Bernie Sanders

Collective Political Failure

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Donald Trump is the President of the United States and Zohran Mamdani is the Mayor of New York. One, a raging madman that has re-defined conservatism around his cult of personality, hatred towards those he perceives of enemies, and the destruction of both our federal government and the existing world order since World War II. The other, a self-described socialist that won’t say “the Intifada” is bad, wants to open city owned grocery stores, and ran on a platform of giving away a lot of free stuff to city residents that he will need Albany to come in and foot the bill for. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I have no use for either one. In fact, I think the election of both is a sign of a society in decline.

As is true with all things though, Mamdani’s first day was a mixed bag, even if it was almost all bad. He did decide to keep the city’s office that fights antisemitism, even if he weakened it a bit, which is a good thing. He also is showing signs that he is willing to cut through some bureaucratic red tape in the government to help build more housing fast. Other than those two things, his first day in office was a hellscape of terrible. You know it’s bad when the speeches by AOC and Bernie were as much about criticizing Democrats as the Trump Administration, but they were nothing compared to Mamdani’s. One line, in particular, has received almost all of the attention- “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” If Mao or Stalin himself had said this, we would have zero shock. The speech was literally a call to return to at least “big government liberalism,” if not an outright socialist battle cry altogether. As Putin critic and former Soviet citizen Gary Kasparov put it on Twitter, “The “warmth of collectivism” is to freeze while those with heated dachas tell you how noble your sacrifice is.” Mamdani, a man born of economic and academic privilege, is what happens when limousine liberalism gets put on steroids and hyper-charged. There is a reason China rejected Mao, the Soviet Union failed, Cuba is a failure, Venezuela is now a living hell, and no one wants to go to North Korea. This kind of rhetoric leads to failure, because the underlying system of socialism has no grounding in practical reality, it cannot be run in a functional way. Mamdani’s solution is to get the city involved in things the city probably can’t do very well, like run a grocery store. His solution to expensive transit is to make it free. His solution to some crimes is to legalize them. What he doesn’t get is that someone has to pay for it all. Politicians in Albany aren’t going to be excited to raise taxes to pay for his programs, and they probably will just refuse to do it for the most part. To the extent he’s even allowed, he may try to pin that bill on the wealthy in New York City. At least some of them will just leave. No city, not even the greatest city, can survive with no taxpayer base.

My guess is Mamdani will mostly fail to deliver, and that’s my hope. If he succeeds, it will have long lasting impacts on the city, and a few will be good, but the net will be bad. How do you get to Mamdani though? You get there through electing a Trump. How do you get a Trump? You get there by a government that the public doesn’t think meets it’s needs. A world where more people live out of debt, work more hours, and get ahead less. In short, it is a collective failure that gets you to Mamdani. Oh, the irony.

Crooksy’s Hero Bernie to Kids With Cancer- Go To Hell!

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

There are useless people, and there’s Bernie Sanders. This man has single-handedly turned me from a liberal Obama supporter into a very certain left-of-center moderate that despises the DSA as much as MAGA. How? Well, our latest installment is Bernie killing a bill to fight pediatric cancer:

Pediatric cancer advocates scrambled to get to the Senate to watch the moment. Reporters who had covered the issue, including this one, were given the heads-up about its imminent passage. At least three kids who are bereaved siblings of cancer victims and one pediatric cancer survivor sat in the Senate gallery.

And then, it failed. A single senator stood in the way. It was Bernie Sanders.

In a dramatic, heated exchange on the Senate floor—caught by the C-SPAN cameras but largely missed by the news-consuming public—Sanders announcedhis opposition to quick passage for the bill. He did so not because he disagreed with its objective—which is to give the FDA the authority to push pharmaceutical companies to study combination drug therapies—but because he worried that extraneous provisions attached to it would make it harder to achieve other priorities. He argued that the Senate ought to be passing similarly important, bipartisan-supported health care measures along with it. His staff insisted to me that they would revisit the bill soon, and they seemed confident it would all get done in the new year.

I mean look, I say a lot of mean things about far lefties, and some of them are probably a bit hyperbolic. Not in this case. This ass hole literally killed a bill to help kids with cancer because the bill didn’t deal with other things he wants done. Like, really. Kids with cancer dude? The week before Christmas, he killed a bill to help kids with cancer. I knew he was a piece of shit before, but this is the kind of low that I did not think was possible.

