It looks like the rocket surgeons in the Debbie Wasserman Schultz era DNC are ready to tap into the people’s anger at the establishment. Wait, what?
The Democratic National Committee has rolled back restrictions introduced by presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 that banned donations from federal lobbyists and political action committees.
The decision was viewed with disappointment Friday morning by good government activists who saw it as a step backward in the effort to limit special interest influence in Washington. Some suggested it could provide an advantage to Hillary Clinton’s fundraising efforts.
“It is a major step in the wrong direction,” said longtime reform advocate Fred Wertheimer. “And it is completely out of touch with the clear public rejection of the role of political money in Washington,” expressed during the 2016 campaign.
SCREAM!!!
We’re going to lose in November and we will deserve to.
Seebach
They’re just trying to help the establishment candidate, Bernie Sanders.
Agorabum
Deserves got nothing to do with it.
Laertes
The fuck?
Keith P.
There. But still, are you gonna be crapping these out daily until the election or what?
NobodySpecial
Sir, I thought we went over this drinking thing.
WarMunchkin
I agree that it’s morally suspect, and it continues the logical progression from idealism to pragmatism to win-at-any-cost, but I think most people don’t really care about this stuff. Politics is about identity, and people identify more with the party trying to help people over the party of white nationalism. We’re not going to lose because of this.
Patricia Kayden
No we’re not going to lose in November. Not if we all come out and vote against whichever crazy Clown Car Occupant Republicans put up to run.
If we stay focused on the dangers of a Republican Presidency, not only for the U.S but for the world, we’ll be more than motivated to vote for the eventual Democratic Candidate.
Just keep in mind that the so-called moderate Kasich is about to sign a law to defund PP in Ohio. They are all evil — EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM WOULD MAKE A HORRIBLE PRESIDENT.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/02/10/3748390/kasich-abortion-legislation/
Marc McKenzie
We’re going to lose in November and we will deserve to.
Wow…the cynicism is strong with this one. So I guess we all deserve to have the GOP throw us over the fence and give us the business….
…But then again, we’ve been making it easy for them ever since a few folks decided to lose their shit back in 2009 because the Black Guy in the White House (who’s now a loser and didn’t do anything) didn’t give us a utopia with a snap of his fingers.
Shaking my head at all of this….
Germy
Debbie had a good conversation with Triumph the Insult Comic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7LLGCtYMWg
Patience
Do what I’m doing, John – every time my husband or I get a phone call from the Democratic establishment looking for a handout (that’s the DNC, DNSC, and DNCC, for those keeping score), I tell them no and I tell them why. I only make contributions directly to candidates I support, because as near as I can tell, the Democratic Party structure is as sclerotic, inept, and corrupt as the GOP.
Applejinx
Well, now you’ve heard from them! :D
Keep calm, John. We got this. You are only seeing what’s more or less predictable, and this race is far from over.
Perhaps we Bernie people will get an endorsement from Barack Obama! I wouldn’t blame Bernie for lightening up on BHO in that case… though being Bernie, he might just carry on anyhow, not in malice but on principle.
He did leave his private meeting with BHO smiling. Perhaps Obama said, ‘Hillary has to listen to my advice and campaign well or I’ll be unhappy with her’. It wouldn’t be at all unreasonable to expect.
daveNYC
It’s a lose-lose. The Democrats will never get as much of this sort of cash as the Republicans, and it gives away the moral high ground.
schrodinger's cat
You sound as overwrought as a hero in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie, pipe down please.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
This is not sufficient. You have to give voters a positive reason for voting for you
.
Amir Khalid
Get a hold of yourself, man. Stop being such a nervous Nelly.
Brachiator
@Marc McKenzie:
Weird. I thought that Obama easily won re-election in 2012. Must have been a dream I had.
Gene108
When the Koch Brothers have promised to kick in a billion dollars all by themselves to elect Republicans in 2016, the Democrats are getting a bit concerned with keeping up.
The DNC has basically beat back all the third party attacks coming on down ticket Democrats, because the Democrats do not have billionaire sugar daddies.
Eric U.
my conversation with the Hillary person the other night that called to raise funds because we gave money to them a couple of months ago has stopped the calls. People who give money via the internet do not want calls, at least in my experience, and I hate them spending my contribution bugging me for more contributions
I guess they don’t have any events here in PA for a while, so they can’t invite us to anything. I think I would go
kc
Ya think?
Gee, I though Hillary was the one who was going to protect Obama’s legacy.
Applejinx
Wow. And to think one attack on Bernie Sanders is that he’s not respecting the gains made by the President. I’m sure it’s a fair criticism, and I think Barack Obama has accomplished many great things, but these restrictions on PACs and such are among the great things he accomplished.
I think we’ll be okay and am not panicking, but my feelings are with John. This is a horrible thing to discover. I’d like to believe the Democrats with whom we gotta ally anyway, for good or ill, were better than this.
But that’s why we’re talking revolution. It’s not a revolution toward this sort of business. It’s a revolution AWAY from it, and it seems to me Obama did his part and has now been undermined.
kc
@Patricia Kayden:
AMEN.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: And maybe Obama will say I LOVE BERNIE SANDERS SO MUCH HE’S MY HERO I’D BE NOTHING WITHOUT HIM AND IF ANYTHING I FEEL SHAME AT MY RELATIVE INSIGNIFICANCE WHENEVER HE’S NEARBY
David M
I’m not seeing the problem here, unless you want the GOP to end up with an even larger financial advantage…You go to the election with the campaign finance laws you have, not the laws you want.
Technocrat
@Brachiator:
Is that what democracy has become? Motivating the apathetic?
We had an important election recently in PA, state judges or some such. I dragged my sorry self to the polls before work, but…judges. How excited do you think I was? How excited could I be?
Half of the really important regional and local contests are for laughably mundane positions that are actually important. If it’s all about excitement, we might as well put the “closed” sign on the Democracy door and turn off the lights.
Raven Onthill
Not revolution but reaction.
My sympathies, John.
Gene108
@Applejinx:
When Chuck and Davie Koch are peppering a House race with ads calling the Democrat terrible things, what liberal billionaire is going to respond in kind?
Wait, I made a funny, liberal billionaires do not exist.
It’s the DNC having to run ads against Rove, the Koch Brothers, et al
You could get away with not taking money from lobbyists pre-CU, but I do not see the advantage of not having money to respond to down ticket races.
***********
As far as Obama’s legacy goes, he was a singular fund raising juggernaut the likes of which has never before been seen in our politics. He coulda afford to say no to lobbyists and PACs.
***************************
Also anyone inclined to think Democrats “sold us out to the highest bidder” ergo we need a “revolution” probably already feel Democrats have their noses buried in the ass-crack of every lobbyist, PAC and Wall Street tycoon in America, so staying pure makes no difference in perception.
NR
@WarMunchkin:
All I can say is that you are badly misreading the current political climate.
NR
@Marc McKenzie: I love how you guys can take a piece of news about the DNC opening its doors to floods of lobbyist cash and turn it into an opportunity to hippie-punch. The cognitive dissonance is strong here.
p.a.
Freak out here all you want if it helps, just don’t start drinking because of this stuff.
gvg
You do seem almost Andrew Sullivanish. I am not feeling that alarmed.
We have some strange elaborate rules about fundraising. I find the ones where people can donate whatever to superpacs with no transparency and legally the named candidate can’t coordinate with them to be more problematic. nothing is going to fix it except appointing enough SC justices to get rid of the nonsense called Citizen’s United. A donation to DNC does not equal donation to Hillary.
Is it Citizens or some other case that allowed the SC to overturn local corruption laws..i think it was about Utah.
What we need are some real scandals. Foreign nationals buying influence blatantly would serve to get bipartisan reform I think. It doesn’t get mentioned much but part of the reason we did so well in 2006 was the GOP had a series of scandals beyond the Iraq boondoggle and local people tossed their reps and senators out.
Brachiator
@Technocrat:
Yes.
SATSQ
Applejinx
@Gene108: We’ve already observed that floods of corporate cash don’t automatically translate to ‘win the election!’ so this is another unforced error, and a revealing one.
Look at Bush! Not lacking in money.
Look at Hillary Clinton! Not lacking in money and endorsements.
I would like to see Bernie Sanders promise that, should he win, he will put back the restrictions that Barack Obama wanted to have. This is just plain corruption, and it isn’t even ‘automatic win’. They chose to go back to this well.
