… another situation is brewing which is not so positive.

Now, I am definitely in the camp with those who are sick to death of the "he won; she won" obsessions cropping up everywhere post-debate, so I will offer no argument here for either side on that matter. My personal view is that they both did well and that a lot of good will came the Democrat's way as a result of that debate.

But fellow Bernie supporters, this situation with CNN has turned ugly.

I don't know the chronological order of the attacks from both side and decided to not spend time researching that because it is not germane to the point I wish to make which is that Bernie supporters — or anti-Hillary/anti-Bernie trolls posing as such, because we never know online — appear to be in attack mode against CNN and CNN appears to be in full retaliatory posture. Here's what I'm aware of at this time:

Post the debate there were the usual focus-group results and online polls sponsored by a number of news and fluff sites, all of which appeared to go to Bernie in what appeared to be a landslide. Examples:

Here's Time's

And here's CNN's

Acknowledged that these online polls are not exactly reliable due to how easy they are to scam, but focus groups are used even in actual scientific studies, including one such that I am currently research assisting in which I have myself led focus groups as part of what will eventually be a peer-reviewed, published paper. Plus there were all of the metrics for Twitter, Google hits, Facebook adds, etc. — all appeared to be overwhelmingly in Bernie's favor.

At the same time, the majority of media sources were proclaiming a clear victory for Clinton, which message was broadcast on television and banner-headlined on multiple online news sites.

Bernie supporters were upset with this dichotomy and took to their tweets, reddit groups, facebook and diaries here on Dkos to proclaim their outrage. They also flooded comments sections following many articles and, significantly, began to flood their angry comments onto the CNN News Facebook Page. I didn't find out about this behavior until hours after learning of some of CNN's actions so, again, do not know which of the following actions might be resulting from which others. Here's what's happening now:

This is what the CNN News Facebook page looks like this morning. It's been this way since at least yesterday afternoon. For those unable to access FB, each article on that page has multiple outraged-Bernie-supporter comments dominating the comment section.

Halfway through the day, we heard from John Ellis of Bernie2016tv that their site had been shut down by CNN for continuing to have the full Democratic debate up on their site for anyone to click on and watch. I'm not clear on the details of this, but it sounds like, despite the fact that CNN made a livestream of the debate available for public access, they consider that material to belong to them and did not like Bernie2016tv having it up on their site. For some reason, instead of just requesting that Bernie2016tv take it down, CNN completely shut them down.

I have to admit that when I first heard this, it gave me chills. This is a debate of our candidates which we, the citizens should have full access to. Instead, video record of it is the sole property of a corporate entity. At this time, I'm not going to personally espouse John's theory that CNN is now only showing edited versions and not making the full debate available, because I'm not personally certain this is true. As of yesterday, on YouTube, it looked as though the entire debate is available to watch in numbered segments but I just glanced through them and did not check to see if they were not, in fact, the full, entire debate.

A few hours later, this video appeared, claiming, among other things, that CNN was deleting pro-Bernie comments from their page. Of course, it could be argued that this is still relatively petty stuff — Bernie people are being obnoxious to make their point/CNN deletes comments because it's their FB page that they control.

But then this happened:

This is a Facebook ad with 158,000 "Likes", as of yesterday afternoon, paid for by CNN to promote "concern" that Bernie's claim to have worked hard for vets was not true. The Vet's group that is linked to is Concerned Veterans for America, a group which, according to the Washington Post and SourceWatch, has strong links to the Koch brothers.

I went to the concerned vets' page and found this, which was posted the day after the debate:



CVA ON SEN. SANDERS AS SENATE VA CHAIRMAN: APOLOGIST FOR VA FAILURE By Caroline Phelps

On October 14, 2015 CVA on Sen. Sanders as Senate VA Chairman: Apologist for VA Failure

Sen. Sanders Refused to Conduct Proper Oversight, Minimized VA Scandal Arlington, Va. – In response to Senator Bernie Sanders repeatedly citing his time as chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee during CNN’s Democratic Debate tonight, Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) Legislative and Political Director Dan Caldwell issued the following statement: “As chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Sen. Bernie Sanders was an apologist for the status quo at the VA and repeatedly minimized the deep-rooted problems within the department. Unlike his colleagues in the House, Sanders held zero oversight hearings prior to the VA wait list scandal – neglecting his critical role as a watchdog of the VA. Once the scandal broke, Sanders bent over backwards to defend the VA, blocked a bill that would have made it easier to fire bad VA employees, and even bizarrely at one point tried to blame the wait list scandal on the Koch brothers. And despite the impression he tried to give during the debate tonight, Sanders had to be forced into supporting more health care choice for veterans and instead wanted to double-down on the VA’s failed health care system by spending more money and building more hospitals. “Senator Sanders will likely continue to try and tout his time as Senate VA Chairman. But an honest look at his time as chairman will show that he failed in his responsibility to oversee the VA and was not a leader in the fight to reform and fix the VA.”

a new line of defense against the march towards socialized medicine

According to information linked in this article by The Nation, "Concerned Vets" was formed asand was used as a weapon in their fight against the passage of "Obamacare".

So CNN is now shutting down Bernie2016tv and paying for an ad which promotes the criticisms of a group which was allegedly formed to attack public healthcare and the politicians who work to promote it. And the articles on their FB page continue to be flooded with comments claiming that Bernie won the debate.

Time and again since I've come on board as an active Sanders supporter, I have heard repeated the phrase:

Which, according to this Christian Science Monitor article, is misattributed:

We don't know where this quote came from, but it is strikingly similar to something that the trade unionist Nicholas Klein gave in a 1918 address to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in Baltimore: "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that, is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America."

Regardless of its true origin, Bernie people seem to have taken this phrase to heart, largely because of the long media blackout that our candidate's campaign experienced. Several times recently I've heard comment that we've moved past that blackout now and that evidence exists that we are in the "ridicule Bernie"-phase.

And now all this. An argument could be made that Bernie supporters brought some of this upon themselves with their relentless hounding of news organizations post the debate. Personally, while acknowledging some obvious truth in that supposition, I find it a little bit naïve. While acknowledging the frustration of his supporters over what seems to be yet another instance of marginalizing Bernie, I've spent some time reading through those comments on the CNN News Facebook site and they don't sound like any Bernie supporters I've ever encountered. They seem repetitious, relentless, robotic, hateful and troll-like. And they have been extremely effective in bringing about someone's goal, though it certainly is not that of the Sanders campaign nor his supporters.

Brothers and sisters, I believe we may have just moved into the attack stage of that famous quote and have now made contact with a pair of Bernie's most oft-mentioned enemies: Charles G. and David H. Koch. The weapon being used is their tried-and-true swiftboating — hitting a candidate by smearing a strength — and CNN is perhaps merely being used as a tool in this battle. Our Hillary-supporter friends will most probably remind us that they told us so and we ain't seen nothing yet, and they would be correct. But no sane Bernie-supporter believed that, should we continue to grow, this day would not come.

And here it is. Tempest in a teapot or first strike in a bloody battle? What comes of this is anyone's guess. Time will tell.