Bernie Sanders Powers On, Claiming A Feeble Poll Advantage Over Trump As Electability Card

The Myth of Sanders' November Advantage by David Corn Mother Jones

The Bernie Sanders team argues that the logic for overturning millions of primary votes and pledged delegates earned by Hillary Clinton is that he polls better against Donald Trump.

That statement is accurate, but as Corn states correctly -- Bernie Sanders has never been on the receiving end of a national, negative ad campaign. Bloomberg Politics made the same argument earlier this week.

Bernie's Tad Devine argues that Bernie's socialist background and current economic philosophy is no problem. Devine cites the Obama presidency as an example of America's rejection of old stereotypes.

Devine's logic goes against last year's June Gallup poll in which being a socialist outweighed every other criteria for making a presidential candidate unappealing.

Being socialist lost to Catholic, a woman, Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Mormon, gay or lesbian, an evangelical Christian, Muslim, and atheist.

It would be great if pundits asked the Sanders campaign about that poll and the ad campaign that would be unleashed against Bernie. If he's lucky, they would just call him a socialist.

Google, Apple Employees Love Bernie Sanders Fortune

In his RECENT interview with the New York Daily News, Bernie Sanders accused businesses like General Electric of destroying "the moral fabric of America', with their pay little taxes and sending jobs overseas.

Bernie was asked in the same interview if Apple was equally destructive, and Bernie said "no, of course not." Knowing the massive tax dispute that Apple has over UX tax rates -- which Bernie wants to raise -- we found his answer strange and inconsistent.

If Apple didn't hold $181 B offshore, it would owe $50 B in taxes. Apple employees are among the top five contributors to Bernie's campaign heading into the California primary, based on first quarter 2016 reporting. Silicon Valley ponied up for Bernie in fourth quarter 2015 as well.

Could this be the reason why Bernie chooses not to say anything negative about Apple, even though it's among America's biggest tax avoiders and outsources almost all its manufacturing to China?

Strange reasoning, Bernie Sanders, unless you're just another Democratic politician.

Sanders Refuses to Condemn Rosario Dawson's Lewinsky Reference at Rally Slate

Rosario Dawson is a piece of work. First she rips into the irreplaceable co-founder of United Farm Workers Dolores Huerta, publicly shaming her on stage for supporting Hillary, and now she takes the stage saying that like Monica Lewinsky, Bernie supporters are being bullied.

Check out her Twitter feed. There is NO bullying going on. The Hillary campaign is not dominated by young white men, as Bernie's is. The only group Bernie won in New York state was single white men. They are Reddit rebels and the Hillary campaign had no real voice to compete and comment, getting the facts out there. Making up non-facts about Hillary has become a natio nal pasttime for these guys.

Dawson comments on bullying refer to a Super PAC called Correct the Record, which has vowed to engage with users on social media who post negative things about Hillary Clinton. The Super PAC rejected Dawson’s characterizations of its actions. "This is the farthest thing from bullying—posting positive graphics about Hillary is our job," said Elizabeth Shappell, communications director for Correct the Record.

Reddit users who support Bernie are complaining that their experience is going to hell, with commentary from Hillary supporters. Contrary to what the melodramatic Dawson claims, this is not bullying but online dialogue.

Dragging Monica Lewinsky into the discussion tells us more about Rosario Dawson than we want to know. She lost us already over her Rosario Huerta. Susan Sarandon lost us totally for many reasons, but her confrontation with Huerta in Hillary space at the Nevada caucus was totally out of line.

As for Bernie, he thought Dawson's comments were just fine

Westward Ho

Hillary Clinton Announces Powerhouse California Leadership Team LA Times

State Director Buffy Wicks ran state operations for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign in California, Texas and Missouri. Wicks later worked as deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and is currently the campaign director for Common Sense Kids Action’s California Kids Campaign.

Political Director Peggy Moore organized a get-out-the-vote campaign for Obama in 2008 as deputy field director for Northern California. She also has worked with Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), and for Oakland Mayors Ronald V. Dellums and Libby Schaaf. She was political director at the Organizing for America group that spun off from the Obama campaign.

Communications Director Hilda Marella Delgado has worked on public relations campaigns for Southern California Edison, Coca-Cola Company, Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn and the Los Angeles Federation of Labor AFL-CIO.

