One of the best articulations of the liberal vision I’ve seen:
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by Hillary Rettig| 176 Comments
This post is in: Bernie Sanders 2016
One of the best articulations of the liberal vision I’ve seen:
Comments are closed.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
It was 38 degrees when I woke up this morning…YES!!!
I will enjoy it while it lasts.
rikyrah
FYI The Disney Store is having their semi-annual sale.
Yes, I just spent part of this morning getting stuff for Peanut.
There is boys stuff too…..
If you have one near you, you probably have more options, but I just wanted to do it online.
Hillary Rettig
The warm weather is great but watch out for that water-on-ice thing.
I’m going back up to the Grand Rapids Public Museum to see the Discovery of the Tomb of King Tut and Prohibition exhibits again. They were both fantastic, and I’m going alone, this time, so I can take my time and see and do everything I want. Feels very luxurious.
msdc
I hope this wasn’t actually produced by the Sanders campaign; running that photo of Barack Obama over the phrase “corrupt politician” would instantly disqualify him from getting my vote.
I suspect it wasn’t. This looks like it was produced by people whose politics are composed chiefly of internet memes (Carl Sagan) and sanctimonious platitudes (We Shall Overcome? seriously?). If this is supposed to make me want to vote for Sanders, it has backfired spectacularly.
MomSense
@msdc:
Yeah, my take on this video is a big NOPE.
RaflW
The optics of Bernie at Liberty University I found very interesting. Looking back, it was a shrewd move for that reason as well as him making a sincere appeal to (young) evangelicals at that moment.
Betty Cracker
If that’s one of the best articulations of the liberal vision you’ve ever seen, I respectfully suggest you need to get out more. It’s straight-up campaign hagiography. And I say this as someone who likes Bernie a lot and may vote for him in the primary.
RaflW
@msdc: They cut to both Obama (flanked by Biden and Bush) and Hillary Clinton during the ‘every corrupt politician’ phrase. I was flipping back and forth while watching (so only listening at times) and didn’t catch that on first play.
Very, very uncool.
Hillary Rettig
@msdc: good catch. I saw that scene flash by in a sec but it didn’t really register. (Probably the intention of the filmmaker.)
NotMax
Underwhelming, to say the least.
Gin & Tonic
Does Sanders know how to smile?
dr. bloor
You know, I like Bernie a lot, but I don’t think he’s quite ready to join FDR, JFK and MLK on the Mount Rushmore of progressivism.
Patricia Kayden
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve seen him laugh. There should be a video of him and Killer Mike floating out there on the internet. Bernie seems like an okay guy. I’d vote for him if he wins the primaries but doubt that he’d win the Presidency. It would be too easy to demonize him for his Socialism (and possibly him being Jewish rather than Christian).
dr. bloor
@Betty Cracker: But it will garner Billions and Billions of Voters!
amk
guess che was unavailable? bottle of bollocks.
Mike J
@msdc:
We shall overcome is not a sanctimonious platitude. Appropriating it for a campaign is despicable.
Hillary Rettig
@RaflW: as for the rest of it, FDR, Sagan, MLK, etc. are memes for a reason.
Hillary Rettig
@dr. bloor: Here’s a man who knows his Sagan. :-)
ThresherK (GPad)
@NotMax: Because if there’s one thing Jeb needs, mired in quicksand, it’s for Graham to hand him an anchor..
FlipYrWhig
@Mike J: BUT HE MARCHED WITH KING
Oatler.
I like bold LIBERAL (not “progressive”) statements that don’t cater to pollsters’ whims. Sanders couldn’t piss off the Nazis more if he’d used “Meadowlands” for music.
WereBear
A case of unchecked enthusiasm. But it’s good to know new people are “getting” what it means to be progressive/liberal/a freakin’ human being.
Elizabelle
Liked the video, mostly, but using the phrase “corrupt politician” over a photo of Hillary, just after Obama and Biden, when you have GOP opponents?
Dirty pool. And I say that as a Bernie fan.
But they undercut their message, shot themselves in the foot, and you can’t correct or take this one back once it’s out there.
Cacti
I’d say it looks more like one of those old Sesame Street bits:
“Which of these things is not like the others? Which of these things does not belong?”
RaflW
@dr. bloor: My other thought about the video is that the people being clipped were far better orators (and had better speechwriters). Bernie looks a bit rumpled and hapless by comparison.
This isn’t an official campaign release, is it?
Countme
Nice words. I believe in them.
But two of those icons were gunned down, one of them by a conservative gunman, and the other, Kennedy, himself a conservative Democrat by all measures, but demonized by Republican pigf*ckers as a flaming Commie, Catholic liberal, was taken down by who knows …. we know.
You really think Sanders, who calls himself a Socialist, or any liberal President is going to be allowed to live by these filth, with the hateful rhetoric spewed by the scum on the Right.
What do you think, the stockpiling of military weaponry and ammo is for recreating. Nonsense. It’s to kill us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfP6sYzTNfQ
Did anyone listen to the cold-blooded killers in the republican mouthfest last night?
Republican understand only one way. The way of the gun.
RaflW
@Hillary Rettig: I didn’t make the meme comment. And I don’t know why you’re responding with that re: the ‘corrupt politician’ edit. Doesn’t address it.
cmorenc
Many right-wingers are now claiming that MLK’s values were actually that of a conservative Republican, and if he was alive today he’d be with them, not the Democratic party. Yes, really! Here’s the Heritage Foundation’s attempt to state the case for this proposition I would suggest you not try to read this while drinking milk or anything that might be messy if you succumb to an involuntary urge to a huge belly laugh.
Mike J
Seriously, this is a fucking train wreck. Bernie’s campaign should be asking the creator to take it down.
Anya
The message was lost as soon as it reached the “every corrupt politician” over an image of Obama with two other presidents. Sanders in not served well by his supporters.
Cacti
I’d say that this video reminds me rather more of Bernie’s more enthusiastic supporters.
Amir Khalid
@RaflW:
No Bernie campaign logo in sight. No “I’m Bernie and I endorse this message” audio at the end. This is a fan video.
