Last Call For Still Not On The Team But Wants To Run It

Sen. Bernie Sanders will remain "the independent senator from Vermont" rather than running as an actual Democrat in 2018, which should come as zero surprise to anyone.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has confirmed that he will run for re-election in the Senate as an independent in 2018, despite recent pressure from some Democrats to join the party. 

Sanders told Fox News of his decision to hold onto his independent status during an interview Sunday night.

“I am an independent and I have always run in Vermont as an independent, while I caucus with the Democrats in the United States Senate. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time and that’s what I’ll continue to do,” Sanders told Fox News.

Sanders had been facing pressure from some Democrats to officially run as a member of the Democratic party. Sanders caucuses with Democrats in the Senate. 

One Democratic National Committee (DNC) member, Bob Mulholland, had introduced a resolution at the party’s fall meeting that would have demanded Sanders and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) run as Democrats in the future. 

However, the resolution failed, falling short of the simple majority it needed to pass.

Hell, we can't even get Democrats to agree that you need to be a Democrat anymore in order to run as a Democrat, and people keep wondering how third-party bids always end up so damaging to the Democratic party.

Yes, Maine's Angus King is also an independent but he also never ran as the presidential candidate for the party he didn't belong to either. So tired of this. Bernie grudgingly ran as a Democrat in 2016, but now refuses to.  He wants it both ways, and we fall all over ourselves in order to give it to him.

Oh, and let's remember Sanders promised to run as a Democrat in the future two years ago.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday filed his paperwork without issue in New Hampshire to appear on the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary ballot. 

The longtime Vermont independent senator faced no challenges at Secretary of State Bill Gardner’s office, despite earlier concerns about whether he legally qualified as a Democrat. Sanders declared himself a Democrat Thursday, and said he will run as a Democrat in future elections, and that was good enough for Gardner. 

“I'm a Democrat and should be on the ballot, I don't think I need to say too much more,” Sanders said.

Turns out he lied about that too.

Again, the transcript of that 2015 press conference:



It's obnoxious in every way possible.  I'm done with him lying.  If he wins in 2018 and runs again in 2020, great.  It won't be through any effort of mine though.

Full Court Press, Con't

Republicans in the Trump era keep gleefully declaring that they would hurt reporters, so when do we start taking their fascist impulses seriously as a threat to our country?

A Montana GOP official said she “would have shot” a reporter that was assaulted by Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) if the reporter had approached her the way he had Gianforte.

Karen Marshall, the vice president of programs for Gallatin County Republican Women, told the Voices of Montana radio program Thursday that she would have shot Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs if she had been in Gianforte’s place, according to The Guardian.“If that kid had done to me what he did to Greg, I would have shot him,” Marshall said.
Gianforte pled guilty to misdemeanor assault after the incident and apologized.

Gianforte body-slammed Jacobs to the ground, broke his glasses and punched him after Jacobs attempted to ask the candidate a question at his campaign headquarters the night before the Montana special election in May.

“That kid came on private property, came into a private building and went into a very private room that I would not even have gone into,” Marshall said. “It was a set-up. A complete set-up. He just pushed a little too hard.”

Eventually reporters aren't going to get roughed up by Republicans, they're going to get killed.  Even that won't be enough, especially if the reporter isn't white.

These guys want the ability to open fire on whomever they disagree with, liberals, the media, the LGBTQ community, people of color, you name it.  Comments about shooting people and getting away with said comments is a problem.

Because tens of millions agree with those comments. 

It's getting dangerous out here.

Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

There was a terrorist bombing in America last week if you didn't know, an explosion went off in a downtown parking lot near Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia last Thursday. No breathless news coverage of the manhunt for the suspect who was caught 24 hours later, no mention on the Sunday news shows about "soft targets" or "ending all immigration" or "blowback", no arngry tweets from Donald Trump on the subject.  Why didn't you hear about it?  Well, here's the mug shot of the suspect:

Can you guess why you didn't hear about it now?

A Gloucester man was arrested and charged late Friday with setting off an improvised explosive device in a parking lot Thursday evening near Colonial Williamsburg.

Stephen Powers, 30, was arrested at his home in Gloucester and was charged with possessing and using an explosive device and committing an act of terrorism, according to Williamsburg Police.

Police got a call about a vehicle fire around 5 p.m. Thursday near the corner of South Boundary and Francis streets, near the campus of the College of William and Mary, police said Friday.

Investigators – including from the FBI; Newport News Police Department; Colonial Williamsburg; Virginia State Police; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – determined an IED had exploded in the parking lot there.

Williamsburg Police Major Greg Riley said the device went off in a highly trafficked area during peak time but no one was injured. Nearby streets were blocked while officers searched the area. They finally deemed the area safe and reopened the streets at 6 p.m. Friday.

Police said they believe that this was an isolated incident, but the investigation is continuing.

If the suspect had been Muslim, or South Asian, or black in appearance, would police still believe it was an "isolated incident" even though there's plenty of evidence that these incidents aren't isolated because we have a serious white nationalist domestic terrorism problem in America?

The lengths this country goes to in order to deny that the bulk of terrorist attacks in the US are conducted by angry white men is impressive, but that's whiteness at work in Trump's America.

StupidiNews!

• US-backed rebel forces have captured Syria's largest oil field in Deir Ezzor, held by ISIS forces since 2014, rebel forces retook the Syrian city of Raqqa last week from Islamic State.
• The FBI reportedly foiled a plot to get a Russian sleeper agent inside Hillary Clinton's inner circle in 2010, part of the same busted Russian spy ring that included model Anna Chapman.
• Snap elections Sunday in Japan's lower house of parliament have given Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a super-majority in his efforts to revise Japan's post-war constitution. 
• Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer says a bipartisan bill to shore up insurance markets can pass, but GOP Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is blocking a vote.
• Automaker Tesla has reached a deal to open its first electric car factory in Shanghai, China already accounts for 40% of the global electric vehicle market.