CaptnStrawberry

If you ever treat your sidekick or love interest in a condescending, rude, or belittling manner, they will eventually convert to super-villainy, or at least assist a super-villain. If you are always supportive, generous and respectful, odds are still better than 50/50 that said sidekick or love interest will descend into supervillain-hood. Axiom: successful superheroes do not have or wish to have sidekicks or love interests.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/achievements.asp One more and I'm out - snopes claims this quote is false also. When a journalist asked HRC what her greatest accomplishment as Secretary of State was, she responded: "Well, I'm glad you asked! My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you know… the remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too narrowly focused in a manner whereby they may have overlooked the bigger picture and we didn’t do that and I’m proud of that. Very proud. I would say that’s a major accomplishment." More or less a stream of incoherent babble, it is hard to believe someone in the public eye for so long would utter it. But she did. I watched it live. I remember it distinctly. It created severe doubt in my mind that this woman is ready for the nation's highest office. Apparently, I imagined the whole incident. . . . ?

For one thing, they themselves said they would be. Over the past 18 months, whenever the subject of DNC bias came up, Schultz would publicly and repeatedly say "no, our job is to be neutral throughout the primaries." Now we see a portion of her emails, including one in the midst of the primary season stating "He [sanders] isn't going to be President." If collusion is not quite the correct term, then we can go with rank hypocrisy, sure.

I partially agree - obviously there was a build-up of bad blood between the DNC and Sanders over time. There does not to my knowledge appear to be any evidence of outright bribes. But there are hundreds of emails disparaging Bernie and/or figuring out how to put Clinton in a positive light. Again, I listed one example. Collusion in my book. The DNC did issue a formal apology: "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email. These comments do not reflect the values of the DNC or our steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nomination process. The DNC does not — and will not — tolerate disrespectful language exhibited towards our candidates. Individual staffers have also rightfully apologized for their comments, and the DNC is taking appropriate action to ensure it never happens again." http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/25/12279134/dnc-apology-leaks-bernie-sanders But of course this is complete spin trying to make it sound like a few isolated incidents and not a systemic problem. When the chair herself was the primary instigator! Breathtaking duplicity and audacity, imo.

I listened to part of the acceptance on the radio, and admit I chuckled at the line "Last week, Donald went on for 70-odd minutes, and I do mean 'odd'!"

It is the kind of water cooler talk you would hear in any campaign hq - but these are from the DNC. The supposedly neutral arbiter whose own bylaws claim to give everyone in the party equal representation. Of course, that gets into the 'Sanders isn't a real Democrat, he's an outsider' meme. Here's a specific example- a reporter from WSJ asks for the private correspondence between Sanders and Wasserman-Schultz, and the DNC Communications Director coughs it up with the inference this is some kind of payback to the Sanders camp. From:MirandaL@dnc.org To: laura.meckler@wsj.com, PaustenbachM@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-06 13:25 Subject: RE: can you send me the letter Sanders sent the DNC? OFF THE RECORD, You didn’t get this from me. They didn’t send it to us before planting the story. We’re operating in good faith. https://berniesanders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Sanders-DNC-Committee-Letter-5.6.16.pdf [sigDems]<http://www.democrats.org/>Luis Miranda, Communications Director Democratic National Committee 202-***-****– MirandaL@dnc.org<mailto:MirandaL@dnc.org> – @MiraLuisDC<https://www.twitter.com/MiraLuisDC&gt;

It is hard to get a complete picture since the evidence of inappropriate influence on journalists was provided in the 'Guccifer' leaks last month as well as the recent Wiki leaks, and it appears to be a relative handful of the thousands of emails. Sources are scattered all over the web, but from what I can tell the DNC leaned on or changed content to benefit HRC with: Politico, Washington Post, NBC/MSNBC, CBS Polls, CNN, and Wall Street Journal (so far). With some of the other choice bits, a composite picture is created of a systematically biased DNC. But this only confirms what I started to suspect a long time ago, and what Sen. Sanders likely knew would be the case even before he launched his campaign.

Coronation is how it feels to me, but that is the wrong word. Technically, she's already been nominated, and she's simply accepting the nomination tonight (?). I would point out that 1) Sanders won key demographics also, running away with the youth vote http://redalertpolitics.com/2016/06/21/report-sanders-won-young-voters-clinton-trump-combined/and 2) Even if he had somehow edged out his opponent in delegates, it sure seems the superdelegates were always going to tip the balance for the presumptive nominee. Likely, our country isn't ready for a 'Democratic Socialist' at the present time. But the idea that political operators and numerous major media outlets were working together to ensure unbalanced coverage is (needless to say) deeply disturbing - in fact, corrosive of our democracy and our founding principles, which rely on a strong and independent fourth estate. That is worrisome above and beyond this particular race.

In the spirit of tonight's upcoming coronation:

A woman after my own heart - and with the same doubts I have that the lipservice and the convention will translate into meaningful reform.

The man definitely has the gift of gab - that's why he's been such a successful politician. But every four years we go through something like this - warm homilies and witty anecdotes to make the candidate seem personable, workaday, trustworthy; someone you can believe has your best interests at heart. Sheer manipulation. Sweetener to make the castor oil go down - continuing regressive tax policies, hollowing out of the middle class, and endless military engagements on the pretense of safety. The same shell game. Every. Four. Years.

I had to refresh my memory on her - I suppose the Equal Rights Party doesn't qualify as a major party so the qualified hurdle has been cleared. Her VP - Frederick Douglass?! Wow, really ahead of their time. (and her second husband - Col. James Blood, which totally sounds like a pulp character).

And don't forget the attempt to label Sanders supporters as 'chair-throwing' thugs based on the dubious oral vote in Nevada (imho, an act of provocateur). The Clinton camp ran a dirty campaign. Sanders, the cleanest I remember seeing. I don't really see an equivalency. But I'm trying not to be bitter; as long as incremental steps towards his policies are actually made, I'll be happy. If HRC ignores that pledge, she could be buried in the midterms/2020.

I guess I'm in the other 10% then. As was pointed out, the Sanders campaign won 23 contests and 46% of the pledged (not super) delegates. And now on the heels of fairly damning evidence of manipulation and media collusion throughout the primary process, Sarah Silverman, Michelle Obama and others copped a 'tude. Sanders delegates were treated as though they were merely sulky children in the corner, consistently misbehaving. I literally started to get nauseous. But Bernie means it when he says 'the struggle continues.'

I thought Booker was more like an overwrought Civics 101 lecture, but to each their own.