Quinnipiac Poll Provides Further Evidence Debunking “Bernie Bros” Smears From Clinton Camp

Hillary Clinton ran her 2008 and 2016 campaigns based upon spreading a myth that her nomination and election were inevitable, and nobody else could win. Despite the evidence in both 2008 and 2016 of how weak a candidate Clinton actually was, I still see frequent comments from Clinton supporters claiming Sanders cannot win because of lack of support from women and minorities. This was not actually true during the 2016 campaign, which Clinton might have never won if not for multiple ways the party rigged the system to help her win the nomination. A recent poll also shows it is not true today.

Quinnipiac poll conducted last week showed that Bernie Sanders was viewed favorably by 50 percent of women polled, exceeding his support from 46 percent of men. He also was seen favorably by 70 percent of blacks and 55 percent of Hispanics polled.

As  Cory Doctorow responded to this poll, “his approval ratings were highest among women and people of color, putting a lie to the stereotype of ‘Bernie Bros’ as young, middle-class white male political radicals who are oblivious to the more moderate preferences of others.” 

Glenn Greenwald also debunked the “Bernie Bros” smear from the Clinton camp two years ago:

The concoction of the “Bernie Bro” narrative by pro-Clinton journalists has been a potent political tactic — and a journalistic disgrace. It’s intended to imply two equally false claims: (1) a refusal to march enthusiastically behind the Wall Street-enriched, multiple-war-advocating, despot-embracing Hillary Clinton is explainable not by ideology or political conviction, but largely if not exclusively by sexism: demonstrated by the fact that men, not women, support Sanders (his supporters are “bros”); and (2) Sanders supporters are uniquely abusive and misogynistic in their online behavior. Needless to say, a crucial tactical prong of this innuendo is that any attempt to refute it is itself proof of insensitivity to sexism if not sexism itself (as the accusatory reactions to this article will instantly illustrate).

It’s become such an all-purpose, handy pro-Clinton smear that even consummate, actual “bros” for whom the term was originally coined — straight guys who act with entitlement and aggression, such as Paul Krugman — are now reflexively (and unironically) applying it to anyone who speaks ill of Hillary Clinton, even when they know nothing else about the people they’re smearing, including their gender, age, or sexual orientation. Thus, a male policy analyst who criticized Sanders’ health care plan “is getting the Bernie Bro treatment,” sneered Krugman. Unfortunately for the New York Times Bro, that analyst, Charles Gaba, said in response that he’s “really not comfortable with [Krugman’s] referring to die-hard Bernie Sanders supporters as ‘Bernie Bros’” because it “implies that only college-age men support Sen. Sanders, which obviously isn’t the case.”

Greenwald also cited polling data from the time which ran contrary to the Clinton narrative. What he said about the objective data then still applies:

But truth doesn’t matter here — at all. Instead, the goal is to inherently delegitimize all critics of Hillary Clinton by accusing them of, or at least associating them with, sexism, thus distracting attention away from Clinton’s policy views, funding, and political history…

The sexism charge is especially absurd considering that a very large percentage of “Bernie Bros” supported Elizabeth Warren before Sanders entered the race and Warren announced she would nor run. Most of those who voted for Sanders in the primaries voted for Clinton, and many of those who did not voted for Jill Stein instead. Far more Clinton supporters in 2008 crossed over to vote for McCain/Palin in the general election, often because of having a woman on the Republican ticket, and sometimes due to racism.

In the fantasy world of the David Brock/Peter Daou propaganda machine, if you supported Sanders your views are never taken seriously. Not only are you a sexist, they also believe you are likely to be a Russian bot.

Clinton Supporters Attack Vanity Fair After Clinton Mocked

Clinton supporters are going ballistic on Facebook and Twitter, threatening to cancel their subscriptions to Vanity Fair in response to their video, Six New Year’s Resolutions for Hillary Clinton. The suggestions for Clinton in the above video were:

It’s time to start working on your sequel to your book, “What Happened”: “What the Hell Happened.”

Get someone on your tech staff to disable autofill on your iPhone so that typing in “F” doesn’t become “Form Exploratory Committee for 2020.”

You know how on Anderson Cooper you were telling him about alternate-nostril breathing? You seemed really adept. You should try teaching a class.

Take more photos in the woods. How else you are going to meet unsuspecting hikers?

Take up a new hobby in the New Year: Volunteer work, knitting, improv comedy – literally anything that will keep you from running again.

