Bass responds to her Scientology welcome from 2010.

[demmiblue]

Link to tweet

[RockRaven]

1. Look, I don't have a good answer for "Well, what SHOULD she say about this?"

But I think it is weak tea to try to rely upon what's been published since 2010 as the excuse. Even by 2010 anyone who did the tiniest bit of homework knew Scientology was a dangerous and abusive cult, as well as an overt scam.

[judeling]

7. Yes, that is my problem with it also.

That was even 10 years after Battfeild Earth was released and all of the attention that brought onto the cult. At the very least that was terrible staff work and says nothing very good.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

39. No kidding.

That's 5 years after the South Park episode on Scientology.

[brush]

2. Seems like a non-story.

[LakeArenal]

9. Making it a big deal to Repugs

Unfortunately, media likes to make mountains out of nothing.

Yes, non-story.

[Hortensis]

3. Unfortunate that she had to say this. Big no to RW-style demonization. nt

[Eliot Rosewater]

8. Yep

And I just watched Bill Maher show and he had a couple of folks on their quoting the CATO institute & gym Jordan, no reason to ever watch the show ever again.

And these two people were allegedly progressives liberals

[wcmagumba]

11. I started watching that and had to turn it off...just wow...nt

[Hortensis]

15. "Alleged." Subversives masquerading as liberals for respectability

and giving us a bad name. People mistake libertarian social positions for liberal, and they're anything but, while of course being completely antithetical to progressivism in government also.

I despise Maher to the point that I haven't been able to watch him for years now, the few times I clicked on his show I quickly left when I saw him and usually who he had on. All those untrustworthy political "personalities" who betray and soil their nests until they have nowhere else to go, will turn up there.

[PatSeg]

47. Maher has been getting stranger and stranger

all the time. I haven't seen his show in a couple of months and I don't miss it. His response to the pandemic was irresponsible and dangerous in my view.

[Renew Deal]

4. We have better options and don't need this drama

[OnDoutside]

5. Such as ?

[BannonsLiver]

13. Such as the others who have been mentioned

[Hortensis]

16. So the character assassins win? What we need is for

more people to refuse to soak up lies without first examining them for truth. It's much, much easier to keep a lie from embedding in the first place, than to get it out once it has.

People should be afraid of falling for lies.

For years now, cyber warfare experts in the Kremlin and other nations, as well as our own RW, have been identifying people vulnerable to deceit and using them as our weak points. Once that happens they're targeted for ongoing bombardment of customized search engine responses, social media responses, and articles with links to more lies to keep them increasingly mind fucked. "Useful idiots" as the Kremlin calls them.

A fast-tracking of what took decades to do to those on the right before today's cyber capabilities.

What's all this to do with Bass, a highly respected congresswoman being considered for VP? Just look how quickly a malicious, character attack was soaked up, and this is Democratic Underground, not one of Hannity's or Carlson's feeds.

[Renew Deal]

19. Her appearance at the Scientology ribbon cutting is not disputed.

Appearing there is poor judgement.

[Hortensis]

21. No, it was doing her job properly. She's a congresswoman

and scientologists are one of the groups among her constituency.

Now, WHERE'd you get that idea? Can you track it back?

How about the old trick of showing a picture of a politician smiling at or shaking hands with someone we consider unsavory, like a Republican politician, with a caption accusing him or her of being unsavory by association, no need to question? Then further social media augmentation of attack, bot swarms? This poison comes at us from all sides.

[Renew Deal]

22. Do we need to go through the groups that would be unacceptable?

Let’s start with an easy one. Would you be OK with her attending a ribbon cutting for the NRA?

[Hortensis]

24. The easy one is to ask ourselves why we didn't look up

her religion, if we didn't already know it, on seeing this OP and other questionable incoming propaganda on the same theme.

I did, but since I already had a picture of her as a widely admired woman of good character and judgement, I fully expected to learn she was NOT Scientologist, and she wasn't. I mean, after all, how many of those are U.S. congressmen highly trusted and respected by their colleagues?

[Renew Deal]

26. I have no doubt that she is a great person.

But not all great people need to run for VP. Connections to Scientology are an unneeded distraction.

[Drunken Irishman]

28. So, if a right-wing, anti-gay church opened up in her district, she'd be obligated to praise it?

What is this was the Westboro Baptist Church instead?

What if it was a Chapter of the KKK that decided to open up in her district - would she need to praise them?

Scientology is an organization linked to some pretty fucking heinous acts that go well beyond most modern, mainstream religions.

