I tapped out last night and didn’t watch the debate. As I noted on twitter, this primary has been so long, there have been so many town halls and so many debates and so much coverage that I feel like I am being politically waterboarded. And for what? I don’t get to vote until May 10th, and unless the Clinton campaign really blows their so-called southern firewall, my vote isn’t going to matter one bit.
So it’s very easy, and I understand this, for me to just sit back and snipe from the sidelines, because my choice is much easier- my real vote comes in the general between whichever Democrat wins and whatever primordial sludge the Republicans belch forward. I guess that gives me a different perspective on the primaries that not every one has.
With that perspective, though, comes a healthy amount of disgust at the diehards on both sides. There are enough reasons to vote for Bernie Sanders that you don’t have to pretend that those gun votes aren’t troubling. You don’t have to pretend that the fact he is an admitted Democratic socialist isn’t going to be very problematic in the general.
Likewise, the shamelessness of the same people who have been for years screaming about the corrupting influence of money re: Citizens United don’t get to pretend there isn’t something a little unseemly about the Clinton speech fees. You don’t have to pretend that Hillary “wasn’t sure” she was going to run in 2016. She was, everyone knows it, and she made all those speeches in an attempt to cash in while she could. You probably would, too.
And then there is just this kind of complete stupidity:
Can someone explain to me how this is any different from James Inhofe going onto the floor of the Senate and waving around a snowball to deny climate change or a lily white wingnut stating that racism is dead? Because it isn’t.
Grumble piss moan.
Mike J
Has Yglesias ever written anything that wasn’t a slatepitch?
nutella
Man, punditry is an easy job. No need to look for any evidence at all about infrastructure problems! Just say your commute today didn’t have any infrastructure problems and you’re done.
Luthe
Wait until Matt hits a pothole in his bike lane.
Villago Delenda Est
Someone was not driving over the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis during the evening rush hour on 1 August 2007.
raven
A bitch ain’t it?
WarMunchkin
Watching Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein is like viewing a real-time documentary about how villagers are made.
Flounder
It was like a week ago that Matt Y was complaining that infrastructure like sidewalks was insufficiently shoveled and it interfered with him pushing his baby stroller a few blocks.
Chris
The campaign has been running for so long, part of me still can’t believe that the other day was the very FIRST actual primary of the season.
p.a.
Fixt.
pacem appellant
Shit like that is why I de-listed Yglesias from my daily feed. I live in a place with pretty good infrastructure, some decent public transportation, and lots of sprawl. I seldom have to drive on roads with major potholes or on bridges on the verge of collapse. But just because I live in a bubble doesn’t mean I assume that everyone everywhere does as well! It ain’t hard to READ THE NEWS and see roads crumbling, bridges falling down, sewer overflows, and gas pipes leaking.
Kropadope
…unless you don’t actually agree with Democratic orthodoxy on gun control.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Clintons’ speech business is a mess, and the family charity has always been a too big to explain– thought Bubba should have been out there six months ago talking about whatever good he can say; she should be able to at least pretend to brag about donating that GS fee. She should have kept both at arm’s length. She didn’t.
She’s still the best candidate the Dems have.
ice weasel
It’s nice to see that Ygelsias has grown from a tepid, at times stupid writer into a full blown fucking idiot. I’ve never liked many of that group of young political writers because, mostly, they were the same hacks they complained about, just not as well employed (when they started).
Eric U.
I used to like Yglesias, now I realize it was just making me stupider. One of the good things Rendell* did was to start rebuilding all the bridges, our bridges here in town were rebuilt one by one, and it was really annoying. The fact that it takes a special effort to get that maintenance done tells me that the red states are literally going to have crumbling bridges soon. And the rural roads in eastern Pennsylvania are literally crumbling due to the last 3 winters. I wonder if they will ever be back to normal.
*of course, Rendell wanted to sell I80, but fortunately that got defeated
SP
Yggle’s attitude perfectly illustrates the campaign finance and paid speeches issue. I feel like Bern missed a chance to frame it much more strongly. No one is accusing politicians of taking bribes for specific actions because that is still illegal and (almost) no politicians are dumb enough to get caught in a quid pro quo. The system is so insidious because it operates at almost a subliminal level. Just as Harvard MattY has trouble imagining problems beyond his own routine existence, politicians spend so much time with the donor class that problems affecting non-donors just aren’t on their minds. Sure, they can respond to specific constituents or crises but on a daily basis when they want to know about industry or finance or healthcare they think, “Who do I know in this area? Oh yeah, Richie Rich who called me last week to support my campaign!” Or they’ll remember the conversation at Davos they had about the little known problems with labor organizing. I can’t call up my Senator or Congresswoman and have a 10 minute chat about what’s on my mind and get some issue on their radar, but you know Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon* sure could.
*I am proud to report that I couldn’t remember Dimon’s name but was able to quickly find it by googling “whining banker CEO feelings hurt.”
singfoom
I’m tired too. As for Matt Y, fer gawdsakes man, you’re a journalist. You should at least have a minimal grasp of basic logic.
“I don’t see thing A in my day to day life.” != (Does not equal) “Thing A does not exist in general.”
It’s actually more embarrassing than Inhofe because I have slightly higher expectations for journalists than Congressreptiles.
Villago Delenda Est
@pacem appellant: Not to mention water supplies being poisoned due to depraved indifference on the part of elected officials.
NotMax
Ostrich ontology.
Kryptik
I swear there was a time where Matt Yglesias wasn’t so completely oblivious and self-centered. Was that just my imagination, or has he actually become more intractably narrow minded as the years have gone by?
Just Some Fuckhead
Thank you, John. Both Sides needed a stern talking to. You should have signed it Zombie David Broder for maximum effect.
The Other Bob
As a person who wanted a valid third choice in this primary, I am With John. I am somewhat baffled by the rhetoric of the Clinton and Sanders camps.
Its kinda how, as an atheist, I look at two religions squabbling and just think: you are both nuts.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Kryptik:
He’s always been privilege-blind.
gvg
Not only do we need to repair, we actually need to replace. Our internet is too slow compared to world wide for instance.
Mike in DC
Bernie’s support for the gun lobby is concerning, albeit unsurprising. Dean had a similar issue in 2004. He probably has taken a few other votes which render him less than 100% pure. And it will be a major uphill climb to sell a 74 year old Jewish socialist to the general electorate.
On the flip side, Clinton too often tries to have it both ways. This tendency toward political expediency, over cautiousness and too cute answers to difficult questions is at the root of the distrust that exists for her. And yes, some of it would still exist, absent any right wing noise machine.
Downpuppy
Might be worth making a list of Most Worn Out Infrastructure in the US
Things like the Flint water supply & the MBTA Orange line
Popular Mechanics did this, but put it out as an annoying clickbait.
Betty Cracker
It’s weird for me being mostly neutral in this primary; I usually have strong feelings one way or another. But here I am feeling like Swiss Miss-Iowa Corn Queen. One thing that’s crystal clear with the view from the fence: There are raging assholes on both sides. If we didn’t need their votes, I’d wish they’d self-deport to Wingnut Land. But we do. Le sigh.
schrodinger's cat
Does MattY travel by air? So many of our airports look so decrepit, like they haven’t been updated since the 70s.
I am talking of airports that serve major cities like Philly, SF, Boston etc., not some tiny town in the middle of nowhere.
raven
say it after me
s
u
p
r
e
m
e
c
o
u
r
t
the rest is bullshit
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: You seem a little Bernie curious from your recent FP posts and comments but not a full fledged Berniebot.
Barbara
@WarMunchkin: Okay. You win!
Villago Delenda Est
@Kryptik: You have to be that way to be a card-carrying Villager. Hence my nym.
pacem appellant
@Villago Delenda Est: LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU! (That’s my impression of Matt Y)
I have vivid memories of the ’89 earthquake that struck the Bay Area. We lost an entire freeway and sections of a major bridge. The former was never rebuilt and the latter was replaced just last year (granted, it took several years to built that new eastern expanse).
Along the peninsula, we had a major gas explosion not too long ago due to PG&E spending too much money on making sure it shitty state propositions fail than on infrastructure upgrades. No more explosions since then, thank the Maker, but we’ve had plenty of gas leaks that don’t make national headlines because no one died.
But the bathrooms at my public park suck. And I drove over a pothole on 101 yesterday. So everything must be peachy.
Villago Delenda Est
@gvg: If only we’d let Comcast and Verizon meter it, we’d get a faster internet.
I also believe in unicorns.
Kropadope
Quinnipiac has the nation-wide polling at 44% Clinton, 42% Sanders. This is a two percent separation and a closure of 29% since their last poll in December. Keep it up Bernie!!!
singfoom
@Mike in DC:
So, as a not-all-guns-hating voter whos always voting D, I have a question. Can we not come to some sensible compromise with guns?
I grew up in a rural area and I’ve lived in multiple large cities and the surrounding metro areas. I am firmly convinced that you need gun control in metro areas.
On the other hand, from a realistic political perspective, if you frame it “ALL GUNS ARE BAD”, you lose a lot of people in rural areas that have a cultural affinity / identity that includes guns.
So, isn’t a Democratic candidate who recognizes the hunting rural culture and understands it AND sees the need for stricter gun control in larger urban areas a positive rather than a negative? Maybe it’s that that nuance is lost in the general regardless.
pacem appellant
@NotMax: Do you mind of I steal “Ostrich Ontology”?
brendancalling
@pacem appellant: Matt should come drive in Philadelphia.
gogol's wife
@nutella:
This is the kind of faulty reasoning I just spent 80 minutes talking about with freshmen — using a 1977 high-school textbook chapter on logic — it was news to some of them (certainly not all), but hasn’t reached the punditry. In fact, in discussing various types of faulty reasoning, I found myself using examples from politicians and journalists more than anything else.
benw
Matt’s sure all that glitters is gold
And he’s buying a stairway to heaven
Guachi
Exactly how much money should she have earned in a speaking fee? Is your objection that she made too much money? That she was in such demand that she could command high fees?
Maybe she should have only charged 70% of what she could have. Would that have satisfied you?
Barbara
@Mike in DC: My issue with Sanders honestly has nothing to do with his gun votes. My issue has to do with here’s a guy who has been cozy in the Senate for 25 years and has never even tried to build a coalition or move the Democratic Party in a leftward direction. At some point, purity is not much more than a proxy for the ivory tower luxury of someone who doesn’t seem to take a lot of risks for what he believes in. He is sincere. Hell, I wish there were more senators like him. But one reason there are not is because people like him have not tried to make it so. I foresee more of the same with him as president (which I don’t think he would actually get to be). Just some guy railing against realities he doesn’t like.
Emma
@raven: Thank you!
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: Actually, I’m listing a bit toward Clinton. But I like both.
gogol's wife
@raven:
Yep.
MattF
@Kryptik: Yglesias has always been pretty good on economics– otherwise he’s in the ‘wrong all the time’ club.
Michael Bersin
@raven: This.
I still have a t-shirt from the 2000 LA DNC: “It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.”
Barbara
@raven: Especially since some of the worst features of money in politics are attributable to a few execrable Supreme Court decisions. They can only be reversed with new justices. That’s the only way I can see to start turning the campaign finance and too much money in politics ship around. Sanders has to know this, he has been around forever. Until that happens, everyone’s hands are tied.
singfoom
@Guachi: You’re aware that the criticism isn’t about the amount of money, but who it comes from, right?
It’s hard to say you’ve been hard on a given industry when you’ve taken $600K in speaking fees for a well known firm in that industry.
Sure, it’s not a quid pro quo, but it’s hard to square with “I told Wall Street to cut it out.”
Kay
I disagree. I think it’s a debate about the direction of the Democratic Party and while it would be nice if it all were issues-based and serious, that never happens because people are fractious and they get mad.
I’m kind of baffled with I see as this firm conviction that Democrats never engage in low brow economic populism. They sure as hell do and part of it depends on where they’re running and who they’re running against. President Obama’s re-elect in Ohio in 2012 was probably 80% economic populism against Mitt Romney. Everyone cheered at the time at ads like the famous “Build A Stage” and, incidentally, it worked.
No one was claiming then Obama was trying to reach “Reagan Democrats” or “Berniebros” or whatever. In fact, we were all pleased because it looked like lower income women were drawn to it. Priorities USA isn’t some far Left group and that ad was a straight up, brutal, class war populist appeal. That wasn’t isolated. It was 80% of the campaign. Hillary Clinton ran as the populist, kitchen table candidate against Obama in this state in ’08. She basically ran against trade deals for 2 weeks prior to the vote.
I get that this is all relative, and Sanders is running an essentially two issue campaign and his language is much more intense, but these ARE Democratic positions and they deploy them freely when there’s a particular state or a particular group of people they’re after.
schrodinger's cat
Speaking of infrastructure, why is Balloon Juice taking forever to refresh? I have been noticing it since yesterday.
msdc
I was told that there were no debates and that nobody would ever see them because the DNC is totally in the tank for $hillary.
drdavechemist
@raven: If by “the rest” you mean all the down ticket races, it’s not b.s., but it is probably going to take several election cycles and a lot of hard work by purple state D candidates and their supporters to make any real progress.
Kropadope
@Barbara:
So, because the media ignored his efforts on things such as the Iraq War, Wall St. reform, and VA reform; or because these things somehow otherwise escaped your attention, that means they didn’t exist?
Aaron Morrow
“Are there no potholes” on the roads anymore? Five years ago, when Yglesias deigned to notice the roads crumbling beneath his car:
“Increased Public Employment Is Unlikely, But Not Undesirable” by Matthew Yglesias, 9/22/11
Anyway, I’m totally enjoying the policy aspects of the primary. I think we’ve got some good candidates, and that the two remaining are both good candidates for President. Even though I did nothing, I’m proud as a Democrat and will proudly vote for either one come November.
Yglesias can drink his own tap water, but doesn’t need to do so.
Hillary Rettig
What boggles me are the people who actually wouldn’t themselves take a dime from Goldman Sachs etc. saying it doesn’t matter that Hillary did. And I know plenty of them.
Or the gays supporting her when until very recently she didn’t support them. Or the blacks overlooking her and Bill’s checkered past on race.
It’s one thing to say (per Raven) it’s all about the Supreme Court. I get that. But to pretend Clinton’s some kind of moral or progressive paragon when she’s clearly not – that I don’t get.
There is something really hard about this primary – for me it’s vehemently disagreeing with people I’ve basically agreed with 100% for years and even decades. And I know someone’s going to pop up and point out that it’s the “vehement” that’s the problem and it’s on me. That’s probably partly right, but hard not to get worked up when people are comparing her to Hermione from Harry Potter, for instance, or saying critiques of her as “establishment” are sexist.
ps Raven if you’re reading this can I use your friend’s Santa/shroom picture to illustrate a mushroom post?
The Ancient Randonneur
Someone had to write it. White America’s ‘Broken Heart’:
kindness
Welcome to California’s world John. Our primary isn’t until 6/7/16. Really our vote almost never counts and we are 12% of the nation population wise. But I do agree with your take. Any Democrat is head and shoulders above any Republican running. No question. I like Bernie but am not as sure he’d beat which ever Republican he faced. Where as I am sure Hillary would. And I’m about to pull the plug and ignore a whole bunch of my facebook peeps as they’ve become the raving loons that piss me off.
John…keep the faith. It’ll all be OK.
elmo
The privilege, it burns. The myopic blinkered self-centered narcissistic ignorance of it. [Thurston Howell voice]My roads don’t crumble, old boy [/Thurston Howell voice]
Barbara
@Kryptik: Let’s just say that Matt is the liberal version of someone who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. I think that’s a bit harsh, so maybe, Matt knows he was born on third base and tries hard to convey that he could have hit a triple if he had needed to but since he didn’t need to he is unaware how often his pronouncements belie his efforts.
TallPete
I recently started listening to Vox’s The Weeds podcast with MattY and Ezra Klein. The content of the podcast is interesting enough but MattY’s speaking style(impediment) called high rising terminal also known as upspeak, uptalk or rising inflection was enough to make me quit the podcast. It is so bad that often podcast guests are also speaking in high rising terminal by the end of the show.
If you were to read any podcast transcripts all sentences spoken would undoubtedly end with a question mark.
Cacti
@Barbara:
Bernie’s current colleagues in the Senate also appear to be getting a little fed up with his “everyone in Washington is corrupt but me” song and dance.
Members of the Dem Caucus as disparate as Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Tammy Baldwin, and Brian Schatz have made public statements telling The Bern to go pound sand.
Maybe Bernie’s total lack of endorsements to date from his Senate colleagues has as much to do with him being a self-righteous dick, as it does with Clinton being inevitable. Ted Cruz also has zero endorsements from his Senate caucus. Think about that for a moment.
MD Rackham
I was just driven down to my mailbox–it’s on the very edge of the estate after all–and I can assure you that the gold bricks paving the driveway were as shiny as ever.
Clearly the concern over “crumbling infrastructure” is overblown.
Bobby Thomson
Fifteen or so years ago, Yglesias wrote like a precocious 13-year-old who was raised as a Democrat but was Rand curious.
His writing hasn’t changed.
Brachiator
Right now, I don’t have enough reasons to vote for Sanders.
I guess that I am slightly leaning toward Hillary, but I don’t find either candidate to be all that compelling. And although I can say that I will vote for whoever ends up the Democratic nominee, I think an enthusiasm gap might be a problem unless the winning candidate can pull it all together.
Hillary Rettig
@elmo: also, presumably he’s does some international travel. you can travel to pretty much any other developed country and see exactly which ways our infrastructure sucks
mdblanche
@WarMunchkin: Gross. Can’t we just watch a real-time documentary about how sausages are made instead?
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Oh fuck off. That wasn’t both sides Broderism.
schrodinger's cat
@Hillary Rettig: For me it is simple really, I don’t trust people who promise what they can’t deliver.
Free college tuition from securities transaction taxes? Like Paul Ryan’s budget the numbers don’t add up.
Miss Bianca
@singfoom:
How about this? I too am an always-voting D who lives in rural America. And I would love to see some politician stand up on his/her hind legs out here and support Jim Wright’s proposals on gun legislation.
Basically saying to the NRA: “You know what? Your gun safety regulations are DA BOMB! Let’s make sure there are consequences for violating them!”
Once we got over the sound of all my neighbors’ (and my SO’s) heads exploding like rotten cantelopes, maybe we could have some real conversation.
raven
@pacem appellant: Losing that shit on the Embarcadero was awesome!
Barbara
@Kropadope: How is it that the media have not ignored Elizabeth Warren? I don’t expect Sanders to be a miracle worker, but I do expect that he will have a record of galvanizing the people who are needed to bring change about to try to make it happen and I don’t see it.
chopper
doesn’t yglesias live in DC? the place with potholes the size of cats?
i broke 2 bikes commuting in that city. fuck that noise.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hillary Rettig: you want a paragon or a president?