Put away your James Comey voodoo doll. We all know you think James Comey cost you the election, and maybe he might have, but so did a handful of other things. It’s a year later and time to move on.

TYT Nation responded with this video which points out why Hillary should go away:

Maya Kosoff, a tech writer for VF Hive, responded “i don’t appreciate being taken out of context to make me seem super sexist. this wasn’t a hillary hit piece either, fwiw! we made silly new years resolutions for a bunch of politicians.”

They did make make similar videos mocking other politicians including White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Donald Trump, but it is the Clinton supporters who were protesting. While late night comedians, and others, have helped us get through the misery of Donald Trump’s first year, just imagine the protests if Clinton was in the White House. Anyone making a joke about her, along with anyone protesting her wars, would be under constant attack as being sexist (or a pawn of Putin).

Peter Daou, who is promoting the #CancelVanityFair hashtag, had a rather weak comeback with, “Vanity Fair had the audacity to tell Hillary she should take up knitting. Today we learn she’s the most admired woman in the world for the 16th consecutive time, according to Gallup.” While she came in first, Clinton was listed as most admired by 9 percent of those responding–down from 12 percent last year. That is hardly a show of support in a poll which is primarily based upon name recognition. It is more significant that Gallup recently found that Clinton’s favorable rating has fallen to a new low of 36 percent, falling below that of Donald Trump.

Donna Brazile Admits The Nomination Was Rigged For Hillary Clinton In 2015

As time goes on we get increasing evidence that the DNC rigged the Democratic nomination for Hillary Clinton while the evidence also increasingly casts doubt about her claims that Russia rigged the general election for Trump. Donna Brazile finally admitted to the unethical conduct at the DNC and rigging the nomination for Hillary Clinton in her new book, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House. I had hoped to have a post up on this earlier but did not have time until now. There was a lively discussion on Facebook after I posted a comment on this earlier today. As I said then, I would have a higher opinion of her if she hadn’t leaked the debate questions to Clinton, and if she wasn’t pushing the bogus line that Russia cost Clinton the election.

Excerpts from her book were posted today at Politico. Brazile began by admitting that Debbie Wasserman Schultz had allowed the Clinton campaign to control the party writing, “Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn’t been very interested in controlling the party—she let Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn’t have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was.”

Brazile described how the party was broke, with Hillary’s campaign “grabbing money.” On further investigation she uncovered unethical actions giving Clinton control of the party by 2015:

Right around the time of the convention, the leaked emails revealed Hillary’s campaign was grabbing money from the state parties for its own purposes, leaving the states with very little to support down-ballot races. A Politico story published on May 2, 2016, described the big fund-raising vehicle she had launched through the states the summer before, quoting a vow she had made to rebuild “the party from the ground up … when our state parties are strong, we win. That’s what will happen.”

Yet the states kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers Hillary’s campaign was holding, just as Gary had described to me when he and I talked in August. When the Politico story described this arrangement as “essentially … money laundering” for the Clinton campaign, Hillary’s people were outraged at being accused of doing something shady. Bernie’s people were angry for their own reasons, saying this was part of a calculated strategy to throw the nomination to Hillary.

I wanted to believe Hillary, who made campaign finance reform part of her platform, but I had made this pledge to Bernie and did not want to disappoint him. I kept asking the party lawyers and the DNC staff to show me the agreements that the party had made for sharing the money they raised, but there was a lot of shuffling of feet and looking the other way.

When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.

The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.

I had been wondering why it was that I couldn’t write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn. Well, here was the answer.

When the party chooses the nominee, the custom is that the candidate’s team starts to exercise more control over the party. If the party has an incumbent candidate, as was the case with Clinton in 1996 or Obama in 2012, this kind of arrangement is seamless because the party already is under the control of the president. When you have an open contest without an incumbent and competitive primaries, the party comes under the candidate’s control only after the nominee is certain. When I was manager of Al Gore’s campaign in 2000, we started inserting our people into the DNC in June. This victory fund agreement, however, had been signed in August 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination.

I had tried to search out any other evidence of internal corruption that would show that the DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary, but I could not find any in party affairs or among the staff. I had gone department by department, investigating individual conduct for evidence of skewed decisions, and I was happy to see that I had found none. Then I found this agreement.

The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.

