Because if being, “some of the most irritating human beings on the planet, as if they took every annoying fucking trait of the Paulites and said to themselves- ‘Let’s take this to eleven.’” is wrong I don’t want to be right.
More / better below the fold.
Apparently you can buy these here.
Also, apparently the porn stars are all in for Bernie.
Baud
Your move, Trump.
Patricia Kayden
And why are we mocking Senator Sanders when the Clown Car is still so full of jokers?
craigie
A cat! I get it!
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: Because we mock everybody. Don’t want Bernie getting the idea he’s special or anything.
Tim C.
@Patricia Kayden: Because as Democrats we have a reflexive jerk towards useless fratricide. See also Will Rodgers.
“I am not a member of an organized political party; I am a Democrat.”
NotMax
Burning bras was one thing.
Berning panties is quite another.
ThresherK
Before I decide about the primary, Bernie, tell me more about your cat.
Hillary Rettig
@Patricia Kayden: Just to be clear, I meant it as a pro-Sanders post!
Baud
@ThresherK: You should have been at the town hall last night.
amk
@NotMax: ftw.
Baud
Is that really his cat?
Hillary Rettig
@ThresherK: Of course, I would like to see the equivalent panties featuring a dog.
Jeffro
On a related note, David Brooks has one of the most disingenuous that he’s ever written up today (and that, my friends, is saying something). It’s 99% about how the Republican Party has gone off the rails with Trump and Cruz and yet…AND YET…he still manages to try his false equivalence par excellence by including Sanders in with them.
Unbelievable.
Wait…it’s Brooks…totally believable…
Baud
@Jeffro: Don’t let Brooks fool you. He thinks Bernie is much, much worse than Trump or Cruz.
Starfish
@Baud: Trump wins by being yuge and classy.
All Hillary has is a dress.
EconWatcher
I wish I were my 24-year old self again, because I would have been so excited about Bernie’s presidential candidacy. I was 24 when both Sanders and Wellstone were first elected to our national assembly. I worked on Wellstone’s campaign. I thought utopia was around the corner.
I remember Bernie and Wellstone and Christie Todd Whitman appearing on Nightline together right after the ’90 elections; Bernie was by far the best talker.
No disrespect to older people who’ve retained their youthful idealism, but I just can’t believe in utopia anymore.
Hillary Rettig
@Baud: you really get right to heart of things, don’t you? :-)
Central Planning
There’s one thing in the underwear picture Republicans don’t like, and it’s not Bernie Sanders.
Feel the razor Bern!
Jeffro
@Baud: Oh I’m sure he does think that, but Bernie’s not an existential threat to the GOP. Trump and Cruz, individually and especially together, are.
We are watching history in the making, imho. This is the slow-motion death of the GOP as we know it.
Hawes
My central (only) problem with Sanders is this idea that revolutions work. They don’t. Revolutions – by their very nature – outstrip the ability of a political system to accommodate change. As I wrote elsewhere:
The other revolutions fall into the same pattern: dramatic, violent and profound change that engenders a backlash and eventually becomes the thing it tried to overthrow. Louis XVI becomes the Reign of Terror. The Porfiriato becomes the PRI. The czar becomes the Party Secretary. The emperor becomes Mao. The Shah becomes the Ayatollah.
The reason liberalism wants evolutionary – as opposed to revolutionary – change is because that’s the only kind that sticks.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro:
From your keyboard to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s orecchiette, my friend. But only if something better arises from the ashes. Seriously, we need at least two reasonably sane parties. Even if their extremism keeps the GOP locked out of the White House, it’s not good for the country to continue down this path.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Jeffro: Surely you’re exaggerating. I’m sure they’ll find a way to shut that whole thing down.
Cheers,
Scott.
ThresherK
@Baud: I’m genuiniely asking: What was there? Something cat-related?
That’s the kind of platform plank Baud should have–cats for everyone to play with, except puppies for the cat-allergic, of course. (I’ve seen the video of pedestrians going into a cage, then a kitten coming through a hole: Instant squee and stress relief.)
DCF
@EconWatcher: This isn’t about believing in the attainment of a ‘utopian’ ideal. It is about striving to achieve the best outcome(s) we can by setting high (and ultimately realizable) goals, and subsequently working relentlessly at the governmental and grassroots levels to realize them.
rikyrah
I don’t know if anyone else watches Telenovela, but the opening scene from this week was HILARIOUS to me.
Betty Cracker
Meanwhile, Marco Rubio invited Joni “Bread Bag” Ernst to a rally as a special guest, and she appeared onstage but remained studiously neutral about the GOP field. One unexpected joy for me as a Floridian during this campaign so far is seeing detested local doods Jeb and Rubio get serially humiliated. May their pantsing continue!
Patricia Kayden
@Jeffro: We keep talking about the death of the GOP but they keep winning at the state level. For example, I’ve yet to hear of any efforts to recall Gov Snyder even though he straight up poisoned citizens in Flint. They’ll be ok despite Trump and Cruz.
MomSense
@EconWatcher:
Don’t feel bad. My 24 year old thinks it is a bunch of bull and feels like his intelligence is being insulted.
TylerF
I think Bernie’s fans are underestimating two things.
1. If Hillary is the nominee the shitstorm of sexism that is going to unleashed on her will create a huge lifetime democratic voting block. I never see this talked about, but the republicans are going to Aiken themselves over and over again this cycle.
2. If Bernie is the nominee the shitstorm of anti socialist rhetoric will not have the same impact.
George Hayduke
@Hawes: @Hawes: @Hawes:
Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela would like a word with you.
a different chris
What the Berniacs fail to understand is that in any policy negotiation, your first offer should be to meet the lunatic Christopath shitbirds at least halfway, because pragmatic triangulation. No sense wasting time on anything that’s clearly impossible. That’s how real leaders do things here in the grown-up world.
Hillary Rettig
@EconWatcher: >No disrespect to older people who’ve retained their youthful idealism, but I just can’t believe in utopia anymore.
yeah we’ve been disappointed a lot. but there’s a difference between believing in utopia and believing in a great candidate. As someone in her late 50s I urge you to get back w/ the idealism; it’s a lot more fun!
Bartholomew
I’m not totally on board with the thinking here. I wonder if maybe folks don’t quite understand the seriousness of what the central banking ‘new world order’ has done … which is by design, yes, but the fallout is still ahead. After the quiet deformation of ‘mark to market’ valuation rules (which were suspended in the crisis and never fully reinstated) the actual situation is one of fiat air deflating (that’s why the QE … and now Europe is taking their turn again.)
Awaiting the inevitable ‘crisis’ that is still afoot, central bankers have set up new self-funding mechanisms to funnel taxpayer money into whatever bankrupt business interests they control, without the messy public input and opinioning. Maybe these backdoor measures were enacted innocently to help humanity, you can think that if you’d like, but I don’t.
In this case, we need someone working for the American people. I realize Hillary Clinton *seems* like the easiest candidate to support at this point … I don’t think that is a correct assumption.
Bernie Sanders Grills Ben Bernanke [5/22/2013]
Hillary Rettig
@DCF: nicely put!
Hillary Rettig
@a different chris: from the unfortunately-not-immortal Harry Chapin:
Yes I read it in the New York Times
That was on the stands today
It said that dreams were out of fashion
We’ll hear no more empty promises
There’ll be no more wasted passions
To clutter up our play
It really was a good sign
The words went on to say
It shows that we are growing up
In oh, so many healthy ways
And I told myself this is exactly where I’m at
But I don’t much like thinking about that
Read more: Harry Chapin – There Only Was One Choice Lyrics | MetroLyrics
gene108
@Patricia Kayden:
Of course they will be O.K. despite Trump or Cruz.
Given the alternative is voting for a bunch of fag-lovin’, Christian-hating, baby-murdering, anti-American, pro-terrorist Democrats, is there any reason to be surprised the Republicans do so well?
