SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[The Romulan Republic]

I hope she can get them elected. Its rather stunning that a first term Rep. is now one of the most influential and powerful figures in American politics, but here we are. If she nets us a gain of even one House or Senate seat, it'll be more than worth it.

By investing in progressive candidates downballot, she's also wisely building the machinery in Congress that Bernie will need to get anything big through if he wins the Presidential election. And hopefully countering the narrative that Bernie being the nominee will hurt the Democrats downballot.

[The Romulan Republic]

Bernie is stumping in South Carolina, which is suddenly looking like a competitive race:

www.wmbfnews.com/2020/02/22/bernie-sand ... c-primary/

He's also going to be in Virginia ahead of Super Tuesday:

https://nbc12.com/2020/02/22/bernie-san ... r-tuesday/

In 2016, Bernie was criticized for not campaigning enough in the South. Its certainly not a mistake he seems inclined to make this time.

[The Romulan Republic]

Details on just how thoroughly Sanders smashed his opposition and the opposition narratives about him in Nevada:

https://politico.com/news/2020/02/22/be ... ion-116762

LAS VEGAS — On Saturday in Nevada, Bernie Sanders laid waste not just to his five main rivals but also to every shard of conventional wisdom about the Democratic presidential primaries.

You could see the dominoes of punditry cliches falling inside the caucus rooms. At the Bellagio Hotel, which held one of several “Strip caucuses” meant to be easily accessible to hospitality workers along Vegas’ main drag, 75 Sanders supporters gathered along the wall of a ballroom.

The powerful Culinary Union, which opposes Sanders’ Medicare for All plan and spent the final weeks of the campaign in a high-profile fight with his campaign, was supposed to weaken him. And yet the Sanders’s ranks were speckled with red-shirted Culinary members. (Overall, Sanders won 34% of caucus-goers from union households, besting all of his rivals.)

Sanders wasn’t supposed to be able to break through with black and brown voters, but the group was racially and ethnically diverse. (Sanders won 27% of African Americans and 53% of Hispanics across the state.) The Sanders movement is supposed to be limited to those crazy college kids who don’t remember socialist as a slur. But there were plenty of older Sanders backers at the Bellagio chanting “Bernie” along with their 20-something comrades. (Sanders won every age category in the state except Nevadans over 65, which he ceded to Joe Biden.)

Sure, the numbers are tiny. In a state of 3 million people, turnout of over 100,000 participants is considered enormous. Candidate events here on the days leading up to the caucuses were sleepy affairs, with fewer attendees than in Iowa and New Hampshire where the big cities are a fraction of the size of Vegas.

But the Sanders victory still exploded a lot of myths. He was said to have a ceiling of 30% or so. Remarkably, against a much larger field of candidates Sanders is poised to come close to the same level of support as he did in 2016 in a one-on-one race against Hillary Clinton, to whom he lost 47%-53%. (He was at 46% with a quarter of precincts reporting as of this writing.) He was said to be unable to attract anyone outside his core base. But he held his own with moderate voters (22%) and won across every issue area except voters who cared most about foreign policy, who went with Biden.

All of this makes the results of the Nevada caucuses, which in the past have not been treated with the same importance as the contests in the three other early states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — matter more this year. They have helped settle lingering questions about Sanders' appeal.

More important, Nevada exposed his four main rivals as weak, divided, and grasping at increasingly tenuous arguments about how they can still win.

Warren came in a distant fourth place but still argued that since the Vegas debate on Wednesday, when she reversed a year-long plan not to pillory her opponents, “our support has been growing everywhere.” Except Nevada, apparently. In fact, voters who decided in the days following the debate were roughly divided between supporting Sanders (24%), Pete Buttigieg (21%), Warren (21%), and Biden (19%).

After her unexpected surge into third place in New Hampshire, Amy Klobuchar had a narrow window to consolidate support and emerge as a serious threat to Sanders. Her poor showing in Nevada — sixth place with less than 4% as of this writing — left her little to brag about in her caucus evening speech. She had to reach back to the story about braving a snowstorm during her outdoor announcement speech last year instead of pointing to anything positive in the Nevada results. Without much money, organization, or a realistic expectation of doing well in South Carolina, she is likely to be an afterthought going into Super Tuesday.

The momentum of Buttigieg, who was Sanders' strongest opponent in Iowa and New Hampshire, stalled out in Nevada. He slipped into third place, well behind Biden. Long-shot candidacies need to continue to surge forward with unexpected results to overcome doubts. But Buttigieg’s success in Iowa and New Hampshire was not enough to change the minds of enough people in Nevada. A victory here for him would have been catalytic, but the Sanders blowout has halted his rise. (He is still likely to be second behind Sanders in the delegate race, but the early states are all about momentum, not delegates.)

While Klobuchar, Warren, and Buttigieg all did worse in Nevada than they did in the first two states, Biden did better, though a second place finish twenty points behind Sanders isn’t much to crow about for a former vice president. Still, being on the upswing, however gradual it is, going into South Carolina is essential for Biden. If he is the first candidate to definitively defeat Sanders in a contest, it could resurrect his campaign. And while in Nevada Sanders did eat into Biden’s support among African Americans, Biden still won that demographic overall.

Biden’s possible resurrection in South Carolina also makes the case for Michael Bloomberg tenuous. Bloomberg got into the race by arguing he would be a Bernie slayer if Biden collapsed. But Biden’s stubborn refusal to collapse completely means that Bloomberg is now more likely to play the role of assisting Sanders’s march to the nomination — by keeping Biden wounded and the non-Sanders candidates further divided — rather than preventing it.

The race is Sanders’ to lose. He’s the best funded non-billionaire candidate. He has the best organization. He is winning the broadest coalition.

The most significant fact here is probably that Sanders not only won the Latino vote- he won an outright majority of it against all other candidates.

Also of note is the fact that unlike his weaker showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders almost exactly matched his 2016 numbers in Nevada- against a field of several major opponents.

This wasn't just a Sanders win- it was a Sanders landslide.

[The Romulan Republic]

"Hawks say Sanders will be weak on Russia. But Putin should fear a President Bernie"

https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2 ... in-kremlin

He may not be running, but Vladimir Putin is already a formidable presence in the 2020 US presidential campaign. From concerns about Russian aggression abroad to anxieties about electoral interference at home, Putin has become a question to which all presidential candidates are expected to have a strongly worded answer – particularly in the wake of Donald Trump’s failed impeachment, in which the Democratic party sought to make the case that “all roads lead to Putin”.