So, no, it was not her job to be there. It's not her job to endorse every church/business/organization in her community and I wouldn't expect her to.

[sellitman]

6. I'm not comfortable with her reply.

She knew and the World knew what Scientology was back then. It's not a religion, its a cult.

She respected a cult. That's a bad career move as far as I am concerned. I hope Biden picks someone else.

That being said his choice will not change my vote. I will enthusiastically support him and whoever he picks.

[obamanut2012]

31. Yup, this was all very well known in 2010

[Gidney N Cloyd]

41. The South Park Scientology episode that made Isaac Hayes quit was 5 years earlier-- Nov. 2005.

And I don't think they were breaking new ground on what a bunch of dangerous crazies they were.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

42. Seinfeld parking garage episode where they have a run-in with a crazy Scientologist was 1991.

[PatSeg]

49. I'm not either

I really do like her, but her response to this and to her Fidel Castro comments just weren't reassuring. Joe has some great women to choose from and I'm sure he'll pick the person who will be a great partner for him. Everyone comes with some baggage and republicans will use that, but I don't think Bass has handle this well.

[AnotherMother4Peace]

10. Politicians beware: Scientology seeks out community leaders to help legitimize their cult.

They concoct great sounding front groups, offers of donations to community groups, campaigns, becoming "partners" with police, firefighters, schools. All with the end game of safe pointing, and weaseling their way into communities. And the "donations" often quickly become graft. Not saying that happened here, but it is highly suspected that many of their abuses continue because of compromised police/sheriff departments, and it is definitely their M.O.

[Midnight Writer]

12. I had a run in with Scientology recruiters way back in 1974.

Went to the library and found enough info on them that it scared me away.

[BannonsLiver]

14. If you're explaining you're losing.

Next!

[smirkymonkey]

23. +1000

[DeminPennswoods]

25. Yep

There are other excellent options.

Further, Rep Bass was one of the dump Pelosi leaders when she ran for Speaker. IMHO, Biden picking her would be an insult to Pelosi, who has shown real leadership during the epidemic and economic crisis.

[Codeine]

17. Oh fuck that.

Everyone knew what these slimy fucks were up to even then. She’s talking codswallop.

[NightWatcher]

18. When your defense is "I don't believe in that wacky cult, I believe in more accepted wacky cult"

Maybe we should ditch all the wacky magical mysticism?

[FreeState]

20. 1993 you could read about Scientology online

All the allegations of now were present then - IRC had a hug group and there were multiple websites thereafter.

Her statement shows her ignorance and lack of doing due diligence before speaking to a group.

[ucrdem]

27. The IRS says its a religion, and we're supposed to be tolerant of religions.

In fact we're legally barred from discriminating on the basis of religion. So while this is a juicy morsel indeed and may well be a deal-breaker, it won't bother me one bit if Bass gets the veep nod.

[Drunken Irishman]

29. Would it have bothered you if the church she praised was a right-wing, anti-gay church?

I'm not even talking the watered down Saddleback bullshit where they gussy up their hate under fancy talk and inclusion.

I'm talking about a church like, say, Westboro Baptist. If they decided to branch out, and she decided to attend their ribbon-cutting ceremony and said the exact same things as she said about Scientology, would be just shrug our shoulders?

Probably not.

[ucrdem]

32. Harry Reid was there, Bernard Parks was there,

the mayor of Hollywood was there. Parks is a former LA police chief who once ran for mayor. So whatever they needed to do to get straight with the local government they did. They haven't made trouble since that I'm aware of.

If Westboro Baptist were in Hollywood, and decided it wanted to clean up its act in a big way, then it would be Hollywood Baptist, and it would depend on the circumstances.

[Drunken Irishman]

33. So, that's a no.

Got it. Don't be a hypocrite. We would be opposed to any Democrat speaking in kind words about Westboro, as we should - and we should be opposed to those who legitimize Scientology, which, my friend, has not attempted to clean up their act.

As for Harry Reid, and Bernard Parks, okay and? They're not being tossed around as a VP candidate. I'm not saying Bass should resign. I am only saying that her praise of a cult should rule her out as a VP candidate, and I'll say the same for Harry Reid and Bernard Park. Neither of them should be on Biden's ticket, either.

Now, had this quote been made 20 or 30 years ago, I'd cut her some slack. But it was clear in 2010 that Scientology was a cult and practicing some awful things.

Here is a documentary released by the BBC in 2010, the same year she spoke, about Scientology:

[ucrdem]

44. I don't see this one appearance as a deal breaker, no.

Does it look bad, yes. Was it ill-advised, not necessarily. Did it have the desired effect? Well, your BBC video is ten years old, so maybe it did eh?

