If Bernie Sanders stopped running for president, would the Secret Service agents now guarding him be laid off? (photo: Matt McClain/Washington Post)
Washington Post political reporter John Wagner (6/19/16) reported on Bernie Sanders’ continuing Secret Service detail, throwing in a too-clever-by-half talking point that has since gone viral. In “An Expensive Reminder That Sanders Still Hasn’t Dropped Out: His Secret Service Detail,” Wagner used an eight-year-old stat to provide urgency to his general thesis that Sanders’ quixotic campaign is draining us, the good American “taxpayer,” of resources:
Such round-the-clock protection can cost taxpayers more than $38,000 a day.
Over the next 48 hours, this tidbit quickly spread across several outlets, providing a good clickbait-friendly fable of Sanders’ egoism run expensively amok:
- Taxpayers Are Still Paying for Bernie Sanders’ Secret Service Detail – (CBS News, 6/20/16)
- Sanders’ Secret Service Detail Costs Taxpayers $38,000 Every Day He Continues His Campaign (Jezebel, 6/20/16)
- Report: Sanders’ Secret Service Bill More Than $38,000 a Day (The Hill, 6/19/16)
- Sanders’ Refusal to End Campaign Costs Taxpayers $38,000 a Day (Slate, 6/19/16)
- Bernie Sanders’ Continuous Campaigning Is Costing Taxpayers $38,000 a Day (AOL.com, 6/20/16)
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump and David Weigel both used the same “Sanders is costing the taxpayer $38,000 per day” framing in their respective tweets boosting the story.
The cynicism of the talking point reached a depressing low with this tweet from Clinton surrogate and actress Debra Messing:
Wudnt it be amazing if Sanders asked that the $38,000 a day was donated to Orlando families? https://t.co/dGrq4BpeQV
— Debra Messing (@DebraMessing) June 19, 2016
How does Messing propose that the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security, given Sanders’ authorization to stop protecting him, turn the resulting savings into cash for the purposes of “donating to Orlando families”? She, of course, won’t be proposing any such process, because this talking point is based on shallow moralizing, not on an honest assessment of the costs of Sanders’ continuing his campaign. Even without the exploitation of the Orlando attack, it’s a talking point that doesn’t make any sense.
The number the Post reported was frequently used by then–Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan in 2008. From CBS News (4/4/08):
The Secret Service is spending about $38,000 per candidate per day, Sullivan said, and at the height of campaign season later this year expects to spend $44,000 per candidate each day. The agency has protected candidates at more than 1,000 campaign venues and has put 550,000 people through magnetometers and metal detectors, he said.
Notice Sullivan isn’t saying the Secret Service is spending $38,000 per candidate in addition to what they would spend anyway. He’s only saying it’s what they spent per candidate. This, one can assume, includes fixed costs, like labor and infrastructure. Clearly, protecting Sanders also has other costs above fixed ones—like overtime, per diems, travel—but without any context or knowledge of what the $38,000 is in reference to, it’s a totally useless number. Wagner is taking a one-off McStat without explaining how it was arrived at, and using it to mean something much more specific and consequential.
The sleight-of-hand comes from taking a specific budget item and assuming that if it wasn’t there, the costs associated with it would disappear rather than be displaced. Wagner does this by saying “protection can cost taxpayers more than $38,000 a day,” which gives the reader the impression that if Sanders dropped out, “taxpayers” would magically get back $38,000.
Does anyone think the Secret Service is going to fire the exact number of agents assigned to Sanders the day he drops out? Does anyone think the additional vehicles and equipment needed will quickly be pawned off and the money transferred over to Johnny Taxpayer? Does anyone repeating this talking point think that if the Sanders campaign had ended one week ago the US federal government would somehow be $166,000 richer?
Of course not, because anyone with a passing understanding of how federal budgets work knows that budgets are based on approximates, not line items picked on an as-needed basis. So, even if the claim is true as such—even if the $38,000 is in reference to monies needed beyond the Secret Service’s normal course of operation—it still doesn’t make any sense. Until the Secret Services asks Congress for additional funds, there is no money being added or taken from their actual budget, and thus no money being added or taken away from “the taxpayer.”
