Home » The DNC disqualifies Tulsi, and declares the next debate will be between the two old Bs

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The DNC disqualifies Tulsi, and declares the next debate will be between the two old Bs — 43 Comments

  1. If either Biden or Sanders were true to their alleged liberal and social justice values, they would refuse to join the debate unless SHE was there. It would demonstrate class and honour.

  2. They’re consistent here, if they’re to be found consistent asserting we have a “living Constitution”, as they do. Just means they get to shape the way things go to their pleasure.

    Move a new right they like?: it’s permanent. Move a return to an original understanding of the Constitution as written?: oh hell’s no, we can’t have that.

  3. I was not a Gabbard supporter, but I hate this kind of machination; it smacks of one set of rules for us and a totally different set of rules for you. I know this is wishful thinking, but Gabbard should retaliate by purchasing air time then play the Biden/Sanders debate tape and carefully intercut her own answers to respond to both Biden and Bernie.

    She couldn’t do this for the entire debate (she doesn’t have Bloomberg’s money, and no one would watch the multi-hour tape) but if she strategically picked 5 responses from Biden and Sanders and responded to them in kind, I think she would make some serious waves and get points for being as spirited as Donald Trump.

  4. Neo: I agree with you re Bernie.

    He’s really not in it to win.
    If he did win he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

    Biden is obviously non compos mentis – but he’s a useful idiot for the left.

  5. John Guilfoyle:

    I think the vast majority of Sanders’ supporters will vote for Biden. Just as most of Hillary’s supporters voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

  6. If there’s some collateral damage for some others who don’t share our view… well, so be it.

    – Nancy Pelosi

    It’s a universal left phenomenon. The desire for their preferred candidates to win supersedes liberty, fairness, and free expression. And “so be it.”

  7. I suspect Gabbard is a “plan B”.

    Most, if not all, of the current crop of dem candidates are in it not to win it but in the hopes that it makes them proof against prosecution.

    I keep in mind that among the dems, the reality of “voting” is just a game played to keep the proles happy. Elites make the decisions. Sometimes, heck, most times, the decisions are stupid on steroids, but that’s Elites for you.

    What most of us know about Gabbard is whatever the msm has chosen to share, shape and produce about Gabbard. I seriously doubt she’d have been allowed a seat at the big boy’s political table unless she was proven beyond question to be lock step with The Narrative. And her “voting record” is meaningless, in just the same way our own Rhino’s were. Its easy to vote against something if it is known that something wont pass anyway. Or vote against something that’s gonna win anyway. But the vote is there to “show” (bamboozle) the proles.

    So, now, we have this Gabbard being, for all practical appearances, set up as the Ultimate Outsider. The Strong Woman that can force her way into the ring (if It is decided necessary by the Elites). And she’s a Woman of Integrity that is like, so totally mainstream and “middle America”!

    I believe Gabbard is being held back as a strategic Trojan Horse in case it proves necessary. And if it doesn’t prove necessary, groomed for a later run.

  8. I believe Gabbard is being held back as a strategic Trojan Horse in case it proves necessary. And if it doesn’t prove necessary, groomed for a later run.

    Thank’s for the non-falsifiable hypotheses. Been an education.

  9. Tulsi had early support from Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson; two broadcasters with a huge, national following, one on the left, one on the right. And Dave Smith, a comedian with a big, Libertarian following, was also in early and vociferously for Tulsi. All three have a lot of young, male listeners and Tucker also has female viewers and older viewers. She was gathering steam. The only thing all three share politically is there against U.S. military intervention.

    I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it is odd how she has been treated.

  10. Regarding her being attractive, as Neo put it. Speaking as a red blooded male, she is, but there is something more she has that few women in politics share. Sarah Palin had it also. I think this is also why so many women, of a certain type loathe her.

    She is a strong, feminine woman. Unlike Warren, or Hillary, or Klobuchar, or AOC, or Tlaib… You can tell she is a real mother and a real spouse. Feminists of a certain stripe hate actual women, like Gabbard, who really can do it all.

