The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Iowa Caucus

It’s today. It’d be a big deal if Bernie won it, and the polls show him leading.

Last week was Sanders week here at the blog.

There was a post by Pachacutec on Sanders’ Theory of Change and how he can get his platform through if he’s President.

There was a post on why I think Sanders is the best candidate.

There was a post on the characteristics of the sort of people supporting each of the candidates–from Warren to Sanders, to Biden to Buttigieg.

And there was a post on why the most important thing in a candidate is what they want to do, and why that means Sanders is superior

Feel free to use comments to this thread to discuss the Iowa caucuses and the primary in general.


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95 Comments

  1. 450.org

    Just as I telegraphed in a comment I made on January 28.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/481112-trump-i-think-sanders-is-a-communist

    President Trump said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he thinks Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is a communist.

    Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Trump in an interview that aired prior to Super Bowl LIV for quick reactions to a number of Democratic presidential candidates, including Sanders.

    “I think he’s a communist. I mean, you know, look, I think of communism when I think of Bernie,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

    “Now, you could say socialist, but didn’t he get married in Moscow?” Trump added, with Hannity interjecting to note Sanders went to the former Soviet Union on his honeymoon.

    “I think of Bernie sort of as a socialist but far beyond a socialist,” Trump continued. “At least he’s true to what he believes.”

    That’s okay, eat him alive, Don the Con. Afterall, you’re just a symptom so what harm could you possibly do to Bernie?

  2. different clue

    When Trump says ” Sanders is a Communist”, Sanders could say something like . . . ” Does anyone really care what Trashy Trump says? Trashy Trump is trashy. This isn’t news.”

    I don’t know if he would. But he could.

  3. Ian Welsh

    Of course Trump was going to do that, so what? Might work, but what of it? Every candidate would have got hit on something.

    You missed the point of “just a symptom.”

  4. 450.org

    Actually, I have also asserted, for a while now, that Trump is a symptom, but symptoms are bad too as well as the underlying disease that promulgated the symptom. Sometimes the symptom can even be worse and Trump is one of those times in my opinion.

    I agree Iowa is important for Bernie to gain momentum in the Democratic primaries. As far as the general election is concerned, I don’t see Iowa flipping to Bernie versus Trump. So, in Iowa at least, the commie label will have an effect. The effect will be to maintain Trump’s advantage in that state.

    Here’s the comment I made on the 28th.

    January 28, 2020

    Trump and his staff are spending an inordinate amount of time in Iowa and I would imagine New Hampshire too in order to mitigate any Bernie effect there while at the same time promoting Bernie to Dem voters. This tells me Bernie’s primary victories in New Hampshire and Iowa will be largely hollow considering both states will go to Trump in the general election. Bloomberg would get everyone who would vote for Bernie in these states plus a substantial portion of people who voted Trump in the last election. Those who voted for Trump in both states in 2016 are not going to vote for Bernie the Commie. That’s how Trump & Co. will label and brand Bernie and Bernie will not be able to overcome that stigma in those states.

  5. Harry Lime

    You should correct the headline to say Caucus instead of Primary. There are many differences, but I believe one advantage to a caucus is that the votes have to be hand counted. Then again, there was rumor of skullduggery there in ’16 when Hillary squeaked by Bernie to win.

  6. Ian Welsh

    FAir enough 450, yes obviously the disease is still progressing. The point was only that Trump is part of the disease, not something coming out of nowhere.

  7. Z

    Originalcripes,

    Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Exactly!!!! This has been roiling in my brain too: as long as the left has a third party run prepared with a leader who is ready to run as the head of the movement and the funding apparatus in place (Green Party?), there has never been a better opportunity to seize executive power for the working class in the U.S. straight through the political process as of now, or at least cause massive upheaval to the current corrupt political system. What it requires is to continue to build working class solidarity and the political movement and to have a candidate and the infrastructure in place to pivot to a Plan B if need be. Bernie is 78 years old, he can drop off and pass the baton. This is about a cross-generational movement to save this planet and he’d have done his part and we move forward and run from there. Not me, us, as he says.

    Time is of the essence, and our rulers have never been in such a pickle as they are right now in 2020. Look at the supply lines of power in the democratic party if they are able to pull off the collusion with the Bloomberg-Biden-Warren-DNC axis and undemocraticly seize the nomination.

    Z

  8. Z

    (Bridge comment in moderation)

    There is absolutely no reason for Bernie’s Army not to run a 3rd party candidate in 2020 if Bernie doesn’t win. They learned in 2016 that they’ll be blamed for Trump regardless. And there’s no sane or moral reason to cede to the DNC, watch the planet burn, and tell future generations that we played a game by the DNC’s “rules” and they cheated better than us so they won and the entire human race lost in the process. That’s unfathomably cowardly and lame. This could be the ballgame right here, right now in 2020: with the ball being planet earth and the game being humans capability to live on it.

    Z

  9. Z

    What I’m trying to convey is this and in this order:

    Originalcripes from Sanders vs. Warren Supporters Thread:

    Well, after reading the obscure tea leaves and permutations of possible outcomes of the corrupt primary process and institutional party hatchet-wielding motherfuckers and Bloomberg, buttegieg, warren and Biden, we are left with a single, salient fact: there is a world-historical moment of opportunity presented by the Sanders campaign.
    The very real possibility of Sanders sweeping most states in the primary races and becoming the nominee and ousting Trump, and the equally great or greater possibility that despite holding the biggest plurality of votes, the shit candidates and their shit-bag party operatives defy the will of the voters and engineer a coup installing some feckless POS to run and lose against Trump is what we\’re looking at.
    Either way, if Sanders wins, his movement will have a fight on its hands to wrest control of state apparatus from obstructionists in both parties and to enact even half the legislation HE WILL PROPOSE TO CONGRESS (remember obama\’s many betrayals, esp on minimum wage which he announced his first State of the Union? and never even proposed?)
    If his campaign is derailed, again, the movement will be faced with the choice of folding into democrat party powerlessness or mounting a challenge via third party building, or takeover Tea Party style of the dollar-drenched corporate stooges who have been running it for 40+ years. Millions of people denied political expression in 2016 and again in 2020 will not take it lying down. A defeat, esp by corruption, may rouse that movement more than an election of Sanders.
    Never before in our political history has a (quasi) socialist–Eugene Debs, Bob Lafollette, Henry Wallace, Norman Thomas–come anywhere close to power that is now within reach of Sanders and the movement he leads.
    Each of us must decide in our small spheres of life where we stand at this moment. Quibbling about minutiae and policy papers and IDPol posturing isn\’t it. Warren isn\’t it. Yang isn\’t it.
    The movement is behind Sanders, the movement can go further than Sanders, outlive Sanders and take on a life of its own. I think that would actually please him.

