Pebbles: "Mercedes Boy"
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by chickens.
Recommended Reading:
Monica: Ted Cruz Getting Not-So-Warm New York Welcome
Venessa: [Content Note: Disablism] Please Stop Calling My Life with a Disability 'Inspiring'
Bina: [CN: Misogyny; anti-feminism] Do Muslim Women Need Feminism?
Maya: [CN: Anti-choice terrorism] There Was a Huge Increase in Violence and Threats Against Abortion Providers in 2015
L.E.H. [CN: Misogynoir] Yes, There Were Black People in Renaissance Europe
Kenrya: Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna Earns Admission at Every Single Ivy League College
George: The Best Guess at What 'Planet Nine' Looks Like
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
"What?"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Christian Supremacy] Everyone's favorite pontiff, Pope Francis, has released a document urging "greater acceptance for divorced people and those in same-sex relationships while adhering to traditional church teachings." Yay, he's so progressive! Except: Still no same-sex marriage or birth control. "He said the belief that feminism was to blame for the crisis in families today was completely invalid." Thanks!
Speaking of the Pope, Bernie Sanders says he got an invite to the Vatican for a "conference on economic and social issues hosted by a pontifical academy." But the Vatican says he wasn't invited and accused him "of showing 'monumental discourtesy' in seeking an invitation and for putting a political cast on the gathering in Rome." Whooooooops! I don't know who's right! All I know is that if you don't like "the establishment," hanging out at the Vatican, which is basically the Cradle of the Establishment, is very weird!
In other Sanders news, CBS' Charlie Rose asked him about calling Hillary Clinton unqualified, and here's the exchange that followed:
SANDERS: What I said was in response to what she has been saying. Washington Post headline, quote, "Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified to be president." I thought it was appropriate to respond.I don't even know what to say anymore.
ROSE: But is it tit for tat? Is that what this campaign conversation ought to be about?
SANDERS: No, it certainly should not be. And as you may know, I have tried to run an issue-oriented campaign which is what I believe the American people wanna hear. They want to hear about what ideas we have to improve their lives, not just attacking each other every day. But what I do have to say, Charlie, if we are getting attacked—every single day—by the Clinton campaign, I want them to know we're gonna respond, in kind.
ROSE: Do you believe Secretary Clinton is unqualified to be president?
SANDERS: Well, does Secretary Clinton believe that I am unqualified to be president?
ROSE: But why can't you simply say yes? She has a first-rate resume in terms of a life in public service. She's one of the most qualified people to run.
[CN: Discussion of violence and racism] Yesterday in Philadelphia, Bill Clinton was interrupted by protestors (who he thought and were widely reported to be affiliated with Black Lives Matter, but according to the protesters themselves they are not) and they had a fraught exchange. Video of the incident is viewable here. I have a whole bunch of thoughts and feelings about this, all jumbling together at once. Re-litigating the 1990s through a modern lens has meant, on a number of issues, that some of the historical context gets lost—so I understand why he felt obliged to try to provide context. That context is important, but no one is going to hear it when it's delivered this way. (Which, as it turns out, he agrees with upon reflection.) That said, I also understand why he was angry, when he had someone holding a sign saying his wife is a murderer right in front of him. I also understand why people are protesting, and support their right to do it, even if I don't always like the approach. Sometimes, politics just makes my heart hurt, and I don't know what else to say besides that.
[CN: Racism] Here's just a terrific interview with a few Trump supporters, who really appreciate how blunt he is about his assholery. (I'm paraphrasing.) I will never get over how there are people who think billionaire corporate monster DONALD TRUMP will not be beholden to Wall Street. Okay.
[CN: War on agency] Teddy Wilson has the latest on anti-choice fuckery in Mississippi, where the state legislature is trying to criminalize the dilation and evacuation procedure. For fuck's sake.
[CN: War on agency] Meanwhile, in Indiana: "Women are contacting Indiana Governor Mike Pence to tell him about their periods. The women are protesting against the Governor's decision to sign a bill which restricts abortion rights in the state [by] sending detailed accounts of their menstrual cycles. The protests suggest that, as the state government has got involved in abortion rights, they might want to know more about women's menstrual issues." Enjoy your reading, Governor Pence!