  11. I believe this debate will be conducted with a half-time so that both Biden & Sanders can take a nap. Reagan left office at 78 and Biden or Sanders will assume office when they are 78 and 79 respectively.

    Can we expect something like this from NYT? This from 1990.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/24/opinion/what-mr-reagan-remembers.html

    Nobody expected Ronald Reagan to shed much new light on the Iran-contra affair. But the former President’s recorded testimony was even more vague and dismaying than anticipated. Yet he survived with the same mixture of affability and innocence that saw him through the gravest blunders of his incumbency….

    Mr. Reagan’s performance was embarrassing.

  12. Art Deco on March 7, 2020 at 4:38 pm said:

    “I believe Gabbard is being held back as a strategic Trojan Horse in case it proves necessary. And if it doesn’t prove necessary, groomed for a later run.”

    **********

    Thank’s for the non-falsifiable hypotheses. Been an education.

    **********

    I never claimed it to be anything other than my current opinion.

    How many times over the last half century or so have we been played for fools by pretenders and the professional political class?

  13. How many times over the last half century or so have we been played for fools by pretenders and the professional political class?

    Dunno. They probably spread fewer falsehoods per paragraph that the people purporting to see through them. See, for example, Kennedy Assassination buffs.

  14. Sarah Palin had it also. I think this is also why so many women, of a certain type loathe her.

    By and large, I think Gov. Palin’s bad press was derived from class and subcultural prejudices (see, for example, Charles Fried’s remarks about her).

  15. “The Democrats embrace the left, and Biden just does a much better job than Bernie of hiding what the ultimate goal is.” neo

    That’s certainly true but Biden has another “Achilles heel”. That is besides his advancing senility, which by itself may invalidate Biden either before the convention or as the nominee.

    The way to attack Biden is to attack the party’s actions, such as: “Majority of [House] Democrats Vote Against Amendment to Prevent Sex Offenders and Terrorists From Working at TSA”
    https://pjmedia.com/trending/majority-of-democrats-vote-against-amendment-to-prevent-sex-offenders-and-terrorists-from-working-at-tsa/

    Make Biden try to defend the indefensible. Not only will it be devastating for his campaign but it will alert voters to the rot below Biden.

  16. When conducted by ideologues, special interests and the self-seeking… politics is the dirtiest of ‘legal’ businesses.

  17. The comparison to Palin is appropriate. Democrats, especially, I think, Democrat women, are frightened of strong, attractive, patriotic women.

  18. I hadn’t thought about it till now, but I think you’re correct about Bernie, Neo. He loves to speechify and preach the old time socialism, but I don’t think he really, really wants the job. I do think a segment of his supporters are going to be very upset if he doesn’t get the nod this time. There have been threats to burn down Milwaukee if the Dem establishment steals it from Bernie. I don’t think those bros will vote for Biden. We’ll see.

    Here’s a short comment on the overall race.
    There are three kinds of people:
    Those who make things happen – Trump
    Those who take from those that make things happen – Bernie
    Those who have no idea what’s happening – Biden

  19. neo,

    You are correct (again!), Wikipedia does not list any children. But she still seems “maternal,” not in a matronly way, but in a good, trusting way. She has a look and countenance about her, like Palin, and I think that quality makes certain women spiteful and vengeful.

    I know everything I’m writing is impossible to quantify, but I really think it is a factor, along with her principled stance against unnecessary, foreign entanglements, backed up by her personal experience. Hillary had her knives out very early.

  20. Geoffrey Britain,

    Trump seems to have smart people running his campaign. It’s tough for long serving Senators who seek the Presidency because they have a history of compromise and a long record to defend. As you write, it is a big, Achilles heel.

    I know it’ sounds nuts, but I think some of the people predicting a Biden fade and Hillary stepping are not nuts. The media would love it. “The rematch!” “The thrilla in Novemba!”