So using your narrow definition, Obama also “didn’t support” “the gays”?
So you voted for Obama twice even though he took money from Wall St ( “Goldman Sachs, et cetera”. or have you chopped it so fine to justify your purity that only direct payments directly to the candidate– which raises other questions I’m sure you’re not interested in, because Bernie!)? and, using your standards, he didn’t support “the gays” either.
Were you shocked when “the blacks” supported Al Gore, or was Bubba’s Veep somehow divorced from his “checkered past on race” in a way his wife isn’t? Wasn’t Joe Biden pretty hard core in support of those 1990s crime laws? How ever did you bring yourself to support Barack Obama when he was guilty of such tainted association?
raven
@Hillary Rettig: sure, I just googled it and it’s online so I guess it’s fair game. There is also the patch from the Son Tay Raiders “Kept in the Dark and Fed Only Horseshit“.
Kropadope
@Cacti:
That’s not what Bernie says. He says that the big donors have too much influence. That’s not even a subtle difference. These donors can have far too much influence without there being any explicit corruption or quid pro quo voting behavior.
frankly, because these donors are so important to their careers and politicians have to spend so much time seeking money, politicians are more likely to hear about, and thus consider, the priorities of this donor class. The It also makes not upsetting the apple cart into something of a career imperative.
This isn’t outright corruption and I don’t think I’ve seen Bernie ever frame it that way. That people like Hillary Clinton and the other Senators you mention would act like he did is horribly disingenuous on their parts. It doesn’t need to be outright corruption to be harmful to our democratic institutions.
WarMunchkin
@Kay:
Democratic Primary, Pick Two
* Labor
* Racial Equality
* Gender Equality
Alright, not really; but sometimes it feels like it. Sometimes.
Applejinx
@SP:
Pfft! That’s awesome. Made my day, thank you :)
Cacti
@Kropadope:
No, it shows that he’s generally ineffective in building consensus among his colleagues in advancing his policy goals.
In other words, what one would expect from a cantankerous backbencher.
TallPete
@schrodinger’s cat: “For me it is simple really, I don’t trust people who promise what they can’t deliver”
You can’t be that naive. Really. Name me any President ever that delivered on everything “promised”.
Tractarian
@schrodinger’s cat:
Do you trust Obama? If I recall, he “promised” that everyone would be able to keep their insurance under health care reform, and it would all be done without an individual mandate.
The fact is, a President is not a dictator and therefore does not have the power to keep any promise which involves legislation. All s/he can do is promise to aim for a goal and give it their best shot.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: Word.
singfoom
@Miss Bianca: Read the link, sure, I’m down with that. I like the “There are no accidents” line he wrote about there.
Thad said, I was more talking about the need for the Democrats to try and embrace rural gun culture rather than reject ALL guns out of hand as a tactical decision rather than just letting those people vote R out of identity politics.
And in that context, Bernie’s in a better position to do that than Hillary.
Right now it’s (liberals/democrats == GUNS BAD) and (conservatives/Republicans == MOAR GUNS) and you can’t get beyond that…
Cheers
scav
Seemingly there are a lot of ‘Mercans, let alone enabling Journalists, that can’t recognize quality (or the lack thereof) when then see it and thus put up with absolute shit, both in terms of roads, bridges, politicians and general social and political infrastructure, all the while waving their foam fingers shouting “We’re Number One!”
Felonius Monk
@raven: You betcha’, dude.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Effective politicians are seldom paragons of virtue. Even Gandhi who is now revered as a saintly God like figure, made political compromises, some of them unsavory.
misterpuff
Anybody that lives in an urban area sees crumbling infrastructure.
Anybody that lives in a rural area sees crumbling infrastructure.
Anybody that lives in a lower to middle class suburb sees crumbling infrastructure.
Anybody that doesn’t have blinders on.
elmo
@Barbara: Thank you for putting my vague unease into concrete and understandable terms. It’s easy to be an iconoclast and contrarian. It’s easy to be pure and above the fray – unless you actually want to get something done. If you really want results, you have to compromise. You have to build coalitions. You have to work.
NotMax
@pacem appellant
Be my guest.
beltane
I’m in the camp of wishing we had started with a bigger field of top-tier candidates. Bernie probably entered the race for the sole purpose of getting his issues out there without any expectation of doing as well in the polls as he has. It may have been a mistake to assume that all Democratic voters were passionate about Hillary’s candidacy.
A friend of mine from NH who is undecided though leaning Bernie says that the audiences at the Hillary events he’s seen are overwhelmingly made up of senior citizens which has not been the case with Democratic candidates in the past.
Chyron HR
@Hillary Rettig:
Let me guess, The Gays should be supporting Sanders because he marched with Milk?
Kropadope
@Barbara:
The media environment is a little different now than it was earlier in Sanders’s career in public life. The phenomenon of viral videos can allow someone whom the media might previously had deliberately ignored to circumvent the media’s filter. Not that they don’t try, either, television media was ignoring Bernie right up until he started polling well and the lack of coverage became completely unjustifiable.
I would also argue that Warren’s success in garnering media attention and an devout online following provided both space for Bernie in the media and a blueprint for him to take advantage of that.
Brachiator
@kindness:
This is a weird primary. Both Trump and Sanders are finding appeal as outsiders (and this is the only similarity between the two).
Much more troubling is (for now) Clinton’s apparent inability to engage younger voters. Obama had this locked up cold. This might be a significant issue in the general election.
singfoom
@scav: Not just infrastructure. Retail products, appliances, cars, internet service, etc.. etc….
Planned obsolescence and the crapification of everything is a curse.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
I understand. Bernie good, everyone else bad.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
clinton rules, dogg. clinton rules.
it’s amazing that so many of these people gladly voted for gore, kerry and obama.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m a Clinton supporter but if she can’t handle the little bit of scrutiny she’s getting from her own party, what in the world does she think the general election is going to be like? Now that she’s firmly established her credentials on behalf of the 1% and doesn’t have to worry about that vote, when is she going to pivot to the people who aren’t doing so well in the new economy? A lot of these voters are the utes.
schrodinger's cat
@TallPete: I gave you a specific example of a tall promise made by Bernie and you totally change the topic. Why don’t you want to discuss Senator Sanders proposals?
Kropadope
@Cacti:
Yet, he has still been more capable of moving his legislative priorities through congress than Hillary Clinton.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
Both Trump and Sanders are finding appeal as candidates of lost status anxiety for white people. The primary difference is Trump’s appeal to overt bigotry.
schrodinger's cat
@Tractarian: Obama is not on the ballot. Let’s talk about Bernie Sanders and his plans or should I say fairy tales he tells his eager audience.
C.V. Danes
People don’t pay the money they were tossing at Clinton for speaking fees unless she was saying something they wanted to hear. I’m thinking the political fallout should the transcripts be released might be pretty substantial.
schrodinger's cat
@Kropadope: What are his legislative priorities?
He has voted to audit the Fed, to fund the minutemen and voted against immigration reform in 2007.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kropadope:
If that poll is accurate, it’s the most important story of the election so far. Don’t get too excited, though. It’s a huge outlier among other polls the last week, including a PPP the same day, which showed her steady.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
After a 25 year legislative career, how far has Sanders advanced any bill for single payer healthcare? Tuition free public college? Living wage legislation?
One need only look at how successful Congressman Sanders/Senators Sanders was at enacting the above to understand how successful President Sanders would be on the topics.
Hell, he practically acknowledges it himself when he says “revolution” is how he plans to make it happen.
FlipYrWhig
So, to people raising an eyebrow about speaking fees: what exactly do you think a paid speech involves? Speaking to an audience at Goldman Sachs isn’t being put on retainer by Goldman Sachs. Here’s an example of an event she was paid $250,000 for, in Las Vegas. It’s all sub TED talk blather. You pay a speaker so that people show up. Why does anyone think this is interesting or incriminating? Here’s a list compiled at Zero Hedge, which finds the whole thing shady. She cashed a $225K check from the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries too. And the American Camping Association. Groups with money… are willing to pay her to… speak. I doubt she says anything remotely noteworthy. Letting this be a sign of favoritism or whatever it’s supposed to be strikes me as HIGHLY misleading.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: What was it that the American Camping Association wanted to hear?
Hillary Rettig
@schrodinger’s cat: again, a reasonable / understandable viewpoint, albeit one I don’t share. i don’t understand the puffing up to of Clinton into some kind of heroine. it bugs me because absent that puffing up I don’t that the puffers would vote for her.
TallPete
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes you did. Has Bernie not delivered on that promise yet? Maybe you should vote for him and give him a chance to deliver for you.
Now, back to your ridiculously naive claim that ““For me it is simple really, I don’t trust people who promise what they can’t deliver”. I guess you don’t trust any pols.
Hillary Rettig
@FlipYrWhig: what you’re basically saying is that you don’t think money buys influence. i would beg to differ.
John D.
@Hillary Rettig: You seem to keep having the same problem. Perhaps this will help: Not everyone prioritizes things the same way.
The things you think are the priorities — like the Goldman Sachs money — are immaterial to other people. You view the simple fact that she took the speaking fee as a moral failing. That is clear from the number of times you have mentioned it and the words you have chosen regarding it. But what if I view it as possible to be paid for a service without taint? Is it inconceivable that I can look at this and see it as a speaking fee, with no quid pro quo implied? That she can get paid to speak by them, and turn around and vote for things they don’t like?
Hint: All those things are possible.
It is also supremely unhelpful to say things like “But to pretend Clinton’s some kind of moral or progressive paragon when she’s clearly not – that I don’t get.” without any sort of supporting evidence of people actually, y’know, doing that. Who is holding her up as a paragon? She’s a fucking politician. Bernie is not a paragon either. They are both paragons relative to the Republican stable, sure. SO IS INFLUENZA. It’s not a hard bar to clear.
The putting of words into others’ mouths and the passive-aggressive phrases from you are seriously off-putting. The speaking for other groups (“Or the gays supporting her when until very recently she didn’t support them. Or the blacks overlooking her and Bill’s checkered past on race.“) is another quirk of your writings that bothers me as well. I get that you don’t like Hillary. I get that you prefer Bernie. But, perhaps, you could just ask a Hillary supporter why they support her, or why they view the Goldman Sachs issue as not a deal-breaker, or any of the other topics, instead of continually telling us that you just don’t understand how people can support her.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: He moved one true “legislative priority” through Congress, the VA reform bill. Oddly enough, it got stymied by Republican opposition and had to be watered down to pass. Too bad he didn’t try POLITICAL REVOLUTION OUTSIDE MITCH MCCONNELLS WINDOW, right? Other than that he’s tucked amendments into other bills. That’s a worthy accomplishment but “legislative priority” is a bit grandiose for a characterization.
C.V. Danes
@schrodinger’s cat: Obama is indeed not on the ballot. But Clinton is running as a continuation of Obama, so yes, let’s have that discussion. How would Clinton have handled the financial collapse? How many banksters would she have added to her team? How many banksters would still be walking the streets? Probably the same as now.
Cacti
@Frankensteinbeck:
.
The Q polls were surprisingly bad in Iowa. They got Sanders’ level of support about right, but consistently underestimated Clinton’s by about 7-points based on the final results.
Kropadope
@Cacti:
Actually, you seem to deliberately misunderstand me to the point of lying on a regular basis. The fact of the matter is that I think Bernie is merely OK. Clinton (and several of her public supporters and online supporters) are out there regularly distorting facts and the candidates’ records to a degree that would make Rmoney proud. (ETA: This is the same tactic, by the way, that failed to deliver her the nomination in 08) She’s setting us on the first steps down a path to the same sort of epistemic closure that has destroyed the Republican party. You are one of the principle people here who would gladly march down that path.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
No. He may be OK on economics in the extreme abstract, but he completely ignores their interaction with politics. That’s why he winds up advocating absurd neoliberal policies that have no chance of working out as expected, e.g. instituting congestion pricing for roads and using the proceeds to fund public transportation. It’s fine theory, but we know in practice that the money will be diverted into tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy rather than anything that benefits the poor.
roricmcc
I live in D.C. and our almost meaningless primary is not until June 10. I feel your frustration, John!
Hillary Rettig
@Chyron HR: I know googling is a nightmare, so let me help you out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-novak/on-lgbt-rights-bernie-lea_b_7662682.html
Kay
@WarMunchkin:
It does feel like that sometimes, but that was never the position of the Democratic Party. They run on all those things. That’s the freaking coalition.
It’s just this race, for some reason, where economic populism must be denounced in the strongest possible terms. I love how pundits are announcing Democrats “always” supported trade deals. No, they didn’t. In fact, both Clinton and Obama ran against trade deals. If that was all wink wink, nudge nudge (and it was, obviously) maybe it’s time we got that out into the open.
For myself, I think Bernie Sanders has to come up with something to say on foreign policy other than “you voted to invade Iraq”. I couldn’t follow Chuck Todd’s question to him last night, but I had the distinct sense Bernie Sanders had no idea either. I’d like some reassurance he at least knows the various players, etc.
gogol's wife
@Hillary Rettig:
I have no illusions about Hillary Clinton. I will crawl over broken glass to vote for her.
schrodinger's cat
@Hillary Rettig: The math for his proposals doesn’t add up. I gave you one example. Math does not depend on my opinion or yours. Also, show me where I have puffed up Clinton. I just think she is better of the two to lead the charge against the GOP clown show,
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
The fucking fuck – Louisville voluntarily self-selected out of post-season play.
Fire Ramsey, the president – he’s been running this shit..
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig: The American Camping Association didn’t pay her 650K. But lets see those transcripts too, just to be fair.
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig: What I’m basically saying is that giving Hillary Clinton $225K to show up at your event is the same functionally as giving Snooki from Jersey Shore $32K. This “access” thing is total manufactured bullshit and you can tell when you look at the whole list of speeches. She’s not being softened up for “access” by a bunch of random trade groups.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: I can’t speak for everyone, but for myself, my problem isn’t that I see a quid pro quo or something of that nature.
For me it’s something on the level of regulatory capture. Hillary has repeatedly said that she has been “tough on Wall Street” and told them to “cut it out”. These lines were present both last night and in the town hall if I’m remembering correctly.
I find it hard to square those comments with the fact that she gave multiple speeches to Goldman Sachs. The money itself doesn’t bother me. The fact that she spoke to them doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that since she has a relationship (not a close one), but one that is amicable and familiar enough that she made those speeches that I don’t think her claims of being tough on Wall Street in the past OR in the future can be taken seriously.
I think that her speaking to GS shows a shared worldview between HRC and GS that I disagree with wholeheartedly. YMMV
Cheers
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: GS paid her $225K 3 times. The American Camping Association paid her $225K once, right about the same time. TOTALLY IN THE POCKET OF BIG TENT
raven
@drdavechemist: no, all this debate yammering
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie’s ability to reform the VA’s health care system might be a good place to start connecting the dots to his ability to institute single payer.
Barbara
@Kropadope: Yeah, I know, where Sanders is concerned there are always excuses. Somehow, Ted Kennedy got a lot done during the same period of time. Or Barney Frank. Those are two models that Sanders could have emulated but did not. Even Howard Dean accomplished more in terms of galvanizing the Democratic Party than Sanders did. I don’t buy these excuses. I don’t trust Sanders’ authenticity as someone who is willing to sully himself if it means making things better for others. Now, in truth, both Kennedy and Hillary Clinton learned the hard way that’s what it took. Early in their careers they each made the best the enemy of the better and they lived to regret it. Sanders has been around long enough to know what I’m talking about and I do not believe that he gets it. He seems to think there is another way in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
Miss Bianca
@singfoom:
Well…I dunno about “embrace”. How about settling for “understand”? Or “tolerate”, even?
I mean, I have shot guns. I’m a pretty damn good shot, amazingly enough, for someone as squeamish as I am about firearms. I understand and sympathize with hunting and hunting culture. I’m all for it, even if I don’t really participate. Yet. (Except for chasing coyotes on horses, our Western-state version of foxhunting – I do do that, I confess – more for the thrill of the rough riding than the thrill of the kill, which is just as well, cuz ours always get away).
Does that mean I “embrace” rural gun culture? Not to me – YMMV. The minimum I want and expect is, as you say, that my Dem pols would say, “I get that things are different in the country than the city.” Which is why I like the idea of gun legislation that addresses the “there are no accidents” philosophy, and puts serious, savage teeth into it, rather than talk of banning specific guns or ammo.
Oh – and DON’T get caught poaching elk – that actually sank one of our most progressive Dem county commissioners out here and ruined his re-election chances, which was a damn shame. (He claimed it was an accident, and that he had inadvertantly strayed onto land outside his tag, which was likely true, but still…dumb, considering his constituency).
Cheers to you.
Matt McIrvin
So you’re saying that whether you support Bernie or Hillary, you should be OK with the accumulation of narratives that will be used to erode their support in the general election?
MattF
@Roger Moore: I agree with you– I meant ‘technical aspects of economics’, and debated with myself about whether to say that. It matters that he has some actual expertise in something– but it also matters that his politics consistently leads him astray.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
Big Scrap got deep pockets. they own her now.
schrodinger's cat
@TallPete: All politicians lie, so vote for Bernie. Is that your message?
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: Your question above was a valid one, but you’ve got to know you’re conflating two different things here:
The American Camping Association wasn’t involved in burning down the economy nor are they significant contributors in the political process like Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms are.
Watermelons to peanuts…
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom:
Why is it “amicable and familiar” those times and not every time? The only real issue is quid pro quo / lobbying / access. That’s the slimy implication. It’s a huge leap. She travels the country making stupid speeches about leadership, then cashes the check.
Cacti
@schrodinger’s cat:
The fact that Sanders has been a legislator for 25 years, and couldn’t put forward a mathematically sound proposal for single payer healthcare, is about as damning as it gets for showing that he’s running on pie in the sky.
TEL
@Barbara: This has been bothering me as well. I started out on the fence, as the increasing income inequality in our country is a huge deal for me, but at the same time I was worried about Bernie’s electability. I’ve had a chance to see and learn more about Bernie, and now I am completely a Hillary supporter.
While I worry a little that some of the sniping could result in turning the losing camp away from voting in the general election, I think overall the primary has been good so far for both candidates and made them stronger overall.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kay:
He pronounced Muslim “Moozlim”, and said that part of defeating ISIS is a battle to change the hearts and minds of Moozlims. If it wasn’t exactly that, it was just as fucking stupid.
kc
A good Twitter policy is to not follow anyone who has a blue check mark.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@TEL:
Agreed. Both candidates can definitely learn from each other’s soft spots, and will be better off for it going into the general.