    Originalcripes,

    Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Exactly!!!! This has been roiling in my brain too: as long as the left has a third party run prepared with a leader who is ready to run as the head of the movement and the funding apparatus in place (Green Party?), there has never been a better opportunity to seize executive power for the working class in the U.S. straight through the political process as of now, or at least cause massive upheaval to the current corrupt political system. What it requires is to continue to build working class solidarity and the political movement and to have a candidate and the infrastructure in place to pivot to a Plan B if need be. Bernie is 78 years old, he can drop off and pass the baton. This is about a cross-generational movement to save this planet and he’d have done his part and we move forward and run from there. Not me, us, as he says.

    Time is of the essence, and our rulers have never been in such a pickle as they are right now in 2020. Look at the supply lines of power in the democratic party if they are able to pull off the collusion with the Bloomberg-Biden-Warren-DNC axis and undemocraticly seize the nomination.

    Bloomberg: a greedy billionaire, Mr. Point Zero Zero One Percent himself, who personifies and epitomizes the inequality in our society who is blatantly trying to buy his way into power and who spoke at the republican convention in 2004 and praised Bush for starting the Iraq War. Well, he is trying to buy his way into power on the surface, but we all know that Mikey $B is only in it to prevent Bernie from getting into office and is extremely unlikely to win pissing off so much of Bernie’s base and is quite comfortable to run a vanity-driven “principled” campaign and take the loss, keep the money spigot of the rich at the federal reserve still pointing in our rulers’ direction, let the Trump circus and clown act continue another four years and have the media shake their head every time Trump f’s up and parrot out the lesson of helplessness over the TV waves to the public that our rulers want us to learn: if the Bernie “Bros” would have only listened and ate what Mikey $B was willing to dish them, this wouldn’t have happened – if only they would have listened to Mikey $B.

    Warren – an amoral, habitual, proven liar who blatantly tried to groin kick the Sanders campaign with under the table misogynist attacks.

    Biden – a doddering fool, another proven liar, with his intellectual faculties falling apart in real-time. And I’m not sorry one iota to cut on bubbling Biden and the onset of his mental degradation. I have no mercy for this man after seeing footage of him back in the Clinton era so eagerly pushing himself to the front of the SS cutbacks sellout to be the one on center stage selling out the U.S. people, anxious to play Let’s Make a Deal and swipe food from seniors dining room table who depend upon SS, to be the star of the show and have our rulers’ media lionize him as a hero. Biden is a piece of deteriorating garbage and we should be damn glad that he’s losing his ability and effectiveness to f’ us over. He also pushed for SS cuts in the 2008 presidential election and was part of the Obama Administration’s sequester-driven staged panic to push through SS cuts. At the least, he held the congressional dems at bay to let Obama negotiate straight with the reps (Boehner) on the sellouts and then give the media and our two dancing partner political parties the opportunity to hard sell the SS cuts to the public as inevitable.
    REMEMBER: OBAMA CREATED THE SEQUESTER. IT WAS A DEVICE OF THE OBAMA’S ADMINISTRATION OWN MAKING. IT DID NOT SPRING UP OUT OF THE EARTH ORGANICALLY.

    The Clintonite-infested DNC that was caught red handed through wikileaks conspiring to f’ over Bernie and his following in the 2016 primaries and throw the election to Hillary, which all that Clintonite misdirection about the “Russia! Russia! Russia!” hysteria was intended to draw attention from.

    Scenario A: The DNC steps aside, leaves the party infrastructure intact for taking, and Bernie has a straight up race against Trump. First to 270 delegates wins. Trump, even if he wants to, is too terrified to cheat because he doesn’t trust the rest of the government.

    Scenario B (if the left has a Plan B for a third party run in place): the weakness of the Bloomberg run is that he is a republican too at heart and he takes votes from Trump more so than a progressive 3rd party candidate, that is now fueled by the public’s self-righteousness borne from the brazen theft of the democratic party candidacy from Bernie. If no one gets to 270, it goes to Congress and they’ll decide it and likely select a democrat or republican to keep control of the Fed Reserve and probably pay for it in the form of a massive upheaval in Congress. Mikey $B very well may get the least amount of votes and gets caught in the middle of his deceitful game of his own creation trying to prevent a Bernie presidency and we get to watch a billionaire dance barefoot within a ring of fire of his own money that he can’t jump out of. He has to run as a democrat taking votes away from Trump and making the 3rd party candidacy more viable and legitimate with his run and if he moves politically to try to endear himself to the right, he pushes more voters towards a 3rd party. His tens to hundreds of millions of dollars being used to empower a third party’s legitimacy. Oh, the delicious irony of that! He’ll be caught in a very intricate dance indeed and a large part of the public will watch his jagged little jig understanding precisely his predicament and his game.

    There is absolutely no reason for Bernie’s Army not to run a 3rd party candidate in 2020 if Bernie doesn’t win. They learned in 2016 that they’ll be blamed for Trump regardless. And there’s no sane or moral reason to cede to the DNC, watch the planet burn, and tell future generations that we played a game by the DNC’s “rules” and they cheated better than us so they won and the entire human race lost in the process. That’s unfathomably cowardly and lame. This could be the ballgame right here, right now in 2020: with the ball being planet earth and the game being humans capability to live on it.

    Z

  10. Z

    Trump is the product of a corrupt system, not the source of it.

    He’s just the tumor that shows its ugly head once a disease reaches its terminal stage.

    Z

  11. Here’s a novel notion for the dems to consider, if they’re serious: with Drumpf uck and the Retards putting so much effort into running against Joe Biden… don’t run Joe Biden.

  12. Z

    Mikey $B’s game plan is this: buy the democratic party nomination and take the opportunity of power away from Bernie and the majority of democratic party voters and then turn around, once he loses the election because Bernie’s Army won’t back a billionaire, and bask in his righteousness every time Trump f’s up, with the resonant message amplified by our rulers’ media being “if only the Bernie “Bros” would have listened to Mikey $B and swallowed what he was dishing things wouldn’t be this way.”

    Counter to Mikey $B’s and his democracy busting moves: have a third party with a candidate prepared to run on working class issues inherited from Bernie’s campaign and force Mikey $B to dance to his deceitful beat within a ring of fire of his own money with the public watching him knowing exactly what’s coming, mocking his every move.

    Z

  13. Hugh

    It is too funny. For decades, Iowa and New Hampshire have been first, and at the same time not very representative of the rest of the country and the rest of the Democratic party. The media have not let out a peep about any of this. So now Sanders looks like he is doing really well in both. Without missing a beat, the media have suddenly discovered that Iowa and New Hampshire aren’t terribly representative and are now downplaying both. But here’s the thing. Sanders is the only progressive in the field and if he can do well even in conservative states, this should be seen as a positive. Instead because it is inconvenient, it is portrayed as a negative. If Biden had a big win here, these same pundits would be declaring “Game over” and pushing for the other candidates to fall in line behind him. Hypocrisy much? Surprising? Not at all.

  14. Hugh

    I have to give it to Sanders, and I think this can not be said often enough. While Trump goes around calling Bernie a communist, Sanders has taken the high road and has yet to mention what a tiny penis Trump has.

