People on DU are, as usual both underestimating and overestimating certain aspects of the situation, I think, in part, because of Franklin, which was a shock to everyone.

I “stand” with Joy Reid, because first, I believe her, and second, because she has already handled this. Her “enemies” have no clue what they’ve taken on judging by the noise this is making here and elsewhere.

When she is ready, she will address SHE feels needs what needs to be addressed.

And no, obviously I don’t know Reid, but I closely follow trends, so this is a strongly held opinion.

I only wish the same measure of reasonableness had been applied by Democrats to Al Franken.

Never let a good bashing opportunity go to waste!!

I'm a Sanders supporter. You might note that I didn't use that slippery term "some" Sanders supporters, or "some" Clinton supporters - I said something to the effect of "a small group" of each. I don't deny that there are some "real" Sanders supporters at places like JPR (along with the bots). Their relative numbers get blown way out of proportion though.

You will find me defending Sanders and Sanders supporters with some regularity on DU. If you need help finding those posts let me know and I can point you to them. I favor defusing tensions within our greater coalition.

My apologies. As a Bernie supporter also, I guess I'm a little sensitive from all the insane Bernie bashing going on around here lately... even going so far as to accuse "Bernie bros" of hacking Joy's blog!!

Gothog's Post#6 below - "The lynching of Joy Ann Reid by the Bernie left" - is what I object to... does NOTHING to unite us against the true evil perpetrators... it's a better example of what I was saying... never miss an opportunity to bash Bernie. You're right, that doesn't apply to what Tom was saying.

The attacks on Joy Reid by certain groups are sad https://medium.com/@investigator_21314/the-lynching-of-joy-ann-reid-by-the-bernie-left-c7de005a19fb

I stand by Joy. We all need her voice. Dirty political tricks will not change my affiliation or vote. I will not get sucked into a Russian/RW extremist attempt to divide the vote on the left before this election.

I made sure to express displeasure with any Sanders supporters eager to attack Reid because I want to defuse rather than increase tensions here, even though I believe only a tiny minority of Sanders supporters fit that description. But it's a big country with scores of millions of people active in politics, even a few hundred people can make a lot of noise on the internet.

The post you added to this thread could also be called a lynching of the "Bernie left". It is nothing more than a written opinion by one person without any documentation establishing the extent of the behavior it is critical of, or any verifiable account of how many people may be responsible for it (let alone possible Russia sponsored trolls and bots). From that it draws sweeping broad brushed and inflammatory conclusions.

I don't doubt that some of the behavior described in what you posted to some extent occurred. But what you posted here (and elsewhere) does a whole lot of extrapolating from very little actual substance. It is just about as helpful to our larger cause as any eager attacks on Joy Reid, from whoever, are.

Delegates are vetted carefully by campaigns. I was a Clinton delegate and I know I was vetted. The reason for this is that a campaign's national delegates represent the candidate and the campaign. In addition, all delegates are free to change their votes and the campaigns need to have loyal delegates.

The Clinton campaign had a great "whipping infrastructure" in place in case there were floor fights. The whips also warned the Clinton delegates of planned stunts by the Sanders delegates. On the first night of the National Convention, the Clinton delegates were warned 15 to 30 minutes in advance by our whips of a planned stunt where the Sanders delegates planned to boo Congressman John Lewis. There was a coordinated plan to attack Congressman John Lewis and the delegates who led this plan were evidently leaders in the Sanders delegation. I was later told by my whip that Sanders knew of this stunt and did nothing to stop it. I was disappointed to see that the idiots on JPR are very proud of this stunt https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/hey-john-lewis-karmas-a-mf-aint-it/

That stunt and other really poor conduct at the National Convention fits a pattern with the attacks on Joy Reid. My youngest child was my guest at the National Convention. I saw other incidents including having a group of Sanders delegates scream obscenities at my daughter and called her the C-Word because she would not try to get me to change my vote.

Again, in the normal world a delegate to the national convention are carefully vetted and such delegates are supposed to represent the values of the candidate and campaign. The sanders delegates who committed these acts are supposed to represent Sanders and his campaign. The attack on Joy Reid again fits into a pattern that I have observed first hand.

