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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Who Says Debates Don’t Get Results?

Open Thread: Who Says Debates Don’t Get Results?

by Anne Laurie|  February 5, 20165:19 pm| 77 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, Military, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It), Daydream Believers

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Major concession from GOP, Koch-funded vets group: "We very clearly state that we oppose . . . privatizing the VA." https://t.co/Zv77KW8q0t

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) February 5, 2016

This seems significant, if only for the record books:

Officials at Concerned Veterans of America are lashing back at the two Democratic presidential frontrunners a day after both panned the group’s proposals in a national debate…

CVA has advocated restructuring the Veterans Health Administration as an independent entity and giving veterans more access to private care options with federal dollars, both radical shifts from the current system. But they reject the accusation that the plans amount to “privatization” of the department…

CVA officials have repeatedly declined to discuss funding sources and trustee information for the group, but numerous news reports have linked the group to the Koch brothers network of conservative activist organizations.

Both Sanders and Clinton — along with numerous mainstream veterans groups — have promised to fight privatization of VA services. CVA officials have said privatization and offering more health care choices are distinctly different things.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Democratic National Committee officials supported Sanders and Clinton.

“The jig is up,” said Eric Walker, spokesman for the DNC. “Vets shouldn’t be fooled by a right-wing front group whose main objective is not helping veterans, but electing Republicans like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and others who support privatizing the VA.”

In recent months, CVA officials have held a series of town halls to discuss their reform proposals, which have sometimes doubled as campaign events for Republican presidential hopefuls…

Am I over-optimistic?

If @ConcernedVets NO longer supports VA Privatization they have abandoned every #GOP leader that does #Election2016 https://t.co/lgyndvS3Tr

— Jon Soltz (@jonsoltz) February 5, 2016

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Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 5, 2016 at 5:21 pm

    I saw this on the book of faces and can’t stop laughing.

    Ted Cruz:
    One day more!
    Another day another dip for me
    This never ending road from Calgary
    These men who seem to know my slime will not be fooled a second time,
    One day more…

    Rand Paul:
    I did not poll until today
    How can I live, now that I’ve started?

    Ted Cruz:
    One day more

    Rand Paul + Carly Fiorina:
    Tomorrow we’ll have dropped away,
    And yet, by now we should have parted…

    Jeb Bush:
    One more day all on my own

    Rand Paul + Carly Fiorina:
    Will we ever run again?

    Jeb Bush:
    With the GOP not caring

    Carly Fiorina:
    I was here for Hillary!

    Jeb Bush:
    What a life I might have known…

    Rand Paul:
    Hope I still have Kentucky…

    Jeb Bush:
    Trump’s a bully, it’s not fair!

    Marco Rubio:
    One more day until the storm!

    John Kasich:
    Do I stay out on the road?

    Marco Rubio:
    At the caucuses for freedom

    John Kasich:
    For the battle in New Hampshire?

    Marco Rubio:
    But first, about Obamacare

    John Kasich:
    Do I fight my brothers there?

    Marco Rubio:
    It has destroyed America

    Ted Cruz:
    One day more!

    Donald Trump:
    One more day to Trumpolution
    They will never have me stumped
    We’ll be ready for those losers
    They’re low energy; vote Trump!

    Ted Cruz:
    One day more!

    Ben Carson + Mike Huckabee:
    Lock our donors up
    Give em all a call
    Always worth a buck when it’s a free for all
    Here a little speech
    Half a million more
    See you on the book tours that are coming up!

    Republican primary voters:
    One day to a new beginning
    (Raise the flag of Iowa high!)
    Every man will meet Steve King
    (Every man will meet Steve King!)
    There’s a candidate for freedom
    (There can only be just one!)

    All:
    Do you hear the people sing?

    Chris Christie:
    My place is here
    I fight for food!

    Ted Cruz:
    ONE DAY MORE!

    Rand and Fiorina:
    We did not run until today!

    Jeb Bush:
    One more day all on my own!

    Rand and Fiorina:
    How can we drop now that we’ve started?

