Nice Grandpa Bernie Sanders Gonna BURN YOUR SH*T DOWWWWWN

don't you wave that fucking finger at me.

If you were waiting for Bernie Sanders to release a statement on the clusterfuck that was the Nevada state Democratic convention, hooray! He has done so! If you were waiting for Bernie Sanders to release a statement telling his supporters "hey maybe don't drown out and scream at Barbara Boxer that she's a fucking bitch for having a different preference in the Democratic primary than you do," you are going to have to wait a little bit longer.

[wonkbar]<a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/bernie-sanders-fans-take-massive-dump-on-nevada-democratic-convention-floor"></a>[/wonkbar]No, Bernie Sanders is going down swinging, and doubling down, and other metaphors from baseball and/or gambling (or both if you are Pete Rose or Shoeless Joe Jackson). See, his supporters wouldn't have had to fling chimpanzee shit all over Las Vegas's Paris hotel if they hadn't been robbed, by which we mean they lost.

Wonkette has been officially neutral in the Democratic primary, until now. (We know, angry commenters; Wonkette says it has been neutral but has been a reliable source of bought-and-paid-for neoliberal corporate piece of shit one-percenter shilling for a mass murderer who will be arrested for "emails" any day now. Fair enough!)

But if your "revolution" includes disinformation, aimed to rile up your supporters, that would make Pravda and Ronald Reagan blush, you can make like your healthcare, and keep it!

(Also, if you consider Barbara Boxer, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Dolores Huerta, Planned Parenthood, Emily's List, Barney Frank, Harry Reid and John Lewis to be Enemies of your State, you probably need to sit down with a mug of Ovaltine and give your animal farm and Four Legs Bad Two Legs Better a super double plus good unthink.)

Before you tell us to WATCH THE VIDEOS -- we have. They don't show the blinding righteousness of your side that you think they do. What they show to most of us is the kind of screaming, violent temper tantrum for not getting your way -- which happens sometimes in a democracy, or even a republic! -- that is turning you into nihilist shitbirds. (Present company excepted. We know almost none of you would ever behave like a common thug -- though you have your moments! -- and we promise you don't need to Swear Fealty and Fall in Line in the reeducation camp that is the comments.)

The clowns are out look how they're treating @BarbaraBoxer!! #nvdemconvention  #nvdems   pic.twitter.com/ZiAiG82UZY 

— Christopher Preciado (@CMPreciado) May 14, 2016 

So. Sanders's statement. Let's take a look.

“It is imperative that the Democratic leadership, both nationally and in the states, understand that the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics. The people of this country want a government which represents all of us, not just the 1 percent, super PACs and wealthy campaign contributors.

Tamir Rice's mom thinks Hillary Clinton represents her. But we guess she is a one percenter now, since the city of Cleveland gave her mad stacks of cash just for accidentally -- not accidentally -- murdering her boy with his toy gun.

“The Democratic Party has a choice. It can open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change – people who are willing to take on Wall Street, corporate greed and a fossil fuel industry which is destroying this planet. Or the party can choose to maintain its status quo structure, remain dependent on big-money campaign contributions and be a party with limited participation and limited energy.

It is beyond cool that Bernie Sanders was able to raise so much money in small donations -- and because we are such a bought-and-paid-for Hillary shill, we never noted his consistent problem with excessive, illegal donations, because we didn't want to hurt half our readers' feelings . (We are not very good at journalism sometimes.)

But the Democratic party has always opened its doors to people who are prepared to fight for economic and social change -- I mean, at least since we traded Strom Thurmond to the Republicans for some black guys to be named later. They just have to check a little box on their voter reg form that says "I am a Democrat." It's not even as hard as it is for those poor nuns; they not only have to check a box saying they don't want to provide slut pills to their employees, they have to write down who their insurance carrier is too. 

Is Bernie talking here about opening up primaries to non-Democrats? PROBABLY. But let's Thought Experiment for a moment! If Hillary Clinton were winning all the open primaries, we wouldn't have to wait too long to learn that this clearly proves she is not a real liberal, or she would not need independents and Republicans to help her STEAL ALL THE ELECTIONS. Oh, but what's this? As of three days ago, she HAS won more open primaries? 

Clinton has won 12 open or semi-open primaries and caucuses and 13 closed or semi-closed ones. Among primaries alone, she has actually won one more open one than closed. There seems relatively little advantage to her, open or closed.

Sanders has won 8 open or semi-open primaries and caucuses and 11 closed or semi-closed ones.

Quick, Team Sanders, update your talking points! Unless the open primaries Hillary Clinton won were in Southern states, because red states only count if they are Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, or Kansas.

“Within the last few days there have been a number of criticisms made against my campaign organization. Party leaders in Nevada, for example, claim that the Sanders campaign has a ‘penchant for violence.’ That is nonsense. Our campaign has held giant rallies all across this country, including in high-crime areas, and there have been zero reports of violence.

And Lincoln was killed zero times before that night at the Ford Theater!

Our campaign of course believes in non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals. But, when we speak of violence, I should add here that months ago, during the Nevada campaign, shots were fired into my campaign office in Nevada and apartment housing complex my campaign staff lived in was broken into and ransacked.