  21. I also agree with those who claim Bernie doesn’t really want the nomination. He was way too docile when Hillary and the DNC shivved him four years ago. There’s more money and a lot less stress in being an also ran with a cadre of devotees.

    The proverbial dog who caught the car.

  22. Funny that now that Warren has dropped out some “Feminist” are saying that there are no women running. Poor Tulsi, not a woman according to Dems.

  23. Herogar on March 7, 2020 at 4:30 pm said:

    I keep in mind that among the dems, the reality of “voting” is just a game played to keep the proles happy. Elites make the decisions. Sometimes, heck, most times, the decisions are stupid on steroids, but that’s Elites for you.
    * * *
    See this about how the left is already shaping the battle-space so the voters will be happy to have the Elites take over from whichever old man (on their side) wins.
    (copied from comment on the Biden thread)

    Back on the SCOTUS vs Schumer thread, Jamie linked an interesting post by Ann Althouse, which is just a long excerpt of a Graeme Wood post at Atlantic.

    https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/03/but-its-just-possible-that-creaky.html?showComment=1583525207945#c1068071842679084467

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/weekend-bernies-theory-presidency/607489/

    From Althouse, because The Atlantic has a paywall.
    I saw in the comments that I was not the only one wondering (a) how long this breaking news sat on Wood’s spindle waiting for Biden to finally make it back to the front; (b) how many more we will see from the rest of the MSM Event Presenters aka propagandists.

    See if you can spot the glaring inconsistency.

    March 6, 2020
    “But it’s just possible that the creaky machinery of an aging brain might make a president better at the job….”
    “[Neuroscientist Gregory Samanez-Larki] and his colleagues… recently found evidence that older adults are better at keeping their emotions and impulses in check…. Moreover, Samanez-Larkin says, the set of skills known as ‘decision making’ does not decline in any predictable way during normal aging.

    Presidents need to have a spry brain, capable of assimilating new information and rapidly adding it to their cognitive repertoire. But the job is, most crucially, about making decisions—extremely difficult decisions that are, unlike arithmetic, matters of judgment and value. The rightness of a decision is often unknowable ex ante. In these treacherous exercises, the elderly do not do badly, and impetuous youngsters sometimes come very close to getting us all killed
    ….
    The more presidents slow down, the more decisions get made by other people
    ….
    And perhaps we’d all be better served if other people—and not Biden, Sanders, or Trump—were making decisions.

    Jamie noticed it, among others.
    https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/03/but-its-just-possible-that-creaky.html?showComment=1583522277579#c4028976672291178947

  24. Taibbi weighs in. I think he is an exasperated Bernie Bro.

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bernie-sanders-attack-joe-biden-democratic-primary-963934/

    “Bernie is conflict-averse,” says Matt Stoller, who worked for Sanders for two years. “His staff has always had real trouble getting him to criticize any Democrat by name.”

    “I always said, if he learned anything from 2016, it’s that in order to win the nomination, to beat the political establishment, you have to take it from their cold, dead hands. You have to go to war with these people,” the longtime former aide says. “But Bernie is acting like he’s running for State Senator in Burlington.”

    As a result, even as a staggered Democratic Party political establishment scrambled all year to undercut him, openly signaling a willingness to overturn voter will at this summer’s convention in Milwaukee, Sanders seemed content to keep giving the same speech he’s been giving for thirty years, what some current and former aides affectionately call the “Berniefesto.”

    Sanders supporters often tell stories about frustrations with the system that led to epiphanies. In Virginia, one described a lifetime of seeing corruption working for the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture.* Another tells told a story about the devastation that $40,000 in student debt wrought in his life. Everyone has a story. “I had a major surgery last year,” said Fabio Moreiera, of Fairfax. “My insurance company told me for about six months, yeah, we’ll cover it, we’ll cover it. Three days before I got the surgery, they said, ‘oh, it’s not going to be covered.’”