The conventional wisdom in US foreign policy is that military competition is necessary to contain Putin and circumscribe the Russian sphere of influence. “The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that they can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia over here,” said the Republican adviser Tim Morrison during the impeachment hearings – a quote then repeated by Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, in his opening argument.

It is in this context that the rise of Bernie Sanders is raising fears inside the Democratic party establishment. Sanders has long been a leading advocate of military restraint, and he is campaigning on a platform of “responsible foreign policy” that promises to end America’s “endless war”. Despite speech after speech in which the senator decries Putin’s criminal authoritarianism, a narrative is now developing that his presidency would amount to a great gift to the Kremlin. “If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around,” tweeted the former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

But most advocates of military competition fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Kremlin power – a misunderstanding that has led the US to fail, time and again, in its attempt to contain Putin. The promise of Sanders’ foreign policy platform is precisely that it turns the conventional wisdom on its head, showing how the US government can use domestic reform as a strategy to undermine Putin’s authoritarian aggression abroad.

To make sense of this strategy, it is necessary to see the three pillars on which Putin’s regime rests. The first of these pillars is hydrocarbons: the vast reserves of oil and gas in Russia that deliver large revenues and deep political loyalties both within Russia and across Europe. Russian oil and gas output is currently at a record high 11.25m barrels per day, generating $44.4bn each year from countries such as Germany that have become heavily reliant on Russian gas exports.

The second pillar of Putin’s power is corruption. Russia is today a kleptocracy, a political system that runs on kickbacks, bribes and pocketed public money for loyal oligarchs. Their dark money, of course, does not stay in Russia. Instead, it circulates through the vast international system of murky finance – into Deutsche Bank and Danske Bank, into London real estate and US shell companies – buying allegiance to the regime along the way.

And the third pillar is propaganda: Putin and his allies actively seek to stir up conflict abroad in order to strengthen nationalist loyalties at home. From the very beginning of his tenure, Putin has fomented violence and aggression against Russia’s “enemies” – be they Chechen, Ukrainian or American – as a strategy to boost his own popularity.

Far from attacking these pillars of Kremlin power, recent US foreign policy has served to strengthen them. The Barack Obama administration, for example, aggressively pursued a fossil fuels arms race against Russia, further entrenching the global addiction to hydrocarbons. Meanwhile, Obama presided over a flood of Russian oligarchs’ cash into the US, even as his secretary of state, Hillary Cinton, drew comparisons between Putin and Hitler.

Sanders, by contrast, seeks to dismantle each of the three pillars at their base. Rather than deepening US dependence on oil and gas, he is promoting a Green New Deal with major provisions to support a green transition beyond US borders. By driving decarbonisation among US allies in Europe and around the world, Sanders promises to reduce Putin’s geopolitical leverage.

Rather than ignoring the illicit financial system, Sanders is advocating a programme of “corporate accountability” to shut down tax havens, eliminate anonymous shell companies and strictly regulate the Wall Street banks that have facilitated the flow of kleptocrats’ cash all around the world.

Finally, Sanders avoids the lazy cold war rhetoric about “the Russians” that helps boost Putin’s legitimacy back at home. Instead, his approach is infrastructural, attacking the nodes of the illicit finance network rather than the individual “bad actors” operating within it.

In short, Sanders is shifting away from the antiquated paradigm of “foreign policy” – with its clear demarcations of home and abroad and its appeals to a unified national interest – and towards “foreign politics”. He is targeting the global architecture of kleptocracy in which many US firms and passport holders are complicit, and building ties with social movements around the world that can serve as allies in the fight against state corruption.

Progressives cannot afford to be naive in their approach to Putin. His efforts to consolidate a sphere of influence are unlikely to abate, regardless of the 2020 election outcome. But for all the Democratic party’s legitimate fears about Russian aggression, it cannot retreat to an outdated paradigm that approaches Russia as a question of military security alone.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that those who understand Putin’s kleptocratic system – such the leader of the Russian opposition, Alexei Navalny – are now rooting for Sanders. It is only by undermining that system, not competing with it, that the US can truly weaken Putin’s authoritarian grip, and make way for a new democratic movement to flourish in Russia.

• Ben Judah is a fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC. David Adler is a fellow at the school of transnational governance at the European University Institute

The Sanders movement is going to take on all the oligarchs. First we take down Bloomberg. Then we take down Dickless Donald. And then we'll take down his puppet-master.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS PROJECTED TO WIN THE NEVADA CAUCUSES, CURRENT TALLY 46.6% SANDERS, 19.2% BIDEN, 15.4% BUTTIGIEG, 10.3% WARREN.




Sanders can't win outside heavily white states, you say?

Sanders can't win more than 30% anywhere, you say?

FEEL THE FUCKING BERN, I SAY. :D

Yes, Sanders is likely to get a 20 point margin of victory; which I am a big enough man to admit that it wasn't one I was expecting. Better for him, he maintains that 20 point margin in the popular vote (the tally you're quoting are county delegates ... the caucus system needs to die in a fire. The only thing good about it is the ranked voting.) He dominated the Latinx vote (getting at least 52%, with the next runner up, Biden, only getting 16%) was not an afterthought among African-Americans (banking an impressive 27% of their vote, coming within 10(!) points of Biden,), and only lost the pensioner vote.

Slightly more interesting is the fight to be the Not-Sanders. Biden succeeded in merely being abysmal, rather than outright terrible (mostly on the backs of African-Americans and pensioners.) In county delegates, he has a clear (~4%) lead over Buttigieg; but in the popular vote, they're basically tied. However, time has run out for Buttigieg ... only Joe Biden will win South Carolina.

As for the rest of the rabble:

Elizabeth Warren captured just over 10% of county delegates, and about 12% of the popular vote.
Klobuchar got roughly 5%-something percent of county delegates, and 8% of the popular vote. Bloomberg ought to take notice of Tom Steyer's numbers, since Steyer spent something like $13+ million on advertising in Nevada ... twice the amount of everyone else combined, making his ~4% vote share a pointlessly-expensive exercise in failure. None of these three have credible cases to continue existing as candidates.

