If You Can't Rise to Your Opponent, Bring Them Down To You.

What do you do when you are a horribly flawed candidate for political office running against someone with as squeaky clean a record as one could reasonably expect from any candidate? Well, there are two options if you want to win. You can either lie by claiming you're as good as your opponent, or you can try to bring your opponent down to your level. On gay rights and same sex marriage the supporters for Secretary Clinton seem to going for the latter.

I first came upon this when I read a story by Anthony Romeo on The Huffington Post in which the author outlines his reasons for supporting Secretary Clinton as a Gay father, which to me don't seem to amount to much more than "Hillary was nice to me once." As I was reading the story I, like many others I would imagine, wondered how a Gay man could support Secretary Clinton over Senator Sanders when we all know Secretary Clinton was opposed to same sex marriage until 2013. What I found was troubling to me at first.

"I get asked almost daily by Bernie Sanders supporters how I can support Hillary for president, with her history on LGBT issues, with my husband and son sitting at home. The focus on Hillary’s positions here is exclusive, and doesn’t discuss in any way that Senator Sanders, too, has evolved on this issue. But I don’t begrudge the senator his past non-support of same-sex marriage, because like any rational person, he’s given the issue a considerable amount of thought, and is now in full support, as is Hillary Clinton. What matters most to me is that they are both on the right side of the issue now."

I have, however, learned through experience to take what Secretary Clinton supporters say with a grain of salt. After all, they're supporting a candidate who is demonstrably a liar. So I decided to do some digging to see if Senator Sanders was guilty of "evolving" on same sex issues. The short answer for the TL;DR crowd is no, he's not guilty of it. But since I know some of you out there will want proof I present my case in The People of Hillaryland vs. Bernie Sanders.

The above quote linked to a Slate article by Mark Joseph Stern entitled Bernie Sanders Claims He’s a Longtime Champion of Marriage Equality. It’s Just Not True. The argument the article espouses is that Bernie Sanders didn't really care about gay marriage. Sure he voted against DOMA, but only because he thought it infringed on state's rights! He didn't actually care about gay rights at all! The problem for the author is that he lays the seeds for showing this is not true in his own article.

"Explaining his vote in 1996, Sanders’ chief of staff told the Rutland Herald that Sanders’ vote was motivated by a concern for states’ rights, not equality. Explaining that he wasn’t 'legislating values,' she noted that Sanders believed DOMA violated the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause by allowing one state to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another."

The author tries to paint this as a damning statement when in actuality the segment I highlighted in bold shows the ultimately successful strategy Sanders, and the gay rights movement at the time, were employing. In 1990 the issue of same sex marriage in the United States first began to be officially adjudicated. The battleground was the Hawaiian Supreme Court in Baher v. Miike. At the time three same-sex couples argued that Hawaii's prohibition of same-sex marriage violated the state constitution. As we learned later with Massachusetts and Goodridge v. Department of Public Health the strategy to bring same sex marriage to the United States was to fight in the states to get it legalized in one of them and then use the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution to have them recognized in all the other states while the movement worked to win hearts and minds and waited for progress in the country as a whole. Progress that ultimately culminated in Obergefell v. Hodges' use of the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Constitution to make it legal in all 50 states. Love Wins.

Now, you can argue with this strategy if you want, you can say it didn't go far enough and that everyone should have demanded equality for everyone instantly and I respect that view. But I personally think it was brilliant. Regardless, it was the strategy of the LGTB movement of the era. Sanders, who had been a champion for gay rights for decades at this point (as I'll demonstrate later in the article) knew it and represented this constituency by applying their strategy. The author of this hit piece then goes on to show a sinister video of then Congressman Sanders in a debate for the U.S. Senate seat he ultimately won in 2006. In the video moderator Stewart Ledbetter asks Sanders about the Massachusetts situation and Don't Ask Don't Tell. First, Sanders gives his full throated support to gays being allowed to serve openly in the military, saying

"God only knows that we have had gay soldiers forever. World War II, Vietnam, Today. Putting their lives on the line, and they deserve to be treated the same as other soldiers."

