Bernie Sanders campaign parts ways with staffer after report of homophobic and anti-Semitic tweets

[George II]

(CNN)Bernie Sanders' campaign has parted ways with a newly hired staffer after a conservative website unearthed a series of tweets allegedly from the staffer that contained anti-Semitic and homophobic language.

Darius Khalil Gordon announced Wednesday that he had taken a job with the campaign as the deputy director of constituency organizing. On Thursday, the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, reported that Gordan had sent tweets in 2010, 2011 and 2012 that contained offensive, anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs.

The tweets were no longer available on Gordon's page after the Free Beacon's post, and Gordon's Twitter account has since been deactivated.

The Sanders campaign told CNN that Gordon is no longer on the job.

"He is no longer with the campaign and we wish him the best," said Mike Casca, a campaign spokesman.

Gordon did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/06/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-staffer-out/index.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He should have been hired in the first place. Poor judgement or sloppy vetting. (more than four paragraphs, but this is the entire article)

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Who's vetting these people? Is anyone?

[NurseJackie]

6. Nobody, apparently. That doesn't appear to be a priority. Unfortunately...

Nobody, apparently. That doesn't appear to be a priority. Unfortunately, if this is how the CAMPAIGN is being run, it also provides insight into how a BS administration would be run as well. It's frightening to contemplate the idea of what kind of unvetted individuals would be selected for cabinet positions and for other key administrative appointments.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. Yes. We've already seen what happens when poorly-vetted people are selected

for important government positions.

[Lexee]

2. Sanders has not excelled at the hiring part. I would hate to see the VP we get, after we vote.

[LongtimeAZDem]

3. Imagine his cabinet

[Lexee]

5. We Democrats wouldn't have much say what type of government. We can only reflect on present hires,

to see what it would look like once elected. I am not happy.

[MineralMan]

14. No worries. I think.

[squirecam]

4. To be fair

He has other campaign jobs. Did they not investigate? Were they ok with such tweets?

[NurseJackie]

7. That's a fair question.

Were they ok with such tweets?

That's a fair question.

[Wawannabe]

8. Damn George II

That was fast. I read your other OP just under an hour ago informing us of this new addition and now you post his ousting! Lol!

[NurseJackie]

10. And that's about how long it would have taken to vet this fellow...

... if only someone had cared enough to bother.

[sheshe2]

12. Exactly.

[OldRed2450]

9. He only has a problem with these hires IF he gets bombarded with...

opposition. People have been tweeting about this hire since Wednesday. Like the NYT piece that Nina Turner retweeted said... Bernie doesn't care all that much about social issues.

[Cha]

50. "... doesn't care all that much about

social issues.."?

I had read BS was a "micromanager".. so I'm guessing that no longer holds true?

[OldRed2450]

57. I think it's still true.

In my opinion, he didn't care and didn't think anyone would notice, when they did, he had to fire him.

Did you read the NYT piece Nina Turner amplified?

Link to tweet

[Cha]

59. lol. I commented on

twitter about that.

Twitter can be good.. you say what you want.

[sheshe2]

11. Good.

Thank you, George.

[Cha]

15. Has the BS team not heard of Vetting Before

hiring & Firing? Shaun King was happy with Darius..

Link to tweet

[squirecam]

19. He was quick

To vilify Bloomberg.

*crickets* on Gordon....

[Cha]

22. He really got told on his thread..

Link to tweet

[squirecam]

23. No response though

Nt

[Cha]

27. right.. the usual crickets.

[cwydro]

39. Lol.

No comment.

I don’t dare.

Good find.

[myohmy2]

16. it seems...

...the anti-Bernie crowd is out having a good time today...bless their hearts,

...I guess if you can't effectively attack Bernie-substance then attack Bernie-procedure...

...where have I seen that before?

...can you say irrelevant...

[Lexee]

17. It's irrelevant who Sanders hires? The people that hire for Sanders obviously agrees.

It could be the core issue with 2016 campaign sexual harassment and abuse.

[squirecam]

18. Hiring

A sexist and homophobic person for your campaign isn’t procedure.

It’s a repetitive substantive problem.

[myohmy2]

21. thank you...

...I'll be sure to tell Bernie that the next time I see him...

...

[Cha]

25. You do that.

[squirecam]

26. His campaign knows

But is still doing it anyway.

[ehrnst]

65. +1000. But a candidate that markets "not changing" as a brand

may find that's it's not always a plus.

But that would involve acknowledging that one is capable of error, so....

[Cha]

24. Hey did you even read the OP? Why don't you ask

BS why he hired Darius Gordon in the first place before Vetting him?

This is on the Sanders campaign.. nobody else did this.

[George II]

29. That's ridiculous. Were you happy that guy was given a high-level staffing job in the campaign?

Were you satisfied with the hiring of Matt Orfalea, who produced a highly offensive, disgusting, obscene video portraying MLK in a poor manner? Were you satisfied with the sexual harassment and abuse and income inequality of dozens on his previous campaign staff?

These aren't just isolated incidents.

[squirecam]

35. No they are not

Nt

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

36. You got it... but Howard Stern, a unapologetic sexist, misogynist, homophobe get's a pass

from some Democrats. Wonder why?!


Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[myohmy2]

37. today...

...a Saudi national, here for military flight training at a Naval base in Florida, shot and killed people...

...who would or could vet a person any better than our military and our ally?...but look what happened...

...things can be unknowable or unpredictable yet some people want blame Bernie personally...

...do we blame trump directly or personally for today's Naval shooting?

...we must use some common sense...

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

38. Use common sense when it comes to Bernie?! Never!!

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[The Valley Below]

46. But who hired Stern onto their campaign?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

44. Yep. Irrelevant

[Cha]

67. Not.

[Jose Garcia]

55. Competence isn't a desirable quality in a President?

[ehrnst]

64. ...irrelevant? ...

...considering staffing issues in the past, one would think that they would...


...be very, very careful this time around in hiring...

...after the primaries, however, POTUS campaign staffing most likely won't even be a concern for him anymore....

...so there's that....

[Cha]

66. Not "irrelevant".. there I said it.

[Cha]

71. No.. you're wrong.

[LongtimeAZDem]

72. ...

...um

...nope

[Otto Lidenbrock]

20. it's really embarrassing that it needed a conservative news outlet to do the vetting

pathetic from the sanders campaign that it's now twice in two months this has happened

[squirecam]

28. His supporters

Don’t seem to embarrassed, or enough to avoid it happening again...

[Otto Lidenbrock]

30. if it was anyone else they'd be losing their damn minds

[squirecam]

34. True

Look how many threads there are on Bloomberg. Who screwed up, but it wasn’t intentional. Gordon was.

[Blue_true]

42. His supporters seem determine to take anyone that questions Bernie's perfectness to the mat and

choke them out.

I admire their faithfulness, but people have to be able to admit when the person they support has gone a little off course. Bernie has horrid hiring protocols.

[squirecam]

48. It's simple

Ask for social media. If that was reviewed, he shouldn’t have been hired.

Seeing it, but hiring him anyway, would be 10x worse.

[still_one]

31. This seems to a pattern

[awesomerwb1]

32. Unless they're horribly inept

they probably knew about those tweets. But it all came out so they had to take action.

[squirecam]

33. It's repeated ineptness....

Nt

[Blue_true]

40. Impeccable job screening by Bernie's campaign, again. nt

[Tarc]

41. Oh fuck that "sloppy vetting" bullshut, no one is going to troll through 10 years of tweets

for a potential new hire.

This holier-than-thou shit has got to stop.

[Blue_true]

43. That is why filters are used during searches.

The filters pull in tweets that contain potentially objectionable stuff and leave out others. Once the subset of potentially questionable tweets are pulled in, human eyes examine them. That process is not rocket science and panning campaigns that don't follow such a process is not unfair.

[Cha]

45. Yeah, because the BS team didn't learn their lesson from

2 months ago.

Link to tweet

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287307776

[W_HAMILTON]

52. Sanders and his supporters are the ones usually pulling that "holier-than-thou shit" to begin with.

And it doesn't take long to do a search of a prospective hire's social media for words like, I don't know, "f*g" to see if anything comes up. It's not that hard -- hell, that's why other people are so quickly able to find these nasty things the same day the Sanders campaign announces their hiring.

[Cha]

56. Exactly.. thanks for pointing that out.

[TwilightZone]

60. If others were able to easily find them, the campaign should have been able to do so, as well.

Considering the nature of the tweets, the campaign should have made the effort.

[mcar]

47. Again?

And they say Kamala's campaign structure was bad?

[George II]

49. Bad few weeks for the campaign. Three state coordinators reassigned (one ultimately resigned)....

....his video hire Matt Orfalea fired a day after being hired a month ago, and now this.

Unbelievable. A campaign in disarray.

[The Valley Below]

51. Looking bad.

[mcar]

58. They hire someone, it gets spread all over Twitter

and within hours, the person's bigoted comments are in public eye.

When my youngest (now 22) was in HS, the school did a program for the students on social media. They showed the kids that yes, they need to have a social media presence (because if they didn't, colleges and/or future employers would be suspicious), but that anything they post exists forever.

15 YO kids know this. How is the Sanders campaign hiring these people without due diligence?

[TidalWave46]

53. Yet Sirota maintains his position? Hmmm. NT

[George II]

54. That's because Sirota was smart (?) enough to delete all of his tweets (20,000+) on the day....

....he was hired.

[squirecam]

61. Yep

Nt

[MH1]

62. Yep, hmmm.

Some minor player makes news they shouldn't and boom, they're gone.

Does Sanders still have Stein supporters on his staff? (wait, did Sirota support Stein too?)

[ehrnst]

63. Hiring is something that this campaign needs to consider carefully

especially considering staffing issues in the past

[OldRed2450]

68. At some point we have to just accept that Bernie doesn't care about these issues.

Otherwise why would he endorse this guy?

Link to tweet

[George II]

69. That person wants to be elected to Congress, really? BTW, I follow Ms. Mendoza Ferrer on twitter...

....there are many more similar excerpts from his show that are equally offensive.

[OldRed2450]

70. I follow her too.

He repulses me. There is no excusing this.

[Cha]

73. KICK!