Thom Hartmann: Beware of Democratic Super Delegates in round 2 of a brokered convention!

[egbertowillies]

Thom Hartmann appeared on Politics Done Right with a prescient message to progressives about how Democratic Super Delegates could create havoc for progressives in round 2 of a brokered convention.

https://egbertowillies.com/2020/01/27/thom-hartmann-on-democratic-super-delegates/

[ritapria]

1. If it gets to a second Round , Bernie is doomed

In 2016 , Hillary got around 700 super delegates and Bernie got around 40 …...They will support Joe Biden by a similar margin …..It 's First Round - or Bernie goes Bust …. If however Bernie is just 100 votes from a majority, and wins the most primary votes by large margin, and is refused the nomination by the Super delegates , the nomination might not be worth much to Joe ……..

[Amishman]

29. He is a controversial party outsider, this should be expected

If we fail to get a majority candidate, I would expect the tie breaker (in the form of the superdelegates) to go with a popular, non-controversial choice. Regardless of who is the other front runner, I don't expect Bernie to ever be the safe choice.

[MH1]

36. "If... (Bernie loses the nom in a certain way) ... the nomination might not be worth much to Joe"

Are you fucking SHITTING ME?

If that is a prediction, not a threat, then everyone who agrees with you ought to be working to defeat Bernie CLEARLY in the first round.

It is not about what the nomination is "worth to Joe". JHFC on a trailer hitch. This country is on the brink of disaster and you worry about one guy getting something that would be good for all of us?

[totodeinhere]

37. If Bernie goes into the convention with the most delegates but not an outright

majority and the party bigwigs take it away from him, then the Democratic Party is doomed.

[Hassler]

2. Hartmann concern trolling for Bernie, as he's done for years.

[ancianita]

6. As he should because he's been in the anti-corporatocracy camp for years.

[stlstdg]

3. Beware of anything that Thom Hartman has to say.

After all, he had a show on RT (Putin's propaganda network).

For all I know, he still does.

[ancianita]

8. A lot of very smart people had no idea what RT was at first, and made that mistake. No

need to impugn their character for it.

Thom Hartmann is a heavy hitter for protecting and defending the US Constitution against corporatocracy. He's also as human as the rest in sorting out the signal from the noise.

[Agschmid]

11. "Russia Today"?

It’s not hard...

[ancianita]

16. Not NOW. Not TODAY. Yet, who here has not had exposure to these people, whether through Air America

or some YouTube footage, TV or books. Seriously. I hope you're only speaking for yourself when you say sure, it's so obvious.

Chris Hedges (2016–present)

Jesse Ventura (2015–present)

Lee Camp (2014–present)

Mike Papantonio (2016–present)[18]

Ed Schultz (2016–2018)[19]

Thom Hartmann (2010–2017)

Are you trying to tell me that you and everybody here knew for the first few years more than all those people? Who they really were through the RT platform? Seriously?

Sure, NOW we can see it for what it's been, but don't tell me it was so easy for you but hard for everyone else to ferret out, in the first few years of its appearance in this country, just because you now know.

It took this gov and intel seven years to make it register as a foreign agent? Doesn't that seem pretty fishy to you?

2017! When Paul WHO? Manafort came along with the whole winter gang. You don't think revelations about other arenas out there are yet to come? Say, global ones? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_America#Notable_news_personalities

We can't implicate every liberal who comes along as a lefty commie danger to this party.

So how anyone can draw a line between a superdelegate comment/warning and Russia, with no consideration to the whole of their writings and public activities, seems "a bit much."

[Agschmid]

17. It is a media company operated by the Russian government, it's not that complicated.

[ancianita]

18. No one saw that for months. The US gov itself didn't even MAKE them register as foreign agents

until they had already been here for seven years. Seven years.

Only now can you conveniently claim that everyone should have known what you know. But they didn't.

[Agschmid]

19. It was literally called Russia 🇷🇺 Today...

And was a media network from a country with a strong hold on the media... what did people think it was?

We needed them to register for that to be clear?