Bill
This.
I don’t get to vote until April. I’m pretty sure it will be all over on the Dem side by then. Which is why I’m happy my state has open primaries.
John D.
@singfoom: That’s not how speaking fees work at all.
Speaking fees are paid to put butts in seats. Period. It’s like nobody has ever heard of the concept before.
Here’s a link to Hillary Clinton’s booking agent. She gets paid over $200K for anyone to book her. Quit inferring nefarious motives from a perfectly standard speaking arrangement.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: You can advance your priorities in big ways or small ways. From what I can tell, both Clinton and Sanders each had one biggish successful legislative push that was nevertheless watered down and insufficient to the task it was trying to tackle. His was the VA, hers was adoption. My assessment that Bernie has been more effective overall derives from three things, Bernie’s success in pushing through many small-but-relevant changes to bills, her squandering of opportunities to do big things like reform healthcare, and her tendency to keep her head down and just go with the flow when a politically perilous situation comes along.
Bills get watered down. That’s what happens when people negotiate and compromise. Bernie is more pragmatic and more prone to discuss his record of pragmatism on the campaign trail than the conventional wisdom narrative would have most people believe.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig:
Because of the outsized political influence money and more specifically 1% or .01% money has on our political system and how the financial industry has managed to drown and/or weaken proposed legislation or regulatory agencies that have oversight over them.
It’s not the speeches, it’s not the money, it’s who she talked to and their collective actions in the sphere of politics and how their agenda is NOT the agenda of the mainstreet American.
Cheers
Roger Moore
@TallPete:
James K. Polk; everyone knows he’s the only president who delivered all his campaign promises. More realistically, there’s a difference between making promises that depend on political events outside your control (e.g. need to get Congress to go along) and making promises with math that doesn’t add up. Bernie seems to be making a bunch of promises that depend on fantasy math, e.g. more savings on prescription drugs than we currently spend on them.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: OK, let me back up, then. If the criticism is “I can’t believe she took their dirty money,” that I can accept. But IMHO the criticism is meant to go far beyond that, because the two most vehement critiques of Clinton are hawkishness and coziness with Wall Street. This is supposed to be the smoking gun proving two-way coziness with Wall Street: they scratch her back and she scratches theirs. But how did she scratch their back? I’ve seen the quid, where’s the quo?
cokane
Yglesias’ twitter feed is like 99% percent nonsense from that guy, including the most cringe-inducing attempts at humor. Unfortunately, this is the case for a lot of reporters nowadays
singfoom
@John D.: I didn’t say anything about the fees. Great, she charges $200K for a speaking engagement. It’s a question of familiarity to me and it’s the individual side of regulatory capture.
I’m not imputing nefarious motives, GS is quite clear about what they are about. I can respect your difference of opinion.
It’s not a quid pro quo, it’s something much more subliminal.
Cheers
FlipYrWhig
@John D.:
I really think this is true. There’s a whole imputed structure of motives that just does not apply.
rikyrah
Wife crashes her own funeral, horrifying her husband, who had paid to have her killed
February 5 at 3:31 AM
Noela Rukundo describes her husband’s reaction when she appeared at her own funeral, after he hired a team of hitmen to kill her. Her husband, Balenga Kalala, is serving nine years in prison for incitement to murder. (Deirdra O’Regan/The Washington Post)
Noela Rukundo sat in a car outside her home, watching as the last few mourners filed out. They were leaving a funeral — her funeral.
Finally, she spotted the man she’d been waiting for. She stepped out of her car, and her husband put his hands on his head in horror.
“Is it my eyes?” she recalled him saying. “Is it a ghost?”
“Surprise! I’m still alive!” she replied.
Far from being elated, the man looked terrified. Five days earlier, he had ordered a team of hit men to kill Rukundo, his partner of 10 years. And they did — well, they told him they did. They even got him to pay an extra few thousand dollars for carrying out the crime.
Now here was his wife, standing before him. In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, Rukundo recalled how he touched her shoulder to find it unnervingly solid. He jumped. Then he started screaming.
Bill
@singfoom:
Problem is, we need uniform national gun control The piecemeal approach you suggest doesn’t work. Just ask the resident’s of Chicago, where the vast majority of guns are bought in places with less stringent controls.
Yes, we can let rural hunters own a deer rifle or shotgun, but we can’t have them buying AR15’s that wind up on city streets.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: But why isn’t it also “subliminal” when it’s random trade groups paying the same fee for (what I presume to be) the same speech?
Brachiator
@Cacti: RE: Both Trump and Sanders are finding appeal as outsiders (and this is the only similarity between the two).
This does not square with the intense appeal that Bernie is finding with some who call themselves progressive. It certainly doesn’t square with Cornell West’s support for Sanders.
It doesn’t fully square with the appeal that Sanders has among younger voters.
And isn’t it more than just anxiety over lost status? Lost jobs, lost opportunity, lost security is real not only for white people, but for everyone.
chopper
@John D.:
QFT.
Bill
@schrodinger’s cat:
Then you better vote for a Republican. Because the house isn’t flipping, and no Democrat is going to be able to deliver what she promises from the oval office.
NR
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s a disingenuous question. She won’t be in position to deliver anything until she’s president (in the unlikely event that she wins the general).
Of course, even before the speaking fees, there was her Senate vote on the bankruptcy bill.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: It’s not a quid pro quo. Let me be very clear about that.
Are you familiar with the concept of regulatory capture and how that has affected our financial system? It’s not the same as the revolving door between industry and regulatory agencies, but it’s more powerful.
Regulatory Capture on Wikipedia
It’s on that level but individually. I think by speaking to them, yes in a nutshell “Taking their dirty money” indicates a shared worldview that I find troubling and is to me the individual equivalent of regulatory capture.
Cheers
Kay
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Right, and Obama is obviously better at running all the themes together but this notion that Democrats never, ever make appeals to economic populism is just not true. That list of states where they ran the populist ads against Romney in 2012? VA, CO, OH, PA? They wanted to win those. No one was saying “oh, I wish Obama would stop with this class warfare which only appeals to the pick up trucks and guns crowd”. It’s always been a part of the Democratic sales pitch. It’s only now that it’s somehow wildly offensive or exclusionary.
DCF
This is why the Democratic Presidential nominee will win the general election…more of THIS:
A Gracious Moment At The New Hampshire Dem Debate
http://crooksandliars.com/2016/02/gracious-moment-new-hampshire-dem-debate
I’ll steal a line from Sanders’ stump speech here: ‘‘Are you ready for a radical idea?’
Let’s make it our goal – going forward – to vote in both Presidential and MIDTERMelections…if you want to realign an obstructionist and intransigent Congress, it’s a small step with the potential for positive, disproportionate result(s)….
Kropadope
@John D.:
So, people won’t show up to listen to world-famous Hillary Clinton speak unless the people who put on the show shell out half a million dollars to her first? That doesn’t seem correct.
I don’t even so much have a problem with her accepting large speaking fees. It’s more the idea that the reason they want so badly to have her there giving a speech that they’ll willingly pay 20-30 years worth of an average person’s income is that her priorities are already pretty well aligned with the priorities of the organization.
kc
@NR:
Thanks; beat me to it.
John D.
@singfoom:
You are imputing nefarious motives to Hillary Clinton in accepting the money, not to GS.
I’m not a fan of GS, but why — exactly — is it a problem for her to have been paid her speaking fee to speak to them? Why is it not a problem for her to have spoken to others for the same amount, with likely the same speech?
Without the quid pro quo, there is nothing THERE. What subliminal effect are you referring to?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kropadope: really? Goldman-Sachs supports Dodd-Frank? Id be surprised
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: But I think you’ve started with “shared worldview” and fit this into the puzzle as evidence for it. If she hadn’t gotten paid for speeches at/to Goldman Sachs you’d still think she shared their worldview.
@NR: Then talk about the bankruptcy bill, then, and not some penny ante crud about paid speeches that soften her up for later favors.
Hillary Rettig
@John D.: I appreciate your non-hostile tone (seriously). You’re wrong in assuming I’m not asking the HRC supporters what they’re about. I’m asking all the time and actually reading lots. I was asking again in my comment, albeit implicitly rather than explicitly. Grateful you took the time to answer.
I agree both are paragons compared with the Republicans. But they’re not equivalent and the differences are important and worth fighting for. The fact that “they’re both politicians and no one’s perfect” doesn’t obviate that – and for the record I don’t think Bernie’s perfect either – only way better.
Since you brought up the speeches, I have to say that your idea (if you really believe it) that millions of dollars in speaking fees is not corrupting strikes me as naive and surreal, esp. since there’s a record of her actually changing her views over time to favor the industries hiring her.
Matt McIrvin
@TEL: I’m a little worried that some of the junk people bring up in the primary is going to get used as ammunition in the general. Remember, some of the birther attacks and the “whitey tape” foolishness in 2008 originally came from unhinged Hillary Clinton supporters in the primary campaign.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope:
I showed you that list of paid speeches. Are you willing to say that her priorities are “already pretty well aligned with” every audience she got paid to address? If not, why not?
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig: Being paid to give a speech is not “hiring her.” This is infantile.
gwangung
@drdavechemist:
Long term, bottom up, grassroots effort.
I think trying to do it top down is premature, and raises chances of failure incredibly. Too, I think it’s too long for many Sanders supporters, who prefer to do something once and forget about it.
Bill
@kindness:
The polls disagree: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/
shomi
Wr0ng way Cole closet Republican is so tired of all the BS. Why can’t everyone just agree that his hero Christie is the best choice for President and be done with it.
schrodinger's cat
@Bill: Bernie’s proposals can’t be put into practice even in the best case scenario, i.e. a Democratic House and Senate, because the math doesn’t add up.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s evidence to that shared worldview and therefore evidence against the “I am have been / will be tough on Wall Street”.
Listen, don’t get me wrong, I know the bigger picture and I’ll pull the lever for HRC in November if she’s the nominee, but to me she’s a corporatist through and through. I might agree with her on social issues, but I disagree fundamentally with that wing of the party about financial issues. I can respect looking at it differently.
Cheers
kc
I’ll just leave this here.
beltane
@shomi: This is a very tired, pathetic attack. Perhaps you should have a cup of coffee and try again.
kc
Cole, if you post some pet pics I promise not to pollute the thread with political bullshit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Show me two.
and there are a lot of inconsistencies in your post@Hillary Rettig: that you should at least attempt to justify.
chopper
@Hillary Rettig:
there’s something really ironic in this statement.
LeonS
@Villago Delenda Est: Seriously. I know Yglesias is just trying to be cute about roads crumpling beneath him, but there are literal counter examples out there. Real roads crumpling beneath real people, and he misses it because it wasn’t him driving at that time and place – what an a**hole.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
I’d say it squares pretty well with Bernie losing the non-white vote in the Iowa caucuses 58-34. Or with the polls consistently showing Sanders trailing among all age groups with black voters.
Or that he tends to disregard the specific concerns of minority voters regarding institutional racism, to chase after the Reagan Democrat vote on what he (falsely) believes is a universal economic message. Economic inequality has been a daily reality for non-white Americans since the country’s founding. It only became an acute concern when the most recent system that benefited white America to the exclusion of all others started to collapse. If you make a deal with the devil, don’t be surprised when you wake up one day in hell.
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
The implication here is not that GS has ‘hired her’…it is the appearance of her being placed on ‘retainer’ by the firm that is so deeply troubling….
Aleta
Better if Matt Y said, But when I do drive, I never look at the supports under any bridges.
Barbara
@Brachiator:
No, “lost” is the adjective that makes the “not” in your sentence a lot less accurate. No truth is monolithic. Not all white people had equal opportunity or security. Not all black people or other minorities were bereft of those things. But on average it is white people who have “lost” what they perceived they had, and minorities (as well as women in a lot of cases) who have done without those things for most of their living memory. I don’t think that knowing this dictates a solution, but it does strike me that the character of the solution is quite likely to be different if you understand that some people are not simply looking to return to a status quo that was more acceptable, but to create a status quo that includes them on better terms than it did before.
WarMunchkin
@Kay: There is one thing I noticed in comments every now and then – the idea that big business interests do a better job of defending social equality than government does. On this site, I’ve seen at least two comments in the last week that said something to the effect of: government, via the Hyde Amendment, can’t guarantee abortion rights, so why should I trust a single payer plan?
I don’t know how serious people take this kind of thing – but it does give at least some “support” to a story where populism is detrimental to Democratic goals. I’m already way out of my depth talking about this, but why did Republicans (party of big business) oppose slavery during the Civil War if it granted free labor to their interests?
Separately – to your foreign policy point, is there really a foreign policy Left anymore? It seems like the choice is between aggressively bombing and moderately bombing, and I don’t think Sanders is actually interested enough to make a more dovish case.
dedc79
John, I think you’ve got it exactly backward. When November comes around, none of us have a choice of whom to vote for. Given the consistent insanity of the GOP candidates, primary season is our ONLY opportunity to make a choice.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I think this is a good explanation of what they’re talking about. You can obviously disagree that this is what this is “about” but it is what Sanders’ supporters believe it is about:
He thinks “growing”. I don’t know about that. I do think if it was just cartoonish Lefty posturing she would have been able to effectively counter by now, and IMO she’s struggling to counter.
Cacti
@kc:
Elizabeth Warren voted nay on Rand Paul’s audit the Fed bill. Bernie Sanders voted aye.
Who was wrong and why?
C.V. Danes
My question is this: when the next crash hits, who is more likely to convene an Elizabeth Warren Commission to drag the banksters asses over cut glass for the world to see, and then use the resulting popular outrage to enact some real financial reform?
John D.
@Hillary Rettig:
Here’s everything from 4/13 onwards.
Xerox. Cisco. Biotechnology Industries Organization. tinePublic. MY GOD SO MANY tinePublic entries. The American Camping Association!
You are letting your dislike of Hillary Clinton cause you to infer a shadiness to standard speaking fees. Please stop, OK? I’ve had to sit through these sorts of speeches. The words “leadership”, “forward”, and “future” feature extraordinarily prominently. These fees are not paid to the speaker for the speech, or for access, or for efforts on the company’s behalf, or even for any sort of a quid pro quo. They are paid so that the company can say “We had Hillary Clinton speak last week”, and so the attendees can say “We heard Hillary Clinton speak last week.”
That’s it.
That’s all it ever is.
Stop trying to make this something nefarious. It just isn’t.
Kropadope
@Cacti:
No farther than politicians, many of them much better politicians than Bernie Sanders, who have been pushing these same ideas for a century. He has, however, succeeded in passing measures to help make healthcare and tuition more affordable and to help improve the average worker’s earnings. You can’t judge someone entirely on their ability to achieve their farthest-reaching goals. He’s moved the ball, that counts.
I also don’t understand the fixation with the single payer thing, this idea that he will expend all the political capital he would theoretically have by being elected on a Quixotic push for single payer. When asked what his top priorities would be upon taking office; he listed infrastructure investments, climate change legislation, and Wall St. reform.
A Ghost To Most
OT :
TRUS TED
Raphael’s logo translates to ‘anal probe TED’
Redshift
John, I’m with you, only I’m in a state that actually can make a difference. (Virginia, March 1.) I’ve happily gotten involved in Democratic primaries previously, but I’m finding it hard to get motivated this time (though that’s partly because I detest phone banking and they haven’t started door-knocking yet.) Not because of “lack of enthusiasm,” but because I’m finding myself uncomfortable with the campaign fight between two candidates who I really like.
I understand that you have to draw a contrast to win, and negative campaigning works, but so many of the attacks just seem stupid to me, considering that both Bernie and Hillary have upwards of 80% popularity among Democrats. I’m not a campaign professional, so maybe the contrasts I think ought to be made are just too hard to explain to be effective.
I know intellectually that the current campaign rhetoric isn’t any worse than most primaries. Maybe I just need to convince myself that it rarely does any lasting damage, and it’s worth jumping in because work I do now will actually help to build an effective campaign organization for the fall. I’m still very excited about the general election campaign, just not about the primary.
Amir Khalid
@FlipYrWhig:
Those who were determined to smell something fishy in the fact that it costs US$225k to bring Hillary to a lecture hall near you ignored John D’s explanation the last time he presented it here in these threads. The fee reflects Hilary’s celebrity, not the significance of her words; the speeches would have been full of tedious platitudes, as he and others have said, not a presentation on How I Will Help Goldman Sachs Implement Its Plans for World Domination. It’s not unlike paying to see the Rolling Stones in the 21st century, just to see them play songs Mick and Keith wrote half a century ago.
Mnemosyne
@Tractarian:
You’re “recalling” what the right wing claimed Obama said, not what he actually said. Now what?
Cacti
@WarMunchkin:
The Republican Party was in its infancy at the time of the 1860 election.
It wasn’t until the later 1800s that they solidified their status as a handmaiden of big business.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@John D.:
Wouldn’t there be some interest by business in her take on, and insight into the state of the world, since she was you know, Secretary of State?
Betty Cracker
@WarMunchkin: That’s been bugging me too. I thought we were the walk and chew gum party!
Hillary Rettig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: here are your two:
(a) http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-gets-13-million-health-industry-now-says-single-payer-will-never
and (b) http://billmoyers.com/story/elizabeth-warren-recalls-a-time-when-big-donors-may-have-changed-hillarys-vote/
plus, she’s also flip flopping like mad between calling herself a progressive and not.
@FlipYrWhig: actually people “hire” people to give speeches all the time. google it. and btw nitpicking is infantile.
Kay
@WarMunchkin:
I don’t know anything about foreign policy so I don’t know if there’s a Left. I know there’s a “liberal interventionist” (because I read half of Samantha Powers book before I gave up) but I’m just talking about being conversant with the general terms and language re: Sanders. There’s a vocabulary associated with these areas, and it’s kind of alarming he doesn’t even seem to have the words to describe what he wants. For example, I’m pretty sure “normalize relations” is a term of art in foreign policy. It means something more than the definition of the words. I don’t know what it means but either does Bernie Sanders :)
I’m having trouble with that. He seems like a decent person so I was sort of pulling for him when he was struggling but I don’t want to have to pity these people. Can he not prepare better?
gex
Fuck Yglesias. Every day. EVERY DAY I drive over the section of I-35W in Minneapolis where the bridge collapsed.
So fuck him. Fuck the idea that if it hasn’t harmed him, it isn’t a problem. Fuck Glibertarianism. People fucking died and he still can’t admit crumbling infrastructure is a problem?
NR
@FlipYrWhig: So we can’t criticize Hillary for taking millions of dollars from Wall Street until she does something for them in return. And since she can’t possibly do anything for them unless and until she becomes president (at which point it will be too late for us to do anything about it), we just have to shut up and pretend that the people who helped her and her husband amass a $100 million fortune will have no influence over her whatsoever. Isn’t that convienent?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m fascinated by this recurring defense of Authentic-Man: He doesn’t really mean it!