We often have the argument over which side is worse. Both sides in politics claim the high ground. I think we are reaching the point where both parties literally have extremists so far out on the horseshoe that they’re just both assholes who need to go home. Bernie isn’t the only person who has played football with this bill, amazingly. Take his right-wing mirror, Rand Paul, for example:

The bill was on the doorstep of passage through the Republican-controlled House when Elon Musk suddenly decided to take it upon himself to kill it. In a series of caustic tweets, he called for GOP lawmakers to scrap every element of the legislation that wasn’t a simple continuation of the current government policy. The health care components that had been negotiated were scrapped.

And then, for a brief moment, they looked like they might be revived.

In the hours after Congress passed that pared-down December 2024 funding bill, lawmakers revisited three pediatric cancer provisions. One of them, which would provide money for pediatric cancer research, passed the Senate with unanimous consent. The Give Kids a Chance Act failed. This time it was Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who objected.

Ok, so the socialist left-wing nut and the libertarian right-wing nut have taken turns blocking care for kids with cancer. Shocking? Not at all. What is this a fight over, you ask? What could possibly cause these two men to take turns sticking it to children with cancer? Trust me, it’s as dumb as you can imagine.

For example, Rand Paul had come around to support a unanimous consent request on the Give Kids a Chance Act in part because lawmakers had added to it a provision he wanted: one that would give the FDA authority to share information about innovator (i.e., brand-name) drugs to prospective applicants. That specific provision is projected to save roughly $1.2 billion over the ten-year budgetary window (according to Hill aides), which would go into a Medicare account. Why does that matter, you ask? Because Sanders wanted the savings to be used to fund community health centers instead. And once money goes into Medicare, it’s hard to take it out for use elsewhere. No politician wants to be attacked for raiding a social safety net program.

That was just one problem that Sanders had with the bill. He also wanted all of the provisions that Musk scrapped back in December 2024 to be passed as well, not just the Give Kids a Chance Act. Among them: mandatory funding for the national health service corps and mandatory funding for the teaching health center program. Were they not important, too, he asked on the Senate floor.

“We must revive that bipartisan agreement that was worked on month after month after month by Democrats and Republicans,” Sanders said.

Efforts were made to try and push through. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who took over the chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee from Sanders in 2025, tried holding out carrots, making what appeared to be a commitment to his colleague to help get community health care funding passed. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a major proponent of the Give Kids a Chance Act, tried wielding a stick instead.

“He is literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement,” he said of Sanders on the Senate floor. “It is ridiculous.”

Jesus f’ing Christ, Markwayne Mullin sounds like the f***ing adult in the room here! Does anyone know how ridiculous that is? Markwayne Mullin. From Oklahoma. The sane adult in the room. Are you for real?!?

Look, one can and should argue that this is Chuck Schumer and 8 Democrats who voted to reopen the government’s fault- they didn’t take easy victories like this and put it in their demands to vote to end the shutdown, let alone the health care subsidies for millions of Americans. Even so, this is not a bill that really should need to be in a negotiation. It’s not like money going into the Medicare fund is a bad thing, especially for the socialist that says he wants to put literally everyone on Medicare. But fine. This bill may be incremental progress on health care, but it’s progress no less, and lawmakers should vote for progress for their constituents any time they have a chance to. Moving legislation is hard.

Lawmakers like Bernie Sanders make it harder, doing stupid stunts like this on bills that no one wants them to fight over. There’s a reason this guy hasn’t passed very many bills in his 30 plus years in Congress. He’s the last person you should take advice from on who to elect to Congress to make American life better.

Just a reminder that Bernie Sanders endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District on the day Bob announced. Yes, that Bob Brooks. And that Bob Brooks. And that Bob Brooks. Yep, still that Bob Brooks. He also supported Graham Platner in Maine, the guy who rocked a Nazi tattoo for a decade. He also helped give us lying grifter and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard with his praise, and the guy who killed ACA subsidies for millions, John Fetterman as our Senator.

Can’t Bernie go home and knit or something and stop hurting America?

Crooksy’s Hired Nerds Will Save Us, Right?

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

They gave you an underperforming antisemite. They gave you Senator Shrek. Now you should trust that they are ready to deliver you a House Majority. Just check out their puff article.

