and have made a lot of money.
Maybe that makes for the rigidity.

The two of them look like Mr. and Mrs. Skeletor.
Maher is close behind.

I dunno, but in the sweepstakes for creepiness I'm happy to drop them all into that warm purple space where organic stuff ferments.

The Iran deal that Obama/Kerry negotiated (notice that it wasn't Obama/Clinton - and it's just WAY too bad that Obama hadn't chosen Kerry from the start, because the mess wouldn't have become so much more complicated) is essential to ending the "War on Terror" and entering a peaceful phase.

The Iran deal wasn't just negotiated between Obama/Kerry and Iran, but between the P5+1 and Iran, which is the UN security council China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany.

So now it's "a matter of conscience" for some senator, some wannabe Dem Senate leader no less, whether they should support it?

This isn't just a "matter of conscience" as it would be for an issue that's solely about a person's immediate action, as in "should I walk across the street to hand that homeless person a fiver?" This is an issue of walking a first step toward putting a stop to the havoc that the US has brought to the ME, over decades and the deaths of millions and the destruction of whole countries. It's a step to ending the entirely artificial "civil war" between Sunni and Shia, as egged on and funded by the USA. A first step.

This is a disappointment. A big, big, disappointment.

You cannot pretend there's no connection.

Not if you care for the candidate that you support to be considered trustworthy.

If honesty and trust is the measure, then every candidate has to own their past.
None can paste platitudes over their past and pretend that their actual action either never existed or didn't matter if it existed, and win a campaign.
That applies to *all* political candidates in democratic elections in all democratic countries, in all circumstances. It's a general truth that governs political discourse.
Well, maybe *this* election, with the absolute totality of $$$ control over the air space now final, things will be different. Maybe such a candidate can win - but at a cost, a terrible cost.

Too true.
Whenever I look at these guys it's always a question of "where's the money?".
They have volition, but they have the morality of a computer program.
Very smart - "clever", as a teacher of mine once said of a famous philosopher that he made me study, who my teacher thought wasn't deep enough, or wise enough, to put on the scale. In this case, when I learned that this guy David Brock founded Media Matters, the hairs on the back of my head bristled.

Sure, PM me - but remember that PMs on DU aren't private from the admins.

vs. Republican, and tend in their willy-nilly use of the word "center" to be "more center-left than left-left", which is argyllbargle.

Then it says of these voters that "these are, like all "opinion leaders", very politically active and well read and they talk to other people about politics a lot." That sentence has no other purpose than to massage the egos of their readers, their customer base. It's just marketing.

If these voters are so smart, how is this distribution possible:
"On who they think will win the numbers are dramatically different ..
Hillary Clinton (78%)
Bernie Sanders (16.5%)"

That reads to me that TPM's voters buy into the "inevitably - because $$$" myth. A myth that was in effect "pre-sold" on this campaign season. To me that means that their predominant characteristic is acquiescence to being chattel with little or no self-volition, politically -- rather than having any real will to fight it.

That's particularly true with respect a political movement that's advocating for a revolution in thinking.

One can't take the enthusiasm for Bernie and just pass it along to Hillary, because the enthusiasm isn't for Bernie as a person but for Bernie as a political advocate for real change and concrete action. Not even part of that enthusiasm is transferable to Hillary, and her campaign and supporters know it.

One of the most absurd political "memes" in this '16 primary campaign focusses on "will Bernie Sanders push Hillary Clinton to the left?". It's a push-polling type meme, of course, as it assumes that Hillary Clinton will win the primary contest. But beyond that, it's absurd because there's no question whatsoever that there's no chance that the leader of the DLC, the Third-Way corporatist wing of the Democratic Party, will be "pushed to the left" by anybody - any more than the oligarchy that she serves will be "pushed" anywhere. The DLC, the Third-Way, aren't defined with that kind of thing in mind. They are defined to serve the oligarchy. To see how absurd the question is, consider the adjoint: "will Hillary Clinton push Bernie Sanders to the right?" Heh.

You are a leader. So I ask you to stop and think.

This is the epitome of a witch-hunt, and Bernie Sanders does not deserve it. Hillary Clinton can't possibly benefit by it.

Nor does the very real problem of systemic racism in the USA deserve it.

Look at DU! Just look at it! It's so toxic, nothing can live!
I've never seen the like of it, and this is between people ostensibly of the same political party?
Between people who were friends yesterday and hope to be friends tomorrow? To actually VOTE for the candidate chosen?