The children aren’t all stirred up about incrementalism and infrastructure spending. It’s “Revolution” and free college.
gwangung
This points seems a bit over-emphasized when applied to someone who makes a living making speeches (and let’s be clear that this is a major source of their post-Presidency income). It IS a business, not just “extra” money. I think any arguments about it has to take that into account.
Barbara
@Redshift: Actually, I think it was worse in 2008 because as is the case often enough, racial undercurrents threatened to poison everything. I think a lot of people were really worried that Hillary supporters (like my mom) would not come through in the end for Obama. But they did (and I am happy to report that my mom did too, in a swing state). So, you know, don’t get too discouraged.
Turgidson
Yglesias says enough thoughtful things that I know he’s not a total dipshit, but every so often he says stuff like the tweets quoted in Cole’s post and I wonder if he drank a handle of Drano. And those tweets come from a guy who regularly has nerdgasms over transit and urban planning issues that most people find less exciting than drying paint.
I also co-sign the gist of this post. Hillary is still 95% or so to be the nominee. And she’s a good but hardly perfect candidate. She’ll probably win the presidency unless there’s an economic crisis or terrorist attack that can be pinned on Obama in October. Bernie is a good dude who has been more formidable than I would have thought, but he seems ill-suited to being the nominee or a president and I’m nervous about the idea of him being the nominee. So I guess I’m for Hillary, because we really, really REALLY have to win this fucking election. But I like them both (though I don’t like either of them half as much as I like Obama – can we haz a repeal of the 22nd Amendment?) and will eagerly vote for the Bern if he pulls this off.
But really I just don’t care very much about the day-to-day nonsense this time around.
C.V. Danes
@WarMunchkin: It is not the job of big business interests to defend social equality. The job of business, period, is to generate income within the legal structure defined by the government. If maintaining social equality is important, then that has to be defined by the government.
The government makes and enforces the rules. Whether the government is in the pocket of big business or the people, the rules come through the government.
Jinchi
@MattF:
He actually hasn’t always been good at economics. His basic math used to be pretty atrocious. But it’s the one area that I think he got better at over time.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
If he was running on his ability to work within the system to advance policy goals incrementally, it would be unfair to judge him on achieving his farthest-reaching goals. But that’s not what he’s running on.
He’s running on the promise of being a transformational candidate who can bring about a political revolution.
On that score, you can say that during 25-years in Washington, he has failed utterly to make any revolutionary or transformational changes.
gogol's wife
@C.V. Danes:
Neither, Katie.
TallPete
@Roger Moore: A man of history! Polk is indeed the most under appreciated of our presidents despite being the subject of adoring songs by They Might Be Giants. Even the Schroedingers cat lady could not support Polk however as one of his campaign promises to establish an Independent Treasury – although ultimately successful- was highly controversial. The cat lady would surely have branded candidate Polk a liar.
Matt McIrvin
@gex: Usually, the indication isn’t that the bridge is visibly crumbling underneath you, it’s that there’s a sign on top banning trucks, with a weight limit that gradually goes down and down and down. If you’re not a truck driver, you might not notice it’s there…
kc
Reading these comments, I am once again appalled at how aggressive and abusive HRC’s stans are, especially towards women commenters. I fear they are turning me off their candidate entirely. I’ll just have to vote for Jill Stein in the general.
Kropadope
@Cacti:
So, where does Teddy Roosevelt fit in?
chopper
@C.V. Danes:
first and foremost, whoever’s ground game and coattails got us a democratic-majority senate.
Roger Moore
@Kropadope:
They won’t show up to listen to her because she won’t show up to talk. She has a lot of demands on her time, and the fees are a way of keeping her speaking engagements under control. I assume she’s willing to speak for reduced or no fees as a way of supporting political or social causes, but if it’s a straight commercial transaction, she can and does demand a hefty fee.
TEL
@Matt McIrvin: In 2008 I started out as a Hillary supporter (I was worried a black man with a funny name couldn’t win the general election), and was convinced during the primary that Obama was the stronger candidate. Obama’s ability to roll with the punches, hit back when necessary, and keep his eye on what he needed to do to win the primary completely won me over. Obama was hit by far worse crap in the general election than the primary, and I think the primary helped prepare him for that.
Matt McIrvin
@TallPete: Polk’s foreign policy was one of raw imperial conquest. Highly successful, but not what you might call good.
gwangung
@kc: This is not nearly as clever as you think it is.
NotoriousJRT
@raven:
This is what gets me out there and voting.
Redshift
@Kropadope:
Weird how when Clinton says that, my Bernista friends on Facebook claim she’s against change and telling them to give up. :-)
I want both inspirational goals and incremental progress, which is more often than not how we’ve moved closer to our inspirational goals. One thing Obama and his people have been masterful at, which I don’t think gets enough publicity, is rather than making big changes in one go, setting things in motion that become very hard to stop and produce big changes over a longer time frame (and will keep doing so after he is out of office.) He has given me a new appreciation for that strategy.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This x eleventybillion.
The campus kids are “Feeling the Bern” because they’re going to get free college, at least $15 an hour for any crap job they take, and get to stick it to “the establishment” who will quake in terror at the power of their revolution.
Reality: In Bernie’s home state of Vermont, the minimum wage is $9.60 per hour, colleges charge tuition, and single payer healthcare was a dead letter.
C.V. Danes
@Matt McIrvin: Basically, you stop using a bridge when you can no longer tell what, exactly, is holding it up.
The same rule applies to finance, by the way.
Bill
@schrodinger’s cat: Bernie’s plan is to tax the shit out of us to pay for his plans. He’s a Social Democrat, it’s what required to allow for social democratic programs to work He’s not saying it now, which is untruthful, but is necessary if he wants any shot with the American voting public. Personally I’m fine with all of it, including the taxes that will be required to get it done if he were so lucky as to get it through Congress. But if his misleading statements about how he will pay for it bother you I understand that too.
My point was in response to someone who claimed she couldn’t trust someone who couldn’t deliver what was promised. Fact is neither Hillary nor Bernie are going to deliver on their promises. We aren’t voting for the best final programs, we are voting for the best starting negotiating position. Along with a final defense against a Republican Congress. (And frankly both of them will do just fine on that front.)
NobodySpecial
Why is Yglesias on the blogroll instead of the mock list? I stopped ignoring him once I read this over at Sadly, No! all those years ago:
gwangung
@Kropadope: I do a LITTLE speaker wrangling, and it’s not out of line.
I think a little reality would be helpful in discussing these matters, as opposed to ideology.
msdc
@Kay: It seriously bothered me that Chuck Todd asked Sanders about Afghanistan, twice, and both times Sanders kept talking about ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Sanders is running on two or three issues and has no depth outside them. That’s fine for a protest candidate, but a president doesn’t have the luxury of picking which two or three issues they will focus on for the next four to eight years. They have to deal with everything.
Ohio Mom
Not the prettiest side of me but I never seem to tire of people calling out Matt Y. Thanks to all of you who just made me smile in recognition. Especially liked the comment about watching a villager develop in real time.
Kropadope
@Cacti:
Aside from the fact that he routinely brings up his successes at incremental policy change on the campaign trails in during the debates. The problem is, you aren’t arguing against the real Bernie Sanders, you’re arguing against the caricature the media and the Clinton campaign are creating, much like they did to Obama.
kindness
You know who one of my personal Political heros is? Jesse Unruh. You wouldn’t know him unless you were a boomer or older out here in California. He ran a mean machine back in the day. This quote epitomises all of what a politician should be willing to do to still be a straight up person:
“If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them, you’ve got no business being up here.”
And that was from the early 70’s. Amen.
danielx
Yglesias sounds like he’s caught the Villager virus. “It’s not a problem for me, so it isn’t really a problem.”
There was a Stephen Colbert routine that went roughly like this:
We had a snowstorm here yesterday, so climate change is a hoax! Also I ate lunch an hour ago so world hunger isn’t a problem.
Guess what, Matty – people like you live in places where infrastructure is usually in reasonably good condition – until it’s not. If the water supply in your neighborhood was undrinkable, you would want to see heads on pikes.
Kropadope
@gwangung: I didn’t say it was out of line. I said that it isn’t the reason people show up to watch. I would bet the audience is mostly uninterested in how much the speaker is getting paid unless it’s so much that the speaking fees will financially hurt the organization.
Matt McIrvin
@Kropadope: That Quinnipiac poll’s sampling period overlaps with other polls that show Clinton maintaining a large national lead over Sanders. There’s no particular reason to disbelieve in Quinnipiac’s methodology, but I would suspend judgment for now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hillary Rettig: You said she has “changed position” according to who hired her. When was she for single-payer? I don’t remember “HillaryCare” as being single payer, Obamacare isn’t. I know a lot of people don’t understand the difference between universal and single payer, Sanders fudged the difference last night, and nobody seems to have notice.
You said she changed her position on based on “who hired her” so you were talking about the dread speaking fees–though I have no doubt you’ll move the goal post now– this was when she was a Senator. Elizabeth Warren says she changed he position because of a “constituency”. This is of course very different from Senator Warren opposing the medical device tax because of “a constituency”, and St Bernard voting against the Brady Bill because of “a constituency”
Kropadope
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I didn’t say he doesn’t mean it. I said that’s not where the emphasis of his campaign has been. If anything, it’s where the emphasis of his opponents have been. He wants single payer, yes, but he very clearly stated other priorities that are higher on the list, which I mentioned in the very post you were replying to, and he has good ideas for more incremental healthcare change also, like allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices like any other large buyer.
Frankensteinbeck
@singfoom:
You are absolutely correct, and that is why people keep hitting you with the campers. Who did she talk to? She talked to EVERYBODY. If she were speaking to just bankers or primarily bankers or (maybe) if they were paying her vastly more than everybody else, your argument would make sense. But she is a famous person, and a wide variety of groups want her to give them speeches. Banks are on that list.
C.V. Danes
@Bill: I’d be ok if he’d roll taxes back to Eisenhower levels…
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Teddy was an accidental President following the assassination of McKinley, who became nationally popular for his “trust-busting” rhetoric against the grain of his party. The reason for the subsequent split between the GOP and the Bull Moose Party was that Taft had gone on back to the usual handmaiden of big business policies, and TR disapproved. The end result was TR splitting the Republican vote, and Woodrow Wilson becoming the first Dem POTUS since Grover Cleveland, and only the second of the post-Civil War era.
Zinsky
Drive across the border from Blue Minnesota to Red South Dakota and the massive potholes will tell you immediately what the differences in infrastructure are when you have responsible governance vs. a reckless, cut taxes mindlessly worldview.
Kropadope
@Matt McIrvin: Even if it’s not really quite that close, it’s still significant movement in Bernie’s direction.
Kay
@msdc:
Sanders thinks corruption is central, and I do too. Not “corruption” in an actionable legal sense, people getting indicted for exchanging bags of cash for votes, but a kind of slow rot.
It genuinely worries me. I think it’s corrosive on so many levels- trust, basic functioning of government, peoples’ willingness to get involved or vote. There was a photograph the Sanders people were passing around last night that just made me sad. It was Howard Dean (who is a lobbyist, maybe not “registered”, but he lobbies!) sitting with a Clinton fundraiser who is also a lobbyist at the debate. It makes you wanna give up. They can’t just keep saying “but we’re good people!” I’m sure they’re good people. The question is how captured are they.
Redshift
@Barbara: I’m actually not worried at all about Democrats coming together in the general election. There’s always rhetoric from various camps about how they’ll never support the enemy candidate, and it never amounts to much, especially since the closing of last night’s debate made it abundantly clear that whichever of these candidates loses, they will emphatically tell their supporters to support the nominee.
It’s just a little strange to me not to be passionately supporting a candidate at this point in the process.
Roger Moore
@WarMunchkin:
I think you’re missing the point with that. The problem is that single payer introduces a single point of failure that isn’t present in market-based plans. If we have single payer, every part of healthcare becomes subject to the whims of the party in control in Washington. If the Republicans take over, they can remove coverage for any procedure they find disagreeable- abortion, contraception, counseling on advanced directives, etc.- and everyone in the country suddenly needs to find secondary insurance to cover it. That’s less of a problem when we’re depending on employer sponsored insurance because only a tiny fraction of employers care enough about those issues to make them an issue.
Andrey
@NR: Starbucks makes millions of dollars selling coffee to Wall Street. Do you think that means Wall Street has an undue influence on Starbucks? Is it improper for Starbucks to sell coffee to Wall Street bankers?
The simple presence of money is not inherently a problem if it’s an exchange for a good or service. Politicians sell speeches as a good or service. Hillary giving a speech is like your barista giving you a cup of coffee: it’s a paid-for service.
Can it ever be a problem? Yes, if the income is excessively concentrated. Starbucks isn’t actually biased towards Wall Street bankers because they sell coffee to everyone. No single group commands their coffee income. If Starbucks were entirely dependent on, say, computer programmers for its income, then one might expect a pro-computer-programmer bias.
If a politician only sells speeches to one group, it can lead to that group having excessive influence. If a politician is selling speeches indiscriminately, that indicates that no particular group has excessive influence.
If Goldman Sachs and only Goldman Sachs was paying Hillary for speeches, it could be a problem – it would mean that she had an exclusive and “special” relationship with them. They would not be just another customer.
But that’s not the case. Hillary sold speeches left and right. There’s no reason to believe that any individual customer had undue influence.
Barbara
@danielx: Yeah, writing that in the same week, month, year or even decade as the horrifying situation in Flint shows an abject lack of empathy, or understanding of what “infrastructure” really is. So maybe Matt was just admitting to his own cluelessness even if he didn’t know it.
Matt McIrvin
Good God, I can’t even read news reports about polls any more. It’s all SHOCK POLL SHOCK POLL, somebody touting the most extreme and dramatic outliers in all directions as if that meant something. Yesterday Donald Trump was in free fall, now he’s crushing Ted Cruz, Bernie is simultaneously obliterating Hillary’s national lead while she somehow gains on him in NH. Do these people even know what they sound like?
John D.
@Kropadope:
It doesn’t “seem” correct? WTF?
It is exactly that. That’s how speaker fees WORK. You are not paying for anything but the celebrity.
DONALD FUCKING TRUMP gets $1.5 million to speak, and he’s both a moron and a failure.
Why do so many people have such strong opinions about something they literally know nothing about?
Frankensteinbeck
@John D.:
Because they know nothing about it and can fill in the blanks with whatever sounds right, which is usually much simpler and much more extreme than reality. This happens everywhere, and in the defense of Hillary’s opponents, we are all guilty of it. But when someone who actually knows the nitty gritty shows up, we should at least try to listen.
dedc79
@Cacti:
As you’re surely aware, minimum wages have recently risen considerably in a number of states, and as high as $15 in certain of our biggest cities.
Vermont’s minimum wage is set to rise to $10.50 in 2018 and will be indexed to inflation after that.
But why let facts get in the way of a good argument, right?
Miss Bianca
OK, I think I finally got my head around the freak-out over HRC’s speaking fees to appear at Goldman Sachs. Bot only by doing this mind exercise…
Imagine a world (or, in movie-trailer announcer voice, “IMAGINE A WORLD…”) where Bernie Sanders had been paid big, big bucks to give a bunch of speeches to… the NRA.
(Yeah, I know, as if, but like I said, I’m a dreamer. Quit laughing back there.) If, like me, you are inclined to view the NRA with not only side-eye, but as one of the institutions doing its best to fuck up the United States for the benefit of a relative few, I might view him with deep suspicion, particularly if he said, “yeah, but seriously, I’m not in their pocket and I’m just taking their money and I am all about reining them in, honest.”
Do I have it about right? I don’t seriously equate these two situations, I am just trying to understand.
Also, if I were being offered 650 g’s, I’d probably appear before Satan and all his minions to give a nice, anodyne speech about Leadership. But I am far from sea-green Incorruptible, myself.
C.V. Danes
Just to be clear: I don’t think there’s anything particularly nefarious about getting paid a lot of money to speak But what we’re seeing here is the same mania we’ll be experiencing every day she’s president. If she whipes her ass with Charmin, people are going to want to know why, WHY I ask you, WHY?!
Will things be different under Sanders? I don’t know. But I do know this will be how it will be under Clinton, and I’m tired of the 24/7 drama.
John D.
@C.V. Danes: So you are going to let the Republicans dictate your vote to you? That seems … sub-optimal.
They are gonna rant, rave, and smear any Democratic candidate or officeholder no matter what, so ignore everything from them.
Frankensteinbeck
@C.V. Danes:
I’m tired of the drama of Republicans and the Village trying to pin every imaginary scandal they can think of on Obama, too, but I love him as a president. And I hate blaming the victim.
Kropadope
@John D.: Right, people show up to see the celebrity. I never denied this. My point, which you missed entirely, is that people would still show up if she was volunteering her time for free. After all, they’re just there, as you noted, to see the celebrity. Not that I would ever expect her to do that, why should she?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@John D.:
I’ve found that the less people know, the stronger their opinions. You can’t get people to the barricades if they start understanding that there might be nuance and contingent externalities that impact the dialectic.
different-church-lady
@John D.:
Democracy. For better or worse.
kc
@gwangung:
I rest my case.
WarMunchkin
@Roger Moore: But that’s exactly the point that I think is under discussion. I think that the unintentional subtext of those comments is that Big Business (or, more charitably, free enterprise), in some cases, can protect social equality better than democracy can. Yes, the context is an attack on the historical liberal vision for health care – but the point is that when social liberals ally with big business, it’s possible to advance social equality just as surely as big business weaponizing racism to divide labor can be used to destroy it. This is, at least at some level, an attempt at an answer to Kay’s comment about why economic populism is being fought on principle.
Emma
@John D.: If speakers at all the different library associations meetings I’ve attended were beholden to librarians, libraries would rule the information infrastructure.
different-church-lady
@Kay: When one reduces politics to white hats and black hats, yes, it becomes impossible to keep one’s spirits up.
John D.
@Kropadope:
That’s not a point, that’s a hypothetical that nobody short of a saint would do.
It’s not that people won’t show up unless the company shells out a ton of money. It’s that Hillary Clinton won’t show up because somebody else will pay her for her time instead.
And given that we abolished slavery, you can’t compel her to come speak without that speaker fee.
jl
I’m with middle-aged grumble piss moan coot Cole here. One of those two Dem mooks has to win in November. Everything else is campaign trivia.
C.V. Danes
@John D.: @Frankensteinbeck: Nope, just sayin’ it’s getting hard to think straight through the incessant din :-)
Cacti
@dedc79:
So in 2-years, Vermont’s minimum wage will only be $4.50 less per hour than what Bernie says he can deliver nationally? Amazing.
