Disappointed, Disgusted and Done.

[Xyzse]

In certain ways, I have reached acceptance.

The first Democratic Primary debate brought me such hope. It showed a distinct difference between the quality of the Presidential candidates between the oafish, lying clowns that was the Republican hopefuls in comparison to the main three candidates of the Democrats.

Hillary Clinton - Accomplished, connected and as such, could fill the roster of the cabinet easily. She was my 2nd to the last choice in 2008, and edged out Obama for me, since by virtue of her connections, I perceived her to be more effective. In some ways, she reliably takes the position that is considered possible at the time. Some could call that as running with the popular sentiment. Both her and Obama are organizers. They can take the pre-existing agendas and try to bring things together.

Martin O'Malley - He was my first choice this time around. He was my Governor, and policy-wise, particularly with education, I was on board. He can lead a discussion and pass laws closely aligned to his positions. He is not shy in taking a stand, but is willing to negotiate to make things happen. This is why I preferred him. I tend to be pragmatic, and he seemed to be the most even keeled out of the three.

Bernie Sanders - This guy's views on infrastructure, fairness, and humanity just amazes me. He is brave, and able to go to organizations and speak about social justice, choice and fairness, even in a hostile environment. He does not back down. He does as he says, remains consistent, and has been in the right side of history in many issues from war, rights and other things. Many of his actions do not get publicized, and I can only applaud that.

I have been an Independent most of my life till January 2016. O'Malley was not gaining any traction, and I figured, it was time. In elections, it is rare for me to be able to vote with my conscience and actually support someone. Last time I did so was a vote for John Kerry who I admire. I even got involved with the black box voting project started by Bev Harris as I could not see how he could have lost. I was so shell-shocked after 2004, and just could not believe it. The issues with the long lines, voting suppression, changes in registration and so forth was deplorable, and any one who condones or minimizes the importance of such matters just because their candidate is winning is part of the problem.

Seeing that there were only two candidates left, I ended up supporting Senator Sanders.

He most closely resembles my priorities, as I have a few tenets that I go by:
-Education must be improved from K-12, and we need to get away from the concentration towards testing as education in this country became making money for the testing industry rather than the children actually learning. Bush and Obama has been deplorable in this regard. Obama was better with college education, but his K-12 implementation has been a continuing disaster.

-Infrastructure and safety-nets need to be better funded and improved. By concentrating on these projects, it is actual work being done which circulates funds throughout the greater economy. America's infrastructure is crumbling, and even now, they are considering making highways in to tollways, which are semi-privatized, and merely takes more money away from the middle class. This needs to be funded by taxation from the upper levels.

-America has turned in to a commercial/banking industry that it makes money out of calculations rather than actual capitalist society. It needs better regulation, taxation, and reducing protections for established industries.

-Established industries need reduced protections as they are already established. They do not create more jobs as they tend to swallow up their competition, stifle innovation, and get rid of redundant jobs. To create more jobs, they have to concentrate on emerging industry, and companies that are about to expand.

So, I ended up with Sanders as he has been an advocate for equality, workers rights, and he looks to improve America from the bottom, going up. Much like his campaign, it is a grass-roots effort from below taking on the establishment.

My posts here, I tend to give a lot of leeway to supporters but go after the campaign and candidates themselves. I fully know that supporters can be passionate, and at many times ridiculous in what they do. They can't be fully controlled and they lash out. One can not blame a candidate for the actions of their supporters at most times. Unless they are like Trump who would egg his supporters to act violent. None of the Democratic candidates have done that.

I, like most Sanders supporters accept and know by now that there is almost no chance that Sanders will get the nomination.

This, does not change the fact that every little thing that has been brought up in this primary, which is tame I might add, will be brought up in the general election.

One can not blame Sanders and his supporters for that, as every little thing brought up that can be verified, was done by Clinton.
-Emails: She probably did nothing illegal does not change the fact that she set up a private server for these things. It is too hard to prove wrong-doing and if you note, the Sanders campaign has not gone after her for this, neither have I. It is his supporters that do, and even without Sanders, this will come up in the general election.

-Transcripts: Even if I mentioned that there is no point for her to release any of them, since if she did, no matter what, people could find negatives by taking it out of context. Similar to Bernie's writing when he was younger. When I read them, the context was not about what the characters were thinking, when read in full the message actually means "People hide behind a veneer of respectability, while having not so respectable thoughts". Like the girl fantasizing about being taken by other individuals while being with her partner. In the end, all people could think of was that it was a rape fantasy, not the actual message. I find that ridiculous. Even if there were questionable issues placed in the transcript, it would be blown out of proportion.

If she were not to release them, the opposition will be able to make up whatever they want in there. They could say anything and it can't be completely refuted. People will believe anything is possible with her, since she is not perceived to be trust worthy.