Hillary Rettig
@Patricia Kayden: a serious problem due in large part to gerrymandering. that’s one reason I think Occupy, Black Lives Matter, etc. are so important – they’re bringing things down to the grassroots level.
But another cause is that many local Democratic machines are weak. They’ve lost the plot probably b/c the national also lost the plot.
PurpleGirl
@ThresherK: Foster Dad John of The Critter Room subtitles it “Kitten Therapy.”
Hillary Rettig
Question for all: what’s the best book on the history and function of U.S. political parties?
benw
I’m voting for Bernie for the sole reason that I want him in a general election debate against a Republican. So that after Bernie makes some reasonable point about not nuking Tehran or something, Trump (or whoever) will turn to him and say:
“What’s the matter, Bernie Sanders, CHICKEN!?”
Punchy
If Sanders is going to lead the revolution, he ought to take on the rank of Colonel.
Botsplainer
I don’t look for the person who talks the best game, which is why the Darcy Burner/Dennis Kucinich/Bernie Sanders models of utterly meaningless talking points leaves me cold.
I want the consensus building, green-blooded technocrat that appears to have genuine leadership qualities, the ability to make quick, mostly correct decisions under pressure, can weather criticism and not fold up on a personal level when everything turns into a clogged, overflowing toilet full of shit.
Hill has that in spades.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Patricia Kayden: There was an effort that was in the news back in November. There are 8 more petitions filed at the moment.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@a different chris:
My question to Bernie supporters is once we’ve installed single payer and the private health insurance industry is out of business, medical billing personnel are laid off as billing is stream lined and insurance brokers (and their support employees) close their doors because they are no longer needed, how are you going to find jobs for them?
One lesson from the 1990’s loss of manufacturing jobs is finding equivalent quality jobs in other sectors of the economy is not a given.
amk
bernie’s rapid response director
if you support @berniesanders, please follow the senator’s lead and be respectful when people disagree with you.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108: I assume the way it would work, when our Glorious Liberal Future finally arrives, is that rather than being government employees, most of the people needed to implement Medicare for All would be contractors. The obvious people to fill those jobs would be the people who did similar work under the existing system. So BCBS and Aetna and the rest would bid to do the paperwork and Uncle Sam would choose whoever won the bidding process.
I can’t imagine that even with our GLF that there wouldn’t be huge pressures not to increase the federal payroll (even though it makes much more sense).
Just a guess though.
Cheers,
Scott.
DCF
@Hillary Rettig:
Bernie Sanders and the Death of Dreaming
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2016/01/bernie-sanders-and-death-of-dreaming.html
jake the antisoshul soshulist
I think the porn industry is wrong about the Republicans. Repression is always good for porn. See the Victorian era. It way be a little risky as well as risque, but likely more profitable.
The Josh Duggar thing may have been the least surprising scandal ever.
gene108
@benw:
I think Trump would win that point. That’s a good one-liner.
Hillary Rettig
@Botsplainer: Hillary (the other one :-)) is no doubt smart and has some amazing experience. It’s also true that she got shafted a lot due to sexism. However, I don’t see how you can call her a leader. At one point, I think she was ahead of the curve on issues like children’s rights. But there is ample evidence she blows whatever way the wind goes, be it her Iraq War vote, her turnaround on gay marriage, or her recent awakening to the idea that private prisons are a bad idea, and maybe she shouldn’t take money from them. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/23/3715544/clinton-private-prisons/
There seems to be a bias for governors (even of flailing states) and businesspeople (even of failed companies) as president, but I don’t think that will hold up to great scrutiny. Bernie’s been in Congress for 25 ish years actually working with Republicans. He’s the counter example of someone who manages to get things done even in a failed system: http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-gets-it-done-sanders-record-pushing-through-major-reforms-will-surprise-you
NobodySpecial
In response to this post, Bernie should start using this song at campaign rallies.
FlipYrWhig
@a different chris:
What the Berniacs actually fail to understand, virtually across the board with no sign of dawning comprehension, is that the Democratic Party is at least half made up of self-described moderates, especially in suburban and rural places; and that a goodly share of the not quite half who are self-described liberals are pretty strong supporters of Obama; so that basing an entire campaign on the idea that the same people who have spent 7 or 8 years griping at Obama from the left are representative of the Democratic Party at large and hence capable of remaking the Democratic Party in their image… has a few unexplained leaps.
IOW, the people you actually have to meet halfway are the other half of your own party. Whaddya know?
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig: I know! I can’t stand when she disagrees with me and I can’t stand it even more when she AGREES with me!
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: I’m sure the buggy makers said the same thing.
Botsplainer
@gene108:
They’ve not thought that one through, but the Revolution needs no planning.
Just like it doesn’t need to plan for the effect of nearly 30% of the S&P 500 going to zero value on public and private pension and retirement investment, nor the effect on the market in general.
gene108
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
But where would the net savings come from, if you keep payrolls intact? There’s only so much you can carve out from reducing reimbursement rates and renegotiating drug prices, in order to achieve net savings for everyone after the tax increase.
Booger
@Hawes: Also known as “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Betty Cracker
@gene108: I agree that’s an issue that would need to be addressed but find it amusing that so many of the folks who are fretting about insurance industry job loss now were so sanguine about the loss of manufacturing jobs due to trade policies (I’m not talking about you, obvs). Back then, those folks were all “creative destruction!” but now that their own ox is being hypothetically gored, they’re all “won’t someone think of the actuaries!”
geg6
@Hawes:
Totally agree. History does not look kindly on most revolutions for good reason. The reason America is considered exceptional is because our revolution was just about the only one in history to not flame out spectacularly or turn into exactly what they were rebelling against.
Central Planning
@Hillary Rettig:
So that’s a bad thing? Are you saying politicians should pick a position and stick with it, regardless of new evidence or analysis? Isn’t it a GOOD thing that she is able to reconsider her positions?
Anya
@Betty Cracker: for some reason, I hate Rubio more than Bush. He’s so smarmy and such a college republican.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
What about the guys, who used to make sneakers in American factories or washing machines or toys, etc.?
They are doing just fine 20 years later…
I think that is more relevant than buggy makers for the current discussion on the ability for people to make lateral career moves in our economy.
geg6
@Hillary Rettig:
Well, it all depends on how you define “great candidate.”
For me, the definition does not include Bernie, unfortunately. I’d vote for him in the general if I had to, but he’s not a great candidate in my eyes.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: Maybe because the people who worked in the industries that dried up were taught to resent the Democratic Party for it and it’s hurt the party’s chances in the affected regions for a good long while now?
Hillary Rettig
@FlipYrWhig: wow, with very limited exceptions, the Democratic Party has been about *nothing but* appealing to the centrist swing voter for decades–and it is a failed strategy both for Dems and the country as a whole. This has been both widely reported and I experienced it first hand when working on a local (MI) political campaign. .
Hillary Rettig
@geg6: why do you think he’s not a great candidate? and are you distinguishing “candidate” from “potential president?”
as a candidate it’s hard to argue with his effectiveness: he’s come out from way behind and (at least for now) toppled Clinton
Germy
I finally got around to reading the New Yorker article on the Kochs. One thing caught my attention; it’s mentioned briefly that they fund the “uprising” of the ranchers on federal land. She mentions it along with a list of other causes they finance, but doesn’t go into detail.
Some commenters here have wondered “what do these protestors do for a living? Are they on disability? How can they afford to get up and leave their jobs and businesses for months and months for this protest?”
I got my answer from the article on the Kochs. Just like you never see fundraisers or bake sales for the tea party. They always have enough $ to afford buses and signs and the time to protest.