Heads-up, Netflixers: "Netflix will raise prices on about 17 million of its standard accounts next month, and most people have no idea. In May 2014, Netflix began to raise the price of its standard streaming plan for new subscribers, first to $8.99 a month, then to $9.99 a month last October. Existing subscribers, however, were grandfathered in at $7.99 a month for the two-stream, 'HD' quality plan. But those days will soon be over. Next month, these grandfathered customers will be moved up to $9.99 for the standard plan. Analysts at UBS have estimated that this change will affect about 37% of US subscribers, or 17 million people. And most of those 17 million subscribers aren't aware of the coming changes. In a recent JP Morgan survey, about 80% of those who will be 'un-grandfathered' in May didn't know the price hike was coming."
And finally! Bear the Dog was scheduled to be euthanized the day he was adopted from a local shelter, and now he is living the high life! Yay!
Shaker Gourmet
Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
Nope and More Nope
[Content Note: Misogyny; abuse.]
Donald Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was charged with assaulting Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, and whom Trump vociferously defended, sounds like a comprehensive nightmare.
Lewandowski was AFP's New Hampshire state director when he took over Ohio state operations for the Koch-backed advocacy operation in the summer of 2012. Several former AFP employees who worked with Lewandowski at that time describe him as a bully and said they were "flabbergasted" to learn that Lewandowski had gone from AFP to overseeing a presidential campaign.There is even more at the link.
"He was just a condescending, nasty brutish boor" said Pat Maloney, an Ohio regional field director for AFP when Lewandowski took the reins. "In a position of real power, he would make H.R. Haldeman in the Nixon administration look like a Boy Scout."
Maloney described Lewandowski's management style as unusually aggressive, lacing his interactions with employees with expletives and calling individual staff to berate them, even when they were not his direct reports.
When Maloney missed a conference call to attend to his ill grandmother, Lewandowski called him at his grandmother's bedside.
"My grandmother is literally dying, having Last Rites administered and I get a call from Corey chewing me out, asking who the hell did I think I was missing this conference call," he said.
While his own dealings with Lewandowski were unpleasant, Maloney said he felt Lewandowski reserved his worst behavior for female employees. "There was definitely a misogynistic streak to this guy," he said.
Lisa Bast, another Ohio regional field director at the time, said Lewandowski once threatened to "come really down hard" on her if she didn't get 50 people to attend an AFP event in Akron.
After she missed a 7 a.m. conference call to prepare for the event, her phone rang.
"Corey gets on the phone and defames my character. He called me incompetent, called me a loser," Bast said. "He called me a f**king b**ch, yelling, 'I am going to fire your f**king ass!'"
What's remarkable to me is that people are going on record under their real names talking about how harmful this guy is.
And Trump thinks he's a great guy. Because of course he does. He sounds exactly like a mini-Trump, and Trump doesn't love anyone more than he loves himself.
As I've said many times before, campaign managers end up with jobs in the White House if their bosses get elected. Just another reason to add to the seemingly infinite list of reasons that Donald Trump should never be allowed within a country mile of the Oval Office.
Shooting at Lackland AFB: Image-free News and Discussion
[CN: links cannot be guaranteed to be safe or image-free. Discussion of gun violence]
Per news reports, there has been a shooting at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Local news is reporting two dead, although few details are confirmed. As of 10 AM local time, the base is still on lockdown:
The active shooter forced the base to lock down before 9 a.m. while law enforcement swarmed the Medina Annex.Bexar County Sheriff's Office spokesman James Keith said the bodies of two people were found in a room on the base, which is located in southwestern Bexar County and remained locked down as of 10 a.m. with "deputies still inside," according to officials.
The identities of the victims have not been released, but according to "initial internal Pentagon communications obtained by the Air Force Times, the commanding officer of the 331st K-9 Training Squadron at the base was shot by an airman."
Several law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, responded to the base, which last reported a population of just under 10,000 people. Schools and other military installations in the area were also shut down.