Smiling Mortician
That video is just embarrassingly bad.
sparrow
@FlipYrWhig: It confuses me why anti-Bernie people make so much of this. Bernie himself rarely mentions it, and despite claims to the contrary, I rarely see supporters bring it up either. In fact, in total mentions, about 90% are flippant comments like this. It’s weird that you guys treat it like something he should be ashamed of… in terms of points you might score against Bernie to make me like Hillary, this is definitely not one of them. You probably want to let this one go.
Amir Khalid
This clip doesn’t manage to persuade me. I already knew Bernie’s a decent guy with his heart in the right place. But I reckon Hillary is a lot better prepared than he for the actual job of presidenting, and that’s the crucial difference between them.
Anya
@cmorenc: They’re either delusional or deliberate lying if they claim MLK’s values would align with the party of racism, homophobia, xenophobia and anti-poor. Did they forget MLK’s fought for racial and economic justice?
boatboy_srq
Well phrased. Thoroughly embarrassingly married to the video. Ditto all the “corrupt politician” comments over shots of the Dem opposition (although, I suppose, this being primary season it’s considered too early to go after the Teahad): if the problem is corrupt elites buying their governmental officials shots of Adelson, Murdoch and the Kochs would have gotten far more mileage.
Bobby Thomson
@RaflW: but I’ve been assured that Sanders isn’t dissing Obama and that people are just making that up! Damn these lying eyes.
Anya
@FlipYrWhig: it’s something to be proud of. I don’t have any issues with Sanders. He’s an honorable guy and I agree with him on all issues, except guns. I just hate his supporters. They’re the progressive wing of the dudebros. They’re tone deaf and obnoxious.
Betty Cracker
Have we discussed the Clinton campaign’s critique of Sanders’ push for single payer HC? There’s room for legitimate criticism there, particularly along political lines (it’s unrealistic) and because the Sanders team hasn’t released its plan to pay for it. But I say the attack line Chelsea Clinton took (stripping away Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, etc.) was dirty pool. Hopefully the push-back they received will keep them from approaching that line again.
Cacti
@sparrow:
Really?
I saw Berniebros sneering it at Sybrina Fulton (Trayvon Martin’s mother) on her Facebook page after she had endorsed Clinton.
“He marched with MLK” became a bit problematic when it became synonymous with “shut up, black person who doesn’t support Bernie”.
rikyrah
BuzzFeed News ✔ @BuzzFeedNews
Just in → Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder asks President Obama to declare federal emergency over Flint water supply
FlipYrWhig
@sparrow: I treat it like something his fans have used to try to enhance his standing. That’s who I’m trying to “score against”: the hagiographers. I find the candidate himself to be a good guy with a very narrow range, and I think “political revolution” is handwaving rather than a real strategy to make the stuff he wants to happen actually happen.
boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: Only two years too late… and only now that the studies (and the stonewalling) are public…
WereBear
@sparrow: And, you know… he did. Unlike Lieberman, he never acted in a way which repudiated those convictions, either.
Botsplainer
@Betty Cracker:
Single payer health care is an awesome idea, but there needs to be an acknowledgment of the economic dislocation of tens of thousands of insurance workers, tens of thousands of provider insurance clerks and diminution of share price in businesses that are held in a megashitload of mutual funds, pension funds, corporate investments and IRAs. My message to purity progressives is that if you can’t address those problems, shut up because you’re not serious about comprehensive reforms.
It would be a massive economic disruption.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: I think if your ideal plan for health care is to start over again and put everything in the hands of governors, that _does_ jeopardize the incremental progress at the federal level that has resulted in covering seniors, kids, the disabled, and some of the poor. Or at least I think that’s worthy of debate.
FlipYrWhig
@Botsplainer: Plus having the government pay 100% of whatever doctors tell their patients to do is the opposite of a strategy to contain healthcare costs. And if you _want_ to control costs, deciding what the government will and won’t cover and at what level, and how doctors get paid, and so forth, is where the whole idea is going to get pecked to death.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: By that logic, it was a legitimate difference of opinion when wingnuts accused the Democrats of stealing money from Medicare to fund Obamacare.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
Using Chelsea was obvious political gamesmanship. But I think it was calculated gamesmanship. Team Bernie has been blasting away at what they see as an attack on the concept of single payer, but not saying much about the bigger criticisms: 1. How is it paid for? 2. How will it be implemented?
If the goal was to put the Bernie camp a bit off balance, I’d say it’s succeeded so far.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@msdc: The YouTube version has this text when you scroll down:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who hasn’t watched it.)
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: Hillary’s explanation was that without a public plan, all we have to go on are bills Sanders has introduced, and those bills devolved power to the states (to allow Vermont to set up its own single payer regime). It’s certainly a fair point that that approach won’t work in Kansas but that it could be abused by some states.
I suspect the plan Sanders has in his back pocket is a national plan, but he’s keeping it there because his people know it’s not only unrealistic with a Republican Congress but that he may not even be able to sell it to voters. The average American is like Rubio and doesn’t want to pay more in taxes even if he comes out ahead.
ruemara
@Cacti: nailed it in one. Re, video. Jesus. Appropriating a song that means so much to African Americans and their history? Calling the first black president who has been the most liberal, most decent and just all around mensch person to hold office, corrupt?
I have had serious disagreements with Sanders. His Gitmo vote, his constant haranguing of Obama on progressive outlets to do things Sanders knows requires Congress, his absolute silence on his need for down ticket wins to accomplish any of his major platform, the real infeasability of a single payer system supplanting health insurance. But, the biggest problem with Sanders is with the worship his supporters give and their tone deaf, silly memes that pass as a real argument for why Sanders should win back my support. This video just repulses me.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: Maybe. But it also succeeded in making the Clinton camp look extremely cynical and dishonest, even to potential supporters. I hope they’ll avoid that line of attack in the future. The political plausibility, economic dislocation and costs of single payer are all legitimate debates we should have. I hope Camp Clinton sticks to that.
sparrow
@Cacti: Here on this blog, I have seen none of that. Out on the web, I have seen none of that. Perhaps your single anecdote isn’t representative? Again, given the fact of Bernie’s marching with MLK is about 10x more likely to be brought up by a Hillary supporter derisively, I’d say the phrase doesn’t mean “shut up black people” but “shut up progressives”. Neither of those is ok.
Emma
The damndest thing is, I really like his positions. But this video…. ugh. One does not take potshot are the sitting president if he’s of your party. It’s tres gauche. However, if he didn’t produce it, he’s no way responsible (added for fairness’ sake).
sparrow
@FlipYrWhig: So medicare is a complete and utter financial failure then? News to me.