Now onto South Carolina, where Biden will win and it won't matter (credible polling puts him at 24% to Sanders 20%, with Steyer at roughly 14%. However, Steyer only converted 1/3 to 1/2 of his polling performance into votes in NV; so a naive analysis suggests Biden will win South Carolina, but only by 5-6 points.) The debate won't matter so much (although I think almost everyone who isn't Sanders (and maybe Warren) is going to come with their best McCarthy impression and party like it's 1950; it should, at least, be entertaining to watch.)

[FireNexus]

In addition to all the reasons I have to dislike Bernie Sanders and to hate him as a possible nominee, he is now the choice of the Russian government.

To be clear, I don’t know why they want him to be nominated. Maybe they want him to be President. Maybe they think he will be easy to defeat. Maybe it’s not really well thought it. Maybe it’s just the Fox News-y “they want to create chaos” talking point all the Bernie Stans give when you point out he’s Russia’s choice for the Dem nod.

I don’t know their strategic aims. I don’t know whether they’re pursuing a course that will accomplish said strategic aims. But I know that their tactics are clearly to get Bernie Sanders nominated. And this fact is clearly resulting in some cognitive dissonance from Bernie Stans including “just cause Chaos, maybe ur a Russian bot!!!!!” everywhere I say it.

Personally, I don’t suspect Bernie or his people are complicit in anything illegal or untoward with regard to Russian influence currently. I just think that he is Russia’s choice for the Democratic nomination. They’ve helped him and only him (well, possibly Gabbard) on the Dem side for two straight election cycles. And I find it crazy that this will not kill his campaign.

[Ralin]

Maybe it’s just the Fox News-y “they want to create chaos” talking point all the Bernie Stans give when you point out he’s Russia’s choice for the Dem nod.

I don’t know their strategic aims. I don’t know whether they’re pursuing a course that will accomplish said strategic aims. But I know that their tactics are clearly to get Bernie Sanders nominated.

I would lean towards this, combined with going for a meta "Well Russia is backing him, so CLEARLY we can't trust him" reaction to make things more bitter between backers of different Democrat candidates and also possibly that they maybe overestimate how much him taking the lead would fuck up the Democrats.

Like, not mocking you, but I don't see any reason to think it's not as much about keeping things as heated and contentious as possible no matter who wins as anything else.

Personally, I don’t suspect Bernie or his people are complicit in anything illegal or untoward with regard to Russian influence currently. I just think that he is Russia’s choice for the Democratic nomination. They’ve helped him and only him (well, possibly Gabbard) on the Dem side for two straight election cycles. And I find it crazy that this will not kill his campaign.

I mean...what's the alternative? Give the Russian government effective veto power over any candidate if they back him and it's found out?

EDIT: Noticed after posting that I skimmed over the 'maybe it's not well thought out' part of your post. Sorry, it's nearly 3:00 AM here.

[FireNexus]

I would lean towards this, combined with going for a meta "Well Russia is backing him, so CLEARLY we can't trust him" reaction to make things more bitter between backers of different Democrat candidates and also possibly that they maybe overestimate how much him taking the lead would fuck up the Democrats.

Like, not mocking you, but I don't see any reason to think it's not as much about keeping things as heated and contentious as possible no matter who wins as anything else.

My problem with this tack is that it sidesteps the fact that Bernie is the Russian choice. It is a cognitive dissonance reaction which allows people to avoid engaging with the implications of “Bernie is Russia’s choice”, which are that they have reason to believe that Bernie doing better (I assume Bernie getting nominated) is bad for America. Since they elected the current American President in spite of him being a living nightmare man, I give them some credit for competence.

Whatever their strategic aims, they believe Bernie Sanders succeeding serves them. That is important, and it is sidestepped by jumping right to “cause chaos”. They have supported him two elections in a row. If they just wanted to cause chaos, using their troll army to exclusively support him would not be the most effective way, especially because they seem to be closing in on him winning outright. The most effective way to keep tensions high would be to support multiple candidates so that nobody gets close to a majority.

But all of this assumes the same kind of mental leap which my side gets criticized for when we propose that they know he will lose. I don’t think their understanding of American politics is that sophisticated. I think they want to pick the candidates, and any strategy they have is served by picking the candidates. If they think Bernie will lose, it’s not because of their understanding of swing state demographics. It’s because they think they have the tools to make him lose. If they think chaos will occur at the convention if he wins, it’s because they have specific tools to cause that chaos.

I don’t think their game requires too many things to go right. I think it’s simple, and I think their tactical aims are obvious from their behavior. In this case, choose the Democratic nominee like they chose the Republican nominee four years ago. Possibly because they can make him lose, possibly because they think he’ll serve their interests in office and Trump has outlived his usefulness.

I mean...what's the alternative? Give the Russian government effective veto power over any candidate if they back him and it's found out?

Here’s the thing: The options are

A.) Give them the power to choose nominees

Or

B.) Possibly give them a soft veto by not letting their choice win.

I think it’s clear that B is preferable to A. At least in the short term, but possibly in the long term. Do you really want Americans to know that both major party candidates were chosen by a hostile foreign entity? Especially when the incumbent is Trump and “Not the choice of the Russians” is supposed to be a key selling point of his opponent?

If the Russians choose both candidates, and a Bernie nomination means they will have, we already had our last free election in 2016. Hopefully, the Russians not getting to choose the winner of this election will mean whatever future soft veto we give them will be meaningless because Putin’s house of cards will collapse by four years from now.

EDIT: Noticed after posting that I skimmed over the 'maybe it's not well thought out' part of your post. Sorry, it's nearly 3:00 AM here.

Tbh, ”maybe it is not well thought out” is only a possibility I would consider, and I don’t think the most likely one. The fact of them supporting him two times in a row and not throwing their weight behind anyone else means it’s probably very well thought out. It doesn’t mean it’s not a bad plan, but it’s probably a fleshed out plan they think will benefit them.

[Gandalf]

In the "Russia's choice" thing, is it known why they apparently prefer him?

[FireNexus]

In the "Russia's choice" thing, is it known why they apparently prefer him?

