Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton lost the Wisconsin primary last night. Here’s how she responded:
Congrats to @BernieSanders on winning Wisconsin. To all the voters and volunteers who poured your hearts into this campaign: Forward! -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 6, 2016
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump lost the Wisconsin primary last night. Here’s how he responded:
That nicely illustrates the differences between the two primary races this year.
By now, political junkie that you are, you’ve likely heard that Bernie Sanders’ interview with the New York Daily News editorial board did not go well. You can read it for yourself here.
I voted for Clinton in my primary last month but retain enough affinity for Sanders to occasionally serve as a proxy BernieBro when a Clinton partisan can’t get his or her hands on an actual Sanders supporter to upbraid. But I gotta admit I was appalled by Sanders’ responses on several key issues during that interview, including his dissembling on how to break up the big banks and his inability to come up with a single example of Wall Street malfeasance that is worthy of prosecution.
Several of the Bernie boosters here at Balloon Juice could have answered those questions more ably, citing, for instance, the robo-signing scandal as an example of fraud that should have resulted in jail time for banksters. You can make a good faith argument that criminal prosecution was warranted, and you can make a good faith argument that the settlement that actually happened instead was the better deal for the people who were screwed by the robo-signing banksters (not that the actual victims were made whole — they weren’t!).
But if you’ve made outrage over banksters getting off scot-free after the crash a central plank in your campaign, it is inexcusable to be unable to cite even one example. Will Sanders’ terrible interview change anything? Not so fast, says Steve M. at No More Mr. Nice Blog:
This will give any remaining fence-sitters pause, but it will flip few if any Sanders backers. This is a year when it’s seen as shameful to have roots in the system. Deep knowledge of the issues is as suspect as ties to lobbyists. Sanders critics have been complaining for a long time that he turns every question back to his bullet points about the rich and powerful, but his backers don’t care because the message is untainted by qualification or nuance, which makes it seem less like a product of compromise. Besides, few voters know the details themselves. They’re judging the candidates on intentions, and his are seen as good.
I don’t know how many votes Hillary Clinton can win by pouncing on this. When she says she’s been in the trenches and has the experience, voters seem to envision not statecraft but shady deals in back rooms. Touting her experience is probably hurting her. It’s just that kind of year.
I don’t think it will flip many Sanders backers either, but it doesn’t have to; given the state of the race, it’s Sanders who needs to win the remaining primaries by hefty margins, which means he needs to bring those fence-sitters on board. This interview isn’t going to help, so Clinton probably will pounce.
Another point to note is that while there’s a tendency to conflate the Sanders and Trump phenomena and conclude that this is an angry, anti-establishment year across the board, that’s only partially — maybe 65% or so — true.
The Republicans are on a rage-o-holic bender of epic proportions. Some Democrats who were ground down by the Great Recession and left behind in a spotty recovery that mostly benefits the wealthy are angry, with good reason, and joined by the Greenies in backing Sanders.
It’s a thing. It shouldn’t — and isn’t — being ignored by Team Clinton. But I think it’s a mistake to conclude that the HULK SMASH impulse that animates the Republican base is driving the Democratic primary as well. The differences are as stark as the frontrunner concessions last night.
The Ancient Randonneur
Betty this link is for you! On mobile so naked link
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mXYzgTLoQjY&ebc=ANyPxKomztPTtm2UJEvREj7v8KWCiCm64z_SNjUJkQsOaHlb_gG2U6LLALU9ugZv_yloCWXCYhU1TQ0s-8FVyV4GwSb05a4D0Q
Sorry for going OT so quickly
glasnost
I’m a big policy wonk, but I don’t care a whit about the Daily News interview, nor should anyone else. Bernie Sanders has been on top of teams that wrote plenty of perfectly-detailed enough legislation and gotten it passed. Think about the way we judge candidates, assuming we should care about this interview – we run them around the country at breakneck speed for 200 days, and then we run everything they ever say through a crowdsourced Kalman Filter and disqualify them based on whichever single datapoint makes them look the worst? Bernie Sanders doesn’t have time to figure out five layers deep how to break up Citibank right now, and it’s not realistic to expect him to. You vote for him because you trust that he’s smart enough and committed enough and has the background to take a good crack at the problem. Nothing in this interview changes that.
See also here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/upshot/yes-bernie-sanders-knows-something-about-breaking-up-banks.html?_r=0
He sounded ‘vague on details’ because he didn’t want to admit that the good methods to do this require either the Fed to be willing to do it for you, or else legislation. Because that leads back to “with a Republican Congress, your plan is fucked”. And it probably is. But let’s not confuse this with him not having a plan.
raven
@glasnost: No, YOU vote for him.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@glasnost: You sound just like W. supporters in 2000, defending their guy over not having any policy mastery. How’d that work out?
Amir Khalid
Bernie can’t govern at the level of talking points from a stump speech. No one can. I’ve seen his supporters here say that having better policy specifics is irrelevant because a Republican Congress will still shoot down everything a Democratic president wants. I know I don’t get to vote in America, but I find his ignorance of policy details and failure to work out specific proposals disqualifying.
R.Porrofatto
whomever is the Democratic nominee
Okay, the grammar is atrocious, but at least they didn’t say the Democrat nominee.
Baud
I don’t know. It seems Sanders is winning where Obama won except where minority voters make up the difference (except Hawaii).
I’m not sure how much of the D race really is about ideology.
El Tiburon
Was the interview really a train wreck?
<a href="http://http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/bernie-sanders-daily-news_us_5704779ce4b0a506064d8df5" rel="nofollow"
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/bernie-sanders-daily-news_us_5704779ce4b0a506064d8df5
satby
@glasnost: oh please. Sanders didn’t give details
Instead of that being an affirmative reason to vote for him, it highlights the reason more of us haven’t voted for him so far.
BillinGlendaleCA
@glasnost: Campaigning for the Presidency is much easier than being President.
El Tiburon
Ok not sure if link is gonna show but Ryan Grimm at HuffPo disputes trainwreck interview.
Betty Cracker
@The Ancient Randonneur: Saw that, and a hearty Brava! to that lady!
@glasnost: Can’t agree with you there. I didn’t expect Sanders to go into excruciating detail, but he seemed utterly clueless about the basics. Not just the intricacies of breaking up the big banks but things like the criminal acts on Wall Street that he says should have been prosecuted, etc. He was jarringly unprepared during the whole interview, IMO, and I say this as someone who likes Sanders and strongly considered voting for him several weeks back.
HeartlandLiberal
Well, contrast and compare to hearts content, but in truth, what Trump’s campaign said is pretty much basically true. The GOP establishment are pulling out all the stops to try and stop Trump from winning the nomination, as are the Kock brothers, who are holding their nose and choosing to back any anti-Trump.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@glasnost: It wasn’t a horrible interview that Bernie gave (e.g. Trump has done much worse), but it was bad. Drum was easily able to make it look even worse through some not-too-hard cherry picking.
Nobody sensible expects Bernie to fix the Israel/Palestine problem in a short interview. But he’s been running against the Evils of Wall Street™ and our Corrupt Campaign Finance System Controlled by Millionaires and Billionaires™ for months (and maybe decades). He needs to be able to answer a few reasonable questions in those specific areas with something more than “I don’t work for Goldman-Sachs”. Even if a Congress like the one we have won’t pass the legislation we need, if he continuously rails against the Corrupt System™ and how the banksters need to be in jail, then he better have a sensible answer for what laws were broken and how he would prosecute them. “The Treasury will do it.” “The Fed will do it.” “The DOJ will do it.” aren’t answers.
It makes Bernie look like OldManWhoYellsAtClouds™. It’s not good.
And Bernie’s campaign continuing to end every one of his speech/rallies with Bowie’s “Starman” just makes it look even worse. I don’t want some “starman waiting in the sky” messiah-type, I want a sensible politician who will work to protect and extend Obama’s accomplishments. People who are taken in by this messiah-like campaign are going to be sorely disappointed, and that’s not good for the essential overall goal of retaining the WH, flipping the Senate, and reducing (or eliminating) the GOP margin in the House.
My (too long) $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@El Tiburon: I think he’s wrong. Here’s an example of why:
No, Sanders is taking a beating for being unable to name a single instance of bankster malfeasance that is worthy of prosecution, i.e., something they did that was both immoral and also illegal. In the build up to the quote Grimm cites, the NYDN clearly makes the distinction between “Wall Street did bad shit” and “Wall Street committed crimes that went unpunished.”
No one reasonable disputes the former, but someone who has made the latter a central plank of his campaign should be able to cite an example. Not a statute: an example. Hell, I could and did — robo-signing — and I’m not running for president.
John D.
@glasnost: When you are in an interview and asked “how would you accomplish [X], the central item of your campaign”, you don’t get to handwave and not get called on it. That is true for *any* candidate.
“He didn’t want to admit”? What the everloving fuck?