    Donald Trump:
    I will be the people’s hero
    They will turn out in the snow
    I’m doing best in all the polls
    They’ve got no shot and they all know

    Ted Cruz:
    One day more!

    John Kasich:
    Do I stay out on the road?

    Jeb Bush:
    What a life I might have known!

    Rand and Fiorina:
    By now we both should have departed

    Donald Trump:
    One more day to Trumpolution
    They will never have me stumped
    I’ll be ready for these losers

    Ben Carson + Mike Huckabee:
    Lock our donors up
    Give em each a call
    Always worth a buck when it’s a free for all

    Ted Cruz:
    Tomorrow is the caucus day
    Tomorrow is the judgment day

    All:
    Tomorrow we’ll discover what our god Ron Reagan has in store!
    One more dawn
    One more day
    One
    Day
    More!

  2. 2.

    Doug R

    February 5, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    @srv: Bernie won six of seven recorded “coin tosses”

  3. 3.

    Redshift

    February 5, 2016 at 5:26 pm

    “Privatization” doesn’t poll well, so conservative groups insist that their privatization schemes aren’t actually privatization. SSDD.

  4. 4.

    Patricia Kayden

    February 5, 2016 at 5:30 pm

    Just saw this link on The Obama Diary showing that minority voters will make up 31% of the electorate. Hope they all come out and vote — for the right party of course. Trump’s bigotry should be a motivating factor for them.

    http://www.vox.com/2016/2/5/10919018/2016-diverse-electorate

  5. 5.

    JCJ

    February 5, 2016 at 5:41 pm

    I remember VA patients from Evansville and Fort Wayne having to come to the VA Hospital in Indianapolis for radiation treatments for cancer when I was a resident. Prior to the Indianapolis VA having a radiation oncology department the VA had a contract with Indiana University Hospital to provide radiation oncology services. I never understood why the VA couldn’t contract out to the Fort Wayne or other hospitals for this.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    February 5, 2016 at 5:41 pm

    @srv: Man, I want some of what ever you’re tripping on.

  7. 7.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 5, 2016 at 5:43 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly: I suspect that you actually don’t. Sounds like 2C-I or something.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    February 5, 2016 at 5:46 pm

    I’m confident they’ll keep this pledge if the Republicans win the White House.

  9. 9.

    raven

    February 5, 2016 at 5:48 pm

    I thought the asshole that led that outfit quit?

  10. 10.

    raven

    February 5, 2016 at 5:49 pm

    Hey, it’s Sooner’s birthday.

  11. 11.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 5, 2016 at 5:49 pm

    @srv: thank god they weren’t shipping hoverboards.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    February 5, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Worst haiku attempts, ever.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    February 5, 2016 at 5:51 pm

    @raven: Well, Happy Birthday, SG.

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 5, 2016 at 5:52 pm

    Rachel Maddow invites Chris Christie on her show, brief video at link

    Maddow Blog ‏@ MaddowBlog 38m38 minutes ago
    Does he seem surprised? He was probably surprised. :)
    Watch tonight!

  15. 15.

    Germy

    February 5, 2016 at 5:54 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Christie will spend the whole time talking about HRC’s emails, no doubt.

  16. 16.

    Germy

    February 5, 2016 at 5:56 pm

    Weeks after the Royal Bank of Scotland advised its investors to “sell everything,” Citi has decided to provide its own clients with fodder for a panic attack. In a report released Thursday, the bank warned that the global economy appears to be “trapped” in a “death spiral.”

    Here’s a thumbnail sketch of the deathly cycle that Citi forecasts: Weak global growth spurs demand for the U.S. dollar; a stronger U.S. dollar drives down the global price of commodities; and low commodity prices hurt developing economies dependent on exporting raw materials, thereby weakening global growth, which spurs demand for the U.S dollar, ad infinitum. This process repeats until we arrive at “Oilmageddon,” an economic apocalypse defined by perpetually low oil prices and “a ‘significant and synchronized’ global recession and a proper modern-day equity bear market,” writes Citi strategist Jonathan Stubbs.