UPDATE as of noon ET:
NBC news is reporting that there is no indication there is a relation to "terrorism." (NB: I suspect they mean terrorism related to IS or other overseas extremists, since our media seldom labels homegrown Christian-inspired and/or misogynistic violence as terrorism.) A graduation from an Air Force training program had been scheduled for that morning.
Update #2 According to a news report from WHNT News in Huntsville AL, the lockdown has been lifted. Two weapons were found. Authorities are reporting that both victims were men. The training squadron may have been misidentified. No other news about the victims will be released until military policy about next of kins has been followed.
Update #3 The Air Force has announced that no trainees or family members were harmed in the incident.
This being reported as an apparent murder-suicide.
Update #4 As of Friday afternoon, the Air Force Times seems to have the most up to date account. No information about the men's relationship will be released yet is being officially released, despite earlier reports than an airman shot his commanding officer. The Office of Special Investigations' 11th Field Investigations Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio is investigating. A tweet from the local sherriff's office says the investigation is now out of their hands.
My condolences and sympathies to the families of those involved, and to everyone anxious about friends and relatives at the base.
I will update this thread as I can. Feel free also to leave updates and links in comments, but please refrain from posting images here. The commenting policy is in force; please take extra care to keep this as safe a space as possible.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Misogyny; domestic violence; sexual abuse; ageism.]
"One day last year, I was thinking about the erasure of aging women in our culture and searched for the term 'venerable women.' I was curious about what images of wise and respected women the world produces. Google's seemingly baffled autocorrect responded, tellingly: 'Do you mean venerable men or vulnerable women?'"—Soraya Chemaly, in an extraordinary essay on her grandmother, and on "Listening to Old Women."
One of my favorite things I've read in a long time!
Toxic: The Culture of Bernie's Campaign
[Content Note: Harassment; personal attacks.]
I've got a new piece up at Blue Nation Review, co-written with Peter Daou, on how Bernie Sanders' calling Hillary Clinton unqualified makes clear that he does not stand outside the attacks by his staff, surrogates, and supporters.
Throughout this election cycle, a segment of Bernie's fans have been engaging in bullying behavior and making abusive attacks on Hillary and her supporters. In February, after the growing outcry against these intimidation tactics became a liability, Bernie was finally obliged to address them, saying: "We don't want that crap" and "Anybody who is supporting me that is doing the sexist things—we don't want them."Click through to read the whole thing.
That is the one and only time Bernie has publicly commented on the relentless nastiness, even as it has continued to escalate. And, abetted by the media, he has managed to somehow maintain the pretense that he is above this toxicity, that he is outside of it.
Certainly, Bernie has never explicitly directed his supporters to harass people who criticize him and/or support Hillary. But this venom didn't emerge from a vacuum.
And when he stood at a podium in front of thousands of people at a campaign event in Philadelphia and declared, unjustifiably, that Hillary is unqualified to be president, every last shred of the pretense that these attacks are not reflective of a top-down strategy was demolished.
Actual Headline
Actual headline, care of Time magazine: "Can America Learn to Love Ted Cruz?"
No.
I'm guessing.
But no.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: References to domestic violence in the lyrics.]
Inspiral Carpets: "This Is How It Feels"
I Write Letters
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Dear Senator Sanders:
The personal is political—and the political is personal. When you said that Hillary Clinton is unqualified for the presidency, I know it was politics. But it was also very personal to me.
It's personal to me because it hurts to hear a woman I like very much being belittled.
It's personal to me because, when you hand a talking point like "even her own Democratic opponent thinks she's unqualified" to the GOP about the likely Democratic nominee, it makes it just that much harder for a Democrat to win, and who's in the White House makes a meaningful and practical difference to my life, and the lives of people I love, and millions of people I don't know.
And it's personal to me because it evokes ancient narratives about women's inherently lesser abilities. That toxic bit of casual misogyny in which you engaged upholds that erroneous belief about women, which is used against us. Against me.
When I heard you say that Clinton is unqualified, repeating it over and over, and citing reasons that did not render President Barack Obama and former nominee John Kerry undeserving of your support, I heard the voice of every man who's ever told me, in spite of my eminent qualifications, that I am unqualified. That I am not good enough. That I am less than.