He’s running for the President of the United States of America. He damned well better admit what his plan is going to actually require.
If we accept your thesis, anyone outside of Bernie Sanders’ inner circle, who is not privy to his plans, literally has NO WAY to distinguish between “he has no plan” and “he’s being vague intentionally” as the appropriate reaction to that interview. That’s obfuscation, pure and simple. In absence of other data, I’m going with the proper defensive reaction, which is “What the fuck, how does he have no plan for his central campaign issue?!?”, and running away screaming.
And I say that as someone who voted for him in the primary.
Chyron HR
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
This is a joke, right?
satby
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: not too long at all, well said. That’s what’s always bothered me, the disappointment that will turn off another generation on voting and the political process caused by such a disingenuous campaign.
BillinGlendaleCA
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I think that was more like $0.04.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Chyron HR: Sadly, No™.
He did it in Wisconsin last night. He’s been doing it for months.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
El Tiburon
@Betty Cracker: well seems the grandest of splitting hairs. What’s important is Bernie genuinely wants to hold Wall Street accountable for WHATEVER laws they broke. Whereas HRC will most likely continue Obamas policy of doing nothing.
Otherwise Grimm certainly clears up this traiwreck myth.
EconWatcher
One big similarity between Bernie and Trump: I am convinced that deep down, both them are more shocked than anyone that they have come this far. I don’t think either one of them entered the race thinking they would have a serious shot. They had other reasons for running (Trump, to increase his cache as a reality TV star, and Bernie to push the Overton window).
Which raises an interesting question: If Bernie had plotted this race from the beginning as a serious contender instead of a protest candidate, could he have won?
Chyron HR
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Well there you go, he’d like to tell us how he’d prosecute the Wall Street Scum, but he thinks he’d blow our minds.
Wilson Heath
The Steve M post makes me ponder the Bernie boom as a progressive Tea Party movement. (And I’m not talking about racism.) Think of the elements of anger, anti-establishment sentiment, simple talking points, and purity. We’ve been flustered for six years by the political and political-media success of the teahadists. What if we could harness a popular counter-movement and bring it to bear in midterm cycles? What if the style was harnessed behind justifiable anger, legitimate grievance, and aimed at goals that would actually benefit the country?
The downside is if the purity pageant goes as far as it did in the GOP and self-immolates the whole project.
Betty Cracker
@El Tiburon: It’s not hair-splitting to point out that the questioner was asking for examples rather than statutes. It’s central to Grimm’s point that the NYDN demanded something unreasonable (statutes) of Sanders. They didn’t.
azlib
HRC can be magnanimous because she has a 95% probability of winning. The Dems need to pivot to unity at this point in time. I really hate to see circular liberal firing squads.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@El Tiburon: You can’t prosecute someone if you can’t name a law they broke. It would have been nice if Sanders had actually consulted with someone who could tell him what laws were broken before telling us so many times that they need to be prosecuted. As it is, he looks like he makes proclamations before understanding the issues.
Not good.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
I thought it was funny and embarrassing when they asked him how do you take a subway and he said you use a token. I thought! OMG! that hasn’t been done since 2003. My Gawd. I thought, how can the ;leader of the people’s revolution not have used common forum of transportation in at least 13 years.
schrodinger's cat
What about the Barney the Dinosaur trade policy answer, I love you, you love my wife, that was quite bad.
schrodinger's cat
Why is there so much space for the right hand column and why the huge fonts?
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
Bernie will do Something. We don’t know what Something is or how Something will wirk, but he assureds us it will be Something. And it’ll stick it to the Banksters.
Chyron HR
@schrodinger’s cat:
They’re pushing the Overton window to the left.
cleek
@schrodinger’s cat:
that second useless vertical scroll bar needs all the space it can get.
J.
For those wondering how many people have actually voted for each Democratic candidate, as opposed to how many delegates each has, I crunched the numbers and created a handy table, which you can find at http://bit.ly/1S1UtXq. (Spoiler alert: Despite Sanders winning Wisconsin by over 130,000 votes, Clinton still has garnered nearly 2.3 million more votes than Sanders.)
El Tiburon
I thusly assume you prefer the Obama/Clinton plan of putting the banksters in the Admimistration and letting them walk away free?
Or is it you want Bernie to act as judge and jury and precog the convictions and laws
Broken? Like when Obama stated clearly along with HRC on Snowdens guilt before any charges filed?
Gotcha.
schrodinger's cat
@J.: Sanders is not really the tribune of the working classes but latte liberals in their priuses (Prii?)
*Said she sipping her morning coffee after riding in a Prius. FWIW am a Hillbot now.
Shell
A more concise version of the Trump concession speech…
“Waah-waah-waah-waah-waah!”
This little piggy cried all the way home.
Amir Khalid
@EconWatcher:
If Bernie had gone into this aiming to become president, he might have prepared himself better on policy. But he’s so intoxicated by the heady perfume of Revolution! that I think even that is not certain.
El Tiburon
You can’t know what laws are broken until prosecuted and found guilty. Basic tenet of the U.S. judicial system.
He is stating the obvious: massive fraud and negligence was committed. Let’s do something about it. Or, let’s continue the Obama/Climton strategy of doing nothing.
FlipYrWhig
I’m schadenfreuding wicked hard at how all the Berniacs on my Facebook feed are embracing the story that it’s totally great for Bernie to sound ignorant about the all the most prominent features of his campaign because IT’S NOT ABOUT THAT and voters don’t like wonks anyway.
schrodinger's cat
@cleek: It is not a scroll bar, its not scrollin nothin for me. It looks like a border. Its the cyber equivalent of Trump’s wall.
Mary
@glasnost: I disagree. I think it’s extremely important that a candidate be able to respond with some level of detail to a question about his major platform. He may have a great plan in writing, but if he can’t articulate it on the fly it shows a lack of preparation and/or understanding of his own position that I find troubling. It’s fair point, however, to believe that the lack of detail in the interview is fine as long as he has articulated a comprehensive plan in more formal setting (either in writing or in a planned speech, for example), but personally I’d prefer that a candidate know the issue in and out and be able to articulate it clearly when asked. Everyone’s mileage may vary, of course.
Gimlet
What’s this about a Bernie “Scream”at the NY Daily News?
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: He’s stating the obvious: BERNIE WILL DO THE THING, OTHERS DON’T EVEN TRY THE THING
schrodinger's cat
@Chyron HR: Who is this Overton? and how can you push a window, anyways?
Chyron HR
@El Tiburon:
So when President Sanders doesn’t do anything, he’ll be (not) doing it from the left, which is all that really matters?
Gotcha.
rikyrah
BECAUSE THIS IS WHO THEY ARE.
Daniel DaleVerified account
@ddale8
Republican congressman says the Voter ID law will help Republicans win Wisconsin in November
schrodinger's cat
@Mary: All his plans are full of fluff. His immigration plan too, he is papering over the fact he was a restrictionista wrt to immigration in the Senate.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@El Tiburon:
You’re talking like prosecutors just walk into court and say, “Hey, Your Honor, I think these guys have broken some laws, so why don’t you throw the book at them for something. I don’t know what; I’d have to be precognitive to have a theory of the case.” It’s bullshit. If you can’t name any laws that were broken, you have no business saying that people need to be prosecuted.
FlipYrWhig
@Chyron HR: He’ll be THINKING it from the left, with intentions and stuff.
Gimlet
As the dust settles in Wisconsin, it appears the voters are still more Scott Walker red than Democrat as Rebecca Bradley was elected to a ten year term at the state Supreme Court.
Amir Khalid
@El Tiburon:
Prosecutors do have to know what law was broken, and they have to have enough evidence to be confident of securing a conviction, before they prosecute. When they charge you, they have to cite the law they’re accusing you of breaking. Did you never watch a single episode of Law and Order?
Chyron HR
@schrodinger’s cat:
Try undoing the little latch first.
WereBear
I know. But… it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter to a YOOOOGE swathe of the electorate who are tired of being ground down like serfs. Bernie speaks to them. They understand it far better than they understand policy proposals and how the filibuster works.
These are people who have been deprived all their lives. Their school probably didn’t have music, art, or eight grade civics. Maybe, like me, they took on student debt to get a degree they were told would make everything better, only to emerge with a large, even crushing, debt and no friggin’ jobs.
So I do not scorn them for not wonking the way we can. Or for not caring about it.
They are being crushed. They want someone, loud and proud, to care and promise to do something about it.
We are simply fortunate that such a person is Bernie Sanders. Unlike Trump, he has been sincere about this central issue of his entire life. Anyone should admit that Bernie has mobilized segments of the population who would otherwise not participate.
Unlike Trump, he will not use this power for evil.
rikyrah
OK,
I see the numbers for the posts when I’m on a computer. But, when I went online this morning from my phone – no numbers for posts.