Applejinx
@gvg: I don’t know, we have Iran openly saying that Republicans tried to get ’em to not release the Americans until after the election, and I’m not sure how much difference that’s going to make. These are strange times.
gene108
@Applejinx:
I am not talking about the Presidency.
I am talking about down ticket races for the Senate, the House of Representatives, and state legislatures, etc.
As flawed as the DNC is, they are the ones who will have to respond to Crossroads GPS/American Crossroads, Americans for Prosperity and whatever other groups rightwingers are setting up to bombard down ticket races with ads against the Democrat.
The Presidential campaign gets so much coverage that T.V. ads are not going to make much of a difference. There’s so much news out there about candidates that a Presidential candidate can get around T.V. ads.
The down ticket races get very little publicity. T.V. ads probably still carry a lot of punch in informing voters about those candidates. Downticket races are where the damage has been done because of the Citizen’s United ruling.
I wish I lived in a pure world, where everyone played nice, but when someone’s trying impugn your character in 30 second soundbites, you need to be able to respond effectively.
different-church-lady
Oh holy god… about one in ten thousand people is going to even be aware of this.
I don’t know if we’re going to win or lose in November, but I know it’s not going to hinge on this inside baseball kind of shit.
Emma
You’re right. We will lose and we will deserve it. But not for the reasons you think. We will lose because we enjoy morality plays more than winning. We prefer to lose an election rather than accept the fact that this isn’t about our ethical purity. And we’ll wring our hands and stamp our feet and make growling noises as the rights of minorities and individuals are rolled back, but hey, accepting the fact that politics as defined by our society is really at best messy is too much for the pale lotus flowers inside our souls.
And as far as motivating someone is concerned — if they can’t be arsed to protect their own freaking future why should anyone do it for them?
different-church-lady
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s the one where he whines, “GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!”, right?
AnonPhenom
I think the Democratic Party Establishment & Insiders Club forsee the crack-up of the Opposition Party with Trump as the nominee and they’re positioning themselves to grab as many donor-class marbles as they can get their hands on. Even at the risk of fracturing their own coalition. “Let the ideological Left and Right run off and form their own little parties. We’ll be the ‘Centrist/No Lables/Corporate Party”.
Which of course, will be anything but centrist. Obama might be backing the wrong horse.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
I shall be leaving my hair in tact, not a great move, but
yeah.
Ha! well observed.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@gene108: Don’t hate the players – hate the game. Bur you don’t get to change the rules without winning first, and even then it’s really hard. Sad but true.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Marc McKenzie:
This.
AnonPhenom
By the way, Democratic Party Establishment & Insiders Club (DPEIC) … ® and ™
Luigidaman
This is silly. I don’t care where the money comes from. In this current post Citizens United political climate, you have to do “what the Romans do” (Republicans) and take money from anywhere to insure your message gets out. When Hillary wins we can work to try to reign in political donations. Until that time, lets do all we can to win.
different-church-lady
@Marc McKenzie:
You think that was bad: wait until January 21, 2017 and the Revolution hasn’t arrived.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Nonsense. Money wins elections. This is the first smart thing DWS has ever done.
Technocrat
@Brachiator:
I’m embarrassed to say I had to Google that. And I used to read MAD.
The Gray Adder
@CONGRATULATIONS!: THIS. Unilateral disarmament is rarely a good idea. Democrats who do this more often than not end up on the short end of the stick. While I’m not a yuuuge fan of Wasserman-Schultz, she’s actually right about this one.
Patricia Kayden
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Agreed. Until Citizens United is overturned, we have to play with the big dogs. Whoever ends up being the Republican Candidate will have access to an endless pit of money. We have to at least be able compete with our opposition while we are living in a country where big money runs politics.
No hair pulling from me. My hair will fall out if a Republican gets into the White House though. Cannot live through another Bush-like administration.
NR
@Emma: Instead of punching, I recommend you start using the DNC-approved Hippie Appreciation Bat for a while (helpfully provided by Goldman Sachs). It’ll be easier on your knuckles if nothing else.
AnonPhenom
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter:
Unfortunately, for most Dems’ their ‘Game’ stops after being elected, if they get elected.
Though I haven’t committed to either HRC or BS yet, what I like about Bernie is Game.
Well Bernie does hale from B’klyn.
It has been successfully argued that one of the consequences of the Democratic Party developing their neurotic palsy to all things ‘Liberal’ since the late ’80s has resulted in the giving up their inside political lane to the Conservatives and allowing them (hell, assisting them with) some easy policy lay-up.
Everything from “small-business-friendly” trade & regulatory policies to “law and order” manditory-minimum sentencing.
Even the ACA is a Republican policy … and the Right reacted to that with the teabaggers.
Now that’s Game.
When Democrats have a political advantage they are content to play CYO nice ball. A little pick and roll and pass till you find the open man – but don’t dunk! That’s showboating! Bipartisanship Uber Alles!
Maybe Bernie knows that Game Recognizes Game. And Game only Respects Game. Protecting your ideological lanes forces your opponent into taking lower percentage outside the Overton Window shots or even turning over control of the political ball.
Driving their ideologically protected lanes and going for the policy basket can force them back on their heals and get you a foul call and a quick point or two.
Put enough pressure on for Single Payer and maybe you come away with some serious controls on Pharma or even a Medicare Public Option.
Etc…
But if Game does Recognizes Game, right about now the Democratic Party Establishment Insiders are lookin’ kinda unfamiliar.
C.V. Danes
We will not lose the presidency.
Bobby Thomson
@Brachiator: and it always has been.
C.V. Danes
@C.V. Danes: However, of concern to me is the dearth of young(er) progressives of presidential material. We forget that Obama is relatively young for a president. Where are the rest of his age group?
trollhattan
@FlipYrWhig:
An then the piano begins as the president croons:
“Why do birds, suddenly appear
Every time, you are near?”
gene108
@AnonPhenom:
NO. IT. IS. NOT
It has damn near nothing to do with what Heritage proposed 20+ years ago, other than the fact the words “insurance mandate” appears in both.
If I wrote a short story, where the words “insurance mandate” appear, it does not mean much of anything other than a word search will turn up those words, with regards to my reliance on the Heritage proposal.
How “insurance mandates” are used, cost controls, allowance for access, etc. can be entirely different and have nothing in common and that’s what happened with the PPACA; it is wholly different than anything the Republicans have ever proposed.
different-church-lady
@NR: I like the newer, funnier you.
shomi
Lol…oh man. Apparently wr0ng way C0le still hasn’t figured out that more money increases your chances of winning. Oh no we can’t have that. Doesn’t pass our purity test. Much better to be outspent 10-1 by Republicans, lose the election, and get a bunch more right wing ah0les on the supreme court who will guarantee that the the superpac money machine keeps rolling.
What amazing cognitive skills c0le has…sigh
gene108
@C.V. Danes:
Sitting at home after losing elections in 2010 and 2014.
Cacti
I’m starting to wonder if Bernie isn’t just innumerate when it comes to his Santa Claus promises for everyone.
In last night’s debate, he said that by the end of his first term, the U.S. could no longer be the world’s largest jailor.
Reality: At around 2.3 million inmates, the U.S. leads second place China by roughly 600,000 prisoners.
The total Federal prison population is only about 210,000. Ergo, even if President Bernie pardoned or commuted every federal inmate, he would be about 400,000 short of his goal.
All remaining US prisoners are incarcerated at the State and local level, over which the POTUS and US Congress do not have any direct authority under Constitutional principles of federalism.
More pie in the sky from Grandpa Goodness.
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig: @trollhattan: Actually, should Bernie win, I would very much expect Obama to stump his ass off for Bernie.
schrodinger's cat
@different-church-lady: Not just game over, life over because he has lost the love of his life since her father thinks that he is not good enough for his precious.
Here is the video
C.V. Danes
@gene108: Seriously, though, who’s being groomed to replace Bernie or Hillary eight years from now? I know this is looking forward, but just wondering.
Doug Ricketts
Off the ledge John.
schrodinger's cat
@Cacti: Numbers are so boring, why can’t you appreciate how inspiring he is.
/snark.
C.V. Danes
@Brachiator:
How about if you vite Dem, they won’t put you into work camps…
Linnaeus
@Cacti:
What Sanders is calling for re: incarceration differs very little from what Obama himself has advocated.
