"It's time to call Bernie Sanders out for what he is: a fraud.

"Not that he hasn't done some good for the Democratic Party and the country: he has. By raising income inequality, campaign finance reform, the minimum wage, universal health care, Wall Street excesses and other left-liberal critiques, Sanders has fired up young voters and nudged Hillary Clinton slightly to the left.

"Bernie's gone from being a crusader for lefty ideas to an ego-tripping old crank who just can't get enough of the rush that comes from people paying serious attention to him for the first time his political career.

"Speaking of ego-tripping old cranks, we might do the same, if we had people throwing tens of millions of dollars our way while countless millennial women hung on our every word, no matter how many times we'd said the exact same thing, skimming the surface of complex policy notions with a few tired phrases while actually having little practical idea what we were talking about.

[...]

"Sanders's argument - that even if Clinton is ahead in the popular vote and the delegate count, he'll try to persuade super-delegates to support him because he's more electable, is an assault on his own rationale for his candidacy: wider, more open and transparent democracy. His hypocrisy is staggering: after railing against the whole idea of super-delegates, he's now suggesting they should be his savior.

[...]

"Which is why Sanders -- if he truly wanted to defeat the GOP nominee -- would return to running for his causes and against Trump and Cruz and stop attacking the all-but-certain Democratic nominee. But that doesn't appear to be Sanders's intention because, as we said, he's not a Democrat and he's in essence running a scam.

"We have to agree with David Plouffe, Obama's former campaign manager, who tweeted out the other day: 'Sanders has run a stunningly strong campaign fueled by passionate supporters. But raising $$ stating you have path to nomination is fraud.'"

Huge problem. I agree with the basic point, that we should find another way to fund political campaigns.

However until there is a fix across the board, a candidate refusing corporate and big money donations has precious little chance of prevailing in presidential election.

Attacking Hillary for taking big money overlooks the huge amounts going to Republicans (including Trump) and to Senate, House, and state campaigns.

I'd love to see realistic,logical, possible proposals for changing this dynamic.

Does ANYBODY think that Sanders is now helping the Democrats win either the general, or critical down-ticket races that could flip the Senate and allow a potential Clinton presidency a chance to make meaningful improvements?

Anybody? Bueller?

No. No, he isn't. In fact, he is  the opposite of helping, he is actively damaging.

1. Too much of the first chapter of 2016 was that some white "progressives" who didn't get on Obama train in '08 wanted their "white Obama."

 2. The absurdity of wanting any other kind of Obama when we already have the real one is a head scratcher for the ages.

 3. They were so desperate to have it that they overlooked the deep character & policy flaws of Sanders, evident for decades.

 4. I think that's why they lashed out most angrily at proven progressives (Lewis, Huerta, et al) who collapsed the lie of Bernie.

...

Also, "the likes of you"?  This $hit needs to stop on both sides.  Clinton supporters have taken a beating all over the internet, and sometimes that results in a bit of a backlash.  But at the end of the day, whether you support Bernie or Clinton, I'd like to think that we are all trying to move things in the same direction if we can get past the petty infighting.

I started our respecting Sander's message but always considered his call for a "political revolution"  impracticable at best, dangerous at  worst. Virtually every time I laid out my reasoning I was attacked by Bernie supporters for being a sellout or worse.

bringing unity to the Democratic voters

a day after the Sanders campaign put out a memo stating,

"Then we're going to have a contested convention where the Democratic Party must decide if they want the candidate with the momentum who is best positioned to beat Trump, or if they are willing to roll the dice and court disaster simply to protect the status quo for the political and financial establishment of this country."

I'm sick of this crap from Saint Bernie. It just pi**es me off royally to watch this accomplished brilliant woman who has had to deal with a relentless raft of manure thrown her way since she was first lady of Arkansas to have to take it from supposed progressives who sound like they were born last Tuesday.