I see that you also didn’t touch the Vermont single payer flop at all.
I’m sure the GOP candidate wouldn’t tie both things around Bernie’s neck like an anchor, because it just wouldn’t be sporting.
Mnemosyne
@John D.:
I do wonder if the people making that particular argument have ever worked at a large corporation in a major urban area. Hillary didn’t sit down with the board of directors of Goldman Sachs — she gave a speech to at least 200-300 employees. Think Keynote Speaker, not meeting presentation. But it sounds so much more nefarious to say “Goldman Sachs executives” than “the 300 people with a VP title or above at Goldman Sachs who attended the corporate seminar being held that week.”
Emma
@kc: You are entitled to vote for anyone you want. You are NOT entitled to bitch when President Cruz or Rubio start dismantling the social safety net, such as it is.
sukabi
@pacem appellant: or entire cities being POISONED as a result of criminal conduct in cities that haven’t had infrastructure improvements in the last 50 years….
poisoned water coming to a tap near you.
different-church-lady
@jl: Personally, I can hardly wait to get to the phase where we find out how one of them will betray us.
Kropadope
@John D.: It’s funny that you included the part where I said that she should get paid for her speeches in your excerpt, given the fact that you completely ignored its existence in your response.
Emma
@different-church-lady: *snicker*
Matt McIrvin
@Kropadope: Maybe!
NR
@dedc79: The lies coming from the Hillary supporters here are really something else, and Cacti is the worst of the bunch.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
Okay, but I’m seeking some consistency here with The Democrats and not finding it. Barney Frank wrote an op ed where he’s mad at Bernie Sanders for making them all out to be crooks. Okay, fair enough, he is making them all out to be crooks. But, in the piece he holds up Medicare at 55 as a kind of gold standard and example of how Democrats fight for liberal priorities but sometimes lose.
People would love Medicare at 55 but all of a sudden there are all kinds of problems with single payer and it’s impossible? What? I knew single payer wasn’t passing but I think it’s reasonable to believe Democrats might promote single payer since they love Medicare. I just get this sense over and over it’s “we never said that!” when actually they did and still do.
dedc79
@Cacti: You acted like $15/hr is some pipe dream, when the fact is that many cities are already there, and a number of states are moving in that direction.
From VT’s single payer story, you apparently derive the lesson that it won’t work nationally. I draw the lesson that Sanders is pushing nationally a proposal that DID pass in his state.
Redshift
@Miss Bianca: Hmm, not too far off, though it’s muddied by the fact that the NRA is much more openly allied with the Republican Party (campaigning to defeat Democrats even if they vote the way the NRA wants.)
To answer John’s original question, even though I am nominally a Clinton supporter, I do think it’s a concern, though not as big a concern as it’s being made out to be. The real big concern is that our terrible campaign finance system (aided and abetted by appalling Supreme Court decisions) causes most successful candidates to spend way too much time listening to the concerns and opinions of rich people and companies, and there’s research that shows that makes them more sympathetic to those concerns, even if they don’t intend to. However, I don’t think that paid speeches play a very significant role in that, they’re just bad for the dreaded “optics.”
So ironically, I agree very much with Bernie’s critique of money in politics, but I disagree that speaking fees represent much of an argument in favor of it. (I wouldn’t be surprised if he knows that, too, and I accept that using something that resonates with people is a perfectly valid campaign tactic, even if it isn’t as big an issue as it’s made out to be.)
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
If you want to see her speak for free, you go to a campaign event. If you want her to come to your office and speak to your employees, it’s going to cost you.
Author Neil Gaiman has written some pretty good essays about why he charges speaking fees (though he will usually waive or reduce them for a library or other nonprofit). Basically, it takes him away from his paying work, so they need to pay him for his time.
Cacti
@NR:
The lies coming from the Hillary supporters here are really something else, and Cacti is the worst of the bunch.
So which was a lie, Bernfeeler?
1. That the Vermont minimum wage is $9.60
2. That public colleges charge tuition there
3. That single payer failed to get off the ground there
Sources please.
Seanly
Can I kick Yglesias in his stupid villager junk?
There are locations where the infrastructure is literally crumbling, but for the most part it is a slow & steady decline.
It’s like a house owned by an older couple – they might fix a leaky pipe, but the peeling paint and worn carpet don’t get any attention. However, that work can’t be put off forever. And if the couple has an unrealistic idea about how much the upkeep costs then more & more work gets deferred. Their lack of proper maintenance doesn’t mean the need for the maintenance magically goes away.
It’s a testament to how well things were engineered and built that many bridges are still carrying loads over their initial design capacity and with almost no maintenance. Or that homes in older cities like Philadelphia still get water to the house and that the sewers work.
We haven’t been funding infrastructure repair & maintenance adequately for quite some time. The work will have to be done at some point whether we want to or not. We’re only spending about 2% GDP on infrastructure and that isn’t enough. It’s taken 30 years, but the frays and torn edges are becoming more & more evident.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/deficient.cfm
Amir Khalid
@Kropadope:
I reckon her agent figures a fee of US$225K is what it takes to deter frivolous speaking invitations.
TallPete
@Matt McIrvin: Maybe. But this comment was in response to a question about pres candidates delivering on their campaign promises. I made the point that no president goes w/o unfullfilled promises. Someone pointed to Polk as an example, which was a good try. But even Polk only fell short. He ultimately got less of the Oregon Territory than he promised.
Cacti
@dedc79:
Yes, a national minimum wage of $15/hr is a pipe dream.
If blue Vermont finds it too rich for their blood, what’s the plan for getting say, any of the red states onboard? I should clarify, what’s the plan besides “political revolution”?
NR
@Andrey: What an asinine comparison. Starbucks is not running for President of the United States. And “Goldman Sachs” doesn’t buy any coffee from them.
Bill
@C.V. Danes:
Miss Bianca
@Redshift:
Like I said, the analogy is not perfect. I am not too concerned about the speaking fees, myself, bar the “dreaded optics”, as you put it, lashing people into a lather. The focus on the fees is, I think, kind of a distraction (from more serious issues, ie campaign finance reform), rather than a harbinger.
John D.
@Kropadope: Ignored it?
I called it “A hypothetical that nobody short of a saint would do”.
Since you said “I missed your point” the first time, when I talked about the speaker fees, and you said “I missed your point” this time, when I called your hypothetical nonsense, perhaps you should just simply say, without conditionals, what your point IS.
If your claim is that she’s paid this outrageous sum to speak because “… her priorities are already pretty well aligned with the priorities of the organization.“, then it is obviously on you to show the link between every one of the companies that paid her 200k+ to speak, since she must be in the tank for all of them to get paid that much.
Or, y’know, you could join the reality based community and accept that she’s paid for being a well-known celebrity that people want to hear speak.
Up to you.
dedc79
@Cacti: There were lies of omission. That VT’s minimum wage is already set to rise higher than the figure you gave. That millions of americans already live in cities with $15 minimum wages, and millions more live in states that are moving toward a $15 minimum wage.
Meanwhile, two of your examples are supposed to demonstrate that there won’t be national consensus for things Vermont won’t even support. But your third example – single payer – actually contradicts your argument. Vermont did vote for single payer. It just so happens that in a small state at a time when a major overhaul in insurance was taking place at the federal level, that change wasn’t viable.
Peale
@Kay: I know. But I really want to find out if Sanders thinks its possible to work with banks, or pharma companies, or big retail stores, or energy companies or military contractors or whatever big parts of the the economy he finds particularly corrupting and destestable. Not just the sctors of the economy that he likes because they are filled with non-greedy people. Is he planning on taking them into his administration or just telling all of his folks to shun them.
I know its easy for industry to take pot shots at the “faceless bureaucrats in Washington” with their “pointy heads and pencil necks.” Is he planning on being anything but adversarial? I can deal with skeptical, but being non-adversarial is not the same being bought and paid for.
Guachi
I think she talked to Jewish groups as many times a she talked to GS (3). Is she now in cahoots with Big Jew?
She talked to Canadian groups at least twice. She charged the same (when she charged) to everyone. And she probably said mostly the same thing to everyone.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: And because she can. Heck, I’d speak anyone for $225K. But even at my current rate of free my calendar remains wide open.
Bill
@Cacti:
No. In 2 years Vermont’s minimum wage will be $4.50 less than Bernie says he wants to deliver nationally. Hillary says she wants to raise the minimum wage to $12 per hour.
Given a choice between a starting negotiating position of $15 per hour vs $12 per hour, I’d prefer the higher one.
Seanly
Another item – infrastructure can’t just be about maintenance. A population growing at about 2% a year means that it will double in 35 years. So, besides maintenance there needs to be capacity increase whether we like it or not. Much of the capacity increase can be put off, but there are places where the infrastructure is not just neglected but also woefully over-capacity.
Of course, we can’t build roads indefinitely or add lanes ad infinitum like TXDOT tries to do in Dallas, etc., but we can’t just sit back and think that we’re done and let’s save re-caulking the windows for next year.
different-church-lady
@Bill: Well then fuck any candidate who doesn’t say $30.
[nods]
Andrey
@NR: First of all, Goldman Sachs most certainly does buy coffee from Starbucks. Not only in the form of their individual employees – most white-collar companies with large offices are going to be buying a lot of bulk coffee. It’s possible that they prefer something other than Starbucks, but regardless, somewhere a coffee company is making a lot of money from Goldman Sachs.
What does running for President change? Are you saying that running for President precludes someone from having any kind of business relationship? If Hillary had sold $650k of coffee to Goldman Sachs, would it really be just as objectionable to you? If so, I simply disagree – I do not think running for President turns all your business relationships into suspicions, unless – as I said before – they are overly concentrated in a particular group.
different-church-lady
@Seanly: I say we take all that bridge money and put it into condoms.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@dedc79:
Perhaps this fact is a big red siren for the viability of Bernie’s plan to spend a ton of political capital, if not real capital, on trying to implement such a plan nationwide? Especially since, you know, he’s their Senator with a big bully pulpit.
Marc
@Cacti: How, precisely, does a Senator enact legislation in a state?
Bill
The problem with Hillary’s Goldman-Sac’s speeches is not that she was paid, or that there’s undue influence (although I son’t discount that this could be a problem), it’s that Goldman Sachs wanted her. The fact that GS looked at her and thought “she’s the kind of person we want delivering a speech to our employees” shows a likemindedness that makes me uncomfortable.
Cacti
@dedc79:
Please give a comprehensive list of US states with a $15/hour minimum wage as of 01/01/2016, or with plans to phase in a $15/hour minimum wage before the end of the current decade.
I’ll make it even easier for you. List just blue states with a $15/hour minimum wage or plans to phase in the same.
And go…
Cacti
@Marc:
Did I ever say it did?
I’m saying that the State that has been sending The Bern to Washington for 25 years has enacted none of his policy proposals at the State level, nor do they have plans to in the near future.
Meanwhile, Sanders is running on a national platform that’s well outside of reasonably attainable even in liberal, blue Vermont.
As far as fantasy lists go, Sanders has a good one, but it doesn’t make it less fantastic.
TallPete
@Miss Bianca: “Do I have it about right?”
Yeah, I think that’s a good enough example. The speech $ are about appearances. All Clinton needs to do is release the speech transcripts- if they even exist. Donating the fees to charity would go a long way to winning back some trust, but I don’t begrudge her an income. I am curious what pearls of wisdom she delivers to Goldman VPs that they have her back 3 different times.
prob50
@Downpuppy: But if we fix the roads, bridges, etc., how are we gonna cut taxes for the well-heeled, you know, the “real” engineers of our National Economic Growth?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Bill:
She was a Secretary of State and a Senator from New York before that, and a first lady before that. Isn’t it possible that she could have shared something she learned in her travels that might be interesting to them, without there being a quid pro quo?
dedc79
@Cacti: NELP has a good summary of progress made in 2015, and the best prospects in 2016.
I said a number of states are moving toward $15/hr. That means they have passed hikes getting them much closer to $15, or they’ve imposed $15 minimums for certain industries or categories of workers. For example, Cuomo issued an executive order setting a $15/hr minimum wage in NY. Massachusetts set a $15/hr minimum wage for home health care workers. The trend is in the right direction.
ETA: Link http://www.nelp.org/news-releases/14-cities-states-approved-15-minimum-wage-in-2015/
Andrey
@Bill: That’s certainly a more reasonable concern. That said, I work at a major software engineering company that is normally quite focused on scientific solutions – and we’ve brought in homeopaths and acupuncturists for talks (usually because a small group of people decided they wanted to hear them speak). So I’m a little less worried about a speech indicating a fundamental alignment of priorities, based on personal experience.
different-church-lady
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: SHE HAS NO ACCOMPLISHMENTS!!! DON’T YOU LISTEN?!?
Peale
@Bill: One year during the writer’s strike on TV, my company paid Stephen Colbert to host it’s annual town hall meeting. I think he was kind of a scab for making money while the writers were on strike even if he wrote his own materials. I wasn’t aware that he also became a paid corporate shill because of that. Although I note that he seldom makes fun of global consulting firms any longer.
Money gets paid for people to show up and speak who will either excite the audience or who will get the whales to come to one’s special event. Get over it!
People give paid talks all the time for people who they may not share opinions with.
Although I’m not really convinced that seeing eye to eye with the banking executives is that much of a problem. I’m not really fretting that one. I don’t know what bankersthought is.
Bill
@different-church-lady: Honestly, I’d prefer a candidate who was advocating a $25 per hour minimum wage. Unfortunately I don’t have one to choose from.
dedc79
@Cacti:
So it’s your position that the state of Vermont did not enact single-payer? Then I’d say you’re not just lying by omission, you’re lying outright.
TallPete
@Cacti: According to Mr Google (this includes cities as well as states)
Following the examples set by San Francisco and Seattle, 14 cities, counties and state governments approved a hike to $15 in their local minimum hourly pay, according to the National Employment Law Project.
And that momentum is likely to continue in the new year.
Lawmakers in 13 states and cities — including California, New York and Washington, D.C. — have proposed legislation and ballot measures calling for a $15 minimum that will get consideration in 2016.
NR
@Andrey:
And do you really think that if Goldman Sachs wanted something, that company wouldn’t jump to provide it? You think they would just look at the company that made them rich and say “Nah, fuck those guys?” Because that’s exactly what Hillary is asking us to believe.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
What does this have to do with your claims of “lost status anxiety” of white voters?
And the nonwhite vote in Iowa is about 2 percent. You should be careful with whatever conclusions you think you can draw from this.
“Or that he tends to disregard the specific concerns of minority voters regarding institutional racism, to chase after the Reagan Democrat vote on what he (falsely) believes is a universal economic message.”
Do you think that the Reagan Democrat vote should be disregarded? Do they have cooties or something? Even Obama tried to appeal to a wider segment of voters. Too many of these people were afraid of him, or bought into GOP nonsense, but do you think that Obama should just have written them off?
Isn’t the point of elections to get people to vote for you? Why would any sane politician chase away potential voters?
The concerns of voters about institutional racism is valid, but this is an issue that both of the Democratic contenders need to address more fully.
Cacti
@dedc79:
So, zero then.
Reality: The highest across the board minimum wage increase in the foreseeable future will be $11.50/hour in the District of Columbia, as of 2018.
singfoom
@Miss Bianca: Close enough. Listen, I don’t think HRC is the devil or that she has a Goldman Sachs tattoo somewhere on her body. I know she speaks to a lot of groups.
It’s not the money, it is NOT a quid pro quo (have fun counting the number of times people have asked that above). Is she in the tank for them? I won’t say that.
I’m afraid that if there’s another financial explosion (Caused by Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, et al et al that she would do what was done before and bail them out with very few strings and very little reform afterwards. I think she’s a firm believer in neoliberal economics and in the end that puts her against Main Street and for Wall Street.
And AGAIN, let me stress if she’s the nom, I’ll pull the lever in the general.
Cheers
different-church-lady
@NR:
You mean like if GS said, “Hey, we want some coffee. We’ll pay you for it.”?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@different-church-lady:
Maybe they just wanted her for her Rolodex.
NR
@different-church-lady: And this is why the analogy breaks down, because we’re talking about public office, access, and influence.
Bill
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
It is absolutely possible. And again, I’m not all that concerned about a quid pro quo. I don’t think Hillary is going to vote one way or another because someone paid her to speak. (Honestly, I think that’s true of most politicians.) But I recognize the possibility that it creates access others might not have. Something akin to “Yes, I will take a call from those nice people who paid me to speak.” That can – but doesn’t have to – translate in to influence.
This issue is but one – minor – factor in deciding who to support. But it is a factor.
Bunter
@Bill: The firm for which I work was looking for a speaker for the annual corporate meeting, HRC was considered and decided against, only because they didn’t want to pay anywhere near that much. I can promise you though there’s absolutely no alignment between the executives here and HRC. They wanted someone who’d draw a crowd and thought she would. After many years working for Wall Street firms, I think I can safely say, their interests do not align with even the most DINO of Democrats. They’ll have a Dem in for a speech but Wall Street doesn’t trust Ds to do “right” by them.
Mike J
@C.V. Danes:
The 25 year attempt by the Republicans to make up a story, any story, about how evil Clinton is is because she’s really conservative.
Bill
@Andrey:
Reasonable position.
I’ve been to enough corporate/trade (read a lot) events to know that my experience has been that the organization throwing the vent usually picks a speaker they are aligned with on some issue of the day. But there is some saying about anecdotes and data that comes to mind as I’m saying this.
dedc79
@Cacti: Your metric is BS and you know it. NYC, LA, Seattle, San Fran, all already or will soon have $15 minimum wages. There are more people living in those cities alone than there are living in our 12 smallest population states combined (based on my back-of-the-hand math, at least).
Miss Bianca
@TallPete:
My understanding is that she did donate the speaking fee to charity – or, the Clinton Foundation, anyway. Which might or might not start off another frothy shitstorm…
But as for releasing the speech transcripts… again from the optics perspective, it might look better, but on the other hand, I think there’s a case to be made for “GS is a private corporation, this was a private event, and no…not gonna happen.” As I told my SO when he said something to that effect: “If I demanded that you release your notes for a presentation you made to the Black Hat Conference, because of the public’s right to know where you stand on IT security, would you do it?” I’m still waiting for an answer to that one…
FlipYrWhig
@Bill:
Where does “likemindedness” come from? Good God. She’s a famous and prominent person. _Maybe_ you can manage an argument from a negative about that, to say that you only want to vote for people that would never be considered as paid guest speakers at some auditorium at the Goldman Sachs offices. But, you know, famous people get paid to do bullshit while other people listen and take pictures. This isn’t somehow new or scandalous.