AnonPhenom
@gene108:
With only minor differences, Yes it is.
But, shout louder. It always helps.
Applejinx
Rather than work on the snarkiest possible response I think I’ll go for a legitimate question:
How?
Marc
@shomi: There are some sources of money that backfire, and some value to being able to draw bright moral lines. If we were talking about a complete spending ban that’d be different from banning lobbyist contributions; Obama managed to do it. Why can’t the current candidates?
Marc
@Applejinx: I can’t believe for a minute that she’d want to.
schrodinger's cat
Conspiracy theory:
Many of the purity trolls who seem to be multiplying like bacteria in the comment section are Republican wolves in Progressive sheep clothing. Especially the ones who say Bernie or nothing.
Immanentize
@C.V. Danes: Maybe Alan Grayson, Firedog favorite? /s/
lethargytartare
@Gene108:
concern trolls would prefer we come to this gunfight with a butter knife and a cute kitteh. Revolution will surely follow.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Linnaeus: They certainly agree on the objective (I’d like to think Hillary does too).
I just get tired of Bernie making promises that he doesn’t have a plan or effective strategy to deliver. Pulling numbers out of your ass doesn’t build confidence, and seems to be a recurring theme with Bernie and his campaign.
Matt McIrvin
@C.V. Danes: Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Deval Patrick, Julian Castro, Joaquin Castro? The same names you hear being thrown about as potential VP picks. They all have faults I could name, but anyone does.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Applejinx: By packing the Supreme Court with justices who support repealing the money = speech precedents.
Immanentize
@Cacti: I think he must have meant the US government versus the states because if he could release just a few more (like 40,000) folks, the federal government incarceration rate will be less than Texas!
shomi
@Marc: Here is a fun mental exercise.
When those superpac/Koch sponsored ads are blasting on Fox News or during Jeopardy calling Clinton worse than Hitler, Talking about how she is going to send your kids to FEMA re-education camps. Do you think the low information voter is going to care where the money for that ad came from? Lol!
Immanentize
@Matt McIrvin: That’s a good list, and to round it out in the unexpected category, maybe John Bel Edwards in LA?
Brachiator
@Technocrat:
I thought that the Internets had revived this acronym. Sorry about that.
shomi
@Marc: Here is a fun mental exercise.
When those superpac/Koch sponsored ads are blasting on Fox News or during Jeopardy calling Clinton worse than Hitler, Talking about how she is going to send your kids to FEMA re-education camps. Do you think the low information voter is going to care where the money for that ad came from? Lol!
Are you people really this naive? I am thinking of converting to Republican now becuase the amount of idocracy I have been seeing here on ball juice and places like Dkos lately has been staggering.
LanceThruster
DWS: “Release the hounds.”
Marc
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: It’s not exactly common for politicians to communicate their plans in the form of forty page detailed legislation. If they get too specific someone picks on a detail and creates a tempest in a teapot about it (they’re sneaking abortion funding in! they’re compromising the right to choose!) And people tune out anyhow.
The candidate is supposed to give a general vision of where they want to go, and once elected it’s their job to turn that into a reality.
What I’m seeing is that this is a line of attack used by Clinton against Sanders, which is why it is making an appearance now. It’s not a serious thing because it applied to Obama just as much, applies to Clinton just as much, and applies to all Republicans to about the hundredth power. And it’s only used against Sanders.
Linnaeus
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter:
I agree that more explicit detail from Sanders’s campaign would be welcome, although I would add that any plan offered during a campaign is going to be subject to a number of contingencies.
My point with respect to incarceration is that what Sanders stated is no more unrealistic than what the president would like. Something doesn’t necessarily become less doable just because Sanders advocates it.
Marc
@shomi: So any money is good money? Remember, this is repealing a current Obama policy, and he was successful in 2012. I remember quite a few cases where taking lobbyist money was an effective tool for the opposition, which you seem to ignore.
What contributions, if any, do you think that Democrats shouldn’t take?
Raven Onthill
@AnonPhenom: “Even the ACA is a Republican policy”
@gene108: “No it is not.”
Obamacare is modeled on Romneycare.
You were saying?
chopper
@Raven Onthill:
i thought the romneycare bill was created by democrats in the Mass legislature.
David M
@AnonPhenom:
The existence of Romneycare or its similarity to Obamacare doesn’t mean the ACA was a Republican proposal. Romneycare was passed by an overwhelming Democratic majority in Massachusetts, and to the extent that national Republicans other than Romney supported the reforms, it was only as vaporware to avoid bad optics.
Immanentize
@Marc: Following your observation — Nixon had a secret plan to get out of Vietnam in 1968…
chopper
@chopper:
primarily, at least. and romney vetoed a bunch of it and was overridden, no?
romneycare isn’t to romney as obamacare is to obama, and i guess the point is that the idea in Mass didn’t really come from the republicans.
AnonPhenom
@David M:
So, given a choice between Romneycare and Single Payer they choose Romneycare?
Or it was Romneycare or nothing?
low-tech cyclist
Dear DWS and the rest of the DNC:
CAN’T ANYONE HERE PLAY THIS FREAKIN’ GAME?!?
Seriously, this is fucked. The Dems are as bad at politics as the GOP is bad at policy.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Linnaeus: But Sanders didn’t just “advocate” it. He specifically promised to reduce the number incarcerated in this country by an unattainably high number, with no clear plan or strategy to accomplish this feat.
Make no mistake – I want most of what Sanders wants, more so than with Hillary (though the overlap between the two is higher than is usually acknowledged). But agreement on objectives is not the same as effectiveness in execution. When Bernie makes specific promises or proposals and the numbers are clearly BS (as was pointed out about his single payer health ins plan), that makes me lose confidence in him and his team.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
Did we bust this thread wide open? I saw the Ted Cruz ad on HRC, email, and Office Space. I was not impressed. Is this partisan epistemic closure on my part? MSNBC and much of twitter seems impressed, unless I am missing their hipster irony.
HRA
I knew with a few exceptions the comments here would find this just fine and would even expect most people will not even know about it.
I, as a lifelong D, do not find it fine. I read it as advantage HRC by her friend DWS. It is how it will be perceived by those of us uncommitted here supposed “trolls”.
I agree with John. .
trollhattan
@Raven Onthill:
Here’s a refresher on how ACA and the Mass-Heritage plans are different.
Emma
@NR: Screw you. If you think that in the current political climate we can win without big money, you’re clueless.
David M
@AnonPhenom:
The choice was Obamacare or something less. Why have people forgotten that over the last 5 years? If there were votes for more, then we would have ended up with more. The easiest way to answer the question of whether the ACA was a Republican plan, is to consider whether it would have passed in 2009 with the majorities in Congress reversed and McCain elected. Obviously it would not have, because the GOP isn’t interested in anything approaching universal health care. Ergo, the ACA is not a Republican plan.
To expand on the ACA will require one of two things: Republican cooperation or large Democratic majorities and a Democratic President.
Too many people don’t realize what a historic achievement Obamacare truly is, and how difficult it was to get passed, or how difficult it will be to significantly improve.
Applejinx
@Emma: Because that’s working so well for Jeb Bush.
Past a certain point it becomes useless and annoying. I think some people just LIKE the party being controlled by big money and arguing that you have to keep parity with the amount of whore-ishness shown by the GOP doesn’t convince.
You’re going to make it be about big money, give away any distinguishing factors you can run on in an election where one competitive candidate is driven by small donors already, and prepared to run on exactly that, and then you’re going to go against the Kochs and every other Republican billionaire, using THEIR rules?
I really don’t agree with that plan.
Hell, TRUMP is going to run on ‘not taking billionaire/PAC money, because I have my own thanks’. And now this?
Felonius Monk
Fire up the SuperDuperPAC_4_Baud.
Kay
It feels desperate to me. I don’t think they’ll be able to buy enthusiasm and interest.
The contested primary may be the best thing that’s happened to them, and they didn’t have to pay for that at all.
Cacti
@schrodinger’s cat:
Math is an establishment conspiracy. It’s all about how the revolution makes you feel.
Patricia Kayden
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: I’m dying of laughter at your name! I love the comments here. Always funny.
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
Baud promised us kittens. Where kittens?
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Patricia Kayden: I aim to please. I wish I could still the same about Baud…
David M
@Applejinx:
Bernie Sanders can do what he wants, the Kochs and the GOP will still play by their rules. That’s the point.
How does having less money help elect Democrats?
Kay
If some roving reporter wants to cover it, I’d love to know what they’re doing with the money.
Linnaeus
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter:
That’s a reasonable criticism to make. I also think that Sanders’s campaign has been short on some necessary details – though I don’t expect policy papers to come out of political campaigns.
It’s true that, as you say, that agreement on objectives doesn’t mean that something can be effectively executed. But it is possible to overcorrect on the challenge of execution and lose sight of the objectives. Now, I don’t think that’s happening yet, but I’m glad Sanders is raising these issues nonetheless.
Kay
@David M:
Having more doesn’t necessarily elect anyone. Jeb Bush has spent a lot of money.
I hope it isn’t all going to media outlets in swing states.
AnonPhenom
@trollhattan:
This is turning into a digression.
The ACA was modeled after an existing reform (that had previously been supported by the opposition) for the expressed political purpose of getting the opposition on board. The Dems were driven by the hope of bipartisan results. It was tailored with their opposition in mind. “What will the Republicans tolerate”
That’s not Game.
shomi
@Marc: Pretty sure Obama/Axelrod said that 2012 was probably the last time anyone could win an election without SuperPacs or corporate/lobbyists money or whatever.
They are a lot bigger and more organized now. Also I think the rules were loosened even more since then.
But you people can all pat yourselves on the backs saying you stayed true to your naive ideals during your 8 years of president Trump….lol. Such short sighted naivety around here. Just boggles the mind. You gotta win first then you can change the rules you numb skulls.
Gimlet
Guess that’s because the voter’s are 80% white.
A Washington Free Beacon/TargetPoint Consulting poll released Friday showed support for Clinton and Sanders tied at 45 percent of respondents.
This is the first poll of Democratic voters in the state by this pollster, as well as the first conducted there since December. Most previous polling showed Clinton holding a double-digit lead in the state
AnonPhenom
@David M:
Dude, I’m fine with the ACA. It’s how the DPEIC operate that makes me dyspeptic. Their Game sucks.
David M
@Kay:
The question wasn’t whether having more money would guarantee better results. It was how having less money would help elect more Democrats. Sure, they might not use the money in the best way, but voter registration, outreach, etc isn’t free either.
Unilateral disarmament only helps the GOP. Not every candidate or group will be able to raise funds in the “preferred way”, so if a bunch of rich people want to help make sure the entire safety net isn’t repealed, why would I object?
None of this means that the campaign finance laws shouldn’t be changed, just that the Democrats shouldn’t be handicapped until they are changed.
Cacti
@shomi:
The root of progressive is the word “progress”. Noble failure is not progress.
chopper
@David M:
sanders is bringing in some pretty good money from small donors. but it’s not like that money is going to congressional candidates. that’s the area of funding is which the party is really hurting and likely the impetus for this sort of decision by the DNC.
Eolirin
Why would the DNC having more money help Clinton in any meaningful way? Please, someone explain the mechanism by which the race between Clinton and Sanders is in any way impacted by this. Because I really really cannot for the life of me figure out how that is supposed to work.
The immediate tendency that some people seem to have to immediately go deep into conspiracy theory land to make claims that Hillary and the Establishment are out to get Sanders is getting really tiring.
Linnaeus
@shomi:
Sure, winning first matters. But it’s a fine line to walk: your funders are going to want something back for their money.
Eolirin
@AnonPhenom: This is utter bullshit. It was tailored to what the insurance companies and doctors groups and medical manufacturers and drug companies would find tolerable enough to be able to maintain 60 democratic votes in the Senate.
lol
@AnonPhenom:
The ACA was modeled after existing reform because it worked and it would actually get the support of the entire Democratic caucus in the Senate including a former Republican, Joe Fucking Lieberman and a dozen conservative Democrats who were all more than happy if nothing passed while placating process-obsessed (but otherwise liberal) Democrats like Byrd & Feingold.
Same problems in the House except Pelosi had more wriggle room which is why the House version was better if largely the same.
Do you understand that the vast vast majority of “concessions” in the ACA were to get *Democrats* on board and not Republicans? The Public Option didn’t have 50 votes in the Senate, let alone 60. Single Payer (the Sanders amendment that he didn’t bother to try to whip support for) didn’t have even 10 votes.
FlipYrWhig
@chopper: Remember when the virtuous thing to do was to stay in the public campaign finance system, with matching funds and all that?
Johnnybuck
@Eolirin:
Hell, I thought it was the centerpiece of the campaign playbook. Can’t have a revolution without obliterating the establishment don’t ya know.
Technocrat
@Linnaeus:
That’s fair, but if those same funders support the Congressmen whose votes you need, what are you gaining by refusing their money?
Applejinx
Oh, and as seen downthread: we’ve found the guy who photographed Bernie Sanders at the sit-in, and he says this:
I’m going to go with the photographer who was there, over whoever else is out there in the mediaverse making claims that Bernie’s a big fat fakey liar. My experience is that he’s not, but it’s amazing how many people pop up (or write Snopes articles, or things in Time Magazine) that just happen to be authoritative ‘proof’ that Bernie’s a total fake.
This is why it’s so difficult to deal with anything in the era of Post-Truth where you can make any dumb thing up and it’s supposed to count as truth. People start running with it, and it gets really stupid really fast.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
@Linnaeus: Yes – this was what I was hoping for from the Sanders campaign. Calling attention to income and wealth inequality, and the undue influence of money on politics is important and necessary this year.
What is concerning to me is when Bernie casts aspersions on today’s Democratic Party, which is more uniformly liberal now than possibly ever before. If Bernie wants to move the party further leftward, he needs to be careful that he doesn’t drive a long-lasting wedge between his constituents and the Democratic brand (Hillary and her team also need to be careful about this too).
I want to see Democrats working together to beat the Republicans and accelerate implementation of a broad liberal agenda to foster opportunity and make our country more fair for everyone. Together, we can do it! But we can’t get there by ditching or excluding insufficiently-pure Democrats with whom we agree on 75-90% of the time.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: In your face, John Lewis!
gene108
@Raven Onthill:
And “Romneycare” was crafted by a Democratically controlled MA state legislature and passed with veto proof majorities.
Republicans do not expand the safety net.
When they talk about expanding the safety net, it is usually to funnel money to their pals.
If something is expanding the safety, not funneling money to the politically connected, implementing cost controls on for-profit businesses, it cannot be based on anything Republicans thought up.
Technocrat
@FlipYrWhig:
I just…don’t see how this is helping Bernie. At some point it doesn’t matter what John Lewis said, as much as it matters how you treat John Lewis.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: I didn’t say that. I decline to speculate. Also, it might not have been the first sit-in in the North: that’s as far as the photographer knew.
He’s on record, though, and whether it was the first sit-in in the North isn’t really relevant.
Eolirin
@Applejinx: The initial photo that was contested was from a march with MLK Jr and it really wasn’t Bernie in that one.
FlipYrWhig
@Technocrat: Yeah, I don’t even know what the dispute is even supposed to have been. Bernie Sanders was involved in the civil rights movement in Chicago. Good!
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
the dream is dead
kped
John…how were you ever a Republican? You have got to be the most manic of manic progressives around.
gene108
@Applejinx:
How much money has Bernie raised for down ticket races this cycle?
How much money has he told his donors to give to the DNC, so they do not feel a burning need to tap lobbyist and PAC money?
“Hey, give me $27 dollars and give the DNC a few bucks too while your at it! Because we need to retake Congress to have a Revolution!!!”
Not hard to work into a stump speech, if he cared to.
Johnnybuck
@Technocrat:
This is really very simple. The establishment is corrupt. Hillary Clinton is the establishment candidate, and therefore, corrupt. Anyone who endorses the establishment candidate is corrupt.
It’s simple really.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@gene108: he’s said “Revolution” over and over again. He has spoken the word, now let it be so.
What more do you expect him to do?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: Rachel Maddow will be crushed.
Applejinx
@Eolirin: Given that the sit-in thing is documented and vouched for by the photographer, if Bernie says he marched with MLK I am inclined to believe him, and if he didn’t shove forward and get himself in pictures, maybe he was busy marching for the damn cause rather than showboating.
Personally, I am what Gordon Ramsey calls ‘gobsmacked’ at the notion that you gotta go hunt down ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ with this guy. Are you people seriously claiming he is making it all up because suddenly he wants black votes? Seriously? Is that what you want people to think?
