One of McMegan’s famous fuck-ups was adding verifiable numbers to an argument and getting called on it:
Last week, during a Washington Post online chat, this exchange took place:
Anonymous: You said that medical innovation will be wiped out if we have a type of national health care, because European drug companies get 80% of their revenue from Americans. Where did you get this statistic?
Megan McArdle: It wasn’t a statistic–it was a hypothetical.
A number is not trusted if proffered by McMegan until it has been independently verified twice. This is the McArdle Rule.
The Bernie Sanders campaign proposals are veering into McCardle Rule territory. In my one area of particular expertise, the healthcare plan by the Sanders’ campaign had an initial WTF mistake (via Vox)
Sanders assumes $324 billion more per year in prescription drug savings than Thorpe does. Thorpe argues that this is wildly implausible. “In 2014 private health plans paid a TOTAL of $132 billion on prescription drugs and nationally we spent $305 billion,” he writes in an email. “With their savings drug spending nationally would be negative.” (Emphasis mine.) The Sanders camp revised the number down to $241 billion when I pointed this out.
Then initial number to be saved from a sector was more than the entire sector. The revised number after being called on the bullshit is only 79% of the entire sector’s current spending. Is that a reasonable assumption?
On emptying out the prisons, Mark Kleiman a criminologist who is an expert on the inefficiencies of incarceration looks at the promise and the mechanics:
Consider, for example, this from Bernie Sanders:
… at the end of my first term, we will not have more people in jail than any other country.
That’s a very specific promise, with a timeline attached. And it is a promise that no President has the power to fulfill…. (emphasis mine)
But of the 2.3 million people behind bars in this country, fewer than 10% are Federal prisoners. The rest are in state prisons and local jails. If the President were to release all of the Federal prisoners, we would still, as a country, have more prisoners than any other country. So Sen. Sanders was very specifically making a promise he has no way of keeping. Either he knows that or he does not.
And finally, the macro-econonomic impact of his plans will produce a growth rate that the US has not consistently seen since we introduced three massive new pools of labor to our economy (Boomers in general, women and minorities in particular) and benefited from a one time massive deepening of the human capital pool via the GI Bill:
Last year Jeb Bush was mocked for claiming he could return the US to 4% growth. So Bernie Sanders is promising 5.3%. https://t.co/YfNtbtDonw
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) February 15, 2016
We rightly mocked the Republican plans to declare a goal of 4% economic growth as Green Lanternism. 5.3% growth is also Green Lanternism.
These are three distinct policy areas. The commonality is that goals expressed are very popular within the Democratic primary base or the general electorate and the numbers backing them are sloppy, slipshod and tilted so far that the “analysts” responsible for them are clinging to the edges hoping that they won’t fall off the ledge.
Once is a mistake, twice is a coincidence, but three times is deliberate policy. As this point, I am assuming that any number excluding donation numbers are solely acting as priority signals and shields against the claim that the Sanders campaign has not done an analysis on their proposals. It is a number that is doing numbery things, therefore it is a defense that the campaign has no numbers to put on their proposals.
And when the campaign is getting called on it by left/liberal wonks, their defense is to either go after the critic who is a usual ally or claim the number is a hypothetical and not a statistic.
Applejinx
Real question: consider that, say, the work being done on self-driving cars and trucks is moving towards putting all professional car and truck drivers out of their jobs, replacing them with robots. Just as a thing like Uber is about putting taxi drivers out of jobs and replacing them with ‘gig economy’ amateurs in a freemarket race to the bottom.
Would Bernie Sanders’ intent to replace the whole healthcare system with a socialized medicine thing of some description put you out of a job? I’m really not sure where an expert on American private enterprise medical insurance systems fits in here. It sounds like Sanders’ whole intent is to systematically eliminate your line of work, just as companies like Tesla and Google are actively working to eliminate all professional drivers from the workforce.
If it proved possible to radically overhaul everything and cut out nearly all human overhead at the cost of an entire employment sector, what then?
Weaselone
*grabs popcorn*
Baud
Doesn’t the real problem lie with the capitalist notion of paper money denominated in “dollars”?
Baud
@Baud:
I mean, if, as one expert suggested, we paid for health care with chickens, we would have these debates, since chickens are self-reproducing.
Linnaeus
I suspect that Sanders’s campaign is doing “numbery” things because they never actually expected to be in the position they’re in now.
jon
Trump’s right-wing critics notice similar things in his proposals, but IOKIYAR (provided you’re a genuine one, anyway.)
Patricia Kayden
Republicans are really tearing themselves apart. RNC Committeewoman is now claiming that both Rubio and Cruz are ineligible to be President. Plus Trump is threatening to sue Cruz over this issue. Let the good times roll!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/diana-orrock-cruz-rubio-ineligible-president?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: She heard them both speak Spanish at the last debate.
Barbara
It is particularly sad to see Sanders’ supporters go after Ken Thorpe, the economist who actually tried to make Gov. Peter Shumlin’s proposal for single payer in Vermont work. Clearly, Thorpe is on the side of single payer, and just as clearly, probably understands the ins and outs of the financing options and trade offs. When he says the numbers are screwy it’s not because he does not want single payer to succeed.
MattF
@Linnaeus: A fair point. But actual numbers have an irritating habit of having actual values. I’m speaking as a scientist here.
Kay
@Baud:
Okay, Baud, ha ha, but this isn’t exactly specific either:
If Bernie Sanders said his plan was to “demand” lower drug costs or he “believed” premiums should be lower you would all be screaming. I don’t know why no one asks Clinton what “magical pony” she plans to ride to get all these demands and beliefs thru Congress.
Linnaeus
@MattF:
Oh, I understand that. I’m not excusing Sanders’s campaign. If anything, I’m being critical of it because I think they should have planned for this contingency better than they have up to this point.
sparrow
Basically, I knew the facts from very early on in this primary race. Hillary is a war-loving neoliberal, and Bernie is not. He probably didn’t expect to get this close to winning, and I’m not surprised the proposals outlined above are rushed. I don’t care. I’m voting for him in the primary because I’m tired as fuck of supporting neoliberals. I’m just done with it. After he loses (still, as I’ve said all along, think this is the likely outcome), then I will hold my nose and vote for Hillary in the general.
To me, the important point is that he’s not actually proposing crazy things in general. Plenty of other countries do provide free college and universal healthcare. That’s what we should be shooting for. He needs other people on board in congress to get anywhere near these goals. It may be that Bernie is the John the Baptist of this particular unapolagetically left movement, and that’s fine. Maybe someone younger, someone with more preparation will really be the first “next FDR” president in a few years. But I’m not going to cut out my support at this stage and throw my lot in with Clinton. Just no.
EconWatcher
Right after the 1990 midterm elections, “Nightline” did an interview with the three big surprises: newly elected Paul Wellstone and Bernie Sanders, and also Christie Todd Whitman (who almost beat Bill Bradley despite a massive funding disadvantage).
I remember the event because I’d never seen Sanders before and I was so impressed with his command of statistics and facts. He wasn’t given long to speak, and he made every second of his national platform count, making his case for redistribution of wealth with a blizzard of impressive data. Whitman was left speechless, and the usually chatty Wellstone was left saying, “Yeah, pretty much what Bernie said.”
Very surprised to see him so weak on basic data now. Yeah, it’s probably because he was just expecting to run a protest campaign. (I think he and Trump are both in shock.) But it’s completely unacceptable. Our side should not BS like this.
I’m with Sparrow overall, but Bernie has to do better.
Baud
@Kay: Because her plans aren’t as ambitious. And if the Dems take back the Senate, it’s easier to see a compromise reached. And she isn’t promising a revolution.
BGinCHI
To be charitable, perhaps Sanders does not (or did not) imagine getting close to winning, and therefore proposed these wildly popular positions in order to force Hilary to pay attention to them.
These critiques of Sanders are important, but he is definitely keeping Progressive issues at the forefront of the Dem conversation.
dslak
So sad, Richard. You had a chance to join the revolution, but instead your loyalty is to the corrupt insurance industry and/or Hillary Clinton. How much did they pay you?
Kay
@EconWatcher:
Well, “our side” is saying they will “reduce” the cost of prescription drugs and “lower” health insurance premiums and those are promises too, and the person saying that is running as the specific (and only) candidate who can “get things done”.
BGinCHI
@dslak: Which revolution is that? The lower-case one?
Amir Khalid
@Applejinx:
Your comment #1 follows on from the last paragraph of Richard’s post almost perfectly. All they need now is a short phrase linking them: “For example:”
OzarkHillbilly
Well, here’s a number you can hang your hat on: One more day to go. :-D
Baud
@efgoldman:
They also dedicate far less of their national wealth toward defense spending, which frees up room for other activities.
msdc
Thanks, Richard.
@Kay: It’s one thing to say a candidate should offer a plan for how they will enact their policy goals (which both Clinton and Sanders need to do). It’s quite another to point out that a candidate’s policy goals are mathematically impossible. I don’t think that charge can be laid on Clinton.
Major Major Major Major
@dslak: Richard will be the first against the wall, I take it. Because nobody could disagree without being paid off.
Kay
@Baud:
I just don’t buy the comparison that goes “one will achieve these things and the other will not”. Elections are comparisons so it’s okay as far as it goes, but nothing Bernie Sanders can or can’t do makes what Clinton is promising more likely to happen. I don’t think it’s going to be an easy election to win, let alone a given that she “gets things done”.
EconWatcher
@Kay:
Point taken, and I’m usually one of the”worst” Clinton bashers around here. But promising more savings than the total spending on a sector, and then reducing your claim to 80% after you’re called on it–that seems signficantly worse than your Clinton example, no?
Basic trustworthiness is a precious asset that I believe Obama has helped develop for the Dems (with a huge assist from loons on the other side, of course). We need to preserve it.
Baud
@Kay:
So your advice to Clinton is to offer up fake numbers?
hellslittlestangel
I can think of few criticisms as harsh as a comparison to Megan McArdle. It says that the thinking is not merely wrong, but ridiculously stupid.
I do like Bernie, but I’m afraid the criticism in this case is dead on.
dslak
@efgoldman: No idea how politics works? Are you accusing me of being a teenage Sanders supporter!?
dslak
@Major Major Major Major: So a little bird named Billmon told me.
Baud
@dslak:
A teenage mutant Sanders supporter.
Keith G
@Applejinx:
The political calculus that in theory would allow a President Sanders to “do” those things still do not add up. Not only are the money numbers not realistic, but the people (enough of them at an adequate level of power) would not be on board.
If somehow elected, a President Sanders will not have a Congress that will work with him (including many Democrats). His presidency (as a driver of policy) would sink in the muck and all his winning charm will not pull it out. At which time, many of his now-ardent supporters will grow frustrated and burn out further weakening an already diminishing presidency.
Numbers matter. A realist set of easily obtainable goals is the mother’s milk of a presidency in it’s infancy.
Kay
@msdc:
Okay, I’ll wait for the demands for how she achieves all these things after she’s the nominee. I’ll need a congressional count from her, or it’s just a campaign promise, right?
msdc
@Linnaeus: I agree with you and BGinCHI. I think Sanders planned to run as a message candidate with the purpose of pulling Clinton to the left; he’s probably as surprised by his success as anybody.
