Here is something to keep in mind.
In testimony Wednesday before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, [former Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh] Johnson said that Russia’s meddling, directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, was “unprecedented” in scale and scope.
In testifying to this point, Secretary Johnson was only confirming the congressional testimony of many other current and recently retired members of the intelligence community. Our country actually has sixteen intelligence agencies, all of which have concluded “that Russia did in fact meddle in the election, through cyberattacks and other activities, with the explicit aim of influencing the outcome” in favor of Donald Trump.
But this didn’t keep the president from tying to convince us the Johnson’s testimony was exculpatory.
…Why did Democratic National Committee turn down the DHS offer to protect against hacks (long prior to election). It's all a big Dem HOAX!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017
This was part of Trump’s overall effort to suggest that the Russians didn’t really interfere in the election, and if they did they didn’t try very hard. And, besides, it’s the Democrats’ fault for not preventing it.
By the way, if Russia was working so hard on the 2016 Election, it all took place during the Obama Admin. Why didn't they stop them?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017
Of course, this all completely detached from reality. Just today, Time is reporting that Russia’s meddling was far more expansive and extensive than initially realized:
The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers, current and former officials tell TIME.
In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME.
Not every piece of evidence indicating intrusion of state and local election databases, but the pattern is evident enough.
Cyber-security officials testifying at the Senate hearing acknowledged for the first time the extent of the Russian effort to interfere with the election. Twenty-one states saw such intrusions last year, a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security, Jeanette Manfra, said…
…The Russian efforts against state and local databases were so widespread that top Obama administration cyber-security officials assumed that by Election Day Moscow’s agents had probed all 50 states. “At first it was one state, then three, then five, then a dozen,” says Anthony Ferrante, a former FBI cybersecurity official and member of the White House team charged with preparedness and response to the cyber intrusion. At that point, says Michael Daniel, who led the White House effort to secure the vote against the Russian intrusions, “We had to assume that they actually tried to at least rattle the doorknobs on all 50, and we just happened to find them in a few of them.”
But this all a “big Dem HOAX!”
That the president doesn’t seen to accept the facts let alone care about them should tell you all you need to know.
Here’s the thing: Is it going to work out that something actually comes from this investigation? And in the bigger picture, will the Democrats even be able to make any headway against this administration in regards to healthcare, education or civil rights?
The Russian investigation denials seem incredibly ridiculous, but so does everything this president and his cabinet have done. Every single thing seems ludicrous, yet the Republicans are still winning elections, overturning Obama’s accomplishments, and generally thumbing their noses at the Democrats on every level.
Honestly, it seems the greater the evidence, the more the Republicans deflect. I know this sounds like “Donna Downer”, but I’ve never been so discouraged in my entire life. The bad people keep running over the good ones, the rich over the poor, and no sign of stopping.
We are a week away from the most meaningful vote in Congress since the Great Society passed.
Reagan was never able to attack the Great Society, and neither Bush was either.
In a week the GOP will eviscerate Medicaid. They will render the most important achievement of the Obama Administration null and void.
It is dawning on people I think that the Russian stuff has been a distraction. The PPP pollster noted it was Health Care, and not Russia, that evoked the biggest response from both Democrats and Republicans.
There is no huge demonstration planned this weeked. The phones have been quiet until the last few days. McConnell has played this brilliantly.
If it passes it will be yet another case of people saying the GOP can’t get anything done. Booman suggest in the last two months that Trump should just give it up because he can’t get anything done.
That post will not age well.
Trump and McConnell have played this with evil brilliance.
Trump’s plan is basically rope-a-dope at this point. While McConnell is a master of focus and misdirection.
Trump and the Republicans have been betting on resistance losing it’s intensity over time. In addition, McConnell has now managed the window to do the deal without the resistance getting organized – thus no planned protests.
Say what you will about Nazi Republicans – they don’t rest on their evil laurels.
You give way too much credit to Trump.