I’m happy to see there’s photo evidence he was there in the civil rights movement in ANY sense, and would politely suggest he ain’t wearing KKK robes on his days off. Not now, not then.
BillinGlendaleCA
@kped: Converts like ex-smokers are always the most strident.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx:
You’re trying to act like your first foray into this whole thing wasn’t this, I see:
No one disputed that Bernie Sanders was “in the civil rights movement in ANY sense.”
Check your hagiography.
BillinGlendaleCA
I remember the days of yore when Mitt Romney marched with Dr. King, good times.
Elie
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter:
I am getting more and more worried about the indignant and entitled tone I am picking up from Bernie’s supporters. I think that there is real danger here. Free wheeling charges that Hillary is “corrupt” without bearing in mind the consequences will not only not work, but assure that there is a President Trump or Cruz later this year…
Eolirin
@Applejinx: To be clear, I am not saying he wasn’t involved. I’m sure he was. What I am saying is the picture people were using as proof that John Lewis was clearly lying when he said he never saw Bernie at a rally didn’t actually have Bernie in it. The photographer isn’t contesting that. That picture *is* being used in Bernie campaign materials and ads.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx:
Maybe he was curing cancer and shtupping Sophia Loren at the same time but The Establishment won’t let you know about that either! Good God.
“Look at this picture! It’s Bernie Sanders being an activist!”
“That’s not Bernie Sanders.”
“Good! Pictures of activists only prove their unseriousness.”
FlipYrWhig
@Eolirin: Yes, and that picture is the one _Applejinx himself_ was originally alluding to, and he’s hoping you haven’t noticed that he’s saying something else now.
“Our phones aren’t working today! And there was a stranger in the campaign office! Probably Hillary did it! Also, I can’t believe that people say ‘post-truth’ things about Bernie Sanders, can you?”
NR
@Emma: You know that Obama put this rule in place and abided by it in both his 2008 and 2012 victories, right?
The stupidity and/or willful ignorance you guys are displaying is astounding.
Matt McIrvin
At this point, I’m convinced that any possible action by anyone will elect President Trump.
Johnnybuck
@Elie:
I really don’t get how Sanders supporters think JohnLewisghazzi!!! is helping Bernie.
AT ALL
NR
@Elie: Clap louder or Tinkerbell dies!
Hey, here’s an idea. If Hillary didn’t want voters to associate her with Wall Street, maybe she shouldn’t have taken millions of dollars from Wall Street! Crazy idea, I know.
Technocrat
Fun fact: Charlton Heston marched with MLK.
FlipYrWhig
@Johnnybuck: It’s a campaign based on shouting at people about how inferior and corrupt they are. It expands organically from that.
David M
@NR:
I’ve never really understood what the Wall Street complaint was about. She’s going to help repeal Dodd-Frank?
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: Happy ending on the phone issues we were most certainly having…
We had to go off predictive dialer because it was allowing Bernie supporters from all around the country to phonebank… and the numbers were overwhelming, covering the whole state over and over.
So we went to just in-office calls… and still covered all the lists to where we were repeating ourselves, and finally ended up phonebanking for Swanzey, which didn’t have as many volunteers. We made something like ten thousand calls, all told.
So, it didn’t turn out to be enemy action: it turned out to be having too many Bernie supporters. Which was duly shown in the election results, though by God nobody was ready to even hint at what was happening out there until all the polls were utterly closed. Can’t have any results discouraging Clinton supporters now, that might produce a result of more than 22 points spread, and they really wanted a loss of less than twenty points.
Kay
@David M:
I don’t think there’s anything to indicate Debbie Wasserman-Schulz will spend money on “voter registration and out reach” and that doesn’t take tens of millions of dollars anyway. It takes a huge group of 25 year old organizers who make 30k for 9 months work.
I read Soros is doing voter registration, with one of the HillaryPACS. That’s the only specific thing I heard.
AnonPhenom
@lol:
I remember all of it. Particularly how the Dem’s almost blew it letting the process in Congress—especially Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) futile search for bipartisanship in Finance Committee deliberations—drag on too long, enabling opponents to mobilize. A delay that nearly proved politically fatal when Scott Brown won Kennedy’s seat and nearly derailed reform.
All cause they wanted to play nice.
No Game.
Cacti
Don’t listen to him Bernfeelers.
Show that establishment sellout John Lewis what’s what.
Insult the sitting Democratic POTUS often.
David M
@AnonPhenom:
And not playing nice would have helped how? Remember, you had to keep Baucus, Lieberman, etc on board…
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: You mean it wasn’t THE ESTABLISHMENT trying to silence your mighty voice? Hmm, interesting, maybe that applies to other things that transpire in a political campaign.
Kay
@David M:
I think there has to be a level of organic energy, an interest. There has to be people to organize.
In the Wisconsin recall when they knew they were losing they were screaming for more money but they only had something like half a million voters they needed to reach and they had plenty of money to do that. The fact is voters just didn’t want to recall Scott Walker. They could have run an ad every ten minutes.
NR
@David M: If you really don’t think there’s any problem with the President of the United States having taken millions of dollars (paid to her personally, we’re not even talking about campaign cash here!) from the same industry that crashed the economy in 2008, there is absolutely nothing anyone could say that would convince you otherwise.
Elie
@Cacti:
Aint that the truth…
Arrogance — and hubris. I despise these assholes almost worse than the Trumpites. Right now its almost anyway.
And it starts at the top. This is Bernie’s strategy to stay with or change. I hold HIM responsible .
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
Good God.
shomi
@Linnaeus: I don’t care if Hillary has to guzzle milkshakes made from the rotting corpse of Reagan, or lick the sweat from Christies sweaty ass cheeks. No matter what she has to do. Letting a Republican win is 10x worse. And you idiots want to make an issue out of campaign donations….lol while Republicans can’t get enough of that sweet sweet Citizens United money…
Republicans will always be willing to do things that are 10x worse to win as well. Losing is not an option and if you think you can still win while passing your ridiculous progressive purity tests are possible it’s still not worth the risk.
These idiotic things you guys are throwing out are just as dumb as the whole progressive “single payer or I’m not voting” thing. Then when you never got your way you all screamed at Obama for being a sell out and then the 2010 midterm happened. Clearly you people have learned NOTHING since then…lol.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@NR: You’re gonna need to itemize.
FlipYrWhig
@AnonPhenom: The cost of Baucus’s failure to achieve bipartisanship was putting a lot of power in the hands of a number of people who got to take turns being the 60th vote, including Joe Lieberman. I don’t think it’s all that obvious that a long-serving center-right D Senator laboring to achieve bipartisanship with some of his oldest R political pals (like Mike Enzi) was a bad idea.
NR
@Cacti: Yes, like when Bernie said that Obama wasn’t a change-maker.
Oh, whoops. It was actually Bill Clinton who said that.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Cacti: Ah that Dingell guy’s not even in Congress anymore, so he doesn’t count. He’s probably senile(being older than a Booomer) and certainly doesn’t even know anybody in Congress anymore.
Kay
@David M:
70% of the money Sanders has raised has come from individual donors. That’s a huge list of really engaged people.
Johnnybuck
@Elie:
Isn’t it obvious?
Elie
@shomi:
This
Elie
@Kay:
Provided most are not Republican ratfuckers. Pretty easy investment at $27 a pop. Just need a valid credit card.
NR
@shomi: Yes, everything that’s wrong in the country today is because idiot liberals just don’t understand how awesome Obama is and how great things are today.
Maybe you can ask Emma if she’s done with the Hippie Appreciation Bat so you can have a turn.
Elie
@NR:
It has nothing to do with hippies asshole. Your self righteous Nader like judgment of other progressives will not help your purity mythology. It will only “win” enemies — and worse, enemies among those who would help to achieve the goals you say you support. You are a fool. You couldn’t convert anyone to your side.
Elie
I might have to stop commenting around here for a while… Nothing is being built for me but resentment.
FlipYrWhig
@Elie: Someone somewhere said on another “hippie-punching” discussion the following, which I’ve always rather liked: just because people want to punch you, that doesn’t make you a hippie.
Linnaeus
@shomi:
Why are you accusing me of views that I do not hold and that I did not express in my comment? “You idiots” is not necessary.