I’m not going to waste my time arguing with someone who sounds like a Bush voter. Go vote for nice polite republican Hillary and we’ll just agree to disagree.
Bobby Thomson
@FlipYrWhig: that does lead to govt death panels and to the end of coverage for contraception, to say nothing of abortion.
Betty Cracker
@sparrow:
FFS, ya had to go there. I can’t wait for this goddamn primary to be over.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
On the other hand, for how much longer are the Bernie and Hilary campaigns supposed to handle each other with kid gloves? At some point they do need to start highlighting their disagreements. This particular one is real, and when I got a chance to look at it the substance of Chelsea’s criticism struck me as reasonably well-founded. It’s up to Team Bernie to start throwing some punches of its own, and maybe even landing them.
GregB
It is a fairly boilerplate piece of campaign fluffery. Has some great Sanders quotes as well as Sagan and FDR but yes, using the clip of President Obama, the sitting Democratic President as a backdrop for the corrupt politicians line is in poor taste. They couldn’t have used a clip of Bob McDonnell, Tom Delay, Chris Christie, Rick Scott, Dick Cheney?
Anya
@HillaryRettig President Obama’s second Inaugural Address is a great articulation of liberal vision. The president spoke out for collective action, solidarity, social justice, and social inclusion. In case you haven’t seen it, you might want to check it out.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: I like Bernie, but Ceiling Cat save us from Bernistas. Their attacks on everyone else who doesn’t worship Bernie like they do are a tad annoying. We seem to have quite a few of them on this blog.
Amir Khalid
@GregB:
It’s something I’ve noticed about the Bernistas who comment here: Obama isn’t pure enough for them either.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I disagree that Chelsea Clinton’s criticism was reasonably well-founded. Sanders hasn’t released his full plan, and it’s legitimate to criticize him for that. But he has said that his 2013 Medicare for All bill serves as the model, and it sets standards governors would have to meet regarding coverage and administration of their own plans to prevent them from removing current federal programs and leaving citizens unprotected. His plan might be unrealistic (I suspect it is), but it doesn’t empower governors to take away existing health insurance and leave them with nothing anymore than Obamacare’s Medicare Advantage changes stripped coverage from seniors.
Patricia Kayden
@sparrow: It would be shocking news to Republicans that Secretary Clinton is one of them.
I hope that we (Democrats) are going to be sensible and root for the same team instead of fracturing into Senator Sanders versus Secretary Clinton camps. Let’s keep our focus on how horrible a Repub President would be. There is zero argument that any of them would make a better President than any of the contenders on our side (including O’Malley).
Germy
@schrodinger’s cat: thank you for the Ceiling Cat call-out. My deity.
sparrow
@Betty Cracker: Sorry. Hillary, like her supporter FlpYrWhig apparently thinks medicare is a complete financial disaster and impossibility despite the fact that it’s had decades of success. She sounds like a republican, is my point. (And to further my apology for somewhat overheated rhetoric: yes, I would still vote for her over any cretin on the other side. Obviously.)
schrodinger's cat
@Germy: Mine too. I also thought he is our blog deity in the form of the great Tunch.
rikyrah
When companies hire temp workers by race, black applicants lose out
By Will Evans / January 6, 2016
By all accounts, Automation Personnel Services Inc. aims to please its customers.
For just over a quarter-century, the Alabama-based temp agency has provided temporary workers to industrial companies and warehouses in the South, and its dedication to clients shines through its motto: “We built our success helping you succeed.”
But that focus on customer service can be treacherous. When its clients wanted to hire temp workers based on race, sex or age, Automation was happy to oblige, according to dozens of former employees.
Former employees at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, branch office of Automation Personnel Services say they received orders for “country boys,” or white workers.
Often, the practice was blatant. A manager at a Georgia manufacturing plant asked Christie Ragland not to send him “any black thugs,” she said. Ragland, a former Automation office manager until early 2015, said her boss told her to give the client what he wanted. And in Memphis, Tennessee, Josie Hernandez said her branch manager would comment, “Don’t hire that damn nigger,” and ordered her to send only Latinos to a flower delivery company.
Germy
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s personal with me when it comes to Tunch. Back in the 1980s I had a cat who looked just like him. Almost a twin, except for some dark markings here and there on his fur.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: So first you make a mess and then you demand that the Federal government come and fix that mess — that same Federal government whichyou demonize every single day. Well isn’t that nice? Sigh.
Anya
Chelsea Clinton’s criticism was opportunist, cynical and dishonest. It made me really mad and I am leaning towards Clinton, mainly because I think she’s more electable.
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
I tend to think that the system was better when it was oriented toward a not-for-profit model. Docs made nice livings, but certificate of need requirements kept down the investments in redundant, unnecessary or duplicative health care facilities. They had midweek golf days and sane office hours, along with adequate time and resources for nice vacations. What they didn’t have was 10000 square foot homes or 7 figure portfolios (not until late in life, anyway). They also didn’t have stressfully overscheduled 60 hour workweeks, backed up waiting rooms, 10-15 partners or huge staffs.
Anya
@rikyrah: This is worse than Katrina handling. This was deliberate and malevolent act, or at best it was deliberate neglect. He should be carted off to prison.
schrodinger's cat
@Germy: You should check out Shiro Neko’s You Tube channel. He looks like Tunch, including the orange tail, he is the more sedate Japanese version of Tunch.
schrodinger's cat
@Botsplainer: Running everything like a business including healthcare and education was not a bright idea.
Linnaeus
For me, the obnoxiousness of a subset of a candidate’s supporters matters little with respect to whether I support that candidate – I could imagine some exceptions to this, but in those cases, the candidate would probably support things that I don’t anyway.
FlipYrWhig
@sparrow: What the fuck are you talking about? Medicare genuinely has a funding issue. It’s a huge part of the US budget. That’s why health care economists started to talk about the need to “bend the cost curve.” How do you actually accomplish that? It’s difficult! Medicare for all would be very, very expensive UNLESS there were cost controls AND it’s the nature of those cost controls that makes it complicated. Pay doctors less? Limit the prices for new farmasooticals (does that word still trip WordPress?)? Unless you do something like this it’s expensive and gets more expensive over time. If you _do_ do something like this it involves goring a lot of oxen. If you have any interest in seeing something like single payer actually fucking happen, you need to explain how this obvious and enormous problem is going to be solved.