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/citi-the-global-economy-is-in-a-death-spiral.html

    It’s weird how the world’s finances depend on me paying $3.89 at the pump for a gallon of regular.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 5, 2016 at 5:58 pm

    @Germy: I don’t know if email is a subject he wants to bring up.

    Attorneys for a former Christie appointee who is battling criminal charges over the incident said in a court filing on Wednesday that they had “newly discovered” that the governor’s office had withheld “critical documents” originating from the days around the lane closures in September 2013 that gridlocked the town of Fort Lee. Claims made by Christie’s lawyers for why these documents should be kept secret do not “pass the red face test”, according to the filing. Among the documents are emails between Christie’s press secretary Michael Drewniak and David Wildstein, a state official who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, which were withheld on the basis of attorney-client privilege despite neither man being an attorney. A spokesman for Christie did not respond to a request for comment.

  18. 18.

    drdavechemist

    February 5, 2016 at 6:00 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Only took me about two lines to recognize the inspiration. Les Mis FTW

  19. 19.

    Roger Moore

    February 5, 2016 at 6:00 pm

    @JCJ:
    I assume it’s a question of efficiency. Adding a capability like radiation treatments has a big up-front cost for the facilities and then a relatively low incremental cost. Once they’ve paid to bring the capability in house, they’ll try to maximize utilization to get the most from their capital investment. That means forcing everyone who lives within range to get their treatments there rather than continuing to contract out.

    Also, IIRC, there’s a quality advantage to having a lot of patients. You really want to see the specialist who has a full schedule because they get better with practice and are more likely to be able to spot rare symptoms and side effects. It’s a case where the economics and medicine align.

  20. 20.

    Germy

    February 5, 2016 at 6:01 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, that’s what I was thinking of. The Red Face test. Attorney-client privilege? A press secretary and a state official.

  21. 21.

    Kay

    February 5, 2016 at 6:05 pm

    @Redshift:

    “Privatization” doesn’t poll well, so conservative groups insist that their privatization schemes aren’t actually privatization.

    True. But. The p-word is all over the place now, so they lost that battle :)

  22. 22.

    ThresherK

    February 5, 2016 at 6:07 pm

    “Concerned Veterans for America”?

    Gawd that name’s a giveaway. Is there any “Concerned (noun) for (America-Liberty-Freedom)” that isn’t totally for shite?

  23. 23.

    JCJ

    February 5, 2016 at 6:09 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    True, but some of the incremental costs for the patients at the VA included staying in the hospital for the weeks of treatment – they would come in on Monday and stay through Friday and go home over the weekend – might have been overlooked. Some of them liked it (a free one week stay in the Indianapolis VA!) It wouldn’t take very many hospital acquired pneumonias to blow up the cost savings.

    I don’t know if they still do this – I finished residency nearly 23 years ago. (I am getting old!)

  24. 24.

    Geeno

    February 5, 2016 at 6:10 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: That is hysterical – thank you

  25. 25.

    Some Guy

    February 5, 2016 at 6:10 pm

    good news out of Syria today, looks like al Qaeda is being driven out of Aleppo.

    Thanks, Putin!

  26. 26.

    Baud

    February 5, 2016 at 6:15 pm

    @ThresherK:

    Is there any “Concerned (noun) for (America-Liberty-Freedom)” that isn’t totally for shite?

    I’ll have you know that Concerned Juicers for Baud! is an outstanding organization.

  27. 27.

    FlipYrWhig

    February 5, 2016 at 6:17 pm

    @ThresherK: Didn’t the Kochs create all of the Concerned groups? (The Concerned expanded universe?)

  28. 28.

    Baud

    February 5, 2016 at 6:18 pm

    @Redshift: It’s not private of it’s funded with taxpayer dollars, naturally.

  29. 29.

    Southern Goth

    February 5, 2016 at 6:31 pm

    @Baud:

    I trust that your campaign is not coordinating with them. That would be totes illegal.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    February 5, 2016 at 6:34 pm

    Holy crap, strong earthquake in Taiwan topples entire buildings.

  31. 31.