I freely confess that as a parent, the attack by a group of Sanders delegates on my daughter at the National Convention may color my views. However this pattern seems to continue including the leaders of the local Our Revolution group attacking an Asian candidate for Congress because he has a funny first name and is "not one of us" and the leader of the Our Revolution group telling people that they do not want one of "them" on the ballot.

The only quibble I have is with your use sometimes of terms like "the Sanders delegates" rather than "some Sanders delegates". I have no independent basis to question your analysis of what you saw happen at the convention and I certainly trust your own observations.

One part of the meta picture that I think it wise for none of us to lose sight of is this. Hillary Clinton personally ran two national campaigns for the Democratic nomination for President. Before that she went through that experience at her husband's side in 1992. After that she campaigned nationally for her husband twice in general elections and once to a lesser extent as a surrogate for Barack Obama. All of this occurred prior to the convention you attended. That was the first time though that Bernie Sanders was on the national stage. That contrast of course led to different levels of seasoning for the candidates themselves, but in some ways more crucially, also for the various circles of supporters extending outwards from the candidates.

I say none of the following negatively towards Hillary, but by the time of the 2016 Democratic Convention she had an extensive national political machine behind her. That's a good thing, she put in the time, she put in the work, she earned it over 25 years on the national stage. Prior to late 2015 Senator Sanders had virtually no national apparatus, and no seasoned political machine with any presence in all 50 states. Whereas Hillary had trusted contacts down to almost the precinct level nationally, Bernie only had a scattering of like minded progressives who he already knew and could count on in most states outside of Vermont. Add to that all of the people within the Democratic Party around the nation who knew people who they trusted who had solid connections to Hillary even if they themselves didn't, and that partially explains how her delegate ranks were so deep in pragmatic disciplined members. Of course she drew on some fresh new activist energy also, but Bernie, for better or worse, was much more dependent on the support of people relatively new to inside experience with the political process.

I say for better or for worse because it was both for better and for worse. One of Bernie's main pitches was for new involvement from people who had been alienated from politics before. He actively sought to bring new people into the political process, often younger people who historically have been under represented within political parties. Sanders counted on countering the cynicism and alienation that keeps some people outside of politics, and instead concentrated on trying to draw them into his campaign by empowering them. To an extent Bernie succeeded and I think that is, in the larger picture, a net positive for our Democracy. But it doesn't come without growing pains.

I hate to break it to you but it was not just some Sanders delegates who did a very poor job of representing Sanders at the National Convention. It was either a majority or close to a majority. I saw one example of the Sanders vetting operation at the Texas state convention where a duly elected Sanders delegate was replaced because that delegate would not state that he hated Clinton. Luckily, the Texas State Democratic Party had this young man come as a guest. That type of vetting guaranteed bad behavior at the national convention. Again, the behavior that I saw in Philadelphia first hand is consistent with the attacks on Joy Reid.

As for your comment about new voters, I live in the real world and I never took sanders seriously because all of sanders proposals relied on a magical voter revolution where millions or billions or trillions of new voters would appear and force the GOP to be reasonable. There was no voter revolution in the real world. Sanders got the same amount of support as Dean did in 2004 and Bradley did in 2000. https://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11497822/sanders-political-revolution-vote

To succeed, Sanders might have to drive Americans who don't normally participate to the polls. Unfortunately for him, groups who usually do not vote did not turn out in unusually large numbers in New Hampshire, according to exit polling data.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

...In fact, Sanders won by persuading many habitual Democratic primary voters to support him. With 95 percent of precincts reporting their results as of Wednesday morning, just 241,000 ballots had been cast in the Democratic primary, fewer than the 268,000 projected by New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner last week. Nearly 289,000 voters cast ballots in the state's Democratic primary in 2008.

that is, never miss a good opportunity to bash Bernie and his followers. The choice of the word "lynching" in the OP headline is particularly offensive in this situation, as it's obviously intended to create the most controversy and dissention. Instead, we should be uniting in condemning the REAL enemy among us... but, no, not when we can antagonize fellow Democrats.

excellent as always.

i have had posts removed here
i have been in facebook jail

The voice i respect the most in media is KO and Micheal Moore...and their pasts are um.......checkered shall we say
when i comes to saying stuff others might be offended at.

how the Fuck to we expect to have a medial presence vs fox when we keep throwing our folks to the wolves????

give her a pass

on this one.....

when she gets out of control like sean hannity..then lets talk...
oh and bring back KO