There are many other negatives to go by. They will be brought up with or without Sanders. Blaming him and his supporters for showing these and posting it online is insane. It is like trying to be willfully blind and putting a finger on your ears trying to wish away unpleasant facts that will be brought up by an actual bully who will be even more ruthless later and show all of this without remorse.

Thing is, Clinton's campaign, has crossed the line for me in two ways. It is egregious enough that it has made it so hard to say that I will vote for her come November. At the moment, I don't know if I can still say it.

Line Crossed 1: Using Sandy Hook to attack Senator Sanders first. This was done in Hillary Clinton's twitter account.

You do not do this to another Democrat. Not only is this patently false, as that reactionary gun law they were trying to pass was a symbolic law that was never going to pass any way. It was a law that penalizes gun manufacturers and gun sellers for selling a legal item. A manufacturer or seller is not liable for the misuse of what they sell.

Not only that, we find out that in this same year, she as Secretary of State approved Remington the manufacturer of the gun used in Sandy hook, to sell outside of America. She has gotten slammed for this, and rightfully so.

Line Crossed 2: Nevada caucus: I take the process of elections seriously, and those who attempt to take away the legitimacy of the process disgusts me.

Look, I do not condone ineffective jackasses who harass and threaten by phone or online. They are idiots that deserve all the pilloring they receive. However, for that to be the story of the day rather than looking at the reasons for the anger and disappointment in Nevada? The fact that they barely talk about that is inexcusable.

I look at the news media, and it is a mess, with mostly hearsay. If there was any actual violence, we would see videos by now.

So, fortunately I have something here from a friend of mine who I trust which is experience from someone who was there in Nevada.

"The Nevada Democratic Committee, despite their commitment to remain neutral, was incapable of fairness or competency. They came up with temporary rules and summarily voted them in, despite a clear divide in the room over this motion. These new rules suspended existing National Democrat Party Rules and basically gave supreme power to the party chair, Roberta Lange, who abused it at every step, pushing through her preferred motions and ignoring any other amendments or motions from the floor. We began calling this "Roberta's Rules of Order."

When half the room began to contest the early morning motions and attempt to make counter motions from the floor, they turned down the lights and turned up the music, eventually showing a video about President Obama, all in an attempt to silence the voices of dissent. The rapid fire motions of the chair and subsequent disregard for any oppositional voices set the stage for a very contentious day.

Senator Barbara Boxer was slated to speak on behalf of Secretary Clinton as was Senator Nina Turner for Senator Sanders. Senator Boxer was not treated respectfully, nor did she handle herself with dignity as she touted Secretary Clinton's record, several dozen Sanders delegates booed her. In lieu of gracefully handling this like the pro-politician she is, she devolved into hurling insults at all the Sanders supporters in the room, 90% of whom were undeserving of her ire.

She called us childish, rude and unpatriotic. It was a perfect example of how when pushed, taking the low road of condescension and defensiveness leads to insulting an entire class of people, instead of deftly addressing the handful of delegates who were acting like assholes.

Senator Turner took the high road and started her speech by telling everyone to be more respectful and come together around the common goals we all share for a better country. She was incredibly inspiring and positive.

About 8 hours into the convention, the chair disappeared and was missing for over four hours. During this time, in lieu of pushing through the agenda and voting for all party positions and national delegates, the party kept delaying the process and hinting that we were running out of the time allotted for renting the casino's convention hall, yet they didn't respond by attempting to actually work through the remaining agenda items.

At first it seemed like incompetency, but it became clear that it was a calculated maneuver, after such a long day, most of the Clinton delegates had left, and the party didn't want Sanders delegates, most of whom had stayed, to influence platform votes or call for a standing recount.

On the issue of the recount: The National Democratic Party rules allow for a motion to perform a standing recount. We were already divided up in the room by Presidential preference, so this would have been an easy task. It was especially justified since after the realignment period, the delegate count was reported to be 1695 for Clinton and 1662 for Sanders. This slight delegate difference would result in a net difference of up to 4 national delegates in Clinton's favor (at-large and PLEOs). Every National Delegate counts.

About the official delegate count: there was a minority report, by a member of the committee tasked with verifying the delegate math, which the committee leaders tried to block from being presented publicly. It was quite a heated argument onstage between the chair and the committee member. When the floor delegates protested to allow her to speak, a sympathetic committee member used their standing to allow the report to be read. This minority report revealed that over 60 sanders delegates had been denied their delegate badges due to an "inability to find their information and confirm their eligibility." It stated in no uncertain terms that these delegates were not given the opportunity to prove their identity/eligibility and were summarily barred from the convention.

With the delegate math split so tight and due to the party chairs trying to block this information from the public, it became very clear that they wanted to keep the numbers in Clinton's favor. I'm not prone to conspiracy theories. this was straight up disenfranchisement of the barred delegates and a blatant move to tilt the national delegates to the party chair's preferred candidate. (not to mention that the convention was scheduled on the same day as UNLV's graduation, prohibiting an expected 150ish elected sanders delegates from attending.)