    Mike in NC

    February 5, 2016 at 6:35 pm

    @ThresherK: First read about these CVA frauds a few years ago. Their only concern is that the Kochs aren’t making more money.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    February 5, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    @Southern Goth: Only if I lose.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    February 5, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    @efgoldman: Part of me anyway.

  34. 34.

    gratuitous

    February 5, 2016 at 6:38 pm

    Restructuring the VA as an “independent entity.” I wonder if the Concerned Veterans of America can tell us just what that means? Would this “independent entity” answer to any cabinet level officers? Or to Congress? Or to any governmental agency at all? Or would it become a non-government entity, more popularly known as a private company?

    But one thing’s for damn sure: The Concerned Veterans of America is going to lash back at any suggestion that their scheme can be characterized as “privatization.” And no, you libruls don’t need to know who’s funding the Concerned Veterans of America because free speech.

  35. 35.

    ThresherK

    February 5, 2016 at 6:38 pm

    @Baud: What’s this I hear about you mixed up with steroid freaks?

    PS CVA reminds me of Stan Freberg’s “Daddies for a Decent America” from the 1950s.

  36. 36.

    WereBear

    February 5, 2016 at 6:38 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Yeah. They are not going to fix anything. They are just “concerned.”

  37. 37.

    Cacti

    February 5, 2016 at 6:40 pm

    Breaking on CNN.

    Turns out The Bern lurves him some of that dirty, dirty, big donor money after all:

    In recent years, Sanders has been billed as one of the hosts for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s retreats for the “Majority Trust” — an elite group of top donors who give more than $30,000 per year — at Martha’s Vineyard in the summer and Palm Beach, Florida, in the winter. CNN has obtained invitations that listed Sanders as a host for at least one Majority Trust event in each year since 2011.

    The retreats are typically attended by 100 or more donors who have either contributed the annual legal maximum of $33,400 to the DSCC, raised more than $100,000 for the party or both.

    Sanders has based his presidential campaign on a fire-and-brimstone critique of a broken campaign finance system — and of Hillary Clinton for her reliance on big-dollar Wall Street donors. But Sanders is part of that system, and has helped Democrats court many of the same donors.

    On the plus side, Bernie does raise money for the party, so good on you Bernie.

    On the down side, the reasons for his total lack of colleague endorsements keep getting clearer.

  38. 38.

    A Ghost To Most

    February 5, 2016 at 6:43 pm

    @Baud:

    I’m confident they’ll keep this pledge if the Republicans win the White House.

    Angling for a VP slot?

  39. 39.

    Felonius Monk

    February 5, 2016 at 6:45 pm

    We should withhold further judgement of Bernie until we see his performance on SNL tomorrow night.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    February 5, 2016 at 6:47 pm

    @Baud:

    I read that they want to privatize this blog and make us pay on a per-comment basis.

    Supposedly that is what the long-rumored “new comment system” is all about.

  41. 41.

    jl

    February 5, 2016 at 6:47 pm

    @Doug R:

    ‘ Bernie won six of seven recorded “coin tosses” ‘

    Huh? I read that HRC won six of six coin tosses. I guess the reporting is not very solid on that.

    Major scandal alert! Audit the Iowa Caucus!

    Glad both Dem candidates are wise enough to, more or less at least in public, blow it off.

  42. 42.

    FlipYrWhig

    February 5, 2016 at 6:48 pm

    @Cacti: Yeah. Actually I can’t fault him for any of that. He’ll probably say he was doing the bare minimum, grudgingly, and it wasn’t for the fattest of the fat cats.

  43. 43.

    jl

    February 5, 2016 at 6:50 pm

    @Baud:

    ” I’ll have you know that Concerned Juicers for Baud! is an outstanding organization. ”

    But remember what that old sayings, Baud helps those who help themselves, and vice versa.
    I help Baud! best by wisely conducting my own ‘party activities’.

    Right, Baud?

  44. 44.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 5, 2016 at 6:54 pm

    Holy crap, just saved a woman’s life. She was choking on an olive. Yikes.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    February 5, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone): Balloon Juice will be the next LinkedIn.

    @FlipYrWhig: Agree.

    @jl: I don’t know who you are, stranger.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    February 5, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Cool. Glad you acted before posting about it online.

