The end for Bernie Sanders and the Democrats

The Editorial Board of the Washington Examiner says goodbye to Bernie Sanders.

Before ending his second run for president on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders was a beacon of false hope to those who lack any memory of socialism’s immense human cost.

He helped people believe, for a time, that there is a simple answer to all of life’s problems and that it resides in a powerful central government.

...the laboratory of history has tested socialism and found it wanting in almost every respect.

...Everywhere, it promised equality and delivered brutality. It promised to end slavery but instead universalized it. It promised to end colonialism but established puppet regimes on nearly every continent. It promised plenty and delivered scarcity. (By the way, senator, bread lines are the result of scarcity, not of fairness.) Socialism promised, as George Orwell eloquently put it, “better wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about.” Yet its legacy will forever be the many genocides and murderous misgovernance that would be impossible without a fanatical commitment to central planning.

This, incidentally, is why socialist governments must always censor information, even the internet, to the extent possible. The survival of socialism depends on keeping people mostly in the dark, unaware of the truth.

This is also the case with the “democratic socialism” Sanders preaches, which turns out to be something of a misnomer. It is no coincidence that every tin-pot communist dictatorship called itself a “democratic republic.” This makes more sense when you realize that dictatorship and democracy are perfectly compatible under socialism. To the socialist, “democracy” does not signify a popular right to vote or the right to choose a system of government or economy. In fact, socialism cannot ever allow such choices. Rather, for the socialist, the Greek-derived word “democratic” refers to the “empowerment” of “the people” through other means, such as forcible expropriation of others’ property and businesses and liberation from traditional institutions that supposedly oppress the people — you know, the family, culture, national identity, and religion. Only everything people hold dear.

In short, “democratic socialism” is not “democratic” the way normal people understand the word. "Democratic socialists" want to empower you, good and hard; no, you don’t get any say in the matter, and, when they are done, you will be so empowered and liberated that there probably won’t be any need or chance for more elections. For further details, ask a Venezuelan.

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Bernie Sanders hands it to Biden

From Ace:

Bernie Sanders Drops Out to Give Nomination to Senile Racist Credibly Accused of Rape

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Is this true?

After Bernie's speech today, a commenter at the Ace of Spades blog wrote in part,

He also likes all that sweet, sweet campaign cash and he and his grifter wife get to keep. Jane Sanders get 15% of all the campaign's media buys as her commission as the media buyer. Jane Sanders' son and daughter set up multiple for-profit political consulting companies, that they "run" out of Bernie and Jane's Burlington house, that the campaign pays for all kinds of "services."

All the dopes who have been contributing tens of millions of dollars to Bernie's campaign are making the Sanders family very rich. For every $10 million in media buys, Jane Sanders banks $1.5 million for her and Bernie's personal bank account. And because of the campaign reporting laws, which are deliberately opaque, we don't even know how much they've been scamming on the "consultant" dodge that the kids are running, but it's probably for millions as well.

No one can accuse Bernie of moving to the center!

Jason Hopkins reports in the Daily Caller,

Democratic 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders has hired Phillip Agnew as a campaign adviser, promoting an individual who supports the abolishment of prisons and has a history of making inflammatory comments.

The Sanders campaign announced on Saturday that Agnew — who was already serving as a top campaign surrogate — has been hired on as a senior adviser. Agnew notably works as a co-director for Dream Defenders, a far-left group that advocates for the abolishment of prisons and police, the end of capitalism, and supports open borders.



...Agnew has made inflammatory statements about 9/11 in the past and has blamed “U.S. interventionist policy” for the terrorist attacks.

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Unlimited breadsticks

From the Babylon Bee:

HYATTSVILLE, MD—An exasperated waitress at a local Olive Garden restaurant was forced to ask Senator Bernie Sanders if he was just gonna sit there all night eating free breadsticks or if he was going to order something, sources confirmed Monday evening.

Sanders walked in and the waitress asked if she could bring him a basket of breadsticks while he thought about what he wanted to order. Sanders' eyes went wild. "Free bread? Oh, I think I would like that very much."

"You mean---you'll just bring breadsticks I can munch on while I mull over the menu?" he asked. "I don't have to stand in a line for them or anything? Great, bring 2 baskets---no wait, make that 3!"

The senator also ordered a water to sip on and proceeded to examine the menu carefully for the next three hours. "You know what the problem with places like this is?" he asked his frustrated server 30 minutes after the restaurant closed and he still hadn't ordered anything. "There's too much selection. I don't want to live in a world where we have 14 different varieties of chicken alfredo. Selection, choice, abundance---all evils of late-stage capitalism!"

About an hour later, Sanders reportedly attempted to escape out the bathroom window to avoid paying for anything, but his tufts of hair got caught on the window sill.

At publishing time, Sanders took to Twitter to rant against the evils of capitalism after Olive Garden attempted to charge him $4.99 for the unlimited breadsticks.