    The stories cut across demographics. Bernie crowds, in contrast to reporting clichés, are full of ex-conservatives (and also former non-voters). You’d never guess that a campaign with this reach would be capable of losing anywhere by thirty points or more. But it happened, both that same night in South Carolina, and days later in this same state.

    “So much of what informs his relationship with people like Biden,” says the longtime former staffer, “is that experience of being the lone independent and outsider. Back then, if any one of those people treated him with respect, as a colleague, that was enough to ingratiate them with Bernie.”

    The former aide sighs. “He doesn’t like Rahm Emmanuel, he doesn’t like Hillary Clinton,” he says. “But he’s okay with Biden, because Biden is nice to him.”

    What’s troubling about this is that Biden has long been a central figure in building the modern, corporate-dominated model of the Democratic Party Sanders spends so much time deconstructing.

    The reluctance to engage strongly with Biden speaks to the larger issue of Bernie’s attitude toward the Democratic Party. Sanders clearly sees the Party’s flaws and rails against its susceptibility to corporate influence, but has trouble understanding that the current leadership will never truly accept him and his message, unless forced. He’s been reluctant to use his mass appeal as a cudgel, preferring to focus on making a case to the public — a strategy that has served him extremely well, but still.

    The aide notes there’s an obvious example of how to use a populist pulpit. “Trump is crazy, but there are things you can learn from him.”

    Some for instance wonder if the candidate has done enough on the inside. The “rock concert” has been miraculously effective in building popular support despite a near-total absence of institutional or media backing, but that doesn’t preclude “walking and chewing gum at the same time,” as one source puts it.

    Bernie could have been on the phone every day for the last four years, back-channeling figures like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and even Barack Obama even as he blowtorched traditional Democrats like Biden on the trail. Would that have produced a different result?

    Some part of Sanders seems to hold out hope that something is left over in the DNA of the Democratic Party from those F.D.R. days, something that can be saved and restored. He seems to have a nostalgic fondness for it, as he seems to for Biden himself.

    But this version of the Democratic Party that now has Biden as its face wants to bury him. They’ve smeared him as a racist, sexist dupe for Putin, an amateur and back-bencher who doesn’t understand power and can’t “get things done.”

    By getting as far as he has, and raising as much money as he has, Sanders has already demolished half of that argument. To finish the job, he has to show he understands the difference between doing well and winning, against an opponent who pathetically, insultingly beatable. For all of the institutional obstacles before him, despite the wall of media sycophants and the waterfall of fresh Wall Street money against him, Bernie should be offended to be losing to the likes of Joe Biden. But he’s running out of time to get angry.

  25. “In Virginia, one described a lifetime of seeing corruption working for the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture.*”

    That struck a chord with me, as I read the following post earlier today:
    https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/06/obamas-homeland-security-ig-indicted-on-fraud-theft-charges/

    MARCH 6, 2020 By Tristan Justice
    Former Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Charles Edwards and his former aide Murali Yamazula Venkata were indicted Friday on charges of stealing government property to defraud the U.S. government. Yamazula was also charged with destroying records.

    The indictments handed down by the Justice Department allege that Edwards and Venkata were working with others within the inspector general’s office to orchestrate a scheme to steal confidential and proprietary software that includes sensitive information on government employees. Prosecutors say Edwards was attempting to resell a revamped package of the software as a product of his firm, Delta Business Solutions to the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    The Administrative State appears to be corrupt in all of its branches.

  26. Even if Bernie wanted to win, CTH is convinced the DNC will not let him.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/03/06/dnc-wants-bernie-defeated-this-month-well-ahead-of-milwaukee-convention/

    Posted on March 6, 2020 by sundance
    A couple of recent data points highlights a purposeful plan where the DNC Club wants Bernie Sanders crushed this month, well ahead of the Milwaukee DNC convention.

    Last night the New York Times posted a blistering expose’ on Bernie, complete with journalists traveling to the former Soviet Union city of Yaroslavl Russia, to dig up opposition research they could deploy framing Senator Sanders as a comrade to Russian interests. The Times research team presented an 89-page “Bernie Dossier” of sorts.