I don’t know, Martin. When “the Russians hacked the election” came up I started to laugh at ridiculous bullshit. The Russians have been ‘the usual suspects’ for so long it sounds like an easy sell. But the whole thing might as well be Boris and Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Diebold polling computers have been undetectably re-programmable for years. It isn’t just that there is a demo posted on YouTube. Brad Friedman has been exposing voting fraud and irregularities for years. Sure the GOP department of dirty tricks will have been active – but Bernie’s fate in California showed the DNC were competent in rigging results too ; the twisting of that ballot was ludicrous.
Nope. The Dems insisted on running a candidate who was spouting war in Syria including attacks on the Russian Air Force – there at Syrian government invitation. There’s your real rigging – not Wikileaks exposing the dirt or Russians’ alleged interference (though that would be a case of imitating US NGO practice in Moscow ) were it not providing a desperate distraction from DNC’s ignoring their base and promoting stupid and reckless war while discarding an embarrassingly popular candidate who should have been able to outdo Trump.
When did white self identifying progressives become the Democratic party base? Last I looked people of color and women were the Democratic party’s base, in particular black women as they are the most reliable voting block in the party.
The second you declare that Sanders supporters in the primary are the base of the Democratic party is the second you lose your argument.
Like it or not Sanders lost with the base of the party and that is why he didn’t win the primary. If he wants to run again (and dear God I hope none of baby boomer candidates run again) he will need to find a way to connect to those voters or he will reach the same outcome.
That doesn’t quite work. Of course Sanders does not represent the base of the Democratic Party. But the ” party” is a funny thing. It represents an amalgam of thought. I suppose you can read them out of the party, but that could easily leave the democrats as the minority for a long time. Best to work the ideas and not the man.
Sanders has an approval rating of 80%+ among Democrats.
He is the most popular active politician in the Democratic Party. His approval rating among people of color is almost identical to Biden’s.
But Jesus can we give it a rest for a week?
Sanders/Clinton could not be less relevant in the next week. HCR is on the line: arguing about Sanders is a fucking waste of time.
I know. The sniping comes from both sides. And that’s ok with me so long as we can talk about the issues. At this particular moment we just lost in Georgia and the fucking republicans are taking away our health care. I happen to believe we lost in Georgia bc he had nothing of value to say but bland and random thoughts.
Griffin’s stunt. That combined with the baseball field shooting is what I think flipped the election. It gave Rs a narrative to sell to their apathetic voters – basically those liberals are out of control just like those “damn hippies” were back in the 60’s and we need to stop them.
As for Ossoff himself he wasn’t running on bland and random thoughts. He ran on local issues that were resonating.
Comey cost Clinton the election. Ossoff lost it through the lack of any meaningful message.
And you know that how? How many voters paid attention to his announcement? How many had already voted?
You just can’t get over the fact that she was a red flag to a bull. So inelegant. Such a screeching voice. So obviously disdainful of the voters. So obviously two-faced that only zealots and ‘lesser evil” voters would vote for her.
Comey, my ass. Take a poll and see how many people even recognize the name Comey! 17% of the people think chocolate milk comes from brown cows and 42% don’t have a clue where it comes from.
Some of her own doing (like not focusing enough on rust belt states). Still when you use words like inelegant and screeching voice to describe her shortcomings you only lay bare that misogyny was also one of those reasons.
Both her primary opponent and her general election opponent spent much more time on the trail raising their voices and they were never accused of having “screeching voices.” Both of them wore sloppy ill fitting clothes when hers were usually impeccably tailored and they were never accused of being inelegant.
Oh! Now we play the gender card. Pathetic.
I’d bet there are a shitload of voters who don’t remember Kathy Griffin any better than I do. She got 15 minutes of fame but is utterly unimportant.
I’d bet there are a shitload of voters who don’t remember Kathy Griffin any better than I do. She got 15 minutes of fame but is utterly unimportant.
With that picture of her side by side footage of the shooting at the baseball field comparing Ossoff to them. Ossoff had a solid lead before her dumb ass publicity stunt. It eroded a bit with that but the election flipped around after the shooting. That is why I believe it was those two events that changed the tide of that particular election.
with people of color. I did post that the base of the DNC party is not the self identified white progressives that were Sanders predominant support. And no pushback against the idea that that group is the base of the Democratic party should never be given a rest. I am dang tired of people all over the progressive blogosphere conveniently ignoring who the base of the party is.