Does Hillary Clinton's lawlessness know no bounds???

“If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect that they have earned. I am happy to say that has been the case at state conventions in Maine, Alaska, Colorado and Hawaii where good discussions were held and democratic decisions were reached. Unfortunately, that was not the case at the Nevada convention. At that convention the Democratic leadership used its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place.

Okay.

Among other things:

The chair of the convention announced that the convention rules passed on voice vote, when the vote was a clear no-vote. At the very least, the Chair should have allowed for a headcount.

Let's talk about this, because some of our VERY RESPECTED BRETHREN who are NOT AT ALL INSANE AND SHITBIRDY are VERY VERY UPSET about the highhandedness and stealing of the rules vote. The way convention rules work is you put together some "temporary rules" -- with a committee, in this case half Bernie supporters and half Hillary shills -- and then first thing you do is say "Aye, yeah, we'll use those otherwise LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE AT THE CONVENTION CAN GET DONE." The rules did not "revert the caucus result to the first tier result." They did not do anything except say "no you may not use megaphones in this hotel ballroom," and "yeah we can definitely throw you out if you are a giant aggressive fascist screaming down everything and everyone." (These were the temporary rules that most angered the Bernie supporters in attendance.) And yet they didn't even throw out all the people, even though they could have under the rules! What super lame dictators.

No, VERY ANGRY FOLK making your videos, the rules were not "changed" and did not require a two-thirds vote. They required a majority. Hillary Clinton had a narrow majority of supporters attending because almost 500 Bernie Sanders delegates didn't show up. Even if the olds and gyno-Americans in the room weren't as loud as the young men in their 20s and 30s, and even if they didn't take an hour to do a head count to verify the voice vote, nothing was stolen here. 

* The chair allowed its Credentials Committee to en mass rule that 64 delegates were ineligible without offering an opportunity for 58 of them to be heard. That decision enabled the Clinton campaign to end up with a 30-vote majority.

According to the Nevada Democrats, after the Dems attempted to contact the missing delegates to resolve the problems with their registrations (which were either "not Democrat" or were missing addresses, etc., to make sure they were actually Nevada residents) those 58 people literally never showed up to the convention. Why would I believe the Nevada Democrats over Bernie Sanders? Because I have seen the rest of the disinformation in Bernie Sanders's statement, and he has now lost his reputation with me of being an honest broker.

Which is a fucking pity.

* The chair refused to acknowledge any motions made from the floor or allow votes on them.

I don't know, maybe they were motions for Barbara Boxer to go fuck herself. I would not acknowledge that motion either.

* The chair refused to accept any petitions for amendments to the rules that were properly submitted.

Those amendments would have needed a two-thirds vote, because they would change the rules. Toallow people to have noisemakers and megaphones,inside a hotel ballroom where they were actually trying to conduct convention business, like voting on a platform and confirming the delegate slates approved by both campaigns. This was their big demand, and they did not get it, and so the next 16 hours were spent voting down their own planks in the platform. Hey, at least it's an ethos.

“These are on top of failures at the precinct and county conventions including trying to depose and then threaten with arrest the Clark County convention credentials chair because she was operating too fairly.”

Well! Hadn't heard that one! And I feel like I would have heard that one! Because I have WATCHED THE VIDEOS!

UPDATE: I misread the preceding; a commenter notes that Sen. Sanders here is discussing credentials chair Christine Kramar at thecounty conventions, not the state. That's the same Christine Kramar who, it was alleged, sent emails to Hillary Clinton delegates telling them they didn't need to show up to be counted. When the Clinton camp complained she might be slightly biased, she staged a sit-in and demanded to be arrested. So that's who was "threatened with arrest." We never wrote about that either because we didn't want Bernie people to sound nuts. 

I am fucking sorry to endorse Hillary Clinton, and I mean it. The Democratic primary was a good, hard, fair race in which both candidates showed the nutballs at the Trump rallies how to run a clean campaign. I was proud of all of us. While some -- including the president -- were calling for supporters to unite behind Hillary, and for Bernie to drop out, I thought such calls were misguided. Hell, when does the 10 percent of the country that lives in California ever get to vote! More democracy is more gooderer!

But the Sanders campaign is now relying on Alex Jones-style conspiracies -- if a Republican county clerk in Arizona shuts down a whole bunch of primary precincts because Hillary Clinton told her to, then Hillary Clinton is probably really good at getting shit done! -- and flat out fucking lies to get its way. It hasn't had any kind of intellectual consistency for months now as first it excoriated superdelegates as undemocratic even as they mirrored the popular vote, and then called for superdelegates to overthrow the will of the people by going for the candidate who has received fewer votes. (As one example, and they are legion.)

Enough of those intellectual flip-flops -- and now victim-blaming the Nevada Democrats for dressing like that!

Look. These things happen. One side wins and one side loses. And barring Hillary starting a nuclear war with her emails, math says she's going to be our nominee. And we're real sad Bernie's campaign is ending up this way, and as a person whose infant daughter endorsed Bernie YEARS ago before she was even in the womb, we respectfully ask Bernie to CUT THE SHIT and be the man we always gave him credit for being.

We'll take our check now, thanks, Mr. Brock.

[ Bernie Sanders statement / Atlantic ]