This isn't exactly the language of someone who doesn't care about gay rights. Then on same sex marriage he goes on to say

"I believe-- voted against the DOMA bill. I believe that the Federal Government should not be involved in overturning Massachusetts or any other state because I think Stewart the whole issue of marriage is a state issue. That's what it is."

I added the bold emphasis to hammer home my point. Sanders wasn't saying he thinks the Federal government shouldn't ALLOW gay people to be married. He's saying he voted against DOMA because he doesn't want the Federal government PREVENTING gays from marrying in Massachusetts, completely consistent with the strategy of the day I referenced earlier. Also he's stating a matter of fact, marriage is a state issue, because it is the states that issue marriage licenses. Sanders as we've previously seen knew the strategy and was executing it. If he really was against gay marriage he would have supported DOMA. It was insanely popular at the time, it would have been easy to do. But Sanders doesn't take the easy wrong road. He takes the difficult right road.

Next the Clinton camp has tried to latch on to Senator Sanders' statements from 2006 when Vermont became the first state in the country to allow civil unions. The Clinton camp and their people in the media have slammed Sanders for not coming out and supporting same sex marriage in that battle, in favor of the aforementioned civil unions. Sanders states in an interview with Rachel Maddow

“Vermont was the first state in the union to pass civil unions, and trust me, I was there and it brought forth just a whole lot of emotion, and the state was torn in a way I have never seen the state torn,” Sanders said. “So Vermont led the nation in that direction, and what my view was give us a little bit of time.”

 While researching this story and upon seeing this quote I was reminded of one of my favorite political videos of recent memory, in which Lawrence O'Donnell talks about how the 2014 electoral triumphs of the GOP spell complete disaster for them in 2016. O'Donnell quotes a Republican named Chris Ladd who wrote the story saying

"Few things are as dangerous to a long term strategy as a short term victory."

And, if you're a YUGE nerd like me and love Star Trek Deep Space Nine you'll know that Kahless, the greatest Klingon warrior of them all said

"Destroying an Empire to win a war is no victory. And ending a battle to save an Empire is no defeat."

Sanders says it in the quote, the debate tore Vermont apart "in a way I have never seen the state torn." any sane person could see that there weren't what infamous former Quebec sovereignty movement leader Lucien Bouchard called "winning conditions." If you were faced with a battle that meant so much to you but knew that if you pushed it too hard you could lose the whole thing wouldn't you hold back? Wouldn't you bide your time until things were more favorable? Of course you would. In the incredible movie Lincoln starring Daniel Day Lewis one of the heroes of the movie and of the fight against slavery Thaddeous Stevens is forced to say publicly that he doesn't believe in full equality for African Americans but only equality under the law. It pains him to say this but he knows that if he says what he really believes it would kill the 13th Amendment, and slavery would stain the nation for years, perhaps decades to come. Bernie Sanders cared about the movement, he wasn't about to shoot his mouth off about gay marriage when he knew doing that would have harmed the people he was trying to help.

This is a fundamental difference between him and Secretary Clinton, especially on this issue. Sanders spoke out for gay rights decades before it was popular. He isn't afraid of being unpopular if he believes what he's saying is right, but he is afraid of harming progress because he, like General George S. Patton, doesn't want to have to fight for the same real estate twice. Secretary Clinton chooses her positions based on poll numbers and rarely says anything she thinks is right if it is unpopular. Time and time and time again during the period leading up to her conversion in 2013 she said she was not in favor of same sex marriage. Bernie Sanders did no such thing and to say otherwise is the pathetic and desperate attack of a supporter who knows their candidate was wrong.