An interesting moment came when a delegate on the floor rose to speak about the proposed party platform, which we were all to vote on. For the most part, the platform was well-written, proposing very progressive priorities for the state party around gender, ethnic, sexual, economic and other demographic diversity. However, there was a small proposed amendment regarding state election priorities and the future of super-delegates. This person who stood to speak on the motion revealed that she is in fact one of the state super-delegates and moved to amend the state party platform to push for eliminating future national super-delegates. the convention floor LOVED this proposal, even getting cheers from some of the Clinton delegates. This did not go over well with the committee and the proposed amendment was ignored.

In another attempt to stall for time, so that the party could avoid any unwanted motions from the floor, they brought up candidates for congressional district 3 to give speeches about their candidacy. The move backfired. it turned out that two of the candidates are "Bernie-crats" and at the end of their speeches, one of them motioned for a recount. This caught the committee off-guard and the floor delegates began sitting in their chairs to be counted.

Within minutes, the state chair, who had vanished for over four hours stormed up onstage and like a 5-year old in a tantrum motioned to allow the party (instead of the convention delegates) to select the national delegates and to close the convention. She didn't even wait for the overwhelming "nay" vote from the floor, slammed the gavel down and stormed off the stage. Her fellow committee leaders were shocked. They just stood there stunned like the rest of us, wondering what the hell had just happened. The floor was LIVID. The party chair had clearly been backstage planning this and had the police ready, who escorted the committee members out and told everyone to leave or be arrested. End of convention.

There was no chair throwing or violence as has been repeatedly stated in various media reports. (there was a single, near-empty water bottle thrown at the end.) and there was no altercation with police, other than stern warnings to go home or be arrested. In fact, the head of security for the Paris hotel was extremely calm and patient with the room full of shocked and angry delegates. In fact, one of the candidates for congressional district 3 got up again to urge everyone to leave peacefully, promising that everything possible would be done to address what had happened.
Protests were scheduled at state democratic headquarters. This will likely have serious repercussions for the future of the state party, not to mention the thousands of delegates, staff and volunteers who were stripped of their voice and robbed of all our hard work and dedication. Clinton delegates left quite frustrated (both with the convention process and with a few dozen very rowdy/rude sanders delegates). Sanders delegates (the large majority of whom were very peaceful and committed to a fair process) left EXTREMELY angry.

Although I've been keenly aware of the state party establishment's bias for Clinton, I didn't expect such a blatant abuse of power and left sorely disappointed.

The "Bernie or Bust" movement just got a huge boost from the very officials elected to grow and keep the party united. Throughout the day, I spoke with many delegates about the importance of this election, especially in a swing state like Nevada, and it became clear that many Nevadans for Bernie would strongly consider holding their noses for Clinton in the general. after today, that is much less likely.

Also, the NV State delegation to the national convention is left in limbo, as we never got around to electing the delegates. (I was actually one of several dozen candidates for district and at-large national delegate. would have been cool to attend the national convention in Philly.) It's a shame, as so many dedicated Clinton and Sanders supporters spent months working tirelessly for their respective candidates only to have their hard work and hopes of representing their candidate at the national convention smashed by the disgraceful actions of a few corrupt party officials.

Multiple reports have come out that party chair, Roberta Lange, has since received a large volume of angry and often violent text and voice messages from angry Bernie supporters who published her personal phone number on social media. some of them were threats of violence to her and her family. this is completely unacceptable and those who made them should be shamed of themselves and held to account.

These despicable actions by Bernie bros on the internet in no way, however, excuse her own despicable behavior to those of us peacefully engaging in the political process. There will be an opportunity to join with other Bernie-crats to influence the NV Democratic central committee and hopefully ensure the ouster of the party chair. She's not the only problem, but her shameful abuse of power demands that she be held accountable.

After all is said and done, I will keep volunteering for Senator Sanders and help get out the vote in other remaining states. I will also be helping the campaigns of some of the truly progressive congressional candidates in Nevada. as disgusted as I feel after this trampling on the democratic process, the political revolution has never been about just the white house. I made a short speech during the congressional district break out, where I urged everyone to channel their passions and keep it going for local and state races. that's where real change is going to begin..."

I can only thank the Hillary campaign, her supporters, the DNC, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz to turning off and alienating a host of newly minted Democrats and progressive independents who with that feel like there is no point in dealing with the establishment Democrats.

So now, I have come to another acceptance.

I do not think Hillary Clinton can win. At this point, with her lying, this cheating(even if they say they are not, it still makes her wins look illegitimate), closeness to big business, I am now not convinced that she will not hurt America that much less than Trump.

So, I will help local races like crazy to win as many Democrats in the House and Senate. That to me, is the only way to mitigate the damage that either of the two candidates will do to America.

I now know my course of action. Good luck.