Betty Cracker
@Anya: I think I despise both equally, but there’s a case to be made that Rubio is the more odious of the two. In addition to his college Republican fratboy demeanor, there’s the fact that he wasn’t born into GOP Griftworld like Bush was. He chose to be what he is, which arguably makes him more despicable. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have to look at his smug mug for years to come. If Jeb flames out, he’ll likely retreat to private life in Dade County and resume helping the developers pillage the Everglades. Rubio will remain the Great Hispanic Hope for the foreseeable future, I fear…
Hillary Rettig
@Betty Cracker: absolutely. not to mention that every positive societal shift requires job loss. A compassionate, humane societal will try to buffer the fall for as many people as possible. But the fact that a positive shift will cause job loss is one of the worst reasons to resist change.
benw
@gene108:
Well, it was actually written by Mel Brooks, after all.
schrodinger's cat
Vote for Bernie, there will be chicken (vegan) in every pot, free healthcare and free college for all. Immigrants can go fly a kite.*
Kthxbai.
* Bernie has been pretty hard line on immigration, co-authoring draconian laws with his Senate buddy Chuckie Grassley.
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig: I didn’t say “swing voter” at all. I said Democrats who are moderates. Yes, in fact, they do exist; yes, in fact, in very many places they are the dominant breed of Democrat. I don’t know why Bernie’s most ardent supporters just handwave this away to presume instead that all Democrats really _want_ to be liberal and to elect liberals to go merrily a-liberaling on their behalf. I would like to live in such a place. I know for certain that I do not.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s worse than it appears because the state-level action that DOES succeed is not led and funded by “Democrats”- it’s led and funded by labor unions.
Michigan repealed their emergency manager law, by referendum.
The same is true of the minimum wage efforts and the same was true of the Ohio effort to repeal Kasich’s anti-labor law.
“Democrats” – the national organization- are actually doing LESS at the state level than most people think.
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig: Isn’t he losing by at least 20 points nationally?
Hillary Rettig
@Central Planning: there’s a difference between a thoughful reconsideration and expedience. Besides I was replying to bot’s calling hrc a “leader,” and my point was that playing catching up with the popular consensus is the antithesis of leadership.
I will be grateful if you can name one issue in the last ten years that HRC’s come out well ahead of the curve on.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: Nah. The people who dismissed the loss of manufacturing jobs as creative destruction don’t give a flying crap about insurance workers. They’re concerned for their portfolios as usual. If the insurance industry ever goes to its well-deserved doom (which I won’t live to see, I’m convinced), the only people who will give a shit about the economic dislocation for those workers will be the people who advocated for workers all along.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
I view it as a lessons learned situation. Plenty of folks figured factory workers would be able to find jobs elsewhere. After all the economy, in the 1990’s, was doing great. Industries, such as telecom and computing, were revving up creating a transformation of how businesses are able to operate. There should have been jobs available, with no significant loss in income.
When those jobs never materialized for laid off factory workers, I think people have rethought the benefits and merits of “creative destruction.”
You can see this in the thinking of the economic brain trust for the Democrats, with folks like Summers and Krugman changing their views to reflect the instincts of the “rabble.”
Hillary Rettig
@FlipYrWhig: if he does wind up losing nationally of course I wold vote for Clinton or any Dem in the general.
but you know, Obama 2008 happened.
satby
Oh here we go…
I’m starting to really resent being told that I’m betraying all my life long very liberal values because the shouty old guy doesn’t “inspire” me. And though I support universal health care access, I happen to place other liberal goals higher.
Hillary Rettig
@gene108: Krugman too? sayitainso was he pro free trade and the rest?
a different chris
@gene108: They can find work in less morally reprehensible fields, like payday loans or prostitution.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know what people you’re referring to, then. I thought you meant around here in comment threads. Have the candidates or politicians been talking about insurance industry jobs?
Gin & Tonic
@Hillary Rettig:
So did McGovern.
Yutsano
@Hillary Rettig:
Cart before horse.
Let’s start with the fact that he’s still not truly a Democrat. He’s not fundraising for the Democratic party. He’s not doing any downticket work. Yes yes yes disruption and revolution blah blah blah but the fact that the party is making nice with him just to give Hillz competition (which she needed and wasn’t going to get from M’OM) isn’t sufficient for me.
The blatant dismissal of minority concerns (yes it matters, A-Am/Latino voters ARE the base here!) and the horrific lack of even BASIC foreign policy knowledge make him completely unpalatable to me.
And nothing in that comment is an endorsement of Hillary. In any other cycle this would be O’Malley’s until the end of time.
@satby:
Protip: before you go universal you expand coverage. Then you start making progress with Medicaid coverage expansion and lowering Medicare age…
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig: Yes, Krugman was pro-NAFTA.
japa21
@Hillary Rettig: You (and others) bring up the AlterNet article which “highlights” how Bernie has been able to work with Republicans in Congress. I presume it is to convince people that if Bernie is elected he will continue to be able to do so. It is possible that even Bernie believes this.
One of the reasons I supported Obama in 2008 was because, even in a short period of time in Congress, he had been very good at working with the GOP in the Senate. My concern was that Clinton would be unable to do so.
I very seriously underestimated the amount of bigotry and recklessness we now know is abundant in the GOP. There is absolutely no reason to expect it to be different with Bernie.
One advantage for Clinton is that she knows, going in, that the GOP is going to work to obstruct anything and everything she attempts to do. I think the difference between her and Obama in their handling of the situation is that she will be more confrontational and be more outspoken about that obstruction and how it is hurting the US.
Betty Cracker
@gene108: If those folks really thought middle-aged furniture makers would roll seamlessly into tech jobs after NAFTA, they’re too dumb to run a roadside tomato stand, much less influence the world’s largest economy. I actually don’t think they’re stupid at all; they know every tectonic economic shift has winners and losers and that hoped it would all shake out in the end. And from their perspective, it did, at least for awhile.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
Most Americans do not mind immigrants, as long as they do not come here.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: My point is that people are worried about what happens to everyone who works in a hugely wasteful industry sucking up as much as 17.5% or more of our GDP instead of thinking what we could reinvest all the freed up capital in if we just reduced our healthcare per capita spending to European levels. I am not saying it isn’t a problem, it is, but it is hardly insurmountable.
What I am saying is as arguments go, it is lacking in rather obvious ways.
Much better to make the argument that it is a complete waste of time to put any political capital in such a fight when there is absolutely zero chance of success. If the ACA is the best we could get out of a Dem Senate, a Dem House, and a Dem Presidency, how in Dog’s name is Bernie going to get single payer thru a GOP House and Senate?
He isn’t, and at the very least, the House is going to remain in the GOP until at least 2022. Short of a meteor strike anyway.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108: I don’t think, myself, that us changing to Medicare for All would immediately lead to dramatic cost savings. Doctors and hospitals and equipment providers and all the rest aren’t going to accept a sudden, say, 25% cut in their incomes. We’re not going to suddenly fire 500k people without having the vast majority of them do something similar almost immediately.
The savings from a MfA system would come over time, via bending of the cost curves and via improved overall health of the population as a whole. The pressure for giant insurance companies to merge with drugstores, non-profits to become for-profits, etc., etc., would be gone because the giant benefits to banksters and upper management from such financial chicanery would be gone. There would, one assumes, be much more pressure on drug companies to have reasonable costs and profits for medications.
One thing that does give me pause is the “US pays twice as much as other developed countries for worse results” meme. Yes, it’s true now. But there’s some evidence that the US cost in GDP for health care is leveling off while the cost in other nations is rising. See, e.g., Exhibit 1. We can certainly do better in our national spending on health care – spending more on pre-natal and 0-5 year stuff that has benefits throughout life, finding ways to spend less on the last 6 months of life, etc. But I don’t think we’re ever going to spend as little as, say, Australia. Our population is so large, so diverse, and there’s vast numbers of people who are stuck in poverty that make us sort-of a unique case.