Donna Brazile’s confession that the nomination was rigged is hardly the first evidence of this. Their actions were actually quite obvious considering how the rules were used to help Clinton, including both long standing rules to allow the DNC to influence the process, along with changes initiated in 2016 specifically to help Clinton. DNC email released by Wikileaks provided further confirmation. Tom Perez previously admitted this before trying to walk this back. Elizabeth Warren agreed today that the nomination was rigged for Clinton.

If the Democratic Party is going to have a chance to restore its integrity and bring back those who are now reluctant or unwilling to vote for a Democrat again, major reforms will be necessary. This includes eliminating Superdelegates, eliminating front loading of primaries in the south, eliminating restrictions on debates, making primaries open, and ideally removing those from DNC leadership positions who were involved in either giving Hillary Clinton the 2016 nomination or the recent purge of progressives. Tulsi Gabbard has also recommended many of these reforms.

I would also hope that the party move away from Clinton’s right wing views, including curtailing perpetual warfare and the surveillance state, along with the influence of corporations and lobbyists on public policy. (I also suggested on Facebook that putting Peter Daou in front of a firing squad is not a nonnegotiable demand but would be a sign of good faith on their part.)

Update: Donna Brazile Considered Removing Clinton From Ticket And Replacing Her With Joe Biden. Links also in post debunking false claims from Clinton supporters about the excerpt discussed here.

Now The Threat Is That Russia Used Pokémon Go

The claims of Russian meddling in the election have been becoming increasingly absurd. With many of the prior claims being shown to be false, there has been a steady progression of new claims and exclusive news report. We learned that Russia spent $100,000 on Facebook ads, which sounds rather trivial to anyone who understands how much larger Clinton’s war chest of over a billion dollars was compared to Russia’s $100,000. Supposedly Russia was treacherous enough to use web sites with puppies. Earlier in the week The Daily Beast exposed a couple of unknown rappers as working for Russia. Now CNN is running an exclusive as to how Russia allegedly used Pokémon Go. Mashable summarized the report:

In one of the most absurd twists yet in the investigation into Russia-aligned election meddling, CNN reports that Kremlin-linked actors may have tried to use the hype around the augmented-reality app to inflame racial divisions.

If you’re having trouble imagining how whimsical Japanese fantasy creatures might connect to deep-seated societal tensions, you’re in good company. The answer isn’t exactly intuitive. Apparently, the Internet Research Agency — the same notorious troll farm behind the election ads Facebook recently disclosed — ran a contest on Tumblr directing players to find Pokémon near sites of alleged police brutality against African Americans, and name them after the victims. Users were then supposed to email the organization proof of having done so for the chance to win Amazon gift cards.

CNN was not able to find evidence of anyone actually following through with these instructions.

Meanwhile, there were reports last year that Putin was going to ban Pokémon Go because of alleged links to the CIA.

Of course to those who are spreading the bogus claim that Clinton lost to Donald Trump because of Russia, evidence is not actually needed. Peter Daou, who is sort of Hillary Clinton’s Steve Bannon, has set a very low bar: “If one mind was changed, if one voter was turned against Clinton, Russian interference altered the outcome.”

Is the country packed with Russian propagandists? To Daou, opposing Clinton just might make you a Russian propagandists as he recently tweeted, “If you spread the idea that Hillary Clinton is a horrible monster, you were a de facto Russian propagandist.” Yes, if you consider Clinton a monster for all the unnecessary wars she has supported, or for her corruption, you are a de facto Russian propagandists. No disagreement with her views is possible other than being a Russian propagandist.

The Latest Excuse: The Daily Beast Claims Anti-Clinton Rappers Were Working For Russia

We have yet another excuse for Hillary Clinton losing what should have  been an easily winnable election against Donald Trump. The excuses are getting even more bizarre. The Daily Beast reports on anti-Clinton rappers who were working for Russia:

Russia Recruited YouTubers to Bash ‘Racist B*tch’ Hillary Clinton Over Rap Beats

Wannabe YouTube stars and diehard Donald Trump supporters ‘Williams & Kalvin’ totally swear they’re from Atlanta. In reality, they were working for the Kremlin.

According to the YouTube page for “Williams and Kalvin,” the Clintons are “serial killers who are going to rape the whole nation.” Donald Trump can’t be racist because he’s a “businessman.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign was “fund[ed] by the Muslim.”

These are a sample of the videos put together by two black video bloggers calling themselves Williams and Kalvin Johnson, whose social media pages investigators say are part of the broad Russian campaign to influence American politics. Across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, they purported to offer “a word of truth” to African-American audiences.

