Sunday Funnies

Revolution News Update, Vol. 4 Surrender Bernie edition

(Yesterday), Chris Cuomo had the temerity to use conditional language in speaking of Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming the Democratic nominee for President.

It didn’t go over well.

The relevant portion of the transcript is below:

CUOMO (CNN): So you get into the general election, if you’re the nominee for your party, and —

CLINTON: I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won’t be.

CUOMO: There’s a Senator from Vermont who has a different take on that —

CLINTON: Well —

CUOMO: He says he’s going to fight to the end —

CLINTON: Yeah, it’s strange.

It’s hard to take Clinton’s first comment as anything but a statement that nothing California could possibly do in its primary could change the outcome of the Democratic race — even though it’s now widely accepted that Clinton can’t win the primary with pledged delegates alone. This means that the Democratic nomination will be decided by super-delegates, who don’t vote for more than two months — at the Democratic National Convention, to be held in Philadelphia on July 25th. As the DNC has repeatedly advised the media, those super-delegates can and often do change their minds — and are free to do so up until they actually vote this summer.

CNN analyst Carl Bernstein noted several times Wednesday night that between mid-May and late July countless things could happen that would cause super-delegates to move toward Sanders en masse.

Seth Abramson is a dreamer, a bit ungrounded, but it's the Queen's reality I'm having more trouble with.  Just a bit too dictatorial for my taste.  "California, your votes won't be counted because they don't matter"?  Once upon a time -- not too long ago, in this galaxy -- Democrats called tactics like that voter suppression and disenfranchisement.

I had a brief conversation with one of David Brock's employees on Twitter this past week, mentioned something about 'tyranny of the majority", she didn't know what that meant and refused to try to figure it out.  You can't make the horse's asses drink the water.

My two observations about Hillbot behavior this cycle are 1) they just don't care that she's a war-mongering, lying, corporate shill, and 2) they see people like me saying things like that about Hillary as a personal attack upon themselves.  This is chosen ignorance.  The blind who will not see.

It's hard to hold them fully accountable for their obtuseness and misdirected anger when it is coming directly from the top.  I'm trying real hard, Ringo, to give 'em a pass, but on some level the only thing left to do is disengage.  That's what I have done and am doing with the worst and dumbest among their lot.

-- Maha:

I told someone this morning that it’s starting to feel like 1971 again; Sanders supporters are the antiwar movement, and the Democratic Party and its loyalists are the Nixon Administration. What should have been a temporary disagreement is turning into a generation-changing moment that will hurt the Democratic Party for years to come.

It feels more like 1980 to me, with Sanders as Ted Kennedy and Clinton as Jimmy Carter.  That ugly split in the Democratic Party gave us Ronald Reagan, and the Dems, in their shock, awe, and fear turned toward more autocratic, top-down authority in their candidate selection process, aka superdelegates, the unelected Democratic nobility.

What parties do tend to do is to react to the last election. 1972 was a real trauma for the Democrats—the beginning of the end of the New Deal coalition. Then Jimmy Carter loses in 1980—two Republican landslides in 10 years. In each case, the Democrats were very unhappy with their nominees and their president, for different reasons. They thought George McGovern was too far to the left, that his coalition alienated the regular party and so on. 1972 was also what created the Reagan Democrats who by 1980 were voting Republican.

[...]

How did the bitter fight between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination in 1980 figure in the Hunt Commission’s deliberations?

It was a particularly ugly fight that left very deep wounds in the party. As those floor debates were going on and Kennedy was making his statement speech, there were no party leaders on the floor. There was nobody there to put things back together.

The McGovern-Fraser reforms were aimed at opening up the party to other factions, particularly the anti-war faction in the late ’60s and early ’70s. But that didn’t mean that they wanted to cut out the entire party apparatus, which is what happened. A lot of what the Hunt Commission talked about was restoring the balance at the nominating convention.

The Hunt Commission brought the theory of superdelegates into practice; that, as Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has enunciated, "Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists."

Those dirty hippies.  Freaking peasants, what do they know?

-- The Bradblog interviews Jill Stein on their most recent podcast, which means you can listen to it at your leisure.  Here's bit from it.

"The guys running the show in the Democratic Party are basically the funders --- and that's predatory banks, fossil fuel giants, war profiteers, and insurance companies," Stein tells me. "With the Democratic Party you see basically a 'fake left-go right' situation, where they allow principled, inspired campaigns to stand up and be seen, but they sabotage them when push comes to shove. That, unfortunately, is what we see going on right now with the Sanders campaign, which is making a valiant effort here to do the right thing and change the party."

[...]

"This politics of fear that tells you you have to vote against what you're afraid of, instead of for what you believe in --- the politics of fear has a track record. It has delivered everything we were afraid of. All of the things you were told you had to bite your tongue and let the 'lesser evil' speak for you --- we've gotten all those things, by the droves. The expanding wars, the meltdown of the climate, the offshoring of our jobs, the attack on immigrants. We've gotten all of that." Stein says. "Not that there aren't some differences between the two parties, but they're not enough to save your life, to save your job, or to save your planet. This is a race to the bottom between the two sold-out corporate parties."

-- And just so we don't leave anybody out: Gary Johnson of the Libertarians has picked his running mate for 2016, and it's former Massachusetts Governor William Weld.  That's the #NeverTrump wing of the GOP's very best option.  Need to do what I can again to help those folks along, if only so that the Hillbots don't keep hatin' on the player, and not the plutocratic game.

Related to that, a report that the Koch Bros would funding the Johnson-Weld ticket to an eight-figure tune was gently denied by the campaign.