So, let’s argue that MfA makes sense from a health care fairness and efficiency perspective – not that every family is going to suddenly spend $5k less a year. I don’t think there’s any realistic case where that will happen.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Glidwrith
@a different chris: Not a Berniac here, but you should look up Cole’s tire rims and anthrax for lunch post. There is very little compromise to be had with these people and I want someone stubborn enough to dig in and not take any of their shit.
Hillary Rettig
@FlipYrWhig: wow, that was a balloon popper.
Yutsano – disagree with many of your facts, including B’s supposed lack of support for POC.
And his lack of engagement with the Democratic machine is a plus in my book. I would never give a dime to the Dem Party, for reasons related to Steve Israel / Debby Wasserman Schultz. Only to candidates.
Iowa Old Lady
OT maybe, but I’m listening to Chris Hayes from last night and he’s interviewing Rand Paul. Paul is irrelevant. He’s not going to be their nominee. He and most of the other R candidates need to go away and stop annoying me. Click to Maddow instead.
FlipYrWhig
@Yutsano: Here’s my thing about Bernie Sanders, OK. I’ve known a fair number of old lefties and he’s exactly like that. They have many redeeming values. But they believe in false consciousness, which they use to explain how the powerful misshape the minds of the proles, and distract and mislead them, and think if the proles would just wake up they’d all be revolutionary Marxists. But that doesn’t do anything to explain racism or misogyny or the like. This thing where all social problems are economic is silly enough, but this other thing where the solution to those social problems is the people suddenly realizing they’ve been had is even sillier. And this is what the narrative about millionaires and billionaires and corporations and Wall Street boils down to. I don’t think it adds up.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker:
Please to distinguish among types of insurance. Property-casualty insurance, the concept of pooled risk as developed at Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse is, along with double-entry bookkeeping, one of humanity’s crowning achievements.
Bobby Thomson
@Hillary Rettig: wow.
Hillary Rettig
@Glidwrith: Exactly. Negotiating against yourself is always a loser strategy–something traditional Dems never can seem to figure out.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: Republicans and conservadems talked about it a lot in the context of the Obamacare debate and even the Hillarycare battle in the 90s. It usually went something like “you can’t destroy one-fifth of the U.S. economy, blah blah blah.” I’m so old I can remember a Hillarycare town hall in which an insurance worker specifically asked what would happen to her in the proposed “managed competition” framework of Hillarycare, and Hillary basically said, “you’re a bright young woman — you’ll be okay,” and Republicans and conservadems gasped at the cold-bloodedness of it all.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
in New Hampshire
In Iowa: I don’t think tied is toppled
nationally, he’s still twenty points behind
C.V. Danes
@Hawes: That would depend on your relation to the system, no? If you are a marginalized group then revolution may be your only chance to feel recognized by the system.
Anyway, Bernie is not advocating breaking the system, but utilizing the system to fundamentally alter its priorities. Not sure that counts as a revolution, unless you’re an oligarch.
FlipYrWhig
@japa21:
This was the feature of Hillary Clinton’s career that had me in her camp in 2008 as long as I was. If there’s anyone in contemporary politics who has no illusions about the goodwill of Republicans, it’s the person who popularized the phrase “vast rightwing conspiracy.”
Granite
I am now officially off the Jeb Bush bandwagon. He’s not going to be the nominee–a man of great experience, intelligence, compassion has been shoved aside by the GOP electorate; but so be it. His fundraising abilities alone would have made him by far He most formidable candidate agains Hillary.
What Americans want this year above all is a winner who isn’t afraid to bitch slap the liberal left and pound them into submission. I believe I have one man in mind who is just that, but I’m going to think about it first.
Stay tuned
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: I just wanted to point out that Bernie is not a liberal messiah he is made out to be. He is a one issue candidate, granted the issue he is raising, that of income inequality is very important but it is not the only issue there is. Especially if you are minority of any sort, a woman, a skilled immigrant caught in immigration zombie land, a black person, your problems are not going to disappear because you make a good income.
Bobby Thomson
@Patricia Kayden: this. Racism doesn’t win presidential elections anymore – for now – but it dominates at the state and district level.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
But we can acvhieve the same result by tighter controls / regulations on the healthcare segment, like Switzerland did in the 1990’s, with much less disruption than single-payer.
There are plenty of good alternatives to single-payer that can reach cost savings that are getting drowned out by Bernie’s call for single payer.
oldgold
Last night’s town hall forum left me concerned about Sanders age. Sitting there, talking about the athletic accomplishments of his youth, he seemed very old to me.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: This.
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig:
How about negotiating within and among your own party? Because that’s kind of the entire reason why Democratic policies aren’t as far left of center as a lot of people would like. A party comprised of a coalition between liberals and moderates is doing to produce squishy half-measures from a liberal perspective. A party that had only liberals in it wouldn’t have to bother compromising (hooray!). A party that had only liberals in it would also top out at 25-30% nationally (hmmm).
Granite
@schrodinger’s cat:
“World Ends, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit”
Can’t mention anything without pandering to minorities and feminists these days. Whatever happened to being one people?
D58826
@schrodinger’s cat: And there will be tax increases. So sath Bernie. Now for the policy wonks it was obvious that his single payer plan had winners (lower premiums) and losers (higher taxes) but for most folks they were details that might be relevant closer to election day. Bernie has now put tax increases out front and center. If I remember correctly the last democrat to do that was Fritz Mondale and that did not turn out well. So Bernie has provided to GOP with the perfect bumper sticker/soundbite = ‘tax and spend socialist’ . That is even better the usual tax and spend democrat.
schrodinger's cat
@Hillary Rettig: Polls are not elections, I wouldn’t count my chickens before they hatch says President Howard Dean.
Granite
Racism is the reason we win at the state and local level? Um, nope, it’s just that conservative voters are more civic-minded than liberals.
schrodinger's cat
@Granite: One people? Well some people have always been more equal than others.
ETA: 1>3/5 and 1>0.
Botsplainer
@Betty Cracker:
I tend to spend every dime I make. I’m more concerned about union, public and private pensions and annuities and 401Ks which are the lifeblood of 10s of millions of retired workers. Those are heavily invested in blue chip stocks – like insurance.
The Revolution gonna take care of them, too?
Bobby Thomson
@Anya: they both are. Bush was just as bad when he was younger.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, I know, but Americans have a strong hypocritical streak with regards to immigration.
If Latinos were not such a large potential voting block for one party or the other, immigration reform would more universally resemble Trump’s views.
Both Parties are more than happy to make things shittier for immigrants from other places.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108: It’s hard to get people riled up for a “Political Revolution” by arguing that we should tweak the existing system. ;-)
What do we want!
GRADUAL CHANGE!
When do we want it?
IN DUE COURSE!
;-)
Of course, there are many paths to the ends we seek. Talking about alternatives is good. It’s important to have some idea of the trade-offs whenever we talk about huge changes to entrenched systems.
Cheers,
Scott.
Hillary Rettig
@schrodinger’s cat: indisputably wise advice
Hillary Rettig
@FlipYrWhig: (1) your point doesn’t invalidate my own
(2) see my link to Bernie’s shown ability to work with diverse colleagues in congress
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@oldgold: I’ve had that reaction to Trump recently. He’s so flabby and seems to be carrying about 150 pounds more than he should. He’s an overdue walking heart-attack to these eyes.
His father lived to be 93, but developed Alzheimer’s 6 years earlier, according to Wikipedia…
Cheers,
Scott.
ruemara
This Sanders worship got old for me in November. At this point, I’m wondering if we need sedation meds in the water.
He has no plan for how to accomplish the free stuff legislatively, he can’t EO that liberal utopia into existence, his ardent admirers have this bizarre “So we can’t dream big” response to everything…. Yeah, I’ve lost the potential to support this shallow candidate.