The framing ignores this and uses a Grover Norquist–like gimmick of isolating one-off costs as something being taken away from the “taxpayer”—a term with considerable right-wing baggage and whose uniform adoption here by journalists belies their ostensibly neutral motives.
When FAIR reached out to the Secret Service for comment on the $38,000 figure, a spokesperson told us, just as they told the Post, that they “do not comment on the details of protection.”
This messaging trick has been used against Clinton, too, with stories such as “Investigating Hillary Clinton’s Emails Costs As Much As $13,000 A Day” (Vocativ, 3/29/16). In this case as well, a price tag is presented as though the FBI agents working her case would otherwise be fired if they weren’t kept busy with the email probe. But the FBI, like the Secret Service, doesn’t have 100 percent labor liquidity, rendering these type of cartoon breakdowns at best misleading and at worst demagogic.
Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamJohnsonNYC.
Messages can be sent to the Washington Post at letters@washpost.com, or via Twitter @washingtonpost. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
This is an informative article and shows us another way of questioning what we are told. However, I feel like you are making the same error you criticize by using the phrase “Clinton surrogate and actress Debra Messing.” You make it sound like she was appointed to that job and she is speaking for Ms Clinton. If so, I certainly missed it. What some random celebrity says is hardly speaking for Clinton’s campaign, and you indicate that it is.
Messing is indeed a Clinton surrogate, and people like Paul Begala, who operates a pro-Clinton SuperPAC have publicly lauded Messing for her pro-Clinton punditry. Johnson doesn’t say Messing is a spokesperson for Clinton, just a surrogate. Which is true.
I think she is. She is constantly Bernie bashing on her Twitter feed. It’s ugly. She I wouldn’t be surprised if they paid her. They paid Katy Perry $100k after all. Even if they didn’t, why all the negative extremely misleading posts on Bernie? List the positives on Hillary instead? Oh right, there are not l none
Yes, Bernie is constantly being bashed like this. He’s so fragile, I wonder what he would do if he had to deal with terrorists.
Yes, what do you think would happen?
He would run to a barn in Vermont and hide behind some cows
He would grab a few mattresses full of 27 dollar donations and go underground with all that cash. Unless Jane can’t find it, which we know is quite possible.
When Clinton yawns, she’s accomplished more in her life than you ever have, or will have!
Well, that’s obviously not true, ffs.
Like the voting to support the mass murder of innocent persons in the Middle East, and motivated to do by Bush’s lies?
And that’s just for openers.
I believe it is a great thing that your bunch told us that you don’t NEED our bunch, that you have it all locked down, and a guaranteed win, no matter what, so there really is no reason to trouble ourselves with you, your sort or her….
What has she accomplished, well there was a predator-opportunist mating, and bred a hybrid, that married another hybrid…. and now what do we have, two little hybrids, or two of either type. We will see!
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinto will be costing the same. Maybe not Hillary because the small crowds she gathers probably don’t cost that much to police, but then she makes up the cost with her criminal investigations.
He would run to a barn in Vermont and hide behind some cows
She received MILLIONS more votes than BS or DT did so you need to do some more fact checking. And those investigations turn up nothing so once again they waste taxpayer money, however it isn’t her that is doing it. Bernie IS wasting taxpayer time and money at this point. That’s reality.
No, it’s your delusion, because like a good little mainstream media lemming, you blindly believe it.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/taxpayer_tab_for_investigating_hillary_over_20_million.html
How much is Hillary’s year-long criminal investigation costing? Oh, yeah, it’s just displacement of dozens of FBI agents and DoJ prosecutors that could have been working on counter-terrorism in Orlando.
The difference is that she isn’t wasting taxpayer money on all these investigations that show her innocence EVERY time! Bernie is willfully costing us money by acting like a petulant child. Sorry you couldn’t see that or understand.
