.  Really seemed like it came down to winning Pennsylvania for the Democrats but Trump seemed to have other paths. 

Like I said now it's totally blown to pieces so who knows what will happen... could be a 5% turnout for all we know.
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Fair point.

One good thing - I assume Biden will do very well in Pennsylvania.

 
whoknew said:
Fair point.

One good thing - I assume Biden will do very well in Pennsylvania.
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Yea I would imagine he'll play up the Scranton thing a lot, and he's pro Fracking (UGH) so that should help him

I'm curious what he'll do now to either win over the Bros or if they'll double down on the "nowhere else to go" angle again

 
“It’s no great secret that Joe Biden’s politics are different than mine,” he said. “But I have known Joe since I came to the Senate in 2006, worked with him when he was vice president in the Obama administration.” As he did in his address to supporters earlier in the day, Sanders called Biden a “decent human being” and added, “I hope to be able to work with Joe to move him in a more progressive direction.”

Calling Biden a “good politician,” Sanders said that Biden “understands that in order to defeat the president, that in order to defeat Trump, he’s going to need to bring new people into his political world” and “start moving in a different direction than he has in the past.”

With all of that in mind, Colbert asked Sanders directly, “Is that a full-throated endorsement of Joe Biden?” The host began to smile as Sanders evaded the question.

“We’re going to be talking to Joe and we are talking to his team of advisers,” Sanders said before repeating his promise to do “everything that I can to make sure that Donald Trump is not reelected.”

“I will do everything I can,” Sanders said, “but I will say that we’re talking to Joe and talking to his team about how we can work together.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-colbert-grills-bernie-sanders-are-you-endorsing-biden-or-not

Bernie has always called himself an independent, but his political history of endorsements during each presidential campaign paints a different picture - and a repeating pattern - not of an "outsider" to the corporate-owned, two-party establishment, but a long-time supporter of it.

1996 Election: "Without enthusiasm, I've decided to support Bill Clinton for president. Perhaps 'support' is too strong a word. I'm planning no press conferences to push his candidacy, and will do no campaigning for him. I will vote for him, and make that public. Why? I think that many people do not perceive how truly dangerous the political situation in this country is today."

2000 Election: From The Washington Post, 8/27/15: "Once, in 2000, Sanders introduced Nader at a speech in Vermont. Nader, he said, was 'an old-fashioned guy who believes that maybe the ordinary people should be running this country rather than the multinational corporations.' But Sanders endorsed Vice President Al Gore over Nader."

2004 Election: "Not only am I going to vote for John Kerry, I am going to run around this country and do everything I can to dissuade people from voting for Ralph Nader ... I am going to do everything I can, while I have differences with John Kerry, to make sure that he is elected."

2008 & 2012 Election: "In 2006 when I ran for the Senate, Senator Barack Obama was kind enough to campaign for me. In 2008, I did my best to see that he was elected and in 2012, I worked as hard as I could to see that he was reelected. He and I are friends. We've worked together on many issues. We have some differences of opinion."

2016 Election: "I have come here to make it as clear as possible why I am endorsing Hillary Clinton and why she must become our next president. Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination and I congratulate her for that."

2020 Election: "Joe Biden is a friend of mine. Joe and I disagree on many, many major issues. I look forward to an issue-oriented campaign. But this I am confident of: at the end of the Democratic primary, whether I win, or whether anybody else wins, we are going to see Democrats come together to defeat the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country."

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and now... Joe Biden? Bernie has endorsed every Democrat running for president since 1996, even after often admitting that their policies contradict his beliefs. This, we are told, is our independent outsider to the establishment?

Bernie can't be bought, his supporters say, and maybe they're right -- but for the wrong reasons. You can't buy what is already purchased, and Bernie was already purchased a long time ago by one of two branches of the corporate-owned two party system. Since then, he has actively fought to keep Democrats -- and by default, the status quo -- in power.

https://screechingkettle.blogspot.com/2019/05/bernie-sanders-has-endorsed-every.html

 
Saying that Sanders is owned by corporations is only the left eating itself with relish. There's a reason he caucused with Democrats and maintained power in Congress because of it. Sanders is pragmatic in action rather than manifesting the stubbornly idealistic streak he portrays that endears him to The Kids.