No. At least not yet. Currently my best bets are “They think he will lose (because they have something that will make him)”, “they can live with him and Trump has become too dangerous”, or “he’s compromised”. I think A and B are most likely. C is a distant third, from what I can see.

Anything else, “they think he will Lose because America won’t accept him”, “they just want to stir up the Democratic nominating process and divide Democrats”, or “they just want to cause unspecified chaos” don’t fit with the facts. They clearly want him to succeed, they don’t appear to be helping anyone else, they display a relatively unsophisticated understand of American politics at the granular level, and they pursued a plan of trying to support Trump four years ago that looked exactly like this from outside. And their desire to have gotten him nominated is clear.

The why will probably be clear in hindsight. But the “that” is right in front of us, and we’re fucking morons if we let it happen in spite of what we know.

[bilateralrope]

Here’s the thing: The options are

A.) Give them the power to choose nominees

Or

B.) Possibly give them a soft veto by not letting their choice win.

I think it’s clear that B is preferable to A. At least in the short term, but possibly in the long term. Do you really want Americans to know that both major party candidates were chosen by a hostile foreign entity? Especially when the incumbent is Trump and “Not the choice of the Russians” is supposed to be a key selling point of his opponent?

If the Russians choose both candidates, and a Bernie nomination means they will have, we already had our last free election in 2016. Hopefully, the Russians not getting to choose the winner of this election will mean whatever future soft veto we give them will be meaningless because Putin’s house of cards will collapse by four years from now.

Both of those options leave the Russians with influence over US elections, which should be undesirable. There is a third option. Ignore who the Russians are supporting and look for a candidate who is going to do things to limit their power to influence future elections.

[Ralin]

Yeah, I mean those are legit reasons to be concerned but Sanders has publicly told Russia to get fucked and there's a long way between Russian bots or trolls pushing pro-Sanders stuff on Facebook and Russia literally choosing the nominee. It's not like there aren't a bunch of other reasons why he's doing as well as he is.

That may seem hypocritical after all that's been said about Russian interference last time around, but they didn't pick Trump either. They just helped. To a difficult to quantify degree.

If someone can give me a concrete reason to think that the Russian government is sitting on a reliable way to torpedo Sanders and give Trump another term if he's nominated, and I mean hard proof not inferences, that'll affect my decision-making. Until then, insert your own joke about the former KGB agent bringing communism to America.

[FireNexus]

Both of those options leave the Russians with influence over US elections, which should be undesirable. There is a third option. Ignore who the Russians are supporting and look for a candidate who is going to do things to limit their power to influence future elections.

Your “third option” is just option A, but with putting your fingers in your ears and humming.

[FireNexus]

That may seem hypocritical after all that's been said about Russian interference last time around, but they didn't pick Trump either. They just helped. To a difficult to quantify degree.

It does seem hypocritical. And convenient. Downplaying the extent of Russian interference, but only after it turns out that your guy is benefitting from it, seems magically convenient. It seems “bringing fully stocked 7-Elevens to medieval Europe” convenient.

It seems so convenient that the fact that it’s so fucking common actually lends credence to the Russian/Trumpist worldview that nothing matters and everyone is a fucking hypocrite. Which, I dunno. Maybe that’s the point, after all. Convert enough people to the “Russian interference isn’t actually that big a deal” side that nobody bothers to meaningfully try stopping them.

We told ourselves the Russian didn’t mean to elect Trump, just to hurt Clinton or cause chaos mostly to make ourselves feel better because they got Trump nominated and ultimately elected. We were proven wrong. People are telling the same tale now, with “cause chaos” except now we are actually in a position to stop them and I assume that this will be the first of many, many times “the Russians didn‘t actually get Trump elected” is used to excuss The fact that Sanders being nominated should be entirely unacceptable after Friday’s (and, let’s be real, the inevitable subsequent) news.

We’re fucked. This might be the saddest I’ve ever been to be right about something.

[Ralin]

Dude. Sanity check here. There's never going to be a time when foreign governments can't try to affect American elections via social media crap and releasing whatever material their intelligence agencies have that help swing things the way they want to go. If Russia trying to promote Sanders for whatever reason without his knowledge or consent makes him 'unacceptable' as a candidate then that's not a soft veto at all, because they will always be able to do what they're doing now and so will any number of other countries. That doesn't mean that they're literally controlling our elections and picking our candidates. It doesn't invalidate the wishes all of the many Americans who want him to be the nominee.

We shouldn't be happy about it. We should totally be on the lookout for it and call it out loudly when we see evidence of it happening. But don't make Putin into the puppet master he probably likes to imagine he is.

I mean shit, Sanders is like second or third on the list of people I'd like to see get the nomination. I don't have a huge amount of skin in the game here. But you're overreacting badly and I really doubt you'd be saying this if it was Warren.

[Ralin]

Hell, you're reminding me more than anything of a Sanders supporter I know who told me back in 2016 that just being accused of committing crimes like the E-mails crap should disqualify Clinton. That was stupid reasoning then and it's stupid reasoning now.

[FireNexus]

Hell, you're reminding me more than anything of a Sanders supporter I know who told me back in 2016 that just being accused of committing crimes like the E-mails crap should disqualify Clinton. That was stupid reasoning then and it's stupid reasoning now.

Russia supporting Sanders, in my view, proves what I’ve known since 2016. That Sanders being nominated will be bad for America. The only part of their motivations I would say I know is that what they want is going to be bad for me. I can think of a lot of ways that Bernie being nominated would be bad for America. Now, I have to account for additional unknown ways.

And the ways I know are bad enough. Like that he’s a lifelong deadbeat who refused to hold down a job when he was my age and had a son my son’s age, which all on its own makes me foam at the goddamn mouth. Or that he thinks, and has convinced millions of people, that slogans are policy. Or that he has spent fifty years defining himself in a way that could have been designed to throw an American general election. Or that he’s a hypocrite who thinks that the will of the voters should matter, but only when that works in his favor.

All of that pales in comparison to “What do the spies know that I don’t, and how much worse is it than I think?” combined with people like you suddenly having a “let’s not overreact” take on Russian interference when it is in their favor. An admittedly hypocritical take, at that.