After successfully propelling Zohran Mamdani to the mayor’s office in New York City, the campaign firm Fight Agency is moving on to its next targets – defeating Pennsylvania Reps. Ryan Mackenzie (R-07) and Rob Bresnahan (R-08).

The six-person firm consists of Rebecca Katz, Tommy McDonald, Julian Mulvey, Morris Katz, Eric Stern, and Lynnette Jackson. Fight Agency’s website reads that it has assisted over 300 winning elections in 40 states and has won over 100 awards, including 2022 Campaign of the Year.

Katz was the lead strategist for Sen. John Fetterman’s winning campaign in 2022, while McDonald was his key admaker. Mulvey was a key member of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) braintrust, and Katz was the firm’s lead on the Mamdani campaign. 

Stern was deputy campaign manager for Fetterman, while Jackson heads operations.

The group’s website says that it is “looking to help American originals” who are “ready to fight the toughest battles in politics.”

“And we’re here to help you with sharp messaging and the next great iconic ad.  So, if you’re looking for something different, you might have just found it.”

So their new iconic original is a pro-gun militant, who hates Kaepernick for supporting BLM (as opposed to telling people to not vote in 2016), and stiffed his mother-in-law. An American original? I mean, you can find deadbeats all over the place right, like maybe Trump Tower? Or is this whatever day Northampton County has hearings for people who stiff their family? I’m unsure. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is certainly unoriginal though. I’ve see plenty of people who aren’t even honest when it comes to their family.

Yes, these folks got Zohran elected in a gigantic blue city. Good job. Unless they’re going to flat out lie to people and get away with it like they did with John “Shrek” Fetterman, that doesn’t usually work though. Look, Mamdani will be the latest leftist who promised the world and under delivers. John Fetterman somehow went from a Bernie socialist to a Republican before he finished three years in the Senate. These same folks want you to think it’s okay to have a Nazi tattoo, so much so that you should be elected Senator in Maine. Yes, he’s really their guy. These folks brag about electing like 300 socialists, but they probably lost more Presidential primaries with just Bernie Sanders alone than Eugene Debs did in his career. Most Americans don’t want to be Democratic Socialists.

The movement they are selling is simply awful. It’s morally bankrupt. We have seen what their kind of candidates give us. They give us Trump’s National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard. They give us deadbeat Senator, Bernie Sanders. They give us completely con-artist Senators, like John Fetterman. That’s a road to the future version of MAGA. We don’t need this kind of garbage.

Bernie Grifters Have to Grift

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

Oh Graham Platner… you’re quite a dipshit. I’m on the record hoping for Janet Mills to beat him. Then of course he got caught with the Nazi tattoo and a bunch of bad social media posts, and of course he won’t drop out now. Honestly, Platner is just like the rest of these leftist crooks Bernie pushes on us.

Turns out Graham Platner is employing his wife. He’s paying her biweekly as a “volunteer coordinator.” They’re paying her instead of him because they were worried it would affect his disability payments from the VA. This sounds a lot like Bernie. The Institute in his name founded by his wife and son, that paid his son, shutdown in 2019. Jane Sanders however was paid as a senior advisor to his campaigns. Then there’s the mystery firm his 2016 campaign gave millions to, lord knows who was involved with that.

This is just who these guys are. They run these populist campaigns and get people to give them $10 at a time until it adds up for them. If they win, great. If they lose, it’s another lake house, right?

Tulsi, Fetterman, Crooksy

/ Rich Wilkins / 5 Comments

I’m an OG Bernie hater. When his online weirdos put me on their hate list in 2017, it was a badge of honor. I knew then that he was a grifter. His campaign, his super pac (Our Revolution), and his institute (Sanders Institute) all employed his family. Some of his organizations bought his books (great for royalties). He made a profit off of running for office. So he kept running for President in a political party that he slams repeatedly and isn’t a member of. It’s a great existence, for him. He disowns all the stuff that is inconvenient for him, vaguely claims the populist stance, and makes a lot of money off of it. It’s easy to see the guy isn’t real.

