Hey Bernie, go to hell and take all of your Bros with you

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

I voted for Bernie Sanders in my States primary, even though he was already out of the race and pissing me off by not conceding. But I still believed in much of what he was campaigning for. I also was very happy to see him move the party more to the left which was closer to where I am politically.

In all that time, it became harder to defend him. It was hard when all that shit went down in Nevada, and Jeff Weaver issued statements that inflamed the conspiracy theorists in his fan club.

It was difficult when I felt like he did not do all he could fast enough to back Hillary Clinton.

It was frustrating when he would be willing to sell everything out 4 single-payer healthcare, but didn’t seem to mind looking very passive on guns. He seemed oblivious why black people in urban areas never warmed to him. Possibly because immediately after his civil rights accomplishments, he ran off to Lily white Vermont and proceeded to forget all about black people.

Even as recently as the elections in Virginia, when Bernie’s candidate lost and he and other holier-than-thou, more Progressive than thou groups did all they could to sabotage those races that were so important. That infuriated me.

But now, I see this.

Bernie blames Hillary for allowing Russian interference

I am beyond done with this charlatan. For someone who claimed to be against everything Donald Trump stood for, he certainly fucking acts a lot like him.

I made a mistake putting my faith in Bernie Sanders. He is no different than anyone else, willing to sell out the entire country to save his own skin.

He won’t get my vote ever again. And I hope the Democrats tell him he’s not welcome to run as a democrat in 2020 because fuck him. He wants to be an independent so bad, let him have fun with that in a presidential election.

It really sucks that a bunch of people on the left, maybe enough that Democrats are unable 2 win national elections, are likely to follow him wherever he goes. But I can’t control that. I can control me, and he’s fucking dead to me.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

[Gatopescado]

Who is Bernie?

[nearwildheaven]

@Gatopescado

Who is Bernie?

Bridget loved him back in the 1970s.

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

If you’re mad now, wait’ll you see the other candidates!

[Ruken]

Since the OP couldn’t be bothered, link is to “Bernie blames Hillary for allowing Russian interference”

[jz78817]

If we’re still going to be complaining about the 2016 election in 2050, can someone stop the planet so I can get off of it?

[septimus]

I was never a big Bernie supporter, but I did admire him and was pleased with the new energy he brought to the Democratic Party(). But this is ridiculous! Fck Bernie Sanders!

(Speaking of Democrats, would it hurt the Big Baby Bernie so vewy vewy much to show support and join the Party?)

[Inbred_Mm_domesticus]

The last paragraph reads:

Mueller’s indictment provides further evidence that the Russian government interfered in 2016. It also shows that they tried to turn my supporters against Hillary Clinton in the primary and general election. I unequivocally condemn such interference.

First, Sanders probably doesn’t understand much of anything about this interference.

Second, he got defensive in an interview. It’s normal, and he is getting all of his information second-hand.

Third, by the time this story was posted, the above quote was issued on Sanders’ Twitter account.

He’s taken about 3 different positions in 4 days, but it’s understandable given the statement and his honestly held beliefs about the purpose of his campaign.

I don’t agree with you voting for him in the primary, but this is a reasonable mistake. I’ll wait to see if he continues taken several positions on the topic before condemning him.

The article’s headline is misleading.

[Darren_Garrison]

He always struck me as a crackpot.

[andros]

@Inbred_Mm_domesticus

The article’s headline is misleading.

A Politico headline misleading? Well, you could just knock me over with a feather.

[Morgenstern]

Bernie is Barney Miller’s bro?

[Human_Action]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

But now, I see this.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/21/bernie-sanders-trump-russia-interference-420528

I am beyond done with this charlatan. For someone who claimed to be against everything Donald Trump stood for, he certainly fucking acts a lot like him.

What, exactly, is the problem here? What do you think Sanders is saying?

[Not_Carlson]

Doesn’t seem like Bernie’s finest performance, but that was one very slanted article.

Sanders and his former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, presented a series of self-serving statements that were not accurate, and that track with efforts by Trump and his supporters to undermine the credibility of the Mueller probe.

“Self-serving” is an extremely subjective and highly uncharitable description.
And comparing Sanders’ and Weaver’s responses to the behaviour of Trump et al is a ludicrous stretch.

In the interview, Sanders repeatedly said that the attention should be on Trump’s denials of Russian activity — an assertion he’s made repeatedly since Friday’s indictment.

But in doing so, he floated his own conspiracy theory.
“You have a president of the United States not saying that [Russians meddled in the election]. What exactly is going on? And you have speculation: ‘Do the Russians really own him?’” Sanders said. When pressed by the host if he believed that the Russians do have something compromising on the president, Sanders said, “I don’t know. But something [is] very weird.”

That is not Sanders “floating his own conspiracy theory”. That is something that has been speculated about openly and broadly since before Trump was elected.

