Lena Dunham on smears from Bernie fans: “I’m going to turn into a shaking ogre woman”

When you think of all the horrible things that have been said to and about Lena Dunham, you’d have to wonder if she’d be hard-pressed to pick the sources of some of the really outstanding stuff. This after all is a woman who’s been called am incestuous sex abuser for memoir revelations like bribing her sister for kisses when they were children. A woman who, in her own estimation, has routinely been described as “fat and hideous.” One whose veiled description of a man she says sexually assaulted her in college led conservative sites to call her a “rape hoaxer.” So who was she talking about this weekend, when she mentioned a group that has been giving very very special grief of late? “Other members of the Democratic Party.” Oh, it Berns. It Berns.

I swear to God I don’t know how we’re all going to make it to November. This terrifying fiasco of an election year would be bad enough if the only thing we had to worry about was the Orange One. But the way that those of us who call ourselves liberal have become caught up in the ugly Hillary v. Bernie race is just exhausting. At least there’s some consolation in knowing that apparently everybody else is in the crosshairs too. Variety reports that at a weekend Clinton campaign event in Hollywood, the “Girls” creator and star said decisively that “I have received more hostility for voting for a qualified female candidate than I have ever received anywhere from the American right wing.” That’s quite a feat, considering the National Review has accused her of “building an ever-thicker cocoon of fantasy, prescription drugs, and weaponized celebrity, [and] manipulating reality to her own specifications,” and Truth Revolt has called her a child molester.

Dunham, who appeared at the event with Chelsea Clinton and actress America Ferrera, went on to describe how on Instagram, a Sanders fan who “obviously had no avatar” commented to her recently that Bernie Sanders had done more for feminism than Hillary Clinton ever had — an observation that led Dunham to lose her “freaking mind.” She went on to say that “The fact that other members of the Democratic Party have spoken to me like I was an ill informed child for voting for someone who represents everything I think this country should be is outrageous…. The idea that you’re gonna tell me that the woman who stepped into the White House when I was 6 years old and made me think it was possible to live the life I wanted and say the things I believed has somehow not done enough for women is so offensive to the core of my being.” She concluded, “I’m going to stop talking now because I’m going to turn into a shaking ogre woman.”

In recent months, the phenomenon of Bernie Bros has become a sore spot in a campaign year of unlimited festering wounds. First, there came the identification of the species — described last fall in the Atlantic with the explanation that “The Berniebro is not every Bernie Sanders supporter. Sanders’s support skews young, but not particularly male. The Berniebro is male, though. Very male.” Then there came the stories of that particular strain Bernie fans — who Elon James White says, “harass and try to take away the credibility from the people who question Mr. Sanders.” Mashable likewise reported on the growing “sexist mob” of Sanders supporters. Then of course came the Bernie Bros deniers, like the Huffington Post piece announcing they were a myth created by “angry white people supporting Hillary”or the Glenn Greenwald story calling the term “an all-purpose, handy pro-Clinton smear.”

Last month, Sanders told his more troll-centric fans that “We don’t want that crap” and that “Anybody who is supporting me that is doing the sexist things — we don’t want them.” And while the responses Dunham’s received from Sanders fans sound more like everyday mansplaining than full-on “crap,” they do speak to something Jessica Grose talked about earlier this year in Dunham’s Lenny Letter — the infuriating assumption that women who support Hillary are somehow doing so under orders from their confused little lady reproductive systems. And it’s one thing when your ostensible idealogical opponents are condescending to you like it, it’s quite another when you’re hearing it from the other members of your own political party.


http://www.salon.com/2016/03/21/lena_dunhams_biggest_haters_are_bernie_fans_im_going_to_turn_into_a_shaking_ogre_woman_over_smears_from_fellow_dems/

I can tell Spring Break is upon us

There are way more anti-Hillary posts than usual.

On foreign policy, Bernie is a one-trick pony

Iraq is his only response to any foreign policy question. He has no vision for the future. Sometimes I think Iraq and the Soviet Union are the only country he can find on a map.

Dow turns positive for year: Erases 2,000-point plunge

The Dow turned positive for the year on Thursday, erasing a scary start to the year that at one point had the index down as much as 1,974 points in just the first three weeks of 2016.

The remarkable rebound has been driven by a spike in oil prices and fading fears of a possible recession in the U.S. Oil has returned to $40 a barrel and the U.S. economy continues to grow, despite the global slowdown.

But just a few weeks ago the markets were in full meltdown mode, with many predicting the bull market was on its death bed.

