My guess is it's more of a no to Trump than support for Clinton. He probably also feels that while already an outsider, he has a better chance of pushing any of his ideas if he falls back in line. I'd imagine too, that in light of Ryan's recent comments among so many other things he's not sure if a fractured democratic base is what he wants. Yeah, it sucks. If it was anyone other than Clinton I would understand it. As far as the dems rigging the election, I'm not sure that's totally true, but the between the joke that is the superdelegates and the media doing everything they could to see that Clinton won, it's at least a bit shady. The PAC that paid people to argue with Sanders supporters on the internet and tried to get pro Sanders groups/websites taken down was some shit I could only see coming out of a Hillary campaign, but that was probably just more embarrassing rather than actually affected much of anything.
Bernie's campaign as the outsider was a gimmick. He was a senator for fucks sake, how can he claim he's going to "shake up washington", when he made a career off playing the game and staying in there? The best example I can think of, of a true outsider is TDR. That guy legitimately wasn't part of the club and when he came into power pissed off the powers that be.
Now the Republicans are talking about staging an all out delegate revolt at the RNC. This just keeps getting better and better. One other interesting tid bit: Trump's latest flap involving the Latino judge? It looks like Trump may have had cause for concern about getting a fair trial. The judge is a member of the La Raza Lawyers Association, who claim that they are not affiliated with the La Raza that was behind all the violent protests in California. Some quotes from the founder of the La Raza Lawyers Association: Obledo: "We're going to take over all the political institutions of California. In five years the Hispanics are going to be the majority population of this state." Caller: "You also made the statement that California is going to become a Hispanic state, and if anyone doesn't like it, they should leave. Did you say that?" Obledo: "I did. They ought to go back to Europe." http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/hispanicleaders.asp
As a Bernie supporter, yes, I'm bummed out that he didn't win the nomination. That he did as well as he did in a system that is rigged toward keeping presidential candidates loyal to the party's establishment is a pretty big deal of itself. At this point though, it's about keeping Trump out of the White House. I do find it interesting that in states that had open primaries, Bernie generally did very well and when they weren't Clinton did well. That says to me that Bernie had more support from actual people than just establishment party members. I'm willing to swallow this since it appears that Bernie will be able to change the party platform to focus more on income inequality. Link. I believe that Bernie's biggest impact would have been as president, but changing the party's direction is a close second.
He was an independent the entire time he was a senator, and the primary focus of his campaign revolved around removing the corruption that dominates the inner circle of both parties. If you followed this election at all and saw what was happening between the media, superdelegates, and other establishment dems and didn't see him as an outsider, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe next election we'll have some dude off the street with no experience in politics. Oh, right. That would be Trump. He lost the primary. The establishment consolidated their position. He got plenty of attention for his message, but I'll believe this actually changed the party's direction when I see it.
I hope Bernie ends up in some kind of larger role than senator after this. I like a lot of his (more realistic) ideas and more about him than Clinton, but I don't think he'd be a good president, and I think that kind of role is a much better fit for him. I think he is affecting the party already by pulling Clinton in his direction, and I'm hoping that'll actually stick post-primaries. Clinton is definitely paying attention to how much support he has and how many primaries he won and how close the margins often were when he lost and she knows what he stands for so I think she'd shift at least some of her focus (and opinions) to those issues to appease his supporters. I wasn't going to vote in the primaries this year, but I hate not voting, and I decided to go for Bernie as more of a symbolic vote for that reason, to play into that part of her since I assumed she'd be winning New York anyway. It's both a good and bad thing about her, in my opinion.
RE: Gawker I want to make it clear that I am NOT defending what they write or how they write it. But does it bother anybody else even the slightest bit worried that a billionaire with an axe to grind can effectively silence a media company and do it publically? What exactly did Gawker do to arouse Peter Thiel's ire? They outed a gay man who was out already and pointed out the hypocrisy of him supporting politicians who are anti-gay, yet pro-business. That looks to me that a guy with a fuckton of money, wanted more money, and was willing to get it at the expense of the LGBTQ community. After all, why would Thiel, a guy with a net worth of nearly $3 billion, give a shit about queerfolk with less money than him. Would it be because he can ruin anybody that's dumb enough to homophobic around him? I guess I'd give less of a shit if there was anybody in the LGBTQ community whose net worth is less than six figures that can do the same. And what about the rest of the people who depended on Gawker for a paycheck? They didn't even do anything and are now collateral damage to a rich man who apparently believed he didn't have enough money. Thiel being a garbage person aside, one of the jobs of the media is to keep the rich and powerful in check. Or at the very least, the appearance of keeping them in check. I'm fucking disgusted.
What's interesting is from what I've researched, caucuses favor establishment candidates over outsiders, yet Bernie outperformed Hillary in the caucuses 12 to 6. And of the 18 caucuses, 12 are closed (Bernie won 7 of them). Primaries split more down the middle, with 18 out of the 40 open. But over all, Hillary won 62% of the closed formats (whether primary or caucus) to Bernie's 38%, but with open formats she only won 58-42. Both candidates got more of their victories from closed formats than open ones, though Hillary's percentage was a few points higher (60 vs. 58 for Bernie).