  15. Dan

    Hugh, I wasn’t aware. No wonder Melania is always in a bad mood.

  16. bruce wilder

    oh the suspense!

    hee-hee

    It is kind of fascinating in political discussions to see how people reason out their preferences thru such stereotyped arguments as “electability” that may be employed to safely cover up their preferences. “It is not what I want that counts but what can be sold to other people.” “I am a realist!” can be the battlecry in a fight for preferences no one owns up to.

    And people have such random ideas! Apparently, critical thinking skills are rarely applied to test truth or importance. “Flat tax!” has always struck me as an unthinking man’s slogan. But, there are so many such, with reflecting deep convictions concerning futility ( always realistic! )

    My particular fascination are the Biden supporters. Who are these people who want to trade one corrupt, not very bright, fabulist and liar, on the verge of senility, for another. Because handsy Uncle Joe is “electable”! Just like Trump, I guess, because the American electorate has an unquenchable appetite for what? . . . stupid?

    Some political media love to mount anthropological expeditions to stare at Trump supporters in diners, but I do not see many looking for Biden supporters, but apparently some are showing up in rural Iowa.

  17. 450.org

    Here’s a novel notion for the dems to consider, if they’re serious: with Drumpf uck and the Retards putting so much effort into running against Joe Biden… don’t run Joe Biden.

    Maybe they’ll run Kerry instead.

  18. 450.org

    Trump is the product of a corrupt system, not the source of it.

    It’s a feedback loop where product and source become one and the same.

  19. Ivory Bill Woodpecker

    Joe Cannon of Cannonfire wrote this in 2016, but I suspect much of it remains valid. If a lone blogger found all this stuff, you KNOW the Treason Party (fka GOP), and its Russian masters, already have it all weaponized and ready to launch if St. Bernard wins the Democratic nomination.

    And it would work, unless the economy falls through the cellar before Election Day.

    50 Reasons Why Sanders Would Lose All 50 States

    https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2016/05/50-reasons-why-sanders-would-lose-all.html

  20. Z

    A third party run from the left is even more dangerous to our rulers if Mikey $B buys his nomination than I initially thought, I believe. Because the way I understand it, the candidate who gets the most votes in the states wins all those delegates. It doesn’t matter what the portion is, it doesn’t have to be a majority. So you could probably win a state with 40% of the vote or so. Do that across enough states while two Manhattan madmen beat each other up over the same voters … a group conflicted primarily on whether they like their rich rulers dignified or entertaining … and they further push disgusted undecideds to the third party where all the fun is at.

    If a viable third party option and the movement is there then if the Bloomberg-Biden-Warren-DNC axis is successful in selling Mikey $B their nomination, that leaves Mikey $B stuck in a race spending tens of millions … hundreds … of his own money on a candidacy that is most likely to hurt (Trump) the person he most wants to win and help out who he most hates: the one he spent all his money trying to prevent winning in the first place. Oh, oh Mikey $B if there’s a third party candidacy that has the backing of Bernie’s voters (and there’s nothing you can say that it’ll sway them to you Mr. Point Zero Zero One Percent) then these are perilous, perilous times indeed.

    Z

  21. Hugh

    Brouhaha at MSNBC. Sanders co-chair Nina Turner called Bloomberg an oligarch. Pundit Jason Johnson had a hissy. He objected that Bloomberg wasn’t an oligarch. He was just a rich guy, and the country was full of them.

    According to the Census, the current US population is 329 million. Bloomberg in the lists I checked comes in as the sixth to eighth richest American. That puts him in the top 0.00ooo243% of the population (assuming an eighth place position). So no, the country is not full of rich guys like Bloomberg. And if that kind of wealth and his political aspirations don’t make him an oligarch, what would?

  22. Z

    What disqualifies Mikey $B from being a proper oligarch is that he doesn’t pimp around with the bling of a cape, crown, and throne.

    Z

  23. Z

    Imagine the spot Mikey $B would be in if he bought the DNC nomination and Bernie’s movement flowed over to a strong third party movement. He would be in a three-way race and he would be the least likely to win in almost every state. But he’d be stuck, unable to quit the race because that would throw most of his democratic party voters’ support over to the Bernie’s movement, they’re not voting for Trump. So, he’d have to run it out, spend his money, knowing he can’t possibly win and his existence in the race is hurting the candidate (Trump) he wants to win and helping the movement he most wanted to prevent. All on Mikey’s $B’s dime.

    Z

  24. Z

    What drudgery that would be, running in a national race you can’t win, for months on end, paying full price for it, acting like you’re trying to win it but knowing the stronger your candidacy is the more of an asset you are to your enemy, and all your effort and money going towards helping what you’d set out to prevent. And with a growing public awareness of the predicament you paid big money to put yourself into … YOU BOUGHT THE NOMINATION FROM THE DNC … and laughing at it all. All on Mikey $B’s card.

    Oh, oh, oh Mikey $B I want to see you dance.

    Z

  25. Eric Anderson

    Oh, the prognostication.
    Let me lay it out for ya’ll in really simple terms.

    The beatings will continue until moral improves.
    Or, the baby boomers are too old to get to the polls.
    That the < 40 population of this country overwhelmingly supports Bernie is all you need to know.

    Olds.
    Ya stupid.

  26. Ivory Bill Woodpecker

    “…the < 40 population of this country overwhelmingly supports Bernie is all you need to know."

    (1) Proof, please?

    (2) Will they actually report to the polls for St. Bernard, in sufficient numbers, in the handful of states which actually matter?

    https://i.imgur.com/VpqsIQ4.jpg

  27. Z

    So we would slip Mikey $B’s shot to take the political power out of our hands, the people’s right to an equal vote, AND ALSO HAVE HIM BLAME US FOR ITS PREDICTABLE RESULTS, another term of Trump, and then be lectured by the media that “You should have listened to Mikey $B” every time Trump does something dumb for the next four years. And instead we’d have him dance barefoot in front of us within a fire circle of his own money that’s helping to pay for our political power.

    Sure, I’ll toss in a hundred dollars to watch a hundred days of that.

    Z

  28. Z

    Our rulers’ fear a viable third party representing democratic socialism more than anything politically. Especially a large, energetic, enthusiastic one that believes that the length of their lifespans are at stake and that they got screwed out of the democratic party nomination and are damn determined to prove it in the voting polls.

    But our rulers are preparing for it, this is part of the reason the media hits so hard on trying to tie the Bernie’s “Bros” with Trump MAGA crowd, to try to create a centrist “sane” space in the middle for Mikey $B.

    Z

  29. Tom

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/trump-plots-revenge-on-bolton-impeachment-enemies

    If this is the only way to lock Bolton up and away from the levers of power, I’m for this. And if Bolton sings and others go down, all the better.

  30. Mojave Wolf

    Somewhere, right about now, the people who designed that Iowa Caucus app are getting a massive payout for the success of their fallback, “stop Bernie, save Biden” plan.