But now that he’s in real contention for the nomination, he needs to be more than just a message candidate. He needs to show that he can be a credible candidate in the general election and a competent president if he wins – a prospect I regard as less and less likely every time I see his policy consultants pull another magic number out of their collective asses.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden:
That was a really good song.
Randy P
@dslak: Can you be in the revolution and use facts, or is it a requirement that you make up your numbers?
Linnaeus
@msdc:
I agree. He needs to do better, although I think that even if he does improve, he won’t win the Democratic nomination.
msdc
@Kay: Nobody’s saying you should wait. I’m saying there’s no point in even asking how a candidate will achieve things when they promise things that are not achievable.
I don’t just mean politically achievable (although, there’s that); I mean physically, mathematically achievable.
Kay
@Baud:
I’m saying she relies a lot on leadery theories of leadership ( “I get things done”) and there’s no pushback on it at all.
dslak
The sanders approach reminds me of a joke (which I may have seen here before, so don’t sue me):
An engineer, an agronomist, and an economist are stranded on a desert isle. To survive, the engineer says “do x.” The agronomist says “do y.” The economist says, ‘Assume a can opener . . .”
msdc
@Keith G:
On the plus side, Balloon Juice will get to roll out the long-awaited “White Jimmy Carter” tag.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: A teenage mutant Ninja supporter.
Applejinx
@EconWatcher: I don’t think you can win by wonking out and issuing detailed plans. I think that’s a guaranteed general election loser: the only way to win is to put out big ideas that can be oversimplified, and the record of these big ideas being true is generally very poor, yet they have predictive value all the same.
“Read my lips: no new taxes!” That was an outright lie, and yet look at what the Republicans have consistently done: it’s a lie, yet it’s representative of what they predictably try to do.
“Morning in America!” Oh boy, this Reagan lie was a dangerous one. The guy presided over a dismantling of social protections of many kinds, and yet this ‘hopey changey stuff’ exerts amazing force over the electorate. And yeah, if you were rich or greedy, it was kind of true.
“It’s the economy stupid!” Depends on how you define ‘the economy’. Wall Street ended up happy. Again with the oversimplifications and somebody ending up hosed.
The thing is, it doesn’t always have to end up being the electorate who’s hosed, and the elites making all the gains. We have a long history that includes times where America rebounded as a whole, whether that be New Deal policies or going to war to goose production and hire more workers.
I’m pretty sure that in the era of drones and high tech, going to war no longer employs people like it used to, and that’s worth considering as we weigh options.
But I’m also pretty sure that Bernie Sanders is taking the most pragmatic path to the White House, through pushing big ideas in an oversimplified way and not getting locked down to specifics that would have to pass Congress anyway. If you CAN’T have even a Supreme Court Justice much less any plan you might propose, it is stark madness to wonk out on details: that’s the time to communicate the big ideas and spell out what needs to be done in broad strokes.
All the better if it’s like what Reagan did with ‘Morning in America’ and paints a picture where things are okay, and your rival has to play the buzzkill. Arguing that things can’t be okay is fatal to Hillary Clinton. ‘Feeling our pain’ won’t cut it anymore. I’m reminded of the Elvis Costello song ‘Tramp The Dirt Down’, about Thatcher.
Emma
@dslak: See, this is the kind of crap that is making me doubt Sanders.
dslak
@Randy P: If it supports the revolution, it’s a fact. If it does not, then it is a lie told by industry or Clintonistas.
MattF
@dslak: Oh, well…
A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were challenged to prove that all odd numbers are prime.
Mathematician: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime– therefore, by induction, all odd numbers are prime.
Physicist: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is an experimental error– therefore, all odd numbers are prime.
Engineer: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime…
dslak
@Emma: Oh, I’m not a Sanders supporter. I’m just being snarky. I’m fine if you don’t support Sanders, but don’t do it because you think I’m being earnest.
dslak
@Emma: On the other hand, I guess it says something that Poe’s Law has now come into play for the Sandernistas.
OzarkHillbilly
@efgoldman: You are missing the sarcasm, the very heavy sarcasm
msdc
@sparrow: My assumption is that after this race (and any potential Clinton re-election), all future Democratic primaries will feature candidates who run a lot more like Sanders than Clinton. Some of them will be opportunistic phonies in the John Edwards mold, but some of them will be serious and sincere candidates who correct Sanders’s obvious flaws (lack of expertise, impossible promises, narrow message, socialist label, age). And those candidates will do pretty well.
Hopefully they’ll also run down the ballot, and not just for the White House.
Kazanir
I have an issue with this assertion. On the one hand, the examples you cite are pretty clearly examples of numbers that are messed up in one way or another.
On the other hand, the NYT article (or hit piece, if you prefer) about this cites a half-dozen “left/liberal wonks” and the most left-wing of all of them is Jared Bernstein. Hardly a selection that spans the distance to actual left wing thought in this country.
On the gripping hand, some of the analysis that has led to this narrative of Bernie’s numbers being weak was produced by people like Thorpe, whose results were immediately disputed (or refuted, if you prefer) by people of similar qualifications who happen to not be currently employed by health insurance companies.
I think it is fair to say the following:
– There are clear flaws in some of Sanders’ numbers.
– This is the Democratic Party and numbers should align with reality.
– The biases of the media overwhelmingly tilt in a centrist direction, often to the outright exclusion of actual left-wing views.
– Some of those biases involve the publication of bullshit in the service of a bullshit “Sanders is not serious” narrative.
Finally, the burden of proof should be heavy on people who want to show that a left-wing system cannot work here — after all, a more left-wing system of health insurance and/or care works in essentially every other first-world country on Earth. I’m aware that this expectation is far from the political discourse we have — but it is certainly the conversation we should have.
Kay
@Applejinx:
Having an opponent has already made her a better candidate. She’s settled on why she’s running- the theme of her campaign- which for some reason her campaign felt she didn’t need to explain until after Iowa and New Hampshire.
We all just intuitively knew why she was running, because we “know” her. It was for the right reasons, that’s for sure.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Keith G:
I don’t think that necessarily follows.
Maybe Bernie can inspire 20 M new people to vote and flip the Senate and the House. 65 solid votes in the Senate! A 300/135 majority in the House! WooHoo!
Then what.
If he numbers don’t work, then his plans will still fail.
Good intentions and inspiration aren’t enough. The numbers have to work, too. Pink Himalayan Salt argle-bargle doesn’t work even with a majority in Congress.
What bothers me about this stuff is that Bernie has been talking about these issues for decades. He’s been introducing legislation (or at least saying that he can develop legislation) to address these issues for decades. Why are the numbers in the plans he’s put out so far off??
Cheers,
Scott.
Applejinx
@Keith G: Given that we can’t even have a Supreme Court Justice, when that is required in the Constitution, in what way is Clinton lowering expectations helpful at all?
I think to some of us, it feels like we’re being told, ‘Stop the hopey changey stuff! Abandon your big people-pleasing ideas and do far more detailed plans that can be picked apart and whittled down, after which you still won’t get ANY of it’.
To my mind this is exactly the right time to go with broad-strokes politicking and establish different expectations. It is useless to, in the primary before there’s even an election, start devising a menu of tire rim polishing compound and chalk dust because it’s as close as you can practically get to tire rims and anthrax without actually being it.
NCSteve
@Applejinx: Okay, first, assume a can opener and a spherical cow . . .
BGinCHI
@Kazanir: No one is disagreeing with the aspiration. Just the piss poor math that supports it.
It would almost be better if Bernie said: “These are our goals and we will figure out the specifics after we crush the Republicans.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: A very fair criticism. Hillary gets a pass because so many of her announced goal are much more modest that a lot of her supporters ignore the “how” even tho we all know the GOP hates the Clintons with the undying intensity of the sun’s fires.
msdc
@Applejinx: I think the better analogy goes something like this…
Republicans: tire rims and anthrax
Clinton: slightly oily spaghetti with no sauce
Sanders: once the political revolution sweeps us into power, this unicorn will poop out enough ice cream to feed all 220 million Americans
lonesomerobot
I’m just going to enjoy watching this conversation while Sanders keeps outperforming expectations. The numbers don’t matter, because people are at their breaking point. The country spent well over a trillion dollars on Iraq — almost all of it completely “off the books”. People know that and they wonder why America can’t make that kind of effort to fix itself. There is no truth anymore. The media can’t be trusted. The system is rigged. This is the America in which we live. That’s what an increasingly large share of the American public actually think.
Also, unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, many Americans really were looking for an excuse to not have to vote for her. It’s not her fault. Her image has been trashed for the last 40 years by the people that hate her. But, ultimately, her campaign is not inspiring people. “Vote for Pragmatic” rarely does.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Which is something that you would never make the mistake of doing.
Elizabelle
Aren’t a lot of Bernie’s plans actually initiatives to move the Overton window? To get Americans to question why the status quo is as it is, and to ask how we could do things better and differently?
Because Obama would be judged a total failure put up against his 2008 campaign promises, given that he truly hoped to bring more comity to politics. You can’t always choose your environment, or how your sincere and honest attempts will get reported.
I get tired of Republicans getting a pass on everything, and Democrats taken to task with green eyeshades.
Would we have made it to the moon if everyone jumped all over JFK when he announced the attempt? Who knows what HIS numbers looked like?
Why can’t we talk more about the costs of Congressional inaction? Not building out our infrastructure, and putting Americans to work, when money is so relatively cheap and good jobs so scarce, is a sin.
Baud
@Kay:
So write a post about that. But that’s not a defense to using fake numbers.
Applejinx
@BGinCHI: Yeah, but he can’t outright say that. Or, if you like, this IS him saying that. I think he’s right to do so.
Bear in mind this is the guy called the ‘amendment king’ in the Senate, with a proven ability to get stuff made into law through working with both Democrats and Republicans. I think it’s safe to say not much of that ended up exactly as he envisioned it (though you can never tell: look at how the new Glass-Steagall is being pushed by Elizabeth Warren and John McCain).
Clinton named a post office and a highway, and co-sponsored 74 bills. If anyone knows how to work this: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=300022#current_status%5B%5D=28&cosponsors=300022 please help me out, as it’s saying she did a big nada and that seems implausible: I was hoping to get more of a sense for WHAT she actually co-sponsored here. I don’t see her as being terrific at getting legislation through Congress, and don’t expect that to improve should she become President.
Baud
@lonesomerobot:
You may be right. But then I don’t see how the GOP doesn’t win. They can outpromise us in every respect because they will say they can achieve nirvana while lowering everyone’s taxes.
Revrick
The problem with talking about savings achieved through a single-payer plan in terms of dollars and cents or reduction of paperwork is that it is so damn bloodless. The only way these savings are achieved is through job losses and pay cuts. We are talking about people’s livelihoods.
There’s a video circulating the net right now showing the outrage of workers in Indiana when an executive for Carrier Corp. announced that their 1500 jobs were being shipped to Mexico. Well, with 440,000 people employed by the health insurance industry alone, Bernie would essentially be duplicating that in every single Congressional district. But that’s only counting the industry side. There’s likely a similar number of folks employed doing billing and claims on the provider side, too.