NR
@Elie: Right. We have the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president cashing six-figure checks from Wall Street and shit-talking long-term progressive goals like single-payer, but somehow, liberals are the problem. We always are.
David M
@Elie:
It’s just like 2009/2010 again, how Obama sold us out by singlehandedly stopping the public option that Congress was set to pass. The added fun now is listening to those same voices talk about how Sanders really will deliver Medicare for All. Obama didn’t even over promise and he’s a sellout…and Sanders can’t deliver anything, so maybe now we’re looking at an electoral bloodbath for nothing.
lol
@AnonPhenom:
Over here in the real world, Obama giving a senior conservative Democrat a long leash to chase after non-existent Republican votes proved to be crucial in securing said senior conservative Democrat’s support. Once again, you think the exercise was about fruitlessly getting Republicans on board when it was always about getting a Democrat.
What you’re suggesting is Obama should’ve acted like the Clintons did in ’93-’94 and cut a committee chair out of the loop. How do you recall that working out? Congress, especially the Senate, is full of self-important blowhards who are more than happy to tank your priorities if you slight their ego. At least HRC learned from that experience which is more than I can say for most progressives.
lol
@NR:
Yes, the problem really *is* idiot liberals who are desperate to deny anything has improved under Obama.
FlipYrWhig
@lol: Just as a hypothetical, do you think a presidential candidate with barely disguised contempt for most elected officials in the Democratic Party might have trouble getting support among that party for the big ticket items he says he’d like to accomplish?
Linnaeus
@Technocrat:
I’m not saying that you necessarily should refuse their money. All I am saying is that there is some risk of path dependence with respect to funding and elections that may in turn make it harder to enact the changes to the rules that helped you get elected. Just be aware of it.
Renie
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: this is good news for Baud2016!
with this news from DWS when does Baud get his SuperPAC going?
Technocrat
@NR:
She cashed six-figure checks from Universities, too. And networking companies, and women’s groups, and…Ebay?…yeah, Ebay, She was highly sought after speaker across the board.
Obviously it’s no coincidence that her opponents focus on the icky wall street money – it’s a good line of attack – but it’s not like Wall Street was her sole client.
Eolirin
@NR: Good God. Single payer. Is. Not. A. Long. Term. Progressive. Goal. At all. Period.
Universal affordable healthcare is. There are many ways to get to there. Chasing after a particularly unworkable solution does not advance the objective of achieving that goal
David M
@NR:
I get that you don’t like the fact that Clinton was paid for those speeches. What you haven’t explained is how it actually will matter, policy-wise.
No one is shit-talking universal health care, they are ridiculing the idea it will be passed anytime soon. Obamacare was just passed, there is nowhere near the popular support needed for another immediate health care reform that will be even more disruptive.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elie: I’d hope you continue commenting here, I enjoy your perspective; but I’d understand if you did stop commenting for a bit.
BillinGlendaleCA
@FlipYrWhig: Of course not, Senators would quiver in fear of “The Revolution”.
NR
@lol: It must be really hard being you guys. Constantly surrounded by people too stupid to see the glorious truth. I don’t know how you manage.
mclaren
No, Democrats are going to win in November because Bernie Sanders’ supporters form a tidal wave that will sweep over all this bullshit and wash it out to sea.
Tsunami, motherfuckers. Deal with it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Technocrat: You left out the camping group.
NR
@Eolirin: Says you. Single-payer is the best system, as evidenced by comparing the health care data across Europe with the United States. The fact that the Democratic frontrunner is shit-talking it, and that you all are cheering her on while she does it, is disgraceful.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: “Europe” doesn’t have single-payer.
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren: Tsunami goes out, Tsunami comes in; you can’t explain that!
lol
@NR:
Bernie Bros can keep ranting about DNC plants, MS rigging the vote and chem trails while accomplishing zero and the rest of us will continue to pass actual legislation into law that makes peoples’ lives better.
FlipYrWhig
@BillinGlendaleCA: They’re the worst of all! If Hillary wants Democrats to be a big tent, WHERE DO YOU THINK SHES GETTING THE TENT!!?!
NR
@David M:
Wrong. Hillary’s recent argument against single-payer wasn’t that it couldn’t pass. She attacked it using right-wing frames (think of the cost!)
Now are you starting to see the problem with all that money she took?
Linnaeus
@NR:
Not every country that has some kind of national health care system uses a single-payer model, including European countries. Even those that don’t get better outcomes, which suggests there’s a lot the US could do to improve things without single payer.
Technocrat
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I didn’t want to highlight her unsavory connections to Big Nature.
(or more realistically, I was just riffing from memory)
ETA: Why didn’t I go with Big Tents? It was right there
mclaren
@David M:
“After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know”, The New York Times, 20 September 2014.
“Dilemma over deductibles: Costs crippling middle class — Rather than pay so much out-of-pocket, many skip checkups, skimp on care,” USA Today, 1 January 2015.
(This is the hidden story Richard Mayhew won’t tell you about the dropping costs associated with the ACA — costs are dropping because the middle class has been priced out of health care due to high deductibles they can’t afford to pay, and so forgo the health care entirely.)
Would you care to amend or redact or amplify your statement in light of the above facts?
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Talking about the cost of an ambitious program is a “right-wing frame”? Isn’t it just a common sense frame?
Kay
@Elie:
When I canvassed for Obama and Sherrod Brown in 2012 ( we did the two together) there weren’t enough volunteers so we used the list of small donors because they’re the most engaged and there are fewer of them.
It was March or April and the general idea was we would call on the most engaged people and pull them in, because if we didn’t have them it would be an anti- Romney campaign- negative rather than positive. I personally don’t think you can motive Democrats to vote against someone. It’s fear or love, right, as a motivator? That’s the whole thing in a nutshell. I don’t think fear works well with Democrats. It didn’t work for John Kerry.
David M
@mclaren:
No.
Eolirin
@NR: It only took you one sentence to demonstrate that you are far too ignorant of global healthcare policy to be having this conversation. I’m impressed by your efficiency.
NR
@Linnaeus: The vast majority have at least a basic level of health care provided by some form of single-payer. Many countries have private insurance on top of that, but the core of the system is single-payer. And they pretty much universally spend less money and achieve better health outcomes than the US.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@Linnaeus: single payer is a much shinier object than UHC, and a lot of your shriekier purity ponies don’t bother to make a distinction, assuming they know their is one (which I would not assume in this case)
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig: I like the new shitbag you. I always thought you were some sort of paid apologist who specialized in begging the question.
BillinGlendaleCA
@FlipYrWhig: Exactly! The only solution is Baud!, he hates tents.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: Since a single-payer program would cost less than what we currently spend, attacking it based on cost most certainly is a right-wing frame.
NR
@Eolirin: Facts are inconvenient, I know. Sorry.
mclaren
@Linnaeus:
Because this is the Balloon-Juice commentariat! D’oh, as Homer Simpson would say!
If you disagree with the common unwisdom that the earth is tetrahedral in shape (or whatever-the-fuck the braindead groupthink is on that particular day), you can expect to be called an insectoid-headed alien, a purity troll, a delusional nutjob, or the ever-popular mentally ill, ranting and raving.
Take your pick. Speak the truth. Cite objectively demonstrable facts. Watch the monkey cage misnamed Balloon-Juice go wild hurling feces in all directions.
les
@AnonPhenom:
There is an extensive series of posts at Lawyers Guns & Money demonstrating how this idea is, to put it nicely, kinda stupid. The ACA isn’t the Heritage Plan and it isn’t the Mass. plan. Neither of which, if you were paying attention, was ever supported by any opposition in the first place. It’s a bill that needed 60 Dem caucus votes to pass the Senate–it had to satisfy Nelson and McCaskill and slimebag Joe Lieberman and other conservadems. Democrats drove the compromises and the process that got the ACA. And barely, at that.
mclaren
@Eolirin:
That’s nothing, the typical Balloon-Juicer can manage that in a single clause — sometimes in only one verb, if they’re really cooking.
BillinGlendaleCA
@FlipYrWhig: Obviously Common Sense has a right wing bias, silly liberal.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: All my apologism (teehee) is strictly voluntary.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m 45 minutes from you if you want to test your theory.
Technocrat
@Kay:
Anger seems to be working this cycle, although I agree that we tend to be more love-based and the GOP tends to be more fear based.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: Which part? Which theory part I mean, not which punching part.