Five and a half months to go 'til November, the TDP state convention in a month -- I predict another Hillaryian shitshow like Nevada, what with the odious Gilberto Hinojosa already spreading his hate of Sandernistas in a now-deleted FB post -- and then the disrupting going on at both national conventions this summer.  Hurricanes or no, we're in for a really rough ride.

And starring Ron Reynolds as Ken Paxton

Hasn't been within disgust tolerance limits for me to weigh in on, so thanks to the Observer for doing the dirty job.  The only difference between this guy and the AG is he's playing the race card instead of the 'persecuted Christian' card.

If Texas state Representative Ron Reynolds loses his fight against a 2015 conviction for ambulance chasing, the popular Fort Bend County Democrat may go to jail. But the three-term House member is running for reelection anyway — and using the conviction, which he says is racially motivated, as fuel for his campaign.

No wait, it's the Clarence Thomas card.

Since Reynolds’ conviction, which was handed down by a Montgomery County jury in November, the incumbent has [been] saying that he was “singled out because of [his] status as an African-American elected official.” He has also characterized the conviction as a “modern-day lynching” coming from a predominantly white county.

“Those are strong words,” Reynolds told Houston’s ABC affiliate. “I believe that this was so severe in the way that they went after me, and the way they went out to attack my character. They wanted nothing more than to paint me as a bad, bad black politician.”

Mustafa Tameez, a Houston area communications and public affairs consultant, says the conviction seems to be working in Reynolds’ favor.

“We’re seeing scandals, rather than [negatively] affecting the candidates, are becoming a rallying cry to galvanize the base,” he said. “There is a tactic in American politics now, that if you attack the media and you attack the system … that your primary electoral base is likely to give you a pass.”

Tell me about those differences between the GOP and the Dems again?

It’s a strategy that’s worked well for Republicans in recent months. In his run to secure the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked reporters. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who has come under fire for spending taxpayer dollars on personal trips, has attributed his troubles to the “liberal left” attacking his Christian beliefs.

And then there’s Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was facing a potential securities fraud indictment during his 2014 runoff against Dan Branch. He still managed to win 66 percent of the vote. In July 2015 — seven months after taking office — he was formally indicted and now faces an additional federal lawsuit.

Like Reynolds, Paxton is vowing to fight the charges to the end.

It's gone like this for a long time now for Reynolds.

Reynolds entered his first primary race with more than just a conviction: Former clients have filed multiple lawsuits alleging legal malpractice, and he’s racking up significant legal expenses. Reynolds also can’t practice law during his appeal, and the Houston Chronicle called for him to drop out of the House race.

I'm sure it's all a conspiracy.

I just can't tolerate this kind of behavior as well as I used to.  If Democrats want this kind of person representing them, then that's on them.

Reynolds has the support of Houston bigwigs such as Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and state Representative Senfronia Thompson, and says dropping out would be a “disservice” to his constituents.

“The people here they think I’m doing a great job,” he said. “So why would I appease a small fraction of my constituents that don’t want to see me in office?”

Don Bankston, chairman of the Fort Bend County Democrats, describes HD 27 voters as intensely loyal, and many give Reynolds a pass.“Most people don’t relate to [ambulance chasing], they don’t see a real issue with it,” Bankston said.

That's almost exactly what RNC head Reince Preibus said about Trump and women on This Weak with Snufflelugas last Sunday morning.  Congratulations, Mr. Chairman; you've also passed your sell-by date.

Hazel Lundy, a 65-year-old Fort Bend County precinct judge and Democrat, has supported Reynolds “since day one.” Rather than the legal issues, Lundy judges Reynolds on his legislative record, especially his joint sponsorship of a bill expanding the use of police body cameras. While Lundy hesitates to call the conviction racially motivated, the way officials orchestrated Reynolds’ arrest — complete with a grey and black striped jumpsuit and handcuffs — gave her pause.

“Some of that is a bit disturbing,” she said. “I don’t want to call everything racial … but even a blind eye could see some of that.”

Reynolds and his supporters haven't just blamed the vagaries of the criminal justice system with respect to black folks, which is a legitimate concern that Reynolds has parlayed into a sympathetic appeal for himself.  What's happening to Rep. Reynolds and what happened to Sandra Bland are not comparable.

He and his runoff challenger, Angelique Bartholomew, have gone at each other hammer and tong.

Bartholomew also frequently reminds voters of Reynolds’ legal rapsheet, and Reynolds has starting firing back, highlighting Bartholomew’s four bankruptcies, which she largely attributed to the economic downturn.

Reynolds has also targeted Bartholomew’s 2005 involvement with a local Republican organization, which she confirmed, adding that she got involved at a time before she became interested in politics. She told the Observer she’s “definitely” progressive, supporting Medicaid expansion, increases to public education funding, and birth control and abortion access.

“In the process of getting active and volunteering in the community, I worked with Republican women, and I still will work with Republican women,” she said. “I work with women, and I think that women’s issues are unique to any other issue.”

Reynolds nearly won the first round with 48.5 percent of the vote, and conventional political wisdom says an incumbent would be in serious danger in a runoff.  But this part of Fort Bend County isn't conventional.

Bartholomew, who is also African American, and Reynolds are fighting to represent Texas House District 27, one of the fastest growing counties in the country. The predominantly African American and Hispanic district is home to about 170,000 voters and hasn’t seen a Democratic primary since 2010, when Reynolds beat seven-term incumbent Dora Olivo.

So I expect to see Reynolds sent back to Austin to represent the people of the 27th... for as long as he can stay out of prison, that is.