"That marked the zenith of panic. The market traded to extremely oversold conditions," said Peter Kenny, an independent market strategist. "Since the lows we've seen the market rally in stealth mode. Those who panicked got punished."


http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/17/investing/stocks-positive-2016-dow-jones-oil/

Sanders’s path to victory involves unprecedented and absurd delegate math

Top Sanders supporter falls for Fox ploy to divide Bernie and Hillary

Prominent Bernie Sanders supporter Shaun King (who is openly campaigning for Sanders) just used Facebook to promote a conspiracy theory concocted by Fox News ultra-conservative commentator, and comedian, Dennis Miller.

According to Miller — in a comment posted on Facebook, which King then shared approvingly with his followers — Bernie Sanders would be winning the Democratic nomination right now if it weren’t for “the rigged [superdelegate] game.”

The not-terribly-objective Miller recommends that Bernie Sanders’ supporters “don’t take it,” and “rise up.”

Lest anyone think that Dennis Miller is recommending this out of his great love for progressive ideals, Miller has previously claimed that Democrats created the “birther” lie, and that President Obama “has Islamic sympathies.” Miller also suggested that the protester who was sucker-punched at Donald Trump’s recent rally shared some of the blame for getting hit in the face. That’s who Dennis Miller is. (He went off the rails about 15 years ago.)

Let’s put aside the fact that Sanders announced last night on Rachel Maddow’s show that if he can’t win the popular vote, he’s going to try to take Hillary’s superdelegates in order to secure the nomination anyway. It will be interesting to see if Shaun King now criticizes Sanders’ effort to rig the election by super delegate.



http://americablog.com/2016/03/top-sanders-supporter-falls-fox-ploy-divide-bernie-hillary.html

The only two scenarios by which Hillary will not be nominated

1. The favorite "Hillary-will-be-indicted" meme of the right wing. (Won't happen).

2. Super delegates will swing the nomination to Sander's. (Hillary will already have a majority of delegates.)

Column: Sanders, Warren will help Clinton unite Democrats

But the GOP candidate won’t be Clinton’s only asset. Once she’s sewn up the nomination, she’ll collect two endorsements that could sway skeptical progressives: one from Sanders, the other from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

“There’s going to be no reluctance on his part” if Clinton wins, Sanders’ chief strategist, Tad Devine, told me. “He has said that Hillary Clinton is extremely well qualified to be president. Meanwhile, he’s competing, and it’s going to go all the way to the end of the primaries.”

Warren hasn’t said when she’ll make an endorsement, but she’s already thinking about how she could play a role in helping Clinton win — and, meanwhile, nudging Clinton toward more progressive positions.

“Economic populism is driving a lot of the debate,” a person familiar with Warren’s thinking told me. “She knows how to communicate and operate in that space. She takes seriously her role in helping Democrats get it right.”

Warren has already lobbied Clinton to support expanding Social Security benefits, a favorite progressive goal. Last month, Clinton promised not to seek benefit cuts and said she wants to increase benefits for the poorest beneficiaries.

Warren also helped persuade Clinton to endorse legislation banning Wall Street executives from accepting “golden handshake” payments from their firms when they get government jobs.


http://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/column-sanders-warren-will-help-clinton-unite-democrats/article_0ed659b5-efea-5123-8b68-48ed5ddae79a.html

Pro-Trump Pastor Mark Burns Says Hillary Clinton Endorses Black 'Genocide’

Donald Trump does not like Hillary Clinton — and the pastor whom Trump brings along with him on the campaign trail believes that she harbors a desire to mass-murder black Americans.

Late last year, Pastor Mark Burns, co-founder of the South Carolina-based Christian TV network NOW, became a Trump surrogate after talking to the 2016 Republican presidential frontrunner at a closed-door meeting in New York City with various black pastors. Since then, Burns (or “Pastor Mark”) has introduced Trump at campaign events, prayed for him, sang his praises on social media, and gone on TV to talk about how wonderful a Trump presidency would be for the country, God, and black America.

“I'm not an Uncle Tom, no coon,” Burns said on MSNBC in November. “This is me looking at the politics, and looking at an individual, a strong leader that I believe that's going to bridge and bring a strength back to America.”

"Bernie Sanders…doesn't believe in God,” the pastor told a crowd of Trump fans last week. “Listen, Bernie gotta get saved. He gotta meet Jesus. He gotta have a come-to-Jesus meeting." (Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate and self-described democratic socialist, is Jewish.)


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/20/pro-trump-pastor-mark-burns-says-hillary-clinton-endorses-black-genocide.html

I guess the 'revolution' is too much work in Colorado.

From Reddit: