Thursday, May 19, 2016

Bernie Sanders and his goon squad

I was waiting for somebody to finally vet the claims of Sanders and his goon squad that there was official misconduct on the part of the Nevada Democrats. Well Politifact finally weighed in:


There’s no clear evidence of a chair being thrown, but the post-adjournment attitude was tense with Sanders delegates screaming obscenities and pushing back barriers between the crowd and the main stage.

Our ruling
Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said Nevada Democratic Party leaders "hijacked the process on the floor" of the state convention "ignoring the regular procedure and ramming through what they wanted to do."
Caucuses and delegate math can be incredibly confusing, and the arcane party structures don’t reflect how most people assume presidential selection works.
But the howls of unfairness and corruption by the Sanders campaign during Nevada’s state Democratic Convention can’t change the simple fact that Clinton’s supporters simply turned out in larger numbers and helped her solidify her delegate lead in Nevada.
There’s no clear evidence the state party "hijacked" the process or ignored "regular procedure."
We rate this claim False.

It would have been bad enough that Sanders supporters acted this way - but the Sanders campaign itself, lead by Sanders and his bitchy, shade-throwing response to the incidents - stoked the belief that misconduct had justified the outrage and screaming at Democratic women.

Bernie Sanders is a demagogue who will stop at nothing to get attention even if he can't win the nomination. He and his goon squad are shameless, reckless liars who encouraged the targeting of people in a political party that Sanders claims to be a member of and women were the targets of misogynist insults and death threats.  And this was based on a calculated tactic by Sanders to drum up false outrage.

He would not be as bad as Donald Trump as president - almost nobody could - but he is a horrible person and would make a horrible president.

Meanwhile it looks as though there may be some repercussions for the goon squad.

And speaking of Bernie Sanders horrible character, a very interesting piece from back in October about Sanders from someone who knew him back in the day:

"Considering that the Free Press' editorial positions were very liberal, reflecting the nature of a very liberal Vermont community, one might think that meetings with Sanders were cordial, even celebratory.
 
They weren't. Sanders was always full of himself: pious, self-righteous and utterly humorless. Burdened by the cross of his socialist crusade, he was a scold whose counter-culture moralizing appealed to the state's liberal sensibilities as well as its conservatives, who embraced his gun ownership stance, his defense of individual rights, an antipathy toward big corporations and, generally speaking, his stick-it-to-them approach to politics. 
My most memorable encounter with Sanders was during an editorial board session during a period when the Vermont Progressive Party was reconstituting itself to challenge for more seats on the Burlington City Council.
Sanders had been mayor of Burlington from 1981 until 1989, institutionalizing progressive government in the city and other Vermont enclaves. Although he has been in Washington since his election to the House of Representatives in 1991, he remained the titular head of the movement, yet refused to endorse a progressive slate seeking City Council seats or the new leadership orchestrating the campaigns.
After discussing his favorite issues — corporations, government reform, health care and the like, I asked about his unwillingness to endorse his fellow progressives. He said it wasn't his role. I suggested voters might expect him to weigh in. He disagreed, clearly annoyed at the persistent questioning. Finally I suggested that he had a larger moral responsibility to the progressive movement.
 
At which point he jumped out of his seat, told me to go f*** myself and stormed out of the edit board meeting. OK, maybe my persistence bordered on hectoring. But I felt he ought to provide an honest answer. My suspicion was that he resented others for assuming his mantle of progressive leadership and wouldn't acknowledge them."