“We, the black people, we stand in one unity. We stand in one to say that Hillary Clinton is not our candidate,” one of the men says in a November video that warned Clinton “is going to stand for the Muslim. We don’t stand for her.”

…Videos published by Williams and Kalvin in late 2016, especially in October, often engaged in fever swamp theories about Hillary Clinton and in some cases promoting Donald Trump directly.

One specific video published in October, prior to the presidential election, refers to Hillary Clinton as an “old racist bitch.”

“She’s a fucking racist,” the host says over a subdued rap beat. “And this woman is a witch,” he says as a picture portrays Clinton in Wizard of Oz attire. He goes on to praise Julian Assange for releasing hacked emails. “This woman, she’s sick on her head.”

Other videos are more explicit about urging people to vote for Trump.

“This is time for change. This is why I say that let our vote go for Trump. Because this man is a businessman. He’s not a politician. We can have deal with him,” Williams says in a video published in August of 2016. “Because I don’t see him as a racist. Because any businessman cannot be a racist because when you are a racist, then your business is going down.” He then makes a black-power fist as he endorses Trump.

For good measure, the video also stated that Barack Obama’s legacy was “police brutality, injustice [and a] lack of education for our children,” illustrated with Obama’s face giving way to Samuel L. Jackson’s character from Django Unchained.

Does everyone remember all those persuasive rap videos? Remember all those polls which showed that black voters voted for Trump instead of Clinton because of those videos from Williams and Kalvin? No. I  don’t either. Nor is there any plausible explanation why Clinton’s favorability declined while Obama’s increased when they were attacking both if Williams and Kalvin were influential.

Attributing Clinton’s loss to the rap videos of Williams and Kalvin makes no more sense than to blame her loss on the $100,000 worth of Facebook ads allegedly purchased by Russia. On the other hand, if someone wants to argue that Williams and Kalvin were more effective in campaigning against Clinton than her most irrational supporters like Peter Daou were at campaigning for Clinton, I would be open to considering that argument.

The Anti-Russia Hysteria Continues To Defy All Logic

Clinton apologists and other pro-war Democrats are excited today by the report from the Daily Beast that Russians used Facebook to promote pro-Trump rallies in seventeen cities. Do they really believe that these rallies tipped the election results? These were trivial compared to the crowds turning out for official pro-Trump rallies. What hurt Clinton was not these allegedly Russian-organized rallies, but the fact that so few people had any interest to turn out to see her.

It is certainly possible that Russia did violate US elections laws, but it is probably impossible in the internet age to enforce laws intended to prevent foreigners to spend money to promote a candidate in our elections. It does make sense that Russia would want to affect the election. They had a lot at stake. One candidate was a neocon who associated with people who desired regime change in Russia, and who has a long history of supporting a return to a Cold War atmosphere at least. The other candidate appeared far more willing to normalize relations between the United States and Russia. (Unfortunately, while not a neocon, Trump shows his own lack of respect for peace and international law, such as with his speech to the United Nations on North Korea, although it did include mixed messages.)

The $100,000 which Russia is believed to have spent on influencing the election is trivial, especially when compared to the amounts spent by other groups. This is also trivial compared to the actions by the United States to influence the elections in other countries.

It is rather hypocritical Hillary Clinton to deny the legitimacy of the general election, where there is far less evidence of any rigging compared to the Democratic primary system. The Democrats have used rules since 1972 to limit the possible choices in their primaries, and greatly increased their interference with the process to guarantee their desired outcome in 2016. The nomination of a candidate who required such a degree of unfair help to win the nomination is a far more important reason for Clinton’s loss than any meddling by Russia. Clinton’s attacks on the legitimacy of the election also contradicts her attacks on Donald Trump, calling any refusal on his part to accept the election results “a direct threat to our democracy.”

The concentration by Clinton apologists on Russian spending on Facebook ads and trolls also raises the question as to why they were so much more effective than the ads and trolls (both paid and volunteer) used by the Clinton campaign. Facebook tends to create a number of echo chambers, but it is questionable how much impact it has on changing people’s minds.

As Shattered revealed, Hillary Clinton latched onto the argument that others such as Russia were responsible within twenty-four hours of her loss to shift the blame elsewhere. With the claims that Russia was responsible for the DNC hack coming under increased question, they apparently see this as their strongest remaining case, regardless of how irrational this argument is. As I discussed yesterday, Peter Daou tried to lend credence to the argument with the absurd claim that, “If one mind was changed, if one voter was turned against Clinton, Russian interference altered the outcome.”