Bait and switch

Paul Mirengoff writes in part in PowerLine,

In reality, the policies Sanders advocates bear little resemblance to those of Denmark and other Scandinavian countries today. They do resemble many of the policies these countries tried 50 years ago. However, these policies failed and were discarded.

The Vermont socialist is getting away with false advertising, including bait and switch.

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"It's unfair to criticize the whole thing!"

From the Babylon Bee:

U.S.—In a televised interview, Bernie Sanders has praised slave owners for their free housing program offered to all slaves working the plantations.

"Of course, the slavery was bad, but the slaves were housed, for free I might add, for their entire employment," Sanders said in an interview with 60 Minutes. "So it's unfair to criticize the whole thing. Also, the slaveowners were pretty impressive guys. The plantations were very clean, very nice buildings. I actually honeymooned at one in Virginia back in 1845, and it was an eye-opener for me as to how much propaganda has been used to malign slaveowners and their healthcare, housing, and literacy programs."

At publishing time, sources had also confirmed that Bernie Sanders had defended hell itself, saying the place of eternal torment has "gotten a bad rap" and "isn't such a bad place."

Bernie and nuclear waste disposal

Guy Benson reports in Town Hall,

As someone who follows politics quite closely, I'm often fascinated when a potent piece of opposition research against a major candidate for office percolates below the radar for years, yet never quite breaks through. Have you ever heard of 'Sierra Blanca,' as it relates to Bernie Sanders? Neither had I. Neither had hardly any voters, I'd wager. Well, expect that to change, sooner or later. Tim Miller, a hardcore anti-Trump conservative, is adamantly opposed to Democrats nominating Sanders. He's written a piece outlining a somewhat obscure episode that he anticipates would be used as a powerful cudgel to clobber Bernie in a general election. Out of pure curiosity, I clicked the link in one of his tweets, and...wow:

(1) In 1998, then-Rep. Sanders cosponsored a bill that would allow Vermont and Maine to dump their nuclear waste in a poor and largely Latino town in Texas called Sierra Blanca.

(2) A Texas Observer article in 1998 covered protestors from Sierra Blanca confronting Rep. Sanders and being given the stiff arm. The story’s headline was “Sanders to Sierra Blanca: Drop Dead.” Sanders even rebuffed an offer to visit Sierra Blanca, telling its residents, “Absolutely not. I’m gonna be running for re-election in the state of Vermont.”

(3) Liberal hero Paul Wellstone—an actual progressive Democrat—gave a speech on the Senate floor calling this dump “environmental racism.” Former Texas Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes called Sanders actions “insanely callous.”

(4) After Congress approved the proposal, environmental regulators rejected the Sierra Blanca site. But a different site in Andrews County, Texas gained approval a few years later and Vermont/Texas maintain an interstate waste agreement.

(5) In 2016, Sanders’ tax returns revealed that as of 2014 Jane Sanders was still drawing a small salary as an alternate commissioner for the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission as part of the agreement with Vermont that her husband pushed.

This story is, well, toxic. Bernie drew up an environmentally-controversial proposal to dump nuclear waste in a Latino community, then refused to meet with the people it impacted. Oh, and he managed to secure a little sweetheart deal to enrich his wife in the process. Funneling public and campaign money to his spouse (no stranger to financial scandal) has been something of a pastime for this socialist, who was a jobless deadbeat before becoming a career politician who is now a millionaire with three homes. This episode is problematic for Bernie on the subjects ranging from environment, to race, to his "man of the people" persona, to graft.

Read more here and watch an ad being used against Bernie.

Revelation

Jonah Goldberg writes in National Review,

...power doesn’t merely corrupt the powerful, the real corruption it causes can be found in those who make apologies for it.

...It seems pretty obvious to me that the rage I hear from Trump supporters when I say they’re wrong stems from a kind of insecurity or resentment. Simply put, they want to be validated. It’s an awfully similar response to what we hear constantly on college campuses from the delicate little flowers who say they don’t want debate, they want empowerment. It turns out that many of the mental habits we mock and ridicule on the left have ample purchase on the right as well.

This revelation, along with several others, has been painful but useful. The Trump candidacy has been a like a dye marker, highlighting traits and inclinations on the right I didn’t appreciate or acknowledge. I’m grateful for the lesson, though I can’t say I’m glad I had to learn it.

I concede that for conservatives living in swing states, this is a legitimately painful decision. Clinton and Sanders alike would be horror shows. But my answer is simple: I will never vote for Trump and I will never vote for Hillary or Bernie. Period.

...One last thing on Trump. I completely understand why some of you complain about my alleged Trump obsessions. I get it. I don’t like turning the G-File into the T-File either. But this is the pressing issue of the moment. I have little patience with critics who say I never attack Hillary Clinton, which is simply put, preposterous. But right now, in this moment, we have a chance to stop Trump and actually put a serious-minded conservative on the ticket, namely Ted Cruz. If we fail at that, there will be plenty of time -- maybe even four or eight years! -- to get back to criticizing Hillary Clinton.

Read more here.