Thank you! The article kindly twisted the words to make sure it sounded in Bernie’s favor. Yes him staying in is distributing the wages for SS on his own needs that could be use for other SS services for other important figures. He just wants to stir up a bit fight and the poor nice old man needs to stop. He fought his fight. He lost. Bow out gracefully like Clinton did in 2008 with Obama and keep moving. But it’s okay because so many Bernie voters seem to believe everything they read. Its on the Internet so it must be true. Smh
As opposed to, “It’s on TV so it must be true?” LOL Actually, these days you can believe if it’s coming from independent media (yes, on the Internet) it IS true. You seem to have missed the whole point of FAIR’s mission.
You failed to make your point. Everything you are saying still insists that Bernie Sanders (“each candidate”) is costing $38,000 per day (according to “Sullivan”) and you’re not helping Bernie’s case because Sullivan said that number could climb to $44,000 per day!
Bernie is wasting tax payer money. He lost the election weeks ago and his fragile ego is making him stay in. It’s disgraceful.
and you missed the entire point that the same agents would still be collecting salaries and benefit payments.
These aren’t temp agents. This tells me you’re a supporter of the crap “gig economy”.
Technically Sanders has not lost the primary.
And HRC has not won either.
There is certainly extra money being spent in protecting Sanders. I don’t know where these agents would be otherwise, but certainly hotels, flights, food, etc all add up on the campaign trail more than they would if these agents were in their home city doing the job.
“There is certainly extra money being spent in protecting Sanders.”
What makes it “extra”? “Extra” over and above what? Does it become so because it is being spent on Sanders?
Is it also “extra” when it is being spent on Trump, given that the all polling — and Republican panic — suggests that he won’t be President either?
No shit they would be collecting salaries, it’s their job! But Sanders is continuing this pointless run and shifting the money to him by having a security detail when there is no need!
Really?!
THAT is the name you are going post under?
Is THAT what Hillary’s campaign is paying for?
On the contrary, there is a very big need for Bernie to get his message out; and right now his candidacy is the best way to do that. Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t mean it’s not sorely needed.
BS has had 30 years to “get his message out”. Time for him to concede so that the Secret Service can protect something that needs it. We do approve of them escorting him to VT to pick up those tax returns though. What’s the old coot hiding?
Strawman argument – whether the money is budgeted to the Secret Service or not, Sanders continuing in the race means that it continues to be allocated to protection for him. If he’s out it’s allocated elsewhere. If I have money to buy pizza to feed 4 people and one decides not to have any, it doesn’t change the amount of money I have, and saying “well you were already going to pay for 4 people” doesn’t mean I’m going to spend the same for 3 as I would for 4. Why is this so difficult to grasp?
Simple math baffles folks
Senator Sanders has not “lost”, contrary to bought MSM reporting, the superdelegates do not vote until the end of July at the convention,. I know that the MSM and DNC have been trying to crown her the victor for the past year but if Sanders wasn’t still in a race he would not have Secret Service agents protecting him and his family. I am not in the Presidential race and I don’t have Secret Service agents in my home.
NOBODY – either pledged or SuperDelegates votes until the Convention at the end of July – that’s another misleading stat put forth by the Sander’s campaign. However, if he wants to speak at the Convention he has to concede before the Convention starts – otherwise, he will be relegated to speaking to a near empty hall after Clinton accepts the nomination on Wednesday night.
Is that a threat you are willing to make good on? You have that kind of power? Is there something you know about the depth of Sanders’ support that you can be sure the “hall” he speaks in will be empty? Do you think Sanders will lose his supporters to Clinton who will fill the Dem Convention to cheer her on while “he will be relegated to speaking to a near empty hall after Clinton accepts the nomination on Wednesday night.”? Do you think Clinton has magic powers such that Sanders’ supporters will abandon him for Clinton — rather than taking up the challenge to create an independent movement to push a progressive agenda (in and out of — and even against — the Party) long after the Convention is over and we have a new President, no matter who it is? Do you think he won’t keep his promise to help the Dems fight Trump, because he’d rather bloviate in an empty room?