To achieve $300 billion or $600 billion dollars in savings translates to whacking an awful lot of people in their pocketbooks. If we ballparked that each one of these jobs costs $100,000 in salary and benefits, we are talking 3-6 million jobs being lost or employees facing severe pay cuts.
That is insane!
There’s a good reason why Nancy Pelosi has already said that the tax increase to fund a single-payer plan is a non-starter. She knows that the rage of those 3-6 million would be aimed at Democratic Representatives and Senators. It would shatter the Democratic party.
Mariah
@Barbara: I’m not sure where you get the idea that Ken Thorpe supported single-payer in Vermont, when in fact, he actively undermined those efforts. In 2014, Vermont Public Radio reported that Thorpe had been hired by the Vermont Legislature to consider “alternatives” to Shumlin’s proposal. Thorpe’s alternatives built off the current system and would not have created a universal single payer program. Shumlin immediately derided Thorpe’s proposal as “old ideas” that built off a “failed model that hasn’t worked.” Thorpe may be right on Bernie’s proposal but you can’t pretend that he was a supporter of Vermont’s single-payer efforts when he was hired to create alternatives to the single payer proposal that Shumlin supported.
TylerF
Sanders v Clinton reminds me of the storie my wife used to tell me about her corporate gig. The company she worked for was super male dominated, her team had 8 people, only two were women. My wife’s strength in business is ideas. Big ideas, little ideas, inspiring ideas, just a never ending stream of good ideas. She learned that if she ever wanted to get an idea into actuality, she couldn’t be the one to propose it, had to work behind the scenes to lay the groundwork, and still it would be a struggle to get credit.
And that’s because the dudes in the room are where the ideas are ‘supposed’ to come from, no one wants to her it from the lady. If She got excited or passionate, it was marked as being too ’emotional’ in performance reviews. This was between 1996-2004 (when she quite and started an almost all women business).
I believe this boardroom mentality is what Clinton has to battle everyday. Energetic displays of emotion and big ideas are tools that are available to Sanders that are simply not available to Clinton. The fact that Sanders facts don’t add up is also very typical male business behavior.
Add in that complete bullshit he spewed on race relations in the last debate . . . . Typical unaware old white dude with a giant ego.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Math is counter-revolutionary and a class enemy of the proletariat
Math is tool used by the petty bourgeoisie, the bureaucrats, the comprador class, the big Landlord class and the reactionary section of the intelligentsia attached to them for the ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants
A revolution is not a math class, or a spreadsheet
We must be constantly on our guard and not let them create confusion within our ranks with math
Free Tacos!
Linda Featheringill
The Bernie campaign needs to hire some number wonks to verify some stuff. No one person knows everything. He should get some good experts and make extensive use of them.
magurakurin
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Because his real plan is the legislation he proposed in 2013 which is a 50-payer plan that is state based with block grants from the federal government. But he had to toss that because that plan looks really silly when you consider what Republican governors would do with it (even though he introduced that legislation after the Medicaid ruling.doh.) Not being able to use that,the rushed out the new and improved Medicare for All.
Universal health care is one thing and single payer is another and single payer that covers everything up to eyeglasses with no premium and no deductible or copay of any kind is quite another. The first exists in many countries, the second in only a few actually, and the last doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. I could maybe even get behind Sanders a little bit if that’s actually what he was saying. Something like, let’s not only improve healthcare let’s make it the best that has ever existed ever before. But that isn’t what he is saying. He’s saying every country has something like his plan and the only reason the US doesn’t have it is because billionaires and Wall Street have bought and paid for everyone but himself. So, not feelin the Bern.
Applejinx
Wait, I got it:
Clinton- https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=300022#cosponsors=300022&sponsor=__ALL__
Sanders- https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=300022#cosponsors=400357&sponsor=__ALL__
Heads up in case two links gets me moderation.
Linnaeus
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
We must come together as a nation to fight the menace of the Red Nightmare.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Imagine there’s no math
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to add or subtract
And no long division too
Imagine all the people
Living life innumerate
You may say I’m a revolutionary
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one or minus one
Linda Featheringill
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I really suspect you are being ironic but the funny thing is that I basically agree with what you actually said.
[signed, Lefty Leftowitz]
Paul in KY
@Applejinx: I was thinking about that & I’m sure that in some future day, freight will be moved by completely robotic trucks. I do think that before that, people will still ride along as ‘overseers’ or backups in case something weird happens.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Linnaeus: Better Red than Differential Calculus
☭ ☮ ✌
NotMax
Should he convince, say, Putin to toss more people in the pokey, that would knock the U.S. out of the #1 position.
Might also mean the number of people newly incarcerated throughout the first term would be less than in other countries during that same timeframe.
Just sayin’ there are other ways to interpret his words.
Linnaeus
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Time for your name to go on the list of 205 that I have here in my hand.
DCF
@EconWatcher:
How Bernie Pays For His Proposals
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511240655
https://berniesanders.com/issues/
NotMax
@Applejinx
Maximum number of links allowed without triggering FYWP remains unchanged at three.
A reply link (if used) DOES count as one of the three.
Kay
@lonesomerobot:
I still think she could make this stuff much sharper and more focused- find out what is actually animating the anger and the feeling of unfairness rather than dismissing or minimizing. Being pragmatic doesn’t preclude addressing anger- it could be just a different approach to addressing anger.
The thing I hear from young people over and over is that there are few entry level jobs. Saying “education” or “equality of opportunity” over and over doesn’t address that, because they are educated (and also willing to train) and they are willing to believe they have a shot- they just can’t get in. This is a real thing! There are fewer entry level jobs and that was a conscious decision by private sector actors. She could talk to them about that- they all know it’s real. They talk about it constantly. I think it’s where some of the generational resentment comes from.
HeartlandLiberal
You know what, at this point in my life I would much rather vote for an old man with sincerely held beliefs that synch with my concept of humanity, humanness, and the duty to make government responsible to and for the common weal of the people rather than the corporations and the super rich and the Walmart family.
End of my take on this issue.
Applejinx
@TylerF:
I think you’re right (though I can’t go with you the whole way and start bashing Sanders as being a white male patriarchical pig).
But you’ll notice that what Sanders is doing is STILL pushing the Overton window for Clinton. Even in this, he’s making it more possible for her to not just triangulate and compromise. Him putting forth these big ideas gives her cover, shelter to do likewise that she would SO not otherwise have had.
To what extent is she doing it? Good question. But this doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Like it or not, Bernie is providing political cover for Hillary not to just straight-up mimic Republicans in efforts to get elected. She should, and we here should, appreciate that.
It’s leadership. It’s going in the direction we want to go, ultimately. Now if people were helping rather than just using it as a convenient way to attack the person doing the icebreaking, we could really get stuff done. But we’re still shoving the Overton window more than I think was ever expected.
magurakurin
@Elizabelle:
Maybe not, but then again what he was proposing didn’t directly change anyone’s life as a sudden and total jump to single payer would…some people for the better and some for the worse. Also, in comparison the Apollo program was fairly cheap compared to the trillions that are being mention with a sudden transition to single payer.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Baud: The problem is the Chicken to Duck exchange ratios, plus Chicken Derivatives, as well as Chicken Futures. My Chickemetic predictive algorithm comes in regular and extra crispy.
Chyron HR
Since Sanders is already campaigning on an “Only I can be trusted to appoint Scalia’s replacement” platform, how long until he starts encouraging his supporters to actively assist the the GOP in blocking Obama’s nominees?
It’d be like poetry: The Obama administration starts and ends with self-proclaimed True Progressives joining forces with Republicans to fight him (from the left).
Amir Khalid
@HeartlandLiberal:
So you’re sticking your fingers in your ears and going, “Can’t hear you!”?
sparrow
@msdc: Agreed. I think, partly, the claim that Sanders isn’t organizing and fundraising for other races is kind of unfair — after all, he wasn’t a “national democrat” until very recently, and didn’t have the star power as a little-known independent senator from Vermont to do much of anything. After he (I think) loses, I very much expect him to be using his newfound popularity to do that very thing. I have seen many posts supporting “Sanders Democrats” in local races around the country and I’m really heartened to see it.
I do admit that there is a voice in the back of my head that says Sanders *could* pull this off, and I am nervous about what that would look like, given the forces that will be arrayed against him (sadly, including plenty in our own democratic party). I’m not sure he’s got the FDR “I welcome their hatred” kind of spirit, although he is old — and there is an advantage in a funny way to that. You’re basically out of fucks to give.
I would feel much easier about all of this if I could be assured of a Trump third-party run and massive down-ballot gains for the democrats…
Guachi
Sanders innumeracy and his zero foreign policy experience despite being in Washington for 25 years are two reasons I can’t voted for him. He’s a deeply unserious candidate.
A noun – a verb – and wall street bankers may make people feel good, but it’s more way to run a country.
OzarkHillbilly
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: OK everybody, shut down the internets. Our very own Canadian Anchor Baby has won the day.
Mother of Zeus
@sparrow: What Sparrow says.
Keith G
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: So, there would be an assumption (in your back of the napkin scenario) that the totality of the Democratic majorities would be loyal to the Sanders ideas.
I do not see that. He is promising several new expensive programs as well as additions to existing programs. Collecting the revenue to do these things will not be as easy as bringing an auditorium of twenty-somethings to their feet.
Tim F.
@Keith G:
There is a world of difference between a politically unfeasible plan and a mathematically unfeasible plan. The first kind is perfectly fine; if you run on a political long-shot plan and get elected then it automatically becomes less of a long shot than it was before you ran. But if your plan has shoddy numbers at its core, no political majority will ever be enough to make it work.
TylerF
If it’s sanders the republican attack will be: the commie is going to take your money and give it to those people.
If it’s Clinton, it will be: vagina’s are icky, and are going to take your money and give it to those people.
I’ll take door number 2 to secure abortion rights and create a long term majority on the Supreme Court. I think whichever Neanderthal the reblicans select is going to attack Clinton in ways that will make Todd Akin sound smart.
Applejinx
@Paul in KY: I see 823,130 heavy truck drivers alone, at 41K median income.
I can’t find insurance separate from financial sector (that’s a revealing point) but I can find this:
98,710 accountants and auditors, 69K median income
366,590 insurance sales agents, 48K median income
296,690 securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents, 71K median income (103K mean!)
I think Richard Mayhew would fall under the ‘accountants and auditors’ category. Also notice that simple google searching gets you stuff like this: http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2015/01/12/insurance-industry-employment-is-up-across-the-boa
I mean, yay for job growth, but holy mother of God does it have to be THIS industry that booms? How does that even make sense for healthcare in the United States? How is this not merely a product of the catastrophic failure of our healh care system?
TylerF
@applejinx I think we mostly agree on that, though I don’t think I called sanders a pig, just typically, unaware of the limits women still face in our society.
I think the best outcome is for Sanders to do well enough to become ‘our’ John McCain on the Sunday circuit.
FlipYrWhig
The blatant excuse-making, justification, and wishful thinking of Sanders supporters on this thread ought to be embarrassing. And yet it isn’t. Which is even more embarrassing.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@msdc:
But is the ice cream vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO ice cream?
Otherwise, he’s a sellout.