And I heard the voice of every woman who's ever told me, in spite of her eminent qualifications, that she's been told she's unqualified. Told explicitly. Told obliquely, by getting passed over for jobs and promotions; by being paid less; by being discouraged from reaching for more; by being told she still has to do more, always more, to earn it.
By being denied access, autonomy, space, safety, equality, justice.
Women who are told we aren't qualified because we don't have the right training, even if "the right training" was denied to us. Possibly because we supposedly weren't qualified for that, either.
Women who are told we aren't qualified to speak on Important Subjects; who are told we are only qualified to speak about women's issues, or who are told we aren't qualified to speak about women's issues because we can't be objective.
Women who are told we aren't qualified to be authorities on our own lived experiences; who aren't even allowed to be experts on our own lives.
Women who are told we aren't qualified to make decisions about our own bodies; who aren't qualified to have agency over ourselves.
Women who are told we aren't qualified to be reliable witnesses to the harm done to us.
Women who are told we don't qualify for entry into spaces for which the requirements to enter are designed to keep us out.
Women who are told we are unqualified, because we have failed to live up to unreasonable standards of perfection.
Women who are told we are unqualified because of our bodies. Their size, their shape, their color, their gender, their ability, their deviance from an impossible beauty standard, their transgressiveness and difference.
Women who are told we are unqualified for no other goddamn reason than because some man doesn't want to compete with us on an equal playing field.
Senator Sanders, you did not call Secretary Clinton "unqualified" in a vacuum. You called her "unqualified" in a culture steeped in misogyny, the injustice of which is frequently transmitted through marking women as unqualified.
You said it about a woman who, if she isn't qualified, literally no other woman could be.
And you justified it by telling the lie that she called you unqualified first. She did not. And, further, your assertion that she did, and its implication you had to respond by doing the same (which you did not, even if she had), deflects the blame onto her. She brought it on herself.
I heard that.
I heard a man telling a woman that she was to blame for his misogyny directed at her. And that is very personal to me, because I have lived that refrain over and over for four decades.
Senator, you may argue that it's just politics. And maybe it is to you. But it isn't just politics to me.
It's personal.
Sincerely,
Liss
#ImWithHer
Daily Dose of Cute
Important tiny tree investigation.
(That tree is in our yard, by the way, in case anyone was concerned that I was letting our dogs trample someone else's landscaping!)
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Terrorism; war; abduction] Fucking hell: "At least 200 people are reported missing after a suspected attack by the so-called Islamic State (IS) on a cement factory near Damascus. Workers were reportedly taken from a dormitory where they were staying on the outskirts of the town of Dumeir. A factory administrator said no-one had been able to contact the workers since the assault on Monday. ...Syrian state television, quoting an unnamed industry ministry source, said 300 workers and contractors had been kidnapped from the factory by IS militants. ...A local resident told AFP news agency: 'We haven't been able to reach our family members since noon on Monday after an attack by Daesh [IS] on the factory. We have no information about where they are.' Efforts are under way to secure the workers' release, with indirect contacts said to have been made. Meanwhile, in the north of the country, Syrian rebels have reportedly seized control of IS's main supply route to Turkey."
[CN: Bigotry] Never forget that Cruz is just as horrendous as Donald Trump: "The senator rose to national prominence by orchestrating the 2013 shutdown of the federal government over Barack Obama's healthcare law and has routinely pursued tactics denounced by Republican leaders in Congress. But in the absence of any palatable candidates who could actually defeat Trump, the same 'Washington cartel' Cruz often rails against is now shuffling reluctantly to his cause and coalescing around the first-term senator's candidacy. The differences between Cruz and Trump are largely style over substance, however, and if chosen as the Republican nominee Cruz would be the party's most conservative standard bearer in modern history.
Even Newt Gingrich says: "Cruz a year ago would have been seen as the outsider, extreme, unacceptable, anti-establishment [candidate]. Trump has now normalized Cruz." (Of course, he's not horrified by that like I am.)