Cacti
@dedc79:
It’s my position that the State of Vermont enacted single payer healthcare on paper, but never in practice, following a tax payer revolt. The sticker shock from the potential costs of the program nearly put a Republican in the governor’s chair, and Shumlin tossed single payer overboard.
And all of this happened in a state with a COOK PVI of Dem +16.
Andrey
@NR: Goldman Sachs didn’t single-handedly make Starbucks rich. Nor did it make Hillary rich. That’s the point. I don’t understand why you’re ignoring my comments about concentration.
If Starbucks made 90% of its money from Goldman Sachs, yeah, it’s going to jump when GS says jump. But that’s not the case – GS is just one of many. GS could go away entirely and Starbucks would be fine.
If Hillary made 90% of her money from Goldman Sachs, I would believe she will jump when GS says jump. But GS could go away entirely and Hillary’s speaking income would be fine.
Joel
I honestly don’t care about Sanders’ positions on gun control, or Clinton’s speaking fees. To do so would be to pretend that I’ve never witnessed politics in action in my lifetime.
My concerns with each candidate are more practical (hawkishness for Clinton, ability to form a governing coalition for Sanders). I recognize that those issues are boring to most people and it’s a lot more fun to rail about Berniebros and the latest FOX News-driven “shady” agenda regarding the Clintons.
Whatever concerns I may have, I know that we are dealing with some real fucking enemies in our midst, and those guys hang an (R) at the ends of their names. In other words, I am sure as shit going to vote Hernie Clanders come election day.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Imputing “access and influence” to a paid gig she does for dozens and dozens of audiences is the heart of the entire dispute. Where’s the there there?
NR
@Bill: I don’t think it’s that minor. She’s going to get hammered on this in the general. If Trump is the Republican nominee, he’s going to be out there with a very simple message: “Vote for me because I can’t be bought.” And Hillary is going to have to counter with “Trust me when I tell you that the Wall Street firms who paid me millions of dollars will have absolutely no influence over me!”
Democrats may be willing to swallow that line, but I guarantee you that independents (who already dislike Hillary by a significant margin, btw) won’t.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I’m going to use 30 and under as young in this context. With that in mind a young person has been seeing Hillary Clinton in the news for their entire lives. So they have been exposed to her for, to them, a very long time, she’s old news. Sanders is new, fresh and speaks to one of their main issues, money. That his plans don’t add up, that he doesn’t have her level of experience is relatively unimportant, he talks to, well the 99% actually, and that is what makes him popular. Clinton is a politician, and while he is also, he’s spent his career acting like he isn’t one.
My take is that we are hiring a politician, to do a politician’s job. President Obama came across to me as a politician, abet a decent, good one. For the most part that has been very true. Sanders comes across to me as a firebrand, a decent and good one, but not as a politician. And to me that’s important, hire the person who understands the job. In this instance knowing exactly how to do the job isn’t really possible, there really isn’t much else like it. But Clinton is more practical than Sanders is. And practical is important. President Obama is first, going to be a hard act to follow, for anyone. But someone has to do it and they will never do it exactly as any of us likes, none of us would even do the job exactly as we like, it just isn’t possible. But that’s why we need a politician to do the job, to balance what we’d like with what’s possible.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: But you failed to take into account MAGICKAL BERNIENESS that would overcome these things if he used it, but he didn’t because… no one asked nicely? I’m not sure about that part.
Cacti
@dedc79:
Yes, measuring by State is a bogus metric. After all, we are living in the United Cities of America.
Go wave your Feel the Bern sign some more and wait for the revolution. I’m sure it’s coming any moment now. ;-)
Bill
@FlipYrWhig:
It comes from the fact that the organization said: “There’s something about this person that appeals to us.” Perhaps as other’s have suggested, that appeal is strictly celebrity, but I doubt it.
Imagine a candidate had taken a speaking large fee from a notoriously racist organization. Wouldn’t we rightly question if the reason that’s happening is because the organization and the candidate agree on some issue related to race?
Kay
@Peale:
I just think there’s this real reluctance to admit that people believe powerful actors get privileged access. This isn’t just the Bernistas. “Too much money in politics” polls at something like 70%
They’re not objecting to “money” and they’re not objecting to “politics”. They believe the money is buying access and preferential treatment. That’s not irrational. It’s what whole ethics/conflicts rules or norms are based on. “A conflict of interest” does not now and has never been interpreted so legalistically where it has to be an actionable violation of a specific rule. They’re the voters! If they think this stuff is out of hand, then maybe their representatives should address that voluntarily instead of being dragged kicking and screaming to even talk about it.
FlipYrWhig
@Bill: Imagine a candidate had taken a large speaking fee from the American Camping Association. Wouldn’t we rightly question if the reason that’s happening is because the organization and the candidate agree on some issue related to camping?
dedc79
@Cacti: I’m a Hillary supporter, actually. I’m just one who, to paraphrase John Cole, is so tired of all your bullshit.
TallPete
@Miss Bianca: I didn’t know she donated that income to her foundation, good for her.
But as for releasing the speech transcripts… again from the optics perspective, it might look better, but on the other hand, I think there’s a case to be made for “GS is a private corporation, this was a private event, and no…not gonna happen.”
Fair enough, but she shouldn’t expect avoid controversy until she does.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
This is incomplete on so many levels.
I am not sure how you separate women from “white people.” But let this pass for a moment.
The idea that nonwhite people have led lives of total deprivation is not only untrue, it is insulting. Nonwhites have lost jobs, have been downsized, and certainly have lost homes. Nonwhites may even have been hit harder by the foreclosure crisis than other groups. Economic anxiety hits them harder because of racism, but they are not sitting on the sidelines watching white people take social and economic hits.
singfoom
@Kay: I would just add as someone you’re describing, it’s not just belief. Individuals who found themselves underwater because of the mortgage meltdown were foreclosed upon and thrown out of their houses. There were even cases BECAUSE OF THE SYSTEMIC FRAUD where people who weren’t delinquent were foreclosed on…
Executives at multiple financial institutions that committed FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD systemically walked away with a bailout that they used to pay themselves giant fucking bonuses from. It’s not just a belief. The firms in multiple cases ADMITTED FRAUD and paid X Million fine and then continued on with their business.
Hard not to see the preferential treatment.
schrodinger's cat
What is this strange fixation with Goldman Sachs? Why not Morgan Stanley or some other investment bank?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: I was about to ask what the fuck you’re talking about, then I remembered who you are. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: as I said last night, I’d be very surprised if there’s anything in these speeches that isn’t largely a print out from her memoirs
Matt McIrvin
At this moment my Google+ feed is almost nothing but Bernie fans and Hillary fans spewing about the loathsome evil of the other candidate.
TallPete
@Joel: In other words, I am sure as shit going to vote Hernie Clanders come election day.
Can I assume you’re a Sanders supporter with a speech impediment? :) Seriously though, i agree with the sentiment
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: And the idea for getting money out of politics in light of Citizens United is… ? It’s so damn cheap, and the whole Bernie Sanders campaign is making me feel this way lately, to say I AM MAD AT THE BROKEN THINGS THEY SHOULD BE FIXED and never say how and never say by whom and fob the whole thing off on “political revolution” that fixes them because… something… with crowds scaring the current crop of politicians into changing their ways? Or new candidates, who don’t yet exist? It’s just a bunch of venting. It’s a bubble of hot air. And the fact that smart people are falling in with this is just dumbfounding.
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m not fixated on Goldman Sachs. I’ll throw them in with Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, etc.., etc…. How about the rating agencies too? As Bernie rightly said last evening in the debate, the business model of Wall Street is FRAUD.
Joel
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t know about Goldman Sachs, but I’ve been to some of these big talks (including one by Clinton!) hosted by various large/corporate organizations and what the host organization “believes” has almost no impact on what is going to be said, because what is actually said is completely bland, focus group-tested, flavorless bullshit.
It feels like people are imagining some secret gathering of the Illuminati and maybe that happens, but I sincerely doubt it. For one, if *anything* of significance was said in front of an audience of thousands (including many who probably consider themselves *very conservative*) you bet your ass we would have heard about it immediately.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: Because of the Matt Taibbi “vampire squid” essay.
different-church-lady
This thread has outstripped my ability to parody it. Good going, folks.
Kay
@singfoom:
I agree, but if they don’t believe the facts on the ground surely they have noticed that people have lost a certain amount of faith that their government actually represents their interests? Pundits write about it with a lot of handwringing. What did they think it meant? It’s real, a loss of trust. It has consequences.
mclaren
What, stupidity like a big block of whitespace with not a goddamn thing to indicate what it is?
Whatever the fuck you were talking about, Cole, never made it into your post. So I don’t have a god damn clue what the “complete stupidity” is. Of course, given the Republicans running this election cycle, there’s so much stupidity to choose from that it’s an embarrassment of riches.
Still, c’mon. The site redesign screwed everything up so badly that now I have no idea whatever the stupidity to which your post refers. You need to ask Alain for your money back.
Complete and total FAIL. Failed post, failed site design, failed everything.
FlipYrWhig
@Joel: Exactly! It’s plug and play. “Leadership in these changing times involves leading, listening, listening to lead and leading to listen, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.”
Bill
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, we should. What are the issues the American Camping Organization cares about, and why do they think Hillary might be with them on those issues? Perhaps in this case it’s something like land conservation, which would be a positive. But regardless, it’s a valid question to ask.
goblue72
@Kay: It is hard to say it is growing or not definitively – but it sure feels that way. (I know, I know, gut checks, truthiness, and all that. Bear with me a moment.) Just before the Iowa caucus, 43% of likely Democratic caucus goers identified as socialist. I’ve met more and more non-Boomers (that is, Gen X and Millenials) who either openly identify as socialist or who if they describe themselves as liberal or progressive, have positive views on socialism. There’s definitely been a resurgence of interest in socialism – or at least, the European social democrat version of socialism. Socialists even have a trendy new magazine – Jacobin – to go along with the older, stodgier Dissent and New Left Review.
I really think that establishment Democrats don’t quite grock what is happening. They see the Tea Party movement and immediately adopt the same defensive crouch they’ve been adopting since the Gingrich Revolution. A political shift which at this point occurred over 20 years ago. On some threads recently, I’ve seen folks bring up the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago as some proof why we shouldn’t listen to the hippies or something. Conveniently ignoring that is occurred almost half a century ago. (I know its kind of a shock for some folks from that generation to think about given the whole youth-orientation of the Baby Boom generation, but if you remember something that occurred half a century ago, it just means you are old.)
The grassroots are ahead of the leadership. Generations of the upward distribution of wealth to the capitalist class is finally start to hit the middle class to the point where its really hurting. In traditional terms, the middle class generally has a closer natural affinity to the upper class. When that affinity / orientation can be cleaved, and sympathies aligned with the working and lower classes, economic social change is possible.
It really feels like we are approaching one of those turning points. The establishment looked at Occupy Wall Street as a one-time event, or random temper tantrum by the hippies, as opposed to just one amongst a sequence of changes.
catclub
@Mike J:
well put.
FlipYrWhig
@Bill: I think the American Camping Association cares about getting people to come to the American Camping Association meeting.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: Does he want to get rid of the stock exchange too? Then what happens next? Socialist nirvana?
dedc79
@schrodinger’s cat:
1) I think Goldman is the most successful (or at least perceived to be the most successful) of the bunch.
2) Blankfein, their CEO, is by all accounts a raging asshole. (Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan, while also an asshole, is apparently not nearly as big of an asshole)
3) For a small subset of people (and i’m not saying this is the motivation of anyone here), railing against Goldman is like railing against the Rothschilds. It’s a way of signalling jewish financial conspiracies without using the word “jew”.
NR
@Andrey: So it’s your position that it’s okay that Hillary took money from Goldman Sachse because she took money from lots of other people too.
By this same logic, isn’t it also okay for Marco Rubio to take millions of dollars from the Koch brothers since lots of other people will give him money too?
different-church-lady
@Kay: The Germans lost trust in Hindenburg, and look how that went.
mclaren
@gvg:
That’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Prevents the hoi polloi from downloading those movies and TV shows that the cable companies and movie studios (which coincidentally also own all the internet companies) would otherwise be able to rape the public for outrageous fees to watch. $10 movie tickets, $150 a month cable TV bills…grotesque beyond description, and the rape continues.
Look for U.S. internet speeds to slow down to dialup speed very soon.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: Goldman has been mention 35+ times in this thread alone.
FlipYrWhig
@goblue72: Educated young people toying with radicalism? Wow, THAT’S never happened before!
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat:
See, that kind of reductionist bullshit is what’s so offensive. No, of course he’s not going to get rid of the stock market. Can you not see that criticism of a specific sector of the economy and it’s business practices is not a call to destroy that sector but to properly regulate it so that it stops fucking shit up for the rest of us?
That’s not a pipe dream. That’s not hippie dippie unicorns. It’s a fucking call for law and order.
different-church-lady
@goblue72:
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
You know how one could start to get the money out of politics without a law? People could pay attention to it which makes people like Chuck Todd talk about it and then politicians could see some political risk in an appearance of capture. It could start to be bad for their careers if they take money and then appear to do the bidding of the donor.
Again, the narrowness and insistence that there has to be a law, immediately, or nothing happens is just not how political change and pressure works. This isn’t pie in the sky and it isn’t exclusive to Bernie Sanders. If corruption isn’t an issue, well, you make it one. He really doesn’t have to stand around and wait for a 70% approval on a specific law before pushing for that issue to be front and center. Obviously he feels he’s leading on the issue.
TallPete
@schrodinger’s cat: The fact that Goldman Sachs was recently fined $5 billion might have something to do with it.
If these speaking fees look bad to half the Dem Primary voters, how do you think it looks to the average General Election voter?
Bill
@FlipYrWhig: Really? Their webpage on lobbying efforts and public policy positions suggest otherwise.
http://www.acacamps.org/about/who-we-are/public-policy
Ruckus
@singfoom:
Not saying that planned obsolescence isn’t real but that plain fact is that it is far more likely that stuff wears out, that stuff breaks, because it does. Nothing lasts forever. Better stuff wears longer and doesn’t break as often but can cost dramatically more. Engineering better stuff takes better engineers, better builders, better materials, better care, and more money and doesn’t necessarily last any longer.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Do you have the remotest idea of what a speaking engagement is?
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes it has, after FlipYrWhg asked a question at #105….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
No
different-church-lady
@mclaren: You just said “$10 movie ticket” and “rape” like they somehow had something to do with each other.
Bill
@schrodinger’s cat: Goldman has just become representative of the entire industry. They’re synonymous with Wall Street in the same way that people say Kleenex when they mean tissue.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
The margin of error is 4.5 percent, so statistically speaking Clinton and Sanders are exactly tied. Which is to say, that Clinton might actually be polling as low as 39.5% and Sanders might actually be polling as high as 46.5% given the 4.5% margin of error.
Also noteworthy:
Please explain to me, all those of you who keep bleating “How does Sanders win the general election?”, how a 9-point favorability rating nationwide hurts Sanders. Could you also please explain to me why the 26-point favorability rating gap for Clinton (her -17% vs Sanders + 9%) helps Hillary win the general election?
You can make plenty of arguments against Sanders as a presidential candidate — but by the hard cold polling numbers, one point you cannot make is that he’s “unelectable.”
Gimlet
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has dramatically cut into the nationwide lead of primary rival Hillary Clinton, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
The poll released Friday finds Clinton leading the race with 44 percent support, compared to 42 percent support for Sanders, within the survey’s margin of error.
The last iteration of the poll in December had Clinton leading Sanders nationwide 61–30.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I think it’s pretty easy to rail against the influence of corporate/Wall Street/wealth/etc. if you represent a state with no people and no businesses. At least Warren costs herself something by taking the stands she takes in Massachusetts.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Just as one Democrat, this is the shit I hate:
Democratic pundit. You know what that is? It’s contempt. They think it’s a game and they’re the super-savvy actors who know How Things Work. So what does that make the people who will vote for Clinton after she runs against that trade deal for the next year? Should they be mad about that? I think they should.
https://twitter.com/jonathanchait
pluege
great phrase and spot-on
FlipYrWhig
@mclaren: “Let’s run John Kerry! No one can ding HIM for being unpatriotic!”
MomSense
There is a reason Frank Luntz, Morning Joe, and a bunch of other Republicans keep talking up Bernie. They would far prefer to run one of their barbarians against him than Clinton.
I don’t like either of them truth be told but let’s not be stupid here. This country isn’t going to vote for a 74 year old Socialist. Not. Gonna. Happen.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: There is a school of thought in economics that believes that stock markets are not a good way to allocate scarce resources. With all the railing against Wall Street as a fount of all evil, my question is a logical one, why not get rid of something that is so bad.
While we are at it we can get rid of the Fed too, because Bernie doesn’t like the Fed as well. He voted to audit it along with his Republican buddies in the Senate, since he is a true champion of bipartisanship.
mclaren
@singfoom:
Oh, it’s worse than that. This crackpot Schordinger’s Cat Republican astroturfer plant is trying to argue against putting in place the same 1933 Glass-Steagall legislation that had been in place to protect the U.S. economy against Great Depression-era fraud for 70 years until it was repealed in the Bill Clinton administration.
It’s one thing to go ballistic and make the hysterical claim that regulating the stock market will destroy the U.S. economy, as Republicans often do nowadays. It’s quite another thing to become unhinged and claim that putting back the FDR-era law that served us well for 70 years will somehow make America collapse.
That’s on the level of asserting that putting brakes in cars will “destroy the transportation industry” or claiming that “if we have FDA inspection of food, the entire U.S. agricultural system will collapse.” It’s beyond delusional, way out in the realm of schizophrenic locked-ward-at-Bellevue dementia.
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s fair. I don’t agree with that school of thought. I think stock markets are useful and generally a good thing in human progress. Again, the railing of Wall Street doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not something that Bernie Sanders dreamed up.
It’s not something I dreamed up. It’s caused real harm to individuals here in the United States and all around the world. Banks are not evil. That’s not the point. But as history has shown repeatedly, they must be regulated closely or they will get out of control.
See 1929, The 1980s S&L Crisis, etc, etc ,etc…
Right now there is a lot of anger out there in the general electorate as Kay was talking about. There is not just a sense of preferential treatment, but an entire two tiered system of justice. People can see the preferential treatment and unless we deal with it now, it’s just going to get worse.
As for the Fed, it would be interesting to know what the Fed has done, it certainly affects the lives of everyone in the US.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom:
That was one of the better Bernie Sanders moments last night.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Fair enough.. Good assessment.
I understand what you mean here, and I think that both Clinton’s tenure as senator and as Secretary of State indicates that she would be hard working and a master of detail, but I wonder whether she has much of a vision for this country.