No, fuck this shit. Even if their support should not be taken as evidence that Bernie is a clusterfuck all on its own, nominating Russia’s apparent favorite against Trump is fucking stupid. It lets them whatabout away Trump’s Russian association. It’s true that the evidence implies that Sanders is way better than Trump on this score, at least at the moment. It’s also true that it won’t matter because you have to correct it, and correcting shit like that only reinforces it. Just like that, nominating Sanders normalizes Trump’s corruption and makes it impossible to attack him on the issue. Probably makes it impossible for a Democrat to effectively attack anyone on it forever.

Sanders started out a bad choice. Even if the extent of the bad regarding his Russian support is public, it’s already obviously bad enough that it should tank him. Bad enough that, in my view, it would already be tanking him in the absence of the army of Russian trolls who are now the gatekeepers of America’s political narrative. Russian trolls, I have no doubt, who are ultimately the source of the sudden and convenient “nuance” of your estimate of the effect of Russian interference in 2016.

[FireNexus]

For proof that I’m on the money, the above was post number 666 in this thread.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Russia supporting Sanders, in my view, proves what I’ve known since 2016. That Sanders being nominated will be bad for America.

How does that prove anything? Hell, a major part of your argument for why you think Russia is supporting Sanders is your previous claim that Russia doesn't display a sophisticated understanding of American politics. If you believe that's true, why would you then try to draw any conclusions from who they support? If they don't understand American politics, they don't understand the implications of electing different candidates, so as long as nobody in the US is actively colluding with Russia who gives a shit?

And, honestly, the Occam's Razor explanation for why the Russians would theoretically support Sanders is that he is far more interested in domestic policy than foreign policy, and the Russians could safely bet that they will be able to exert more influence on the international sphere with the US distracted by the various reforms Sanders looks to enact. Which has nothing to do with him being "bad for America".

[FireNexus]

How does that prove anything? Hell, a major part of your argument for why you think Russia is supporting Sanders is your previous claim that Russia doesn't display a sophisticated understanding of American politics. If you believe that's true, why would you then try to draw any conclusions from who they support? If they don't understand American politics, they don't understand the implications of electing different candidates, so as long as nobody in the US is actively colluding with Russia who gives a shit?

I think they are unsophisticated, not stupid. They support him either because he is a sure loser (read: they are confident they have what they need to make him lose, not that he will lose organically) or because he is in their pocket. There is a third option, which is that Trump is too unstable and he is the best available alternative. But the best candidate for Russia and the worst candidate for America should probably be treated as essentially equivalent given their behavior.

And, honestly, the Occam's Razor explanation for why the Russians would theoretically support Sanders is that he is far more interested in domestic policy than foreign policy, and the Russians could safely bet that they will be able to exert more influence on the international sphere with the US distracted by the various reforms Sanders looks to enact. Which has nothing to do with him being "bad for America".

That assumes a level of sophistication with regard to American politics I don’t know that they possess. But, let’s say it’s true. Like I said above, given Russian behavior on the world stage of late, I think letting them swing their dick around unimpeded counts as “bad for America” on its own.

[Ziggy Stardust]

That assumes a level of sophistication with regard to American politics I don’t know that they possess.

You can't even keep your story straight . It doesn't require a whole lot of sophistication with regard to American politics to know one of the most widely known and discussed issues with Sanders.

[The Romulan Republic]

In addition to all the reasons I have to dislike Bernie Sanders and to hate him as a possible nominee, he is now the choice of the Russian government.

This is a highly dubious narrative for reasons I'll get into below, one which frankly serves to unjustly cast doubt on the legitimacy and loyalty of the likely nominee, and therefore ultimately to help Donald Trump, and to help the Kremlin in its goal of further dividing America and the Democratic Party in particular.

I also add that making these insinuations, that supporting Sanders is helping Russia, plays into the argument of collusion deniers and Kremlin apologists (including some on this board) that claims of Russian interference are just something the Democratic Establishment made up to attack their political opponents. So you are, indirectly, strengthening the arguments of the Kremlin and its defenders with these attacks.

To be clear, I don’t know why they want him to be nominated. Maybe they want him to be President. Maybe they think he will be easy to defeat. Maybe it’s not really well thought it.

Maybe it’s just the Fox News-y “they want to create chaos” talking point all the Bernie Stans give when you point out he’s Russia’s choice for the Dem nod.

The most obvious explanation is that Putin's making the same calculation Trump is when he talks up Bernie, and the same one Centrist Democrats make when they fear his nomination- that he'll be the easiest one to beat. Its pretty clear that Russia's favorite is still Donald Trump, and its frankly disingenuous of you not to acknowledge that, while actually referring to Sanders as "the choice of the Russian government".

Another theory I've seen raised is that he thinks Sanders will be "weak on defense" and continue to weaken NATO. That's plausible, but I just posted a pretty good article above as to why Sanders' policies might actually prove more effective at countering Putin than most people anticipate.

I don’t know their strategic aims. I don’t know whether they’re pursuing a course that will accomplish said strategic aims. But I know that their tactics are clearly to get Bernie Sanders nominated. And this fact is clearly resulting in some cognitive dissonance from Bernie Stans including “just cause Chaos, maybe ur a Russian bot!!!!!” everywhere I say it.

That's not cognitive dissonance. That's observing the facts that a) the Russian government wants to weaken and destabilize the US, and b) it is not always possible to tell where something originates from on the internet. Nor is the fact that the Kremlin will back both sides in an argument to create confusion something that Bernie supporters made up to excuse Russia's "support" for Sanders. Russia backed opposing rallies in the aftermath of the 2016 election, for example, as was reported in, among other sources, the Mueller Report:

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4 ... troll-farm

Special counsel Robert Mueller in his highly-anticipated report said his team identified "dozens" of U.S. political rallies organized on social media by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm that was later indicted for attempting to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

According to Mueller's report, which was released on Thursday, the IRA organized political rallies in the U.S. using social media starting in 2015 and continued to coordinate rallies after the 2016 election.

Mueller wrote that some of the rallies attracted "few (if any) participants," while others drew "hundreds."

The IRA, a Russian troll farm with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence agencies, organized pro-Trump rallies, as well as gatherings opposed to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, on U.S. soil for years, including events in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania.

The Trump campaign put a post on Facebook about one of the rallies the Russian group organized in Miami, Fla., in 2016, Mueller noted.

The troll farm used its Facebook and Twitter accounts to organize and promote U.S. political rallies, often sending direct messages to its followers on social media asking them to participate in the events, Mueller wrote.