It's so bad, Donald Trump could walk into this situation on DU, and win.
_____________________________

Look, I'm Canadian. So you don't have to pay any attention to me. My concern is that the US elect an admin that's a little bit more reasonable about the military conquest of the world, the ME, SA, and other places where I think diplomacy and good works would do a lot more good, in the long run, than military coups etc. Than continuing the status quo. And I want to protect Canada's universal health care and pharmacare legislation from attacks from free trade type agreements signed by right-wing gov'ts (Harper's, now) - so I want the US to adopt some of these GOOD and, yes, "socialist" policies, so US citizens can experience it and have a clue what it's about. Because believe me, now that we've experienced it no political party in Canada is viable if it openly attacks universal health care, for one. So none do. For those and other reasons I tend to align with Sanders (warts and all, though I don't think he has a chance of winning). I think the existence of community health care clinics, staffed by locals continuously inventing reach out programs, makes for good well-balanced communities. It DOES cut into problems associated with endemic racism. It also cuts into problems associated with distrust of the poor in general since it gives even the homeless an opening into the larger community.

Bernie Sanders isn't the cause racism in the USA, nor as far as I can tell does Bernie Sanders contribute to racism in the USA. Twisting #blacklivesmatter into a weapon to attack Bernie Sanders and all of his supporters on DU is wrong.

_______

Now, I'm done with DU.

You have made DU too toxic for me.

#BlackLivesMatter protestors did what they ought to have done at NN15 - following an honored tradition of political protest. Following an honored tradition of getting a disadvantaged and threatened voice heard.

It has worked in the past and it ought to work this time, too - given the extreme circumstances.

The protest wasn't about Bernie or Martin, it was about #BlackLivesMatter.
Bernie and Martin were simply, somewhat cluelessly (like any other candidate in the current slate would have been, if they'd bothered to even be there) there.

IMO, neither were up to the moment. But neither (in spades!) would the other candidates (who were not there) for either party.

Maybe this demo provided a hint that's there's a need for a change of direction, of thinking.

I don't agree with the spin that pins the problem on Bernie and/or Martin, in particular, just because they were the platform speakers.
The spin that excoriates them, for being there.
I don't agree with the spin that says #BlackLivesMatter was intending to cast Bernie and/or Martin as racists or just wannabe racists or paternalistic or whatever, just because they were the platform speakers. Nowhere have I read direct quotes stating that was #BlackLivesMatter intention.

(speaking while white...)

Not well understood by any means, but well enough so the terms are "out there".

Even those of my family and friends who tend to be more of the reactionary kind understand and accept these meanings as being factually descriptive, even while knowing that the whole of the story will forever remain untold.

So these words signify an *opening* rather than a closing.

European colonialist racism.

Of course there are many who I might "meet on the street" who don't get it and who would be extremely defensive on hearing those terms. But those people aren't defining the language that we use to describe fact.

I'm in Canada. Maybe our police don't shoot down people for "walking while black", but our police have done things, systematically, like drive natives (First Nations prisoners) out into the middle of nowhere, in the extreme cold of the Prairies in January, and shove them out to die of cold. We've denied First Nation children the right to be raised in their own culture, using their own language and according as their own customs. We created entire institutions with buildings, infrastructure, laws, personnel, social systems, to implement it -- all while claiming to serve God. And then, of course, we judged the results. l I think we're at the stage now where we recognize that these aren't problems caused by individual police, teachers, people. They are caused by the systemic racism of a cultural milieu which hasn't overcome roots in European colonialist racism.

I think the Canadian system is the same as the US system, but with different demographics. But the same root problem: European colonialist racism built right into the founding law and structure.

It's appalling that in a country that only has two viable parties, one of them, that regularly gathers close to half or more than half the votes, is so far out to lunch on simple matters of human decency. All Dems should recognize this - that an alignment with such an evil political party can't be let to define what is "moderate" or "center" in political discourse. All Dems should recognize this - that the Republican "base" is big money in the form of investment capital and that there's no way a Dem can reasonably "abstract social issues from economic issues", as third-way politics asks of us. To say nothing of abstracting economic issues from issues regarding the MIC and a foreign policy established on the principal of eternal war.

It's all part of the same thing and Trump/Cruz are only the most nasty faces of it, in today's political news.