Gimlet
@Chyron HR:
You forgot to start by saying “I’ll vote for Bernie if he wins the Democratic primary, but…”
Gin & Tonic
@schrodinger’s cat:
Because we are all old.
FlipYrWhig
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I don’t think he’d need to say “they were in violation of a key subsection of the Doe-Schmoe Act of 1982” or something, but he could have given a juicy example of fraudulent behavior. But I don’t think that’s his thing. I think his thing is that doing the right thing is always obvious and you just have to have the balls to do it, which no one else has, because of corruption.
aimai
@El Tiburon: He can dispute it all he wants but anyone who actually read it was disgusted. Not the true blue berniers but the people who were on the fence and looking to know more–not feel more, know more.
Mary
@Betty Cracker: I think asking about statutes would be perfectly fair as well. You don’t need to point to a particular subsection of the US Code, but it would be nice to say something like “Dodd-Frank is inadequate because it fails to do X, Y, and Z*. I would amend the legislation by allowing (or even requiring) prosecutors/regulators to impose restrictions on these behaviors and I would increase the penalties to include (criminal sentencing/personal liability/higher fines/restitution to customers, or whatever).”
*Where X, Y, and Z refer to specific restrictions or policy failures, rather than simply “break up the banks.”
As an aside, if possible I would appreciate it if a knowledgeable Bernie supporter can articulate what it would mean to “break up the banks.” Are we saying that there should be a Ma Bell style split that separates the conglomerate into multiple smaller entities? I would genuinely like to understand the policy so I can consider its pros and cons. If it’s a solid policy, it may be something worth putting pressure on “establishment” Dems to pursue it, regardless of who wins the general election.
FlipYrWhig
@WereBear: In times like these, his ignorant indignation is actually a hard-won political asset! Good thing he’s been cultivating it for so long, because it’s really paying off.
different-church-lady
@glasnost:
Totally honest, totally forthcoming, totally genuine always says what he thinks and never has something to hide Bernie Sanders didn’t want to admit something?
Emma
@El Tiburon: You cannot prosecute someone unless what they did is ILLEGAL. A lot of the problems with our financial system comes from the banks taking advantage of legal loopholes. So yeah, it behooves you to know what laws have been broken.
Anya
I’ve always resisted the comparison between Bernie supporters and Trump supporters. I thought it was unfair to Sanders supporters. But to my dismay, I’ve discovered that they have a lot in common. Both sides are fuelled by negative energy only. They are both committed to burning the house down to purify the system from the “corrupt establishment”. And they believe only their guy can be the solution.
In 08, I was a huge Obama supporter. I remember how we were accused of being naive and cult like. But Obama’s message was one of determination and clear policy with hope & inspiration. Though I was angry and determined to do whatever I can to save our country from the Bush Crime Syndicate, Obama’s message of hope is what appealed to me the most. Obama’s campaign was able to direct my wide-eyed idealism and radical bravado to good. Unfortunately, Sanders is not offering anything other than righteous anger.
I don’t mind anger but I want to know what to do beyond the anger phase. As he has proven time and again, Sanders is only capable of telling us about what kind of a country we should be but not how he will get us there. I’ve watched enough Sanders interviews and I’ve yet to see him answer anything beyond his campaign slogans.
schrodinger's cat
@Chyron HR: Yeah but that doesn’t move the window to the left or right for that matter, unless it is a sliding window but even then you can only move the panes of the window not the frame. So that expression makes little sense.
FlipYrWhig
@Mary: It’s not a policy, it’s an applause line, like when Ted Cruz says “abolish the IRS.”
Emma
@El Tiburon: AAARGH. No. You have to know which laws have been broken before you take someone to court. For God’s sake, that’s a basic premise of any half-way honest legal system.
aimai
@Gimlet: This is the thing that should give Bernie’s supporters a moment to think about how viable their candidate really is. His candidacy is based on this fantasy that “independents” will swing behind Bernie and all will be well. Well, voters did vote for Bernie in record numbers but somehow the most serious, local, issue in Wisconsin, the Supreme Court, got left behind. How does that happen? Voters who are passionately pro bernie either couldn’t overcome the general rightward shift of the WI electorate or pro bernie voters were not informed enough about their own local political realities to take the supreme court. That bodes ill for the reality of what is going to be a state by state fight to take back the country. The presidency is only a third of the battle.
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: Ageist! We are no teens but not born in the Hoover administration either.
dr. bloor
@El Tiburon:
No, but you do need to charge them with specific criminal actions or violations of specific laws to get them to trial in the first place.
Honestly, those defending the interview are just making matters worse at this point. He’s a good guy, he’s a smart guy, he has some good ideas. But he fucked up that interview big-time. Just admit it and move on to NY.
Mary
@Amir Khalid: Additionally, legislators have to know exactly what they behaviors they want to legislate before they enact a law against it. It’s a basic legal principle that you can’t prosecute ex post facto (or can do so under seriously extreme circumstances).
Chyron HR
@Gimlet:
Sick bern, bro. Since the Sanders campaign is allegedly an unstoppable juggernaut at this point, shouldn’t you guys start being more felicitous to the people who’s votes he needs to court in the general election?
different-church-lady
@El Tiburon:
Which, one must assume, he’ll eventually get around to puzzling out only after he’s secured the presidency, in spite of being a U.S. senator for the nearly eight years since it happened.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: How is voting for Bernie going to solve these problems? All he is doing is mouthing socialist platitudes. All he has is slogans without any workable plans.
Gimlet
@aimai:
I wouldn’t blame it on Bernie, but look deeper to see why it happened. We live in an age where elections can be stolen.
FlipYrWhig
@Anya: Sanders has a lot of excellent goals. (I don’t particularly think they’re different from Clinton’s goals, but that’s a different story.) I think he truly believes that achieving those goals is easy if you try, and that no one tries because they’ve been bought. It’s the same argument that crops up among people who disparage Obamacare and the stimulus: “it could have been so much better but he didn’t. even. try.” And I think that’s why I’m so impatient with Sanders and his campaign: they’re using the same kind of garbage arguments that critics of Obama “from the left” have been making all around the blogosphere for 8 solid years.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@FlipYrWhig: I agree that you don’t have to be able to name the specific statute, but he damned well needs to articulate specific actions that were illegal. Having some idea of the difference between the colloquial definition of “fraud” and the legal definition would be a good place to start.
Mary
@FlipYrWhig: What can I say? I’m a lawyer and trained to always begin your argument from the best possible interpretation of the other side’s.
Tripod
I chalk it up to a senior moment, which is also a good part of why he relentlessly sticks to the script. The other part is his talking points speak to how white, white collar, middle incomers FEEL about things. That’s it’s not particularly engaging to the rest of the Democratic (or national) electorate, and no effort was made to broaden it? That would be born out by the nomination results.
different-church-lady
@Wilson Heath: I’ve been saying it for months: Sanders and Trump are both playing the politics of resentment, but from opposite sides of the coin.
Gimlet
@different-church-lady:
I think we all agree with Hillary that the economy collapsed because there was too much regulation of Wall Street and banks were forced to make unworthy loans to minorities.
aimai
@Gimlet: Absolutely. Elections can be stolen. But the Wisconsin electorate has been extremely divided and screwy for years. Progressives couldn’t even get Walker recalled after horrendous battles. For reasons that have been very well investigated. The state is riven and Bernie’s Berners are not overturning that. But his post racial/working class argument should have made that possible if it were going to work.
Betty Cracker
@Gimlet: Appalling.
schrodinger's cat
@different-church-lady: I agree and I have said this as well.
aimai
@FlipYrWhig: Somebody at Kos just argued that all of Obama’s achievements–Lily Ledbetter and ending Don’t Ask/Don’t tell “would have happened anyway” so they don’t count.
Gimlet
@Tripod:
I chalk it up to a senior moment, which is also a good part of why he relentlessly sticks to the script.
This.
At his age Bernie will not be as quick on his feet if he hasn’t prepared a response, but still able to reason it out correctly with a little more time.
rikyrah
hmmph
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/5/16
Republicans consider advantage of ‘losing with Cruz’
Nicolle Wallace, Republican strategist, talks with an MSNBC panel about the considerations being made within the Republican Party about how to supplant Donald Trump as the party’s choice for the nomination and whether it might actually be better to nominate Ted Cruz even if he loses.
aimai
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I think thats silly. We have Charlie cards here in MA and have had for years but I might still slip and ask myself if I have a token for the subway. Its kind of like the word kleenex or xerox.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear:
I think I see the problem. I for one don’t want promises, I want actions. To my ears, Hillary can deliver on at least some of the things she has promised to act on. I honestly can’t see a way for Bernie to deliver any of the things he is promising to do, no matter how much I may want those exact things.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@schrodinger’s cat:
He’s as visionary as Lysenko in terms of the loftiness of his goals…
JMG
@aimai: I think this is a little unfair. Sanders made local Wisconsin issues a big part of his campaign speeches there. More people (not a lot more, maybe 100,000-plus, but still more) voted in the Republican than Democratic primary probably because of the stop-Trump imperative of the state’s GOP power structure, and that’s probably what swung the judge’s race. The top of the ticket was more important to GOP voters than to the Democrats because this was the first state where the message “Trump equals we get massacred” seemed to resonate.
schrodinger's cat
I know that Tunch kitteh is the God of balloon juice but 40% of screen space seems a bit excessive even for his rotundity.
