Brazile nuts

Diabolical Donna tips the scales, just like she did for President Gore. Photo via CNN.

So they're saying that sneaky old Donna Brazile violated all the sacred rules of CNN journalism, the most ethical news station in the known universe, which would never knowingly tolerate having an actively partisan person on its payroll (unless Donald Trump was paying him to be partisan) and had to be fired:

The announcement followed the release of new emails on Monday that included a message from Ms. Brazile on the day before a CNN-sponsored Democratic primary debate in Flint, Mich., in March. Her subject line: “One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash.”

Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint,” Ms. Brazile wrote to John D. Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, and Jennifer Palmieri, the candidate’s communications director.

Because nobody could have suspected that at a debate HELD IN FLINT, MICHIGAN, A CITY WHERE LARGE NUMBERS OF MOSTLY BLACK PEOPLE INCLUDING MANY SMALL CHILDREN WERE BEING POISONED BY LEAD DUE TO THE CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE OF THE STATE'S REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION BECAUSE THE CANDIDATES ASKED TO HAVE IT THERE, that any questions would be asked about what Bernie or Hillary would want to do as president to alleviate their situation. I mean, why would anybody think of asking such a question in Flint? It was a million to one shot.

Thus, at the debate in question, on March 6, Sanders started off,

Over the last several weeks I had the opportunity to meet with a number of residents of Flint at a town meeting in Flint, and I have to tell you what I heard, and what I saw literally shattered me. And, it was beyond belief that children in Flint, Michigan in the United States of America in the year 2016 are being poisoned.

And Clinton shot back,

Well, I'll start by saying amen to that. We are here in Flint, I'm very grateful that my request that we hold this debate be held here so we can continue to shine a very bright spotlight on what has happened in this city. I agree, the Governor should resign, or be recalled... support the efforts of citizens attempting to achieve that. But, that is not enough. We have to focus on what must be done to help the people of Flint.

You can see how effective the cheating was here. Bernie Sanders had no idea that this would happen so he was naturally completely tongue-tied and unable to respond coherently. Clinton wouldn't have known either, obviously, but that treacherous Brazile had slipped her the info in advance using the unspeakably unscrupulous method of emailing so Clinton had the advantage.

For example, note how she starts out by saying, "We are here in Flint." Does Bernie say that? No! The implication is obvious, Bernie doesn't know where they are because he's not in Donna's email tree. Similarly, when he moves on to say what needs to be done, does he focus on "what must be done to help the people of Flint"? He does not! He's all like

we need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, our water systems, our waste water plants, our roads and our bridges. The wealthiest country in the history of the world has got to get its priorities right, take care of the people, no more tax breaks for billionaires.

He wuz robbed! He didn't have access to what kinds of bizarre and unpredictable questions Don Lemon and CNN might throw out there, and was left stammering and baffled, without even a fragment of his stump speech that he could have applied to cover up his surprise.

That's obviously why Hillary won the debate (well, Vox said they both won, and Flint, MI did too, taking the opportunity to get some publicity for the crimes against humanity with which it had been victimized, and the losers were Don Lemon and the Republicans who spent their own debate that week talking about their penises, but that's not the point.) Without that surreptitious help from Brazile she might well have lost the Michigan Democratic primary outright! (Oh, she did?)

I was planning on voting for Clinton myself, because I have this thing about switching to renewable energy forms, protecting the civil rights of people of color, gay people, and women, making the tax system fairer, increasing the share of people who have health insurance, improving the access of all young people to higher education, avoiding a collapse of the international financial system, and not allowing the US to be mocked around the world for allowing itself to be governed by Fuckface von Clownstick, but now I'm just not so sure.

I may just have to vote for Dr. Jill Stein, because I know she would never take an unfair advantage by finding out what city she's in, or indeed by learning anything at all.