[ancianita]

20. Not true. It was launched in America in 2010 as RT, NOT "Russia Today." It had changed its name.

RT still gets heavy play in social media more than TV, and most Americans don't know it's had to register as a foreign agent. Undereducated people who don't understand standards of objectivity are most taken in by it. They are most often taken in by cynicism that's passed as wisdom.

RT America has covered the President Barack Obama "birther" conspiracy theory on multiple occasions, including an interview with a white supremacist that failed to note his allegiance. The channel has featured the Holocaust denier Ryan Dawson as an "expert" interviewee discussing numerous issues on various occasions, and has not identified his denial of these historic events, or any of his other extensive non-mainstream positions.[10][11]

According to David Z. Morris, however, in Fortune in 2017: "RT America has been more likely to highlight legitimate but marginalized political perspectives, and further blurs the line between propaganda and commentary by employing respected U.S. journalists such as Chris Hedges, Ed Schultz, and Larry King."[8]

An analysis published in the academic journal Politics in 2015 identified the conspiracy theories spread by RT as a tool of Russian foreign policy, used to legitimize the policies of the Russian government and delegitimize the policies of the American government.[12] During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, RT published conspiracy theories about the murder of Seth Rich and other articles to undermine the Hillary Clinton campaign. Some of these gained traction on social media and were distributed around the internet.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_America

Foreign agents are banned from any political access in Washington and elsewhere. And so they shouldn't have First Amendment protections when their mission is to confound American issues, and undermine the nation's interest.


Here's one Brit's look at it.

RT is never more surreal than when the topic is RT itself. On a recent edition of Crosstalk, the panellists discussed RT America’s new status as a registered foreign agent. “Civil liberties groups, the mainstream media, they’re all silent on this,” said one. “Where is the ACLU [the American Civil Liberties Union]? This is a blatant infringement of free speech!” Everyone else, as usual, concurs. Even I agree that the ACLU’s lack of interest in the case is telling, but perhaps not in the way they think

.

More than outright lies, RT deals in moral equivalency. Its defenders don’t deny bias; they deny the possibility of objectivity. They say western media is equally biased. They liken RT to state broadcasters such as the BBC, France 24 and al Jazeera. They say other news channels have been sanctioned by Ofcom. It’s a triumph of cynicism: we’re all just as bad as each other.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/29/24-hour-putin-people-my-week-watching-kremlin-propaganda-channel-rt-russia-today

When it comes to helping Americans sort signal from noise, it is not okay for MONEY to demand constitutional protections and run free from impunity around this nation.

[redstateblues]

26. LOL! As if no one knew what RT stood for. Gimme a break!

[ancianita]

30. As if you know what everyone knew. Make an effort beyond lol to disprove my case.

[redstateblues]

38. I knew it immediately. Let's see, a Russian backed TV

Show called RT. Mmm what could it be? You can’t be serious

[TwilightZone]

34. Agreed. This line of argument is rather bizarre.

It's always been publicly known that it's state-owned TV and that RT America was the US division of what had been known until that time as Russia Today.

[TwilightZone]

33. It was called Russia Today from 2005-2009.

The US version was called RT America, but the link was obvious and publicly known.

I find it really odd that you're so vehemently questioning all of this. It's been public information since day one.

[ancianita]

35. No. The link was not always "publicly known" as "Russia Today." In 2005, only 68% of the US

was online. FB and Twitter as we know them didn't even exist.

So no, most Americans were not on FB, as the current Facebook version didn't exist until 2006. That was the same year Twitter went online. Those two were the start of social media. "RT" was called "retweet" back then and "real time." I joined FB in 2007.

It's growth was stealth growth internationally, and even Hillary complained that foreign media channels were outflanking US media influence. Until RT got here around 2013. As RT.

RT didn't even show up in the US until Obama went along with his imagined "reset" with Russia.


People here? acting like they always knew what RT meant? need to realize that for lots of reasons during the Web 2.0 growth days, today's RT wasn't even paid attention to.