BakerNomi
@Applejinx: Are we still mad at the inventors of the automobile for putting wheelwrights, livery stables, stagecoach companies, and blacksmiths out of jobs? Asking for a friend.
FlipYrWhig
I mean, the entire argument is that if you point out that Sanders Math is bullshit, you must be in the pocket of Big Corruption. It’s kind of like how Republicans say climate change is a conspiracy among scientists to get grant money. What happened to the idea that “facts have a liberal bias”? Damn the facts, there’s a fake “revolution” to pretend to have to stick it to the norms? Again, it really should embarrass the “left” that this is their understanding of politics and economics these days.
FlipYrWhig
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Doesn’t Sanders support current dairy policy?
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
Ad hominem disparagement/diminishment of Sanders supporters – in lieu of facts – is a transparently untenable position….
Dork
Last time I checked, President can pardon, can he not? Is there a check on his pardons? If not, then I believe he indeed does have that power, no?
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: I think it speaks for itself, thanks.
dogwood
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
It’s Ben & Jerry’s
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
The professional left still hasn’t said what they’ll do about those million dispersed jobs related to operating insurance companies, processing claims and provider insurance administration tasks. Will each get a puppy and relocation expenses?
Nor has the professional left come up with a plan to deal with the massive compounding aftermath of the catastrophic share value decline on public and private pensions, annuities and 401Ks – nearly 30% worth.
The country would enter a massive economic depression and current retirees of modest means would starve in homelessness, but there would be a single payer plan.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Dork:
President can’t pardon state crimes.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@FlipYrWhig:
He’s a corporate sellout, man.
Fight the power.
dogwood
@Dork:
It’s a federal system. Presidents can pardon at the federal level. Governors can pardon on the state level. His proposal is completely irresponsible.
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig: Yep, Hillary supporters would never behave like that. Just saying, that is what humans do.
Richard Mayhew
@dslak: Not enough
@efgoldman: I was reading that with a massive amount of tongue in cheek
FlipYrWhig
@OzarkHillbilly: No one who is a Hillary Clinton supporter would say that criticism by center-left think-tank-style outlets of her agenda was an indication of corruption or a naked attempt to save their own dirty jobs. That’s what Sanders supporters say about EVERY CRITICISM HE FACES FROM ANYONE.
C.V. Danes
@Linnaeus: I would concur with that. There’s a little of the dog catching the car going on there.
Steve Crickmore
@ ahvRevrick: @Revrick: You ( and Pelosi presumably) make an unapologetic case that we should keep all those redundant, bureaucratic unproductive, health insurance jobs because the whole point of the American healthcare system is not to treat patients rationally or expeditiously. but to provide security for those who work in the private health insurance racket and want it to continue to thrive and flourish. But why stop there? Why not encourage even more paperwork, inefficiency, bureaucracy and feather bedding, paid for by higher and higher premiums and higher deductibles and more government subsidies and even less on actual healthcare, which already distinguishes the American health care system from the rest of the industrialized world , (and much of the non-industrialized world, for that matter), all of whom have single payer, universal plans?
gene108
@sparrow:
We used to have affordable college at state run universities. When I went to undergrad 20+ years ago, in-state tuition in NC was around $800 per semester.
Unaffordable state run colleges is a very recent phenomenon and needs to be addressed at the state level. Otherwise the Feds will be subsidizing bad state behavior.
You can achieve universal healthcare without single payer. We would be at universal healthcare levels, if states were not blocking Medicaid expansion.
The issue now is making healthcare access more affordable.
Gin & Tonic
@Applejinx: Property/casualty insurance is completely different than health care/health insurance.
Emma
@dslak: Wrong. I will support whoever wins the nomination. There are no other options, unless one thinks that going back to the coathanger-in-back-alleys and minorities as second class citizens is a good thing.
I’m sorry I didn’t see the snark, but what you said came too close to something someone actually said to me when I expressed a preference for slow and steady pushes rather than revolutionary maneuvering.
The Other Chuck
New rotating tagline anyone?
(And when I get enough tuits, I’ll have EBBJ again put the tagline up top where it belongs)
FlipYrWhig
@Steve Crickmore: The rest of the industrialized world doesn’t uniformly have single payer, though. And they have doctors and hospitals and drüg companies who make less. In the US, put 5 nice looking people in white coats talking about how the Bernie Sanders plan will ruin their livelihoods and the whole plan goes up in smoke in 30 seconds.
sparrow
@FlipYrWhig: This is clearly not true just from reading the comments on this very post. Unless in your mind 1 supporter = all supporters. I don’t think Richard is doing this to “save his job” (lol), I think he’s saying this because he’s a numbers guy, and this is how he thinks. This is fine and appropriate criticism of Sanders. I explained above why it doesn’t really move me, personally.
Mike in DC
I definitely believe that Sec. Clinton needs to step up and get a little bit bolder with her policy proposals. The goal should be to at least try to flip both houses of Congress. To do it you need to give strong reasons to vote FOR you, not just AGAINST the lunatics on the other side.
WereBear
I am old enough to remember the plan Hillary Clinton worked on during the first Clinton administration. Lots and lots of numbers… and as I recall, many of them did not add up either.
But since that didn’t happen, it didn’t matter.
I agree that Bernie Sanders needs to not leave such openings, if possible, but on the other hand, he’s not going to create a coup and MAKE anyone do this regardless of the numbers adding up. Other countries have single payer, so it’s not impossible. And if all these people are thrown out of business with single payer, what is that saying to us?
That the rest of us should overpay, then die, so that these jobs that add nothing to the economy can be preserved?
Is that what is being advocated here?
And this brings up a good point that bothers me about HRC; she has no plans to speak of, and she wants to do quite modest things. One can see how difficult it is to rile up anyone, much less the people we really need to. HRC is struggling to get votes from the under-45s.
Where does that leave us as a party? I mean, if all I cared about was the future, I would have to support Sanders for getting people under 45 to actually get off their butts and VOTE.
That is numbers I can believe in.
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s a good point, but the job loss angle only gets you so far. I could also see someone who is very ill, or just needs care, thinking “Why should good care be inaccessible to me so some folks can have another BMW?”
FlipYrWhig
@sparrow: OK, not all, but read down the thread and you’ll see how common that notion is, starting with comment #1.
FlipYrWhig
@WereBear: Fake numbers and handwaving about the implications don’t seem like a great foundation for future progressive politics to me.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hillary has the support of Democrats in Congress.
Nancy Pelosi is on record as stating she will not have House Dems run on a platform of tax increases for everyone, which Sanders is proposing, as well as not wanting to introduce a major overhaul to the healthcare system again, which is the center of Sanders’ policy and appeal.
Chuck Schumer will be the top Dem in the Senate come 2017. Good luck getting him to go along with breaking up the big banks.
If Sanders cannot get Democrats onboard with his plans then what?
There will be a civil war within the Democratic Party that makes the current kiddie squabble on the Republican side look tame, because for all the vitriol the Republicans do not disagree on much policy-wise other than can you say nigger in public and get elected.
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
The only ’embarrassment’ in this comment thread – and others here on BJ – is the consistent meme of ‘No, we can’t’ that permeates them…is it any wonder that the policies and domestic programs of the United States are viewed by many abroad as retrograde and reprehensible?….
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus: Yes, I can see that too, but I don’t see it prevailing. IMHO the only hope of single-payer happening is if big business gets sick of having to absorb the costs while competing with overseas businesses and does a big blitz that wins over Republicans. Everything else is going to fall apart when people are reminded of whose ox gets gored. Because they’re not all transparently evil oxes.
The Other Chuck
@DCF: It’s not just this blog. “No we can’t” has been the resounding cry of half the electorate, and frankly that’s all we hear outside election years. It’s the national motto, and has been ever since people prefaced sentences with “We can put a man on the moon, but …”
</mclaren> (but in this case, where’s she wrong?)
Keith G
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: The “The professional left” is a bit nebulous. Indeed, there are Hillary supporters who have membership, if such exists, in that group.
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: I have no idea why the second half of your statement has anything to do with your first. People abroad think the US is backward because not all liberals are visionaries? Europe’s welfare state is about the most prosaic thing possible. It’s based on practicality, not inspiration.
The Other Chuck
@FlipYrWhig: “Transparently Evil Ox” is going to be my next album name.
WereBear
Nothing against Richard, BTW; it’s good to point out hinky numbers, and such a skill is valuable.
To me, it just points to the stark fact that we need a real economy again, not this beast that lurches around, eating people and vomiting their money into the pockets of the rich.
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t think we’ll see single payer in the US in my lifetime, and I’ll take the over that we’ll never see it (keeping in mind that there are other mechanisms we can use, so I’m not wedded to single payer). But I think the main stumbling block for most Americans is the cost. I don’t see the jobs argument as being the one foremost in people’s minds, particularly if they’re reminded of the experiences a lot of Americans have when dealing with the bureaucratic* aspects of health care.
*I am not using this term pejoratively.
FlipYrWhig
@The Other Chuck: I think it’s more this: “We can do big things!” “Ok, how?” “Up yours, Corporatist!”
FlipYrWhig
@The Other Chuck: it feels like an anagram for something.
Kay
@gene108:
That’s a good answer Gene. I don’t go along with the “civil war in the Democratic Party”, though.
The Democratic Party needs a shake-up. If it isn’t resilient enough to survive Bernie Sanders it should collapse. They need an economic approach that is 1. markedly different than that of Republicans and 2. addresses peoples’ real concerns.
I guess I’m just not confident enough of victory to completely dismiss these people. I think Democrats are weak in Great Lakes states and Sanders pulled 10,000 people to a rally there. We can have long discussions on the demographic make-up of Ypsilanti or we can take that seriously, as a sign of discontent going into an election year. Democrats shouldn’t be losing so many races in WI and MI and OH and IL. That’s a problem.
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
The United States is ‘backward’ because many of our policies – in a macro sense – advocate socialism for the rich and ‘rugged individualism’ for everyone else….
ruemara
@Kay: That’s cause her magical pony is … winning Congressional seats. It’s not the boldness of Sanders’ plans that’s keeping people from supporting him, it’s the lack of focus on down ticket races. His team is using a by any means necessary approach to get on the ballot; they’re not showing much thought for after that.
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus: I think the main stumbling block is that half the country thinks that under national health care they’ll be stuck in line at the doctor’s office behind a black person.
scav
I’m also personally a teeny bit unimpressed by the sole reason for voting in being about how you will feel about yourself. There’s a bit of damn the consequences and downsides to others, at least I’ll feel good about myself that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. A bit like going to war after 9-11 was therapeutic for some. Also just, well, an isolated comfortable bubble pose not available to most. (although I can utterly get the feeling that voting just doesn’t seem to do a damn thing. But at least consider the realworld impacts on others along side your personal warm fuzzies).
Paul in KY
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Well done. I expect you’ll be hearing from Yoko’s lawyers.
Linnaeus
@Kay:
Funny thing is, Ypsilanti is about 60%-40% white to nonwhite, and about 30% African-American.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I wish I thought very much of the Sanders campaign was predicated on an approach (economic populism spliced with social democracy) rather than an attitude (seething anger).
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, that’s a big factor, too. Racism and classism. Two great tastes that taste great together.