I also never trust the people he elevates as our “future.” He has given us some real doozies. Bernie gave us Tulsi Gabbard (who literally had an internal campaign “hate” list that they put me on too). Tulsi Gabbard told us Assad in Syria was “not an enemy,” essentially blaming the U.S. for Russia invading Ukraine, and that Hillary Clinton is drugged and refusing to back her over her foreign policy and cheating Bernie out of the nomination. Today, Tulsi Gabbard is Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, claiming that Russia did not seek to help Trump in 2016 (they did), contradicting a GOP lead Senate report saying they did. Gabbard’s revisionist history is the backbone of the government’s case that former Obama era intelligence leaders lied to Congress and tried to frame Trump. In short, Tulsi Gabbard is a psychopath. Bernie Sanders told us she’s not. Of course, she got her rise by being a trusted friend to Bernie.

Then there’s the case of Shrek John Fetterman here in Pennsylvania. In 2016, Fetterman ran for Senate as “the only candidate backing Bernie Sanders.” In 2018, Bernie came to Philly to back Fetterman for Lt. Governor. In 2022 Bernie loved Fetterman even more, formally endorsing him, calling him a “real fighter for the working class of America,” and saying “there was no candidate who ran who was more strongly identified with the working class” than John Fetterman. Last night Fetterman voted to re-open the government without subsidies for Americans buying health care under the Affordable Care Act. He greets pro-Palestinian protestors, who probably backed him in the past, by waving the Israeli flag at them. Fetterman’s wife is a dreamer, and has probably been his most effective surrogate, but he’s turned his back on that group of supporters, even saying Biden went too far on immigration. Fetterman went from being one of Bernie Sanders first big endorsements in 2016 to saying “I’m not a progressive.” Do I agree with some of his moderation on a purely policy point? Sure. Is Fetterman, like Gabbard, completely turning his back on the people who supported his political rise? Yes. It’s bizarre behavior that no one should cheer.

There’s others too. Graham Platner in Maine, the Nazi tattoo guy, is telling us he’s “no John Fetterman,” but he’s just the latest left-wing unicorn candidacy. Guess who endorsed Platner? Guess who is now defending Platner on the Nazi tattoo? In fact, Grifter Bernie thinks it’s mean that people are asking about it. I guess it’s normal to have a Nazi tattoo in Bernie’s circles.

I could go on and on. I have several “Squad” members I could talk about. I won’t. Bernie’s candidates have a much harder time winning elections, but worse yet, he just picks the absolute worst people. Over and over again.

This is a good time to tell you that Bernie Sanders endorses Bob Brooks for Congress in PA-7. That’s the man we call Crooksy. The man who stiffed his mother-in-law. The man who told us he hates Kaepernick for being a BLM protestor. The man who thinks guns and school prayer would save America. I guess he missed Bernie’s memo about Fetterman being a working class hero, he thinks he was the first guy to speak to the working class. That’s kind of unbelievable, given that he has the same consultants and is basically the same guy. In fact, you won’t believe this- the same consultants ran Bernie, Mamdani, Fetterman, Platner, and now Crooksy.

There are incredibly misguided people, for whatever weak reasons they have, who think Crooksy isn’t the next Fetterman or Gabbard. This guy told you he’s a cheat, a racist, and a religious nut from the jump. I’d actually rather Republican Ryan Crosswell win this race, and he’s totally unacceptable too. Voting for Bob Brooks is the same as voting for Tulsi or Fetterman at this point. It’s absurd on it’s face and it’s just caving to a bunch of Harrisburg insiders that don’t have your interests at heart, just their career aspirations.

Alpha Dog of the Week, 11/8

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

He ran for President twice in a party he refuses to join. He lost both times, by millions of votes, but did worse the second time. He told you Tulsi Gabbard is a good person. He told you to vote for John Fetterman. His wife publicly hoped Hillary Clinton would be indicted in 2016, which I’m sure was helpful. He has a super pac that buys his books, helping fund his multiple lake houses. The pac also has employed family members. He has an institute named after him where his friends and family are all on the board. Lately he’s told you to vote for the guy with the Nazi tattoo in Maine and Bob “Crooksy” Brooks. He’s done almost nothing in three plus decades in Congress. He is the world’s greatest grifter and fraud. He is this week’s alpha dog of the week, Bernard Sanders of Vermont.

11/1 Alpha Dog. 10/25 alpha dog. 10/18 alpha dog. 10/11 alpha dog. 10/4 alpha dog. 9/27 alpha dog. 9/20 alpha dog.