Linnaeus
@Anya:
I’ve long thought that of the current crop of midwestern Republican governors, Snyder is actually the most dangerous of them, and the Flint disaster does not, shall we say, convince me otherwise.
rikyrah
tee hee hee
tee hee hee
Ari Melber ✔ @AriMelber
A federal lawsuit challenging Cruz’s eligibility has arrived – covering now with @jdbalart
8:46 AM – 15 Jan 2016
sparrow
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve basically been told that I’m not allowed to criticize Clinton (if not now, when?), that all Bernie supporters are despicable dudebros (a surprise to the 18-24 yr old women supporting him over Hillary by 20 pts and myself as a woman), that I’m a child of privilege with no clue about the real world (I’ve been working since I was 15 and had no financial support from family, and have never been above lower-middle-class, not that it should matter), that I’m a commie, a dreamer, unrealistic, stupid, naive, a moron, and more. About once every post on BJ someone comes on just to say how much they hate and loathe Bernie supporters, without qualification. I’m sorry, but that is also insulting. Either we’re ok with the gloves being off or we’re not, but it can’t be all insults for one side and all kid gloves on the other. I’d prefer reasoned arguments myself.
FlipYrWhig
@Botsplainer: I’m kind of in favor of VA for all instead of Medicare for all. Have a publicly financed public health corps staffing clinics for primary care and emergency treatments. That would solve most of the problem of _access_ to medical treatment, and since the services aren’t specialized or exotic, costs would be relatively stable. “Community health centers” are a wonderful idea. MRIs for all is not a wonderful idea.
bemused
@Anya:
Chris Christie has skated, so far, on Bridgegate but I can’t imagine Snyder and the other officials involved will manage that with Leadgate. It’s so egregious with serious health impacts and the trail of shame is clearer to see. Then again, I’ve been wrong before about people in high places paying the price for their evil doings.
Botsplainer
@sparrow:
There are 154 healthcare stocks listed in the S&P 500. Any move to single payer is going to have a huge negative effect on them, as some are directly providing insurance products and the rest have revenue steams that are dependent on insurance repayments. When you combine the fact that a number of those capitalizations simply disappear under single payer and that the perceived revenue stream will fall for the rest, there is a massive downward push on the market as a whole, greatly affecting public pensions, union pensions, corporate and public investments, IRAs and consumer investments. That’s a huge economic dislocation right there, not to mention the effect on many tens of thousands of insurance workers and provider insurance clerks.
This is why some of us call the cries for immediate single payer a progressive purity unicorn – the progressives screaming about being “sold out” have never come up with an answer for the economic disruption, and you can’t just pretend that it won’t happen.
Botsplainer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yup. I remember hearing some of that stuff in the late 70s and early 80s about how demutualization of insurers and having “for profit” health care providers would “wring out greater efficiencies and lower consumer costs, blah, blah, blah”. I was young and pretty conservative, but even I thought that was stupid back then.
slag
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-us-retail-sales-seem-so-weak-2016-01-14
People saving their money instead of buying stuff. A conservative’s lament indeed.
Kropadope
@sparrow:
This,
and this,
but especially this.
sparrow
@Botsplainer: It’s funny that we’re arguing about this, actually, because it’s one of the things I disagree with Bernie on. I really don’t think now is a great time to overturn the apple cart on health care. I agree with the idea, and I’d love to read his proposal, but I do see it as both technically and politically (perhaps especially the latter) difficult. Everything you say I agree with. What I don’t agree with is that it is totally impossible and not worth considering, ever.
slag
Moderation again? What the hell?
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
Not a bad prospective model in terms of cost control and it greatly satisfies my personal inclination toward scaling and nationalization of the service, but the herd of elephants over in the corner that represents the economic dislocation of that sort of command transition wants a word with us…
Linnaeus
@bemused:
I have pretty much no expectation of Snyder being held responsible for the Flint water crisis. I’m guessing it’s MDEQ that’s going to take the hit. Snyder will be given plausible deniability.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: I don’t follow. That was a lie because it was cost savings not reduced services. And the problem I’m hung up on re: “Medicare for all” is how it would accomplish cost savings. It solves the “who pays?” piece but doesn’t address the “how much do we cover?” piece, and lifelong Medicare for all means hundreds of millions more potentially unhappy customers who want full-body MRIs for preventive purposes and the newest pill they’ve seen on TV. This isn’t my area of expertise but it strikes me as grounds for concern. And of course the ACA only passed by making the huge concession of trying as hard as possible to create as little disruption as possible among people who already have insurance through work. Medicare for All means all of those people necessarily do something else. We’ve seen how they react to it. They don’t like it. How do you solve that? I don’t think you can.
Shorter me, wish division: VA for All.
Shorter me, realistic division: Wyden Waivers for All.
Botsplainer
@sparrow:
I always saw the ACA as the necessary first step. Given the size of the population and disparate regional needs, you’re probably realistically looking at a roughly 30 year national transition period into 50 state single payer with cost controls in place.
This is one of the rare moments where federalism can actually work for the benefit of consumers. If done on a state by state basis, in baby steps with federal incentives, the dislocation would be mitigated by being staged and the investment dollars would be migrated over time.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: Yes, the prevailing tone is DEFINITELY that the Berniacs are too nice and the Clintonoids too scathing. SMH. “She’s a corporatist sellout warmonger Republican and I just don’t trust her! And also her supporters are mean to me!”
FlipYrWhig
@Botsplainer: Isn’t that what Wyden Waivers are for?
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
The pill part is easy and fixed by a tax regulation – no deduction for expenses for TV, electronic or print ads targeted outside the medical community for prescription pharmaceuticals.
Thoughtful Today
FTR
The YouTube’r that posted this video had a clear disclaimer:
“This video is in no way affiliated with the Bernie Sanders campaign.”
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
On the baby step side, sure.
Kropadope
@Linnaeus: I have pretty much no expectation of Snyder being held responsible for the Flint water crisis. I’m guessing it’s MDEQ that’s going to take the hit. Snyder will be given plausible deniability.
Perhaps Snyder won’t be held accountable in the media, but enough voters could connect the dots without MSM help (is there any other way?) to boot Snyder out of office. It’s Michigan, so I don’t think the odds of that are terrible.