Ronald Reagan: ever heard of him?  Let me tell you, after living through 12 years of the Reagan Revolution, you're damn right I was happy to have Bill Clinton win the WH and bring some competence to the job. And for his entire 2 terms he was attacked by right wing groups funded by shadowy extreme rightwing billionaires.  And to me it sounds like the Sanders supporters have swallowed every piece of BS they served up.

News flash:  the Clinton scandals weren't true.

The Sanders' campaign continued personal insults and attacks are outrageous and he has crossed the line too many times to count.  

Nobody questions Bernie's commitment to his issues and sincerity, while Bernie and his team go right for the jugular, constantly questioning her sincerity, her honesty and integrity and her commitment to progressive values.  She doesn't need lessons from Saint Bernie on working for progressive causes. This is her entire adult biography.

Hillary Clinton boasts a long continuous biography of working for progressive goals.  

Make no mistake. Even in 1972, this took considerable guts. The segregated academies were the outward sign of the vicious backlash against the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement that only would intensify over the following decade as the Republican party, and the conservative movement that would come to be its essential life-force, discovered that, in many important ways, the whole country was Southern. The backlash was even more virulent at the local level. If Undercover Hillz blew her cover, very bad things could have happened to her.

He makes speeches and comments that Clinton should "be meeting with ordinary people, hearing what's on their mind", which is kind of hard to take since that is precisely what she has been doing for the past 10 months. Maybe Bernie didn't notice as busy as he's been renting out college basketball arenas.

She has taken gutsy positions on issues like the NRA gun lobby that recent prior Democratic nominees have shied away from, and which she knows will guarantee relentless assaults from these powerful lobbies in the general and gets no credit from supposed progressives.

Sanders has gotten a free ride this primary season from Secretary Clinton, the republicans and the media.

Now, his entire argument for SD to switch to him is that he is polling slightly better than Clinton vs Trump. He lives in a glass house chucking boulders at this woman, confident that she won't return fire.  To me that is the sign of a dishonorable coward.

Hillary Clinton is about to go up against the most vulgar, sexist, unqualified man ever nominated by the other party and he plans to unleash Unholy Hell on her.  He is now regularly quoting Sanders at his campaign events.  The media is going to be on his side.  And that man just won every single county in the state of PA this past Tuesday.

You are a blog clogger, and are shilling for a candidate I do not support.

This is my blog, not your blog. We have comment rules. Please limit yourself to 4 comments a day on Bernie Sanders. All in excess will be deleted.

1. It seems to me Sanders's strategy is to try to go into the convention and influence the platform. I don't begrudge him his efforts to do this, if he comes out of the convention strongly supporting Hillary. The alternative is for him to go away, and people to nurse their bruised egos for a few months and then to support Hillary. I'm not sure which one is better, but I think Bernie is going for the first one. At least I hope he is.

2. He's winning states that Dems won't win in the general - so what?

 The pooh poohing of those wins was based on the fact that those wins were irrelevant because those states are unlikely to be blue in November, anyway.  And, rather insensitively, minimized those who are consistent and loyal Democratic (and Clinton) constituencies--black voters.  This demeaning attitude overlooks the possibility of the Democrats winning North Carolina, or maybe, Georgia.

We have not been treated to this Sanders' argument so much since Sanders' wins in states such as Utah,Kansas, Oklahoma, and Idaho).  But, another, and, more cogent argument against Sanders' on this issue, is illustrated by the DOJ law suit against the state of North Carolina, over its discriminatory HB 2.

My nephew had a very serious car accident this afternoon.  This is not the nephew I spend a lot of time with, who lived with me for a while, its his younger brother.  He's 16.  Rolled his truck.  Got tossed out 15-20 feet and sustained neck/spine and head injuries. Pretty serious ones.  They air evaced him to a trauma center in Springfield.  He has not regained consciousness.  But they say he's moving enough that there doesn't seem to be any paralysis.  But he is in pretty bad shape.  Just a couple of miles from home on the way to his girlfriends house.  
Wear that seatbelt.  
When I got the call I was driving without mine.  If he had it on the injuries would almost certainly have been much less serious.
No need to clog the thread.