The Democratic Tea Party Moment has Arrived, and That isn’t a Good Thing

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I’ve been around long enough to remember the Bush Republican Party. It was an awful institution, an institution that ruined our standing in the world with their post-9/11 foreign policy, created permanent deficits with their tax cuts, wars, and unfunded mandates, wrecked public education, put the architects of repealing Roe v. Wade on the bench, ran a Presidential campaign in 2004 based on gay baiting and homophobia, weakened environmental laws, and deregulated housing and Wall Street to the point of an economic collapse in 2008. In short, the reason I am a Democrat today is that the Bush Republican Party was an incredibly damaging group of people and was full of completely repugnant people, from Dennis Hastert to Dick Cheney. We should not opine the moral superiority of “those good ole’ days.” There was nothing good about them.

What followed the Bush Republican Party was not an improvement. Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and the rise of people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul was not some return of moral leadership to the Party of Lincoln. Those folks gave rise to Trumpism, and Trump has been the revolution. Our government is largely no longer functional, and that’s what many folks who supported him want. “Norms” are no longer normal, there is no discussion of common ground. The current pathway is simply a regression to the desired conservative mean, a natural outcome of the algorithm billionaires and conservative culture warriors wanted. The destruction of this moment cannot be understated.

The problem of course is that as dumb as Trump truly is, there was a decent argument that a 20th century government and political culture was no longer working for America. The large, bulky government we had put together after World War II, and it’s technocratic wonkiness, had become a hinderance to the desires of the public. Our society was not, and by the way is still not, meeting our needs.

I won’t draw a comparison between the party of Obama/Clinton/Biden and the Bush GOP, because let’s be honest, they gave us things like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and an infrastructure bill. If you want to argue they didn’t go far enough, fine, but they were good things. However, the Democratic Party had become the defenders of systems and institutions that were not, and are not, popular. We were arguing the economy was fine because of market growth and job numbers, while housing and costs in general were rising. We were arguing that Israel was right to attack Hamas, because they were, but were giving ourselves no room to criticize Netanyahu’s incompetence and total disinterest in getting to a sustainable outcome, even as he criticized and attacked us. We were right to bail out Wall Street, the auto industry, and the health care industry after 2008, but also not only didn’t make them pay for their bad choices, we sort of got stuck defending why America “needed” them. Basically, we got stuck keeping our systems working, because it was the best thing for society, and then also got stuck defending the institutions on which we had always been the only check. We started to look like the kids serving as hall monitors in high school, the wet blankets.

The correct response to this is not to start yielding to anti-semitism and white men with Nazi tattoos, that much I know. Globalizing the Intifada is still a very, very bad idea, even if you think Netanyahu is an abject criminal. Sure, Democrats should never have conceded to the data nerds and embraced a “base only” approach to politics, but the answer to that is not to embrace the very worst human beings one can find. The 2010 Republican Party conceded power to the Tea Party, and within a few years they were embracing Pizza Gate, Charlottesville, chem trail theorists, and “white replacement theory.” So much for Milton Friedman economics and “real politic” foreign policy. They were overrun with an unmanageable caucus in both houses of Congress and a Presidential candidate who was completely self motivated and transactional. What could go wrong? Well, everything. And now it’s the Democrats turn. We are on the verge of accepting anti-semitism, grifters, and crackpot conspiracy theorists. They are defending political violence against Jews. And before you say, it’s just one of them, no it’s the whole Alt-Left movement. As DSA calls murder okay, they organize for Mamdani. That would be Zohran Mamdani, who last year was a part of the uncommitted movement over, yes, Gaza. Up on stage at their DSA rally he had AOC, a proponent of the “defund the police” movement. Seriously. She didn’t just want changes to policing, she wanted it defunded. She meant it too. And then there was Bernie up there with them. Bernie, who ran and lost for President twice, the second time much worse, who never misses a chance to attack Democrats. Not on stage with them was Bernie’s heart throb in Maine, Graham Platner, a loud progressive who also thinks the Democratic Party sucks, and also has Nazi tattoos. Of course, the Alt-Left loves him and thinks they “might have found our Trump.” They also didn’t bring their old buddy John Fetterman around, because he’s sort of problematic right now, but he was Mamdani and Platner before they were.