Again, is this kind of intervention in the discussion the best that Clinton’s supporters can do?
I agree. The article also fails to point out that the agents on Sander’s protection detail could be doing other important work if they weren’t “protecting” Sanders. For a man who is quick to chastise others for how they spend taxpayer money he looks rather hipocritical.
Maybe you could provide an example of this “other important work” that is being neglected because some loser insists on spoiling the inevitable coronation of Her Royal Majesty?
Look, it’s ok to be a supporter of Secretary Clinton, and to come here to defend her candidacy against that of Senator Sanders’. But it is worth noting that those who take on that task (I hope the pay is good) have nothing to offer Sanders’ supporters except insults, and accusation (including that of being unwitting helpmeets to Trump and the Republicans) and anti-Trump scare tactics.
I think it’s quite intriguing that that Clinton’s supporters seem more interested in alienating us out of the door rather than recruiting us into their campaign. If I were a Hillary-bot manager I’d take an entirely different tack than what I see being deployed here and at other progressive sites’ comment sections. Do these people really think that the current strategy will either change minds or drive people away from this forum so that only Clinton supporters will be read here and elsewhere because those of us who are not her supporters will simply give up and go away? Are their “moral” arguments (Save America From Trump) or accusations (continuing to support Sanders is a vote for Trump) or insults (Bernie Is A Disgruntled [or worse – a Sexist!] Loser and so is anyone who supports him) will bring them around?
Can’t Hillary’s supporters do better than this? Have they ever won an argument this way? Has any new Hillary supporter come to her aid because this former non-supporter of Hillary had been insulted into “reason”? Will that new Clinton supporter come forward and publicly admit it, referencing the last and most effective insult or accusation that turned his support from Sanders (or, Jill Stein for that matter) to Ms. Clinton? Would I be right in boldly asserting that Ms. Clinton’s campaign’s paid trolls are essentially wasting their time if changing minds were really their project, rather than merely securing the “paid” part of being a paid troll until campaign’s end on election day?
I know Sanders’ campaign is, frankly, over – if by “campaign” one means running for the Presidency. But now we are about go into the convention. The “campaign” will now, therefore, go into (yes, largely symbolic) consolidating/counting delegates and writing-the-platform stages. Sanders’ supporters will likely, therefore, focus more on the platform than on delegates (public comments notwithstanding) because the democratic wing of the Democratic Party still thinks that serving the genuine interests of the historically disadvantaged can be a viable project for one of the two major political parties. And still – in fact, by this very means – defeat Trump in the process.
Given the arguments proffered here by Ms. Clinton’s supporters, it is the reviving of that project that stands as an irksome interference, rather than its being harnessed as an appeal — and then deployed as a weapon — against reactionary policies. It is this that one finds to be quite revealing, and is it highly suggestive of what may be coming under a Hillary Clinton Presidency. Ms. Clinton may rest assured that her Administration’s neoliberal project will meet with only token resistance, and that the corporate press will dutifully stenograph/cheerlead her efforts. After her nomination (and indeed after she wins the election) said corporate press will advise that she tack “centrist” and toss her liberal and progressive support, along with the traditional Democratic Party constituency, over the side to appeal to the (mythical) middle. We all know that is code for her to accept the Republican-friendly programs so beloved by corporate interests and cultural reactionaries.
And, as usual, FAIR will dutifully document and review the corporate press’ call for it and in so doing remind us, despite such a call, of the wide popularity of an overall progressive agenda. An agenda that Ms. Clinton will need little push from the press to reject. Frankly, it all looks pretty gloomy from here.
My (ignored) message to Clinton’s supporters: if you want to win some of us over, you are going about it all wrong. It won’t work. It just ticks us off. If you want us to come over to your side, you cannot mock, or insult, or scare, or accuse us into it. We are impervious to those sort of approaches.
And, for the sake of institutionalizing a genuinely progressive project, we are not leaving.
Wow, I’m not surprised that there is no rebuttal, at least up to this point. That was very well said.