A keen reminder of why elections matter: "The uninsured rate has plunged to the lowest rate ever recorded by Gallup, thanks to the Affordable Care Act's effort to expand coverage to additional Americans. Gallup has been tracking the uninsured rate since 2008. Eight years later, the rate of Americans without insurance now stands at 11 percent—down 6.1 points since early 2014, when Obamacare's individual mandate that required Americans to to enroll in health insurance first took effect." This, of course, does not mean Obamacare is perfect. There are still millions of people uninsured, and way more who are underinsured, and running healthcare through for-profit insurance companies is always going to make for substandard care for lots of people, even they're insured. But on the "something is better than nothing" scale, this is a big one. Literally life and death.
[CN: War on agency] Goddammit: "In the more than four decades since the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a [person]'s constitutional right to end a pregnancy, states have enacted well over 1,000 abortion restrictions. ...Many of these policies flout established medical standards, disrupt a [pregnant person]'s ability to seek and act on counsel from [their] trusted health-care provider, and make accessing abortion care more expensive. But one bill recently signed into law in Utah, SB 234, managed to encapsulate a number of troubling harms. SB 234 requires [abortion-seeking people], with only very narrow exceptions, to undergo anesthesia if they choose abortion care after the approximate midway point of pregnancy. While only a small number of patients seek such care, at least one physician has noted that the law could also apply to [patients] seeking to induce labor—an undoubtedly unintended consequence. And the [patients] themselves may have to pay out-of-pocket for the anesthesia, which could cost them thousands of dollars."
[CN: Homophobia; transphobia] Rage seethe boil: "The Tennessee state legislature on Wednesday advanced two separate pieces of legislation that target LGBT individuals, eliciting outcries from the business community. The state House on Wednesday passed a bill that would allow counselors to deny services to individuals based on sincerely held beliefs, letting them refuse to help gay individuals. State Rep. Dan Howell (R) has pushed the legislation in response to a change in the American Counseling Association's ethics code that tells counselors not to refer clients 'based solely on the counselor's personally held values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors.' The state House education committee also passed a bill on Wednesday that would require students to use the bathroom that aligns with their sex at birth, reviving legislation that the committee tabled a month ago due to concern from some Republicans."
[CN: Police brutality; child abuse] "A viral video showing a school police officer body-slamming a 12-year-old girl to the ground has sparked a San Antonio Independent School District investigation. The district confirmed the officer was put on paid leave Wednesday morning. The incident happened March 29 at Rhodes Middle School on the west side. The video is hard to watch. Sixth-grader Janissa Valdez is thrown to the ground by the officer. ...'You could just hear where she hits the ground. And it's nothing but concrete, cement,' her mother Gloria Valdez says. 'She wasn't moving. She was just knocked out. I wanted answers and nobody could give me answers. I contacted the vice-principal. I talked to the officer. He did what he had to do at the moment—those were his words.' The video is now the driving force behind two SAISD investigations: one by police, the other by administration." Counselors not cops in our schools.
[CN: Sexual violence] "For months, federal authorities have hinted at the motive behind the hush-money payments former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has admitted to making: the sexual abuse of a teenage boy when Hastert was still a suburban high school teacher and wrestling coach. But now, a Tribune investigation has uncovered new details of the case—at least four people have made what law enforcement sources say are credible allegations of sexual abuse against Hastert." Meanwhile, Hastert's attorneys say he's real sorry but wants probation.
RIP Merle Haggard, "one of the most successful singers in the history of country music, a contrarian populist whose songs about his scuffling early life and his time in prison made him the closest thing that the genre had to a real-life outlaw hero, [who] died at his ranch in Northern California on Wednesday, his 79th birthday."
Wow: "A copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, one of the most sought-after books in the world, has been discovered in a stately home on a Scottish island. This copy of the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, published in 1623, was found at Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute. Academics who authenticated the book called it a rare and significant find. ...Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford University, said her first reaction on being told the stately home was claiming to have an original First Folio was: 'Like hell they have.' But when she inspected the three-volume book she found it was authentic. 'We've found a First Folio that we didn't know existed,' said Prof Smith."
And finally! OMGGGGGGGGGG: "Family Leaves Husky for 3 Hours, Dog Redesigns the Apartment." I swear if Zelda did that (because Dudley couldn't be bothered, let's be honest), my house would probably just look that way forever—or at least for the eleventy weeks it would take me to muster the energy to clean such a giant mess!