 
What it's saying is that he's owned by the party- which is about as good as being owned by corporations- and it is reflected in his steadfast refusal to criticize leadership by name, being friends with the party no matter how hard it stabs him in the back, and funneling his supporters away from independent movements and back toward the party at all costs.  As Chris Hedges wrote in 2016:

Sanders is, in all but title, a Democrat. He is a member of the Democratic caucus. He votes 98 percent of the time with the Democrats. He routinely backs appropriations for imperial wars, the corporate scam of Obamacare, wholesale surveillance and bloated defense budgets. He campaigned for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential race and again in 1996—after Clinton had rammed through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), vastly expanded the system of mass incarceration and destroyed welfare—and for John Kerry in 2004. He called on Ralph Nader in 2004 to abandon his presidential campaign. The Democrats recognize his value. They have long rewarded Sanders for his role as a sheepherder.

Kshama Sawant and I privately asked Sanders at a New York City event where we appeared with him the night before the 2014 climate march why he would not run for president as an independent. “I don’t want to end up like Ralph Nader,” he told us.

Sanders had a point. The Democratic power structure made a quid pro quo arrangement with Sanders. It does not run a serious candidate against him in Vermont for his U.S. Senate seat. Sanders, as part of this Faustian deal, serves one of the main impediments to building a viable third party in Vermont. If Sanders defies the Democratic Party he will be stripped of his seniority in the Senate. He will lose his committee chairmanships. The party machine will turn him, as it did Nader, into a pariah. It will push him outside the political establishment. Sanders probably saw his answer as a practical response to political reality. But it was also an admission of cowardice. Nader paid a heavy price for his courage and his honesty, but he was not a failure.

He does this because he's a self-serving politician, who's scared of ending up like Ralph Nader (a real leader).  You could make the claim that he brought attention to these progressive ideas.  But being unwilling to confront the party over it ultimately just makes him a resounding failure.  There's little I find more contemptible than people that pretend to fight against entrenched power, only to roll over for it- time and time again.  That's who Bernie Sanders is.  

 
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I totally disagree. You can call it the consolation of the sellout or the long view of the true radical that knows that ideas germinate for at least twenty-fifty years before the mainstream accepts them, depending on circumstances, of course. Hedges is exactly right when he says Sanders makes a quid pro quo arrangement that is a practical response to a political reality. Life is compromise. Bill Buckley's favorite maxim regarding those who would impose purity tests on the people on their side was a catchy, simple, eternally true one: "Well," he would say, "there is what one ought to do and what one can do."

Such is the lot of Sanders. He sees the futility of the Hedges worldview (Hedges graduated from my alma mater, by the way, a thing that I am not proud of despite pointing it out) and treats the inability to speak truth to power with probably the same disdain he holds for corporations that can't bring shareholders to money. What, exactly, in the grand scheme of things is Bernie expected to do? A squonk from the Bronx leading a revolution? Which one? Number nine, over and over? Please. Bernie has done more to lurch the party left than the progressives would ever know or, at least, more than they could ever accomplish with their lack of charisma and their dull policies. Bernie the rock star skis easily over the dullards of despair, and does more for the progressive cause than all the ideologically pure Naders ever could.

 
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rockaction said:
I totally disagree. You can call it the consolation of the sellout or the long view of the true radical that knows that ideas germinate for at least twenty-fifty years before the mainstream accepts them, depending on circumstances, of course. Hedges is exactly right when he says Sanders makes a quid pro quo arrangement that is a practical response to a political reality. Life is compromise. Bill Buckley's favorite maxim regarding those who would impose purity tests on the people on their side was a catchy, simply, eternally true one: "Well," he would say, "there is what one ought to do and what one can do."

Such is the lot of Sanders. He sees the futility of the Hedges worldview (Hedges graduated from my alma mater, by the way, a thing that I am not proud of despite pointing it out) and treats the inability to speak truth to power with probably the same disdain he holds for corporations that can't bring shareholders to money. What, exactly, in the grand scheme of things is Bernie expected to do? A squonk from the Bronx leading a revolution? Which one? Number nine, over and over? Please. Bernie has done more to lurch the party left than the progressives would ever know or, at least, more than they could ever accomplish with their lack of charisma and their dull policies. Bernie the rock star skis easily over the dullards of despair, and does more for the progressive cause than all the ideologically pure Naders ever could.
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Interesting to source the son of an oil tycoon that graduated from the same fraternity as the Bush family for their thoughts on 'purity tests.'  

Nader was instrumental in passing the Freedom of Information Act, the Clean Water Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, as well as numerous consumer safety laws.  Nader saved lives and built lasting tools for exposing corruption. 

Sanders built a half-baked political movement whose heart was in the right place, but refused to confront the enemies in his own party and call them out for what they are.  He votes to fund the warfare state and corporate bailout structure he often rails against.  He'll never lay a glove on the corrupt leadership in his own party.  