[Drunken Irishman]

45. I think, coupled with her Castro remarks, it might show a level of ignorance for national politics.

And it makes me wonder what else has been said or done. Remember, she's only been in the House since 2011. That's not a lot of time, and while I do not hold that against her in the least, it does mean that she's still relatively new to national politics. Because of that, I wonder how how many other moments like this there are out there?

This is the problem with selecting an unknown. You can only vet properly for so much. The last thing we want is to have to put out a ton of mini-fires on things that, separate of one another aren't a big deal, but collectively can exhaust a campaign.

I compare this to Val Demings, who's been in the House only two terms, and she seems to have a disciplined message. Even Kamala Harris, who's been in the Senate for a much briefer time, seems to not struggle with discipline message.

And you know what? That's fine. Bass is probably a fantastic congresswoman and represents a constituency that likely is fine with her comments. But as VP, you're going to represent the entire nation and I am concerned that there are more situations like this out there waiting to be unmasked.

Just today she had to renounce her Castro comments. It's bad optics. If she was the only choice, I'd agree with you. But I think there are other, more experienced, and disciplined candidates who bring just as much to the table as she does. After all, the number one responsibility for the running-mate at this juncture is to do no harm. Right now? She's doing harm.

[ucrdem]

46. Trump tweets 80 stupid things a day

and still got enough votes to cheat-win. And I'm not sure that any of the veep contenders are going to tip Florida our way if it's really in play, or Texas or Arizona. Beto might have, possibly, but he's been ruled out. So I don't think we need to play it too safe in the veep department, and Bass has strong left credentials and an impressive list of accomplishments. It might not be her night so to speak but I will pleasantly surprised if it is.

[Drunken Irishman]

50. Trump is about to lose reelection because of his dumb tweets and messaging.

Trump's dumb past comments nearly cost him the presidency four years ago - and likely would have had it not been for the Comey Letter.

Had Trump stopped tweeting and saying dumb shit every couple minutes, and just sat back and let science dictate his COVID response, he likely is beating Biden pretty comfortably. But it's a direct result of his stupid, undisciplined message that he's losing.

Even still, a shift in support away from Biden could cost votes. And it's not that I worry about losing votes to Trump. I worry about losing votes to sitting out or third party because that's what killed Hillary in 2016. I'm convinced a significant amount of potential Hillary voters were barely on the fence supporting her but once that Comey letter dropped, especially in MI, WI & PA, those voters could not force themselves to pull the lever for her and either voted for Johnson or didn't vote at all (or in Romney's case, wrote in Ann). That cost her the election.

At the end of the day, Trump is going to have his floor of support. They're going to be people who will vote for him no matter what. We have to concede that floor is 40%. Sure, higher than any of us would like but it's the reality. That means, while his ceiling is also much lower than Biden's, their middle probably is closer to one another than we'd like. If that's the case, it behooves Trump to keep those Never Trumpers or skeptical suburban voters who supported Obama in 2008, and again in 2012, but by a smaller margin, but didn't support Hillary by near as much, from voting for Biden. He may not win their support, but if he can plant seeds of doubt about Biden to the point they stay home or vote third party, that means the middle starts aligning a bit more...just as it did in 2016.

Look at it this way, right now Biden leads in PA by 6 points, with 49.4% of the vote. Trump has 43.4%.

In 2016, Trump won the state with 48.2%.

So, Biden is pacing ahead of Trump's total in 2016. But what if some of those supporters get cold feet and decide to back the third party again. Maybe 4% of Biden's 49% - now we're looking at 45% to 43% and all bets are off.

If these voters become concerned with Biden due to his VP choice, especially if there's more stories of her praising radical dictators, they might stay with Biden but they also might decide to sit it out or vote third party.

That's how Trump wins. He's not going to gain voters but if he can force Biden to lose voters, then a replay of 2016 presents itself.

[ucrdem]

51. Yes I see the logic but Trump is in trouble for serious malfeasance, not just dumb tweets

Don't forget he was impeached just a few months ago. Biden's position is very strong and I think his veep choice won't move the needle either way. I do think Kamala might be a problem. The rest I think would require vigorous defense on certain points but so would anyone. I don't think there's a female Tim Kaine out there who will do no harm whatever. In fact that might have been the logic that led to Bass being considered in the first place. Who knew she had strong lefty statements in her past? Probably very few until recently. So does that mean she goes under the bus? Maybe but I don't see how any current contender could avoid some critique or other. Keisha Lance-Bottoms is my personal favorite but she has no national experience, Rice has never been elected for anything, and so on. So my hope is that Joe picks someone he and Jill like a lot and think others will like too. That's about all he really has to worry about at this point. If that's Kamala fine, there's no accounting for taste!