There are Democratic leaders, from Martin Heinrich to Chris Murphy, maybe to even Hakeem Jeffries and Kathy Hochul, ready to concede to these folks. They are ready to concede the Democratic Party to self avowed socialists, conspiracy theories, and nuts. It’s about to happen here in the Lehigh Valley too. Bernie Sanders has endorsed Bob “Crooksy” Brooks in the 7th Congressional district primary. Just like he did for Fetterman. That would be Crooksy who stiffed his mother-in-law, but lives in a state of denial that people won’t care about stealing $55k, defending political violence, sharing racist memes, and being a religious radical. Of course Bernie is for this, he was for Fetterman too. And like Bernie and Fetterman, Crooksy lectures the Democrats about “not supporting the working class,” which for Crooksy just means they let the Black lady talk to Black people, which he definitely hates. Sadly, it sounds like Governor Shapiro is going to join the PA Dems in conceding the Democratic Party to the most vile, terrible elements of the left for political expediency. This is no profile in courage moment. Our leaders are letting us down. They are allowing anti-semites, conspiracy theorists, and socialists to be our future. This is our Tea Party Moment. We are failing it.

Bernie’s Goofy Lefties that don’t Believe in Political Gravity

/ Rich Wilkins / 5 Comments

Just based on his schedule and endorsements, it’s pretty obvious that ancient fossil/dinosaur/cranky old man Bernie Sanders either wants to run for President in 2028 or try to be the king maker for who Democrats nominate for President. Bernie is 84 years old and will be 87 in 2028. He is, in short, older than Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and probably a bunch of other national political figures who are very old, or in most cases, long retired. Also, all of them were at least able to win a nomination to run for President, something Sanders failed at twice, and in fact did far worse in his second attempt at. Bernie is a delusional nut, and not just for his archaic left views on policy. People don’t vote for the guy. He’s not as likable as he thinks he is, thanks to the internet. His record of king making? Tulsi Gabbard, John Fetterman, some failed pro-life Mayoral candidate in Omaha, and of course, that lady Shontel Brown blew out in Cleveland (“HELLO SOMEBODY,” Nina Turner!). This guy is a delusional crackpot that Democrats should be trying to stuff back in the school locker that the DNC braintrusts let him out of in 2016. He’s yesterday’s loser.

Here’s the thing though, Bernie doesn’t just have delusions for himself, he creates delusions for others. Take Graham Platner in the Maine Senate race. The latest “white savior” from the far left to run for office is certain he can win a U.S. Senate seat away from Susan Collins. Never mind that he never has won anything, he’s certain he’s the LeBron James of Democratic politics. He’s so certain that he’ll tell you that his past Reddit posts questioning why Black people don’t tip, downplaying sexual assault, and using homophobic slurs don’t matter. You know, he was just trying to get a rise out of people. Now he’s re-shuffling his campaign and making people sign NDA’s so you don’t hear any more about it. He figures people will just forget about it and elect their savior, who is of course, him. For a brief moment yesterday morning he got a poll that showed that primary voters were willing to excuse the early stuff. That’s sick, vile, and disgusting, and I hope is just a matter of Maine voters not knowing enough about it yet. I’m sure we will soon find out that the general electorate is not as forgiving. I guess it was the endorsement from a white supremacist might do it. Or maybe, and just hear me out here for a second, it was having a Nazi tattoo that he got on a drunken night in Croatia when he was 37 will kill his candidacy.

The whole entire premise of his campaign is dumb to begin with though. Sara Gideon didn’t lose to Collins because she was some super moderate. The attack at the end that Collins team ran with was that Gideon wanted to defund police. Of course though, Bernie Sanders, surprisingly Senator Martin Heinrich, and basically all the Democratic Socialist types are sticking up for Graham and saying he’s a great candidate. They think this stuff will go away, or voters just won’t care. Assuming voters in Maine don’t mind that he’s further left than Gideon, who they rejected in 2020, they probably will mind that Platner is a piece of shit human being. Collins and her backers will remind them of it, over and over again. His defense is basically that he was a drunken man child. I’m sure people will be cool with a Neo-Nazi Senator.

This is the kind of judgment Bernie Sanders shows over and over again though. He endorses delusional deadbeats in primaries who run on his populist BS. Here in the 7th District of Pennsylvania, that’s his guy, Bob “Crooksy” Brooks. Crooksy took $55,000 from his mother-in-law and didn’t pay it back He went to court, and lost, then lost his appeal too. His excuse is that it was all just part of a messy divorce. That’s one helluva long divorce- it was basically the entire marriage! Crooksy took the money in 2004, paid none back by 2008 and therefore signed a promissory note to pay the money back, then proceeded to pay back not one dime for ten more years before the lady filed suit against him. A full two more years went by before the case went to court, he still didn’t pay any money back, then he appealed the case on the grounds that the promissory note was no longer valid, so he didn’t need to pay. Seriously. This dude stiffed his mother-in-law and thinks voters in the most swing district are going to trust him as some sort of ridiculous “every man” figure.