There’s no rebuttal because nobody but you bothered to read what this hot airbag had to say! LOL oy. You bots are a trip!
There is no reply to my “hot air” because there is none that “Ernie Knows” can make, his handle notwithstanding. Did your Hillary-bot boss assign you this site for now? Given your contributions (and that of other Hillbots) it appears that the HRC campaign really does have a lot of corporate super-PAC money to burn since you are not even putting in the effort at a refutation. Or, the HRC campaign has low standards for who can be Hillbot. Or, it could just be that getting good Hillbot help is hard to find.
And maybe you should check to make sure that your Hillbot pay is not disbursed in monopoly money!
Of course that assumes that a Hillbot can tell the difference!
Ernie Knows?
Not!
Not so much, nice try.
Phil Opientoob – WOOOSH. Right over your head.
Perhaps Madame Mayhem might consider donating her speaking fees … ?
“You failed to make your point. Everything you are saying still insists that Bernie Sanders (“each candidate”) is costing $38,000 per day (according to “Sullivan”)”
Read the article again. It specifically explains how that’s inaccurate
The fact is SECRET SERVICE IS BEING PAID REGARDLESS IF THEY ARE PROTECTING SANDERS OR SITTING AT THE BACK OF THE WHITE HOUSE TWIDDLING THEIR THUMBS.
At least they are doing their job what they are supposed to.
The Washington Post Hillary surrogates would be all too happy if another Bobby Kennidy were to happen to Sanders!!!
What kind of crackpot are you?
Apparently, he’s the all caps, can’t spell, tinfoil hat wearing kind.
Why do you say crackpot? I’m just wondering.
remember 4 years ago when Hillary did not drop out after California – she said she didn’t do it because “Bobby Kennedy was killed after the California vote”. I never realized she was talking about fear for herself and not that Obama could be removed from the race.
Federal agents are hired and put on an annual salary, they did not hire extra agents just for the elections. This amount of money as to the cost of the federal agents was not verified only repeated by a few un-noteworthy people. Just because someone says, this cost this does mean it actually cost this much. A secret service agent gets paid about 70,000 a year if they are upper pay grade agents, how many agents are part of Bernies detail then divide that by the 365 days in a year. Then figure out how many days the agents were assigned to Bernie. Did we all forget what we learned in school and just become over emotional reactionaries?
Federal Retiree
Any lesser man than Bernie would already giving in to endorsing Hillary, but Bernie is showing, once more, that he is a man that marches to the beat of his own drum and we Love and Respect him for that. The CORRUPT DNC, aka: Hillary Clinton spin machine are doing everything in their power to cast Bernie as a callous, stubborn, delusional man, but by not endorsing the Corrupt Politician Hillary Clinton is,E Bernie’s integrity shines.
Well said!
Debra, instead of waiting your time posting all this negative stuff about Bernie, put your puny brain to use and do some research. Does it bother you that the woman you and a bunch of your Hollywood talking heads support so fervently takes money from Countries like Jamaica and The Arab Emirates where women are treated like crap and gay people are jailed and killed for being gay. And please stop exploiting the Orlando tragedy, is disrespectful and callous on your part.
Those secret service agents work for me. Sanders is wasting our time and money that could be better spent on performing other critical duties.
So, yeah, he’s wasting money.
No, she is wasting everyone’s time by not dropping out so a person with integrity, who is scandal free and not under indictment can be our President!!
Hillary is not “under indictment.” Get your facts straight, please.
Ok, so you don’t want to try arguing that she has a scrap of integrity or that her scandal ridden career isn’t an issue. You’re very sensible to avoid those points. :)
She argued the point that was laid out. The statement was made about Mrs. Clinton being under indictment. Perhaps you should stop moving the goalposts.
“Those secret service agents work for me.”
Then go fire them, and sock Bernie with the bill for their services.
OWNERSHIP — DICTATOR CONTROL
When a bunch of scumbag deceitful slave owners created the U.S. Constitution, they made sure that freedom of speech would be worthless, as they gave freedom of the press, which is the unalienable right to be heard, they gave this right only to themselves. For since the invention of the printing press, the scumbag rich nobility who think of society as substandard humans fit only to be slaves, surely such an ingrate High Society has always owned/funded all of mainstream media.