Secretary Clinton supported DOMA. She tries to say now that she did so because the power brokers of the day were afraid that there would have been a Constitutional Amendment banning same sex marriage if they had not. As I've just said this is a perfectly reasonable strategy and Clinton supporters point to a 2013 amicus brief in which four former Senators seemed to confirm this theory. However even the Washington Post, a paper so in the tank for Clinton it wrote 16 anti Sanders stories over a period of 16 hours recently doesn't buy this explanation. If you need more evidence of this being revisionist history you can find it here and here. Also, President Clinton signed DOMA, even though Congress had passed it with a veto proof majority. Bills that are vetoed and then overridden become law without the President's signature. If he and then First Lady Clinton wanted to show the LGTB community that they were their champions the President should have vetoed the legislation anyway, and forced the 104th Congress to take full responsibility for it. If her revisionist explanation of wanting DOMA to prevent an Amendment was true vetoing the bill would have changed nothing. The bill would have still become law, and the first family would have symbolically shown they were on the right side of history. Instead they did what they always do; they looked at the polls and made their choice based on them.

Finally, we come to what I promised earlier, I'm going to demonstrate that Bernie Sanders has been a champion for gay rights, in fact for all civil rights for decades. The first piece of evidence comes from his 1960s arrest protesting segregation on the campus of the University of Chicago. I'd like to share this video from a town hall done by CNN in Derry, NH.

"As far back as I can remember, and Anderson I can't tell you why, injustice is something that I have always fought throughout my life."

This demonstrates the state of mind of Bernie Sanders. As far back as the 1960s he was a man who saw injustice and fought against it, even when it was unpopular and in this case personally dangerous to do so.

Next we move to more specific evidence on the gay rights question, and what I think is the most damning evidence against those who would try to claim Bernie Sanders hasn't been a long time supporter of gay rights. In the 1970s Sanders ran two third party campaigns for Governor of Vermont on the Liberty Union ticket. In a letter published during one of these campaigns he outlined his support for gay rights.

Since it may be a bit hard to read I've enlarged the relevant passage.

Let's (sic) abolish all laws which attempt to impose a particular brand of morality or "right" on people. Let's (sic) abolish all laws dealing with abortion, drugs, sexual behavior (adultery, homosexuality, etc.)

He's saying it right here for all the world to hear. I stand for gay rights, the government has no business imposing their morals on anyone else. I think I've proven my case in The People of Hillaryland vs. Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is proven to have fought injustice for 6 decades now, by fighting against segregation in the 60s.  He is proven to have been fighting for gay rights for at least 5 decades from this 1970s letter to his 1980s proclamation of Gay pride day, to his 1990s opposition of DOMA, to his 2000s defense of Massachusetts' marriage law to today. If you want more information on his record on gay rights you can check out FeelTheBern.org's section on the matter.

In a final message to all the Secretary Clinton supporters, I'm going to invoke the late Ambassador Adlai Stevenson II. If keep lying about Bernie Sanders I'll keep telling the truth about Hillary Clinton.

A Realistic Third Party Presidential Bid Isn't in the Cards

Donald Trump has threatened on numerous occasions to run as a third party candidate if he feels the Republicans aren't fair with him, but if he doesn't have the magic 1,237 number after the final primary on June 7th he'll have to decide whether he thinks they will before the convention. The reason is ballot access. The Republican convention takes place July 18-21 in Cleveland, but many states have filing deadlines for third party Presidential candidates that are before those dates. Those states are listed as follows.

Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Texas.

That's 143 electoral votes that Trump would not have access to right out of the gate unless he chose before the convention. What's worse for him is Texas' deadline is almost a month before the primaries are even over on May 9th. So if he waited until the Primaries were over he would be giving up the biggest prize a right wing candidate can realistically hope to win before he even starts, 38 electoral votes off the table. I suppose he could file there before the deadline but Cruz and Kasich would hammer him on it with Republican voters.