He wants a revolution? OK, can the campaign help organize voting reg drives? Push the Democratic party to get that rolling? Any whisper of progressive down ticket candidates that come with a Bernie seal of approval? Anything beyond this cult of personality? This isn’t a little thing, this is of critical importance. Revolutions take work and I’m not seeing anything revolutionary here. I can’t comprehend how so many smart people are shutting down critical thinking about this candidate. I’m all for the bold stances and plans but this is the Green Party all over again.
Haven’t even touched on the exclusionary nature of Sanders’ statements. That’s pretty bad but not as important as really building the foundation to win. So make all the Bernie panties you want. I just hope eventually someone in his campaign starts understanding that we need a little more than 1 angry guy at a podium.
satby
@FlipYrWhig: that and a party that caters to the farthest wing of it’s base is unacceptable to a lot of the rest of the country. On a lot of things, Bernie has been as egregiously wrong as Clinton. But my problem with Bernie is that he’s more of a one trick pony that his strongest supporters keep projecting their own thoughts onto.
Granite
@schrodinger’s cat:
The 3/5 compromise reduced the political power of slave owners. I don’t know why liberals point it out as some uniquely horrible thing, but they love cheap shots at the Founders of the country, the country that they hate and loathe.
Hillary Rettig
I have to sign off, but just want to point out that no one in this thread (to my knowledge) commented on my porn link. WHAT DOES THIS SAD FACT SAY ABOUT US AS A COMMUNITY?
japa21
There are some secrets to successful negotiations:
1. Start by asking for more than you know you are going to get.
2. Do not ask for too much as that will prevent any negotiations from even beginning.
3. Recognize you won’t get everything you want.
People complain about Obama not even trying to get single payer. If he had, he would have violated rule 2. I can guarantee you, if the words single payer ever left his mouth as something he wanted to see, nothing would have happened. The ACA would have been dead in the water,
People complain about his giving up on the public option. If he had pushed on it and demanded that the ACA include the public option the same result would have happened. To be honest, I was surprised he stuck with it as long as he did considering it was obvious early on that it wasn’t going to happen.
If you look at the stimulus, the same thing came into play. What he really wanted was undoubtedly more than what he asked for. What he asked for was more than what he got. If he had asked for what he really wanted, nothing would have happened. If he had insisted on getting what he did ask for, same result.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: There are definitely alternatives. Some of them may actually work. I am certainly not against discussing any and all of them. Are any of them better than single payer? Idaknow. I do know that when a Doctors office employs 5 different people just to do the paper work from 17 different insurers… You get the idea.
I am just plain and simply sick and tired of the hugely wasteful status quo that leaves so many people with no realistic way to get healthcare.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer: Look, I’m not for “the revolution” if we’re talking about healthcare. In my view, the ACA — cautious, corporate-friendly reform that it was — is the best we can do in this environment, and I think we shouldn’t spend any more major political capital on that particular issue (aside from adjusting it on the margins) when there are so many other pressing problems.
That said, the idea that we shouldn’t even discuss single payer because it would be economically disruptive or that anyone who advocates for it is a deranged moonbat is bullshit. Lots of valuable social and technological progress is disruptive. It’s a fair question to ask single-payer advocates how they’d address it, but it’s bullshit to try to shut the conversation down over that issue.
Applejinx
The thing about Trump is that if he looks at, say, Goldman Sachs, it’s a bit like Bernie in that he doesn’t see his dearest friends. He sees competition, and Bernie sees EVUL.
A Donald Trump looks at a Goldman Sachs hedge fund manager and sees a kind of rival, plus somebody that has a bunch of money. It’s possible that if we ended up saddled with Trump, he’d do some decent stuff among all the horrible crap by sucking a bunch of money out of his ‘competition’ and sort of laughing at them as they scream. Donald Trump is another rich guy based on bullshit and has absolutely no reason to worship other rich guys. Of all the people who know in their hearts that it’s all founded on bullshit and has no real worth, Trump would know that as he’s utterly bullshit to the core.
Hillary Clinton looks at one particular Goldman Sachs hedge fund manager and LITERALLY sees family. (Chelsea married one).
I just can’t shake that. I can’t shake the feeling that not all Dems are the same: indeed, that I fucked up but was onto something when I voted for Nader years ago. What if it IS just ‘all the rich fuckers versus everybody else, to the death’?
That’s no sustainable path, but we’ve noticed that already.
Bobby Thomson
@Granite: Noooooooooo!!! You can up skew those polls. I have faith.
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig:
Yeah, I’m sure that will hold up, just like Obama’s work with Richard Lugar set the tone for his relationship with Congressional Republicans. Just horse-trade liberal stuff and libertarian cost-cutting stuff and everything will work out peachy keen! What could go wrong?
schrodinger's cat
Is Granite an old troll with a new handle or a brand new one.
ETA: He is RtR and he is giving up on Jeb!
chopper
@Central Planning:
changing your mind is a sign of incomplete purity.
karen marie
@Hawes: Aren’t you currently soaking in the successful outcome of a revolution? I will have to re-read my American history books because, I swear, I thought I read something about a war and a declaration in 1776 …
satby
@Applejinx: a lot of us have wondered about the kind of cognitive dissonance it would take for someone to consider Sanders or Trump. Thanks for demonstrating it.
rp
I’m lukewarm towards Sanders and slightly favor Clinton, and I agree with Cole in that many of the Sanders supporters I’ve encountered treat me like I’m a moron or a puppet of Wall Street. Those folks aren’t doing Sanders any favors by being so hostile to Clinton supporters.
El Caganer
@gene108: Exactly. Several countries use an insurance system to achieve affordable, universal health care. It is morally obtuse to let a portion of your country’s population go without health care while you wait for your preferred system to be put into place. A single payer system would be nice; let’s talk about it after we’ve assured that everybody in this country has affordable access to health care.
schrodinger's cat
@Applejinx: Dubya wants to personally thank you.
I wonder how many Bernie supporters voted for Nader back in 2000.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx:
You base your vote on the job held by the spouse of the candidate’s offspring? That seems sensible.
OzarkHillbilly
@Granite: Math is not your strong point, is it?
satby
@El Caganer: Lets tweak it to get everyone covered, and talk about it after we begin to fix our other very pressing problems.
Granite
@Bobby Thomson:
No, it’s over. Jeb and the Super PAC are quietly winding down operations and laying off non-essential personnel as we speak, and making a mad rush to spend as much money as possible before he campaign is forced to end after New Hampshire (sending out those free portable video players and etc)
japa21
@Applejinx: I don’t think hedge fund manager is a horrible thing to be. Like most jobs there are respectable ones and some not so respectable ones.
The problem is that, due to loopholes in our tax laws, they pay a minimal income tax on their income.
IIRC, Clinton has talked about closing that loophole.
Some people talk as if all banks should be shut down and Wall Street should cease to exist. Pure lunacy.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t know. One is a campaign by a rumpled, grumpy wonk claiming that partisan politics is inescapably corrupt because of big money, and the other is OH RIGHT
forked tongue
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, you know, the way you get “one people” is to elect someone who “isn’t afraid to bitch slap the liberal left and pound them into submission.”
Granite
@OzarkHillbilly:
The South wanted to count slaves as full people for the Census. This would have increased congressional representation and EC votes for them.
The African slave trade was started by black Africans and Arab Muslims, and ended by West Europeans. But for anyone to point this out is a HateFact ™ because blacks and Muslims are official grievance groups while white people cause all the problems in the world
Granite
@forked tongue:
The liberals started the divisions, pitting certain official victim groups against white heterosexual males, especially those of the working class. The GOP is only responding.
ksmiami
@satby: I have been a good and faithful liberal democrat for all of my adult life and I want to win. That will not happen with a Sanders candidacy and too many people will be hurt by a Republican in the Oval Office. I resent the first time voters who fail to fess up to the actual weaknesses of Bernie the man. Bernie could have been a contender years ago if he’d actually joined the Democratic party but he was too busy playing the purity role. He has accomplished little in office which to me is a predictor of how he’d do if in some rare cosmic accident he actually won. As I’ve said before, he is a vanity candidate that we cannot afford right now. Obama accomplished a ton in office despite almost insurmountable opposition and a country that was literally bleeding when he was elected. Hillary to me is the best candidate to prevent a backslide.