David M
@NR:
The False Lure of the Sanders Single-Payer Plan
PAUL STARR
FEBRUARY 1, 2016
Why a seemingly attractive proposal doesn’t make sense.
http://prospect.org/article/false-lure-sanders-single-payer-plan
Linnaeus
@NR:
Neither Germany nor France, for example, use a single payer model, but still offer universal coverage and access. So it can be done.
I like the idea of single payer myself and if I thought such a system could be enacted in the US, I would support that. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon, so let’s move the ball forward.
mclaren
@lol:
Yes indeedy, actual legislation like the NDAA that Barack Obama signed into law. Actual legislation like extending the Bush-era taxcuts that Barack Obama signed into law. Actual legislation like the TPP that Barack Obama rammed up our asses and doesn’t even have to sign into law because it got passed by fast-tracing the legislation into the senate as a treaty and removing it from the democratic process entirely.
Gotta love all the priceless actual legislation Barack Obama has signed into law. Actual legislation like that “legal framework” Obama proposed for indefinite detention that Obama touted in 2009…yeah, wonderful stuff like that.
And yes, you’ve definitely nailed it with chemtrails. I was phone-banking for Bernie Sanders and that’s the first thing I mentioned to the people we called — you must elect Bernie Sanders to prevent chemtrails from polluting our precious bodily fluids. That and preventing the reptoid takeover of the world’s royal families.
Chemtrails and the secret reptoid takeover, that’s what Bernie Sanders’ campaign is all about. I congratulate you on your insight and your seriousness. You have seen through to the heart of America’s political crisis today — chemtrails.
And nothing says “crazy chemtrails conspiracy theories” like suggesting breaking up big banks (a policy every reputable nobel laureate economist vehemently favors) or reinstating a progressive Eisenhower-era 90% marginal top tax rate, amiright?
Eisenhower era tax rates = chemstrails.
Genius.
That’s Balloon Juice for you, one stunning political insight after another…
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig: We can do our own Balloon Juice meetup.
les
@NR:
If you really don’t think there’s any problem with Sanders supporters endlessly blathering hyperbole, misinformation and sheer ignorance as a persuasive tactic, etc.
Eolirin
@NR: Yeah, like how you’re referring to a whole host of not actually single payer systems as single payer.
Linnaeus
@mclaren:
Well, I can’t be that cynical about this blog. But when tempers flare here, sometimes the blast radius gets a bit too large.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sounds delightful.
les
@NR:
Citation needed. Are you 12 years old? Universal coverage does not and never has necessarily equaled single payer. Or are you just going for the “I’m the only real progressive” award?
FlipYrWhig
@David M: That article seemed pretty solid. I really don’t know why this is so hard to fix, honestly, but it seems to be.
Kay
@Technocrat:
But that’s a primary. I just don’t share belief in the theory you can yell at people about the Supreme Court and get them to vote. You basically need a large mass of genial, casual people voting because everyone else is voting as a base and then you’re just adding small margins to that :)
les
@NR:
Kindly name a European country with single payer. Or do you think all of Europe has one health care plan? The stupid, it burns.
mclaren
@Linnaeus:
Single-payer or universal coverage are different things. The main virtue of either scheme is it winds up enforcing effective cost controls.
That’s what we need in America, ironclad cost controls. This horseshit of “charge $117,000 for doing six stitches on a patient outside his health care network” is unsustainable. It literally can’t continue. Even a country as wealthy as America doesn’t have the money for that kind of insane out-of-control health care cost.
Single-payer clamps down cost controls because the single paying authority now has the power to say, “We will not pay more than $250 for an MRI.” Health care providers can either play ball or go out of business. Country after country has seen health care providers scream “We can’t provide health care at a price that low!” and yet, when the single payer enforces strict cost controls, the health care providers manage to come at the required price point. Or below.
Universal coverage effectively amounts to cost control as long as you don’t have a balkanized coverage system. Once again, universal coverage give large providers (whether they be networks, insurers, or national entities like the NHS) the power to dictate cost controls provided the health care isn’t chopped up into fragmented inefficient balkanized fiefdoms.
The key is cost control + universal coverage. How we get there is unimportant. But costs can’t continue rising the way they are in America. We simply do not have the money. It isn’t there. $86,000 for a hip replacement when the same operation cost $7800 is Spain is impossible. That can’t continue. It will bankrupt America. Employers can’t afford the health insurance premiums, individuals can’t afford the deductibles and co-pays.
David M
@FlipYrWhig:
There’s lots of ways to improve things incrementally, but all at once doesn’t seem like a very realistic plan. Remember the screaming over the smallest of disruptions when Obamacare was being implemented? That would be nothing compared to Medicare for All, if it wasn’t implemented extremely slowly.
les
@NR:
David says:
NR responds:
THE GOGGLES!!! THEY DO NOTHING!!!
chopper
@NR:
booze helps at times.
mclaren
@David M:
More Pete Peterson propaganda bullshit.
Here’s the counter to your far-right talking points — “Robert Reich: The Washington Post is lying to you about Bernie Sanders — a new editorial claims Sanders’ proposal would reduce the quality of American healthcare. The notion is ludicrous,” Salon website, 1 February 2016.
chopper
@mclaren:
looking at turnout so far, you guys need to step it the fuck up pronto.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David M: Good read, thanks.
les
@NR:
Please to be citing European country with single payer health care. Just one, we’ll assume you think that’s a majority.
Later, we’ll get to whether “at least a basic level” is, in the real world, a health care plan. It’s certainly not what Bernie promises.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Just Some Fuckhead:
@FlipYrWhig: Heh, with punches instead of green balloons.
les
@NR:
I don’t think you’re helping. Alas, citation needed.
Raven Onthill
@AnonPhenom: Romneycare was proposed and promoted by Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in 2004. It was worked out by the Mass. state legislature in 2005 and passed in 2006.
So don’t go pretending it was a Democratic plan or idea. Democrats worked on it, but it was Romney’s idea.
The ACA was passed without a single Republican vote. Not one. So now the law is that the health insurance industry may collect 15-20% of the money we pay for health insurance. We get nothing for that money that isn’t covered by the 2% administrative cost of Medicare.
Corruption: it’s not just a bad idea; it’s the law.
(More to the general issue on next rock.)
mclaren
@David M:
That’s Richard Mayhew’s claim. It’s provably false.
Show me how you get from a hip replacement that costs $86,000 in America to a hip replacement that costs $7800 in Spain by tinkering around the edges with incremental changes.
Seriously. Show me.
You’re talking about letting nurses perform some minor procedures. For real? That’s going to reduce the cost of hip replacement surgery from $86,000 to $7,800? How? By letting some nurse-practitioner perform the surgery instead of a qualified surgeon?
That’s horseshit and you’re talking out your ass.
A radical overhaul of the system is the only way to get those kinds of cost reductions. Tinkering around the edges will not do it.
Linnaeus
@mclaren:
I don’t disagree with any of that. The point I was making was similar to yours – there are a number of different ways that we can try to achieve those goals that don’t require adherence to a specific model.
Monala
@Technocrat: Stanford’ U. has been looking at the question of how to motivate non-voters to vote. Some thoughts are here. One key quote:
mclaren
@les:
Try Canada, shit-for-brains. Try Britain, Captain Clueless.
FlipYrWhig
@David M: I have said before that I would have liked to have seen Bernie Sanders run on a proposal to expand community health centers, the piece that he battled for in the ACA. It’d be a good story for him that he could use to talk about his practicality, his skill at working out problems while making sure people don’t get left behind, and so forth.
Raven Onthill
@les: A single-payer plan wouldn’t have to pay 15-20% gross profit to the health insurance industry. Nor would it be governed by the perverse incentive to overtest and overtreat so that that amount becomes larger.
It, truly, is not hard to see that paying the insurance industry 15-20% of premiums is a cost, truly it is not.
David M
@mclaren:
It’s incremental progress or nothing. Be realistic.
The Pale Scot
Calm Down, Get a Hold Of Yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0GW0Vnr9Yc
Someone has probably already posted this, but if I read 231 comments to check, I’ll have forgotten it by then
Linnaeus
@David M:
I would add that circumstances sometimes allow for greater increments than others.
goblue72
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, it IS a right wing frame. It buys into the notion that “we can’t afford it”. We can most certainly afford it. It will require raising taxes on the upper classes and cutting a bloated defense budget, while also closing corporate tax shelters. And yes, we won’t get all the way there. But poohing poohing social welfare safety net expansion under some centrist bullshit about what “we can afford” is precisely surrendering the field to the right wing before the fight even starts.
les
@mclaren:
Last time I looked, Canada was not in Europe. You got me there, I missed the change. Britain, alas, has asshole conservatives and is not pure single payer. I guess you missed that one. Please continue, Mr. Revolution.