    Also, some diehard StillWithHer person is blaming Bernie, some DNC/neolib type is working on essay about how this is merely a glitch and not anything to be concerned about and how awesome Mayor Pete is, some others are working on essays about how we don’t need paper ballots and voting machines can totally be trusted, and a Bloomberg fan is jumping up and down waving a Bloomberg sign saying “see? see? only an oligarch can save us! you have to vote for someone who can buy the app and the voting machine companies!”

    I got no other words, other than “why do you need an app to do basic math?”

  31. Z

    If Bernie’s contingent is stronger than Mikey $B’s, but he somehow still finagles a way to buy the nomination, and Bernie’s Army en masse backs a third party candidate as a collective political movement, enraged by being ripped off, and gaining even more support due the DNC’s obvious sale of the democratic party nomination, then Mikey $B will probably take some of Trump’s support for being a responsible republican, but he can’t get enough of it to overcome Trump and he surely ain’t going to get any from Bernie’s crowd. He’s stuck in the middle, trapped. Where does he go? Mikey $B’s Big Blunder.

    Z

  32. Z

    And this is very important and it will be one of the biggest battles: we have to deal with the separated families due to immigration, in some much better way than what’s been going on. Maybe even pay them money to leave and go back to their country. But it is paramount, absolutely paramount that you practically close the country down to immigration. We are talking of instituting a massive change to the economy that will hopefully lead to full employment, but we have to take care of who we already have here … look at all the people that will have to find work from the medical insurance field if Medicare-For-All goes into effect … and go from there. It’s going to take a while and letting more people in while this is going on only leads to distrust of new people cutting in line of them and you lose the solidarity. You have to build trust and address the concerns of the other political side of this country or else you’ll have a harder time overcoming a bunch of commie shit madness. They can all agree to this, they’ll all listen to this: close the borders to a trickle. Like Hugh always says: heavily and aggressively enforce the existing laws for employers employing illegals. You bust enough companies hard and the rest will consider it not worth the risk.

    As a practical, political, and economic matter you have to slow immigration to a humanitarian trickle. But be better neighbors. Give Puerto Rico their money immediately. Legalize pot, that will cut a flow of capital to the drug cartels in Mexico. But to have the best chance at this best shot a third party has to run on a platform that keeps immigration to a trickle.

    Z

  33. Eric Anderson

    See …
    Ivory Bill just proved my point.

    olds
    dumb

  34. Z

    You take away Trump’s weapon of accusing you of being in favor of immigration, you take away Trump’s most potent political weapon.

    Z

  35. bruce wilder

    The Twitter is kind of fun: Donald Trump Jr says the quiet part about Democratic Party corruption out loud while Buttigieg tweets about his victory every 17 seconds and lots of Sanders supporters express their paranoid anger.

    Most Americans just accept that everything is rotten and nothing can be changed and everything will get worse (and they’re right).

  36. realitychecker

    INVEST IN SCHADENFREUDE!!!

    (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

  37. Hugh

    What a screwed up system. Your vote totals are this, oh, and this. Your delegate totals are that. We have this nifty app, that doesn’t work. There’s an emergency call-in line if the app goes down that puts precinct captains on near endless hold and then hangs up on them. The state Democratic party has a conference call with the campaigns. After officials are repeatedly asked, and either can’t or don’t answer, when results will be announced, they do the classy thing and hang up on the campaigns.

    According to wiki, Iowa has 1,681 precincts. This amounts to around 6,724 data points. Per precinct, a precinct identifier, a delegate count, and two sets of vote totals. In the great scheme of things, this is small ball data collection and analysis.

  38. Hugh

    I should correct myself. The vote and delegate counts would be data sets comprised of lists of candidates and their totals. Still small ball in our tech world.

  39. Stirling S Newberry

    The old guard blew it. Their brand is “competence” and what is litter as the floor is “incompetence.”

  40. 450.org

    Wow, the Dem party is Russia times ten. They throw a wrench in it rather than admit Bernie won. Burn these m*therf*ckers to the ground.

    The entire world sees it for what it is. The Dem party cheating in plain sight.

    Can’t say I’m surprised. I’ve said all along they would cheat Bernie out of the nomination come hook & crook. Iowa’s strategic muddling of the results is hook & crook.

  41. 450.org

    It’s a win for Bloomberg. In effect, this strategic FUBAR means Bloomberg won Iowa. Is AI writing this script? It seems to be writing itself.

  42. 450.org

    Z, if Mini Mike is smart, he will strike a deal with Putin to hand him the election. Mini Mike is a far better negotiator than Trump. He’s predictable and reliable. Ten times a person of his word than Trump, and Putin needs someone in the Oval Office he can rely on to keep his word and honor the deal. Perhaps Iowa is Putin’s honoring his end of the deal with Mini Mike. It’s only the beginning. What a wild ride it’s going to be. Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

  43. Ivory Bill Woodpecker

    Apparently, Eric (Boris?) has no proof for his assertion, so he must substitute name-calling. 🙂

    Please wake me up when St. Bernard wins a state which isn’t as white as a Trump rally (Reminder: I’m white).

  44. Hugh

    The chair of the Iowa Democratic Party since 2017 is Troy Price. He was Iowa Director for the Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign and the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign. So this clusterfuck has Establishment Democratic fingerprints all over it.

  45. 450.org

    https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/10/2016-ghosts-1315854

    Not everyone is convinced the efforts will work in such a high-stakes environment. Some Democrats say if the 2020 primary heads toward an ideological struggle over the soul of the party, the clash will first play out in Iowa.

    This article is from May 2019. Great new system they have in place. What a message it sends to Trump.

    “Iowa had the Bernie-Hillary divide longer than anywhere in the country; one of the last delegate selection contests in the country,” Price said. “The locking of caucus night results allows us here to move on from the caucuses. The day after the caucuses we can start focusing on the general election.“

    Other caucus mechanics will be different in 2020 — more lessons learned from the 2016 experience. The historically close outcome between Sanders and Clinton exposed flaws in a system in long need of a professional upgrade, Price said. There was no mechanism to order a recount, for example, and no uniform way to check in caucusgoers to their local precinct caucuses. Both of those issues have been addressed for 2020.

    Price says it’s more evidence the party has moved on from 2016.

    “I don’t see a lot of the anger that existed three years ago still at play,” Price said. “There’s still a lot of people out there sizing up candidates. I think that broadly speaking the party is in a much better spot.”

    Still, just to be sure, local party leaders like Dumkrieger are doing their part to ensure the 2016 experience isn’t repeated: he’s hosting a barbecue event where he’s inviting staffers from competing 2020 campaigns.

    “I just want everyone to know our mission is the same and that’s to get rid of Donald Trump,” he said. “There’s no need for sharp elbows.”

    A gift to Trump. A gift to Bloomberg. The Dems simply can’t govern. The political class simply can’t govern be it the Democrats or the Republicans. It’s the death knell of realpolitk.