Look, if we set aside for a minute that he became the President of the Fire Fighters union by pushing out his predecessor allegedly in dubious ways, or that the guy is a racist, a gun nut and militant religious wacko, and maybe the only statewide union President too lazy to go to Labor Day events, I think most normal voters understand that stiffing your mother-in-law for over 15 years brings up some serious issues in your trustworthiness. Explaining his laissez-faire views on political violence can be hard to get across to voters. Taking money, not paying it back, and then lying about it is much easier. In his delusional mind though, he thinks he’s Congressional material. Ryan Mackenzie will make him the poster-child for elder abuse by the end of this race, fair or not. He’s easily the worst candidate in this field. But he’s lecturing Democrats about supporting working people. Give me a break.

Maybe I’m over thinking it though. Maybe the sign came on the first day of the campaign- the endorsement from Bernie Sanders. The same Bernie Sanders who stood on stage with Tulsi Gabbard and told us she’s great. The same Bernie Sanders who rallied voters for John Fetterman, who now wants to sell out our health care. The same Bernie Sanders defending the guy with the Nazi tattoo in Maine. The same Bernie Sanders who is fine with stiffing your mother-in-law in the Lehigh Valley.

Yeah, there’s a pattern here.

Of Course Deadbeat Looney Toon Bernie Sanders Backs Bob Brooks in PA-7

/ Rich Wilkins / 22 Comments

Well, it was finally time for Bob Brooks to announce his run for Congress yesterday. When this saga all began, there were promises of the Governor endorsing Brooks and calling on everyone else to drop out, as well as a wave of unions switching their endorsements to back Brooks. Instead what we got was the Lieutenant Governor that like 3% of the Lehigh Valley has heard of, the farce of an endorsement from SEIU, Brooks own Fire Fighters union, and a Congressman that was the warm up act for Bernie Sanders in Bethlehem. Oh, and we got Bernie Sanders, the two-time Presidential Primary loser. What a shock. Bernie certainly sees a lot of himself in Bob.

About a month or so ago, I told you about how Bob Brooks borrowed $55,000 from his mother-in-law and never paid her back. She proceeded to sue him, and win, then beat him on appeal in the Superior Court. He never paid her back, and eventually just abandoned the property to his ex-wife. The actual judgment was for $130,386.36, which probably was pretty impressive to Bernie Sanders, who himself is a deadbeat. Sanders first steady job was when he was elected Mayor of Vermont. To hear how those who knew Bernie described him as a young father in the 1970’s, you get why he was drawn to the guy not paying back his in-laws. Bernie was broke and couldn’t pay his bills. Bob had a pretty good job, but couldn’t pay his mother-in-law. I get it. Neither one wanted to pay for the family they have.

Bernie’s a good role model for Bob on some social issues too. Bob Brooks has stated support for guns on demand and prayer in school in the past, in accordance with the beliefs of the 3%’ers militants. To give Bernie credit, he never sympathized with radical militants here in America, but he has had to “evolve” on gun rights, from protecting gun manufacturers in 2005 to supporting most gun safety measures. Given just the stuff we know about Bob so far, I’m sure he’ll have to evolve on immigration, or some other similar issue, just as Bernie has since his 2007 vote against immigration reform. The one area I’m not sure fits is Bob’s support of prayer in schools, but Bernie does have weird positions on gender roles that he backed away from. Bernie kind of wrote the playbook, I guess?

The one area they are a perfect match in is running campaigns to be a spoiler. Long after he had no chance at victory, Bernie Sanders continued his campaign for President in 2016, doing harm to Hillary Clinton. Bob has no pathway to victory in this race, but he’s unwittingly running to throw this race too.

When you get down to it, it makes complete sense Bernie Sanders would pick Bob Brooks to be his candidate in PA-7. It also makes sense that the rest of the JV squad was sent in to endorse instead of the Governor, Democratic Leader of the House, and everyone else they promised. The birds of the feather really did flock together.

This fire really is too big for Bob Brooks.