    Also remarked upon here:
    https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/06/soviet-union-documents-reveal-plans-to-exploit-bernie-sanders-for-propaganda/

    MARCH 6, 2020 By Chrissy Clark
    New documents obtained by the New York Times reveal how the Soviet Union viewed then Burlington, Vermont Mayor Bernie Sanders as a “socialist” they could “exploit” for “propaganda.”

    In December of 1987, Mayor Sanders wrote to the government of Yaroslavl, a Soviet city, stating he wanted the U.S. and USSR to “live together as friends.” He initiated a sister-city program between Yaroslavl and Burlington.

    After his wedding, Sanders honeymooned with his wife Jane Sanders in Yaroslavl to initiate the program. He told Burlington reporters, “people [in Yaroslavl] seemed reasonably happy and content. I didn’t notice much deprivation.”

    In a letter seeking approval from Mikhail Gorbachev to travel to the United States, Yaroslalv officials made the case for using Sanders as a means of Soviet propaganda.

    “One of the most useful channels, in practice, for actively carrying out information-propaganda efforts has proved to be sister-city contact,” the Soviet Foreign Ministry document read.

    Someone noted in one of those posts that the Times didn’t seem bothered so much about his Russia! Collusion! in 2016.

  27. History often repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

    https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/03/07/pinkerton-joe-biden-meet-the-deplorables-and-some-ghosts-from-the-past/

    When one sees the words “Joe Biden” in media commentary, one often sees, too, the word “restoration.” As in, Biden promises—or threatens, depending on one’s point of view—to restore the days of Barack Obama. More broadly, it’s often said that a hypothetical President Biden would also bring about the restoration of the entire liberal Democratic Establishment.

    Okay, so maybe we should think a bit about this concept of restoration. In history, there have been many political restorations, and some worked out well—but most did not.

    For instance, one of the famous restorations occurred in France in 1814. In fact, that one is of particular interest, because it ties into a much more recent historical incident, namely, the 2016 eruption of the Deplorables.

    Pinkerton continues with a long, but interesting, history lesson about 19th-century France, whose revolutions, counter-revolutions, restorations, and new revolutions were an agonizing, ever-changing kaleidoscope of death and destruction.

    Joe Biden is cast as King Louis XVIII.

  28. Why shouldn’t the Democrats shiv Bernie? He’s not a Democrat! He’s had plenty of time to change his party affiliation to Democratic, but he’s never done so. I don’t know why they even let him run in their primaries. If I were a Dem, I wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation in saying, “Go take a long walk off a short pier, Bernie!”

  29. Steven Hayward, who is fast becoming my favorite blog comedian:
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/the-power-line-show-ep-171-wot-happened-who-knows-the-thing.php

    How in the heck did Joe Biden’s mummified campaign come back to life? Or is it just back to zombie status—still dead, but up and moving and menacing the living? … Our conclusion is that Democrats decided they are more the party of creeping socialism than Bernie socialism, in which case it is better to have an actual creep as the nominee.

  30. neo – “I think the vast majority of Sanders’ supporters will vote for Biden. Just as most of Hillary’s supporters voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012.”

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/6/bernie-sanders-youths-abandoned-him-bong/

    At the moment it doesn’t even look like they’re voting for him…so I’m not sure they’ll just run right out and vote for Gropey Joe…or anyone else for the matter.

    I don’t have any hard data on the “bong” but I’m pretty sure it ain’t running for President. 😉

  31. Indeed, it could well be that the precedent is not 2008/2012, but rather 2016, where it was reported (at least) that significant numbers of Sanders supporters stayed home rather than vote for Hillary. (Is it even possible that some may have voted for Trump, such was the depth of their disappointment? I don’t even know how one might begin to research this.

    This is not to say that it’ll happen again if (or rather, “when”) Sanders is passed over in favor of Biden.