  46. Hugh

    Another name to throw out there is Tom Perez the Chairman of the DNC and another Establishment Democrat tied to the Clinton and Obama Administrations and to both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Biden backed his 2017 run to head the DNC. I expect state chairs have a fair amount of latitude in how they conduct their business, but that doesn’t mean that the national party chair doesn’t have a lot of interest and influence in what goes on in the states. And Iowa was important. It’s first and sets the tone. It had problems back in 2016. It was using a new untested app as a crucial piece of the process. And like you, I had the “what were they thinking?” and “what could go wrong” reaction to it. So with so much on the line, where was Tom Perez?

    What I would like to know is are Price and Perez going to apologize for this. They failed not just the voters of Iowa but all of us. And will anything change, as in will people do their freaking jobs? Will anyone resign? If it’s just mistakes were made, then the answer is no, nothing will change and the Democrats will once again be on the road to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But if the choice is Bernie or defeat, maybe that’s the plan.

    My completely worthless WAG for Iowa is Sanders first, Buttigieg second, Klobuchar and Biden vying for third and fourth, and Warren in fifth. We’ll see.

    The best comment on the caucuses was that the aborted Des Moines Register poll turned out to be the best indicator of what was to follow.

  47. 450.org

    The LGBT special interest power group is not our friend. It seeks power, pure and simple. LGBT is a cover for status and power.

    https://www.kcci.com/article/iowa-democrats-re-elect-troy-price-as-state-party-chairman-1545050898/25601766#

    Democrats in Iowa have re-elected Troy Price as chairman of the state party.

    It’s Price’s second term as state party chairman. Before first being elected last year, Price was part of several Democratic campaigns in Iowa, including those of former President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Price also had served as the party’s executive director and led One Iowa, an LGBT advocacy group.

    Another thing this reveals, as if there hasn’t been enough evidence already. Polls are sh*t. They are not accurate. They are not a science. They don’t reflect cheating and cheating is all elections are theese days if not always. They are propaganda, plain and simple. No poll showed Buttigieg with such a strong showing in Iowa. Such a strong showing, Booty Judge declared victory as did every other contender as we’ve witnessed. Hmm. Let me see. Booty Judge is CIA. Obama is CIA. McKinsey & Co. is CIA and the LGBT special interest power group is CIA. Buttigieg is LGBT. Price is LGBT. The fix was in. Hey Adam Schniffle, perhaps you should next fix your focus on the enemy within versus the Russians. The CIA is meddling in our elections. That’s as undemocratic and as much a threat to democracy as is the Russians meddling in our elections. In fact, it’s even worse and even more egregious because those doing the meddling are allegedly Americans. They’re not Americans as far as I’m concerned.

  48. 450.org

    Let’s not forget Robby Mook, the log cabin Republican in Dem clothing. What else can he be since he’s hellbent on delivering not one but two victories to Donald Trump? Like Booty Judge, Robby is LGBT too. Imagine that!! Hillary, Obama, LGBT. The Holy Trinity!!

    All of this over a state that will go Trump anyway. Iowa should be renamed for what it is — Monsanto. It’s an insult to Indigenous Americans for this state to be named after one of their tribes considering what it’s done to the fertile land of that state.

    The great state of Monsanto — home of Whitey McWhite, the strapping, gay, grain-fed, farm-raised All-American who enjoys a healthy dose of Roundup on his Wheaties in the morning.

  49. Z

    A rough night of rigging for the establishment dems …

    Z

  50. Watt4Bob

    While they don’t often show their elemental nature, it’s worth remembering that ultimately;

    “A politician is a person who would try to steal a red-hot stove with their bare hands.”

  51. 450.org

    Bernie clearly won in Iowa. Biden lost. Biden lost BIG! This is why the wrench was thrown into the works. The caucus process and methodology is FUBAR already and then the DNC wrench with the app. Bloomberg was smart to skip these early states.

    https://twitter.com/shawnsebastian/status/1224538096571686912

  52. Z

    I’d love to see a third party candidate run against the Mothra and Godzilla of Manhattan egos and point at those two and say: see, this is what you don’t want. The whole country being run through insanely greedy NY jerks and Wall Street. They don’t give a damn about the rest of the country, just themselves.

    The thing about Trump is that I doubt if there are five people in the U.S. who didn’t vote for him in 2016 who would vote for him now and he barely won in 2016 running against a hated opponent, many people voted for him just because he wasn’t Hillary and he ain’t got that backdrop no more. The economy has not been that good at all during his reign. Just like Obama’s economy, it’s heavily favored the rich, and had its heaviest flows through the stock markets.

    If Mikey $B buys the nomination, it will be pretty obvious why he bought it: to prevent Bernie from getting it and that Mikey $B has no chance of winning after stepping over Bernie’s support like that to get it. Bernie’s Army is not going to vote for a billionaire who bought the nomination. His nomination in itself is a living, breathing campaign slogan for a third party run for Bernie’s Army. And his almost zero chances of winning the election toss the anybody-but-Trump crowd to the more viable opponent from Bernie’s Army. Watch what you buy yourself into Mikey $B, you won’t be able to buy your way out of it once you do.

    The corporate dem’s fears of a Bernie’s Army third party run is exactly why they hit Tulsi so hard with the Russian-bot bs and their minions in the media keep asking her to retake her vow of not running as a 3rd party candidate. She’s the one best setup to lead Bernie’s Army on a third party run. In some ways she is more sober than Bernie, especially in foreign policy. Imagine Tulsi tapping into the anti-Trump women’s movement and the Hillary hate, you got yourself a fair amount of votes right there, plus Bernie’s Army, and you only need about 40% of the vote to win and the two Manhattan madmen are beating each other up for the same voters. Imagine too the insanity dancing in Hillary’s eyes, the madness trembling in her smile, if Tulsi won the presidency and a Major in the Army National Guard who she had accused of being a Russian asset became the first woman president in the U.S. and the media asked Hillary how she felt about a woman finally breaking through politically and winning the presidency. Ha ha ha. A third party run by Tulsi Gabbard is Hillary Clinton’s and her corrupt crew’s worst nightmare. Imagine Tulsi-Sanders, it makes all the sense, Bernie will be 79, he can better set his own pace rather than being run around by the presidency. He has the freedom to go places like KY and campaign against McConnell and lead those operations to continue the political revolution towards a government and an economy that represents the working class. Bernie the vice-president sage. It fits him better than president.

    Kerry … KERRY! … was overheard running his mouth about running for the nomination himself, save the party from Bernie, all that valiance, but then while he was working through it out loud, he dismissed the possibility because he’d have to leave his cushy board seat at Bank of America.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/john-kerry-overheard-discussing-possible-2020-bid-amid-concern-sanders-n1128476

    Imagine telling the young generation as the world continues to heat up and we deal with all the chaos that comes from that that we had to withstand four more damaging years to planet earth without any serious effort to reverse course because we played by the DNC’s rules and they cheated, but we kept our word to them and they won. That’s cowardly and unacceptable.