So no, you don't get to act like "everyone in America" always knew what RT meant. I and my IT sons have been through the growth of social media and you can't tell me that.

I'm not "vehemently obssessing." I'm relating history of RT's stealth growth in social media, and you can just make up how we got here. That I'm the only one who didn't know what you claim "everyone" already knew.

[redstateblues]

39. You sound like you were on the payroll

[ancianita]

40. What did you know and when did you know it.

[floppyboo]

24. You forgot Larry King. He still gets some great interviews.

I regularly go to their 'show' page. I'm a Chris Hedges fan. And I really like the british dude on Going Underground - and Rick Sanchez too!
Oh - and if I forget to turn off 'autoplay' on Youtube sometimes I fall asleep and wake up to a Fox news clip.

Of course I shower immediately. lol

[ancianita]

25. Yes, him too. Thanks.

[TwilightZone]

32. Everyone knows it's state-owned TV. That's never been a secret.

Your assertion to the contrary is rather odd. Everyone has known since day one in 2005 that it's government-funded, including those you listed.

The people you list went on RT in spite of the fact that it was Russian state TV, not in ignorance of it. They know full-well that's it state-owned, which should probably cause one to question their judgment. For some, it was the only major source that would provide them a platform, and they took what they could get.

As for why it wasn't registered as a foreign agent until 2017, it wasn't RT that was required to register -- it was its US-based production company.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/564045159/rt-america-firm-registers-as-foreign-agent-in-u-s-russia-looks-to-retaliate

[Tarheel_Dem]

10. Exactly. Hartman is no friend to Democrats, and was a useful tool for Putin in 2016.

[msongs]

4. beware of riots by losers who actually lost fair and square. there is a track record nt

[NYMinute]

15. Yeah, we all have read the novel and watched the movie

[tirebiter]

5. IOW, beware of some somebody doing what they're designed to do

A brokered convention is a lefty wet dream.

[ancianita]

7. Just what do you mean by that.

[LongtimeAZDem]

13. Superdelegates exist to help ensure that the nominee is someone who supports the party,

the platform, and other Democrats.

[The Polack MSgt]

9. Is this a retrospective from 2016?

Same bullshit from one of the same old RU bullshit faucets.

[betsuni]

12. Beware the Super Delegates?

THEY ARE DEMOCRATS. DEMOCRATS ARE PROGRESSIVES.

[NYMinute]

14. Hartman became irrelevant a long time ago

only the devotees care

[DanTex]

21. In theory, this is true.

But in practice, if they try something to overturn the voters with superdelegates, they know they will fracture the party, so I doubt they would try that. Unless it's a virtual tie, whoever gets the most pledged delegates is going to be the nominee.

[Ace Rothstein]

41. Yeah, they can't overturn the pledged delegates or we definitely lose in November.

I'd be shocked if that happens though.

[The Valley Below]

22. Putin's mouthpiece. I can't believe this crap is allowed on DU.

[democrattotheend]

23. Ugh, not this again

As I would hope most people here know, the superdelegates did not take the nomination away from Bernie in 2016. But you wouldn't know that from talking to some of his supporters. All of the handwringing in 2016 about what the superdelegates might do led a lot of people to mistakenly believe that the superdelegates had actually stolen the nomination from Bernie. And I personally know at least 2 people who didn't vote for Hillary because of that misconception.

If Bernie wins the primaries and the superdelegates actually take it away from him (which I think is pretty unlikely), then we can talk about how unfair superdelegates are. Until then, talking about what they could do is extremely counterproductive.

[MrsCoffee]

28. Who?

[LanternWaste]

31. Between stories sowing seeds of doubt about the National Convention (again)

and this week's invocation of the Third Way as the boogey-man, I'm beginning to wonder if 2016 fashions have become retro (I certainly hope not... shoelace chokers and over the knee boots look silly to me).

Maybe just a matter of time before Planned Parenthood gets thrown under the bus again in a fit of pique and petulance.

[Hortensis]

42. Looked at RT, and this theme hasn't been published

recently, maybe getting it more directly.