Comments

1
We've now reached the "both sides" - false equivalency phase.

On the bright side, we've gone from "chair throwing" to "possible chair throwing." Even though, we have zero evidence. But if the New York Times insinuates it, it must be true.

Here's a hint to the DNC and Democrats who want to unite the party. Do things on the up and up. Follow the rules and be transparent so people can unite. The backroom deaings and scorched earth attack of Sanders and his supporters as "thugs" and "Bernie Bros," won't help the Democrats take the White House.
2
The establishment Democrats are the ones playing Russian roulette with the election by nominating the most openly corrupt, duplicitious, and reviled candidate on their roster. Clinton's lead against Trump already has evaporated, and half of the party is in open revolt. They have only themselves to blame.
3
#NotAllBerners

ah, a "miniscule" number of attendees did some stuff (that we won't mention specifically) that made Bernie look bad. What's important is that we say that Hillary looked just as bad. That's the important part.

Way to be a journalist, Mr. Baume, I bet your mentors are smiling in their graves!
4
Rachel Maddow had on a Sanders spokesperson last night who could have come from central casting if you called and asked them to send you someone to play a petulant undergraduate who is active in student government.

But then to balance it out she had Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is a whole other kind of annoying.
5
"because their paperwork wasn't meticulous"? Because they WERE NOT MEMBERS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

@1: When you follow the rules, the Sanders diehards get bent out of shape that they're being held to the rules. That's what's happening here.
6
Denial and justification of misogynist threats is coming from Sanders himself. Saner heads should conclude that toxic manifestation of rape culture is as unnacceptable from the Left as it is from the Right, rather than justifying it with the same paralogic conservatives use to deny/defend/justify racism and misogyny.
7
Looks to me like the Sanders people in Nevada were just following the Trump script. When you don't get your way, condemn the process, and chant and rant.
9
Boy, am I tired of Sanders supporters just saying things. Clinton really does have her good points, people. Many unbiased observers (FiveThirtyEight, etc) have noted her actual truth-telling to be at or above the level of most politicians (Politifact has her at the same percentage as Sanders) so I just don't buy this whole "she's untrustworthy!" thing. The Sanders crowd evidently dwell in a make-believe realm of politics, where getting your hands dirty and trying to actually make shit happen (much of it good shit) is "duplicitous."

Anyway, I feel like shaving my head and going to the Convention dressed as Sinead O'Connor, standing on the dais and shouting "fight the real enemy!" while I tear up a picture of Trump.
11
I agree with Matt on this one; it was a disaster for everyone involved. Who loses out the most though? Clinton. She gains two meaningless delegates, but further alienates Sanders supporters. Sanders has already (basically) lost. At this point, Clinton (and her supporters) should be trying to figure out how to get Sanders supporters to vote for her. She is not going to win the general election if younger (under 45! I'm still young!) voters don't vote. So far, the approach seems to be: 1. Call for unity, 2. Ask Wall Street and Republican SuperPacs for money, and 3. Insult and belittle the supporters of her opponent (who won ~20 primaries, and who need to vote for her to win).
12
@9, there is a difference between "untrustworthy" and "truth-telling". I don't trust her to regulate Wall Street, or fracking, or to have a non-militaristic foreign policy. Not saying she is lying about any of these things.
13
@12: I think if she decided she wanted to do any of those things--and her decisions can be influenced by Sanders supporters, or anyone else, who make good arguments and apply political pressure--she has a better chance of doing what's necessary to get them done than Sanders. Why do I think that? Because she actually has a record of GETTING SHIT DONE (unlike Sanders).
14
@3 Bernie made himself look bad with his statement regarding what happened in Nevada.
15
@12: There's also a difference between "untrustworthy" and "having a nuanced and evolving position": http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/…
16
@ 10,

Perhaps you somehow missed this story and similar posted everywhere??

In this week's poll, Americans are nearly split between their choice of Trump or Clinton; her margin over Trump narrows from 5 points last week to 3 points this week to 48 percent to 45 percent.


She once had a 12 point lead, and it's crashing into the margin of error with the election still over five months away. Face it, she's box office poison.
17
@6 If you want to talk about rape culture you need to listen to someone who experienced it first hand and ask how your candidate responded: http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidenti…

18
@9, 13 & 15
"having a nuanced and evolving position" LOL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6u…
19
@16
It's getting worse by the hour:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/…
20
@19: Did you just post a FoxNews poll to prove your point? That's awesome! Also, it's fucking MAY. Way too soon to care about random polls from Koch-led media.
21
@20
Agreed. Very early days. And I'll be interested in seeing if the trend continues across other polls (including ones you might trust). That was just the most recent poll I could find (6 hours old). But... While Trump was never my first choice (I'd prefer him or Rubio over Cruz but wanted Kasich), I wouldn't count him out yet. He has a demonstrated ability to prove his obituary writers wrong.