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: I agree but I don’t see that being changed by bold and implausible not-exactly-plans.
redshirt
If the fucking Purity Pony Posse cost us this election, we’re doomed as a nation and a world.
But hey! Fight the power! Never forget Gamergate! Heighten the contradictions!
Kropadope
@Tim F.:
Just because the numbers on the table aren’t right doesn’t make the plan as a whole mathematically unfeasible. If someone answers 2+2 with 5, the fact that they’re wrong doesn’t mean the question doesn’t have an answer. You just gotta work on it and, frankly, the hard numbers work of policy making is assigned to a one of those other branches of government you may have heard of that isn’t the President.
@FlipYrWhig:
Now that it’s already established.
Applejinx
@BakerNomi: That is a fair argument! Indeed the gains in productivity and efficiency could transform the world. Nano-bot driven 3D-printed mass production fueled by solar power itself produced through nano-3D-what-have-you can leave all of us looking like buggy-whip makers.
Over-the-road truckers are hardly alone in that. I see, in the computer programming industry, an explosion of stuff that makes astonishing things possible. A lot of these people are so wealthy they see nothing wrong with open-sourcing all they do, and putting themselves ‘out of work’ for social benefit.
They have bank accounts and can afford to not think long-term… or they have Star Trek idealistic visions not so far from what Bernie proposes, or even more radical.
I’m all for that.
The question of ‘how do we get THERE from HERE’ is a hell of a thing, though: and I think Hillary’s approach risks ignoring the reality that people are rapidly becoming uncompetitive NOW. Kodak employed 140,000 people. Polaroid employed 21,000 people. Instagram, when it was sold for a billion dollars to Facebook, employed thirteen people.
We’re all buggy whip makers now. Suggestions?
Kay
@Linnaeus:
I think it probably doesn’t matter, or I wouldn’t rely on it, because people go to rallies from other places.
Attracting 10,000 people to wait line in 25 degree weather gets my attention, especially in a year which I think will be a grinding turn out battle. I don’t care if they’re reliable voters. They don’t have to “qualify” as “serious”.
I’m also wondering why they are just now setting up field offices, and why all three of them are in Cleveland. She needs more than Cleveland, and since she’s the favorite she can put infrastructure up now.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@sparrow:
Maybe someone should notice that they have an FDR right under their nose but for some reason refuse to acknowledge him, and that Hillary’s core message that is appealing to me, with every embrace of Obama, is that she’s going to be there to cement all of his hard work, and make whatever advances she can like he did, regulatorily. He’ll be leaving her the keys to a sweet sweet ride, where Sanders will be the dog that caught the car. No thanks.
If Sanders isn’t out there working to get House members elected, then his only real use is the Overton Window, which is great, but stop kidding yourself he’s really got any plan other than that.
Linnaeus
@redshirt:
If the Democratic candidate loses, it won’t be due to that.
ruemara
@Chyron HR: word from NV says that’s already happening. I take it with a grain of salt since it was a precinct captain but reportedly robocalls from the Rove PAC are working for Sanders by telling republicans to sign up as Dem to vote for Sanders, Sanders door knockers and callers are telling Dems not to vote Clinton because she will be facing jail soon. If even half of that is true, it’s serious problems.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Hoping I would find you here!
I am planning to make your “best cozy breakfast” recipe today, and I am not sure how to interpret one (important) line in the recipe:
Let’s say I’m using 2 cups of dry mix. Then I am also using 2 cups of wet mix, because the recipe says to use equal parts of wet mix and dry mix. I’m good so far. Then I get to:
“Use the same measurement of fruit as whatever amount of dry mix and wet mix you’re using.”
In my example, would I be using 2 cups of fruit or 4 cups of fruit?
The answer seems to depend on what the definition of ‘is’ is.The answer seems to depend on what the word “and” means.DCF
@Kay:
This is a good ‘summary read’ regarding the need for the ‘shake-up’ you describe:
The issue is not Hillary Clinton’s Wall St links but her party’s core dogmas
Thomas Frank
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2016/feb/16/the-issue-is-not-hillary-clintons-wall-st-links-but-her-partys-core-dogmas
Linnaeus
@Kay:
I was just indulging my inner pedant. I understand what you’re getting at.
For all its flaws, I do think the Sanders campaign has tapped into something, and it will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of that.
The Other Chuck
@FlipYrWhig: Yes there’s some legitimate both-sides going on, because pessimism is infectious. But when all the suggestions of great things involve kowtowwing and giving away even more national treasure to the powerful, then yes, up fucking whatever appropriate places are available. The Apollo Program might have made a few companies rich, yes, but it wasn’t instituted by giveaways.
Don’t look to me for optimism either. I’m just going to enjoy the ride down and try to fuck over as few people as I can doing it.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I confess I’m baffled why voters somehow have to pre-qualify. We’ve divined their motivation and determined they don’t meet our standards for serious “get things done” sort of people. She can just look at it as 10,000 people in Michigan who show up and (probably!) lean Democratic. I don’t think they have to offer us any more than that. The onus isn’t really on them to provide a whip count.
D58826
True but I’m not sure it’s relevant. Of course Hillary isn’t going to get her program through an obstructionist GOP controlled Congress. But then neither is Bernie. More important is wither Hillary can defend what already exists against a GOP Congress intent on turning the clock back to the 19th century. Now I suspect if Bernie is elected he will use his veto pen just as vigorously as Hillary will. I’m just afraid that Bernie will be the George McGovern of 2016 and result in an even bigger democratic bloodbath than 2014.
Kropadope
@Kropadope: That said, I’m disappointed that Sanders rushed this plan out and let his campaign get swallowed up in the discussion of universal healthcare while he has many, many other worthwhile ideas. He’s displayed a command of numbers in other instances and he was mayor of Burlington, so I know he can balance a budget. You know you’re in the spotlight Bernie, check twice.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@FlipYrWhig:
Sanders supporters are so blind to this fact. The first thing The Donald said on primary night about Sanders was “He’s going to give our country away!” He didn’t say “to those people”, but I heard it. I’m sure I’m not the only one. If you want to loosen the grip of the oligarchy on our economy, get people to stop voting against their own self interest, but they’re not irrational – they’re voting to keep nice things out of the hands of “those people”. Maybe Sanders could talk to his bros about that. Hahaha I crack myself up.
Sanders will lose probably 45 states.
Anya
@Kay: I don’t mind the leadership stuff but the numbers MUST add up. Republican obstructionism shouldn’t be normalized to the point where we’re asking future Dem president how they plan to pass reasonable proposals in congress. I find that very problamatic. It accepts the premise that their level of obstruction is the norm.
Kropadope
@ruemara: I take it with a grain of salt since it was a precinct captain but reportedly robocalls from the Rove PAC are working for Sanders by telling republicans to sign up as Dem to vote for Sanders, Sanders door knockers and callers are telling Dems not to vote Clinton
Don’t Republicans have their own competitive election right now?
Paul in KY
@Applejinx: I agree that at some point in future, those jobs will be lost to the mighty progress of automation. I’m just surmising that there will be a period of time where a human still rides in truck as backup.
I guess they’ll have their salaries reduced for not really driving…
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Applejinx:
And what is it that you do for a living, Applejinx?
DCF
@D58826:
Why Bernie Sanders Is Not George McGovern
Thursday, 11 February 2016 17:20 By Thom Hartmann, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34807-why-bernie-sanders-is-not-george-mcgovern
The “electability” argument is bogus: Why Bernie Sanders isn’t the second coming of George McGovern
Establishment dems have for months warned that a Bernie nomination would be disaster. Here’s why they’re wrong
Daniel Denvir
https://www.salon.com/2016/02/01/the_electability_argument_is_bogus_why_bernie_sanders_isnt_the_second_coming_of_george_mcgovern/
AliceBlue
@Chyron HR:
Is he really doing that? Screw him seven ways to hell and back if it’s true.
rikyrah
Thanks for telling us about it all, Mayhew
DCF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
If you’re content with nervously laughing as you traverse the cemetery, please proceed Conster….
Research the polling numbers of Clinton vs. Trump and Sanders vs. Trump, Cruz, Rubio and the remainder of the Klown Kar Kavalcade…and no, Sanders will not reprise a McGovern loss….
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: The point is that it’s hard for me to say that the Sanders phenomenon is a sign of a tide turning towards populism or whatever when so much of the energy around Sanders is attitudinal. That puts a damper on the fate of politicians who believe in what Sanders believes in without wrapping it in his particular mantle of righteous grumpiness. Is it that people are clamoring for the policies he wants (which lots of other people believe in) or jazzed by his personality (which they think seems appropriate for this moment)? If it’s the latter, that’s not a movement that will last. And the rhetoric of there being a movement is a huge part of what Sanders support (at least online) involves.
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: Yes, we know the only doubts about St. Bernie are sown by The Establishment. The Bernie counter-establishment keeps telling us that ad nauseam.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@DCF:
I’m not whistling past anything – I’m disgusted at the whiteness of the movement and the lack of self-awareness of same.
Richard Mayhew
Quite disappointed I figured by 2nd cup of coffee we would have hit 300 comments instead of only 175
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Uncalled for.
WereBear
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t think you get it at all.
It’s about a person who worked their ass off to get “into a good school” and then graduated with a mountain of debt. Who might be parked in their parents’ basement hoping their stupid dead end job will go to full time, in which case they can maybe step up to an apartment with three roommates. In a place with good public transportation because they can’t afford a car.
A career? Children? Getting out of debt?
When those seem like impossible dreams… it’s not surprising that someone whining about “kids today and their rotten attitudes” sounds… tone deaf.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
It’s the elephant in the room of every discussion of economic and social policy in this country, and why comparing the US to other countries with homogeneous demographics like Denmark or Japan or Switzerland is worthless. The dynamics are completely different.
ETA: That being said, if Bernie racks up victories in the more diverse states, then we’ll know he’s got his coalition, and has a chance to actually catch the car.
FlipYrWhig
@WereBear: I don’t see how any of that is remotely remedied by Wall Street something something, which is how the Sanders campaign sounds to me when it talks about issues. But YMMV.
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Well, thanks for doing your part to cool things down.
Isn’t it nice how you can simultaneously convey formation while not being inflammatory?
Applejinx
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
I write computer software and sell it. http://www.airwindows.com
Since I promised long ago to give people free updates for life, after more than 160 plugins I’m finding it harder and harder to come up with products that are actually new things, though I have a very approving userbase and the advantage of name recognition that’s really kinda priceless.
I’m also, simultaneously, trying to get into game development: I should get at least a few years out of that with comparable levels of effort and ingenuity, if I can get started. That’s at http://www.crushallboxes.com
And what do you do?
I’m just saying, I am in a position to see how well the economy is REALLY doing. When regular people get even a little bit of a break, I do fairly to very well (by my standards, which I know are poor-people standards). When it’s the bankers who are getting wealthy, my sales suffer. I’ve actually seen a chart of ‘how much disposable income the working class has at any given time expressed as whether it’s more than last month or less than last month’ and it exactly, exactly paralleled my sales figures. I don’t know how to reproduce the chart, unfortunately, but it makes sense.