More young people voted for Bernie Sanders than Trump and Clinton combined
Will never vote for Hillary Kissinger
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/more-young-people-voted-for-bernie-sanders-than-trump-and-clinton-combined-by-a-lot/
thats why he staying in cause most every exit poll has him winning.. but since exit polls show they are cheating we dont get to hear bout them. RIGGED
This article misleads by implying the total cost of Secret Service protection is from base salaries and that budgetary allocations are equivalent to expenditures. For instance, the article makes no mention of travel expenses such as transportation, hotel, car rental, meals that would not otherwise be spent. It someone else was abusing government services like this, Sanders would not hesitate to lambaste them.
Maybe you missed this paragraph: “Notice Sullivan isn’t saying the Secret Service is spending $38,000 per candidate in addition to what they would spend anyway. He’s only saying it’s what they spent per candidate. This, one can assume, includes fixed costs, like labor and infrastructure. Clearly, protecting Sanders also has other costs above fixed ones—like overtime, per diems, travel—but without any context or knowledge of what the $38,000 is in reference to, it’s a totally useless number. Wagner is taking a one-off McStat without explaining how it was arrived at, and using it to mean something much more specific and consequential.”
There is a lack of understanding about how finances work. Even if the dollar figure is incorrect there is money being spent towards Sanders protection. As one commenter also points out there are hard costs to associated with protection, it is not all salaries. Also, even time spent by salaried employee on a task when he/she could be doing something else is still a loss and is shown in a dollar figure amount.
We have a secret service and they protect top-tier candidates. Bernie hasn’t dropped out yet, and that’s what the hit piece was all about.
Breaking it down into dollar amounts for outrage clicks is stupid. That’s like looking at the entire defense budget, figuring out what it costs per-person, then multiplying that number times death row inmates and then saying “Obama is spending $x dollars to protect murderers!”
You can deconstruct anything and do that. It’s a smear tactic. All it does is blow your cover as a hack.
You want to do some useful math? Figure out how expensive Clinton’s likely wars will cost.
We don’t have to.
We have her past wars to calculate.
Fortunately, someone has already done the math for us: http://threetrilliondollarwar.org/
It doesn’t matter what they cost, he doesn’t need them anymore since he will not be the nominee. He is no more in the running than any of us are. $10 would be wasted.
Bernie likes the whole “star” thing and is holding onto it as only the worst sore loser can. His SS detail makes him feel important and THAT has never happened to Bernie before.
He could serve us all better by moving forward, not holding onto his 15 minutes of fame.
Just because this is what you’d prefer to believe, doesn’t make it so. If you knew anything about him you’d know he’s not the fame whore that Trump is. For Bernie, it’s all about his policies. The longer he stays in, the further support his policies garner. The main intent of his candidacy was to open the public’s eyes and change the national dialogue, which the establishment would take great pleasure in reversing if he dropped out.
Thank you, for actually reporting facts.
It is now known that Hillary Clinton arranged the sale of 20% of the United States’ uranium deposits to Russia and in return her “Founcation” received millions of dollars of donations. She owes the American people for that theft, and in addition to the money coming out of their “Foundation” (money laundering criminal foundation) she owes the citizens of the United States some uncomfortable prison time and then a short jerk at the end of rope!
After reading this article I still have no idea if the story about how much it’s costing for Sanders to continue pretending to run for president is costing in Secret Service protection. It clearly costs something.
I do know that the remnants of the true-believers in Bernie Sanders seem to be taking up the mantle of Ken Starr, Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde in attacking the only woman standing between the world and another horrific Republican presidency. Which is all that anyone needs to know about why Sanders should end the nonsense that he is going to be elected president right now.
True that, except for one small quibble. Hillary Clinton is the only person, not only woman, standing between the world and disaster.
“Hillary Clinton is the only person, not only woman, standing between the world and disaster.”