What’s the definition of a party’s base?
And that is women, in particular women of color. Has been for years.
So whichever demographic includes the greatest percentage, not absolute number, of reliable supporters is the party base? The demographic that is 10th on the list is not? People from other demographics who, as individuals, are equally loyal and active, are not?
In that case, the Democratic party base is black non-Hispanic women over the age of 70. And the ‘base’ does not include atheists, LGBTQ, Jews, Hispanics, Asians, or white progressives. White progressives are wrong to imagine that they are ‘the’ party base in part because there’s no such thing. It’s a coalition. Without black women, we’ve got nothing. Without white progressive men, we’ve got nothing. Without Jews and gays and Asians, we’ve got–if not nothing, something approaching nothing.
For the purpose of many here, the base is “anyone who didn’t vote for HRC in the primary.” Everyone knows they are the only “real” democrats.
Sanders is popular with over 80% of Democrats. Rank and file Democrats like him as much as anyone in politics today.
That is the Party’s base. POC, the young, white progressives all like Sanders quite a bit. If you don’t like him that is your right: you are in very small minority though however you define the base of the Party.
There is a small group of Clinton loyalists who can’t let it go. The vast majority of Democrats already have.
BECAUSE THEY ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS RIGHT NOW.
I specifically pointed out his supporters (meaning the people who voted for him) DURING THE PRIMARY were NOT the party base. This was IN RESPONSE to a post that the party base was ignored because Sanders didn’t win the primary. The party base was not ignored because the candidate the base of the party supported won the primary
As for the rest I supported Clinton but I am hardly a loyalist as I started out supporting O’Malley. It just rankles me when people in the predominantly white and yes male progressive blogosphere assume they are the base of the party. It erases years of work that the base of the party has put in.
I know what is important right now which is why I have been calling and writing and going to my Republican reps office.
Still I can do two things at once and pushing back against people trying to minimize the work that women do for the Democratic party is something I will always push back on.
Wherever your statistics come from, whatever but Wilmer sure isn’t popular with me, very much the opposite.
But he’s an evil white man!
Camussie’s remark is typical of the Democratic Party. White Men no longer wanted.
Your remark is typical of a modern US conservative, saying that Democrats hate straight white Christian men, because, like, there are other races and sexes and stuff.
Nor did I say that white men were not wanted in the Democratic party. I simply pointed out that self identified white progressives are not the base of the Democratic party and they aren’t. That is simply a statistical fact.
Any claims otherwise should be pushed back on which is why I corrected Opit’s statement that the DNC ignored its base when Clinton was nominated. No it didn’t because the base of the party supported Clinton.
I don’t know how they break out as progressive or other but 57% of registered democrats are white. Vs 86% republican. So there is that. I’m not at all sure which group has the most progressives, but then I had not previously thought about it much. (Stats are Pew Research)
Is two very different things. Women, in particular women of color, are the most reliable voters in the Democratic party. That is why if we are going to drill down to who the base of the party is – it is women and more succinctly women of color.
Woman of color do not make up the 57% white. But I agree we need to get all dems out to vote, like with a message.
And more than that they are not the same as the people who do the work of the party – knocking doors, making calls, etc. Women are the majority of party activists with women of color being the most active.
As a Canadian, I had not worried too much about sexual, racial and demographic breakdowns of the so called ‘Democratic’ party. Since such a title is a farce in the bipartisan tyranny of the War Party which cries crocodile tears on one side and is openly batshit crazy on the other…..business as usual for representative governments… I was merely noting the open display of corruption ( courtesy Wikileaks ) did not enhance the narrative of the Dems, nor did flogging aggression upon a powerful foreign air force in another victim country appeal to war weary citizens.
“white self identifying progressives” may not be part of the Democratic “base” as you define it, but we ARE a group that the Democratic party can NOT win elections without.
It is impossible to win the primary without the support of the base of the party. The predominantly white progressive blogosphere fancies itself the base of the Democratic party and in doing so erase the work that women, in particular women of color have put in year in and year out.
Never mind the Russians, Here’s the Clinton Outrage.
At least y’all are consistent.
Keep on fighting the good fight from a year ago. Once that time machine gets invented, everything will be better.