While the extent of Russian interference in the election remains under investigation, at this point there is zero evidence that Russia had any effect on the outcome. Peter Daou’s standard of one vote being affected is obviously absurd. Regardless of whether the evidence ultimately shows that Russia had an effect, there is no question that Clinton and her allies started making this claim with zero evidence in order to shift the blame for her loss. Unfortunately this has significance far beyond the fate of a failed presidential candidate. The greatest fear in seeing Clinton elected was that her election would lead to increased warfare, including a major deterioration in US-Russian relations. The Queen of Chaos threatens to bring this about even after losing.

Peter Daou Shows A Strange Form Of Integrity In His Promotion Of Russia Conspiracy Theories

Peter Daou has often shown that no statement, regardless of how demonstrably false, is beyond him in his efforts to white wash Hillary Clinton. This one was good for a laugh. He starts out quoting Robert Mueller: “As the saying goes, if you have integrity, nothing else matters, and if you do not have integrity, nothing else matters.”

For some bizarre reason he used this to lead into another attempt to prop up the failed claims that Russia is responsible for Clinton’s loss. As Shattered revealed, Hillary Clinton latched onto the argument that others such as Russia were responsible within twenty-four hours of her loss to shift the blame elsewhere. Since then Clinton and her allies have been trying to find facts to support this claim, without success.

Daou claims, “The scale and scope of Russia’s efforts is staggering: Facebook ads, thousands of professional trolls, email hacking, weaponizing WikiLeaks, highly suspicious contact with the Trump campaign, and much more.”

It turns out that, unless more is uncovered in the future, Russia’s expenditures on Facebook ads has turned out to be rather trivial. It is questionable whether Russia had anywhere as many trolls as the Clinton campaign did (paid and volunteer). The source of the hacked email remains uncertain as claims that it was Russia have come under increased question. Wikileaks only served to show the dishonesty of Clinton and the DNC, and that the only rigged election in 2016 was the Democratic nomination. While there has been suspicious contact between members of the Trump family and campaign, this is increasingly looking like it was based upon financial crimes, with Russia having nothing to offer with regards to harming Clinton.

There has been agreement among investigators that there has been no evidence that Russia has altered a single vote by means such as altering voting machines. Investigations may or may not support Daou’s argument once concluded, but at present they certainly do not, and it is questionable the facts ever will.

With all the facts failing to back him up, Daou resorted to moving the goal post with his most absurd line of all: “To suggest that no votes were impacted by Russian intrusion is to defy common sense. If one mind was changed, if one voter was turned against Clinton, Russian interference altered the outcome.”

One mind, one voter. Many, many factors could have influenced a single vote, but that would not alter the outcome of the election. By only requiring one vote to have been changed, Daou makes it impossible by his absurd standard to deny the significance of Russian interference.

Of course nobody with integrity would make such an absurd claim.

Bernie Sanders Winning The Battle On Health Care, Now Max Baucus Caves On Opposition To Single Payer

Bernie Sanders’ proposal for single-payer health care was viciously attacked by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, but now Sanders is winning the debate in the Democratic Party. Kamala Harris already joined on as a co-sponsor, indicating how she sees this as the expected position for a serious contender for the 2020 nomination. It came as no surprise when Elizabeth Warren also decided to co-sponsor the legislation. The real surprise was when former Senator Max Baucus changed his position:

It’s time for America to consider seriously a single-payer, government-run health system, says Max Baucus, Montana’s longest serving U.S. senator, former ambassador to China and one of the chief architects of Obamacare.

“My personal view is we’ve got to start looking at single-payer,” Baucus said Thursday night at Montana State University. “I think we should have hearings…. We’re getting there. It’s going to happen.”

This is significant as Baucus was a chief author of the Affordable Care Act, and was strongly opposed to even considering a single payer plan eight years ago. David Weigel provides this history lesson:

Eight years ago, as a once-in-a-generation Democratic Senate supermajority debated health-care reform, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) kept their focus narrow. As the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus was focused on passing a reform bill that moderate Republicans could support. At one point, he had single-payer health-care supporters removed from a hearing; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an advocate for Canada-style universal coverage, set up a meeting to tide them over. But he did not expect much from Baucus.