The quotes taken from Sanders and Weaver actually don’t seem all that bad if you care to parse them in an unbiased way, but the way they are framed, and the way the article is structured, and the well-poisoning title make me suspect the author’s primary intent is to cast Sanders in an unfavorable light.

**Footnote to the article: **CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story did not include Bernie Sanders’ statement that his own campaign needs to be among those that condemn Russian activity.

That was quite a significant omission.

[Thing_Fish]

Yeah, this article appears to be a severely biased anti-Bernie hit job. Not Carlson, above, points out some of the more egregious examples of its distortions. Here is an article looking at the issue with the opposite bias.

From this, we can learn that the following two paragraphs from the Politico article:

@Politico

Mueller’s indictment states that the 13 Russians indicted “engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”

Among the evidence the indictment cites is a message from the day after Sanders and Trump won their New Hampshire primaries. "Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them.),” the document read.

quote the ONLY TWO MENTIONS OF BERNIE SANDERS IN THE 37,000 WORD INDICTMENT. There is no evidence presented that the Russians were actively helping Sanders, except to the extent that they weren’t actively trying to hurt him. Moreover, the vast majority of the anti-Clinton propaganda with which the Russians targeted pro-Sanders FB groups and the like happened AFTER Clinton had clinched the nomination. This makes it appear that they weren’t “supporting” a candidate who had already dropped out, they were trying to discourage Bernie supporters from voting at all, thus helping the candidate who they WERE actively supporting, Donald Trump.

This article’s claim that Sanders is somehow mirroring Trump’s efforts to discredit the Mueller probe, and implications that the Russians were “supporting” Sanders in the same way they were supporting Trump, are simply false and despicable.

[cuauhtemoc]

The right way to respond to all this would have been “I have come to understand that the Russians were interfering with American politics on my behalf in order to hurt Hillary Clinton. I reject their support and condemn their interference in the strongest possible terms.” And that’s it. There was no need to blame the Clinton campaign for anything. Plus, he’s all over the place on whether he even believes the Russians supported his campaign.

And “No, they weren’t supporting me, they were just trying to hurt my opponent” is a weasel thing to say, because in this case they’re the same thing.

No, I don’t like this at all.

[Thing_Fish]

Like Bernie Sanders, who I strongly supported in 2016 and will likely support again if he runs again, I identify as an independent rather than a Democrat. Also like Bernie Sanders, I will absolutely vote for whoever the Democrats nominate, because stopping Trump has to be our first priority. Too bad that the OP, whom I am guessing does identify strongly as a Democrat, appears to feel that expressing his personal animosity is more important than preventing Trump’s re-election.

[SteveG1]

@Gatopescado

Who is Bernie?

A washed up “has been” who has shit the bed, as far as I’m concerned. The OP is not the only one who has a hearty “fuck you” for him.

[Thing_Fish]

@cuauhtemoc

The right way to respond to all this would have been “I have come to understand that the Russians were interfering with American politics on my behalf in order to hurt Hillary Clinton. I reject their support and condemn their interference in the strongest possible terms.” And that’s it. There was no need to blame the Clinton campaign for anything. Plus, he’s all over the place on whether he even believes the Russians supported his campaign.

And “No, they weren’t supporting me, they were just trying to hurt my opponent” is a weasel thing to say, because in this case they’re the same thing.

No, I don’t like this at all.

From the Politico article:

Sanders issued a lengthy statement calling the Russian involvement a “direct assault on the free democratic systems that stand in contrast to the autocratic, nationalistic kleptocracy of Vladimir Putin and his backers in the Russian oligarchy” which “deserves unconditional condemnation.” He said that goes for “any candidate or active opposition to any candidate,” and listed most other candidates and campaigns whose support by Russians was detailed in the indictment — including “my own.”

“Mueller’s indictment provides further evidence that the Russian government interfered in 2016. It also shows that they tried to turn my supporters against Hillary Clinton in the primary and general election. I unequivocally condemn such interference,” he wrote.

How exactly do these statements fall short of what you would like him to say? Is “unequivocally condemn” too equivocal for you? And I would like to see any cites that Sanders said anything which could reasonably be interpreted as “blaming” the Clinton campaign for Russian interference.

And of course there is a meaningful difference between supporting a candidate and attacking their opponent, once the election is over. At the time that the vast majority of the Russian propaganda was disseminated, Bernie had already dropped out, so it’s ridiculous to say that they were “supporting” him. Rather, they were trying to turn his former supporters against Clinton.

[Thing_Fish]

@SteveG1

A washed up “has been” who has shit the bed, as far as I’m concerned. The OP is not the only one who has a hearty “fuck you” for him.

I was going to try to craft some witty reply to this that wouldn’t violate board rules, but instead I just decided to donate $10 to Bernie’s PAC in your honor.

[SteveG1]

@Thing_Fish

I was going to try to craft some witty reply to this that wouldn’t violate board rules, but instead I just decided to donate $10 to Bernie’s PAC in your honor.

That’s nice, that’s very nice