Jeff Weaver, the Sanders Campaign, and the Witch Trial of Hillary Clinton
This just in:according to Sanders campaign manager (and definite political genius) Jeff Weaver, Hillary Clinton is a witch!
Uhhh... whoops, no. She's not a witch! She's just "done a deal with the devil." Okay!
And she is most definitely responsible for everything that's wrong with international trade, the Middle East, and probably your great-uncle Wilbur's gout!
Hahaha! I was just kidding about the gout. She is definitely responsible for ISIS, though! Via Mediaite, which has a clip from Weaver's interview with CNN's Carol Costello:
I think if you look at her record and campaign, her campaign is funded by millions and millions of dollars from Wall Street and other special interests. She’s made a deal with the devil, and we all know the devil wants his money in the end. So that’s the kind of campaign she’s running. She supported the terrible trade deals which have devastated American manufacturing in the country. She supported the war in Iraq. She continues to have a very, very hawkish foreign policy that has led to the rise and expansion of ISIS throughout the Middle East.
Cool story, Jeff! Oh, by the way: receipts or GTFO.
Because you just accused the former Secretary of State of pursuing war in order to fulfill some shady Wall Street deal.
Now, this is the part where I take my red teacher pen and circle Jeff Weaver's head and write in my genteel lady professor handwriting across his conspiracy theory word salad:
"CITATION FUCKING NEEDED."
Because, generally speaking, Jeff, most people lay the mess in the Middle East, including the rise of IS, at the feet of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of the Neocon Gang. Hell, Jeff, even the Republicans blame George Bush.
Or did, until you gave them a nice little clip to play in the ads during the General Election.
Hillary Clinton, unlike George Bush, cannot fairly be characterized as "supporting the Iraq war." She has called her vote for the AUMF a mistake. And while she can certainly be criticized for some of her work while Secretary of State, she is generally considered to have worked her ass off to fix Bush's sorry messes as best she and President Obama could.
So Jeff, if you're going to keep up your sorry campaign-by-insinuation, your sketchy claim that all along she's been fixing wars and funneling money to her shadowy unnamed overlords, to continue your clear implication that she is a closet neocon, that she fixes wars for profit whilst rubbing her hands together and gloating Margaret Hamilton style, then I say again:
CITATION FUCKING NEEDED.
Check the calendar, Jeff. This isn't 1692, and your spectral evidence just ain't gonna fly.
In Other Words, He Lied
The Washington Post's Fact Checker gives Bernie Sanders "three pinocchios" for claiming that Hillary Clinton said he was unqualified:
Sanders is putting words in Clinton’s mouth. She never said "quote unquote" that he was not qualified to be president. In fact, she diplomatically went out of her way to avoid saying that, without at the same time saying he was qualified. The Washington Post article appropriately noted she raised questions about his qualifications, but certainly never said or suggested she said Sanders was unqualified.Nonetheless, Sanders is continuing to defend himself this morning, in increasingly mendacious ways. He cites a CNN report, also cited in his fundraising email last night, in which a CNN reporter said he'd spoken to an unnamed Clinton campaign staffer who said their strategy moving forward was to "disqualify" him.
Sanders would have been on safer ground if he had said Clinton is raising questions about his qualifications and now he would like to raise questions about her qualifications. But he can't slam her for words she did not say.
Okay. But an unsourced report of a staffer saying it isn't the same thing as Hillary Clinton saying it. And, more importantly, "disqualify" and "unqualified" are not even in the same galaxy. This is mendacious in the extreme.
The entire point of campaigns is to try to "disqualify" your opponent. That is patently not the same as saying they are unqualified.
I know I'm a broken record, but: When this campaign started, I had a lot of respect for Bernie Sanders. I don't have respect for him anymore.
Welp
A new McClatchy-Marist poll has found: "One out of four Sanders supporters—25 percent—say they would not back Clinton in a general election if she became the Democratic nominee for president, while just 69 percent say they would support her... By comparison, Clinton supporters are considerably more open to supporting Sanders should he overtake her large lead in delegates and win the nomination. Just 14 percent of Clinton supporters would shun him in the general election, while 79 percent would support him, the poll found."