“[Is he open] to single-payer?” Sanders asked rhetorically. “Not in a million years.”

His estimate was just 999,993 years off. At a Thursday night forum in his home state, a now-retired Baucus suggested that single-payer health care could pass, and not too long from now.

It gets worse per this account from Common Dreams:

Baucus declared single payer “off the table” and had single-payer proponents arrested after they disrupted a committee hearing. Those arrested were later called the “Baucus 8.”

Dr. Pat Salomon, who was arrested alongside other physicians and activists, explained why the protests were necessary:

When we looked at the list of 41 people testifying in the three days of the Finance Committee’s roundtable on healthcare, we saw that not a single witness was an advocate of the principle that healthcare should be a fundamental human right for all in America, nor was there anyone to speak for the majority of the American people who support single-payer Medicare for All.

Maybe this is a case of a politician speaking more honestly once out of office, or perhaps it is a sign of how much Bernie Sanders has moved the discussion of health care reform. Just to raise Peter Daou’s blood pressure further in case he happens to read this, I’ll also point out that Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America, while Hillary Clinton’s favorability has continued to fall since the election, and is below that of Donald Trump. Sanders being right, and Clinton being wrong, in supporting Medicare for All is just one of many reasons for this.

Democrats Dreading Damage From Clinton Book Tour

Hillary Clinton has become the Democrats worst nightmare. She managed to run a campaign which was so poorly run that she could not even beat a candidate as terrible as Donald Trump. Now her actions, and the actions of her most fanatic supporters like Peter Daou, threaten further damage to the party. Politico writes, Democrats dread Hillary’s book tour: Reliving the 2016 nightmare is the last thing the party needs right now, many say.

Democratic operatives can’t stand the thought of her picking the scabs of 2016, again — the Bernie Sanders divide, the Jim Comey complaints, the casting blame on Barack Obama for not speaking out more on Russia. Alums of her Brooklyn headquarters who were miserable even when they thought she was winning tend to greet the topic with, “Oh, God,” “I can’t handle it,” and “the final torture.”

…“Maybe at the worst possible time, as we are fighting some of the most high-stakes policy and institutional battles we may ever see, at a time when we’re trying to bring the party together so we can all move the party forward — stronger, stronger together,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, a Democrat who represents a Northern California district. “She’s got every right to tell her story. Who am I to say she shouldn’t, or how she should tell it? But it is difficult for some of us, even like myself who’ve supported her, to play out all these media cycles about the blame game, and the excuses.”

In a tweet late Tuesday night, Huffman pleaded with Clinton to stop blaming Sanders for her loss, as she partly does in the book, according to excerpts that leaked ahead of its release. Huffman said the tweet had gotten a lot of “likes” from his colleagues — albeit in private conversations with him.

“There is a collective groan,” he said, “whenever there’s another news cycle about this.”

The Hill similarly reports, Clinton’s score-settling frustrates Democrats.

Clinton says that Sanders’s attacks did “lasting damage” to her general election hopes. She accuses him of “paving the way” for Trump to cast her as a corrupt corporate stooge deserving of the nickname “Crooked Hillary.”

Sanders brushed off Clinton’s criticism in a Wednesday interview with The Hill, saying it’s time for Democrats to “look forward, not backward.”

Not everyone was so charitable. Even some of Clinton’s allies have grown weary of her insistence on re-litigating the 2016 campaign at a time when the Democratic Party is looking to forge a new identity in the age of Trump.

“The best thing she could do is disappear,” said one former Clinton fundraiser and surrogate who played an active role at the convention. “She’s doing harm to all of us because of her own selfishness. Honestly, I wish she’d just shut the f— up and go away.”

…Those daunting challenges have some Democrats fuming at what they view as Clinton’s petty post-election score settling.

“None of this is good for the party,” said one former Obama aide. “It’s the Hillary Show, 100 percent. A lot of us are scratching our heads and wondering what she’s trying to do. It’s certainly not helpful.”

My response to her attacks on Bernie Sanders were posted here. Besides attacking Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton has attacked Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the DNC in post-election statements and in her book, further burning bridges with Democrats.

Excerpts from Clinton’s book repeat the same type of bogus talking points we have heard, and dismissed, from Clinton supporters for months. It doesn’t help matters that the book is coming out at the same time that Peter Daou has started a Clinton propaganda site (Verrit.com) which has received a tremendous amount of mocking. (I have posted about it here and here). It is packed with talking points in the format of the graphic here, except I added my own message.