Craigo
@El Tiburon:
This is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever read on this blog. How do you prosecute until you know what laws were allegedly broken, Mr. Justice Basic Tenet?
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@aimai:
Hey, the Bolsheviks could get where they got without sabotaging and the disparaging Kerensky’s Mensheviks from the left.
FlipYrWhig
@Gimlet: Did he just decide to run for president the day before the interview or something? He’s had a year to “prepare a response” that’s presidential, and he’s had 30+ years of public service during which we’re always told he’s been spectacularly iron-clad consistent to come up with a goddamn idea about how to do the things that are his priorities. Come on now.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Gimlet:
He’s been running for almost a year, and been in Congress for a lot longer than that. How much more time does he need?
MattF
Bernie has various weaknesses, but I don’t, personally, think that’s disqualifying. Everyone has their own way of approaching things.
For me, the big problem is that many of Sanders’ supporters appear to be motivated by animus towards Clinton. That just leaves me wondering WTF is going on with them. Are they really swallowing the right-wing lies?
different-church-lady
@Gimlet: You’re just being an idiot now. It’s not a good look, no matter how well you wear it.
different-church-lady
@Craigo: Most of the time when someone says “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve read here” I think, oh, not even close. But here, you’ve actually got a case.
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
It would seem so. If you repeat any crap often enough and long enough, you’ll get some believers.
FlipYrWhig
@MattF: A lot of them haven’t gotten over the Iraq War vote and the feeling in the 1990s that Bill Clinton was too conservative. That’s why the Berniac 30-somethings and up don’t like Hillary Clinton. The younger people, who knows. They think Bernie’s steampunk or normcore or something.
Gin & Tonic
@MattF:
Yes.
different-church-lady
@MattF: It’s all about the emotions. Perhaps to the exclusion of everything else.
rikyrah
Pfizer abandons $160bn Allergan deal
US drugs giant Pfizer has scrapped a planned merger with Ireland’s Allergan amid plans to change US tax laws.
The decision comes two days after the US Treasury announced fresh plans to prevent deals known as “inversions”, where a US firm merges with a company in a country with a lower tax rate.
The Pfizer-Allergan deal, valued at $160bn (£113bn), would have been the biggest example of an “inversion”.
It would also have been the biggest pharmaceutical deal in history.
Pfizer said the move was “driven by the actions announced” by the US Treasury.
Ian Read, Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive, said: “Pfizer approached this transaction from a position of strength and viewed the potential combination as an accelerator of existing strategies.”
He added that the company could look at splitting off part of the business.
schrodinger's cat
Economic issues are supposed to be his strong point, but his answers in this interview demonstrate that he wants to go to grad school in physics but has no idea what a Free Body Diagram is or what Newton’s laws are (Intro Physics)
OzarkHillbilly
@Gimlet: Reagan taught me and W showed why I should never vote for anyone who has “senior moments” because they can come at the most inopportune times.
cleek
@schrodinger’s cat:
it scrolls the whole screen like two pix, for me. two very important pixels.
rikyrah
Ok, who came up with the idea of Capital One commercials with Sam Jackson, Spike and Barkeley?
BWA HA HA HA HA H HA HA HA HA
Gimlet
@OzarkHillbilly:
Fortunately Hillary has youth on her side.
burnspbesq
“Deep knowledge of the issues is …suspect”
???
We are pretty thoroughly fucked, are we not?
Tripod
He underperformed. The CW was he needed ~16% of the vote to get ahead of the delegate curve, didn’t make that, and the proportional delegate spread isn’t linear, or based entirely on statewide results, so he got dinged a delegate or two in a number of CDs.
That was after a 6-1 spend differential.
His campaign has blown through ~$100 million in the last two months, and that represents a substantial lost opportunity cost. He’s not spinning up a DFA, or something dedicated to independents candidates, or even his couple of issues.
I expect that all Bernie will leave behind is lots campaign tchotchke for the collectors.
geg6
@glasnost:
No one asked him for five layers deep. He couldn’t manage one layer in that interview. And the prosecution of bankers stuff was even worse. He’s been screaming for their prosecution for years now. And he couldn’t be bothered to do the simplest research into what, if any, illegal activities they committed so they could be prosecuted? Sorry, but if he, of all people, can’t be arsed to find that out, I can’t be arsed to take him seriously in any way.
I’m not voting for him because I don’t trust that he is smart or has the background to take a crack at much of anything. I’ll give him commitment to his cause. But I don’t give him commitment to many of mine.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gimlet: Yet she hasn’t had any “senior moments”. Apparently you are confused about the difference.
Joel
I disagree with this; Sanders can’t really come up with a good grounds for prosecution because much of what the bankers and lending agencies were doing was legal. Highly unethical, but legal. And that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Anya
@FlipYrWhig: He also encourages political nihilism by basically accusing the Democrats of being one side of the same corrupt establishment coin. He constantly makes it seem as though he’s the only non corrupt politician. I think that’s a very dangerous message and it will only lead to cynicism & nihilism. While Obama appealed to our better angels, Sanders appeals to our bitter side. I also find it very dangerous that his supporters accuse Secretary Clinton of being corrupt.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@rikyrah:
Or how about this – pay some goddamned dividends and quit hoarding capital within the organization. Or how about paying your front line (those who interface most with your customers) employees in accordance with the value they add to your entity? Or how about investing in physical plant beyond C-suite redecoration? Dividends paid get between 70 and 80% deducted on corporate income tax, and the current setup disfavors them.
burnspbesq
@Craigo
El Tib is actually completely correct. Indictments are based on probable cause. As a prosecutor, you may think you have sufficient evidence to prove every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, but you don’t know until the jury tells you. See, e.g., the Bear Stearns cases.
dr. bloor
@Joel:
Yeah, it is. But they asked Bernie if jail time should have been involved for some of the banksters beyond the fines that the corporations paid, and he replied in the affirmative.
Bartholomew
Well, this was one way to deal with yet another loss by the only candidate that America has already rejected, I guess. Smart Betty is leaving all ya’ll a little unpainted strip to escape the corner you’ve let the establishment paint you into … very wise of her. You can tell football season is over.
I know this is daily caller, LOL, but if we’re suddenly accepting interview gotchas from serial dipshits of the rightwing NYDN griftmobile, I guess it’s fair to share:
“Billionaire and a Russia-controlled bank named in the Panama Papers have links to Hillary Clinton through two separate lobbying efforts — one through a Clinton-connected lobbying firm and another through Sidney Blumenthal.”
http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/05/hillary-clinton-ties-emerge-in-panama-papers/
different-church-lady
@burnspbesq: Is it possible to know what laws you think were broken? Or do you have to wait for the jury tells you that too?
Jesus Christ in a growler of craft beer, do you think we’re idiots?
geg6
@El Tiburon:
Um, no it’s not. Jesus. No wonder Bernie “I don’t know” Sanders is your candidate.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Bernie’s a gadfly who caught the car, and now doesn’t know what to do with it. The whole interview just shows he’s had no interest in really doing anything substantial about anything, because he’s an Independent, man, and used to being around a bunch of white granola crunchers who never have demanded he be anything but, and boy, does it show. He has no idea where the levers of power are, and what to do with any of them once he finds out. He just thinks somehow that his scolding will bend people and countries to his will. Like Barney Frank said, he’s acting like it’s still 2008, because he’s been too lazy to task himself with understanding what happened and how, and what’s changed since then. He’s a delusional fraud.
different-church-lady
@Bartholomew:
And yet you went ahead with it anyway.
gvg
Nixon had a secret plan to end the war, and voters would just have to trust him worked out well. I never trust a statement that broad, that perfect and unspecific. If it was easy, someone would have already done it. Bernie is wrong, many other politicians and career civil servants, care and have tried.
Gimlet
@OzarkHillbilly:
I agree, Hillary’s comments about the Reagan’s support for AIDS research and more recently the unborn “person” not fetus were certainly well thought out.
OzarkHillbilly
@Joel:
I have made this point many times. Not everything they did was legal, but all too much of it was.
schrodinger's cat
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Trump seems to think so as well. He will slap 30% duties on imported goods and other countries who we export to will smile and say how wonderful.
scav
Didn’t John McCain and a few more of his liver have secret, super-dumper whiz-bang plans for important national issues they wouldn’d discuss or share (or implement, for that matter) unless they personally were elected? (“Elect me or I’ll not fix this issue that I claim is about to destroy the nation!”) Historically, I don’t think playing this card, however enthusiastically, is the sign of a robust compaign.
burnspbesq
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Not sure where you came up that, but it’s highly misleading. The Code Section 243 dividends received deduction applies only to corporate recipients, not to individuals, estates, or trusts, and there is no benefit to the payor.