And we DON’T have disaster in the world NOW — disaster in which both Ms. Clinton and the current Administration are not deeply implicated? Most of the readers who come to this site have enough of a historical memory to understand matters quite well. And for those of us whose memories of historical events could use a little help, this site comes in quite handy. Read earlier posts here; you election-season Johnny-come-lately “defenders” of Ms. Clinton would have your work cut out for you if had to respond to much of the information posted here by FAIR’s media analysts.
I hate Trump, but I am not stupid enough to believe that Ms. Clinton is some kind of (closet liberal) savior waiting to unleash her inner leftist. She is a corporatist warmonger. Period. And I — we — cannot be goaded into supporting her by you people.
So just save your paid, Hillary-bot, trolling bull for someone else.
You are making a whole lot of totally unwarrented assumptions in your angry bash. Ms Clinton is a “savior” only in the sense that the alternative is a Trump presidency. It’s between Clinton and Trump now, whatever you might wish for.
And the paid troll thing is such a weak attempt at an insult. I am fully aware of Ms Clinton’s flaws. I also know that a lot of the things said about her are untrue. I have carefully done my homework.
While I admire the passion of the Sanders supporters, that passion has too often spilled over into attacks on anybody who doesn’t see the world from the same viewpoint. Too many see Sanders in a messianic light and then accuse others of the same feeling for the candidate they support.
“I am fully aware of Ms Clinton’s flaws.”
So, too, are the people of Libya.
So, too, are the people of Iraq.
So, too, are the people of Afghanistan.
So, too, are America’s “Super Predators”.
How many are dead or in jail because of the policies of Bernie Sanders?
And if Hillary is such a feminist, why is it that while she talks of abortion rights she has offered no tangible support to pro-choice activists and women’s healthcare workers on the ground? Women’s healthcare clinics that provide abortions have closed around the nation due to illegal Republican assaults on women’s rights and Ms. Clinton has not seen fit to lend her formidable prominence and visibility to the cause of women’s healthcare rights.
Let’s clear this up now. This is not about “flaws”. We all have flaws. No one is looking for a savior or a demigod. My god, why is that even an argument? Why do you and others like you continue to accuse people you disagree with as being besotted with some will to misread a citizen running for public office as some kind of un-Earthly being coming to save us all? There is NO ONE you can cite who has EVER written or spoken of Senator Sanders in such a manner.
Ms. Clinton has not advanced the interests of the poor, of women, of minorities, of the LGBT community, of the innocent victims of American foreign policy, of the environment, of labor. She is not on “our” (progressive) side and her history in public life is proof of that. Everyone knows it.
Including you.
“I do know that the remnants of the true-believers in Bernie Sanders seem to be taking up the mantle of Ken Starr, Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde…”
No, false that. Name ONE policy that these worthies have proffered in their careers that even remotely resembles anything from Bernie, his surrogates, or his supporters. Just another bit of gender-baiting in the hope that anyone with any liberal sensibility can be guilt-mongered into voting for a corporatist, prison-industrial-complex-icating imperialist merely because she is female. When another hellfire missile lands on another Afghan wedding, will be feminism be served?
Following “Anthony McCarthy”‘s species of reasoning, Trump should also get out of the race because Hillary has already won. Try that one out on your Trump-supporting uncle at your Fourth of July backyard barbecue.
I dont care if Sanders protection cost 100.000 a day. He still should be the most protected man on the planet.
Let’s assume $38,000 a day is accurate (which, as the article says, it’s not), and calculate it for 60 days (June and July, roughly). That comes to a grand total of $2,280,000 for Sanders staying in the race. Two million dollars sounds like a lot, but it’s less than a millionth of the 3 trillion dollars spent on Iraq and Afganistan.
So, if Sanders has even a one-in-a-million chance of winning, or of somehow building a progressive coalition that will sway Clinton into not jumping into another war, then this money is more than worth it. I think his chances are definitely better than that, given all of the Clinton scandal material that could still tank her candidacy before the convention at the end of July.