Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose delegates staged a raucous rebellion against Hillary Clinton at the 2016 Democratic convention, is trying to engineer a different outcome this year — by turning down the volume on his social media-driven army of 2020 delegates.

The Vermont senator’s campaign has told some supporters picked to represent him this year to sign agreements barring attacks on other candidates or party leaders, combative confrontations on social media or talking to reporters without approval.

The move, which carried a threat of being removed as a delegate, has the effect of blunting one of the most powerful if divisive tools of Sanders’s movement — its unrestrained online presence and tendency to stoke controversy through other media, which has at times spiraled into abuse of his opponents, perceived and real.

“Refrain from making negative statements about other candidates, party leaders, Campaigns, Campaign staffers, supporters, news organizations or journalists. This Campaign is about the issues and finding solutions to America’s problems,” said the social media policy sent to some delegates. “Our job is to differentiate the senator from his opponents on the issues — not through personal attacks.”

“Do your best to avoid online arguments or confrontations,” the policy said. “If engaging in an adversarial conversation, be respectful when addressing opposing viewpoints or commenting on the opposition.”

“When delegates attend the Democratic convention, they will be representing Sen. Sanders, the ideas he ran on and the millions of working people who supported his campaign,” Sanders campaign spokesman Mike Casca said in a statement. “That is a serious responsibility and we’re asking them to follow a basic code of conduct while carrying out that duty.”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an effort to dampen the controversy over Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s alleged use of a State Department employee to run personal errands, Donald J. Trump has ordered Mike Pence to start picking up Pompeo’s laundry, effective immediately.

In addition to his new laundry duties, Pence will be solely responsible for walking Pompeo’s dog and for what the White House described as “light housework.”

Reportedly, Pence has already hit the ground running in his new role and is in talks with Pompeo about how he likes his shirts done.

Although assigning Pompeo’s errands to Pence appears to have solved one problem, it may have created a new one, because the Vice-President will no longer be available to perform the personal errands for Trump that have been his responsibility for the past three years, such as fetching cans of Diet Coke and replenishing the Oval Office’s supply of Sharpies.

According to a White House source, those tasks could ultimately fall to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, should he prove capable of doing them “without messing up.”

While Pence’s appointment as Pompeo’s errand boy raised eyebrows in Washington, it drew the strong support of his fellow White House coronavirus-task-force member Dr. Anthony Fauci. “Anything that takes Mike Pence away from the coronavirus response is a great thing,” Fauci said.

Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn asked a federal appeals court late Tuesday for an order directing the judge handling his case to dismiss it, another surprise twist in his legal saga.

Flynn's lawyers asked the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to order Federal District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan to grant the Justice Department's motion, filed earlier this month, to dismiss the case. Instead of simply doing as the government asked, Sullivan appointed a retired federal judge to examine the government's justification for dropping the case and to look at whether Flynn should separately be found in contempt of court for his earlier guilty plea, which he has since asked to withdraw.

Once the government seeks to abandon a prosecution, his lawyers argued in their appeals court filing, the judge has virtually no choice but to accept that decision and "has no authority to adopt the role of the prosecutor." Sullivan's efforts to appoint the judge as a friend of court shows "a disturbing lack of appreciation of the court's limited role."