Shame too- I thought Bernie was the "decent guy" that "could beat Trump."  But refusing to confront Biden for who he is means millions will be left to perish in a system that left them behind a long time ago.  

The reality is that change never came about by nicely asking power if we could please have a scrap and being its friend.  It didn't happen because of milquetoast bipartisanship.  It came because people had the fortitude to push back, even when it meant being excommunicated from the political swamp.  I'd take one Nader over 100 feckless politicians.  

 
And I don't see how the son of an oil tycoon that married into even more money (the real money behind Buckley) is anything but perfect to talk about impurities and compromise as a good.

 
ren hoek said:
Yeah, no thanks.  Rather Sanders go down swinging than hand it over to a deadender sellout like Biden.  This is Sanders’ last run, millions of people stand to be harmed by a Biden/Trump presidency, he needs to go scorched earth.  
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It turns out that complimenting Biden, throwing his own surrogates under the bus, playing into bogus fears that Democratic Party is too sensitive for a tough primary, and gaslighting people into thinking Biden was a decent guy who could beat Trump (while every pundit and cable network trashed Sanders as ‘unelectable’) was a losing strategy.  Bernie threw the election to Biden when he refused to confront his “friend”.  

 
@aaronjmate
"According to interviews with more than 20 of Sanders’ aides, surrogates and top allies, many believe he should have been more aggressive in taking on Biden, including over the idea that he was more electable in November." Yup.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/inside-bernies-sanders-campaign-nosedive-179576

Oh look, one more reason why Ukrainegate was such an awful undertaking, as some of us tried to warn: Bernie wanted to campaign more in SC, but "had to scale those plans back due to the impeachment proceedings... Some of Sanders’ advisers and allies felt that especially hurt him."

Bernie wanted to campaign more in SC, but "had to scale those plans back due to the impeachment proceedings... Some of Sanders’ advisers and allies felt that especially hurt him." Thanks to Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, MSNBC, & every progressive outlet that played along for that.👍🏼

Bernie "would have endorsed [Warren] in a heartbeat if it was the other way around." Does anyone doubt that? Of course not, because Bernie is a real progressive, and Warren is something that rhymes with "fake."

Update: impeachment didn't just hurt Bernie in SC, but in Iowa too! Again, thanks to Schiff, Pelosi, MSNBC, & every Kool Aid-drinking blue-check who somehow thought that playing along w/ the #MuellerTime crew for another round was a good idea. 👍🏼

 
ren hoek said:
@aaronjmate
"According to interviews with more than 20 of Sanders’ aides, surrogates and top allies, many believe he should have been more aggressive in taking on Biden, including over the idea that he was more electable in November." Yup.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/inside-bernies-sanders-campaign-nosedive-179576

Oh look, one more reason why Ukrainegate was such an awful undertaking, as some of us tried to warn: Bernie wanted to campaign more in SC, but "had to scale those plans back due to the impeachment proceedings... Some of Sanders’ advisers and allies felt that especially hurt him."

Bernie wanted to campaign more in SC, but "had to scale those plans back due to the impeachment proceedings... Some of Sanders’ advisers and allies felt that especially hurt him." Thanks to Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, MSNBC, & every progressive outlet that played along for that.👍🏼

Bernie "would have endorsed [Warren] in a heartbeat if it was the other way around." Does anyone doubt that? Of course not, because Bernie is a real progressive, and Warren is something that rhymes with "fake."

Update: impeachment didn't just hurt Bernie in SC, but in Iowa too! Again, thanks to Schiff, Pelosi, MSNBC, & every Kool Aid-drinking blue-check who somehow thought that playing along w/ the #MuellerTime crew for another round was a good idea. 👍🏼
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Pelosi delayed passing it to the Senate just long enough to interfere with Iowa too. Maybe that was just coincidence, but seems very little in DC happens by chance.

 
Oh please...he wasn't going to do much better in SC...that was a Biden stronghold.

And the Ukraine issue was worth undertaking...there was clear abuse of power by POTUS...

 
KiddLattimer said:
I agree here, Bernie had no real chance in SC. I do think it impacted Iowa a bit. That may have been a nothing burger end of the day though
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Hard to say what impact it had on Iowa since we are never going to get an accurate vote count. As for SC, from what I understand he never even asked for Clyburn's endorsement. Huge screw up. He may not have gotten it, but if he could have at least lobbied Clyburn to stay neutral it would have had a big impact.

 
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