What I would LOVE to see, though I know it won’t happen, would be for people to start looking into government contracting practices. There have been a LOT of costly misfires by government contractors in the last few years, both in terms of lives and economics. Also, I think there’s a lot to be said for the government performing many of the services it contracts out. Not only can this improve the level a specialized knowledge and technological capability within our government, but it can help remove profit motive from essential public services.
FlipYrWhig
@Botsplainer:
I like it!
Anya
@Linnaeus: my dad has always maintained the same. I think Snyder’s mild mannered, geeky look deceived a lot of people. I just hope he’s held accountable. I saw a press conference where he couldn’t give a single direct answer. I think he was directly involved in the decision & the cover up.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: Every point you brought up is valid and worthy of debate. However, Chelsea Clinton’s accusation that Sanders’ plan will strip coverage away is deliberately misleading, just as the wingnut Medicare Advantage attacks were. I don’t see the point in going there when there is so much of actual substance to discuss.
Linnaeus
@Kropadope:
It’s certainly not impossible that Snyder could be recalled, but that’s very hard to do even under the most favorable conditions for a recall.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope:
Potentially a fruitful liberal/libertarian crossover initiative (like we were talking about before). Would be a smart move for Bernie to bring it up.
bemused
@Linnaeus:
From what I’ve read, emergency managers can’t be held liable which stinks and even though Snyder appoints them, that doesn’t look like an avenue to go at Snyder either. Can civil suits be done? At the very least, everyone responsible should get exposed hard in the press frequently with no let up. I’d like to see them all have to have this follow them the rest of their lives, virtually wearing a shame placard daily.
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
I could see VA-for-all as a step in the right direction, as long as there was sufficient coverage. You don’t need MRIs on demand, but I’d hate to see a situation where people have a significant, but treatable problem but can’t get care because it can’t be addressed at the primary care level, but it’s not an immediate emergency like a serious injury or a heart attack.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: Perhaps it would be more artfully phrased to say that trying to move towards a state-by-state single-payer system would involve empowering a lot of Republican-dominated state governments, and that Bernie needs to answer why he doesn’t think that would be a major problem or even a step backwards. (As Bobby Thomson pointed out above, one of the points that has occurred to me over time in contemplating the prospects of single-payer is reproductive rights: does Medicare for All mean Hyde Amendment for All too?) When you do things state by state sometimes you get California emissions and sometimes you get Texas textbooks.
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus: The devil is in the details. I really don’t know.
Linnaeus
@Anya:
Snyder got through a crowded GOP field in the 2010 primaries by not sounding barking mad on things like reproductive rights, so that got him the “moderate” label. He faced a weak Democratic opponent who didn’t run a very good campaign and won in a landslide in the general. He’s not as conservative as the GOP leadership in the state legislature is, but he has shown pretty much no ability to stand up to their more radical measures.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
Please allow me to dismantle that strawman:
She’s a corporatist sellout- I don’t actually buy into that argument. I do see that argument made sometimes, but I would say it’s not the most prominent. Most politicians, including most Democrats, are primarily funded by large corporations. It’s a problem, but one has to play according to the rules as they exist.
warmonger- I’ll admit to using this one myself, in fact it’s one of my favorites. It helps get to the crux of the actual dishonesty of your faux Bernista rant, as I will explain more later, in that it is well supported by Clinton’s record and is never rebutted, but always met with a simple “STFU.”
Republican- She’s not a Republican. It says right on her party registration. That said, she does have a couple Republican tendencies that I really don’t want to see take hold among Democrats, mainly regarding truth-telling and selling convenient false conventional wisdom narratives.
I just don’t trust her!- The problem with Hillary is that her good ideas don’t seem to get implemented, but her bad ones do. After a few decades it stops looking like an accident of history.
And also her supporters are mean to me!- This really gets to the bottom of the problem with this rant. The problem isn’t that Clinton supporters are mean, it’s that they won’t tolerate any criticism of their candidate, even on a factual basis. They don’t want to talk about the issues, they want to protect their seemingly invulnerable front-runner, because “sides.”
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
Granted, nor do I. Would I like to see single payer now? Yes. Do I think we’ll get it now? No, and I’m not sure if the US will ever have it. But anything that moves the ball toward that is welcome.
Linnaeus
@bemused:
A suit’s already been filed, though I don’t know how far it’s gotten to date – it’s very early in the process.
The Flint crisis illustrates to me one of the many problems with the current EM law in Michigan – the EM is effectively accountable to no one except the governor.
Kropadope
@Linnaeus:
Well, there’s always the scheduled election.
Anya
@sparrow: maybe my views on Sanders supporters was shaped by Twitter flame wars & perhaps I should refrain from generalising but these dudes are super annoying. I don’t even like Clinton & they make me sympathize with her.
Kropadope
@Anya:
Yeah, that seems to be the general problem.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: Come ON. Bernie Sanders supporters aren’t signalizing themselves for their level of tolerance for criticism of their guy. They don’t like Hillary based on three-ish things, (1) the Iraq War vote; (2) Bill’s presidency; (2.5) something something “Wall Street”; and (3) the 2008 campaign against Obama. Fine. If it had been Hillary who voted for indemnifying gun makers from lawsuits, think of how Berniacs would handle that.
Thoughtful Today
ouch
Clinton supporter Botsplainer explains that we can’t have Universal healthcare for American Citizens because of CORPORATE INSURANCE AGENTS.
Corporatism v. Health.
Linnaeus
@Kropadope:
Snyder’s term-limited. He can’t run again in the next election (in 2018).
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Whereas “Feeling the Bern” is all about having well-reasoned policy discussions in a polite conversational tone.
Glass houses, stones, etc., etc.