"IRA employees frequently used ... Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to contact and recruit U.S. persons who followed the group," Mueller wrote.

The IRA targeted and recruited racial justice advocates as well as the moderators of conservative groups.

The Hill in 2017 reported that thousands of Americans attended a march organized by the troll farm in New York City. The IRA used a group called "BlackMattersUS" to coordinate the event.

The Mueller report also lays out the ways that Trump campaign officials and surrogates amplified the IRA's messages on Twitter and Facebook as they sought to interfere in public discourse and amplify divisive political rhetoric.

Trump campaign officials, including senior adviser Kellyanne Conway and Donald Trump Jr., cited and retweeted content from the troll farm about topics including voter fraud and Clinton's handling of classified information, according to Mueller.
Mueller's team found that Trump campaign affiliates promoted "dozens" of tweets, posts and other political content created by the IRA.

NBC News previously reported that Trump campaign associates amplified and reposted the IRA's messages.

Donald Trump Jr. in 2016 retweeted a post from @Pamela_Moore13, an IRA-controlled Twitter account, and in 2017, Trump from his personal Twitter account responded to a tweet from IRA-affilaited @10_GOP.

"IRA employees monitored the reaction of the Trump campaign and, later, Trump administration officials to their tweets," Mueller's report reads.

Mueller's investigation concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to boost Trump through a social media campaign coordinated by the IRA.

The group purchased 3,000 political ads on Facebook’s platform and operated hundreds of accounts attempting to influence the perspectives of Americans during the 2016 elections.

The reports about Russians' attempts to sow discord using social media over the past few years have ushered in a new era of tech scrutiny, with lawmakers and experts around the world paying more attention to how platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more seek to prevent the spread of misinformation and the manipulation of their platforms by foreign actors.

All of the platforms have stepped up their efforts to stave off misinformation campaigns, particularly those that seek to interfere in democratic processes, but each of them have conceded that actors continue to try to manipulate their platforms to influence real-world events, including elections.

One of these days, you might also want to look up a fellow named Vladislav Surkov, who served as a close personal adviser to Putin until just this month, and has been a highly-effective propagandist for Putin. Among the techniques he employs is to back both sides of an argument in order to create confusion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav ... ide_Russia

In an editorial for the London Review of Books quoted by Curtis, Peter Pomerantsev describes Putin's Russia thus:

In contemporary Russia, unlike the old USSR or present-day North Korea, the stage is constantly changing: the country is a dictatorship in the morning, a democracy at lunch, an oligarchy by suppertime, while, backstage, oil companies are expropriated, journalists killed, billions siphoned away. Surkov is at the centre of the show, sponsoring nationalist skinheads one moment, backing human rights groups the next. It's a strategy of power based on keeping any opposition there may be constantly confused, a ceaseless shape-shifting that is unstoppable because it's indefinable.

— Peter Pomerantsev, in "Putin's Rasputin", London Review of Books issue of 20 October 2011[8]
Curtis claims that Trump used a similar strategy to become president of the United States, and hints that Trump's Surkovian origins caused Putin to express his admiration for Trump in Russian media.[97][98]

Surkov has boasted that "Russia is playing with the West’s minds", "They don't know how to deal with their own changed consciousness."

Personally, I don’t suspect Bernie or his people are complicit in anything illegal or untoward with regard to Russian influence currently. I just think that he is Russia’s choice for the Democratic nomination. They’ve helped him and only him (well, possibly Gabbard) on the Dem side for two straight election cycles. And I find it crazy that this will not kill his campaign.

Well, thank you for acknowledging that we're not traitors.

However, rejecting a strong nominee who has broken no laws and engaged in no collusion because Putin's trolls said something nice about him would be almost as dangerous as supporting pro-Putin candidates- we'd be effectively granting Putin a veto over our nominee, if we allowed Putin's disinformation to end Sanders' campaign.

As to why Russia promoted Sanders in 2016, that seems obvious. Putin hated Hillary, and Sanders was opposing her. They also used "Bernie or Bust" anger to split the Democratic vote, effectively. Now, when Sanders is the nominee, I fully expect they'll use the fears and animosity of Centrist/anti-Sanders Democrats to try to create the same split in the opposite direction. Because Putin doesn't care about Sanders, and he ultimately doesn't care about Trump. He cares about undermining America and American democracy, in order to increase the power of Russia, and of himself.

Putin doesn't want Sanders as President. Putin wants America weak and divided and ultimately destroyed, and will use any angle he can to achieve that result. Which since Sanders is almost certainly going to be the nominee now, means that Democratic and progressive opponents of Sanders will soon face a choice: either you can drop the attacks on Sanders, stop insinuating that supporting Sanders is helping Russia, stop insulting between a third and a half of your own party's voters (by, say, comparing us to Fox News), and actually walk the walk on all that talk of unity and "vote blue no matter who"... or you can keep playing into the Kremlin's hands, and prove that at the end of the day, you're no better than the Bernie or Busters.

For the sake of us all, I hope you'll make the right choice.

I think they are unsophisticated, not stupid. They support him either because he is a sure loser (read: they are confident they have what they need to make him lose, not that he will lose organically) or because he is in their pocket. There is a third option, which is that Trump is too unstable and he is the best available alternative. But the best candidate for Russia and the worst candidate for America should probably be treated as essentially equivalent given their behavior.

Reverse Bernie or Bust it is!

So now you drop all pretense, suggest that Bernie must be bought or blackmailed by Russia with zero evidence, before offering a "third option", which is that he is the best candidate for Russia, and therefore the worst for America. Also, don't think the fact that you, in a roundabout way, just implied Trump might be a better candidate for America than Sanders slipped by unnoticed.

The only reason I'm not flaming your hypocritical ass off right now is because that sort of divisiveness on the Democratic side is doubtless one of the things Russia is hoping to get out of this.

That assumes a level of sophistication with regard to American politics I don’t know that they possess. But, let’s say it’s true. Like I said above, given Russian behavior on the world stage of late, I think letting them swing their dick around unimpeded counts as “bad for America” on its own.

Does that include falling for their bait, engaging in divisive fights with other Democrats and progressives, and arguing that Putin should be given an effective veto over our nominee?