Yeah, well, I guess that's what happens when you campaign on your opponent being a fucking monster versus campaigning on your opponent just not being the best choice.
Utterly Indecent
[Content Note: Guns; violence; misogyny.]
Following Bernie Sanders' disastrous interview with the Editorial Board of the New York Daily News, they ran a cover expressing their pointed displeasure with his refusal during their meeting to side with the survivors of the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in their lawsuit against gun manufacturers.
His position also failed to charm some of the relatives of the victims. Erica L Smegielski, the daughter of the principal who was killed, tweeted: "Shame on you, @BernieSanders try living one hour of our lives. Love, the #SandyHook Principal's Daughter."
The reactions prompted CBS News to ask Sanders what he would "say to the Sandy Hook families who say he should apologize for his position." He replied:
"Well I would say that I think that it is -- we all are aware of what happened in Sandy Hook is a tragedy beyond comprehension," he said. "But maybe Secretary Clinton might want to apologize to the families who lost their loved ones in Iraq or Secretary Clinton might want to apologize to the millions of workers in this country who lost their jobs because of the disastrous trade agreements that she supported."My BNR colleague Susie Madrak has the video. Along with some terrific commentary.
This response is unfathomably awful. Not only does Sanders refuse to apologize for a position that inoculates gun manufacturers from accountability when people use their machines designed for murder to do what they are designed to do, but he deflects by criticizing Hillary Clinton for something totally unrelated.
Which is the very strategy his most loathsome supporters use constantly.
The fact that he even reached for this bullshit deflection technique is bad enough, but the fact that he did it by treating people killed in war as a rhetorical football and minimizing the deaths at Sandy Hook by equating them with job losses is unconscionable.
Sanders, however, was not done.
At a rally in Philly [CN: video autoplays] last night, he went on a rant in which he said that Clinton is not qualified to be president (I was watching the event while it was still live and transcribed the relevant section):
She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, quote unquote, not qualified to be president. Well, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don't believe that she is qualified—if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds! I don't think that you are [makes air quotes] qualified if you get fifteen million dollars from Wall Street through your super PAC! I don't think you are [air quotes] qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq! I don't think you are qualified if you've supported virtually every disastrous trade agreement, which has cost us millions of decent-paying jobs! I don't think you are qualified if you supported the Panama Free Trade Agreement, something I very strongly opposed and which, as all of you know, has allowed corporations and wealthy people all over the world to avoid paying their taxes to their countries.Now, first of all, it is not true that Clinton "has been saying lately" that she thinks Sanders is unqualified. Yesterday, on MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough tried to goad Clinton into saying that Sanders is unqualified, and, as this article in The Hill about that interview plainly states, she explicitly avoided saying that: "Clinton also repeatedly dodged in her Morning Joe interview Wednesday when pressed by host Joe Scarborough to say whether she thought Sanders was qualified to be president. Instead she pointed to the Daily News interview and Sanders's remarks on income inequality and breaking up big banks."
What she said is that he seems unprepared. She categorically did not say he is unqualified for the presidency.
(In fact, this morning, Joe Scarborough even admitted he tried to goad Clinton into saying Sanders was unqualified but she wouldn't take the bait. When Joe Scarborough is the voice of reason, you know shit has gone off the rails.)
So the entire premise of this attack is false. He lies about her having called him unqualified in order to call her unqualified.
On a patently and demonstrably dishonest premise, Bernie Sanders just called Hillary Clinton, arguably the most qualified presidential candidate in the nation's history and certainly the first woman with a real shot at the presidency unqualified.
And then he went on a rant that amounts to saying her failure to be perfect and ideologically pure by his arbitrary measure (it's disqualifying to vote for a war, but not disqualifying to fund them, apparently) is what disqualifies her, while his crowd goes wild with seething hatred.
The whole thing is utterly shocking. I cannot believe I watched a(n ostensible) Democratic candidate railing against another Democratic candidate like this.
Breathtakingly shameless behavior. I don't even know what else to say.
And what is the media's spin on this today? That Hillary Clinton attacked Bernie Sanders.