Minority-owned businesses are also, like me, canaries in the coal mine.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
I’m not trying to cool things down or be inflammatory – I’m pointing out a huge fucking blind spot that gets hand-waved away like so many other structural constraints on the revolution. How you respond to it is on you.
kped
Is 5.3% actually in his plan? Because if so…that is just crazy talk. I cannot take it seriously at all.
DCF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I believe you’re wrong on both counts…look at the crowd(s) of supporters within the rallies and elsewhere with regard to ‘whiteness’ (and age, gender, etc.)…insofar as ‘self-awareness’ is concerned, HRC supporters have no monopoly in that category….
If nothing else, these comment threads often provide an explanation for the incremental (or static) state of our country over the past thirty-five years….
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@DCF:
The Constitution protects against two undesirable outcomes – dictatorships and revolutions – with the three branches of government. Incrementalism is what we’ve done since the founding, even after a crisis like civil war or the Great Depression. Not sure what country you think you’re living in.
Paul in KY
@Richard Mayhew: I think some people just see ‘Mayhew’ and think it is a Health Care related post & just move on.
dogwood
@D58826:
I have no confidence that Bernie would use a veto pen. He wants revolution , not competent government. On many levels he is running against the Obama administration, so why would we expect him to safeguard much of anything?
Applejinx
@WereBear: This, 100%.
I realize due to age, whiteness, maleness, I SHOULD be way the hell more privileged than I am. In several ways I’m positioned to become, most likely, one of those bro-grammer techno-libertarian types, probably working at Google or some other rich tech corporation, and believing that all you have to do is disrupt everything and the free market will make everyone rich… well, everyone that matters.
But I have pretty severe autism (and was trained like an animal when I was very small to act normal and cover up the signs: I’m 47, there was no such thing as autism when I was little if you could still read and talk)
And to cope with that I got into drugs as a kid and screwed up so badly in drug addiction that I didn’t finish college. I got clean in ’92 (now more than 20 years clean) but the damage was done. My brother went on to become a degreed college graduate computer programmer, and I went on to homelessness and the maze of social services.
I was on Disability. I got off Disability because of a thing called a PASS plan (Plan for Achieving Self-Support) and built a business that has brought literally hundreds of thousands of dollars into the country over the years, only to have the economy grind to a halt for people like me and my intended customers (I don’t sell to corporations, I sell and market to indies and regular people) and end up thinking that, on the whole, I’d probably have done better if I’d worked to stay on Disability and made all my products free.
Maybe that would have just been ahead of the curve.
I’m white, old(ish) and male, with some ability to talk a good game and some thoughts in my head and (see my websites) a really brutal drive to work and create and succeed, but I’m in exactly the same boat as the Millenials. You can’t get in, at this point. Either you already have the white picket fence and the IRA and the mid-tens-of-thousands of dollars a year income, or you’re done: there is nothing for you.
I’m going to work for Bernie as hard as I possibly can, as I did in New Hampshire, because I see nobody at all addressing my issues there. Hillary’s sympathies are in the wrong place. The white picket fence people, the people making more than $30K a year who have a place to live, those people can vote for her.
Some of you have NO IDEA how many people are nowhere near that status. You need to get out more.
ruemara
@WereBear: except that is not happening. Turnout is down in the primaries so far. Unless it’s the Republicans. Their turnout is up. So that much vaunted youth excitement? Not really going on.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t know, why does it get so much critical analysis? Liberal Democrats are now in a position to demand higher quality voters?
For all the insistence that we’re all supporting the “Obama Coalition” I don’t remember Obama dismissing huge freaking groups of voters as somehow not meeting his standards.
You meet voters where they are. If this is where a substantial group of Democratic voters are, I confess I’m confused why the “get things done!” crowd are busy dismissing them as poseurs and projecting their behavior into the next midterm cycle.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@dogwood:
Who among us wouldn’t want to choose between two shouty old white men vying over who will be the one to rip up all of Obama’s hard work by the roots?
DCF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Revolution is the movement that created this country in the first place…Christ-on-a-crutch, the ‘revolution’ Sanders is advocating emphasizes voter participation before (and more importantly, after) the 2016 election – not armed insurrection…there are period of historical transition when major changes are implemented, and it appears this election cycle will reflect the disenfranchisement accumulated over the last thirty-plus years….
geg6
@TylerF:
I agree completely with what you’re saying about Hillary (and Bernie, IMHO). Men will never understand that because they have never been in that situation and never will. And youngsters never will either because they really haven’t been there either. There is simply no way to explain what it was like being a woman in the workforce during that Second Wave. It creates all kinds of coping mechanisms that men and the young will never need.
D58826
@dogwood: On Obamacare you might be right but for a democratic socialist to go along with the GOP plan to privatize medicare and social securityfor example I think would be a bridge to far even for Bernie. .
@DCF: I hope this analysis is correct However as an old fossil who remembers that the term socialist has been used interchangeably with communist/traitor, however in correctly, I just thnink Bernie has an extra high hill that he has to climb. The term just gives the GOP a hanging curve ball to swing at and they will knock it out of the park. The swift boat ads write themselves. So they exact dynamics of the two parties might not be the same as in 1972 but the outcome very well could be. And yes I know they will try and swift boat Hillary and the baggage that she carries but I just think the socialism is a deal breaker to far for many Americans who are not political junkies./
dogwood
@Kay:
I don’t think people are dismissing Bernie’s voters. It seems to me Bernie and his campaign are dismissing a good share of Obama voters. That’s his perogotive, but I don’t understand why he gets a pass for this. My middle aged sister just quit the county democratic central committee because the Bernie supporters were so awful in person and on Facebook. She’s done, and she isn’t even a Clintonista. She’s a door knocker, fund raiser and phone banker. But she realized that she has better things to do than be harassed by these people.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@DCF:
What is it about Sanders supporters that make them so blind to what Obama and OFA did in 2008? What do you think happened then? Obama did what Sanders is doing now, first and better. 2008 was a wave election – just what Sanders is hoping for. Then all of the Kossacks and firebaggers started sniping at him when they realized that he wasn’t going to be their progressive George Bush – that he wanted to do things legislatively – you know, so everything he did couldn”t be immediately undone by his successor, and then they all pouted and stayed home in 2010 and that was that. Why are Bernie’s supporters so much different 8 years later? I’ve seen this movie.
geg6
@WereBear:
Complete and utter bullshit. This is why I can’t even be on a Bernie thread any more. An absolute lie.
Out of here before I read something even more egregiously mendacious.
D58826
@Applejinx: I’m of the leading edge of the boomer generation and I know I’m part of your picket fence crowd. I also have two 30 something nieces, both college grads (one with an MBA) and I see the struggles they are having. It took 4 years and the MBA before the youngest was able to get a good job and that was with Uncle Sam. The other niece is married with a 5 year old and they have to take in a roommate buddy of her husband to affords the rental home they live in. Both are loaded with college debt. I have told them repeatedly that my generation should be ashamed of itself for the hash we have made over the past 40 years. For a generation that wasn’t going to be money grubbing ‘person in the gray flannel suit’ types, we certainly became that in spades. Heck I forget his name but one of the leading 60’s radicals became a wall street broker in the 80’s. Talk about selling out. All of the seniors who opposed Obamacare for others but supported medicare for themselves are a good example.
I’m just not sure that Bernie can get elected and at this point half a loaf President Hillary is better than no loaf Senator Bernie. And if Bernie is the candidate I will most certainly;y vote for him.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@DCF:
Which is why the Constitution was designed the way it was, to avoid revolutions. Christ on a crutch.
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: What is with these weird assertionsthat Bernie and his supporters don’t like Obama. I prefer Bernie, really, just as my least awful choice and would vote for Obama over him or anyone else in a second in 2016 if he could run, not that I think Bernie would actually run against Obama.
D58826
@Kropadope: Actually in 2012 Bernie did talk up the idea that someone should primary Obama.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
It might have something to do with advocating primarying him? Implying that he was a sell out? saying stuff like this:
Just a guess.
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I get it, so Bernie doesn’t poop rainbows but Obama does.
Kay
@dogwood:
I don’t attack Clinton supporters here so I can’t really address what happens elsewhere. I just think it’s weird how big crowds of college kids (or whoever they are) were celebrated when Obama was drawing them and now they’ve become not representative of the Democratic Party. They were never representative of the Democratic Party. That was never a requirement. I think Clinton’s campaign started out not focusing enough on what is real and justified anger about economic issues and Sanders has caused her to hone that, which is a good thing.
Applejinx
@D58826: Swift boating only works if you’re ashamed of it. That’s not going to apply to ‘damn right I’m a socialist and let me tell you why, for the 2374623786th time’ Bernie.
Look at how Trump’s doing with his calling Washington whores to the wealthy, and saying that Bush lied us into war at a horrific cost of lives and money.
You have to accept that an electorate that’ll allow that kind of heresy is also an electorate that won’t automatically respond to a Socialist dogwhistle. It’s not a dogwhistle if the guy’s RUNNING on that platform and panting for more opportunities to explain why you’re an idiot for NOT being a Socialist, with ample evidence out there at the grass roots to suggest that now (and not, say, the 80s) is the time to run as a Socialist.
On a brighter note: woohoo! I just heard from the mechanic and my car is fixed again! Heated MAF sensor replaced. And since they are awesome small-business people much like me, it is only going to cost about $200!
At $50 a software plugin, I only have to sell four of those to cover the cost of still having a car at all.
So far this month, I’ve sold eleven, which leaves me about $350 to live on next month including mortgage, bills, food etc. So I will have to hope I sell a couple more plugins, or that my indie game gets through Steam Greenlight. Always bearing in mind that I have $950 or so coming from LAST month’s plugin sales, about $800 in practice left on the credit card before they suddenly reduce the limit (it’s happened, no warning), and that even if the game hits Steam and sells that could be as much as three months before you see anything from Valve: people pay them money, they sit on it and earn interest for a while, and then they cut you a check as late as they possibly can.
It’s damn amazing I can ever think a work-related thought at all, with all this going on to keep track of. Normal, for so many people, though.
Anyway: car not permanently dead! Woohoo! :D
Kropadope
@D58826: And Bernie didn’t primary Obama himself so, like I said, he probably wouldn’t this time if Obama could run again. I think he had something more in mind of a Quixotic bid who’s highest accomplishment would be getting Obama to defend some things to the left.
It makes sense, I mean Obama is awesome and everything, but not perfect.
gvg
@Kay: Yes well if those voters seem rather silly it’s hard to listen to them. We know we need to hang on to what we have gained rather than risk everything on poor odds. I get that they are frustrated about jobs but really things can get worse and the margin is pretty tight.
Obama did accomplish things that they are just taking for granted now but looking back it may have surprised the republican professionals that he won and so did other democrats but it didn’t surprise anyone here really nor a lot of 538 watchers etc. It was clear the dems were going to gain seats in both houses and that meant it was a time we could get some stuff done. This time I don’t see those signs even though the GOP behavior should be driving away some voters. I think we may gain some seats, not enough with Clinton. I think we will lose seats with Sanders. It is a time for holding on not revolution. If some of the electorate wants revolution but a lot doesn’t than you don’t really have an option to offer it. If Hillary promised too much, she’d lose more voters than she already has.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
Well, that’s exactly the kind of trenchant analysis I expect from Sanders supporters, and the whole firebagging community generally. No one has learned anything from Obama’s 8 years, which is all I need to know.