Russia supporting Sanders, in my view, proves what I’ve known since 2016. That Sanders being nominated will be bad for America. The only part of their motivations I would say I know is that what they want is going to be bad for me. I can think of a lot of ways that Bernie being nominated would be bad for America. Now, I have to account for additional unknown ways.

And the ways I know are bad enough. Like that he’s a lifelong deadbeat who refused to hold down a job when he was my age and had a son my son’s age, which all on its own makes me foam at the goddamn mouth. Or that he thinks, and has convinced millions of people, that slogans are policy. Or that he has spent fifty years defining himself in a way that could have been designed to throw an American general election. Or that he’s a hypocrite who thinks that the will of the voters should matter, but only when that works in his favor.

All of that pales in comparison to “What do the spies know that I don’t, and how much worse is it than I think?” combined with people like you suddenly having a “let’s not overreact” take on Russian interference when it is in their favor. An admittedly hypocritical take, at that.

More completely unsubstantiated implications that Russia has dirt on Sanders.

No, fuck this shit. Even if their support should not be taken as evidence that Bernie is a clusterfuck all on its own, nominating Russia’s apparent favorite against Trump is fucking stupid. It lets them whatabout away Trump’s Russian association. It’s true that the evidence implies that Sanders is way better than Trump on this score, at least at the moment. It’s also true that it won’t matter because you have to correct it, and correcting shit like that only reinforces it. Just like that, nominating Sanders normalizes Trump’s corruption and makes it impossible to attack him on the issue. Probably makes it impossible for a Democrat to effectively attack anyone on it forever.

You know what the difference is between Trump and Sanders on Russia? The one that you're ignoring because libeling Sanders and his supporters like this gives you the excuse you've been craving to refuse to vote for Sanders when he's the nominee and pretend its patriotism rather than just Bernie or Bust from the other direction?

Sanders denounced Russian involvement. He did not ask for their aid. Trump did the exact opposite. That's all we ever need to claim the moral high ground on this issue.

The only one who's playing into the Kremlin's narrative is you. Because the Russia apologists can now point and say "See, we were right all along, Russian interference is just something the Democratic establishment makes up to attack their opponents!". And when people like me try to disagree, they can call us hypocrites, and try to Both Sides the accusations against Trump and Sanders, even when the former are supported by vast amounts of evidence and the latter are pulled out of your rectum.

Sanders started out a bad choice. Even if the extent of the bad regarding his Russian support is public, it’s already obviously bad enough that it should tank him. Bad enough that, in my view, it would already be tanking him in the absence of the army of Russian trolls who are now the gatekeepers of America’s political narrative. Russian trolls, I have no doubt, who are ultimately the source of the sudden and convenient “nuance” of your estimate of the effect of Russian interference in 2016.

There you have it folks, what FireNexus was really driving at all along (and what I'm sure many a Never Sanders shill will argue in the months to come): "Sanders only won because of Russia, he's not the legitimate nominee, that's why its patriotic and not utterly hypocritical and aiding Trump for me to refuse to vote for him!" And if Trump wins again, you'll blame us for nominating him and not yourselves for refusing to vote for him.

And meanwhile the Kremlin is laughing its asses off, as they once again successfully split the Democratic vote in two with a few well-placed internet posts.

For proof that I’m on the money, the above was post number 666 in this thread.

Someone's losing his marbles at the thought of a Sanders nomination.

Let's make this simple:

You will provide evidence for the following claims:

1. That Russia is bribing or blackmailing Sanders.

2. That Sanders is only winning the election because of Russian trolls.

Or you will concede them. Or I will report your ass for lying and dishonest debating.

[The Romulan Republic]

By the way, speaking as a Sanders supporter who sucked it up, did my duty, and voted for Clinton in 2016, and who despite my dislike for her never tried to argue that she was a traitor or conspiring with hostile foreign governments...

Go fuck yourself.

[The Romulan Republic]

In actual news, Marianne Williamson has endorsed Bernie Sanders.

IIRC, this is the second endorsement from a Presidential rival Sanders has received (I was going to say first, then I remembered Bill DeBlasio existed).

I don't know how much the endorsement of Williamson will help, but the more the merrier on team Sanders. At least she's not throwing a tantrum because Bernie's going to be the nominee.

[The Romulan Republic]

Meanwhile, Trump is out talking up the supposed Bernie-Russia connection, and calling for an investigation into whether Russia helped Sanders win Nevada:

https://businessinsider.com/national-se ... ump-2020-2

President Donald Trump on Sunday wondered if Democrats would conduct an investigation into whether Russia was involved in Sanders' Nevada caucus victory, an allusion to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 2019 investigation into Russain interference in the 2016 election.

—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2020
"Are any Democrat operatives, the DNC, or Crooked Hillary Clinton, blaming Russia, Russia, Russia for the Bernie Sanders win in Nevada," Trump tweeted Sunday. "If so I suggest calling Bob Mueller & the 13 Angry Democrats to do a new Mueller Report, Democrat Edition. Bob will get to the bottom of it!"

White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien earlier Sunday denied reports that Russia was working to help President Donald Trump's campaign for re-election, but repeated reports that the country was working to help Sen. Bernie Sanders' White House bid.

"There are these reports that they want Bernie Sanders to get elected president — that's no surprise," O'Brien said about the newly cemented Democratic frontrunner who won big in the Nevada caucus the night before. "He honeymooned in Moscow."

"The president," he added, "has rebuilt the American military to an extent we haven't seen since Ronald Reagan, so I don't think it's any surprise that Russia, or China, or Iran would want somebody other than President Trump."

O'Brien said that Trump was going to continue to strengthen US foreign and defense policy, which would be good for US allies but bad for adversaries. He made the comments to George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week."

Last week, The New York Times reported that Shelby Pierson, a national intelligence aide, delivered a briefing before lawmakers that said the intelligence community had information that Russia was working to help re-elect the president in November, drawing the ire of Republicans and Trump.

Stephanopoulos pressed O'Brien on reports that — among efforts to help Sanders win the Democratic primary —Russia is also working to re-elect President Trump. When asked if he'd reviewed reports on pro-Trump support from Russia, O'Brien said, "I have not seen that and I get pretty good access."