And I note again that I lean toward Clinton, but am lukewarm toward both candidates. I see both fueled more by ambition than vision, or a sense of what citizens want. Hillary is hot to become the first woman president. Sanders is hot to try to realize his socialist dreams.
I’m still not sure which I think would be best for the country overall.
schrodinger's cat
@mclaren: I support the reinstatement of Glass Steagall, I am just saying it is not enough and its just the beginning. Please show me where I have said that its a bad idea. I have argued here and on my blog that dismantling the New Deal era banking regulation has been the cause of many of our financial woes.
You are lying to make your point.
mclaren
@singfoom:
Um…actually, Hillary Clinton took $600,000 in speaking fees from a hedge fund that the SEC had just fined an all-time record 550 million dollars for criminal fraud.
Source: Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO, SEC government website, 2010.
Oh, and by the way…Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea is married to a hedge fund trader who works at Goldman Sachs. I wonder how much money he had to cough up to pay part of that criminal fraud settlement with the SEC….
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@FlipYrWhig:
I think that speaking fees get conflated with lobbying.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: Since the Reagan revolution policies were made to benefit capital over labor. The cover story was that was necessary to curb inflation. The dominance of the financial sector is the result of those policies. Bernie Sanders policies are boiler plate socialism which we have seen does not work, just as unfettered capitalism does not work (for everyone).
We need capitalism tempered by Keynesian macroeconomic policies not socialism.
FlipYrWhig
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I think that THE BAD THING HILLARY CLINTON DID WITH BANK MONEY AND THE CORPORATIONS is a lot of preexisting feelings layered over not many deeds.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Even considering this came from someone who writes the first draft of his comments in his own poop, this is truly stupid.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: I dunno. Capitalism tempered by democratic socialism seems to work pretty well in many industrialized countries. It’s never been tried here.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Countries that are far more homogeneous than the United States, let’s see how that model fares with the new refugee influx. BTW this observation was made by a Danish economist when we were comparing social welfare policies of different OECD countries.
ETA: Also Scandinavian countries have tiny economies compared to us. I wouldn’t call them socialist, they are at best a mixed economies because they have a robust private sector.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: It was tried here for ~ 50 years after the Depression, no?
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: At this point, you don’t think the Republicans would call Keynesian macroeconomic policies socialism anyways? They already have. Hell, anything that helps people that isn’t already rich is “socialism”. And of course, helping corporations is never that.
I’d accept either. Whichever candidate wins and whichever macroeconomic school of policies is used, it’s gonna be an uphill battle..
We’ll have to agree to disagree.
Also, Funny that Reagan had a revolution, but Bernie can’t.
Cheers
mclaren
@schrodinger’s cat:
No sir, you are lying out your ass. You are lying deliberately, you are lying with premeditation, you are lying with conniving and slubbergulliony intent to deceive. And yes sir, I call you a poltroon and a slubberdegullion, sir. I call you a caitiff to your face. Because you are lying, and you know you are lying, and you impudently dare to double down on your lies even after someone has called you on your lies.
I refer you to your own comment 354:
You cannot possibly square the claim that “I support the reinstatement of Glass Steagall, I am just saying it is not enough and its just the beginning. Please show me where I have said that its a bad idea” with the sneering imputation “Does he want to get rid of the stock exchange too? Then what happens next? Socialist nirvana?”
Sir, you have pissed me off enough that I describe you as a thimblerigger and a mountebank who purveys a gallimaufry of gardyloo. And that’s rare. It take a lot of horseshit to make that angry.
Ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum!
Or, to take a page from the Catiline Orations:
Begone, abydocomist! Depart, bedswerver, hie thee hence, O gormless dalcop! Your bespawling gnashgabbery marks you out as a drate-poke, a fopdoodle, and an unutterably wearisome gobermouch.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t really buy the theory that we can’t address income inequality with democratic socialism-flavored policies and combat structural racism at the same time, which seems to be a popular notion in these parts. Sure, it raises a lot of challenges a country like, say, Iceland, doesn’t have to contend with, but that doesn’t make it impossible.
It will be interesting to see how the refugee influx stresses the social democratic societies in Europe. I’m hoping they can rise above their divisions.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Countries that are far more homogeneous than the United States, let’s see how that model fares with the new refugee influx. BTW this observation was made by a Danish economist when we were comparing social welfare policies of different OECD countries.
ETA: Also Scandinavian countries have tiny economies compared to us. I wouldn’t call them socialist, they are at best a mixed economies because they have a robust private sector.
@singfoom: Revolutions in general end up in lousy results for the 99%, Reagan’s is no exception. That’s why I am for a gradual change and not a revolution.
Brachiator
@mclaren:
I agree with you emphatically on this point.
schrodinger's cat
I think I broke mclaren’s source code!
Cacti
@dedc79:
Would you like a tissue, violet?
Guy
I’ll be damned. Back in 2003 I had a habit of labeling links to his blog as Matthew Yglesias (future conservative). I didn’t think he’d turn this quickly.
mclaren
@Kay:
Line up all the presidential candidates of both major political parties in a very slow motorcade and hold a $1 rental that day on sniper rifles with telescopic sights, with 1,000 rounds of free ammo for anyone who wants it. Make the motorcade pass very slowly alongside a building with several thousand open windows, and give the Secret Service the day off.
That would do it, I think.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m talking about European-style democratic socialism, so yes, it would include a robust private sector. It’s true that those economies are smaller than ours and the populations less diverse, but I don’t believe either of those factors necessarily present an insurmountable obstacle. Maybe they do. But I’m unconvinced by the arguments I’ve seen so far. Anyhoo, I don’t expect that to happen any time soon, so yay incremental change. But I don’t dismiss the possibility.
mclaren
@dedc79:
Then you better hold your nose, buttercup. ‘Cause you ain’t seen nothin’ compared to the deluge of manure that’s coming when the Republicans crank up their attack ads in the general election.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Its not that we can’t address it, we can but we won’t. At least not in the near future, when the resentment of the other is at such an all time high.
daveNYC
@schrodinger’s cat: Socialism? I must have missed the bit where he called for the nationalization of industries.
chopper
@mclaren:
DougJ, please reboot the mclaren program.
Andrey
@NR: Yes. If Rubio takes millions from the Koch brothers and also takes millions from, say, Greenpeace and the EFF and the ACLU, then I won’t have an issue with the money from the Koch brothers.
In actual fact Rubio has not taken millions from Greenpeace, the EFF, the ACLU, or any other such organizations. Rubio’s income in this aspect is concentrated in a particular group. That is why it is a problem.
Kay
Way to parry there, Howard,.
Dr. Dean knows Clinton got the vast majority of labor union endorsements, right? I think that’s a great idea. Hillary Clinton’s surrogates should argue that Democrats speaking to labor unions is “just like” Goldman Sachs.
Sanders should release his “labor union speeches”. He might not have to. I bet they’re online.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Nice that you have a decent choice isn’t it?
Look at the other side. Not one person you’d want to elect to any office, including Jr HS class president, a position with no responsibilities, no prestige, is not a rung on a ladder to anything.
TallPete
@mclaren: you forgot to add blatherskite
Barbara
@Brachiator: I didn’t say they were. Of course they are taking hits, but because they are by and large starting out with less, they are facing a whole host of issues that whites don’t. Take one example, the subprime mortgage crisis — it has hit minorities and minority neighborhoods in grossly disproportionate terms than it has white people and mostly white neighborhoods. Why? redlining, for one, and having less equity to begin with in your house, for another. It may be that there is a one size fits all solution, but the insistence that all problems faced by middle and working class people have identical dimensions regardless of ethnicity when they don’t means that the solutions, when they arrive, may very well be incomplete or even unfairly distributed.I don’t even see how what I wrote is controversial. How can you not see the importance of race in the existing allocation of social and economic capital, even at the lower rungs of society?
mclaren
@schrodinger’s cat:
Unbelievable tripe.
Bernie Sanders advocates nationalized single-payer health care. Explain to me why Britain’s National Health Service “does not work.” Show us how Germany’s health care system ‘does not work.’ Give us detailed examples of how Canada’s health care system is an abject failure.
Meanwhile, I refer you to headlines like “After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know,” New York Times, 20 September 2014, and “Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless,” The New York Times, 14 November 2015. Headlines about Shithole America, where our broken collapsing health care system clearly and obviously does not work.
Explain to us why putting in place 1930s-era regulation of financial markets is “boiler-plate socialism.” That’s utter twaddle, and you know it. Show us how the Glass-Steagall Act ‘doesn’t work,’ provide detailed specific examples.
Let us in on the big secret about how progressive taxation at Dwight-Eisenhower-era 90% rates “doesn’t work,” when everyone knows it worked for decades in America until the senile sociopath Ronald Reagan dismantled the progressive taxation system.
Bernie Sanders is espousing bog-standard utterly mainstream plain-vanilla Dwight Eisenhower style financial regulation and progressive taxation overwhelmingly advocated by mainstream Nobel laureate economists like Paul Krugman. Your efforts to claim that this plain-vanilla 1950s-era common sense legislation is “boilerplate socialism” fails the straight-face test. When you say this kind of stuff, people point at you and laugh.
You are spouting Glenn-Beck-style fringe lunatic Republican talking points. Your claims are gibberish. Begone, caitiff, you abuse our patience.
Just One More Canuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Considering the length of his screeds, that must be a lot of poop
schrodinger's cat
@mclaren: Can you not read?
I am all for bringing back Glass Steagall and New Deal Era banking regulation. I have said that more than once in this thread itself.
Miss Bianca
@TallPete:
Did “savage, unprincipled raparee” make it in there? I sort of lost track…
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I think that both Clinton and Sanders have weaknesses that they must overcome in order to guarantee general election success.
It’s ironic that Obama had perhaps the strongest Democratic coalition, and that neither Bernie nor Hillary can command the loyalty of all of this group. On the other hand, if Sanders cannot move the needle on black and Latino support, his viability as a contender will evaporate.
mclaren
@Andrey:
No, Rubio appears to have gotten his start in politics by taking big donations from his brother-in-law, one of the largest convicted drug traffickers in Miami.
As one might say, it was all going on right under Marco Rubio’s nose…
les
@singfoom:
What Democrat doesn’t take this position? What Dem has ever said nobody can have a gun? Why shouldn’t rural guns be registered just like any other?
Barbara
@mclaren: People who talk about a single national payer in Europe often don’t really understand the details of how European countries cover and pay for health care. Most systems have multi-payer aspects, certainly in the larger countries that’s true.
NHS in England is a universal payer, but England does not have a “single” payer because people can and do buy private health insurance. Such purchasing has increased as NHS has faced cutbacks. Germany also does not utilize a single payer system.
My point is that there is a difference between “guaranteed universal access” and “single payer.” Canada is a true single payer system, and no doubt there are others, but many European countries have multi-payer systems. But they ALL guarantee universal access, at least to citizens.
les
@singfoom:
Don’t people there’s a straw shortage, and building men out it just to burn them down is wasteful? Are you aware that Bernie’s vote that bugs many people was on a bill to shelter gun manufacturers and sellers from liability for what their products do?
mclaren
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, the problem is precisely that I can read.
You’re running the oldest of all far-right Republican scams. On the one hand you claim “I am all for bringing back Glass Steagall and New Deal Era banking regulation” yet on the other hand whenever Bernie Sanders advocates bringing back Glass Steagall and New Deal Era banking regulation, you assert “Bernie Sanders [sic] policies are boiler plate socialism which we have seen does [sic] not work.”
It’s the oldest Republican con job there is — claim to be in favor of social justice and prosperity for the bottom 99%, then when anyone makes a policy proposal that would actually produce social justice and prosperity for the bottom 99%, rail against it as “boiler plate socialism which we have seen does not work.”
It’s just a slightly more sophisticated version of telling a girl how special and wonderful she is while you put roofies in her drink.
You’re not fooling anyone, buddy.
singfoom
@les: Sorry Les, wasn’t building a strawman, was having a conversation with Miss Bianca about a related topic.
As for Bernie’s vote, I’m honestly not bothered by manufacturers being shielded. Sellers, it depends on the situation. YMMV
Cheers
les
@FlipYrWhig:
Man, she didn’t revoke all their passports when she was Sec O’ State now, did she? Huh? Obviously soft on The Street.
les
@singfoom:
My mileage varies indeed. To me this is a far more troublesome connection than speaking fees, which appear to be life and death to you. And did you not say: ” Democrats..reject all guns out of hand”? Pretty classic straw man, I’d argue.
mclaren
@Barbara:
You make excellent points. The overarching issue, however, is that in all these European countries, there is strict price control on the cost of medical procedures covered by the national health system.
A doctor cannot step into an operating room in Britain, tie off six sutures, and bill the NHS for $117,000 because he’s “not covered in the network.” That kind of horseshit goes on all the time in America, and simply does not occur in Europe, or in any other major first-world health care system like the one Japan has, etc.
Look, this is not rocket science. Unless you place stringent cost controls on health care, a for-profit system makes costs spiral wildly out of control. Every other first-world country has placed cost controls on their health care procedures, and as a result a hip replacement costs $7700 in Spain, while it costs $87,000 in America. An MRI costs $1850 in America while the exact MRI with the exact same machine costs $250 in France. The same dose of drugs that costs $10 in Canada costs $1,000 in America. And the list goes on and on and on.
Just look at Ezra Klein’s classic 2013 Washington Post article “21 graphs that show America’s health-care prices are ludicrous,” and you’ll see everything that’s wrong with America’s broken collapsing health care system in one article.
I can’t believe we’re even discussing this. These facts are well known. No one disagrees about them. No one even tries to claim that the health care systems of Europe don’t work, or that they’re impractical, or that they’re somehow destroying the medical profession in France or Germany or the Netherlands or Canada.
An angiogram costs $2430 in America, $35 in Canada.
A routine doctor’s office visit costs $176 in America, $11 in Spain.
An angioplasty costs $61,000 in America, $7,500 in France.
Bypass surgery costs $150,000 in America, $14,000 in the Netherlands.
Hip replacement costs $87,000 in America, $7,700 in Spain.
Knee replacement surgery costs $52,000 in America, $7,800 in Britain.
Anyone who claims that these well-vetted and thoroughly workable and efficient health care systems in European countries are “boiler plate socialism that everyone knows doesn’t work” is either delusional or lying. America’s health care system is the system that doesn’t work, and everyone knows it, because the cost of American health care is wildly out of control and no amount of health insurance can fix that problem unless we get costs under control. And the only way to do that is to eliminate profit as the major driving force of the health care system.
Barbara
@mclaren: You’re preaching to the converted, but just remember, the problems you are describing have more to do with provider practices than insurer practices. I think that’s what people have trouble coping with, the idea that the health care provider they want to trust is out of control when it comes to charging for services. There are ways to think about solving this, but I took off my policy wonk hat for the day.
singfoom
@les: I’m sorry you feel that way, but I think you must be referring to this:
I was talking about the framing of the issue and a simplified non nuanced version of the gun debate right now and how it doesn’t go anywhere, not actually staging the general Democratic position
And if you think that speaking fees are my issue, I urge you to reread my words.
Cheers.
Dave in Northern Nevada
I read BJ several times daily, and usually read comments on posts that are particularly interesting to me. I hardly ever comment, mostly because I’m not that hip with the jargon a lot of commenters use, and I’m certainly not as witty as most. In this instance, though, I feel somewhat qualified to comment:
I retired in late 2012, and in the Spring of 2013 my wife and I took a 9,300+ mile journey from Northern Nevada to the east coast in our diesel pickup towing a pretty heavy 5th-wheel trailer. We drove mostly interstate highways, including I-4, I-10, I-20, I-40, I-44, I-64, I-70, I-75, I-85, and I-95 (obviously not in that order). We had a wonderful time, visiting friends and family across the country, dodging tornadoes in Texas and Oklahoma, seeing the sites in Savannah and Washington D.C. and many other places. There were many places on the interstates that were so rough we thought our rig would be demolished. The roads were not “crumbling beneath our feet” but had, in fact, already crumbled, beneath the weight of thousands of big rigs. Yes, I realize our rig was big and heavy, but in reality it was a lightweight compared to the 18-wheelers that outnumber cars on many sections of interstates by a factor of 10 or 20 to 1.
It was painfully obvious that many of the roads we traveled are in drastic need of major repairs, at a minimum, if not complete replacement. Why we aren’t making these investments while the money required is practically free is beyond me.
les
@Hillary Rettig:
Some consistency would be nice. You’ve said speaking fees from groups you don’t personally see as dangerous are fine; now it’s “millions,” certainly implying more than GS. Why don’t you cite the actual deeds done when in a position to influence a policy instead of obsessing on who she was in the same room with sometime. The NRA campaigned and spent against Bernie’s opponent, and advised voting for him. Is he tainted?
mclaren
@FlipYrWhig:
Here it is:
Source: “Hillary Clinton’s Take on Banks Won’t Hold Up — The Democratic frontrunner seems to be counting on America’s ignorance about the 2008 crash,” Rolling Stone magazine, 14 October 2015.
Pay for play. Goldman Sachs bribes her, Hillary Clinton conveniently comes out against breaking up or regulating the giant financial institutions like Goldman Sachs which just paid an all-time record 550 million dollar fine for criminal fraud in the 2008 subprime mortgage collapse…oh, and by the way, Hillary’s daughter Chelsea is married to a hedge fund trader who works at Goldman Sachs.
In addition to taking bribes to make sure she comes out against regulation of Wall Streets out-of-control criminal fraud, Hillary also wants to make sure her son-in-law doesn’t go to pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison for financial fraud.
This goes wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy beyond “conflict of interest.” At this point, we’re into straight-up bribery. Frankly, I’m surprised Hillary Clinton hasn’t been indicted for aiding and abetting 18 U.S. Code § 1343, federal interstate wire fraud.
schrodinger's cat
@mclaren: I am not your buddy but thanks for the good laugh. I am twirling my invisible mustache as we speak.
I will support Bernie and even canvass for him if he wins the nomination. I am not convinced that he is the better choice for the Dem nomination, if that makes me Catzilla so be it.
les
@singfoom:
But that’s the frame of no serious Democratic politician ever. It’s not helpful to argue about how conservatives who will never vote Dem anyway, pretend Dems want to take all the guns away.
Sorry about the speech confusion. In my defense, I’m old and thinking about two things is hard.
mclaren
@Barbara:
The simplest and best-tested way of reducing health care costs is the one used in every first-world country except America: a single national payer that has the power of the purse to demand cost reductions.
Once again, this is not rocket science. When Japan instituted its health care system, it announced it would not pay more than $150 for an MRI. Companies said that was impossible. The Japanese national health care system said — Fine, then you will go out of business. Magically, Japanese health care companies proved able to deliver an MRI for a cost of $150.