For individuals, Code Section 1(h)(11) provides that certain dividends from domestic corporations are taxed at capital gain rates (plus the 3.8 percent “Obamacare tax”), but again no benefit to the payor.
magurakurin
I love this place. Steampunk, nomrcore and tchotchke. New words for me today. Just spent some time reading about steampunk…that was very interesting and explained some things.
japa21
@Gimlet: Unfortunately, being a President usually means you have to be quick on your feet. You often don’t have time to mull things over, specially when dealing in the world of foreign relations.
The token thing is a stupid criticism. We use cards in Chicago, but many people still use the word token.
The inability to come up with anything he would describe as illegal is critical. There was a lot of talk yesterday on this subject. First to find illegal activities and then to pin them on specific people. Companies can’t go to jail, but many have been fined as much as the law allows. To put a specific person on trial (and yes some have been and found guilty) is very difficult. It would, of course, have to be a high profile case to matter and if a conviction is not the result it is a black eye to the government and emboldens “bad” behavior on the other side.
And I think the comment above about Sanders should define what “break up the banks” means. It is one of those phrases that sounds good but could have ruinous results if it isn’t explained thoroughly and looked at.
In 2008, both Clinton and Obama gave pretty complete details about their policies. And both were rather rigorously examined by the media. Sanders has gotten a pass for the most part this year.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@schrodinger’s cat:
The parallels between Trump and Sanders are too numerous to ignore at this point, including the delusional/worshipful nature of their mostly white followers. Makes me wonder whether this is black president side effects. Hahaha no, it doesn’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gimlet: There is a difference between misspeaking and having a “senior moment”. Sorry if you haven’t learned that yet.
(and for the record, the 2 are not equal. the Reagan thing was far worse, I personally would never praise them, but the fetus/ person thing is understandable in that people have a tendency to answer a question in the terms it was asked. She should have caught it, but we can’t all be perfect, can we?)
ETA and I’ve got go, so you’ll just have to argue with someone else.
burnspbesq
@different-church-lady:
If you think “believe” and “know” are synonyms, then yes, you are an idiot. Or reading comprehension is not a strength.
bearcalypse
@OzarkHillbilly: They all have senior moments because they are seniors. Hillary had the Nancy Reagans AIDS activism moment.. At least she had competent crisis management on that one.
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
Well, he trusted that the world-renowned website wot won the “Nobel Peace Prize for Shoddy Investigative Journamalism But If We Can Trash Hitlary It’s All Good” would have something important to say.
Or, failing that, something to say. Well, screech, really, but still …
Is Tucker still wearing his clip-on bow tie?
Mary
@Bartholomew: Subway question aside, those were not “gotcha” questions. They were straight forward questions about issues that are central to his platform.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I get the Bernie attraction – yelling that you’re going to throw those rich assholes in jail is cathartic. I just don’t think Bernie will actually be able to do it, because I don’t for a second think that Obama has failed to do it because he’s been either bought off by Wall Street or just out of goodness of his heart compassion for financial fraudsters. He hasn’t done it because he doesn’t see a strong enough case. Bernie’s righteous indignation isn’t going to make said case any stronger. Worst case he tries and these guys walk and that just emboldens them.
I agree on the narrative No More Mister Nice Blog is pushing – what he/she is saying is true for the Republican side and it’s the “dominant narrative” right now for both sides, but I don’t think it’s nearly as true for the Democrats. The fact that the dominant narrative is that it is true for both sides is a sign that Both Sides Do It is still alive and well. If the Republicans are on an extreme rage bender, then, well by God the Democrats must be too!
Betty Cracker
@Joel: I’m not a lawyer, but there are cases Sanders could have cited (and commenters have, and I cited in the OP above) that would have demonstrated his point and helped him avoid looking so clueless, e.g., the robo-signing scandal. In that case, the feds chose to negotiate a settlement rather than prosecuting what sure as hell appears to be straight-up fraud. Maybe that was the best approach; maybe not — reasonable folks can disagree there, IMO.
geg6
@WereBear:
Just my own experience and anecdotal evidence. I work with students in a financial capacity at a small campus of a very large major public research university. What I have seen over the course of this campaign is simply not that narrative. The big Bernistas on this campus are white and, mostly, fairly privileged in that, yes, most of them will have some student loans to pay off, but mom and dad are covering most of the cost of their education. They are super passionate about bringing on the revolution and they are completely convinced that Hillary Clinton is the lyingest liar that ever lied. I’m really not sure why they love him so, but many have been to Europe so maybe they like that whole line about being more like Europeans.
Whereas the kids who really have been deprived in their lives, who came from shitty, underfunded schools, who are going to have major debt because they have to max out on loans in order to cover their costs because their parent or parents can’t afford to pay or borrow or maybe they don’t have parents at all are quietly supporting Hillary. I know because they come to me and tell me they are because they know I am. They have a pretty firm grasp of the issues and they will tell you that they can’t afford not to understand them because, for them, it’s life and death. They aren’t angry at Obama. They love him. They want to continue his legacy and build on it. They have felt empowered by him and they feel the same (if slightly lesser) about Hillary. This is a majority white campus (a very large majority), so I expect Bernie will be the one who gets the most votes from our students. But the ones who really should be angry, the ones who are most vulnerable, the ones that understand the real stakes will be voting for someone else. They mostly scorn Bernie.
FlipYrWhig
@glasnost:
Stuart SmalleyBernie Sanders: “Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!”dr. bloor
@burnspbesq: But a prosecutor doesn’t have to “know” a specific crime has been committed before they attempt to prosecute someone. El Tib’s argument was, essentially, that Bernie couldn’t possibly have identified what the banksters should have been charged with because he couldn’t predict whether or not they’d be found guilty.
Not being responsible for charging someone unless you know the outcome is a bit of a problem, no?
FlipYrWhig
@geg6:
That’s what I see too.
Paul in KY
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: He’s a Senator, silly.
scav
@burnspbesq: Well, for that matter, you seem to think that some of the nicities of legal jargon apply to natural speach. One generally doesn’t call the police and say “My car has disappeared from where I parked it. I cannot state it was stonlen until a specific alledged and hyothecized perpetor has been both charged and convicted by a jury of his peers.”
Dennis
An alternative view of the “trainwreck” interview:
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/sanders-ending-tbtf/
different-church-lady
@burnspbesq: If you think splitting that hair will make me stop facepalming, then same to you.
Mary
@dr. bloor: You do have to know what you’re charging them with. You can maybe start an investigation without having a specific charge in mind, although even that might be difficult if you want to get any warrants of any kind, but the idea that it’s OK to prosecute someone with identifying specific allegations is just plain wrong.
schrodinger's cat
@Dennis: How is breaking up banks going to fix trade? Breaking up banks is to Bernistas what tax cuts are too the Republicans.
Immanentize
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Does anyone else miss the old ‘cent’ mark? I do.
Just my 2¢
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@geg6:
My Bernfeeler friends are all white and well employed – angry, as we all are, at the way the 1% have hoovered up the world – but hardly hanging on by their fingertips. Their inability to see how Bernie’s deliberate strategy to focus on white votes and keep the marginalized marginalized by dismissing their numbers and importance in this racist as fuck country can’t possibly count as a revolution, has really been an eye opener.
Paul in KY
@Mary: Glass-Steagall should be reinstated. Stops certain types of banks from doing these BS stock market investing scams.
different-church-lady
@Dennis:
You know, you just… break them up! And then it’s good!
dr. bloor
@Mary: Uh, yeah. The whole point in this particular exchange is that Bernie said he thought guys should go to jail, and then couldn’t cite any specific crimes that they might have been charged with. His response was essentially “Because, BANKSTERS!”
WarMunchkin
Man, this thread fell apart into the predictable arguments really fast.
If it makes a difference to the narrative, I and a couple other people I know who were strongly considering voting for Sanders are either going to vote for Clinton or O’Malley due to the NYDN interview. We’re Great Society/New Deal Democrats, not, as the usual suspects here insinuate, people looking for free stuff or places to vent our anger or latte liberals. You have to know something about policy. Not five-layers-deep – that’s a straw man, by the way – but enough to understand how the levers of power can be used to enact public policy – or at the very least, the stuff you value the most.
Gravenstone
@Gimlet: You better go bale the back forty, son. You don’t have nearly enough straw yet to build that strawman you just tossed out there.
Chyron HR
@geg6:
Yeah, but that doesn’t count. It’s like being supported by Guamamanaians.
Guamamalans?