On the Democratic side many people, I think unwisely, are asking Bernie Sanders to run as an Independent if he doesn't win, however Sanders would face the same problems. I personally believe that if he loses the nomination he will support Secretary Clinton and I also believe that may be the right thing to do. On the other hand maybe America needs 4 years of a President Trump or a President Cruz to wake up and stop supporting third way candidates such as Secretary Clinton, but I'd rather seem them get it right the first time and nominate Senator Sanders. Finally, as I wrote earlier a third party candidate would likely result in a Republican President anyway because if no candidate can get to a majority of the electoral college (270) the President is chosen by the U.S. House of Representatives which due to Gerrymandering is almost certain to remain in Republican hands until at least 2022.

Rachel Maddow is Full of Bull Puckey

It gives me absolutely no joy to write that title. I've admired Rachel for a long time now, ever since she first started filling in for Keith Olbermann on his nights off of Countdown. But it's the truth and I have to tell it, because I'm sick of the media misrepresenting Senator Sanders and his campaign and I'm angry that Rachel has sunk to this level.

Last night as I was going through my Twitter feed I stumbled upon this tweet by Thom Hartmann.

While at the same time Rachel accuses Sanders of "bull puckey" on M$NBC & Joy Reid red-baits him here. #TurnedTVOff https://t.co/bFUenBAh05

— Thom Hartmann (@Thom_Hartmann) March 29, 2016

I was surprised because I thought Rachel had been one of the few bastions of integrity left at MSNBC. But she had fallen to the dark side about a week ago when her Maddowblog ran a story entitled Sanders Surprises with Controversial Superdelegate Strategy, in which it was made to look like Senator Sanders had said that he would accept winning the nomination on Superdelegates without having won the will of the people, the pledged delegates. This erroneous assertion was first floated in a Politico story cited in the Maddowblog entry. I'm not going to litigate that story as well, but suffice it to say that story puts words in the Sanders campaign's mouth the same way Maddowblog does. Then, when Rachel interviews Senator Sanders it comes up again.

Rachel tries not once, not twice, but THRICE to get Sanders to say that he would accept being the nominee without the will of the people and each time he refuses to do so. The closest that he comes to agreeing with the premise of her question is on his third answer.

"I think it is probably the case that the candidate who has the most pledged delegates is going to be the candidate, but there are other factors."

What he's really saying there is that it's up to the Superdelegates who they support, he's trying to make a case for Superdelegates to come over to his side like any sane candidate would do, but at no time in the exchanges as you can see for yourself does he ever say he thinks he should win without a majority of pledged delegates. He does say he believes that in states where he won a large amount of the vote the Superdelegates should consider him, which I think is a reasonable way to pressure these undemocratic Superdelegates to switch to him, but you're free to make your own judgment on that strategy. After this incident I shrugged it off, everyone makes mistakes and Rachel has done more than enough for the Progressive movement to earn a pass every now and then.

But, after reading Thom Hartmann's tweet I made it a point to check out the story when I woke up today. I found that Rachel ran a story entitled Sanders Campaign Rewrites History of Losses. If that was indeed the case I was going to be disappointed in Bernie's campaign, and argue that whoever said it should be cut loose. But, it isn't true and here's why.

First, I've highlighted the relevant part of the story below, but I've also included a link to the whole video above for transparency sake.




In the story Rachel cites a Mother Jones article entitled This is How Bernie Sanders Will Win the Nomination in which Senior Strategist for the Sanders campaign Tad Devine says "Her grasp now on the nomination is almost entirely on the basis of victories where Bernie Sanders did not compete." Rachel then goes on to surmise that he is saying "The only reason (we've) lost this far is because (we) weren't trying to win." The problem Rachel is running in to here is that she is mistaken about the definition of "Compete." to her to compete means to try, when in actuality compete means to try to win.

Compete: To try to get or win something (such as a prize or reward) that someone else is also trying to win : to try to be better or more successful than someone or something else.

Rachel then goes on, with this false premise, to conclude that since the Sanders campaign had offices and workers in the states mentioned in the Mother Jones article (Offices and workers that she herself reported on before Super Tuesday) that Sanders did in fact try in those states and thus called the assertion made by the Sanders campaign "Bull Puckey."