FlipYrWhig
@Thoughtful Today: The half of Americans with employer-based health insurance will LOVE having the Government Plan instead! Why WOULDN’T these people of goodwill and good natures eagerly give up their personal perks so that other people can have more? This has always worked out very well.
ruemara
@FlipYrWhig: most either don’t know, or rationalize it, as he’s from VT and as such his vote made sense for his state. Don’t tell me his supporters aren’t a detraction. There’s a damned video at the top of the page that shows how clue free they are on how they frame things. 95% of the people I know are rabidly pro-Bernie and consistently share makes dogging Hillary as a shill for wall street, a liar, a cheat. They claim conspiracies to hide Sanders when he’s been on TV more than her. Just chill with your constant slagging and make a goddamn case for why Sanders is a good choice. And not due to your feelings. He’s not ever gonna slip you some tongue, so get up and say what he will do, how he plans to do it and why that’s the best path. And it wasn’t just twitter wars. If you really think the issues of police violence are resolved by economic justice platitudes, you need help.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t know the particulars of the law at hand, but two things: 1, I think you’re likely being a little hyperbolic about what the law does. 2, somehow I doubt Bernie’s supporters would criticize HRC for voting the same way as Bernie on any piece of legislation.
That “Bill’s presidency” thing is another one of the most pernicious strawmen raised to protect Hillary. No one blames her for Bill’s presidency. They blame her for what SHE did during Bill’s presidency, for HER votes in the Senate, for the 2008 campaign SHE ran, for HER actions as Secretary of State., etc.
Thoughtful Today
Clinton supporter Mike J says:
“We shall overcome is not a sanctimonious platitude. Appropriating it for a campaign is despicable.
Reply”
^ Nasty, uninformed, despicable comment.
The song was sung by Bernie many years ago on an album.
Yes, you read that correctly:
Bernie cut an album. He sings.
Comedians have used it as an easy punchline.
His supporters have used those songs in novel ways.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: It’s not a question of art; the thing about empowering Republican governors simply isn’t true. Medicaid, CHIP and various other programs are already administered at the state level, as the Clinton people well know. One of the signature downfalls of Obamacare is that it provided enough wiggle room for GOP governors to opt out. Sanders’ 2013 bill specifically addresses that.
I don’t think Sanders’ plan has a snowflake’s chance in hell of passage. Hillary can win the healthcare debate fair and square — she’s got tons of painful experience on how hard it is to reform healthcare plus the recent Obamacare experience to cite as an example. She should treat us like grown-ups and make the case on the merits and leave the scaremongering to the Republicans.
Goblue72
@Botsplainer: Really? We can’t have Medicare for All because, pity the poor insurance workers?
You Hilbots have completely lost your minds.
Kropadope
@ruemara:
I’m sure Hillary is completely bereft of clueless supporters.
Thoughtful Today
…
Hillary’s dishonest scaremongering on Universal healthcare is despicable.
Universal healthcare has been a goal of the Democratic Party since the 1940’s.
Right-wing Dems found a way to pay Corporate Insurers who are now considered more important than American lives.
Roughly 30 MILLION Americans don’t have healthcare.
But I’m supposed to pity Corporate insurers?
Cacti
@Goblue72:
Bernie Broseph checks in from revolutionary headquarters in stepford suburbia.
Quick question, brah. The private health insurance industry employs about 472,000 people nationally.
If you put them all out of a job, how is that anything short of a huge disruption of the national economy?
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
I can solve lots of shit by tax regulation – even Citizens United and excessive executive compensation.
Funds expended by any corporate entity (whether publicly or privately held) for the purpose of lobbying elected officials or public advocacy shall be treated as a dividend under my regime – if it ain’t directly related to the creation or sale of a product or service, it ain’t a business expense, and represents the personal wish of the shareholder to express his or her first amendment rights. The dividend treatment has to flow through to the individual shareholders of any companies which hold shares in the lobbying or advocating corporate entity as well.
This can be done for executive compensation in publicly held entities above a certain level, too. Anything over the level of compensation of the President of the United States for any corporate officer at the C suite level (CEO/CFO/COO) of a publicly held company gets that treatment.
schrodinger's cat
@sparrow: I was not necessarily thinking of you when I criticized the Bernistas on this blog. They are here, check out the comments after #85.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope:
Well, they sorta do, because that’s the basis for all the Republican-lite/DLC/corporate cracks, even though _during_ Bill’s presidency Hillary was the liberal center of gravity among the WH staff.
IMHO “hawkish” is a legitimate criticism. I think she is. I think she’s a “liberal interventionist” in the Samantha Power spirit and would probably do more Bosnias and Rwandas than Bernie Sanders would. (I also don’t particularly object to that but YMMV.) “Wall Street”/”corporate” is basically a way to ding her as a proxy for Bill and Rubinomics. I don’t get that from her qua her. But 85-90% of Berniac sloganeering is about how Bernie will get tough with the billionaires Hillary coddles. If that’s a fair charge, it’s fair to slag Bernie on missteps regarding guns. (Incidentally, I don’t think Bernie had any particular problem with issues of race, and that original Bernie-skeptic attack struck me as unwarranted.)
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: In theory you can rehire them all as paper-pushers for expanded Medicare. To me that’s less of the problem. The problem instead is that half the country has health insurance through work and they don’t want to risk a downgrade to Government Health Care That’s Like The DMV. Try to find a way to finesse that without making it possible for every Republican ever to say that President Democrat stole your health care. That transition would be cataclysmic. That’s why HillaryCare crashed and burned and why ObamaCare squeaked through.
ruemara
@Kropadope: I was here in 07. I know Hillary’s demented supporters. But I’m responding to the ones who think giving shielding to gun manufacturers would pass muster if it was Hillary, since it must be OK because Bernie did it. I support neither this primary.
different-church-lady
Why do Sanders supporters work so hard to push me away from Sanders? It’s like they’re deliberately trying to kill every fond feeling I have for him.
ETA: I’m not going to let them but DAYUM, they’re not making this easy.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
You really can’t though.
A substantial portion of the cost savings that would come from a single payer system would be from eliminating duplicate services and redundancies in the private insurance market. Not much different than what happens following any large corporate merger. Except in this case, it would be like the largest corporate merger in history.
Botsplainer
@Thoughtful Today:
You are supposed to have the sense to recognize what happens if you deliver a massive shock to nearly a half a million workers and nearly 30% of the S&P 500 (especially as it relates to pension and retirement investments).
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
No, like I said, it was what she DID during Bill’s presidency. There were three major things I saw her advocate during Bill’s presidency. The first, universal healthcare, was a catastrophe and fell apart due to her inflexibility of approach, seeking a rubber stamp from Congress for a policy formed in the White House. This set that goal back decades. The other two, stricter prison sentencing and deregulation of various industries are literally the major things shredding apart the national fabric, the reason we have enough prisoners and industrial accidents to make any tinpot dictator envious.