Hillary Clinton Headlines April 24, 2016

Poll: Clinton leads Sanders by 15 in Pa. The Hill

Sanders says he has lost primaries to Clinton because 'poor people don't vote' The Washington Post

Sanders: Support for Clinton is 'totally dependent' on how progressive her agenda is The Washington Post

Is Hillary Clinton Dishonest? New York Times

Where Hillary Clinton Stands on 14 Important Issues Cosmopolitan

Voters' 'Bernie or Bust' efforts persist despite Sanders' vow not to be another Ralph Nader Los Angeles Times

Bernie Sanders Courts Martha's Vineyard New York Times

The Problem With Bernie Sanders' Polling Argument TIME

Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania Visit Is Another 'Welcome Home' New York Times

Liberals Debate White Elite Smugness Run Rampant In Sanders Campaign

Sarandon has a new Casper napmobile for relaxing on her busy schedule promoting Bernie

Is Liberalism 'Smug'? by James Boule Slate

Boule's response to the VOX article posted next argues that VOX's Rensin makes a good case, but he's wrong for three key reasons.

"The first is just history. That liberal smugness might deter the white working class from the Democratic Party seems reasonable, if unfalsifiable. But to suggest that it is a prime mover in their alienation from the party is to ignore the actual dynamics at work. The driving reason working-class whites abandoned the Democratic Party is race. The New Deal coalition Rensin describes was devoured by its own contradictions, chiefly, the racism needed to secure white allegiance even as the party tried to appeal to blacks.

{. . . }

Pressed by those blacks, Democrats tried to make good on their commitments, and when they did, whites bolted. The Democratic Party’s alliance with nonwhites is what drove those whites away, not the sniffing of comedians on cable television. And, looking at the politics of the last seven years, it’s still keeping them away. (It’s worth noting that, up until left-leaning whites and minorities elected Barack Obama president, Democrats suffered little loss with working-class whites outside of the South.)

That said, there’s no question that smug liberals exist. It’s incontestable. (I’ve complained about them myself.) But Rensin doesn’t argue for the mere existence of liberals who are smug about their beliefs and ideology. He argues that smugness is key to contemporary liberalism. That it’s all but a plank of today’s Democratic Party."

The Smug Style in American Liberalism VOX

"There is a smug style in American liberalism. It has been growing these past decades. It is a way of conducting politics, predicated on the belief that American life is not divided by moral difference or policy divergence — not really — but by the failure of half the country to know what's good for them.

In 2016, the smug style has found expression in media and in policy, in the attitudes of liberals both visible and private, providing a foundational set of assumptions above which a great number of liberals comport their understanding of the world.

It has led an American ideology hitherto responsible for a great share of the good accomplished over the past century of our political life to a posture of reaction and disrespect: a condescending, defensive sneer toward any person or movement outside of its consensus, dressed up as a monopoly on reason.

The smug style is a psychological reaction to a profound shift in American political demography."

Testosterone Overload

Virtual Manspreading: When Men Take Up Extra Space Online Vice Motherboard

I'm in a secret pro-Hillary FB group meant to be a refuge from mansplaining. It's an energetic, positive, very smart space. Today -- for the third time -- a Bernie Bros came out of the darkness (men are very active in the group), mounted his soapbox and proceeded to tell us everything that is wrong about the FB group we love to death. In honor of another Bernie Bros, mansplainer masquerading in a Hillary bunker, we share Vice's discussion of 'Manspreading', meaning men who take up way more than their share of digital space, on subjects where no one cares to hear their thoughts. Like women's periods, for example. ~ Anne

Hillary Clinton Headlines April 22, 2016

HIllary Clinton Should Be Allowed To Boast The New Yorker

Democrats Have Gotten More Liberal Since 2008, But Not Enough To Nominate Sanders FiveThirtyEight

Hillary PAC Spends $1 Million to 'Correct' Commenters on Reddit and Facebook The Daily Beast

Bernie Sanders Cites New York Times Interview with Joe Biden to Attack Hillary Clinton ABC News

Sanders supporters suffer through stages of grief Politico

Delegates face death threats from Trump supporters Politico

Insiders to Bernie: Don't take the fight to Philly Politico

A Gradual Shift Comes Clearer As Hillary Clinton Gains More Sanders' Supporters Hartford Courant

Bernie Sanders's top aides have very different paths for the end of the primary. Here's why that matters VOX

What Bernie Sanders Should Learn From Eugene McCarthy Politico

Why Republicans are eager to intervene in the Democratic race MSNBC