Get back to me with Bernie’s plans when his supporters turn out for the down ballot elections and flip the House. Until then, for every one of those items listed on Bernie’s proposals, add “and a pony”.
DCF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Given the vision evident in the creation and content of the Constitution, I would not find it a ‘stretch’ to believe that the Founders viewed the document as an organic/evolutionary (rather than a static) one….
I don’t fear a ‘dictatorship’ in this country…what I do, in fact, fear is the present (and ongoing) trajectory toward oligarchy/plutocracy evidenced by our national income/wealth disparities…while knowledge is power, money is influence….one that is steering us through a Second Gilded Age…is that a form of dictatorship?…I suppose it depends upon personal definition….
les
@Applejinx:
Too right. I appreciate it. I don’t see any sign that Clinton doesn’t appreciate it. Their various fanboys/girls aside, the candidates seem to me to like and appreciate one another. Aside from Bern’s “they’re all corrupt but me” shtick, of course.
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Bernie has several smaller proposals on his list and some more universally agreeable large items (hello infrastructure), the fact that you choose to ignore them notwithstanding.
D58826
@Applejinx: Are you saying John Kerry had something to be ashamed of? The GOP just seems better at the smear machine than the democrats. Remember Will Horton. It wasn’t Dukakas’s fault what happened. He didn’t even sign the law but he got the blame.
Of course it helps the GOP if you have your own TV network to push the party linei
DCF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
The Clintons really don’t get it: False attacks and failed strategies as Hillary repeats 2008
They’re distorting Sanders’ plans and ham-handedly using Obama and race. It’s a dangerous game and a losing plan
https://www.salon.com/2016/02/16/the_clintons_will_really_try_anything_false_attacks_and_failed_strategies_as_hillary_repeats_2008/
les
@Steve Crickmore:
Yay! Can we play “count the logical fallacies, condescending implications and sheer stupidities in one comment?”
lessee: straw man, excluded middle, hyperbole, misrepresentation, borderline slander?
Insult to intelligence, insult to ethics, ordinary and gross stupidity, more straw?
This is tough; always difficult to distinguish among gross and irredeemable ignorance, wildly blatant stupidity and outright, deliberate lying.
What did I miss?
waysel
@Weaselone: Nice nym.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@DCF:
Shorter: Bill Curry has opinions.
New Hampshire’s turnout was higher for Republicans than Democrats by the way.
Kay
@gvg:
Is this necessary?
No one is challenging his position as the Most Liberal Liberal. He could be more generous instead of lecturing them. He can afford it. He can have the grace to give them a single point in the debate without this dismissive sneer. The Democratic Party and the esteemed punditry will survive these radicals, or not, and if they can’t weather a primary challenge like this they should examine how they’re going to win a general election.
geg6
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Not that I give POLITICO a lot of credence, but according to a piece I saw there, they haven’t been counting a lot of the millennials of color in the polling showing that Bernie has a lock on them. If you look at only AA millennials, Hillary’s numbers are as astronomically high among them as Bernie’s are among their white cohort.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@DCF:
I don’t know how many times this has to be said, so I’ll say it again. We are the 99%, and there are way more of us than them. Unfortunately, the way to assert our numbers is to raise people’s class consciousness. Isn’t that what this revolution is supposed to be all about? Instead, people, especially poor whites, are tribal by race. If that isn’t part of every discussion about how to dismantle the structural reasons for income inequality in this country, and how to sell socialism to the masses, then you’re ignoring the elephant in the room.
Bobby Thomson
@EconWatcher: yeah, this. When your math us that far off, we’re not talking about degrees of unrealistic optimism. Bernie’s a fucking liar.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@geg6:
who’s “they” – pollsters?
DCF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Yes, Bill Curry does have opinions – one currently shared by the Obama White House, aghast at the mess HRC has created in this campaign to date….
While you’re correct that Republican primary voters outnumbered Democratic ones – a troubling statistic – Sanders numbers in the NH primary were historic (and overwhelming when you realize the only cohort she won was 65+ voters earning over $200K/year)….
Bobby Thomson
@msdc: there won’t be change until people like Donna Edwards get 1% of the attention that a Sanders is getting.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@DCF:
Let’s see how the rest of the primary states go as they move out west and south. Numbers from white New Hampshire don’t tell me anything, nor do opinions.
D58826
@sparrow: If Clinton is the nominee will you sit out the election? Vote GOP? There are worse outcomes than a President Hillary. I read one article on Slate that said better a GOP victory in 2016 to show the public what a GOP world would look like. Then in 2020 a real progressive would win and lead us to the promised land. The only problem with that approach (assuming a 2020 victory) is it took over 100 years to get where we are with the social safety net. It all can be undone in a year. It will probably take another 100 years to get back to where we are now if that happens. Our system is not designed for rapid revolutionary change. 41 senators representing 11% of the population can filibuster any progressive legislation to death (assuming the filibuster isn’t eliminated). One senator can place a hold on legislation and/appointments for no reason at all and it takes unanimous consent to over ride the hold. There were a lot of reasons why FDR was able to do as much as he did but one of the most important was a 25% unemployment rate. That kind of political crisis concentrates a lot of minds and gives a president a lot of political capital. I’m not sure the level of income inequality has the same visibility even if it is just as threatening to the well being of middle America.
les
@D58826:
Fuck yeah, heighten the contradictions! Hey, maybe a bunch of poors have to die for lack of health care, and bunch of browns have to die in foreign places we gotta fight in, but boy will 2020 be great!
Your comment is spot on, D. And to top it off, e tried this game. It was called the Bush/Cheney administration; not a good thing. Followed by the current guy, whom the Bernistas assure me is just another corporatist squish.
Applejinx
Bernie’s publically endorsing this guy: http://www.businessinsider.com/neel-kashkari-first-speech-at-minneapolis-fed-president-2016-2 who led Obama’s TARP program for bailing the bankers, who has the most awesomely scary eyes I’ve ever seen outside a wingnut, and who is saying things like:
Turning giant banks into public utilities? Taxing leverage to (a) generate revenue and (b) start to spin down systemic risk?
AW HELL YEAH :D
This guy is now my favorite ex-Goldman-Sachs vampire weasel!
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Kay: Its not ten thousand people lining up in 25 degree weather to watch Bernie Sanders speak.
Its how many people line up in 25 degree weather in November to vote against ‘raising their taxes on plans that don’t add up’.
D58826
Can we all agree that a political party led by Ted Cruz or one of his look a likes would be a disaster. The latest from tail gunner Ted is if Obama has his way the government will sand blast the crosses off the tombstones of Christian veterans. Apparently the star of David is safe and of course the Muslim crescent. Do we want to let any one within 1000 miles of the WH from a party that finds this man even remotely credible. I would vote for Trump in a heartbeat over this dude.
geg6
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Yes.
smintheus
Richard, you yourself just the other day cited numbers generated by a Pete Peterson outfit to critique Sanders. Talk about a lack of credibility. Sauce for the gander.
Kay
@gvg:
I like the Sanders people because they’ve already changed the debate. It’s bigger. I just generally support that, whether it’s Occupy Wall Street or Fight for Fifteen or teachers in Wisconsin and I was pulling for all those people, although none of them “won”. They changed how we talk about economic inequality and the work that people do.
The thing by itself is good and worthwhile and the small amount of risk to the Democratic Party (establishment, because that’s what they are) more than justifies the upside, IMO.
Ampersand
First things first: I’ll vote for whoever the D nominee is. My first election was Bush/Gore, and I remember the ridiculous “there’s no difference between them, just vote for Nader” crap.
That said, while I’m disappointed to hear that Bernie’s healthcare ideas have major flaws, I’m still supporting him over Hillary. I’ve never had health insurance in my adult life, because I can’t afford it. Obamacare didn’t change anything, for me–every time I’ve used the site, I’ve been horrified at the prices it gave me. My state did expand Medicaid, but I’m a single male with no kids and no disabilities, so I don’t qualify. If I want to get healthcare before I turn 65 (roughly thirty years away), it’s single payer or bust. I’d rather have a President who tried it and failed, as opposed to someone who thinks that there’s no point in even trying.
Things are worse than people realize. I assume that Hillary will win the nom, but my fear is that she’ll use the following argument: “Things are basically okay, but we need to make a few improvements.” I don’t think that’s going to resonate very well. Bill Clinton famously “felt our pain”; my fear is that Hillary will mumble something about tech jobs and leave it at that. I know a number of Dem-leaning people my age, we’re what they used to call Gen Xers, and we’re all living hand to mouth and extremely nervous about the future. We all voted for Obama, but I’m the only one that defends Hillary, and I don’t even like her…
Keith G
@D58826:
The late Jerry Rubin. I have his autograph….from the mid 70s.
Keith G
@D58826:
Maybe the answer to that question depends on how many times Sparrow gets called a unicorn humping Bernibro.
DCF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
We’re agreed…although I prefer to think of it as the donkey in the room
….D58826
@Keith G: yep that was the one.
DCF
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Nevada is presently an even race (45/45), and South Carolina polls are increasingly indicating that Sanders will draw a significant proportion of the AA cohort (particularly the sub-30 demographic)…stay tuned, these races will reveal more pieces of the puzzle….
DCF
@D58826:
Socialism Is As American As Apple Pie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqlTUrP5yKM
Hillary Clinton is Blowing Up Her Own Campaign Against Bernie Sanders CNN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQVtTJqN564
Elie
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
It is almost impossible to convince those who refuse to look at facts. It just HAS to be a simple transition because because….
I have more or less just been lurking. I just don’t have the energy to keep up the attempt to reach the Bernistas. He may win the nomination, but I can’t ride this day to day, energy sapping lack of communication. The arrogance and ego apparent in Bernie and his supporters was a surprise, but is surprising no more. I will still vote for him if he is the nominee but I have serious concerns. To me, he and Trump are very much alike — promising whatever the peeps want to hear and not worrying about any damned details. And btw, fuck all of you who ask us to back up anything with data or information.
D58826
@DCF: I realize socialistic solutions are as american as apple pie. Social security, medicare, the VA, police and fire and a whole lot more. Just don’t use the word. All the tea partiers who were opposed to Obama’s socialized medicine as they got their medicare/social security payments. It doesn’t make any kind of sense but that’s the way it is. It is a hot button word to begin with and the GOP will make it so radioactive that Webster will have to remove it from the dictionary as a health hazard. It was a hot button word back in the early part of the 20th century and Eugene Debbs when he ran for president as a socialist.
Paul in KY
@Applejinx: We must increase the tax rate on Investment income! 15% tax is what keeps this kind of chicanery going. We have to de-incentivize investment as the be-all and end-all of creating wealth or we’re doomed.
john carter1966
Rather than promising a chicken in every pot, some must think it better to say nothing until elected then push things like NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP…so those who paid to get you in are the ones who get the chicken your opponent promised.
Paul in KY
@D58826: He is scum. Wonder if he can tell a whopper big enough that it makes his fools start thinking that maybe something’s amiss here?