That’s how you do it.
les
@mclaren:
If I remember right, you’re not into facts or reason; but this argument is pernicious. While I won’t question your skills, I’ll defer to Krugman who doesn’t think Glass-Steagll actually addresses today’s problems, or yesterdays–the issues weren’t primarily the actions of banks so much as other denizens of the financial morass. Not that banks don’t have issues, but it’s not that simple. And to jump from this quote to
is stupid enough to undercut any notion that you know what you’re talking about.
les
@Hillary Rettig:
Huh. Nice work. One example of an alleged change of position. One not–she’s never been a single payer proponent. And neither with anything to do with the financial industry. Lame is as good as it gets.
TallPete
@mclaren: It’s just a slightly more sophisticated version of telling a girl how special and wonderful she is while you put roofies in her drink.
You’re not fooling anyone, buddy
LOL!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@les: I can’t quite figure out if Cole’s new troll is just a sloppy writer (and thinker) or actively dishonest. She doesn’t seem to like to respond.
mclaren
@les:
Really? Goldman Sachs pays Hillary Clinton $600,000 to give a speech explaining that “bashing the bankers is unproductive.” Hillary Clinton then comes out against regulation of financial insitutions like Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs pays a record fine of $550 million for criminal fraud.
That’s straightforward. A federal prosecutor would not have a lot of difficulty presenting that case to a grand jury and getting an indictment on 18 US Code § 201, bribery of a public official.
Let’s examine the language of 18 USC 201, shall we?
That seems to fit the particulars of this situation, does it not?
As for the applicability of 18 U.S. Code § 1343, that I have well documented in other posts. Interstate wire fraud covers any transmission of information electronically between states with intent to, or for the purpose of, defrauding another party, and since the subprime morgage robosignings which Goldman Sachs wilfully misrepresented to its clients used the interstate MERS system to record title deeds, Goldman Sachs is guilty of conspiracy 18 U.S. Code § 1343 as further evidenced by Goldman’s admission to these charges in their 2010 SEC settlement of criminal fraud charges. Hillary Clinton’s refusal to regulate criminal enterprises like Goldman Sachs obviously fits the definition of aiding and abetting 18 U.S. Code § 1343, interstate wire fraud.
Hillary Clinton could also easily be charged with conspiracy to commit a felony, to wit 18 U.S. Code § 1343, interstate wire fraud, and 42 USC section 1895, obstruction of justice.
The only reason Hillary Clinton hasn’t been indicted on these charges, as far as I can tell, is the same reason Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice and George W. Bush haven’t been indicted for war crimes: namely, that the United States justice system has broken down and people above a certain pay grade are now immune to punishment for their crimes no matter how many felonies they commit.
goblue72
@FlipYrWhig: I recognize the average age of BJ commuters is probably 65 based on the photos I have seen from various BJ meet ups – but I have news for folks. Millennials at this point are not all fresh-faced college students. Older Millenials (those borne in the early 1980s) are now in their early 30s – they are getting married, having kids, maybe if lucky buying houses, saving for retirement. Get X-ers (my generation) are in their late 30s through early 50s, with most in their 40s. We’re middle age, mid-career at this point in our lives. We’re the ones paying for Boomers Social Security checks and Medicare, and wondering if we will be working till we retire and how we will afford our kids college tuition.
So no, we aren’t young-ins’s sitting in our dorm rooms shooting the shit over Karl Marx. God, some of you are just so clueless.
les
@C.V. Danes:
You and me; unfortunately, stay used to it. No Democratic president can be legitimate to the Repub mouth breathers, and they’re barely tolerable to the Village. It doesn’t matter which, the shit storm will continue, just with different bitches.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as opposed to…?
les
@mclaren:
This is what’s known technically and colloquially as a “lie.” You’re only claim to fame is her failure to back re-upping Glass-Steagall. Goldman would not be effected by Glass in any event. And not backing reinstatement does not equal being against regulation.
Please proceed, bozo.
randy khan
@mclaren:
Uh, no.
Paying someone who is not currently a public official to give a speech (and, indeed, she would have been precluded by various ethics rules from taking that money while she was a public official) does not get you even 1/100th of the way towards a charge of bribing a public official.
The rest is, if I dare quote Antonin Scalia, argle bargle. Among many, many other reasons it makes no sense is that her last job in government was as Secretary of State, where she had precisely zero authority over the people who decide whether to prosecute Goldman or the people who regulate Goldman’s marketplace activities. And, of course, you can charge her today for the possibility that she would or wouldn’t choose to regulate or prosecute Goldman in the future.
This is not to say that I think doing that gig was a wise choice on her part, although I would change my mind if she released the transcript and it turned out she actually told them they needed to straighten up and fly right. (I give that about a 0.01% chance, and even that probably is generous. She probably just did a generic speech about trends or something like that.)
les
@mclaren:
Other than her not being in position to influence the behavior of relevant officials, your failure to demonstrate that the fine was inappropriate under the circumstances, her connection to any of the alleged actions or any relevance to wire fraud, why sure, it’s a great fit.
Please, proceed.
FlipYrWhig
@goblue72: Yes, you’re very edgy and radical, and it’s all too much for us squares to take.
randy khan
@les:
This.
So much rhetoric on the right is devoted to treating Democrats as the other that there is no reason to think it matters which ones get elected. A little part of me says the Dems ought to nominate Hillary because it would tick off the right so much, and because she’s now evolved – as shown by the Benghazi hearing – to the point of not caring one little bit what they think.
FlipYrWhig
@randy khan: We have a pretty good idea what she says in her standard speech, which I assume is what you get for the $225K package. According to Mother Jones, it’s
I mean, ugh, number one; and, number two, jeez, that’s bad. But corrupt? Come on.
mclaren
@les:
Oops. Now you’re the one caught in a lie.
Source: Lament of the Plutocrats,” 2013.
Since regulating the finance industry or indicting its members for criminal fraud is code for “beating up the finance industry,” Hillary is clearly and obviously coming out against criminal indictments, regulation, or another Peccaro Commission. This despite the fact that Goldman Sachs had already paid a record 550 million dollar fine for criminal fraud.
Get paid, oppose criminal or civil sanctions for criminal fraud. That’s bribery, pure and simple. Goldman Sachs paid, Hillary played. Any prosecutor could get a bill from a grand jury on that one in an afternoon.
Pro tip: when telling these kinds of flagrant lies, please try to make sure you’re well enough paid by your Republican handlers to sufficiently compensate for the damage to your reputation. Right now, everyone is pointing at you and laughing.
Bill
@goblue72:
Yup.
So many of our problems are going to self correct when the boomers die off, reducing their enormous drag on so many of our programs.
Bill
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Working until we die.
les
@mclaren:
You really are pretty bad at this, aren’t you? She gives them Pablum; your source claims (I suppose based on the same ability to mind read that you demonstrate) the bankers heard what they wanted to hear (which was more than she said), and you leap to :
I really had forgotten the depths of your ignorance and stupidity. Tell me, are those alien anal probes really as bad as people claim?
Cacti
@goblue72:
I see you’ve managed to avoid calling anyone a “squish” today.
Your brogressive troll routine would probably work better if you didn’t let your GOP mask drop.
les
@Bill:
Hey, there, whippersnapper. I have well laid plans to remain an enormous drag, well beyond my death. Hah!
TallPete
@FlipYrWhig: So you seem to be saying that Goldman is so dumb that they think this Clinton tripe full of “pithy reflections” is worth $200K to motivate or entertain their VPs not once, but three times? Or is it more likely they are buying influence?
Matt McIrvin
@MomSense:
People keep saying this, and it sounds plausible, but he still keeps doing at least as well as Clinton in the head-to-head polls against the Republicans, sometimes better. Is it that people already have positive opinions of Sanders but don’t know he calls himself a socialist? It’s the first thing anyone ever mentions about him.
Original Lee
@Roger Moore: IIRC, the Clintons had a lot of legal bills to pay. Both of them raised their speaking fees and accepted as many speaking engagements as they could. They probably didn’t refuse very many bookings until their mattress was nicely cushy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TallPete: Buying prestige, they want their picture took. I don’t know who else they’ve paid to speak.
I also don’t much care.
mclaren
JEB BUSH campaign posters for 2016:
JEB! No lives matter
JEB! HOPE you’re not indefinitely detained
JEB! YES WE CAN bomb brown babies
JEB! Four more fears!
JEB! Reich to rise!
JEB! I’d rather be waterboarding
goblue72
@Cacti: Once again, put the crack pipe down. Its laughably to suggest I’m some form of crypto-republican. I get it – its your schtick. You’re crazy.
randy khan
@mclaren:
After the grand jury indicted the ham sandwich, I presume.
Look, what’s missing for a criminal indictment here is that she was speaking to them as a private citizen with no actual power to make any of those things you so want her to have done happen (and, to boot, no power to do any of those things when she was Secretary of State). This isn’t minor detail, you know – it’s the entire basis of the law you keep thinking somehow applies.
goblue72
@FlipYrWhig: Its a fact bub. There’s a number of moderates amongst the BJ regulars. The blog host is recovering Republican. There’s a number of conventional liberals. I’m a socialist. My political views ARE more radical than the average BJ commenter. If that hurts your feelings, so be it.
randy khan
@TallPete:
From what I know of the speaking industry (and I know someone in the business quite well – some of her stories are pretty funny), a lot of times people hire speakers to impress the audience, even when the audience consists of people inside the company. So, strangely, yeah, Goldman could have been that dumb.
redshirt
Jesus Christ!
les
Woopwoopwoop activate McLaren alert:
Which Fed criminal laws did Bernie violate, big guy??? Given that failure to propose or vote for mumblemumble while not a member of any legislative body, this has to be much worse!
mclaren
@Matt McIrvin:
In 2008, people weren’t going to vote for a forty-seven-year-old black man for president.
Look around, folks. The times, they are a-changin’.
mclaren
@les:
Show us the bribe Goldman Sachs paid to Bernie Sanders.
Oops! Your Republican handlers just aren’t paying enough for their astroturfers nowadays. It’s a sign of the general decline of the Republican brand. Your performance is simply too shoddy to pass muster.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@goblue72: Dood, you are both rad and radical! Congratulations!
@randy khan: I’ve seen a couple of fancy law, stock brokers’ offices– they spend a lot more than $250K on other kinds of window dressing
TallPete
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well maybe you should care. Whether there is actual influence or not, the optics are terrible for a general election.
les
@TallPete:
Ya know, it’s not really that hard. GS wants people to give them their money to invest. Many many people who have money are impressed to be invited to listen to famous people talk. Content of talk irrelevant. First speech netted more benefit than cost to GS, they said hey, c’mon back! Christ, have you never looked at who’s out there as motivational speakers??
Do you get that there’s this huge angst about GS bribing somebody who is in no position to help them, and may never be? Is she going to veto the harsh regulatory regime passed by the Repub congress? This is ridiculous.
Original Lee
@Miss Bianca: Clinton probably has several stock speeches. People are essentially asking her to make public material that is her intellectual property and that she has been using to generate personal income, and that she will not be able to use again if she does release it. Pretty nasty, to my mind.
les
@mclaren:
You don’t have much respect for GS or Bernie, do you, Mac? I can’t see the bribe; that’s how good they are, and how I know it’s true.
mclaren
@randy khan:
So when Goldman Sachs pays a bribe to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to explain why indicting Wall Street crime lords for criminal fraud is a bad idea, this is perfectly on the up-and-up.
Try again.
Any competent prosecutor would point out that Hillary Clinton was formerly the First Lady, then the Secretary of State, and was universally recognized as the frontrunner for president of the United States at the time of the speech. So it boils down to the question of what the definition of “official” is.
Clintonian hairsplitters love to play semantic games like that, so a federal prosecutor enjoying some verbal gymnastics with the word “official” seems like fair play in return.
Much worse prosecutors have gotten indictments on much less.
mclaren
@les:
Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, we can see her bribe. We know exactly how large it was. We know exactly who paid it to her.
Your Republican handlers are not paying you nearly enough for the humiliation you are bringing upon yourself with these hijinks.
FlipYrWhig
@goblue72: I salute your daring, showing your head around here. Personally, I believe in so many amazing crazy things YOUR GODDAM HEAD WILL FUCKING SPIN, and one day we’ll show all you sellouts what’s what, and I think the other day someone looked at one of the photocopied articles I leave around town, which is how you can tell that the movement is just about here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TallPete: You’ve shifted from “buying influence” to “optics”.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole: Oh, it’s both sides alright. It’s the shitweasel operatives HRC normally surrounds herself with vs. some random dudes? on the internets.
My money is on Hillary Clinton’s shitweasel operatives. I don’t think the bros can hold it together. Do they seriously think they can elect a president from facebook comments?
mclaren
Meanwhile, out in the real world:
Source: “Bernie Sanders Raised More Money in January Than Hillary Clinton,” The New York Times, 4 February 2016.
More proof that Bernie Sanders can’t win the general election!
I think we need to make that phrase the new “Good news for John McCain”…
DCF
What Happened in Iowa?
Revolt, Revolution, and the “Candidate Smith” Project
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-caddell/what-happened-in-iowa_b_9157958.html
chopper
TBOGG! TBOGG!
chopper
I must say I like this “a private citizen who is no longer a government official is a government official” line of argument. I mean in terms of comedic value, but I still like it.
NR
@chopper: Oh, it’s not nearly as funny as the argument that in 2013, no one anywhere had any idea that Hillary Clinton was going to run for president in 2016, and Goldman Sachs and everyone else were all just so surprised, nay, shocked, when she announced.
I mean, that’s true hilarity right there.
chopper
@NR:
oh no, it’s funnier. cause this involves the idea of indicting someone who in no way was a government official for something done by a government official. that’s a special kind of crazy-pants you usual only see from the likes of limbaugh and his ilk.
different-church-lady
@chopper: Apparently all we need to achieve a TBogg Unit is for the blog host to say, “Hey, both you sides, I’m tired of your shit.”
different-church-lady
I have to say, in the interests of achieving a TBogg, that I spent yesterday with some real life voters, and if they saw what was going on here they’d probably think most of you were batshit insane.
redshirt
@different-church-lady: Batshit insane AND Republican operatives. Why not both?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
So, hey, what’s happenin’
I’m listening to Chris Hayes on MSNBC. Of course, the show’s about the Republicans now – Christie, Trump, etc., etc.
TGIF.
Hillary going to Flint is a good idea. I hope the press follows her up there, but I’m not optimistic.
Cheers,
Scott.
James E Powell
@WarMunchkin: Exactly – where are the I.F. Stone’s of our time ?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@James E Powell: Maybe aimai knows?
I would think she would have a good idea anyway…
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Bill:
Had a family member tell me that I’d have to work till I die. The implication was taken that people who build things rather than steal them as said asshole works at a bank, in management. Said asshole has his retirement all set and with plenty of money. Said asshole and I no longer are considered relatives. At the very least.
randy khan
@mclaren:
You can keep saying that “any competent prosecutor” would decide that someone not in office and at that point not running for office could be indicted for taking a bribe for something she might do if she were elected, but that’s not particularly convincing.
I’m curious if you can find a single example of a prosecutor doing something like that. I’m going to bet not, because it’s not a crime. I mean, besides all of the reasons I’ve given you, for it to be a bribe, she would have to get elected to office and, you know, actually do something, so there wouldn’t be anything to prosecute yet.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Rachel showed a tracking poll graph that shows that HRC has Big Mo in NH!!!11 Will she close the gap??! “It’s super exciting!!11”
Zooks!
It’ll be nice when we have a few more states in the rear view mirror. The mania of the press to try to make some huge story out of a couple of tiny states voting is a bit depressing.
Cheers,
Scott.
Johnnybuck
My God what hath Bernie wrought?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hell, I think we’re batshit insane, and I’ve been in the whole thing.
I do wonder how many people you stopped on the street could say what/who Goldman Sachs is, much less why Democrats are talking about it
so, we’re slouching toward Tboggorah…
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Rachel’s giving Chris “Time for some traffic problems in Ft. Lee” Christie his 5 minutes of fame before she does his obituary next week. Coming Up Next!!11
Oooh. Exciting.
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Is there a time limit on an Official TBogg Unit? I see this thread is already off the “Recent Posts” list….
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Chris Chrisite brags about his ability to keep his cool when challenged
different-church-lady
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: No. Absolutely not. There is no clock in TBoggBall.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He was the bad guy in James Bond film, yes?
randy khan
@different-church-lady: I assume it would be wrong to add a comment just to get to 500.
But perhaps you should confirm that.
Wilson Heath
Ken we haz TBogg yoonit?
different-church-lady
@randy khan: In this world, you only get what you go after.
chopper
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!
J R in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
Flew out of JFK to Madrid, then from Charles de Gaulle in Paris back to JFK.
JFK is a junkyard, half torn down, half should have been torn down. Charles de Gaulle is brand new, modern, beautiful. Wood polished, clean, wonderful comfortable chairs.
It was humiliating to think of the contrast. Thank dog only a tiny minority of French people get to see how awful JFK is compared to their showpiece airport in Paris. Of course the airports in and around Washington DC are not quite as bad as JFK, which impressed me as an airport in a 3rd world nation, not an airport in one of the most fabulous cities in the world, NYC.
And water systems in Flint AND in Washington are terrible, not to mention the sewer systems that pour sewage waste into rivers if it rains. Horrible! Water and waste systems everywhere are terrible, like a 3rd world country.
The power grid is state of the art 1953, and the Internet in the US is 23rd in the world. Infant mortality rates are 27th in the world, behind Serbia for dog’s sake.
We are pathetic. And no presidential candidate is telling us that they will fix all these broken things.
Pathetic!
randy khan
@J R in WV:
CDG actually is not that new, although it has been expanded. (And it’s a pain to navigate, although that’s true of any really big airport.) They do a good job keeping it up, but it’s not even as new as some of the terminals at O’Hare or most of Hartsfield.
The thing with JFK is that it’s a hodgepodge (as is LaGuardia). It just doesn’t feel coherent.
Barbara
@mclaren: And I just got finished telling you that most nations don’t actually use a single payer system. Single payer is a slogan not a plan.
Bloix
@Guachi: Do you think she was in “high demand” because she had such thrilling pearls of wisdom to impart? These “speaking fees” were pre-bribes, which will be followed up by post-bribes after she leaves the White House.
sglover
@Cacti says: “Bernie’s current colleagues in the Senate also appear to be getting a little fed up with his “everyone in Washington is corrupt but me” song and dance.
Members of the Dem Caucus as disparate as Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Tammy Baldwin, and Brian Schatz have made public statements telling The Bern to go pound sand.”
Yeah, I would **definitely** use those illustrious “leaders” as my guiding star, my moral compass.