  47. 47.

    Cacti

    February 5, 2016 at 6:57 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Yeah. Actually I can’t fault him for any of that. He’ll probably say he was doing the bare minimum, grudgingly, and it wasn’t for the fattest of the fat cats.

    Does it make him a bad guy? Nah. Just playing the game the same way everybody else does.

    Just makes him look like a prig for pretending that he was above such tawdry debasing of our national politics.

  48. 48.

    jl

    February 5, 2016 at 6:58 pm

    @Cacti: I see this as a Bernie BS non-scandal scandal. I suppose the corporate media think that every Democratic candidate has to have one.

    The idea that Sanders is hypocritical by not using the current public financing system (that would doom his campaign to complete irrelevance) is complete BS. A stupid media hypocrisy gotcha.

    Maybe more meat in fact that Sanders has in the past played ball with the Democrats in fund raising.

    But, as I understand it, Sanders has made a big deal out of not using what he considers a corrupt financing system for HIS CURRENT presidential campaign. And he has done something unprecedented with his small donor effort.

    But if he has said he has always been completely independent and pure as the driven snow since forever, and never ever touched our questionable political financing system, that would be another thing. And I don’t know that answer to that question.

  49. 49.

    jl

    February 5, 2016 at 7:01 pm

    @Baud:

    Be careful, buddy. You might have your own campaign hypocrisy scandal to deal with. I have hard evidence that despite his most prominent policy positions, a certain candidate has stayed sober, non-stoned, chaste, non-gluttonous and out of the c A $ I nos for hours at a time.

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    February 5, 2016 at 7:02 pm

    @JCJ:
    I live in the LA area and while there are two clinics within reasonable distance the hospital is across town. So any major procedures I have to go there. And they, like many providers, do not do everything. So if you need a very special procedure, they send you there, outside the VA system. Not all that uncommon in the VA system in a rather large demographic area and in a smaller demographic area I’d bet it is even more common. I occasionally talk to people who have traveled over 100 miles to see a specialist because their local clinic can not handle their needs and that’s at my local clinic, not the main hospital.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    February 5, 2016 at 7:08 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Good job!

    Olive? Must be martini time.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    February 5, 2016 at 7:09 pm

    This is (hopefully) fatal to the deal:

    Sen. Rob Portman, a former U.S trade ambassador, announced Thursday that he opposes a sweeping 12-nation Pacific Rim trade agreement, dealing a setback to a deal that is seen as a key part of President Obama’s economic legacy.
    Portman, who served as the top U.S. trade official under President George W. Bush, was seen as a potential ally for the Obama administration. Last year he voted for legislation to grant Obama fast-track trade negotiating authority. That bill, considered a bellwether of support for the trade agreement itself, passed on a 62 to 37 vote in May.
    “I cannot support the TPP in its current form because it doesn’t provide that level playing field,” Portman said in a statement. “I will continue to urge the Obama administration to support American workers and address these issues before any vote on the TPP agreement.”

  53. 53.

    trollhattan

    February 5, 2016 at 7:16 pm

    And then there were seven.

    Edgar Mitchell, sixth man on the moon, has died.

  54. 54.

    FlipYrWhig

    February 5, 2016 at 7:19 pm

    @Kay: Was it right to presume that the vote on the fast-track authority piece would be a “bellwether” for the agreement itself? I heard that a lot at the time but I wasn’t ever exactly sure why.

  55. 55.

    Anoniminous

    February 5, 2016 at 7:19 pm

    @Kay:

    Good.

  56. 56.

    Console

    February 5, 2016 at 7:22 pm

    The house republicans currently have a bill to privatize air traffic, and they’re utilizing the same “it’s not privatization, we’re just handing the government agency over to a private company” rhetoric.

  57. 57.

    jl

    February 5, 2016 at 7:23 pm

    @Germy: I don’t think there is any unprecedented panic collapse of non-oil commodity prices, and large price declines for those are pretty bad predictors for recession in the past. State of macroeconomic demand and investment cycle are better explanations.