Hillary Clinton is an adult woman with agency of her own. Pretending that Sanders supporters don’t recognize that doesn’t help your case, it makes it feel like you are belittling us. Republicans may not know that, so feel free to open fire against examples of that. Some Hillary supporters don’t seem to recognize this, but I’m sure you’ll continue to gloss over that.
Thoughtful Today
Bernie supporter sparrow on Clinton supporters:
^ Reformatted to emphasize each point.
sparrow
@Anya: Understandable. I’m emphatically NOT saying there are not super-annoying, clueless, previously “politically whatever” people out there. The young ones especially tend to be… strident, to use a word. But practically by definition, there are tons of reasonable supporters who do not engage in twitter flame wars, and don’t hate Hillary (I get extremely irritated more with the system that props her up as the only alternative than I do with her specifically). I don’t hold the flaming I’ve gotten here against Clinton when it comes to my vote, and I would hope people would be mature enough to do the same for Bernie.
different-church-lady
@sparrow: I hereby exclude you from my comment at 136.
Botsplainer
@Kropadope:
Her first shot at healthcare fell apart due to the wingnut Wurlitzer squealing about “nationalizing one-seventh of the economy, ZOMG socialism”. Since then, we blew through one sixth and are headed rapidly for health care being a fifth of the economy.
Huge expense, poorer results, compared with the rest of the developed world.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope:
Hillary Clinton was responsible for those? Here’s the most incriminating thing I can find about HRC and the Crime Bill, which doesn’t strike me as particularly incriminating. Without something more firm to go by, I’m tempted to say that these are two examples that _help_ my case that people who object to HRC are frequently objecting to WJC twenty years ago.
And the thing you don’t like about Hillary Clinton’s approach to health care reform in the 1990s kinda seems rather like Bernie Sanders’s seeming approach to health care reform in 2016: the government does more, entrenched interests can jump in a lake, and principle bests incremental progress. We know what happens when that’s tried. It ain’t good.
Kropadope
@different-church-lady:
Don’t forget, these sorts of flame wars go two ways. I made two comments in the beginning, one about the primary and one about contracting practices. It’s not my fault that the thrilling subject of government contracting practices didn’t spur as lively a conversation as the election 2016 comment did. I reply to the replies I get, not the ones I might want or wish to have in the future.
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s another thing, I don’t want to hear about what some other nebulous “they” are doing. Engage the comments and criticisms being made on this thread. I’m not doing that and I don’t see anyone else right here, right now doing that. So, why should this be pertinent to the conversation at hand.
Gin & Tonic
@sparrow: Coming in kind of late, but for a good example of cluelessness from the Sanders campaign, they sent a DMCA takedown notice to Wikipedia, who put the Bernie campaign logo on the Bernie Sanders Wikipedia page.
This wasn’t some independent dudebro, either, this was an official legal notice from the campaign.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: Like five posts up you call her a major advocate for the crime bill and deregulation. Heal thyself.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
If you think that’s my main objection, you didn’t really read. My main objection to her approach was the lack of pragmatism, the non-involvement of Congress in the process of writing the law.
I think Bernie shows the opposite tendency. He works with whomever he can whenever he can. He’s gotten small wins for good public policy inserted into some good and some otherwise bad bills that were going to pass either way. Bernie is more pragmatic and has better judgment from what I’ve observed. This isn’t football, there’s no four downs and out. You don’t have to go for the Hail Mary, moving the ball a little bit does help.
different-church-lady
@Kropadope:
When Obama tried to be pragmatic and involve congress, “progressives” kicked his teeth down his throat.
Which is what the ACA did. Again, teeth, throat.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: Well, she was an advocate for those things. Am I supposed to choose to ignore it because it’s inconvenient to the Democrats’ cause?
I’m not blaming her for initiatives she didn’t get involved in. I’m not blaming her for Bill’s personal problems. I want to discuss her record and a bunch of people want to rule it off the table.
Kropadope
@different-church-lady:
Well, I was here every day advocating for what Obama was doing with respect to the ACA and urging patience and acceptance of half-loaves. So, what does that have to do with me?
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: Not everything is about you.
Kropadope
@different-church-lady: But replies to me are, or should be, at least a little bit.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: When was she an advocate for those things? What did she say about them? What was her level of involvement in formulating them? The statement I found about the crime bill (via Buzzfeed) didn’t strike me as particularly laden with law and order sentiment. That’s why it seems like Bill’s record, not hers. Show me what you’re thinking of, because you haven’t. I don’t remember what you remember. That doesn’t have to be because I’m right and you’re wrong, but I don’t know what you’re talking about, and it’s the crux of your complaint. Health care reform is a different story. Iraq War voting is a different story.
Thoughtful Today
“She’s a corporatist sellout warmonger Republican and I just don’t trust her!”
Unpacked:
Hillary’s Republican leadership aside, her right-wing policies are _very_ corporatist.
Walmart hired her for a reason. She wasn’t some minimum wage clerk, she was a Walmart’s BOARD OF DIRECTOR. Walmart’s anti-union, poverty wage paying Corporation benefited from Bill Clinton’s right-wing outsourcing trade deals as President. Trade deals Hillary still supports. Low wages Hillary still supports.
Hillary’s voted for the Iraq War crime and still fails to understand how that ‘hard choice’ metastasized into Daesh/isil/isis.
Her recent ‘no-fly’ proposal was knee-jerk militarism that failed to understand geo-political realities.
And her Iran “enemies” comment was pointlessly hostile, recklessly undiplomatic, and smacked of incendiary right-wing rhetoric.
I don’t trust her.
I do recognize that she’s a better choice than every Republican leader in the country.
Bernie’s the better Democratic leader.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: And now I’m going to do some of the things I sat down to do this morning. Tootle-oo.
jl
I think both HRC and Sanders hold same fundamental set of values and share fundamental goals for society. I Have no particular interest in getting into spats between the two.
Parochial circumstances involving powerful factions of the human race on our little speck in the universe make it imperative that one of those two win in November, period, full stop, end of story.
I think Sanders should be a little more like HRC in explaining to doubters in the voting public how we will get from where we are now to a better place. I think HRC should be a little bit more like Sanders in sharing a vision, rather than appearing to play what comes off as politics as usual, of which people are very tired.