But wait, if the Sanders campaign wasn't trying to win in those states what were they trying to do? Well, Rachel alludes to it earlier in this same story.

"No states on the Democratic side are winner take all."

That's right Rachel, Sanders wasn't trying to win the aforementioned states, (although I'm sure he wouldn't have minded) he wasn't trying to compete; which as we all know now means trying to win. He was trying to get as many delegates as he could out of states he knew to be unfavorable to him; a perfectly reasonable strategy in states where he knew he couldn't win outright. This effort was a success, as Senator Sanders got 238 delegates in these contests. Now maybe you're thinking to yourself that I'm a Sanders supporter and so I can't be impartial on this, well you're wrong but even if you weren't Tad Devine says that I'm right in a quote from the article that adds much needed context and is yet conspicuously missing from the Maddow story.

"Where we compete with Clinton, where this competition is real, we have a very good chance of beating her in every place that we compete with her."

Do I accept that a woman who holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford and a Doctorate in Philosophy from Oxford doesn't know the definition of the word Compete? Actually I do, because language is funny and sometimes people say things that don't actually mean what they think it does, if you've ever heard someone misuse literally when they mean figuratively you know what I mean.

What I don't accept is that a journalist with the aforementioned education and the experience Rachel Maddow has doesn't know how to look up a word in the dictionary in the internet age, doesn't know how to read an entire article to get much needed context, doesn't ask for clarification from a campaign they have the ability to at least attempt to contact and doesn't acknowledge that trying to get SOME delegates from states that weren't likely to be won is a form of trying BEFORE said journalist accuses them of lying. Come on Rachel, you know better which is why you're full of bull puckey.

Finally, because I'm feeling particularly nitpickey today there's this.

Rachel says

"...that's just the pledged delegates, leave aside the issue of the Superdelegates which is a whole different discussion..."

But then she proceeds to show the current delegate count INCLUDING THE SUPERDELEGATES; And she should know better, because when Chair of the DNC and closet Clinton backer Debbie Wasserman-Schultz chastised the media for including Superdelegates in the totals who was she talking to? I'll give you one guess...

Yet Another Reason Democrats May Want To Pump The Brakes On Hillary

It's been reported by the New York Times that the Republican establishment is seriously considering supporting a third party candidate such as Tom Coburn or Rick Perry if Trump makes it to 1237 delegates and locks up the Republican nomination.

At first blush this may sound fantastic to those on the left, because it sounds like the right will split their vote pretty much guaranteeing we win the White House. But if you look deeper into it you see it may actually do the opposite, because of one huge advantage the Republicans have: The U.S. House of Representatives.

All of us Bernie supporters know that he is just killing Secretary Clinton among independents, which is why he generally does much better in open primaries than in closed ones. So lets posit for a moment that Independents would also shun the Secretary in the general. Trump does well with them so he'd take them by a decent margin and he'd also take the far right vote and the anti establishment vote. Secretary Clinton would take the Democratic vote but not those farther on the left and this third party candidate would take the center right and moderate right.

What happens then? No candidate gets to 270 electoral votes, and then the incoming House of Representatives chooses the next President, just like in 1824. We all know how the Republicans have rigged the House with Gerrymandering so they, barring a miracle, will have control of it until at least 2022 when the next round of post census voting takes place. If the Democrats don't get their down ticket game on soon however it could be 2032, but that's a topic for another day.

The 2016 election gets crazier because the Democrats are widely expected to take back control of the Senate this year. Why would that matter? Because the new Senate chooses the Vice President. So you could have a President Coburn or a President Perry with whoever Secretary Clinton's running mate would be as Vice President.

Of course, all of this is fixed by simply nominating Bernie Sanders, he would take the Democratic and the Independent vote and the blue wall would remain intact. :)

...because she's a woman

I won't support Hillary Clinton ... because she's a woman.