Applejinx
@schrodinger’s cat: I did say I fucked up.
I’m just wondering how horribly I’d be fucking up if I allowed myself to vote for Hillary Clinton. Sure, there are issues she’d at least pretend to cover, and she’s happy to tell me ‘may the Force be with you’, but ‘I hope everyone will love me!’ isn’t practical right now.
What can I say. Stress of various stuff (significantly, economic) is fucking killing me, I’m very sick right now and not getting better, and I’m in a real ‘burn it all fucking down’ mood and my clinton trust issues are flaring up.
The other day I had to negotiate away a thirty dollar bank fee because I wrote a check from one of my accounts to another, and deposited it IN the bank assuming that if there was an issue I’d be told. Instead, it overdrew the account and hit me with the extra fee and when I went in, I got it straightened out but it had to be explained to me that some people would prefer to overdraw one account and pay the fee because they’re, perhaps, making sure another account with a mortgage payment would stay in the black. And therefore you don’t always tell people about a thirty dollar fee, because it’s just there to make people not do it too blithely. It’s a nuisance fee.
Thirty fucking dollars is a nuisance fee. You don’t have to be too careful with it because it doesn’t really matter.
Kill all the bankers. THEN all the lawyers.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
And people like my Dad, who never earned more than 50K per year and is living from his meager Social Security and from his pension fund, will be totally screwed. His pension is heavily invested in insurance companies. What about all the teachers and other workers who hope to live off their pensions and retirement funds. I’m pretty sure the oligarchs will survive the destruction of the insurance industry but a lot of people who have worked hard all their lives will not.
Fair Economist
@George Hayduke:
Actually neither Ghandi nor Mandela led a revolution. In both cases the oppressors voluntarily handed over power in an evolutionary way. There was a legitimate *threat* of revolution in both cases which motivated the handover, but it didn’t actually happen.
Contra the original assertions, there *are* a few revolutions that came off well (Velvet revolution). But it’s generally true – most revolutions make a mess and many result in a situation even worse in the end (Tahrir Square, for a recent example). The two famous Anglo “revolutions” that came out well – the Glorious and the American – weren’t actually revolutions. The Glorious Revolution was a foreign invasion (by the Dutch) and the American Revolution was a rebellion.
japa21
@Granite: So the slave owners wanted to count people they considered on the level of cattle to be counted as full persons, even though they did not consider them as such. How wonderful.
Yep, started by Africans and Arab Muslims, who carried the slaves over to the Americas on their own ships. Oh wait. If Europeans and Americans didn’t provide a market, then there wouldn’t have been the slave trade would there.
That and your follow up comment show the typical illogical thinking prevalent in the GOP. Purely delusional.
C.V. Danes
@Hillary Rettig: I’ll comment: At least the story identified the porn industry as leaning left instead of hanging left.
There ;-)
schrodinger's cat
@Applejinx: Regardless of our political differences, I hope that things get better for you soon. I am keeping my paws crossed.
AliceBlue
@schrodinger’s cat:
Eric Cantor would agree.
MomSense
@gene108:
I would love to see single payer but Sanders’ plan has no cost controls. It is completely unrealistic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Didn’t you tell us the other day you were draining your accounts to give to Bernie? I suspect Bernie would rather you cut back on your donations and keep your books balances.
I also suspect a lot of what you say is bullshit.
OzarkHillbilly
@Granite:
And counting slaves who could not vote as 3/5ths did not artificially increase their electoral power???? Try again.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….. gasp….. wheeze…. Your selective reading of history is surpassed only by your inability to white wash it. Try again.
ksmiami
@Granite: Why are you here then? What does the GOP offer anyone but death and destruction and the grift. This blog is for smart people – that wagon left the GOP barn in the fifties.
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
I do too.
C.V. Danes
@rp: seems like there’s angst on both sides. If you like Hillary, you’re a tool of the establishment. If you like Bernie, you’re a non-pragmatic revolutionary wanna be. Either would be far better than what the Republicans have to offer. And either would kick the shit out of the Republicans in the general election, too.
Central Planning
@Granite:
@Granite:
DougJ, is that you?
Applejinx
@schrodinger’s cat: Thanks. I’d definitely not be as pissy if I were not sick.
I wouldn’t be nearly as sick if I could sleep, and I wouldn’t have as much trouble sleeping if not for the money death spiral alluded to by the bank fee stuff. It’s not like I don’t work, I’m pulling all-nighters for the first time in years trying to get some angle on it all.
On top of everything else, I got off Social Security Disability (I’m autistic) years ago with a thing called a PASS plan. They’ve now randomly decided to claw back several months from around 2009, so I’m getting threatening letters from the government literally demanding thousands of dollars (just like the thing where you say, if you randomly got a bill for $2000 could you even pay it or would you go bankrupt?)
Except it’s different numbers the max of which is thousands of dollars, I just paid to have my car’s left front wheel stuck back on after it LITERALLY came off while doing 60mph down a highway, and when I do send money to where they want it, it seems like they don’t necessarily even get it.
Fuck everything. I’m still going out to Keene this evening as there’s some stuff I need to do, and I will pick up data from the Bernie office and enter it into the system at home before midnight, even if I am sick. That seems like a more productive way to express my feelings for the current political situation.
Those of you who do trust Clinton, I hope like hell you’re right if it matters. I’d prefer if it never has to matter, but we’ll see.
Aleta
@Baud:
OPPOSITION SEES CATSCAM IN COVERUP: CRACKS APPEAR IN SANDERS CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
Central Planning
@Applejinx:
They have this thing called a transfer. It doesn’t require writing checks.
geg6
@ruemara:
Totally with you there.
Granite
@OzarkHillbilly:
The British Navy was the greatest force for abolition in the history of the world.
MomSense
@Applejinx:
I’m really sorry about all that you are going through.
Applejinx
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Pff. I wish. There are details: I can say my car’s left front wheel came off because the swing-arm thing broke and the whole thing scrunched up against the wheelwell pointing thataway. It looked like this (this is me, this is the car) wheel came off doing 60 and when I get on that highway I always speed right up because you can get hit by folks coming over the bridge and I have to get in the left lane quite soon for the road splits, hence 60mph. It did take a long time to skid to a halt, though the other wheel stayed on so I could steer.
1000 dollar car follies. It ALL comes back to economics. That car’s tried to kill me three times and I’m still in it.
Hillary Rettig
@Applejinx: :-( I hope things improve soon.
C.V. Danes
@MomSense: Last time I checked, people were free to vote for whoever they wanted, even if stupidly. You should be thankful that we live in a country where there are choices available other than the establishment sanctioned ones, even if they are stupid. Plus, you’re assuming that the Nader voters would have just voted Democrat instead. Most Nader voters would have probably just not voted.
If you want you blame someone, blame Gore for conceeding before the final tally, and blame the conservative souls on the Supreme Court who handed the election to their team.
Applejinx
@Central Planning: The whole reason I was writing checks was I thought it gave me a paper trail, proving that I was there in the bank and all my numbers were presumably fine and that the teller found no problem with it. Whoopsy. They don’t give a fuck about me and it didn’t turn out to matter at all, did it?
Whatever. I gotta get back to some more work. If I have any luck, I can at least make a few hundred bucks putting out a videogame (again, not making this up) knowing that it’s fairly likely that even if it’s GOOD it’ll go nowhere because only the rich get to have marketing budgets and therefore succeed in any way. I’ve done a great deal since that game went onto that site, some of those all-nighters, but I have to do so very much more.