They outed him in a public forum when he was out privately. Just cause my friends and family know something about me, doesn't mean I want everyone to know. Not to mention they did so in a flippant and douchey manner..."Peter Thiel is totally gay, people", I mean, come on. Then they consistently went after him enough to continue to poke the bear, or otter, or seal, I'm not sure what he identifies as (JOKES!) And he didn't silence anyone, they fucked themselves by their arrogant and stupid style of journalism which lead to the lawsuit. Normally lawsuits like this never go to court cause big companies lawyer the fuck out of the plaintiffs, which is where Thiel stepped in. To me this isn't a free speech thing, this is a media company overstepping their bounds multiple times, and one time in illegal fashion and they got their comeuppance. Lets not forget Gawker used to have celeb trackers where they would take tips and post real time alerts about celebrity locations. Fuck them.
Yes, I'm very angry and worried about this, especially with Trump being so in favor of opening up the libel laws if he were to become president when it's clear he's passionate about that to shut down people who bruise his ego and hurt his feelings. But, yeah, he's so pro free speech and anti PC culture.
How could Gawker out him if he was out already? I haven't seen any publications stating that him being gay was already public knowledge before that story broke, but maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, fuck Gawker. They have engaged in a ton of dishonesty and social justice journalism, not giving a shit who they hurt or target as long as they get the page views. Good riddance to those scumbags. Gawker has the right to print the terrible shit it spews, but Peter Thiel also has the right to wield his economic resources to legally destroy them.
It's not as if Gawker was on the side of truth and justice before the Big Bad Billionaire came along and ruined everything. Gawker is losing primarily because they're in the wrong. The Hogan sex tape was not in the "public interest" and I have little patience for the spurious "slippery slope" arguments I keep hearing(in real life conversations, not anyone on here).
The billionaire didn't fabricate any information or do anything nefarious or outside of the law to bring down Gawker.... he basically enabled a legal recourse by writing a cheque. Gawker did all the shit themselves, and their downfall is 100% on them, not a guy who wrote a cheque for the lawyer that took them to task. The REAL issue here is the fact that people without such resources don't have the ability to take a stand against such wrongdoing.
I don't know how anybody can see this as anything but a freedom of speech thing. A rich guy indirectly pushed a media company into bankruptcy because his feelings got hurt. Gawker didn't actually report anything untruthful about Thiel, so he waits for someone else to sue and bankrolls their case. That's looks to me like the legal equivalent of someone hiring a hitman to kill an annoying neighbor. As Gawker being in the wrong, it seems to me that if you're a celebrity talking about your sex life in a public forum, you don't get to sue if someone writes a story about it. Link.
More like your annoying neighbor sees you doing private stuff in your home and tells the entire neighborhood about it. So then when you hear about your neighbor stealing from another person in the neighborhood, you give that person the money to buy a surveillance system and drive them to the police station to report it. They still did something illegal. That was bore out in court. Thiel didn't buy a judge. You can hate Thiel, thats fine, but stop acting like Gawker is some innocent victim here.
I don't think anything I say is going to change your mind, so we'll agree to disagree on this, but I'm going to post this anyway. I don't believe Gawker did anything wrong. A person who knowingly becomes a public figure does so with the expectation that they'll lose a lot of the right to privacy that the rest of us have. When you talk about your exploits on Howard Stern, you lose even more of those rights. When a witness flip flops on his testimony that Hogan knew he was being taped and that they had a conversation about what would happen if the tape got leaked, and that information never reaches the jury, of course the jury will rule against Gawker. Never mind the fact that up until this trial, every other lawsuit filed by Hogan was dismissed because Gawker had first amendment protection. I don't believe for a second that this verdict will stand up to appeals. In any case, my issue isn't with what Gawker did, but that Thiel made it happen.
Gawker stated, in court, that a sex tape with a 4 year old would be newsworthy. Read this and tell me they weren't slimy fucking idiots with an overly developed sense of self-entitlement: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/b...mony-stuns-courtroom-in-hulk-hogan-trial.html I have zero sympathy for them and consider them going away a great thing for society, and hope the trend continues. The social desire to be titillated by scandal is overtaking the right to privacy and it has to stop.
Gawker also leaks nude photos of celebrities while running a feminist website, will "expose" wealthy and influential people for having off-shore accounts while running their business out of the Cayman Islands, and will release a list of personal information of law abiding gun owners and flip shit when someone does the same to one of their editors. They are the worst kind of people. And as for the people that are now out of jobs, fuck them too. The people comprise the organization, not the other way around. Look what pieces of shit these people are:
I didn't know much about Gawker until I saw the video Juice posted. Its incredible the editor says the things published aren't true and to expect that they're true is essentially naive. She's saying they can post whatever they dam well like, truth be damned, no matter how libelous or intentionally harmful it is. Hell they even had an app called Stalker. Didn't know about that. She tries to defend that too. Gawker put a cute girl on tv with Kimmel and let her get shredded. I'm sure her bosses knew that was going to happen and didn't mind sacrificing her because maybe if she's attractive Kimmel will go easy on her.
What disturbs me most is this milkdud was given the option to make bail. Then made bail. Reservist left bacon at a mosque and brandished a handgun while threatening to kill Muslims and bury them there. "Authorities found several handguns and other weapons, plus about 500 rounds of ammunition in Langford's vehicle, Kivett said. He said Langford didn't make specific threats about a mass shooting other than to say he wanted to kill mosque members." Oh, ok. Since he didn't admit it, sure, let him post bail. Spoiler size: Spoiler Second worst thing: wasting good bacon. It isn't kryptonite, retard.