Anyway, one of those two well meaning jackasses and coots has to win next year. Everything else is details and trivia.
Edit: Things might be different if it were not for the obvious and disastrous alternative that will occur if one of them does not win in November. But we have to face the reality of the situation.
RaflW
@Amir Khalid: This is a fan video.
And I’m now realizing it’s a month old. Next!
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
However, she was standing in front of an influential group urging them to support its passage. You posted the video yourself.
As far as allowing companies to do naughty things that hurt people, well I suppose the elephant in the room is NAFTA. Granted, you’re kind of right in that she didn’t advocate before passage. She was certainly a defender of the policy during her husband’s presidency, through her Senate career, suddenly (inexplicably) ending when she ran for president in 08.
She voted for the bankruptcy bill. It’s hard to find much more, because she frankly hasn’t done much of substance at all, but what little there has been skews almost entirely negative.
RaflW
@rikyrah: Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder asks President Obama to declare federal emergency over Flint water supply
I would hope that Obama agrees. But on the condition that Snyder issues a statement taking full responsibility for the fiasco, and Snyder releases a plan for how MI will pay for the long term damage done to residents. In particular, what will be done for the children who will likely have lifelong brain development impacts?
I know, ain’t gonna happen that way. But those gubmit-hating Republicans sure do like to crawl to the Prez they hate, hat in hand, asking for relief. Bastards.
chopper
@sparrow:
well i’ve basically been told that bernie is god in human form, and that all clinton supporters are devil worshippers. really, it happened.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: It sounded to me like she was making an argument from a vaguely leftward direction about how crime and criminal justice weren’t just a matter of punishing criminals but also rehabilitation and community policing. Ultimately, though, I wouldn’t have even gone down this road if you hadn’t been trying to characterize her as a prime mover of or apologist for Bill’s centrist agenda. I think the balance of proof here shows that several of the significant gripes against Hillary are actually gripes against Bill. The “she hasn’t done much” criticism is something of a wholly different nature.
I’m trying to think about these things the way that baseball stat nerds talk about “VORP,” value over replacement player. I think to identify the Hillary component of the Bill presidency means trying to figure out what Hillary did that Jane Doe Clinton wouldn’t have done. I’m not sure “she defended Bill’s policies between ’93 and ’00” is all that significant. I think heading up the health care reform process, warts and all, and the China speech on women’s rights, and not that many more things that come immediately to mind, is the Hillary-during-Bill list. Then we get the Senate record and the State Dept. record.
different-church-lady
@chopper:
I like to take a centrist approach: both sides are made up completely of annoying nitwits.
Thoughtful Today
…
OBAMA on Hillary’s attacks (youtube video).
OBAMA called out Hillary’s Republican rhetoric, her support of gun owners, her support from lobbyists, Corporations, insurers, and her support of NAFTA.
Hillary’s talking as if “she’s packin’ a six shooter.”
Thoughtful Today
Link fixed:
…
OBAMA on Hillary’s attacks (youtube video).
OBAMA called out Hillary’s Republican rhetoric, her support of gun owners, her support from lobbyists, Corporations, insurers, and her support of NAFTA.
Hillary’s talking as if “she’s packin’ a six shooter.”
Thoughtful Today
Or not.
JustRuss
@FlipYrWhig:
I have great health insurance…as long as I keep my job. Healthcare that will be there even if I get “downsized”, and that will cover my friends and relatives that aren’t currently covered? Hell yes, sign me up.
Thoughtful Today
…
OBAMA on Hillary’s attacks (youtube video):
OBAMA called out Hillary’s Republican talking points, her support of gun owners, her support from lobbyists, Corporations, insurers, and her support of NAFTA.
OBAMA: “Senator Clinton, this is the same person who has taken more money from lobbyists than any other candidate, Democratic or Republican, taken more money from drug company lobbyists and insurance company lobbyists and she’s saying I’m out of touch? Who do you think is out of touch?”
FlipYrWhig
@JustRuss: Great! Just convince the tens of millions of other people that they should give up the insurance they have now because this other thing run by THE GOVERNMENT (thunder crashes, door hinge squeaks, cackling laughter) will definitely be much better. We’ve seen what happens next. People flip their shit. Rationing! Death panels! Service like the DMV!
Now, if employers decided they’d had enough with having to deal with insurance bullshit and willingly punted the whole thing to the federal government, that’d be a different story.
Thoughtful Today
…
Clinton’s dishonest fearmongering, echoed by her nastier supporters, says a lot.
Ohio Mom
@RaflW: I have been thinking the same thing. I don’t have any idea of how many children we are talking about but lead poisoning will cause mental retardation (or Intellectual Disability as we are supposed to call it nowadays) and a whole host of behavior issues, starting with aggression and impulsively.
These are not things you outgrow. They are going to need interventions and supports for their entire lives (the better part of this entire new century).
Right now these children need special education, which means public schools need more money and support. They also need to be followed by pediatric specialusts in development and lead poisoning.
But all I keep hearing about is how much it is going to cost to fix the pipes. It’s like these children are an abstraction.
Or maybe they have already been identified as the population that will start filling the jails and prisons in the next fifteen to twenty years and ignoring them and their needs is the first step in the action plan…
FlipYrWhig
@Thoughtful Today: Just hypothetically, of course, how would you think being a repetitive, unresponsive, harangue-happy douchenozzle who likes Shmernie Shmanders would reflect on his candidacy, were there to be such a person or such a candidate?
redshirt
So in the Venn Diagram of Bernie supporters, how many were also Nader voters?
chopper
@Thoughtful Today:
obama? isn’t he that guy the berniac video above calls “corrupt”?
Thoughtful Today
…
John M. Burt
It’s an excellent video.
So is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewwt18RRXnM
Now, excuse me, folks: I’m off to see if I can find a clip of Bernie singing.
iLarynx
@Botsplainer:
BOLLOCKS! Complete and utter BOLLOCKS. The overall benefits of single payer would far outweigh the (falsely) assumed inability of the economy to handle the transition. I’m not of the mind that while other western countries have been able to accomplish this, America isn’t capable without crapping in our economic britches. TV displaced radio too – BFD. Change does not equal catastrophe.
The same specious argument could be made against curing cancer:
I’m a bit tired of this “can’t do” mentality.