D58826
@Betty Cracker: I’m not sure what the experts were thinking but I suspect they were using the transition in the late 19th century from a farm based economy to the industrial economy as a basis. The growing industrial economy still demanded large numbers of workers most with a minimum of education. The assembly line let people with a grade school education turn the 5th nut on the 3rd well and still make a living wage (esp. after the unions gained power). In some cases jobs did transition – the blacksmith just opened a gas station.
I’m not sure anyone understood that the transition to the information economy with computer controlled robots, etc. would have the impact that it did.
The same for globalization. I remember my econ 101 and competitive advantage. The French made wine and the Brits made shoes. Nice neat trade. Income for workers in both countries was probably about the same. Sure there was cheaper labor in India but the cost of moving most goods cancelled out the advantage. Today you can take advantage of the cheap labor. There is no way an American factory worker making 30 bucks and hour is going to compete with an Indian making 2 bucks an hour. Heck it is even cheaper to outsource some medical jobs to India such as radiologist. The doctor in India can read the x-ray was well as the doctor in Podunk. The 19th century industrial revolution created all of those clerk/paper pushing jobs. The computer revolution destroyed them but did not create enough well paying replacement jobs even if there were training /relocation pogrom’s.
sherparick
@Tim C.: We specialize in circular firing squads. Hence, why I am going through so much popcorn and red wine this year watching the Republicans this year as they fratricide each other to prove who can be loonier to their base.
Regarding Bernie and Hilary, I love them both, but realize that at least through the first term it is going to be 4 years of trench warfare with the right wing and Republicans, with daily calls by Looney Toon Party to impeach her. But if the winner can get a majority Democratic Senate and replace 3 members of the Supreme Court including one of the New Gilded Age Five. This why all these so called lefties writing anti-Hilary at Salon are past inane to just being trolls. If you don’t neuter Thomas, Alito, Scalia, and Roberts, not only will we not get any progressive legislation anymore, but about every liberal law passed since 1890 will be made “Unconstitutional,” fulfilling Ben Domench’s and Federalist Society’s wet dreams.
Mike in NC
@Granite: Kindly fuck yourself.
J R in WV
Off topic, repeated from earlier thread.
Here is a time lapse 40 second video of the snow accumulation where the deepest pile happened, in Berkeley county WV:
Time lapse video
amk
@OzarkHillbilly:
This is a dim bulb that just has woken up to dumbya 3’s utter failings after months of parroting his stupid talking points.
Applejinx
@sherparick: …and you just de-Nadered me.
The thing about the Supreme Court is that they’re insulated from all economic considerations or any worry for the rest of their lives, so they can still come up with dumb thoughts but by definition it’s much harder to just buy their love.
I suppose Hillary could appoint her hedge fund manager son-in-law to the Supreme Court :D
(I kid! I kid!)
D58826
@Granite: Over the course of human history you would be hard put to find any group that did not practice slavery. In most societies it was just bad luck or fortunes of war. It said nothing about the person who was enslaved. The US added the twist that the slaves were slaves because they were inferior and deserved to be slaves. In fact the white man was doing them a favor by making them slaves and giving them three meals and a place to sleep out of the rain.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: That’s a fair question to ask a single-payer advocate, which I am not. But the fact that a particular industry has burrowed like a tick into our economic hide isn’t a good reason to dismiss discussion of alternatives as hopelessly fanciful.
Patricia Kayden
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Thanks for the info. Funny how it was so easy to recall Governor Gray Davis but is almost impossible to recall Republican Governors who deserve to be jailed for their incompetency. We’ll see if any of the proposed recalls have any legs.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
I always thought that the default setting on Brooks’ word processor was Disingenuous.
Tripod
@FlipYrWhig:
That post sealed it. Hillary Rettig is a DougJ shtick.
>Polite golf clap<
WereBear
This past weekend I was at a Sanders event: voting drives, support for the local Democrat running in the district, and lots of busy and excited people of all ages.
For myself, primary speaking I supported the candidate who voted against the Iraq War (Obama) instead of the candidate who voted for it (Clinton) and that worked out rather well.
So I’m for Bernie this time. Every criticism one could make against him can be countered with one for HRC: she’s tied in with the financial system, she is lukewarm about steps to keep them in line, and while she has more policy experience, she is way too hawkish for me to take that as the plus her supporters seem to cling to.
I feel that with the Republicans so deep in the crazy, we don’t need a triangulating moderate Dem… we need a fierce fighting socialist to counter them. Sure, we don’t get everything we want, but since when is that a realistic goal?
A goal to reach… that’s what gets people excited, and voting.
A while back a commenter here pointed out that when JFK said, “Let’s go to the moon,” it didn’t get done that year. But it was a notable goal that transformed our society to the better; supporting science, firing up kid’s imaginations, a reminder to everyone to dream big.
Republicans have torn that down. They go around telling people that they deserve a lousy education, bad food, poisoned water. That science is the enemy and arts are worth nothing.
I appreciate people who think “we have to hold the line.” But that’s not enough for the 63% of the eligible voters who didn’t vote last time.
I think they deserve an alternative.
gwangung
@Betty Cracker: I thought one of the major points is not that there is going to be change to a major sector of the US economy, but there is no plan or even a vague strategy for handling this change.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not dismissing the alternatives. I have speculated on many Mayhew threads about how we might move toward single payer. This transition has happened in other countries so we do have some models. I have a big problem with the actual single payer plan that Sanders put forth. It would be a step down for many of us and it doesn’t have cost controls that even make it possible.
I hope we transition over several decades to single payer and keep expanding access and coverage along the way.
Cacti
And remember, if you don’t buy the new Ben & Jerry’s specialty flavor for Bernie Sanders, it’s because you’re a corporate tool of the establishment.
Applejinx
@gwangung: All over the world, the economy is COLLAPSING.
Bank of Scotland says, get out, it’s all coming down soon.
You mustn’t think, in a globalized economy where all work goes overseas or to ‘gig economy’ corporations or to robots and computers, that there is anything of our capitalist economy that’s going to remain stable anyway. It’s all coming down around our ears. You can buy time by throwing more of the 99% under the bus, you can try to go for something like Basic Income and reinvent money as ‘people’s economic vote by which they select goods and services they like’, but everything is changing.
The economy as we know it is already done. It’s just about what happens afterward.
(which is another reason not to want to vote for Trump: damn, I AM sick today, what was I thinkin’?)
Brachiator
@MomSense:
I wonder how many Bernie supporters were not old enough to vote back in 2000.
C.V. Danes
@Granite: So it was black Africans and Arab Muslims who were running the slave ships? Who knew!
Cacti
@Brachiator:
I was going to say not many. Most Bernie supporters would have been young children during the 2000 election.
Paul in KY
@Hawes: I don’t think Sen. Sanders is talking about a ‘revolution’ in the same manner that you are.
Just One More Canuck
@Hillary Rettig: “toppled”? In what way has he “toppled” her?
C.V. Danes
@gwangung: Has there ever been a plan that wasn’t reactive?
Paul in KY
@Hillary Rettig: He was a wonderful Folk/Americana singer. Gone way, way too soon.
Paul in KY
@Punchy: How about Sub-Commandante? Has a nice ring to it.
sherparick
@sherparick: I used “her” because I still see Hilary as the likely winner with Bernie given an extra boos due in Iowa and New Hampshire, two of the whitest states in the Union. Although Bernie is picking up some African American support, I still see the Latin and Black vote, along with the fragments of working class older whites, particular white woman being anchors that will give Clinton victories in South, Texas, and midwestern industrial states. Hence why I used “her.” I actually have donated to Bernie so that is where my heart is at, although I find them both more than a little tone death on race. See this post at Lawyers, Guns, and Money. http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/01/hillary-and-the-dunning-school
P.S. Somehow I see this 19th century cartoon is almost perfect for the Trump campaign.
