Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation as chair of the DNC yesterday, although it’s not clear to me if the resignation took effect immediately or after the convention. In any event, the news this morning is that she tried to address the Florida delegation and was robustly booed. That she is still being allowed anywhere near a microphone at a Democratic Party event indicates the DNC is still out to lunch.
By now you’ve probably heard that Wikileaks published a ton of hacked DNC emails. This revealed that DNC staffers on the whole were the kewl kids from high school who were snots to everybody else. They were snots about Sanders and his supporters (examples) and clearly had their thumbs on the scale for Clinton. But they were also bratty about some Clinton donors who weren’t kewl enough, or something.
In a May 16 exchange about where to seat a top Florida donor, Kaplan declared that “he doesn’t sit next to POTUS!” — referring to Obama.
“Bittel will be sitting in the sh—iest corner I can find,†responded Shapiro. She also referred to other donors as “clowns.”
It is now manifestly clear that DNC staff were derisive of Sanders and sought to undermine his campaign.
Several messages show how the DNC, which is supposed to be neutral during the Democratic primary, undermined Bernie Sanders’ campaign while supporting Hillary Clinton’s.
In one email, the DNC acknowledges, “Super PAC paying young voters to push back online on Sanders supporters.â€
Another details how DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz furiously pressured MSNBC after it criticized her “unfair†treatment of Sanders.
Several other messages show how the DNC worked with journalists in a way that favored Clinton.
[etc.]
Any chance of “unity” at the Dem convention is close to gone.
If Democrats expect the Republican Convention clown show last week to automatically make the DNC look like a smooth, unifying parade—they better look out the window real soon.
What they’ll likely see is a sea of protesting progressives who stood behind Bernie Sanders throughout the primary and are now standing against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment.
Why wouldn’t they in the aftermath of the recent WikiLeaks dump of nearly 20,000 DNC emails—which show the supposedly neutral arm of the party campaigning to discredit and mock Bernie Sanders; a fact that Sanders and his legion of supporters have been railing about for months, only to be knocked down as “conspiracy theorists.”
To save face, the Democrats forced Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign as party chairwoman. But unfortunately for the establishment, the gasoline has already been poured onto the ever-growing fire of revolt against the Democratic Party—and there’s no sign of those flames dwindling.
Shockingly, their tone deafness struck again as Clinton decided to name Wasserman Schultz as an “honorary chair” of her campaign.
Throughout the primaries, several times on this blog (example), I commented that if Clinton wanted a “unifying” convention she and her supporters had damn well better change her tone toward Sanders and his supporters. That didn’t happen. If the Dem convention is a mess, that’s on the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
Bernie Sanders is doing his best to calm things down, but when he told his delegates that it was imperative to support Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump, they booed him.
I’m not happy about the leaking of the emails, however. Wikileaks is not operating in good faith. People are accusing Wikileaks of being a front for Vladimir Putin, who is said to prefer Trump. And given the timing of the leaks, I can’t say that’s a bad guess.
I have more to say on this, but am short of blogging time. Maybe later.
Of course Putin was behind it!
What better way to undermine America, then to help elect a “know-nothing” fellow kleptocrat-wannabe, and help, put him in the Oval Office.
We face a very real existential threat in Trump, so, let’s all grow the fuck up!
We can’t all get rainbows and unicorns.
But the coming deluge, with its shitstorm tsunami, may drown us all!
And not just us Americans, but all of humanity.
Even wee tiny hands can go and press the button for a nuclear attack, over some perceived insult to a thin-skinned grifting “MORAN!!!”
maha,q
Do you have Doug’s prison address handy?
I saved it, but now I can’t find it.
It’s about time a few of us wrote to him.
Gulag: Here is Doug’s address:
Douglas Hughes 62746-007
FDC Miami
Federal Detention Center
PO Box 019120
Miami, FL 33101
Thanx for the reminder. He’s been there over a month now. If we haven’t sent some correspondence yet, it is time. I think I will find a nice cheery, funny greeting card.
Thanks!
A card is a great idea!!!
Tonight ended on a high note with the Sanders speech. Frankly, he seemed energetic and ready to move forward. He made a pretty clear case for voting for Clinton. Aside from court nominees, he knows he needs a partner in the White House to get a progressive budget passed. As the likely chair of the Senate budget committee, assuming Dems take the chamber, it does nobody any good if he’s sandwiched between Ryan and Trump.
After the big shindig when Sanders and Clinton appeared together, and Sanders made it absolutely clear that he was supporting Clinton’s candidacy — oh, well, of course some mainstream news medium made it a Great Revelation tonight when he said it was imperative to support Clinton, because I mean, if an issue is settled, where’s the horse race? Watchagonna cover then? — But I digress. Anyway, at that time my main reaction was annoyance at the people (Bernie or Bust types largely, but also Hillary fans) who preferred to pursue their now-obsolete grievances rather than go on towards victory.
Tonight, after the speeches I went over to Ballon Juice and was really surprised by what a bunch of total crapheads dominated the comments there. Not a bunch of disappointed Berniebros, but Hillaryfreaks who could not accept that their favorite had actually gained the support of the former opposition. Must rant interminably about the complete awfulness of Bernie.
Again I recall the words of the old familiar song, familiar to those who love the Golden Oldies of the 1600s. This(*) is about music, but listen to the politics:
Music, for a while,
Shall all your cares beguile. [a sweet sentiment, no?]
Wond’ring how your pains were eased, [yeah, it can do that]
And disdaining to be pleased… [What???]
Yeah, that’s the Democratic Party for you: disdaining to be pleased, till Alecto free the dead from their eternal bands, as the song says.
(*) “Music for a while”, by Henry Purcell. I have omitted the rest of the text, the part with the snakes and the whips.
Porlock — Yeah, I have been avoiding Balloon Juice. I used to like it.
Can we get Obama to pardon Doug? He has a speaking slot in the convention. Might be a good time to do it. I sure miss Doug’s comments. He is way punished enough. We are too.
I got to see Michelle Obama, Cory Booker, and Elizabeth Warren’s speeches. All of them did an excellent job in pointing out just what a fraud and detestable individual Trump really is. They all gave Trump a thorough going over and didn’t come off as being rabid in their denunciations of him. They spoke their truth and it resonated with me. The message was clear..Does Trump represent the values and character that you expect in a leader and does he represent the the values you’d want to instill in your children?
Not to go off on a bible tangent…but there is a passage in the Bible that says: “from an abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”. So if you want to know who exactly Trump is just listen to his words.. After all, he says.. “I have all the best words.”
I got to see Michelle Obama, Cory Booker, and Elizabeth Warren’s speeches. All of them did an excellent job in pointing out just what a fraud and detestable individual Trump really is. They all gave Trump a thorough going over and didn’t come off as being rabid in their denunciations of him. They spoke their truth and it resonated with me. The message was clear..Does Trump represent the values and character that you expect in a leader and does he represent the the values you’d want to instill in your children?
Not to go off on a bible tangent…but there is a passage in the Bible that says: “from an abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”. So if you want to know who exactly Trump is just listen to his words.. After all, he says.. “I have all the best words.”
Could it be that Trump won’t release his income tax return because it will reveal he is in debt to the Russians which is why Putin wants Trump to win. For that reason Putin had his intelligence service hack the emails of the Democratic National Committee so that emails could be released at the start of the Democratic Convention to embaress and weaken Clinton? This makes sense to me. In fact I saw Trump on CNN say that the emails came from his friends in Russia. Where are Woodworth and Bernstein when we need them. Trump’s activities make Watergate look like kindergarten stuff.