    Z

  53. Z

    Suspicions as to why they didn’t release the polls during the week of the Iowa Caucus like they said they would are going to grow now.

    Z

  54. Z

    And think about two Manhattan elitist clowns, rich beyond anyone’s imaginations, one who is starting to openly consider “reforming” SS, aka cut benefits aka take food from needy seniors’s tables, and one who wrote an op-ed praising the Simpson-Bowles recommendations to cut SS, and running against that and picking up seniors. The election is for the taking for a Third Party Bernie’s Army candidate if Mikey $B buys his way in.

    Nina Turner will not allow this movement to stop. She won’t. Cornell West won’t either. And so many others, there’s too much at stake. They’ll keep fighting and all they need is a Third Party working class candidate to coalesce behind.

    Z

  55. Z

    The tight spot the DNC’ers are in is to try to rip off Bernie and stage it in a way that seems legit and maintains credibility with voters.

    DNC Act 1 Iowa: a complete failure.

    Z

  56. Stirling S Newberry

    Biden does not care about the left, he wants the conservative Donks. He did not get them. Which means Buttigieg did well. The establishment Dems are losing it.

    The left can be dealt with later.

  57. Z

    Young Republican Pete’s campaign apparently contributed to the software firm that developed the voting app that is the source for Iowa’s issues. The software company is named Shadow and YR Pete’s campaign gave tens of thousands of dollars to it for “software rights and subscriptions”. The corrupt NV national democratic party also gave money to it.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/buttigieg-campaign-paid-firm-that-developed-voting-app-blamed-for-iowa-caucus-delays

    DNC’s Act 1 2020 Iowa dissolves into a farce.

    Z

  58. Z

    Everything the DNC does is with an eye towards hurting a Third Party run by Bernie’s Army. That’s why Lyin’ Liz’s buy-in to a Mikey $B-Warren ticket is so important to them, they dress her up as a progressive and then complain that they even threw a progressive into the mix but Bernie’s Army is just a bunch of over-idealistic misogynist sore losers who care more about their cause than what the country wants. Unity. Unity. Unity. One-way unity is only acquiescence.

    Z

  59. 450.org

    I’d love to see a third party candidate run against the Mothra and Godzilla of Manhattan egos and point at those two and say…

    I’d like to be able to legally hunt down every Nazi hiding behind Bernie’s apron and expose them and beat them bloody so they never walk again and have to eat through a straw the remainder of their days.

  60. Z

    And that’s the battle behind the scenes that our rulers’ media only allude to.

    The fact of the matter is though is that ‘Bernie’s Army didn’t fall down on their sword of their promises to us after we cheated them out of the nomination’ is not a very compelling argument to the U.S. working class, who I’d imagine will be all in with a ‘Let’s f’ them right back for a change’ campaign. Again, there’s nothing to lose with a Third Party run when you’re going to be blamed if Trump wins a second term regardless and hear “If they only would have listened to Mikey $B” for four years every time Trump does something stupid.

    Neither is Bernie’s not a democrat a compelling argument either for f’ing him out of the nomination when he is in fact the most popular politician running for your party’s nomination and the best four candidates your party has to offer are:

    1. A man who was heavily for, a cheerleader for, the Iraq War, SS cuts, the bankruptcy bill and damn everything that was against working class interests for over 40 years and a liar who was a failure in his first two presidential campaigns due to his serial dishonesty. Did I mention that this man was on the slippery slope to senility?
    2. Lyin’ Liz with her historical dishonesty who has no bond with voters at all.
    3. Young Republican Pete, a gay man who has absolutely no chance to win the general election, a McKinsey Ivy League boy whose greatest experience in government was as a city mayor.
    4. A billionaire who bought his way in and praised Bush’s Iraq War, wrote an op-ed favoring SS cuts, and who comes straight from Wall Street.

    You can see why the DNC would want to hide this collection of candidates … this Save Us From Trump team … this hodgepodge of crap by flying it under an identitarian banner. They got themselves some marketing difficulties to work through here. Warren’s buy-in is a must for this product, she gives it the veneer of progressivism, and her hitting Bernie as a misogynist was a huge part of the campaign to roll it out. Again, Lyin’ Liz is what she is: a deceitful enemy of the working class.

    Organize, build, get stronger, create solidarity, work, work, work, Trump and this DNC hodgepodge of sh*t can be beaten.

    Z

  61. Z

    Hey 450,

    Go make a campaign contribution to a billionaire, it will make you feel better.

    Z

  62. 450.org

    The election is not for the taking by a third party. Not this election at least. Maybe in eight years or twelve years if everything was done right, but twelve years will be far too late. I’m afraid you will have to shed your blood Z if you want to make a statement of powerful conviction beyond your keyboard and you’ll need tens of millions if not one hundred million or more to join you but alas all the wordsmith revolutionaries are allergic to blood and faint at the sight of it.

  63. 450.org

    Go make a campaign contribution to a billionaire, it will make you feel better.

    I’d rather go toe to toe with you in the flesh, Bernie Bro. It would be much more rewarding and much more effective.

  64. 450.org

    The fact of the matter is, Z, Bernie will fall in line and never admit the DNC is screwing him or has screwed him. If your leader capitulates, there is no third party run.

  65. Eric Anderson

    Ivory Bill, it’s painfully obvious:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/young-left-third-party/603232/

    That’s how out of touch the olds are everyone.
    Witness, Ivory Bill.

    Just put the bait there and he swallowed it whole.
    What a rube.

    Any doctors in this thread that can help him remove his foot from his mouth?

  66. Z

    450,

    I don’t know you personally, but if you ever came at me physically there is very good chance you wouldn’t walk away from it.

    Z

  67. Z

    450,

    I never saw someone so dedicated to the political interests of a billionaire.

    You must feel lonely at times in this world.

    Z

  68. Z

    I’d rather go toe to toe with you in the flesh, Bernie Bro.

    450,

    If you’re talking about fighting naked, I’m out. There’s too much for you to grab onto.

    Z

  69. 450.org

    It’s too late for a third party in this election but that won’t stop blood & soil Boris & Co. from pushing the idea. Anything they can do to divide the vote and hand Trump a second term. Their inability to criticize Trump on their own terms versus establishment terms shows their true colors. Even their alleged leader, Bernie, criticizes Trump on his own terms and these zealous followers avoid criticism of Trump like the plague.

  70. 450.org

    Will loin cloths suffice? Or better yet, fat suits. They look fleshy. If you win, I have to vote for Trump and eat nothing but Borscht for a year. If I win, you have to vote for Bloomberg and eat nothing but bagels for a year.

    https://imgur.com/a/PoPUUpy

  71. 450.org

    Putting the cheat in for Buttigieg after it’s clear Biden lost terribly in Iowa, affirms for me that the DNC and Bloomberg are not tied at the hip. If the DNC was truly aligned with Bloomberg, it wouldn’t be trying to position Butttigieg as the frontrunner in the early states come hook or crook.

    https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-iowa-bloomberg-biden-20200204-lqrtlyuhtnbqhi2teby7p2oe2q-story.html

    One possible snag from Iowa from Bloomberg’s point of view is the potential rise of Mayor Pete Buttigieg in Iowa.