Hillary Clinton...

...won’t release her transcripts because she's a woman.

...backs trade deals that send American jobs overseas because she's a woman.

...makes racist comments and tosses BLM activists out of a big money fundraiser because she's a woman.

...tries to make Nancy Reagan sound like a hero of AIDS awareness because she's a woman.

...pretends Bernie Sanders didn’t do anything to help her with Health care in the 90s when there is a video of him STANDING RIGHT BEHIND HER because she's a woman.

...is under risk of indictment because she's a woman.

...is a proven, verifiable liar because she's a woman.

...tried to race bait in 2008 by releasing that picture of Obama in Kenya because she's a woman.

...slams Bernie on guns and then has a fundraiser with an NRA lobbyist because she's a woman.

...sold influence from the State Department because she's a woman.

...wants to limit a woman's right to choose because she's a woman.

...rails against for-profit colleges while taking money from them because she's a woman.

...lets her surrogates attack Bernie while saying she's running a clean campaign because she's a woman.

...voted to give one of the worst Presidents of all time the power to wage war for oil because she's a woman.

...opposed gay marriage her entire life until it became politically popular because she's a woman.

...said she supported a $15 minimum wage and then flip-flopped to $12 because she's a woman.

...defended President Clinton's repeal of Glass-Steagall because she's a woman.

...attacked Senator Sanders' Single-Payer health care plan, saying Single-Payer health care would "never, ever" happen AFTER slamming Obama for attacking her in 2008 saying "Since when do Democrats attack each other on Universal health care?" because she's a woman.

...sold out to Wall Street on the Bankruptcy Bill because she's a woman.

...tried to fool voters into thinking she wants to get money out of politics because she's a woman...

Yup, definitely because she's a woman.

Bernie Sanders is Dangerous... (Thug Life)

Why Does CNN Have a Conservative Commentator from TheBlaze Doing Their Democratic "Who Won The Debate" Story?

Now I know that the establishment media is biased against Bernie Sanders, I also know that they're deathly afraid of Conservatives because of decades of spurious "Liberal Media" media attacks leveled at them by those on the right. But even with all that WHY does CNN choose a right wing "pundit" Buck Sexton to write their obligatory "Who won the debate" story for CNN.com?

Now in case you think "Oh maybe he's a centrist for TheBlaze." Yeah, no, not so much.

Hillary is the only person who isnt insane for hating citizens united, since it was about a movie that told us all how awful she is

— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 10, 2016

Bernie says the words "ending fracking" and that debate auditorium acts like Jay-Z and Bieber both just walked in. These people are insane.

— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 10, 2016

The "bridge" Hillary wants from coal to clean energy is also known as ruinous taxation and regulation that will cripple a whole industry

— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 10, 2016

Climate change: the religion for people who think they are too smart for religion

— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 10, 2016

This is the equivalent of letting Thom Hartmann write the "Who won the debate" story for a Fox News GOP debate on FoxNews.com. (Which I hope Fox News does by the way)
In addition to this there were some small yet interesting mistakes made on the page for this story. As everyone who uses a tabbed browser knows when you look at the tab it'll tell you the title of the page so you know what the different tabs are. I noticed something odd about mine so I looked at the html code and the <title> tag.


It appears the original title for this piece was "GOP debate: Clinton may regret immigration pledge (Opinion) - CNN.com" but the later title was "Clinton, Sanders may regret immigration vows." I guess after they realized it wasn't a GOP debate after all they decided to begrudgingly acknowledge that despite their hopes Sanders was in fact at the debate. Although maybe this is why they picked this guy to write the piece...

The substance of that first half, however, was so full of blatant pandering to Latino voters and wild promises to wield executive power on their behalf that it could come back to haunt the eventual Democratic nominee (likely Hillary Clinton) in a general election.

The rest of the article reads as the drivel you would come to expect from a Conservative who authored the above tweets. If you care to read it for a good laugh you can find it here, until CNN edits it again.