Guamcamoles?
Ah, you know what I mean.
Dennis
And, yeah, speaking of double standards:
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/reporters-who-haven-t-noticed-that-paul-ryan-has-called-for-eliminating-most-of-federal-government-go-nuts-over-bernie-sanders-lack-of-specifics
Germy Shoemangler
Doesn’t the criticism of Bernie’s DailyNews interview illustrate the higher standards we hold our candidates to? If one of the GOP candidates gave a subpar interview no one would notice. (They do it all the time; Cruz and as I recall Santorum rarely had facts at their fingertips, just platitudes) The compare and contrast post-Wisconsin primary candidate remarks also show the different standards for behavior.
Marc
A pretty reasonable take on Sanders from the NYTimes Upshot column, typically pretty balanced:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/upshot/yes-bernie-sanders-knows-something-about-breaking-up-banks.html
Primary season is a marathon, and people will stumble on something at some point. I don’t count a handful of Clinton misstatements recently as important either.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Good try, but Kerensky was never a Meneshevik. he was a Constitutional-Democrat. You might say ‘Martov’ instead, comrade.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: It’s called ‘advertising’.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: If that really is how they are thinking, then yes, we truly are fucked.
Hoodie
@FlipYrWhig: A lot of the rage you see in both parties is coming from a fairly privileged portion of the population, which makes it somewhat inexplicable. I may be misremembering, but I was struck that the exit polling for the Dem race in WI last night indicated that most of the voters thought they were doing ok or better economically, which makes Bernie’s victory seem strange. I wonder if many are angry simply because they’ve been frustrated by years of GOP obstruction during the Obama administration and some concerns about the future that are amplified by media that likes to fixate on impending disaster to keep audience share, all of which makes them feel powerless. Bernie is an outlet for that frustration because his campaign is largely a gripe fest. My experience in several organizations is that people who feel alienated because of boredom, lack of a sense of control, fear of the future and other similar reasons will often be attracted to other gripers simply because misery loves company.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: They hoard capital, because as Investment Income, it only gets taxed at 15%. There is a real concrete incentive (to them) to hoard it. If they use it to pay employees raises or build a new sorting center (or whatever), the profits realized from those endeavors get taxed at 38% (or maybe there’s no profit realized).
Mary
@dr. bloor: Right. I wasn’t reading your comment closely when I replied. Sorry about that – we are actually agreeing with each other. :)
Germy Shoemangler
We’re on a Road To Utopia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRDnmCYL_jU
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Hoodie:
Or, could it just be reaction to the changing country demographics and white people are feeling anxious about it? Sanders and his surrogates’ criticisms of Obama rather than the GOP’s obstructionism seem pretty deliberate.
rikyrah
Producer Debra Martin Chase Sets Up ‘The Black Calhouns’ at ABC as Potential Miniseries
Photo of Tambay A. Obenson
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
April 5, 2016 at 7:06PM
In author Gail Lumet Buckley’s ambitious “The Black Calhouns: From Civil War to Civil Rights with One African American Family,” the daughter of actress Lena Horne delves deep into her family history, detailing their experiences from the Civil War to the Civil Rights era, starting with her great-great grandfather Moses Calhoun, a house slave who used the rare advantage of his education to become a successful businessman in post-war Atlanta. And from there, the two branches of her family that followed: one that stayed in the South, and the other that settled in New York City.
Buckley examines these lives and the major events throughout American history that they lived through. From Atlanta during Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, and then from World War II to the Civil Rights Movement, combining personal and national history for a unique portrait of 6 generations in times of trial and triumph throughout American history.
scav
@Hoodie: People that have really been underpriviledged generally know that “dreams” etc have to be worked at over time and with effort and compromise. They don’t necessarily expect the totality all of their glittering desires to arrive, as if by birthright, girftwrapped, by overnight delivery, with free shipping. (Note that that sort of “have it your way” magical cargo-cult thinking isn’t entirely limited by economic classes, nor is characteristic of all Saunders supporters. But there are a goodly number of Americans with the “where is my dream I want all of it now, pronto, My America or nothing.” expectations wandering about the political spectrum.)
CaseyL
I posted a link to that NYDN article on FB. In an exchange with a commenter, I said that the problem for me was that Bernie couldn’t speak knowledgeably about what’s supposed to be his signature issue. The other commenter said, no, Bernie’s signature issue is income inequality.
That kind of floored me. How are banks not connected to income inequality? International finance and economic development are kind of important factors, yes?
MattF
@Hoodie: Perhaps less charitably… I think that one of the underlying issues in the campaign(s) is who is going to be in charge in each party for the next 10 to 20 years. It’s certainly a central issue on the R side, and at least an uncomfortable question on the D side.
MomSense
@geg6:
Word.
@Joel:
Highly unethical. The banksters out resourced/lawyered the Feds. I seem to recall that Congress even cut the funding for prosecuting but I’d have to go scour thomas.gov to get the details. Negotiating settlements is not as cathartic as orange jumps suits, but it is often what happens in these kinds of cases.
FlipYrWhig
@Hoodie: I think there are two key complaints, really:
(1) The Democratic Party finds ways to disappoint and betray liberals.
(2) Economic times are tough and the government should do more to help the people who hurt most.
People who embrace both complaints support Sanders. People who embrace (2) and who are too young to worry much about (1) support Sanders. People who are resigned to (1) and embrace (2) support Clinton. People who support Sanders think that people who support Clinton reject (2).
And that’s before getting into the aspect of the two candidates having competing plans or different rhetorical choices.
magurakurin
@FlipYrWhig: interesting way to summarize it.
Man, there is a lot of good shit on here tonight. A lot of good comments by a lot of people.
El Tiburon
.
shomi
All the Sanders fanboys should just STFU. You are making reasonable Democrats do face palms. All you are doing is giving the whack jobs on the right more ammunition.
Sanders and his fans just goes to show that progressives are just as whacked out as the far right in some ways. Placing ideology above logic and reason.
FlipYrWhig
@CaseyL:
I think Sanders’s signature issue is “big money bought up other politicians, but it hasn’t bought me.”
They’re related but not in the way that Sanders relates them, IMHO. They’re related insofar as redlining, predatory lending, subprime, etc. But I think the Sanders story is that Wall Street caused an economic recession and got away with it, and that’s why income inequality is out of whack (and that we don’t take the right corrective measures because of systemic corruption). But it’s never been clear to me how “breaking up the big banks” actually is a solution to income inequality. It’s more of a punishment. Financial transaction taxes channeled into social-welfare programs, that’s a way to address income inequality, and he’s for that too. But I have long perceived a mismatch between the diagnosis and the course of treatment.
El Tiburon
@Chyron HR: Now you are grasping at the straws flying out of your backside.
So when Bernie says he wants to go after Wall Street, you take that to mean he doesn’t want to go after Wall Street, or that he can’t poop out an exact statute or whatever the beef is that he will be unable to go after Wall Street?
Conversely, when HRC rakes in huge money from Wall Street and she and her husband have a long track record of being smoochie face with Wall Street, you take this to mean unicorns floating on clouds or what?
pseudonymous in nc
@FlipYrWhig: That sounds about right. The corollary to (1) is that American politics is structured in ways to disappoint liberals. Otherwise-liberal senators are beholden to illiberal interests in their states. Voters on the left don’t show up at mid-terms — though as Atrios rightly says, it would help if politicians on the left gave them a coherent fucking message and reason to do so. And so on.
D58826
I have been thinking about the piece of Bernie’s interview on breaking up the big banks. Has he really thought this through? Having worked at one of the big banks for 30+ years and taken part in more mergers than I want to think about, this isn’t going to be easy. The banks and their big customers will oppose the plan with every legal tactic that they can think of. Once that is overcome the actual breakup will take years and consume millions (maybe billions) in resources and will be tremendously disruptive to the economy. It would be a major undertaking to break up just one of the top 5-6 banks let alone all of them at the same time. It might only be a slight exaggeration to say that the Japanese will complete the cleanup of the nuclear plant before the US completes breaking up the big banks. Just a bit of history – remember the pain of the AT&T breakup? And what happened – all of the baby Bells then re-merged into a couple of super Bells. Or the Microsoft anti-trust suit? That went real well.
Cacti
@Bartholomew:
Go take your turds from the right wing sewer and stuff them right back up your BernieBro ass.
Did you think you’d wandered into DU(mb) or some other Bernfeeler hive mind?
Your guy had a shit interview with the NYDN. Deal with it.
FlipYrWhig
@FlipYrWhig:
Amending my own post:
El Tiburon
Oh, I didn’t think of this. Then we probably should not even attempt it. This makes me rethink my entire voting strategy.
My new voting strategy will be to place HRC number #1 since she knows better than to try something difficult as to hold banks accountable.
Thanks Balloon Juice Smarty People!
schrodinger's cat
Isn’t it interesting that Bernie and his supporters don’t give the Democrats and the President any credit either for Dodd-Frank or the ACA.