Politico Magazine was even harder on Verrit in an article entitled This Pro-Hillary Website Looks Like North Korean Agitprop: Peter Daou, the prickly pro-Clinton operative, has launched a propaganda rag so shameless it would make Kim Jong Un blush.

Who would buy stock in a twice-defeated presidential candidate?

If the candidate under question is Hillary Clinton, that zealous buyer would be Peter Daou, one-time rocker, seasoned political blogger, former campaign adviser to John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, ambitious litigantpropagandist and internet entrepreneur. A couple of days ago, Daou launched his self-funded Verrit.com, a slavishly pro-Clinton site (endorsed by Hillary!) to carry on her failed crusade.

The derision greeting Verrit is so universal it inspires sympathy for Daou, as Gizmodo, the Washington PostOutlineNew RepublicNew YorkThe Ringer and others have broken its back with their snap judgments. “Verrit, a Media Company for Almost Nobody,” read one headline. “No One Asked for Verrit, But Here We Are,” stated another. “What Is Verrit and Why Should I Care? (Unclear; You Shouldn’t.),” said a third. “Peter Daou Continues to Embarrass Hillary Clinton,” asserted the best in show…

As Daou’s Verrit manifesto puts it, the site hopes to become the trusted source for the 65.8 million voters who cast their ballots last November for Clinton and who seek verified “facts” they can use to argue politics. In theory, everybody needs a cheat sheet. In practice, the Verrit method is cringe-worthy. The headline to one early Verrit borrows from the literary methods of Kim Jong Un’s North Korea to assert, “Hillary Democrats Are the Heart and Conscience of America.” Does anybody outside of the Daou re-education camp really think this way?

When it comes to criticism, Daou isn’t just a snowflake. He’s a snow squall, equating most criticism of Clinton (or criticism of Daou) with the desire to erase Clinton and Clintonites. Early this year, he telegraphed his irrational partisanship by tweeting that anybody tweeting “Bernie would have won” in his timeline would earn “an instant block” from his account. “Useless and baseless conjecture. Betrays someone unfocused on the challenge ahead,” Daou continued.

His is a reductionist world where evidence of misogyny and sexism can be deduced from almost any political discussion of Madame Secretary. When Verrit launched, it inspired not only a mudslide of negative reviews but an ugly denial-of-service attack on his servers. From this rocky reception, Daou didn’t extract the perennial lesson that politics ain’t beanbag. He didn’t cinch up and concede that political passions will cause folks to overheat. Instead, he flew to Twitter and raged in all caps, “PEOPLE ARE STILL TERRIFIED OF HILLARY. PEOPLE STILL WANT TO DESTROY HILLARY. PEOPLE WANT TO SILENCE ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS HER.”

Terrified? Destroy? Silence? I’d love to see the serial numbers on those “facts.”

As the New Republic’s Sarah Jones pointed out, Verrit’s early shilling for Clinton easily veers into propaganda when it posts headlines like “Sanders and the Mainstream Media Helped Put Trump in the White House.” Such headlines present Clinton as a victim, denying her any agency, and blaming all of her failures on the press and Bernie Sanders. To dwell on this Verrit for just one more beat, is it safe to say that somebody out there is still terrified of Bernie, that somebody out there still wants to destroy Bernie, and that somebody wants to silence anyone who supported him.

All of these attempts to cover up Clinton’s failures are not fooling the majority of Americans. As Politco also reports on the latest polls, Trump hits new low in public opinion — but he’s still beating Hillary Clinton.

Just 36 percent of those reached by pollsters said they have either very or somewhat positive feelings about Trump, 2 points lower than in the poll’s June iteration. But at 36 percent, Trump still finished 6 points higher than Clinton, his 2016 Democratic opponent, about whom just 30 percent of respondents said they feel either very or somewhat positive.

If Clinton had just stayed quiet after the election, she might have had a chance to avoid becoming even less liked than Donald Trump.

Countering Verrit With The Facts

This is just one of several truthful verrits I have posted on Facebook, responding to their distortions of polling data on Sanders voters who voted for Trump. (These were actually Republicans who Sanders was able to get to vote Democratic in the primaries but went home to the Republican Party when Clinton got the nomination.)  I’ll post more of my hacked verrits on the blog in the future.

Related Post:

Peter Daou’s Newest Pro-Clinton Propaganda Site Allegedly Shut Down By Cyber Attack