    Buttigieg, who claimed victory in Iowa even without any official results, could be the early strong front runner that could sideline Bloomberg before he gets a chance to enter the ring on Super Tuesday.

  72. Z

    450,

    Sure, Main and 1st, high noon. Better show up, punk!

    Z

  73. Z

    The notion that a gay man is a serious contender to win the presidency is a delusion that is marketed by our mainstream media to promote Young Republican Pete’s campaign so that he can continue to get funded and take identitarian gay votes from Bernie and assist in the DNC’s mad effort to deny Bernie 51% of the delegates.

    How many times do you reckon the DNC people thought to themselves: if only Pete wasn’t gay, we could do something more with him, do an all-out Obama-like marketing campaign, the new face of the party and all that. He’s got great composure, but he’s gay, and his whole entire governmental career consists of being a mayor of a not particularly large town, so he best serves as a foil.

    Z

  74. Ten Bears

    Rolling on the floor laughing my rosy red ass off.

  75. Ché Pasa

    I saw Robbie M on one of the morning news shows giggling over the Iowa Debacle and nodding agreement with the Republican operative that This Was Good For Trump. Which apparently is the point, no?

    As far as I can tell, everybody had a bad feeling about the Iowa caucuses going into them because of The Untried App and a bunch of hinky business going on among the bigger players of the Democratic Party. The sense was that whatever happened, whatever the outcome, it was going to be a failure. And sure enough.

    I don’t think very many on the ground thought it would be quite this bad, but that it is isn’t that much of a surprise.

    Chaos reigns, right?

    Supposedly Warren is the only one who kept her keel relatively even in the midst of it, but I don’t know.

    The resolve is even more likely to be a deus ex machina held in reserve. Not Bloomberg, but he’s softening up the peeps to accept someone else, even more authoritarian and wonderful, when the time comes. I predicted someone from the military a long time ago. I’ll stick with that for the time being.

  76. Plenue

    I don’t know what your damn problem is, 450 (Sanders supporters are a bunch of Nazis? What?), but I’ll be generous and assume you could actually beat the crap out of me in a first fight.

    Which is why I don’t get into melee fights. If you wanted to play tough guy and start a fight, my move would be to drop you with a .303 Enfield round through the skull.

    You need to calm the fuck down and back off, edgelord.

  77. S Brenann

    Moon over Alabama has a post that celebrates the DNC’s hilarity….

    Buttigieg could be the next DNC choice that Sanders folds “like a lawn chair” for. In defense of Sanders next betrayal, at least Pete hasn’t held enough power to be responsible for war crimes [yet] like that other candidate that Sanders supported in 2016…what was her name again?

    And so it goes

  78. Chiron

    The US establishment wants Trump re-election, he is good for Wall Street, israel and military industrial complex.

  79. Z

    Bernie to the DNC: Well, I told them to support your candidate, but I guess they didn’t listen. Oh, well …

    Z

  80. Z

    Chiron,

    Exactly.

    Z

  81. Z

    Bernie to the DNC: I asked them to support your candidate but they wouldn’t listen to me and just ran off to start a Third Party candidacy. Oh well, I’m too old to chase them …

    Z

  82. BlizzardOfOzzz

    Computerized voting: massive screwups caused by the managerial class can only be fixed by them (just a bit more money and control next time, goyim). What happened? Who is to blame? No one will ever know, but the only people who can credibly weigh in are insiders and “experts”. Computerized voting is the managerial class’ wet dream. At this point, can we say that anyone who doesn’t support a return to 100% paper ballots is in on the con?

  83. Z

    Bernie’s Army to Bernie: We appreciate you promoting Run DNC’s bizness partner Mikey $B and all, but we got this third party working class candidate who we like better.

    Bernie to his Army: Sure, I can understand that. No problem. You have to do what you have to do. I’m kind of tired anyway and I’m not going to waste anytime campaigning for a billionaire.

    Z

  84. 450.org

    The US establishment wants Trump re-election, he is good for Wall Street, israel and military industrial complex.

    Yes, this is what I’ve been saying forever now. If Trump was a threat to the oligarchy, he’d be Six Feet Under by now. Long gone. If Bernie becomes a threat and they can’t stop him by hook & crook, his stents will fail or his plane will crash in Minnesota in Wellstone fashion. If Bernie miraculously overcomes the DNC’s chicanery and becomes the nominee or threatens to be the nominee, he’d be well-advised to stay away from grassy knolls and avoid air travel. Same holds true for Bloomberg. He likes to fly his own helicopter. Stay away from the helicopters, Bloomberg. There are many Levs.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/11/nyregion/copter-crash-kills-3-aides-of-trump.html

  85. 450.org

    Sanders supporters are a bunch of Nazis? What?

    No. I never said that. There are some Nazis who pretend to be Bernie supporters. They hide in the metaphorical crowd and try to manipulate. Their goal is to get Bernie supporters to switch to Trump as a shot of schadenfreude when, not if, Bernie gets screwed by the DNC. If they can’t bait & switch to Trump, they try to split the Dem vote any way they can. The irony is, the DNC helps them in this cause even though the two groups are not aligned in any way.

  86. Z

    If Biden got pummeled in Iowa, and it appears he did, of course the DNC wouldn’t want that to get out and have his campaign take a gut punch before heading down south to try to gather up those votes that Warren and Mikey $B will have absolutely no chance of getting down there. It hurts the Mikey $B-Lyin’ Liz-Bumbling Biden-Young Republican Pete-Run DNC collusion to accumulate all their votes into some sort of an identitarian parlay that our rulers’ media can excitedly sell to the public as legitimate.

    Again, this is the plan, it is the only thing that makes any sense. If you want to watch a deceitful politician in action watch Warren act like it’s not in the works.

    Z

  87. 450.org

    The guy is aptly named, I’ll give him that. It’s as appropriate as Barack Hussein Obama. He’s helping to rob Bernie of the nomination and he is unequivocally a quitessential mook.

    Mook (noun) Originally referred to an Italian-American male; similar to Mick in reference to an Irish-American male; Modern use extends beyond ethnicity, gender, and income levels to refer to a average person inclined not to be athletically or mentally gifted, especially in the moment or during a particular situation. Mook is used as either a humorous (knucklehead) or derrogative (jerk) expression of humanistic imperfection or inappropriatness, such as to describe a person’s clumsiness or loudness. The word is most often heard in the NE region of the United States, particularly New York City, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and Boston.