MPAVictoria
Really important to note that Sander’s was 100% correct on everything he said in his interview. See:
http://www.carlbeijer.com/2016/04/how-did-media-get-it-so-wrong-on.html
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: Bernie will try it! By using aggression! Who needs a plan when you’ve got grumpy indignation, amirite?
different-church-lady
@El Tiburon:
I would like to think that if she did try, she’d be able to articulate even in the most basic fuckin’ sense the mechanics of how she was going to do it.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: Everything that has been done is corrupt, because Establishment. Everything that Bernie will do will be pure, because Bernie.
El Tiburon
@burnspbesq:
This of course goes without saying.
FlipYrWhig
@different-church-lady:
Cacti
I’m guessing Bernie and his Bernfeelers probably also aren’t aware that the Statute of Limitations for most federal felonies not punishable by death is 5-years.
I also have my doubts about their awareness that you can’t retroactively make an activity illegal and prosecute someone for it after the fact, under the ex post facto clause of the Constitution.
But then again, maybe if we all clap hard enough.
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: You can’t do anything about income inequality, unless you make it good business to give out raises to people. If the incentives are to keep it all & only give raises when you absolutely must, to only those who are your absolute best & have threatened to leave, etc. then we’re going to have this income inequality for rest of our lives.
Helping out unions & making it much harder to move your workforce to The Philippines can help tremendously, over the long term. Making low-cost public daycare would do a whole lot for families that have to pay a lot of moolah to private entities to keep kids while they are working at their not-well-paid jobs.
rikyrah
@EconWatcher:
If he had found a way to seriously talk in a meaningful way to Non-White voters…
could be.
I stand my ground that any candidate who full throttle embraced the Obama Coalition and said unequivocally – I will continue us down the path set forth by President Obama –
would have laid waste to Hillary Clinton.
D58826
@El Tiburon: There is a difference between holding banks accountable and trying top break them up. The cure might well be worse than the disease. In retrospect maybe we should not have let them grow as large and as powerful as they have but that is the world we live in today. Strong regulation is probably the best approach. Now I can just hear the reply – but the regulators are corrupt captives of the financial system. This may very well be true but then who is going to oversee breaking up the banks? Bernie can’t do it by himself. And the legal/financial talent needed to do the job probably already work for Wall Street.
Juju
I don’t know whether the NYDN interview will hurt Sanders or not, but if Secratary Clinton gave an interview like that, there would be a giant shitstorm swirling about. I don’t think Clinton would get the benefit of the doubt the way Sanders seems to in this case.
rikyrah
@FlipYrWhig:
And because he doesn’t relate them is a major reason why he hasn’t connected to Non-White voters.
How the phuck are you gonna bring up bankers and their crimes to me, as a Black person – and not bring up REDLINING, SUBPRIME LENDING.
Come on, now.
El Tiburon
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Well this is complete and utter bullshit. At this point in time there could be up to 100 laws broken by the banksters. All that is necessary for Senator Sanders to state is that massive fraud was committed and needs to be investigated.
Senator Sanders is not a prosecutor. He doesn’t go into any courtroom and present a criminal case.
But the bigger point that you people want to avoid is that Bernie is the only person running for President speaking forcefully of going after Wall Street malfeasance and law breaking.
magurakurin
@Cacti: and one of the things Clinton has said she wants to do is lengthen the time on those limitations to prosecute.
aimai
@JMG: Its not always about what is fair for Bernie or not fair for bernie. I mean–I don’t really care if Bernie and his voters get their feelings hurt. That is not what we are talking about . This is the reality of the current electorate–it is far to the right of what a Bernie revolution can overcome.
different-church-lady
@El Tiburon:
He, right this fuckin’ second, is a US fuckin’ Senator. He could go after that investigation if he really wanted it.
El Tiburon
@Juju:
Uh, Ms. Betty Cracker called the interview a ‘trainwreck’. Is this your definition of a ‘benefit of the doubt’?
It’s just that if Ms. Cracker and other HRC supporters call it a trainwreck doesn’t make it so.
japa21
@Juju: Sanders has gotten the benefit of the doubt all the time throughout this campaign, including by the media, his supporters, even Clinton.
Every misstep of his has been excused, rationalized,etc.
If Clinton mispronounces a syllable in a 14 syllable word it is used as evidence to show she is corrupt, evil, conniving, etc.
This is not a statement about either candidate, but more about the environment we find ourselves in.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: With ways! Aggressive ones! Tremendous, the best, your head will spin, you’re gonna love it.
Sir Nose D'Voidoffcks (aka nastybrutishntall)
OH NO BERNIE DRONES WE ARE DOOMED. Send out a bulletin, Bernie Sanders is a war criminal.
Cacti
@rikyrah:
The fact that he left most of his minority outreach in the southern states to a rapper known as Killer Mike was GOP-level cringe worthy.
If Romney had done something similar in 2012, the left fringe would have mocked him relentlessly for it.
schrodinger's cat
@MPAVictoria: Paul Krugman and Barney Frank are not impressed with your economic Messiah either.
Peale
@FlipYrWhig: During the crisis, the central banks created a whole lot of money but the governments never created a way for that money to be redistributed to the public. It wasn’t exactly an upward transfer of wealth, but one might as well have taxed the poor to give to the rich for the lot of good that it did. I agreed with rescuing the banks last time, but if it ever happens again, I will be first to the barricades to burn down Congress that happens again. The banks do need to fail and take their non-FDIC insured deposits with them. Globally, if were wealthy before the recession, you still are wealthy now and the amount of money circulating to the wealthy class is ridiculous. Toys that rich people buy – New York and London townhouses, fine art, looted antiquities, start up companies – just go down the list of the playthings and the recession for those items ended rather quickly. Quick recovery for you if you had a few paintings to sell.
On the flip side, if you’re not competing for a 10,000 sq ft pied a terre, you have enjoyed a low interest rate and low inflation environment. Your salary is kind of keeping up with price inflation as long as you don’t get sick or have children to educate. I don’t think breaking up the banks is going to do much for salaries, but taxing upper incomes to bring down the college pricetag for middle class education would go a long way to easing that feeling that middle class workers are falling behind. Its not like there isn’t any money anywhere.
El Tiburon
@different-church-lady:
What committee does he chair again that could conduct this investigation? Or are you saying he just needs to put on a trench coat and look for Deep Throat in a parking garage?
japa21
@El Tiburon: Do you know if any investigation has been done? Based upon the last several years, it appears many investigations have been done. Fines have been handed out, some in the financial industry have been convicted and sent to jail. The fact that larger prosecutions have not taken place is more likely due to there not being enough evidence to justify a prosecution than Obama/Clinton being in cahoots with Wall Street.
guachi
My mother is a Sanders fan after being a Clinton supporter in 2008. I’m going to call her and tell her to read either the interview or one of the summaries. I’m not sure it will change her mind, but she knows I don’t think much of Sanders and this mess of an interview supports my contention that Sanders doesn’t have much substance. He’s just “noun – verb – Wall Street Bankers”
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: I learned from Bernie Sanders that aggressively wanting things is the way that they happen, and procedural niceties are something timid, corrupt sell-outs worry about. Are you saying that isn’t true?
El Tiburon
@schrodinger’s cat:
This Barney Frank?
aimai
@Marc: A misstatement is when you say, at a funeral, an incorrect thing about the dead person. A bad job interview is a bad job interview.
gwangung
@El Tiburon: Saying that it isn’t a trainwreck doesn’t negate the wreckage strewn about the countryside either.
Seriously, this sort of denial just adds to the case that Sanders supporters are not dealing with reality in a thoughtful and pragmatic sense.
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
why don’t you just ask what it is you are wanting to ask.
different-church-lady
@gwangung: “Ce n’est pas une épave de train”
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
this. it’s funny, how Bernie fans are like krugman in 09 (he could have gotten a way bigger stimulus if he wanted to!) whereas hilz fans are like krugman today (okay, it turns out it was the best he could have gotten, politics is actually crazy hard).
bernie’s interview doesn’t help him at all with people critical of his campaign over the Jobs-style reality distortion field he surrounds himself with.
Kropadope
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, I’m not too impressed with Barney Frank, who left Congress so he wouldn’t have to sell himself to new voters.
And I love Krugman, but he’s a believer in one of the same fallacies driving many Clinton supporters, that all Bernie is offering is pie in the sky and has no ideas what to do if his most far-reaching plans aren’t adopted. A quick visit to Bernie’s website should easily disprove this idea, if you’re not someone inclined to go over his record in Congress or as Mayor of Burlington.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Rent seeking behavior is as much responsible for income inequality as any criminal behavior, if not more so, and the cure for that is to get rid of Citizens United so that our politicians aren’t so cheaply bought, which means to get a Democrat elected in order to fill the vacancy on SCOTUS to overturn it, which means the Bernfeelers all need to get behind the Democrat and stop being a bunch of whiny ass titty babies.