Dumbest thing Democrats could do is to believe their own line that he's "stupid" and its "impossible" for him to win.

As to the "Koch-led media," as some one who watches Fox (and listens to NPR), I can say that other than Hannity, Fox really kinda hates the shit outa Trump... Charles Koch himself has said that “it’s possible” another Clinton in the White House could be better than having a Republican president. So I wouldn't call him in the tank for Trump either... ( http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/ch… )

In any event, this is going to be fun to watch. But I think watching the Clintons and Trump wrestle in the mud will be MUCH more entertaining than watching Bernie and Trump (they agree on way too much).
22
@13 she can't get anything done if she doesn't get elected. I want her to get elected - not my first choice, but she's better than Trump. But she is not going to win if she can't find a way to appeal to Sanders supporters, young voters, and independents. Dismissing them because she wins the primary is not going to help her in the general election. "Better than Trump" is not a particularly inspirational campaign slogan though, hope she finds a way to convince more people to vote FOR her, not against Trump... don't want another Bush v Gore/Kerry.

@15 if you read to the end of the article, it's conclusion is that yes, she supports fracking. I'm going to keep that in the "untrustworthy" column as opposed to "nuanced and evolved". I don't trust "responsible fracking" any more than I do "clean coal".
24
Articles that essentially begin with telling the reader that some voters are less important than others reminds me that I should keep skipping the political garbage here and just jump to Savage's columns.

You're looking to support a candidate that thinks that it's okay to kill some people? She actively lobbied for an expansion of the federal death penalty in the '90s and still wants the government to use it.

You're looking to support a candidate whose idea of dealing with the recent depression was to wag her finger and say "cut it out"? She subsequently received millions of dollars in fees from those same companies.

You looking to support a candidate who is so milquetoast that the only way she'll support an idea (such as the minimum wage increases) is after someone else proves support for it is viable. You want to support a candidate who will support a treaty that supplants national sovereignty with corporate interests. You want to support a candidate that conveniently changes their stance and speech based on what will immediately profit their campaign.

Sadly, between Trump and Clinton, I'd rather have a racist buffoon that everyone knows is vile and incompetent, than a mealy mouthed weather vane who can't even be counted on to have the courage of her convictions (yes, I'm paraphrasing). Better to burn it all down than continue to sit in water that's slowly getting hotter.

Instead of an article complaining about New Jersey/Christie-style corruption in the electoral system, you'd rather listen to the noise of insinuation and rhetorical strawmen. That's fine. Let it all burn.

But for the record, I'd much rather an ostensibly liberal rag, like The Stranger, actually support a candidate who has consistently supported the rights of and advocated for the minorities (both racial and societal) for decades. She was willing to throw gays under the bus when she was running for senate and the presidency in the '00s. Sanders was marching in Pride parades back in the '80s.

Did someone throw a chair in Nevada? No one has footage of that. Did Lange ignore a voice vote, taunt delegates, and demand people be arrested? We have video of that.
25
@22: "I don't trust 'responsible fracking' any more than I do 'clean coal'."
Well, that's because you're (presumably) not a geoscientist. LUCKILY FOR YOU, I AM. And I'm about to lay some knowledge on ya!
There are TWO (2) major issues arising from hydrofracturing. The first one is that fracking solutions can migrate from the reservoir into groundwater aquifers. The second is that fracking (and the more troublesome but less widely known player of wastewater injection wells) can lubricate faults and allow them to slip, inducing earthquakes. BOTH of these problems can be avoided by proper environmental surveys and geologic mapping!
We geoscientists (as a group) have a lot of ways of telling what's going on underground, from well cores to outcrop mapping to seismic imaging. We can tell what members and facies go where and where the major faults are. We have very sophisticated software tools that can model how fluids move around in porous rocks. It all comes down to using this knowledge to determine whether or not it's safe to frack at a given horizon. If a reservoir is bounded entirely by nonporous caprock, you can pump practically anything you want in there and it won't end up in nearby groundwater, not in a thousand years. Similarly, if there's no communication between pore fluids at depth (where all the action goes on regarding major faults) and shallower layers being fracked, the fault won't be affected.
It's not necessary to ban fracking outright. We just need to make sure that everyone's doing their proper due diligence.

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