Lawyers defending DNC argue impartiality was just a guideline

Former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (artist’s conception)

Did you guys know that someone filed a class-action suit against the Democratic National Committee on behalf of Bernie Sanders supporters? It’s like Twitter in lawsuit form. You may remember last summer, when leaked emails appeared to show pro-Clinton bias among high-ranking members of the DNC—including Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who resigned as a result. That’s about as contrite as the party was willing to get. When it comes to shelling out actual compensatory damages to Sanders donors—who, Miami law firm Beck & Lee argues, were defrauded by a national committee that gave them to believe the nominating process would be fair—the DNC draws a line. That line runs right through Article V, Section 4 of the DNC charter, which instructs the chair and staff to, as the Observer puts it, “ensure neutrality in the Democratic presidential primaries.” But that’s more of a guideline than a rule, DNC attorneys argued. The neutrality provision is “a discretionary rule that [the committee] didn’t need to adopt to begin with.”

What’s fun about this argument is that no one is contesting that the primaries were unfair. You’d think there might be some legal case to be made that, despite the emails, Wasserman Schultz and the rest of the committee acted impartially. But apparently they thought that wouldn’t work, and they’d have a better chance arguing that no one expected them to act according to the charter.

This is not the argument the committee has presented to Democratic primary voters. Wasserman Schultz did not send out an email suggesting that the party should agree ahead of time whether to follow the charter in the next election, to avoid this kind of misunderstanding. She resigned, because she and the committee appeared to have been unfair when everyone expected fairness. It’s weird that the money version of this argument takes issue with the expectation, when what went wrong was clearly the unfairness.

But that’s probably just a legal calculation. The weird expectations argument stood a better chance of working, and would therefore lead to a smaller settlement down the line. Still, this reads as an admission from the DNC that it’d be easier to argue no one expected the party to follow its charter than to say the nominating process was fair.

Who cares, right? Bernie is going to die peacefully in his sleep before the next election, and Hillary is going to rise up into the air on silvery wings she’ll use to decapitate the former President Trump as soon as he admits treason, resigns and becomes a private citizen. Or he’ll win again in 2020, because Biden croaked, Elizabeth Warren is Hillary without the banks, and Corey Booker is the banks. Trump will still be in office at age 77, likeRonald Reagan without a middle-class childhood to soften his dementia.

All this would have been okay if she had won. If the DNC had set up a coronation for Clinton while hapless sophomores wasted bong money on Sanders and then she kept Trump from becoming president, that would have been cool. But to hand-pick your candidate and lose! It contravenes our sole request of the modern political party. Cheat to our advantage. Cheat in a way that makes our lives better.

Fix in, chairwoman out, planned unity off as Democrats convene in Philadelphia

Thanks, Prisma!

Thanks, Prisma!

Remember when Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Donald Trump were going to divide the Republican Party amongst themselves? Remember when we worried aloud, biting our cheeks to keep from snickering, that the GOP would suffer a contested convention? Here’s video from the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, in which delegates boo their nominee:

The DNC was in the news this weekend, starting Friday afternoon, when Wikileaks published over 20,000 emails proving party leaders connived against the Sanders campaign. The leaks probably came from Russian hackers, who likely dumped the information to sow division among Democrats and abet Kremlin favorite Donald Trump. That’s what the panicked faithful said, anyway. On Sunday, Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as chair of the DNC. She promised to gavel the convention to order and oversee its proceedings, but after delegates from her home state met her with jeers at breakfast, she withdrew. Now the party is without a master, and Hillary’s power to command loyalty among Democrats is compromised on the eve of her ascension. Oh yeah—and Trump pulled even with her in the polls.

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Killin’ it!

Michelle Obama’s speech was almost exactly twice as good as Mitt Romney’s, at least according to Twitter. It’s possible that points to a difference in the media habits of people who watch the DNC and the RNC, respectively, but I’m going to say it’s because she was twice as good. Lots of people agree with me, even if Charles Krauthammer issued a formal bah, humbug. “And the brilliance of it is this,” he said: “It drained Obama of any, either, ideological motivation, or any having to do with self-interest or ambition, which I think is sort of a more plausible explanation.” You saw through it, Krauthammer: the president is ambitious.

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DNC, RNC both spending money like there’s no 2012

Michael Steele at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, where he was described as "the bald guy," "the guy with the mustache," "the guy in the suit," "the, um, he's kind of...he's got glasses..."

Good news, everybody: the GOP isn’t the only national political party taking the money that you thought would help express your political views in Washington and using it to buy caviar strap-ons. Yesterday, the Washington Post revealed that “both the national Democratic and Republican committees spend about two-thirds of the money they take in on the care and comfort of committee staffs and on efforts to raise more funds, with lavish spending on limousines, expensive hotels, meals and tips.” Props to Jacek “Monster In the Closet” Pruski for the link. Those of you who have worked in nonprofits know that the appropriate level of operating costs for a charitable organization is generally agreed to be about 20% of income. During the fundraising cycle that ended in February, the DNC took in about $100 million, and spent $60 million on travel, catering, hotels, entertainment, staff salaries and “office supplies”—a line that, in the RNC’s annual report to the Federal Election Commission, included liquor, jelly beans, and a $900 tab at the Little Door restaurant in Beverly Hills. First of all, if you’ve ever eaten at the Little Door, you know the manilla file folders are incredible. Second of all, the RNC took in $109 million last fundraising cycle, and spent $74 million of it. Where did all that money go?

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