  88. Z

    Bernie on the campaign trail for Run DNC’s Mikey $B rollout:

    “I have been called here today to support the democratic party’s nomination for the presidential election, an agreement that I made when I entered this race and I intend to keep my promise and to do my best to promote Mikey $B’s nomination in the best way possible, to lay out the strongest case, the most comprehensive case I can for his candidacy, and to fight the hardest I can to support this man’s campaign to defeat Donald Trump and that is why I am here today.

    So, I come here today to tell you that I can attest that it has been genetically verified … within a 99.999% probability, which just so happens to be the likelihood that you are poorer than Mikey $B … that this man standing next to me is indeed not Donald Trump.” Mic drop and walk away …

    Z

  89. Ivory Bill Woodpecker

    Actually, the article EA linked seemed rather less confident than EA is.

    Assuming Milburn’s analysis is correct, the young progressive movement will have to shed its first adjective in order to gain power. In 2016, voters older than 40 accounted for nearly three-fifths of all primary voters. It is impossible to win a national election by running a campaign of generational warfare that runs counter to, or directly indicts, a majority of the electorate. One way or another, America’s third party will have to grow up.

    *shrugs* No convincing a True Believer that his or her belief is not a principle equal to Newton’s Laws of Motion, I suppose.

  90. Ché Pasa

    Well, that was exciting as all get out. Took all the oxygen out of the blowhards in the Senate, didn’t it?

    Young Pete on top with 10 delegates.

    Old Bernie next with 10 delegates.

    Herself, Miss Elizabeth, with 4.

    The rest, nada.

    Or not.

    See why I say our elections are international bad jokes?

  91. Eric Anderson

    “In 2016, voters older than 40 accounted for nearly three-fifths of all primary voters.”

    That number will flip in 2020. Watch it happen.

    But, way to move the goalposts of your original argument.

    Always a sure sign of admitting defeat.

    Bye bye olds. Don’t let the casket door hit you in the butt.

  92. Mojave Wolf

    It’d be a big deal if Bernie won it, and the polls show him leading.

    I’m pretty sure he won it, since I can’t think of any other reason for the DNC to stop at 62% of the vote* when normally 100% would be out now without need of any vote counting app (have the Iowa dems heard of things like “math” or “calculators” or even “abacus”?).

    Either they are trying to figure out some way to cheat Bernie which would pass at least minimal scrutiny, or they are trying to minimize the impact of Bernie’s eventual victory announcement, or they are deliberately letting good ol Mayor Pete have some extra time to trumpet his nonexistent “victory” via the voting app he invested in (tho the results are probably real, or at least close to real; the nice thing about caucuses, as with paper ballots, is that it’s MUCH harder to cheat on a large scale and much easier to get caught if you do). Or they are so incompetent it’s hard to understand how they manage to breathe. Or some combination of these things.

    I would feel much better about New Hampshire if it had only hand marked, hand counted paper ballots, with all collection and counting having witnesses and video. But if they don’t cheat, Bernie should clean up there, and the results here may actually help Bernie in Nevada and South Carolina (as Z already pointed out)

    *which Bernie is still leading via actual votes, but not via delegate math because of things like 101-66 split leading to 4 delegates each and Pete winning 7 out of 7 coin tosses vs Bernie when it came to delegate distribution and apparently a new way of apportioning delegates which may have been directly aimed at lessening the impact where Bernie was most likely to do well

  93. Mojave Wolf

    Note to Ivory Bill and any other misguided believers in the “bernie supporters are all white men” theory: Bernie is doing the best of any candidate among non-white voters overall; and second best to Biden among African Americans.

    The only reasons Biden is doing so well there have nothing to do w/Biden, but rather “presumed electability” + “association w/Obama”. One of those two pillars is gone.

    Pete does HORRIBLY w/non-whites and amazingly, given her PanderQueen Campaign, so does Liz.

    Note to 450: Dude, assuming you are NOT a troll, seriously chill. “Disagreeing with 450” does not equal “Nazi” or “Fascist”. Even if you are right and the other people are wrong, being wrong does not equal fascist or nazi. Also, threatening to beat people up on the internet is neither intimidating nor impressive. And more to the point, it doesn’t make you right. IIRC, both Jorge Masvidal and Colby Covington are Trump supporters. They would both be heavy favorites to win a no-weapons fight w/anyone on this board. That doesn’t make them right, I think you would agree.

  94. Mojave Wolf

    Further note to Ivory Bill and anyone else pushing the false anti-Bernie narrative that he only plays well w/white people: In the so-far incomplete Iowa stats, Bernie is leading Buttigieg 3-1 among non-white Iowans.

    Latest results I’ve seen for that stat (which I have huge issues with, as no racial group is a monolith and to the extent that racial demographics have particular preferences or focus issues, they are not the same for all non-whites, and as MLK and Malcolm X both said right before they were assassinated and Adolph Reed and Tulsi still say, we need to be working for a colorblind society that emphasizes our common humanity, not letting a bunch of slimebags pit us against each other to enrich themselves):

    Bernie: 43%
    Butthead: 15
    Bidet 13
    Yang 12
    Warren 12

  95. 450.org

    Even if you are right and the other people are wrong, being wrong does not equal fascist or nazi. Also, threatening to beat people up on the internet is neither intimidating nor impressive.

    Look at my initial comment again. It doesn’t name anyone specifically and is directed at no one in particular who comments here. It’s how I feel about fascists and fascists like to play mind games — especially on the internets where they can pretend they’re something they are not in order to manipulate. I deplore fascism. Fascists are thugs and cowards by choice versus by circumstance. Why anyone here would feel a compulsion to take umbrage with that rather than agreeing with it speaks to their character. One person in particular took umbrage with it immediately, presumably in defense of Nazis. Why else take umbrage with it?

    I’d like to be able to legally hunt down every Nazi hiding behind Bernie’s apron and expose them and beat them bloody so they never walk again and have to eat through a straw the remainder of their days.

    A more appropriate response to that would have been, “I second that motion.” Afterall, it’s in defense of Bernie and the movement he’s part of. To believe fascist interlopers aren’t trying to sabotage that movement in every way is be naive beyond the pale. It’s part of the fascist strategy. Feign to be a populist.

    Fyi, for a great take and perspective on the depths of fascist treachery in pre-Nazi Germany during the 1920s, I suggest the excellent series Babylon Berlin. The third season will soon be released. It’s a look at the rise of fascism in Germany from a refreshing German perspective versus a Jewish perspective and it’s equally, if not more so, damning to the ideology.

    https://www.uu.nl/en/in-the-media/the-weimar-republic-in-a-new-light

    Babylon Berlin depicts Nazism rising slowly but surely in the background. According to Hung, this makes it relevant for modern audiences: “The interesting thing is that the Nazi regime grew out of this society and not necessarily in opposition to it. The Nazi dictatorship was just one possible end result of this changing modern society – and this means that it is a potential inherent in any modern society.” The many possibilities that the Weimar Republic held are what makes it so fascinating to write about.

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