D58826
I think you might want to reconsider that comment. I agree that the capital gains tax rate should go up. The problem isn’t ‘investment’, it is that wall street has become a giant casino making huge bets on fractional changes in currency rates and stock prices. The stock market should be funneling money from the 1% into investment opportunities that will allow people to start new companies and develop new technology. Think the venture capitalists who bankrolled Microsoft or Google. The problem now is the market and the tax rates allow for vulture hedge funds to make big buck on dismantling companies and not building them up. A couple of decades ago fortunes were made when RJR and Nabisco merged and then more fortunes were made when they were split up. Yet not one more oreo cookie was produced as a result.
Miss Bianca
@Applejinx:
I’m not making anywhere close to $30k per year and yet I’m caucusing for HRC. Both heart and head in this old socialist simply refuse to Feel the Bern. I just don’t believe the guy can deliver what he’s promising. Even tho’ I like what he’s promising.
Actually, the MORE I listen to him, the less I LIKE to listen to him – the shoutier and more simplistic he seems to me. Bernie Sanders has got one answer for everything. One tool in his toolbag – The Mighty Hammer of It’s All Economic Inequality – and he smacks every problem he sees with it. Yeah, that hammer will drive a lot of nails, but not all of them, by a long shot. Not so long as racial and sexual inequality routinely complicate issues of class inequality in this country.
He just reminds me so much of old lefty (male) fellow travellers back in the day who dismissed sexism as something that would just disappear when the New Class Consciousness came around, so why should THEY have to work to understand feminist concerns? Where was my solidarity with the Working Man, whose plight was obviously so much more dire than mine? Why was I dragging in these stupid and irrelevant concerns about the Patriarchy, man? Why didn’t I just get with the real program, and let that stuff slide?
I think HRC gets it about “why” better than Sen. Sanders. Certainly with regard to that particular issue.
dogwood
@Miss Bianca:
I don’t think Bernie is electable so we probably don’t have to worry about what he could or couldn’t accomplish. I’m pretty sure nominating him would be the end of anything good that happened over the last 8 years. I worked hard to help make those good things happen, and it makes me kinda sad that so many are excited about undoing it all. But I’m not in control, and there’s nothing I can do. Bernie will expect the Black POTUS and the female SOS to campaign for him, I’m sure. Some things never change in this country. When it comes to race and gender, the Sanders campaign is clueless.
TylerF
@miss bianca yes to everything.
Shortribs
On Sanders’ promise to lower how many people are in prison, one of his goals is to remove marijuana from it’s current schedule 2 classification and make it legal or at least decriminalized, which would presumably result in all lower-level offenders current serving time being freed. I don’t know enough about the numbers or if that’s even something that could happen (not the re-classification, the change in current offenders sentencings) though. All in all though I like and seems we are moving that way with the current slate of Western states legalizing.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Applejinx:
And, a Republican. He ran against CA Governor Jerry Brown in 2014.
different-church-lady
@Barbara:
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
If he had said we could do it by mid 1963 and it will only cost 650k, then yes, they would have.
different-church-lady
@WereBear: And un-rigging Wall Street fixes any of that how?
different-church-lady
@DCF: Oh, so it’s not a revolution, it’s a “revolution”. Silly of us not to see that.
DCF
@different-church-lady:
There are all manner(s) of ‘revolution’, dcl – just as nuance and differentiation dictate within a given historical and political context.
Gil Scott-Heron-The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017330666
mclaren
I’m very much afraid that Richard Mayhew is right, in this particular instance.
Bernie Sanders has been going off the rails with garbage numbers and absurd econometrics. In particular, Sanders’ claimed growth rate is beyond nonsensical. The U.S. economy hasn’t witnessed a 5.3% GDP growth rate since the 1960s, and then only during a V-shaped recession recovery. We are not presently in a V-shaped recovery, but in a near-flatline recovery from a balance sheet recession, with GDP growth fluctuating somewhere between 0% and 1.2%. Occasionally GDP growth might break 2% in one quarter only to go negative in another, so averaged over multiple quarters, U.S. economic growth has maintained a barely above stall-speed growth for the last 7 years (“stall speed” is the GDP growth at which the U.S. economy flips back into recession).
@Linnaeus:
I suspect this may well be right. And it’s troubling. Because in a putative president, you’d damned well expect somebody somewhere in the campaign to start running numbers well in advance of the primaries, just in case. Democrats are not Republicans — we can’t rely on horseshit like Paul Rayan’s “magic asterisks” to make our budgets work, we have to live in the real world.
I have to say that if Sanders doesn’t get a grip on things and shut his economic mythomanes down toot sweet, I will not be voting for him. I’m an optimist but at the end of the day, I have to live in the real world. We can get immense cost savings by unleashing the DOJ on the AMA and forcing U.S. hospitals and medical devicemakers and imaging clinics and doctors to sign consent agreements under threat of RICO and Sherman Anti-Trust prosecution, particularly since the RICO statutes give the DOJ power to freeze assets in advance of conviction. Freezing the assets of say, Smith-Klein-Glaxo, or the medical devicemakers who force diabetes patients to pay $50,000 “firmware update” fees every year on their implanted insulin pumps, would do wonders in making these corrupt thieves more amenable to cutting their costs and signing consent agreements agreeing not to do this kind of corrupt dishonest stuff in the future.
Sanders does have considerable control over how many people are in prison, contra the uninformed claims on this thread. First, Sanders can give a presidential pardon to all non-violent felons convicted on something trivial like marijuana possession. That’s about 10% of all federal prisoners. Sanders can extend that pardon to state prisoners, which is a much larger number — somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% of all state prisoners. Next, Sanders can shut down all federal asset forfeiture, eliminating the incentive for state police to prosecute people for minor issues like drug possession. Third, Sanders can order the DEA to focus their task forces on high-priority crimes like narcotics and cartel activty and give an essentially zero priority to marijuana possession and similar pseudocrimes.
Executive orders and instructions to the U.S. department of justice, the DEA, and most of all executive changes in federal liaison policies with the states (like policies allowing for states to share in federal asset forfeiture money and policies letting state drug agencies buy military-grade weaponry and tanks and machine guns and rocket launchers and flame throwers and claymore mines and other military hardware at a a dime on the dollar, in order to fuel the War on Drugs) ordered by the President, can and will produce a tremendous reduction in both drug prosecutions, and in drug incarcerations.
The evidence shows that it’s entirely feasible and completely practical to massively reduce America’s bloated insanely huge prison population merely by shutting down most of the failed and futile War On Drugs by executive order.
mclaren
@Miss Bianca:
The problem with HRC is that she proposes to tinker around the edges of a broken system. That won’t work. if you think we can make U.S. health care costs affordably by tinkering around the edges, you’re drinking Mayhew’s Kool-Aid.
Explain to me how the fuck we reduce the cost of a U.S. hip replacement surgery from $87,000 (america) to $7,800 (Spain) by tinkering around the edges of our current broken health-care system.
Explain it to me.
What, we’re going to let unqualified RNs perform the procedure?
We’ll train low-cost orderlies to do hip surgery?
That’s horseshit and you know it.
We can only get to the kind of European-level massive health care cost reductions we need to avoid bankrupting the U.S. economy from health care costs with major disruptive systemic changes.
Richard Mayhew lied to you implicitly when he used the bogus example of dentistry as an example of cost cuts by tinkering around the edges. Because dentistry is one of the very few medical procedures where you can do that. You can have a largely untrained dental assistant put amalgam into a patient’s filling once it’s been drilled out. That’s practical. We can train people to do that.
But cardiac bypass surgery? Show me how the fuck we train nurses to do that. Hip replacement surgery? Show how we get orderlies to do that without killing the patient.
Now you’ll rush in and explain that the U.S. medical procedures are so complex and so life-critical, that a hip replacement has to cost $87,000. And you’re lying. Because in Spain a hip replacement costs $7,800, 1/10 the goddamn cost of what the exact same surgery costs in America. And the health outcomes in Europe are better than they are here in America. Better. Not worse.
No, American health care prices are just insanely out of control. We need to reduce U.S. health care prices literally by a factor of 10 or more to get to parity with Europe. Not “reduce by 10%,” I mean reduce U.S. health care costs to 1/10 of what they are now in order to be in line with European health are costs. Because that’s the reality on the ground.
Explain to me how tinkering around the edges of America’s current system gets us to 1/10 of our current health care prices.
Show me how Hillary Clinton’s tinkering around the edges of the system shuts down our wildly out-of-control military-industri-prison-police-surveillance-torture complex.
Show me how Hillary Clinton’s policies are going to stop America’s endless unwinnable foreign wars.
Show me how Hillary Clinton’s policies are going to close down prisons, the way Norwegian prisons are getting closed down because there are so few inmates.
Show me how Hillary Clinton’s economic policies are going to prevent another massive global economic meltdown caused by the corrupt Wall Street crime lords crashing the economy again and running to Washingot demand bailouts, with which they will then pay themselves lavish bonuses and resume insider-trader business as usual.
Explain it to me. Detail each of HRC’s policies and show me how we get there from here.
Short of that, Sanders is the only alternative for genuine change.
mclaren
@different-church-lady:
Sadly, you’re 100% right about this.
mclaren
@Ampersand:
This is why a Democrat is going to win this election, folks.
If Trump is the nominee, the Republican party blows up. If Bernie is the nominee, we’ll cheerfully vote for him. And I’m betting Sanders’ numbers get reworked and become a lot more sensible if he gets the nomination.
Recall that FDR won the nomination in 1932 by promising to reduce the deficit. Candidates change their policies in response to changing circumstances. Candidates with good general ideals but poorly-thought-out policies radically improve their policies when they get better advisors and the attention and money of a general election.
mclaren
@FlipYrWhig:
Word salad.
AFAICT, this is gibberish. I could just as easily say that it’s hard for me to claim that the Hillary campaign is a sign of the tide turning toward feminism or whatever when so much of the energy around Hillary is fashionable.
“Energy” and “attitudinal” are vague terms with essentially no definable meaning.
What you seem to be saying is that Sanders supporters are cult of personality driven. Precisely the opposite is demonstrably the case. On this forum, anyway, Sanders supporters relentlessly discuss hard numbers, specific policies, detailed white papers. Sanders has been remiss in giving us these numbers. Recently he’s presented some bogus numbers. If, like the Sanders supporters you claim, my “energy” is “attitudinal,” I would dismiss Sanders’s bogus 5.3% GDP growth numbers as unimportant. Au contraire, these kinds of policy gaffes and junk numbers are very important. My support for Sanders is driven by his policies. If his policies turn out to be based on bullshit numbers, my support for Sanders drops to zero.
Explain how this is “energy” or “attitudinal.”
mclaren
@Miss Bianca:
Explain to me how Hillary can delivery what she’s promising.
Face facts — the Republicans will stonewall any Democratic president. That’s the reality. You can either elect a president who will fight hard for real change (Sanders) and get mostly blocked…or you can elect a president who will tepidly tinker around the edges of a broken system (HRC) and get mostly blocked.
Choose.
mclaren
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Presumably you’re talking about the Constitutional Convention? Yes, we need to roll that one back — too many white folks involved.