[Drunken Irishman]

53. 40% of the country is going to vote for Donald no matter what. 40% will vote Biden no matter what.

That means there's 20% of the vote left up for grabs. Trump is not going to win anywhere near a majority of that 20%, but he'll likely still pull in enough to push his total to 43% or so nationally. Biden has a much higher ceiling than Trump, and likely a better chance of winning over a significant amount of that 40%. But it's not a foregone conclusion.

For Trump to win, he needs to lower Biden's potential support with that 20% as much as possible. Ideally, for him, anyway, he'd love to win some over in the process. That likely isn't going to happen. But if he can turn enough voters off nationally, so that Biden only wins an additional 8% and he wins, say, 4% to bring his total to 44 and Biden's to 48, then the election becomes more cloudy. If Trump can even bump his total to 45 or 46 and that may be enough to carry over into those states Hillary narrowly lost in 2016.

The bottom line: we don't want to give these fence sitters reason to vote third party or not vote at all. Bass may not do that - but she also might.

After all, despite everything we knew about Trump in 2016, Hillary's baggage, fair or not, and I'll say it was very unfair, still was enough to force a lot of voters to throw their vote away on a third party candidate.

[ucrdem]

54. I don't see Trump getting near what he got in 2016

and he barely cheated out a win then. I also don't think people stayed home. I think their votes, when they were able to cast them, were not counted. The recounts in PA and MI made that painfully clear. So that's a factor that the veep choice won't affect. Secondly where's the strong 3rd party alternative this year? I haven't heard of any. And third, I don't think Biden can or should try to game his final veep choice any more than he already did by announcing it would be a woman. That may or may not have helped on Super Tuesday but it could have been one of several factors that pushed him way ahead of the pack.

And now that we got all that out of the way, who's your pick and why?

[albacore]

30. Scientology shouldn't be a test...

..for VP. Or any office.

Lots of religions seem weird to many of us. And yet many people who believe serve us well.

I just have two questions for any of those qualified nominees.

1) Is the earth closer to 4 Billion years old... or closer to 10,000 years old?

2) Does god speak to you and tell you what actions to take?

10,000...? NEXT!

Yes... god speaks to you? NEXT!

(Oversimplified, but you get my meaning.)

[Drunken Irishman]

34. Scientology is a cult.

Plenty of things to be critical of religions over, but Scientology's criticisms aren't with what they believe but how they practice their cult. They prey on the vulnerable, force members to abandon family who show any skepticism toward Scientology and effectively brainwash members through brutal force, abuse, slavery and threats.

[albacore]

35. Soo...

Irish Catholics, then.

Half kidding. I was born an Irish Catholic.

[Drunken Irishman]

36. Half-kidding aside, you leave Scientology and you lose your family.

Maybe it happens in some of the more hardcore Catholic houses, but I doubt it's near the extent as Scientology.

The Leader of Scientology completely disowned his father because he left it. Look at what they did to Leah Remini after she came out and left - it was awful.

I'm not really a practicing Catholic anymore and you know what? Nothing really changed in my life except I had more free time on Sundays. My family didn't disown people, I wasn't attacked by my former priest ... but, unless you're flying solo in the cult, if you decide to leave, you're giving up your family and potentially will be stalked for the rest of your life.

Scientology is scary.

Really scary.

[albacore]

37. Agreed...

We have a cult running the White House right now.... we don't need another one.

[TexasBushwhacker]

38. Joe has better options. Hard pass n/t

[maximusveritas]

40. These are not just "allegations" against Scientology, they are facts, and she still won't admit that

The statement almost makes it worse in my opinion since it shows she was and is willfully ignorant.
Their crimes have been well known since the 60s as they committed domestic espionage against the US government and were even found guilty of organized fraud in France in 2009, just one year before her speech. So she has no excuse.
How can you praise them for equality and fighting oppression, when they are known to oppress their own members, target anyone who opposes them, and force women into having abortions?

[littlemissmartypants]

43. Poor judgment. Disqualifying move. She's a hard NO for me especially after this "apology" ....

I'm rooting for Keisha Lance Bottoms.

❤ lmsp

[milestogo]

48. She could be VP to Tom Cruise.

[oasis]

52. Her staff should have done research into Scientology before the event.

Was anyone let go back then?