I've already remarked in this blog that I like Hillary's answer when asked why she accepted around $1 million from Goldman Sachs for her 2016 campaign: "That's how much they offered."
But Bernie isn't just mad about that contribution, he seems to be furious whenever Hillary takes big contributions from anybody. Bernie has raised tens of millions of dollars himself, but he seems very proud of how much of it has come in contributions of $100 or less. I don't get that: he's proud of taking money from people who aren't as able to afford it? He's gotten 6-figure donations from public universities and unions, institutions which are struggling these days. Taking a campaign contribution from someone doesn't guarantee that you're going to help that someone. In fact, the only thing it guarantees is that right away, they're going to have less money.
Bernie doesn't belong to a socialist party, but he seems to be one of those socialists who hate wealth, as opposed to hating poverty. He's always going on about Wall Street. His plan to deal with banks attacks them according to how big they are -- as opposed to what they actually do (Hillary's approach, and Barney Franks', and the approach of sanity).
Attacking wealthy people in general is kind of risky for Bernie. He recently released his and his wife's 2014 tax returns, which showed that they made over $200,000. That's not the top 1%, but it's in the top 5%. And he's hanging with people like Spike Lee, who makes much more than enough to be in the top 1%.
I'm not mad at Spike for making lots of money. I'm not mad at Bernie because he and his wife made over $200,000 in 2014, even though I've never made $20,000 in one year. The reason I'm all worked up here is because I'm concerned that someone is running for President who's talking a lot of nonsense.
Bernie got furious when Hillary appeared at a high-ticket Hollywood fundraiser. He called it "obscene." This was an event attended by many of Spike's colleagues -- but that's not the problem for Bernie, the problem is that it cost so much to get in.
It's amazing that someone with such a shaky grasp of what a fundraiser is, has raised so much campaign funding.
I'm ashamed that I didn't get this until someone pointed it out to me yesterday, but that "obscene" Hollywood fundraiser wasn't just raising funds for Hillary. It was a Democratic Party fundraiser. A lot of that "obscene" money is going to down-ticket campaigns: campaigns for Senate and House and mayoral elections, city council elections, etc. That's one part of what was pointed out to me yesterday, the rest of it, the kicker, is this:
Bernie has been asked whether he will campaign for other Democrats, in Senate and House races and so forth, if he's not chosen as the Democratic nominee for President -- and he hasn't said yes. He hasn't definitively said no, but his reaction is a bit cooler than luckwarm. He shrugs and looks like he's smelled a bad smell.
And the kicker of the kicker is this: those superdelegates, who Bernie says should come over from Hillary to him? Those are the very same Senators, Congressmen, mayors, etc, for whom he shows so very little inclination to campaign. The same ones for whom Hillary has been campaigning, along with campaigning for herself.
Gee, why would they, as superdelegates, support Hillary, when all she does for them is raise campaign money and stump for them (while St Bernard treats them the way that someone who hates stinky cheese treats stinky cheese)? It's almost as if they're all in some group together -- a political party, or something.
And so I must apologize for having said that Bernie is a Democrat who calls himself a socialist. Democrats realize that they have to work together as a party. Bernie obviously doesn't get that. (Socialists get that too, that's why there are socialist parties. I don't know what to call Bernie at this point.)
Clearly, Bernie Sanders' most egregious irrationalities pale in comparison to the irrationalities of Donald Trump. Trump has too many for me to deal with all singly, so I'm just going to focus on his claim that he deserves the Republican nomination whether he gets a majority of the Republican delegates before the convention or not.
Again, just as with the Democrats, it's as if the Republicans were some sort of organized group, who had agreed to do certain things in certain ways.
It really bothers me that such a seasoned political reporter as Chris Matthews is 100% with Trump here, and says that it would be loathesome and underhanded and undemocratic and "stealing" and what have you if someone other than Trump were to get the GOP nomimation.
Chris, you chump. I know that many other reporters agree with you on this, but you especially bother me here, because you're sort of a leader among political reporters, and you've been in and around politics for a very long time. And still. I'm going to have to explain things to you as if you were 5 years old:
For one thing, there is nothing unusual about elections in which no one wins until he or she gets a majority of the votes. We have many such elections here in the US, for mayor of certain cities and whatnot. If there are more than 2 candidates and no-one gets over 50% the first time, they vote again, and they keep on voting until someone has a majority. Those second elections (and third and however many it takes until someone has 50%) are called run-off elections. And the conventions of the Republican and Democratic parties have always done it that way, re-voting and re-voting until someone has a majority. So stop acting as if any of this were new to you, please.
For another thing which really ought to be clear as can be to you, the real choice of the majority of the people who have voted in the Republican primaries may well be: anybody except Trump. If over 50% of those who've voted in Republican primaries would rather see anyone except Trump be nominated, then you, or anyone insisting that the nomination belongs to Trump, are the one being antidemocratic.
And for a third thing, how about an "Attaboy" for people trying to stop the campaign of an out-and-out fascist? "Fascist," that's your description of Trump, Chris. You've called Trump a fascist, and you're right, and anti-fascists, even ones who are right of center like the Republican mainstream, deserve your support.
Now, if your grasp of arithmetic is a bit above average, then you'll probably agree with me, Mr Matthews, that neither Trump nor anyone else vying for the GOP Presidential election has a snowball's chance in Hell of being elected POTUS, and that the better Trump does, the greater the chaos in the GOP and the more split the vote on the Right will be, and consequently, the bigger the Democratic landslide will be, even with no help from Bernie. If that's what you're thinking, as a good solid Democrat, than have the stature, the class, to say so, instead of continuing with this nonsense of calling resistance to Trump antidemocratic and dishonest. It's as if you were saying that the electoral votes didn't count in the 2000 Presidential election, because Gore got a bigger popular vote than Bush. You knew that it was all about the electoral college, and that if the Republicans stole something it was Florida's electoral votes, and that the overall popular vote, although poignant, was irrelevant to the overall result. And you know now, in the case of the Republican nomination, that it's all about a majority of the delegates. Please, please, stop acting as if you don't know that.
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