Raven Onthill
Beyond that, what can I say? This underscores what most of us already know: money rules our current politics, just as it did in the old Gilded Age. Several commentators have pointed out that the general public doesn’t care about such wonkery, which I judge to be mostly true, but the people who have to work the campaigns care a great deal and, of course, we all care about the results.
FlipYrWhig
@Raven Onthill: That said, it also compels insurance companies to make that profit by insuring people, rather than what they were doing before, which was making profit from refusing to pay.
FlipYrWhig
@goblue72:
That’s not how Bernie Sanders was saying he’d pay for it.
les
@Raven Onthill:
All true, and if I could put the millions of people in that industry out of work tomorrow, I would. Medicare, Medicaid, VA all delver with far less overhead. Are you old enough to remember that pre-ACA that 15-20% was over 30%? Or that the higher number was achieved in no small part by denying coverage? Or that the restrictions on admin costs barely made it into the bill? There’s no fucking magic wand in this system. And you won’t create one by implying that anyone who doesn’t agree with you must just be too stupid to see what’s out there.
Cacti
@goblue72:
You mean like the F-35 program, exempted from cuts by Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT), and also the most expensive weapons program in history by a huge margin?
The Pale Scot
@Applejinx:
That was back in 1980.
And in ’68 they got the Vietcong to do this.
Why aren’t we stringing these fuckers up from the streetlamps?
les
@Cacti:
I didn’t know he voted for that bloated abortion. Not good.
NR
@David M: In fact, argue experts, Sanders’ Medicare-for-all numbers do add up.
BillinGlendaleCA
@les: It’s got pork for every state and nearly every congressional district. Pork is yummy.
mclaren
@Applejinx:
It’s a sign of desperation from Hillary. She’s already shaken up her campaign staff in a panic after New Hampshire. Now this. Soon, she’ll be running attack ads accusing Bernie of the Haymarket Bombing.
mclaren
@les:
Sure there is. Get the profit out of health care. Costs will plummet.
You’re telling us America can’t achieve what Spain or Denmark or the Netherlands or Canada or Britain or Switzerland or France or Germany can.
Bullshit. This isn’t rocket science. Other countries have done it. We can do it. The problem is greed, pure and simple. Doctors in America don’t want to see their income drop from $240,000 for a general practitioner M.D to the $60,000 to $80,000 typical for a general practitioner M.D. in Europe.
There comes a point when greed is no longer an acceptable rationale for letting tens of millions of sick people die.
Cacti
@BillinGlendaleCA:
A single F-35 jet costs as much as 63,000 Pell Grants.
mclaren
@les:
Everyone voted for the F-35.
That’s why solving America’s military corruption and incompetence problems requires a wholesale transformation of the entire system. Tinkering around the edges will not do it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Cacti: As I said, pork is yummy(and Kosher in DC).
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren:
And how do you change that, oh wise one?
mclaren
@les:
So now we’re playing word games. Canada isn’t in Europe, therefore it’s not single payer and doesn’t have dramatically lower health are costs than America.
Horseshit. Go play your verbal calisthenics somewhere else.
Britain is not pure single payer, so therefore Britain doesn’t have dramatically lower health care costs than the U.S. and universal coverage.
Horseshit. Engage in your semantic gymnastics elsewhere, this is a discussion for serious people.
The plain and simple fact is that every other first world country has drastically lower health care costs (typically 1/10 the cost — not 10% lower cost, but often a cost 1/10 as much as the equivalent American medical procedure) and better health outcomes across the board. Better pregnancy outcomes, better infant mortality, better surgery survival rates.
Your infantile sophistries are not succeeding in obscuring those facts.
mclaren
@BillinGlendaleCA:
By removing the ability of U.S. doctors and hospitals and medical devicemakers and imaging clinics to charge anything they want for a medical procedure or medical device.
Cacti
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Revolution, same as everything else.
SATSQ
gwangung
@BillinGlendaleCA: particularly when doctors often are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from loans. We’re not dealing solely with greed.
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren: I think you’d end up with a lot fewer MD’s.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gwangung: NO, it’s all greed! You’re obviously not a pure liberal.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Cacti:
Dictatorship of the Proletariat?
mclaren
@BillinGlendaleCA:
We’ve already got a lot fewer M.D.’s than we used to have. There are fewer medical schools in America today than there were in 1963. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a conspiracy in restraint of trade by the AMA to reduce the number of doctors in the U.S., the better to increase their pay.
Start by telling the DOJ to go after the American Medical Association for restraint of trade and Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organizations violatiosn. Use the RICO act to attach the AMA’s assets via asset forfeiture. Force the AMA to sign a consent decree in which they agree to stop blocking the construction of new medical schools, they agree to stop tying the creation of medical schools to medicare funding, and they agree to a dramatic increase in the total number of doctors in America — say 33% — within 5 years, as a condition of releasing their funds frozen by asset forfeiture under the RICO act.
Source: “The Medical Cartel: Why are MD Salaries So High?” 24 June 2009.
mclaren
@Marc:
Contributions of giant banks and Wall Street firms convicted of criminal fraud and forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars and sign consent decrees agreeing not to commit those frauds in the future, for one thing. Contributions from defense contractors for another.
Just Some Fuckhead
@gwangung:
Gwangung, drop by your nearest for-profit hospital. Find the doctor’s parking lot. It will be gated. Check out the vehicles. Does it look like they are hurting for money? They aren’t. And do you know why? Because they are generously enriching themselves on the backs of the sick and dying. When the 117 year old company Mrs. Fuckhead was an owner in went out of business in 2010, she took a payroll job at the local children’s hospital, wherein she found out the doctors are making six and seven figure salaries. Mrs. Fuckhead was made aware of the job because she’s been participating in this children’s hospital’s premier fundraising event for 20 years prior. Volunteers like Mrs. Fuckhead would spend all year planning an event that would raise a quarter of a million dollars for incubators or some other crucial need for the children’s hospital. Local celebs and various corporate bigwigs would participate. Do you know who didn’t participate? The doctors who are feeding on the riches supplied by desperate parents of sick and dying children. She made it about a year before her conscience forced her to quit. She hasn’t participated in a fundraiser since.
Cacti
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It fixed everything in Russia, didn’t it?
Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI)
@Cacti:
I’m glad good, loyal Americans are identifying the Red Menace in our midst.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: Cold warriors know best.
David M
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-obama-would-fix-obamacare_us_56bcd8d6e4b0c3c550506e19
There are plenty of easier fixes for healthcare than Medicare for All. If Sanders was campaigning on something like this, he might have a chance at getting my vote.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: That sounds… bad. No snark, no miscellaneous assholery this time. But how do you break the back of the specialist doctor cartel? Most people like and trust doctors.
seaboogie
@gene108:
Excellent point, and I hadn’t thought about it that way before. It is satisfying to go all purity pony, but when you consider what is at stake and what we are up against, some “both sides do it” could be a legitimate and useful tactic.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Bob-O! Should have known that any unfavorable mention of the late USSR would drag you out.
Dance for your roubles, comrade.
Tim in SF (iPad)
I don’t see how we lose a sing Democratic vote over this. Not a single one.
Shortribs
Not sure how this hurts the general election as we’ll need every penny we can get what with Trump and the RNCs money against us. It gives Bernie another talking point maybe since DWS=devil to his crew but beyond that I’m not sure what the issue is. First you win, then you change, only way it works in DC.
DCF
@Shortribs:
Hillary Clinton’s Congressional Black Caucus PAC Endorsement Approved by Board Awash in Lobbyists
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/11/congressional-black-caucus-hillary/
I regret that the hierarchies of organizations like The Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, and now the Congressional Black Caucus PAC are more concerned with the preservation of their own power/status than with the will of their full membership(s).
Shortribs
@DCF: Sounds to me these organizations, who need to interface with government, are doing what they should be doing, hiring and acquiring board members who are good at interfacing with government. I don’t really get the lobbyist hate, since lobbyists are how these and other groups effectively work with government agencies, it’s literally their job.