    And, I think in this case, I think weak macroeconomic demand, and low point in a huge investment cycle is best explanation for collapse of oil prices. Let’s see what the price of oil is in 2 to 5 years after current wave of disinvestment works its way through the supply chain.

    Not sure how a high dollar is supposed to drive down commodity prices for whole world economy, anyway.

    I think some banksters need to scare up some business shuffling investments.

  58. 58.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 5, 2016 at 7:23 pm

    Of course they still support privatization. They just don’t like it being pointed out that’s what they are doing. Just semantic gaming, like Politifact’s asinine whopper of the year was Obama truthfully saying that Rmoney wanted to eliminate Medicare, because he wanted to create something entirely new but call it Medicare.

  59. 59.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 5, 2016 at 7:28 pm

    @jl:

    Huh? I read that HRC won six of six coin tosses. I guess the reporting is not very solid on that there are some very dishonest people in the Sanders campaign pushing dishonest stories to try to deny legitimacy to the results.


    Fixed that for you.

    The Des Moines Register collected reports from six different precincts that resorted to coin flips—and Clinton won all of them. But Sam Lau, a spokesman for the Iowa Democratic Party, said that Sanders fared better in the games of chance that were reported through the party’s official mobile app. He won six of those seven coin flips—a fact that underlines how incomplete the available data remains, and the likelihood that a full accounting of all the coin flips on Monday night would yield a more even result than initial reports suggested.

  60. 60.

    jl

    February 5, 2016 at 7:29 pm

    @Kay: Hope it goes down. If Obama really wants it, then back to the bargaining table, eh?

    If people are afraid that the US will be ‘left behind’ if we don’t pass the TPP, they should calm down. This agreement is not big relative to emerging, low and middle income economies of the world. As I read someplace, it is ‘big’ in the same sense that opening a post office is big in the US because the US is a big part of the world economy.

    If the US does not want to be left behind somehow, best thing to do is for the US to go back to real global multi-lateral trade negotiations, which have been abandoned in favor of these gimmicky deals that involve a few large economies and a few lower and middle income economies.

    But it is harder to push US corporate friendly trade deals when countries like Brazil, India, So Africa, and others have a place at the table, and they have more capacity to say ‘no thanks’.

  61. 61.

    jl

    February 5, 2016 at 7:30 pm

    @Bobby Thomson: thanks.

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    February 5, 2016 at 7:31 pm

    @Console:
    Then the private company can do like Delaware North Corp did with Yosemite when they lose their rebid and sell the trademarks on “airplane” “airport” “baggage” and “runway” back to the government for millyuns of dollars.

  63. 63.

    Ksmiami

    February 5, 2016 at 7:32 pm

    @jl: ding ding ding. Please ignore the screaching- they know nothing.

  64. 64.

    jl

    February 5, 2016 at 7:39 pm

    @Ksmiami: There are some very early signs of recession in US economy, but these are signals for three to four years out. More like signs of late stage of expansion, and not nearly precise enugh for any kind of investment timing. But they have nothing to do with the bankster mumbo-jumbo in Germy’s post.

    If you look at Economist View and Econbrowser blogs have some commentary on recession forecasts in recent weeks.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    February 5, 2016 at 7:40 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Was it right to presume that the vote on the fast-track authority piece would be a “bellwether” for the agreement itself? I heard that a lot at the time but I wasn’t ever exactly sure why.

    Oh, I think so. It won’t matter at all if they vote for the actual agreement. The distinction between “fast track” and “TPP” won’t get thru to voters. They took the risk when they voted for fast track.

    Portman is (somewhat) legit on this. He and Sherrod Brown have worked on currency manipulation together so maybe he believed he could get somewhere with that in return for the fast track vote.

    I’m also pleased because to me it means Portman thinks he’s vulnerable. He’s up for election and Ted Strickland will be the Democratic opponent. Strickland was kind of a weak governor and not much of anything in the House but he would be much better than Portman in the Senate. Clinton will be on the top of the ticket with Strickland so hopefully it will be like the Obama/Brown match up in 2012, which was almost too perfect :)

    Strickland was, famously, a big Clinton backer in ’08 so they’re a good team.