    The answer ultimately depends on to what extent the berserk, non-stop demonization of Donald Trump will have galvanized even the “They-betrayed-us-once-again” minions of the Marxist manipulator to eject Trump from the Oval Office.

    Whatever happens, it won’t be pretty.

  32. Pinkerton continues with a long, but interesting, history lesson about 19th-century France, whose revolutions, counter-revolutions, restorations, and new revolutions were an agonizing, ever-changing kaleidoscope of death and destruction.

    After 1815, there were two major episodes of domestic political violence. Both were in Paris, not in the rest of the country. The first (in 1848) had a four digit death toll and the second (in 1871) had a low-end-of-five digit death toll.

  33. Barry – I think Eric Zuesse is onto something in your Zerohedge link.

    The DNC basically chose the overwhelmingly weaker nominee (and sometimes they even did it blatantly), and so they lost to Trump instead of to have their billionaire donors lose to Sanders and to the American public by Sanders becoming the nominee and then the President. Keeping the support from their billionaire donors was the DNC’s top priority, in 2016. Of course, America’s voting public generally don’t know that both the DNC and the RNC are far more committed to keeping the support from their billionaire donors than they are committed to winning elections. This is why those voters pay close heed to what their Party’s leaders say about which candidates are ‘electable’ and which ones aren’t.

    The voters don’t understand how politics actually works, in today’s America — they think that winning the current general election is a Party official’s top priority. They think that Party professionals are professionals at selecting winners, but instead Party professionals are professionals at pleasing their Party’s billionaires. If a voter wants to please him or her self instead of please a group of billionaires, that voter ought to vote for whomever that voter thinks would best serve that voter and not serve any group of billionaires

    As the Huffington Post reported on March 4th, the day after Joe Biden’s huge Super-Tuesday win, “‘Voters liked both candidates but clearly consolidated around the one they saw as most electable,’ said Jared Leopold, who was the communications director for the Democratic Governors’ Association during the race. ‘The intraparty ideological fight pales in comparison to the thirst to beat Donald Trump and his buddies.’”

    Those people’s top concern is to please the few individuals who fund their careers. Winning the current electoral contest isn’t actually their #1 concern, though voters think it is. The Party professionals have a longer-term, personally career-oriented, goal in mind — pleasing their bosses’ bosses.

    It wasn’t Warren’s gender that turned off Democrat donors — it was her agenda.
    Sanders is just as toxic to them. They don’t have him feeding out of the usual troughs (his are somewhat more esoteric).

    The non-presidential elections are far more important, because that’s where the “rubber hist the road” – donor priorities are legislated and enforced. To some extent, the President really is a quasi-figurehead; although the office still has a great deal of nominal power, it can only be expressed through influencing lawmaking, or directing enforcement (or not) of existing laws.

  34. This was an interesting note in the NPR post, about a survey of voters in 2017.
    It doesn’t get talked about as much as the Sanders to Trump voters, but shows that is not a unique occurrence when primary choices don’t make it to the general election.

    https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds

    A more important caveat, perhaps, is that other statistics suggest that this level of “defection” isn’t all that out of the ordinary. Believing that all those Sanders voters somehow should have been expected to not vote for Trump may be to misunderstand how primary voters behave.

    For example, Schaffner tells NPR that around 12 percent of Republican primary voters (including 34 percent of Ohio Gov. John Kasich voters and 11 percent of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio voters) ended up voting for Clinton. And according to one 2008 study, around 25 percent of Clinton primary voters in that election ended up voting for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general. (In addition, the data showed 13 percent of McCain primary voters ended up voting for Obama, and 9 percent of Obama voters ended up voting for McCain — perhaps signaling something that swayed voters between primaries and the general election, or some amount of error in the data, or both.)

    All of that said, one other figure that stuck out to Schaffner: Compared with those numbers above, Clinton 2016 voters were remarkably loyal — “I found basically no Clinton primary voters who voted for Trump,” he told NPR in an email.

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