"I haven't seen any intelligence that Russia is doing anything to attempt to get President Trump elected," he continued. "I think this is the same old story we've heard before. I've seen the reports from that briefing on the intel committee. I wasn't there, but I've seen no intelligence that suggests that."

As The Washington Post previously reported, US intelligence officials also told the Sanders campaign that intelligence suggests Russia is reportedly working to help Sanders secure the Democratic Party's nomination, though the scope of that operation is still unclear.

"Let's be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts, and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election," Sanders said in a statement following the report from Washington Post.

Sanders also claimed that some of the "ugly" posts on social media that have been attributed to Sanders' supporters were actually the result of Russian involvement. He has often received criticism for his more-passionate supporters, sometimes called "Bernie Bros." Recently, the Vermont senator faced criticism over reports his followers attacked members of The Culinary Union, a large union in Nevada, after it criticized his Medicare-for-All platform.

The president, meanwhile, replaced acting director of national intelligence Joseph Macguire following his authorization for an aide to deliver the Russian meddling report to a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Trump had reportedly been particularly angry because Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, was present during the briefing. Schiff led Trump's impeachment in the House last year.

MacGuire was replaced by Richard Grenell, ambassador to Germany, who has been an outspoken Trump supporter.

As NPR reported, the president on Sunday congratulated the Vermont lawmaker on his Saturday night winning of the Nevada caucus.

"Bernie is looking more and more like he'll be the nominee unless they cheat him out of it," the president said as he was leaving the White House for a two-day trip to India.

Though Marc Short, Vice President Pence's Chief of Staff, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Trump would be "comfortable" with any of his Democratic nominees in the general election, and he was not rooting for Sanders.

Just to show the kind of company FireNexus, and others like him, are now keeping. I guess when faced with the prospect of a Sanders nomination, some people can't climb into bed with fascists fast enough.

Another nasty possibility that was just pointed out to me: This is Trump (and Russia) manufacturing grounds to claim Sanders' win is illegitimate, and for Trump to refuse to step down if he loses the election. And Never Sanders Centrists are playing right into their hands, by repeating these defamatory narratives and thereby compromising any future Democratic effort to repudiate them.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, it looks like that whole Russia backing Sanders thing might just have been a wee bit overstated...

https://cnn.com/2020/02/23/politics/int ... index.html

Washington (CNN)The US intelligence community's top election security official appears to have overstated the intelligence community's formal assessment of Russian interference in the 2020 election, omitting important nuance during a briefing with lawmakers earlier this month, three national security officials told CNN.

The official, Shelby Pierson, told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election with the goal of helping President Donald Trump get reelected.

The US intelligence community has assessed that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election and has separately assessed that Russia views Trump as a leader they can work with. But the US does not have evidence that Russia's interference this cycle is aimed at reelecting Trump, the officials said.

"The intelligence doesn't say that," one senior national security official told CNN. "A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it's a step short of that. It's more that they understand the President is someone they can work with, he's a dealmaker."

Pierson's characterization of Russian interference led to pointed questions from lawmakers, which officials said caused Pierson to overstep and assert that Russia has a preference for Trump to be reelected.

One intelligence official said that Pierson's characterization of the intelligence was "misleading" and a national security official said Pierson failed to provide the "nuance" needed to accurately convey the US intelligence conclusions.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where Pierson is a senior official, did not respond to CNN's request for comment.
Trump has been periodically briefed on Russian interference in the 2020 election, but was upset when he learned of Pierson's characterization of the intelligence in part because intelligence officials had not characterized the interference as explicitly pro-Trump. One national security official said Russia's only clear aim, as of now, is to sow discord in the United States.

Russia interfered in the 2016 election with the aim of helping Trump get elected and damaging then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign, the intelligence community concluded, writing in its post-election assessment that "Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." And while it is not inconceivable that Russia is once again looking to boost Trump's candidacy, three national security officials said the US intelligence community does not yet have the evidence to make that assessment.

Since becoming President, Trump has consistently questioned that intelligence assessment, including during a news conference alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. And many of Trump's foreign policies have benefited Russia, from his abrupt pullout of US troops from northern Syria to the discord he has sown with America's closest European allies. And he has previously expressed a reluctance to impose severe sanctions on Russia.

Those facts, the US assessment that Russia views Trump as someone they can work with and the separate assessment of Russian interference in the 2020 elections may have led Pierson to connect the dots.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that Russia would like to see Trump reelected "because he has been a gift to Russia."

"He has essentially ceded the Middle East to Russian interests. He has accomplished more in the undermining of NATO than Russia has in the last 20 years," Murphy said. "And he continues to effectively deny that they have an ongoing political operation here in the United States that, by and large, is intended to support Donald Trump and his allies."

One source familiar with the matter said Pierson was merely providing her view of the intelligence as she faced a series of questions from lawmakers trying to pin her down on whether the intelligence showed a Russian preference for Trump.

It's the type of situation intelligence briefers are prepped to avoid, the source said, in part so as not to wade into partisan controversy. The source said the answer she provided has been misconstrued because it lacked context and nuance.

The brouhaha over the intelligence briefing led national security adviser Robert O'Brien to flatly deny the existence of an intelligence assessment regarding Russian interference aimed at helping Trump. But O'Brien did not explain that the US has also assessed that the Kremlin views Trump as a leader they can work with.

"Well, there's no briefing that I've received, that the President has received, that says that President Putin is doing anything to try and influence the elections in favor of President Trump. We just haven't seen that intelligence. If it's out there, I haven't seen it. I'd be surprised if I haven't seen it. The leaders of our -- the IC have not seen it," O'Brien said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

But while O'Brien denied that assessment, he was quick to seize on reports that Russia is interfering in the election to help Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries -- and mischaracterized the reports to suggest Russia wants Sanders to be President.

"There are these reports that they want Bernie Sanders to get elected president. That's no surprise. He honeymooned in Moscow," O'Brien told ABC News, parroting a line Trump used during a campaign rally on Friday.

While intelligence agencies warned Sanders that Russia is interfering to boost him in the Democratic primaries, they have not assessed that Russia wants Sanders to win the general election.

That last line is particularly important. As is the fact that, again, FireNexus's arguments are pretty much those being made by Trump and his lackies. He hates Sanders so much he's eagerly biting Putin/Trump's bait and swallowing it hook, line, and sinker.