C.V. Danes
@Paul in KY: I agree. Sanders is using the term revolution to indicate overthrow of establishment/oligarch control of the government, not overthrow of the government. The system as designed more or less works. It just needs to have its priorities adjusted.
FlipYrWhig
@WereBear:
And also 218 fierce fighting socialists in the House and 60 fierce fighting socialists in the Senate. But I’m sure that’ll happen because POLITICAL REVOLUTION means all the dispirited liberals who haven’t been voting reappear like the astronauts from the saucer in Close Encounters, and then bang, zoom, country all better.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: Sanders is using the term “revolution” as a way to say that a miracle could occur. All we need is a “political revolution” and then nothing can stop us! No triangulation, no frustrating negotiations between competing interest groups, just street-fightin’ hard-drivin’ liberals all the way down! It’ll be awesome and we totally would have done it by now if someone had only tried.
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: Ben & Jerry’s, a subsidiary of Unilever Holdings (NYSE: UN).
Fight the power, man.
different-church-lady
@japa21:
Yeah, but we would have still had OUR PRINCIPLES!!!!
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Sanders is using the term “revolution” as an empty buzzword for coddled, white hashtag activists. The depth of their “revolutionary” commitment can be seen in the comments on any of the reparations threads.
different-church-lady
@FlipYrWhig: Actually, he’s using “revolution” in the same sense that car manufacturers or cell phone companies use it: as a marketing concept.
Should he win, in about 2 years everyone’s going to be screaming that the revolution never came.
Obama had the same problem: he told people to hope and they thought he was Santa Claus.
gene108
@MomSense:
I think universal single payer has a lot of upside, but getting from here to there is a huge leap. It took Canada something like 20 years, from when single payer was first introduced at the Province level until it became national (and their system is still administered by each Province).
I just do not get the feeling Bernie’s policy wonks have thought through the details, which has me concerned.
It took four to five years from the PPACA’s passage for it to be fully implemented because it required that much time for companies, states and the Federal government to ramp up to be close to compliant.
And even then provisions like employers handing out 1099 to anyone providing a service was dropped because it was too unwieldy for companies to handle.
Steve from Antioch
@gene108: you think the people who worked in manufacturing 20 years ago are fine?
I’d argue that they’re more likely now working at Walmart or some other service job where they can’t make ends meet, are more likely to be addicted to hillbilly heroin or real heroin, and are probably thinking Donald Trump cares more about them than Hillary Clinton.
FlipYrWhig
@different-church-lady: They’ll probably be blaming Debbie Wasserman Schultz for that.
TOP123
@geg6: the word ‘Revolution’ gets used, but it really was more a (*mostly) successful seperatist movement.
(*See Canada)
different-church-lady
@FlipYrWhig: I’m sure they will, but they’ll also start screaming “BETRAYAL” the moment he starts naming cabinet members and they aren’t their fantasy progressive all-star team to a person.
gene108
@Steve from Antioch:
Reread what I wrote.
I never said people, who worked in manufacturing were O.K. A lot of smart people, in the 1990’s figured a lateral move would not be so difficult, so economic policy was set to not protect manufacturing jobs.
The thinking on this has changed over the last 20 years, because people got shunted into working lower paying service sector jobs. Edit: Disrupting a sector of the economy will have lasting negative impacts on those, who “lost” in the transition and we now know we have no real ability to soften the blow.
gunky
Rettig, you can either get on your high horse about humans raising animals for meat or you can support hugging kitties. You can’t do both, unless you expect kitty to fend for itself.
different-church-lady
@gene108:
Okay, I’ll do that:
Well, obviously “just fine” and “O.K.” are two completely different things.
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig: Didn’t a ‘miracle’ occur 8 years ago when a black president was elected? Remember the message of hope? What happened? We’re all supposed to be all pragmatic now? Pragmaticism is the new liberalism?
And if you think we experienced Republican crazy over the muslim ursurper, wait until Hillary gets seated. The last 8 years was just a warmup.
different-church-lady
@C.V. Danes:
That wasn’t a miracle. That was a lot of hard work by a lot of dedicated people, lead by one very smart person.
What I remember happening is about 24 months in everyone started bitching and moaning about how “disappointing” he was.
C.V. Danes
@different-church-lady: You mean like when the fantasy Obama picked people like Rahm and Larry Summers?
different-church-lady
@C.V. Danes: That’s exactly what I mean, although I suspect you don’t understand it the way I mean it.
Bobby Thomson
@MomSense: transitioning to alternative energy is easier and more important and will still take decades.
C.V. Danes
@different-church-lady:
Indeed. And on top of that it was still a miracle that he was elected.
different-church-lady
@C.V. Danes: If you consider it a miracle that the electorate of this country, little-by-little, inch-by-inch, is becoming less hate filled and bigoted, then yes, I suppose a miracle occurred.
C.V. Danes
@different-church-lady: Oh, I dunno. I voted for Obama (twice), but I was not buying the hype too much. Sure, it was disappointing to see him coddle the banks right from the start, but it wasn’t unexpected. This is the same man, after all, who is trying his best to inflict the TPP on us as a parting gift.
Cacti
@different-church-lady:
The Civil Rights Act became law in 1964, five short decades later, a black man, with an Ivy league education, rock star charisma, and one of the best political campaign teams in the same half-century became President of the United States.
Yep, a miracle. No other explanation possible.
C.V. Danes
@different-church-lady: Are we living in the same country? Having been in an interracial relationship for over 20 years, I can state with experience that we are most certainly not becoming less hate filled and bigoted as a country. Not by a long shot. Talk to the Muslims if you want to know how hate filled and bigoted we are NOT becoming.
different-church-lady
@C.V. Danes: You’re obviously mistaking me for Chief Justice Roberts or something.
C.V. Danes
@different-church-lady: Nope. Just wondering what part of the country you’re living in :-)
different-church-lady
@C.V. Danes: The bit that elected a black man twice.
chopper
@Hillary Rettig:
unfortunately the dude needs congress to turn any of his promises into reality. president sanders can’t make single payer happen by fiat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hillary Rettig: but you know, Obama 2008 happened.
Obama was running against what most of the country agreed was a disastrous presidency. The Dem nominee will be arguing that we need to stay what a lot of people think is a lack luster course. I’m not talking about the haters and the Obama is the worst crowd, more the anxious and uncertain low-info voters to whom the whole “Well, he’s a rich guy, so he must understand the economy” line has some appeal, or depending on events, those who think “Obama hasn’t been tough enough” or even “kick ISIS’s ass!”, is a valid foreign policy argument.
different-church-lady
@chopper: *cough*
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig: Late to the thread, but hear, hear.
John M. Burt
American slavery was a vile institution, unequalled in prior history. Only the totalitarian states of the 20th Century managed to exceed it.
Worse yet, it showed no sign of dying out on its own, which is why the Union Army had to kill it like a rattlesnake.
It’s a damned shame that Reconstruction ended prematurely. We’d be a much more advanced country by now if we had finished the job.
Tom65
It’s been a weird cycle. It’s amazing how some people have turned into PUMAs because of the word “socialist”.
Citizen_X
@forked tongue:
Hey, you don’t get to Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer without smashing a few liberal eggs.
AxelFoley
@Hillary Rettig:
I love how Bernie stans talk shit about Obama, but love to compare their guy to Obama like this. Obama was a once in a lifetime candidate, something Sanders is definitely not.
Paula
@Hillary Rettig:
As far as I remember, Barack Obama was vilified for being only a shade less moderate than HRC ’08 by the progressive “base”. John Edwards was their choice in the primary.
AxelFoley
@Granite: So this is your new nym.
And you were so confident JEB? was gonna win it all. You fucking loser. You fucking flip-flopping loser.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Hey Girl, I hear you like Revolutions(!) but oppose reparations.
Wanna spend some time in my White house?