  66. 66.

    sparrow

    February 5, 2016 at 7:42 pm

    @Bobby Thomson: None of the claims about coin flips came from the Sanders campaign. I only saw the claims on regular media — and they were corrected reasonably fast (however inexcusable it was that they indulged in such sloppy reporting). I’ll even buy that they “made a mistake” and didn’t gin up controversy over nothing on purpose, simply because first reports of any event are practically always crap.

  67. 67.

    mclaren

    February 5, 2016 at 8:19 pm

    Oh, I thought CVA stood for “Confederate Version of America.”

    My bad.

  68. 68.

    mclaren

    February 5, 2016 at 8:25 pm

    @Cacti:
    So let’s see…when Bernie Sanders cooperates with other Democrats and helps the Democratic party, he’s a corrupt thug who loves him that dirty, dirty, dirty big donor money.

    But when Bernie Sanders refuses to allow donations from giant corporations or wealth billionaires in his presidential campaign, he’s an evil hypocrite.

    Well, okay, then! Heads I lose, tails you win!

    And by the way, when you refuse to denounce this hit piece on Bernie Sanders it proves you’re part of the corrupt inside-the-Beltway hack establishment…but if you do denounce this hit piece on Bernie Sanders you’re just cleverly trying to draw attention to the charges because you know what matters isn’t calling a candidate a pig-fucker, it’s making him deny it.

    And if you beat your wife, you’re a terrible person, but if you don’t beat your wife it’s because you’re impotent and too much of a girly-man to get frustrated about it, and that’s even worse.

  69. 69.

    LanceThruster

    February 5, 2016 at 8:35 pm

    There were election nigjt irregularities that had nothing to do with the coin flips.

  70. 70.

    mclaren

    February 5, 2016 at 8:50 pm

    Meanwhile, more proof that Richard Mayhew is lying to you:

    Robert Reich: The Washington Post is lying to you about Bernie Sanders.

    Yesterday the editorial board of the Washington Post charged that Bernie Sanders’s health-care plan rests on “unbelievable assumptions” about how much it would slash health-care costs without affecting the care ordinary Americans receive.

    The Post claimed that countries with the kind of single-payer plans Sanders likes “ration care in ways that federal health programs in the United States … do not.”

    We can debate specific numbers, but the Post’s unstated assumption – that the quality of health care received by Americans is superior to the quality received by, say, Canadians, from their single-payer, mostly publicly-funded system – is not borne out by evidence.

    Despite the fact that Canada spends only 10.4 percent of its GDP on health care in contrast to 16 percent of GDP in the United States, Canadians enjoy lower rates of infant mortality and longer life expectancy than citizens of the United States.

    When far-right billionaires lie, Richard Mayhew rushes to parrot whatever they say.

    John Cole, you need to shut Mayhew down and throw him off your front page. And you need to do it stat.

  71. 71.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 5, 2016 at 8:52 pm

    @mclaren: mmm, pie.

  72. 72.

    gwangung

    February 5, 2016 at 8:55 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: You know, anyone who thinks EWF is crud is automatically suspect.

  73. 73.

    Glidwrith

    February 5, 2016 at 9:29 pm

    @mclaren: Good Lord, every once in a while you make a comment that makes sense then you spew bilge like in the EWF thread. Lemon pie, stat!

  74. 74.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 5, 2016 at 9:53 pm

    @sparrow:

    None of the claims about coin flips came from the Sanders campaign.

    Maybe not, but Sanders people pushed them to the point where they are now zombie lies, like Al Gore inventing the Internet.

  75. 75.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    February 5, 2016 at 10:16 pm

    @jl:

    And he has done something unprecedented with his small donor effort.

    You’re completely overlooking Baud!”s campaign.

  76. 76.

    bk

    February 5, 2016 at 11:02 pm

    @mclaren: Not sure who “Christ, what an asshole” is more appropriate for. You, or srv.

  77. 77.

    Cacti

    February 6, 2016 at 12:17 am

    @mclaren:

    Have you ever considered switching to decaf?

    No, of course you haven’t. ;-)

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