Just One More Canuck
@El Tiburon: TL/DR
different-church-lady
@El Tiburon: Gee, what a shame he never built any relationships with committee chairs.
schrodinger's cat
@El Tiburon: Barney Frank of the Dodd-Frank bill, you can say that it did not go far enough but it does address a lot of the stuff that lead to the crisis. BTW what was your Messiah doing when that bill was working its way through Congress.
cleek
@FlipYrWhig:
I learned from Donald Trump that aggressively wanting things is the way that they happen, and procedural niceties are something timid, low-energy pussies worry about.
Davebo
@El Tiburon: No Democrats, or Sanders chair any senate committee.
If the democrats again control the senate, then there will be lots of democrats chairing committees and perhaps Sanders would get a chair as well despite not being a party member.
schrodinger's cat
@Kropadope: You may not like Frank but he knows his economics and finance. I have gone to Mr. Sanders website and have read his proposals and I am not impressed.
FlipYrWhig
@Peale: Well observed. I agree that financialization is a problem and I’d like to see more GDP coming from made things rather than fictitious instruments. What I don’t like is what feels to me like a too-strong association between “breaking up the big banks” and “income inequality” as though the former is a way to address the latter. If it were up to me the debate in the Democratic Party would have been all about how to address inequalities of various kinds, as quickly as possible, as effectively as possible. The banking piece is a way to prevent the next crisis and a way to punish the makers of the last crisis. Those are important too, but not as important as getting goddamn money into the goddamn pockets of goddamn people. I think Bernie Sanders is too wedded to the corruption narrative at this point, and it’s wasting the opportunity to work through the part of the campaign where we talk about how to get what we want out of the system we currently have.
pseudonymous in nc
@El Tiburon: You can argue that the power of an individual senator is limited, but it’s a lot less fucking limited than the power of some random shit-shoveller. Let’s be generous and say that any US senator is among the 500 most powerful politicians in the nation. How much more powerful do you need to be in order to get the shit done that you want done?
dr. bloor
Completely off-topic and less inflammatory, but FSM only knows when he’ll get around to telling We, His Minions:
Huzzah!
El Tiburon
@gwangung:
Did you read the Ryan Grimm piece? Let’s for a moment assume this interview was a total trainwreck. Is the argument from HRC supporters that this should disqualify Bernie from the race? Or that HRC has had an impeccable campaign with zero screw ups?
You and Ms. Cracker can hold on to your “Should have said robo-signing” as if that means anything. Just because he can’t rattle off issues doesn’t mean he is not aware nor not equipped to deal with this as President.
Look, that HRC called Egyptian Dictator Mubarak part of the family or that the US ties to Israel should even be stronger doesn’t make me think she is ill-equipped to be President . Just that she is not the best liberal/progressive candidate.
cleek
@Kropadope:
lovely city. the entire population of which would fit in the Carrier Dome with enough seats left over for all of the Democratic delegates.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
I was Barney’s constituent for many years, and he left Congress to enjoy his new happily married life after spending most of his life fighting for things that Sanders actually wanted. Barney’s been complaining about Bernie’s holier than thou scoldy obstructionism for 25 years, and said he’s his own worst enemy because he alienates EVERYONE. So, make up a new story to tell yourself, because the one you’ve got is phony baloney nonsense.
Howlin Wolfe
Okay, Hillbots, I’ve heard you ask Bernie supporters if they’ll vote for HRC if she gets the nod.
I may have missed it, but I’ve never heard you answer (or even be asked) if you’ll support Bernie if he gets it. Yes, I know he has only a long shot, and that’s not an answer. Will you support him if he gets the nod? Reading some of your barbs about Bernie being like W isn’t encouraging.
El Tiburon
@pseudonymous in nc:
This is really just an asinine and ridiculous statement. Contrary to your beliefs that people in Congress are mini-dictators and can “just get shit done” is not how our government works.
Do you remember when this certain President named George W. Bush really really wanted to privatize Social Security? Remember he flew around the country peeking into filing cabinets? Yeah, remember how he failed spectacularly?
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: OK, then: why hasn’t Bernie Sanders led the way to doing any of the things he professes to want? He’s had 10 years in the Senate and a bunch in the House before that. He hasn’t even been a good gadfly. I know, the “amendment king” thing. Good for him. At least he knows about how to be transactional when someone else needs him. What happens when he needs someone else? What’s his record when attempting that? The only case I know of is the VA reform bill, which, when he talked about it, he said how great it would have been if not for the Republicans failing to support it, which meant that it had to be scaled back. YA THINK?
Shantanu Saha
I’ve read the transcript and I have two observations:
1) the NY Daily News seems to be in the tank for Clinton, which is not surprising considering their overall political standing in New York.
2) Bernie was woefully unprepared for that interview, and it seems, for a hostile media in general. His answers were all airy generalities, just as they have been in his debates- good for 60-second sound bites, but when journalists dig beyond the sound bite there’s nothing there. He was not able to deflect interview questions to his favored talking points, and even when he did, he was somewhat incoherent. It was not good.
For instance, on breaking up the big banks. DN pressed him on exactly how he would break them up, but he refused to provide any detail, seeming to say all he had to do was order the banks to break up and they would. But it’s ridiculously easy to say how to do this- simply divide up their businesses so that it is illegal for financial institutions engaged in one activity to do another. He could have talked about bringing back Glass-Steagall and putting it on steroids- financial companies would not be allowed to be in both the loan business and the commodities trading business, for instance. But he didn’t. It reinforced my impression that however brave Bernie’s rhetoric, Hillary has got a better plan for reining in the finance industry, simply because she has a plan and he doesn’t. He wants to renegotiate all of our trade agreements? How? NAFTA is a treaty; how does he propose to get Mexico and Canada back to the negotiating table once he abrogates it? What’s the carrot that he will give Mexico to go along with the stick of pulling all US manufacturing out? How is he going to save the US from the trade war that will happen when all US trade agreements going back to GATT are no longer in force?
Kropadope
@different-church-lady: He has been a committee chair.
cleek
@Howlin Wolfe:
yes, with no hesitation at all.
Mike J
OT, but has anybody made it out to a comic shop? Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Black Panther hits the streets today.
What you need to know about the story.
dr. bloor
@Howlin Wolfe: Of course I will, and I suspect you’ll have difficulties finding anyone around here saying something different.
To be blunt, I suspect he’ll be the second coming of Jimmy Carter and set Lil’ Marco or the Zombie Eyed Granny Starver up for The Big Desk in 2020, but if he’s the nominee he gets my vote.
gwangung
@El Tiburon:
Actually, to me, it does.
YMMV. But I think what that says to me is that you’re content with a low MPG clunker.
Just One More Canuck
@Howlin Wolfe: It’s been said many times by many different commenters
different-church-lady
@El Tiburon:
The argument is that the interview was a trainwreck.
El Tiburon
@schrodinger’s cat:
I admit I haven’t trolled around here in years, but is this ‘Messiah’ thing a thing with you people?
Is it possible that those of us who support Bernie over HRC do so because we feel his overall policy agenda is more in line with liberal/progressive ideals? Do you people really think we believe that if Bernie is elected all of his policy proposals will be enacted due to his divine intervention? I think this says more about you than it does me.
All I know is I’d rather have a President forcefully fighting to hold the banksters accountable rather than a President who will reward them with cabinet positions.
But I guess in your world this does not compute.
MomSense
@Shantanu Saha:
Mexico and Canada are both signatories to the TPP.
different-church-lady
@gwangung: I cannot be the only person who hears the ghostly rattles of “W will surround himself with smart people!” in this, can I?
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon:
That sounds a lot like “just get shit done” to me.
El Tiburon
@different-church-lady:
Did you read the Ryan Grimm rebuttal to this? Does it have any validity, or is it just now conventional wisdom it was a trainwreck?
Kropadope
@El Tiburon: They don’t think it’s enough to prefer Clinton. To be a truly good Democrat, you have to insult the intentions and/or intellectual rigor of anyone who disagrees with you.
Mary
@El Tiburon: Sanders waited until 2015 to become a Democrat. If he had joined the party sooner he would have had sufficient seniority to become a Committee Chair by the time Dems had a majority in the Senate. He made the decision to eschew that responsibility.
chopper
@Bartholomew:
oh, we’re LOLing all right.
different-church-lady
@Howlin Wolfe:
I don’t count myself as firmly in Hillary’s camp, but my answer is, “You better fuckin’ believe I will!”
msb
@ Howlin Wolfe
I fear you haven’t been listening. A very large number of people, here and at Daily Kos, for example, have said they’ll support the Democratic nominee, no matter who it is, because the alternative is so terrible. As a Hillary supporter, not a bot (is it wise to insult people you wish to win over?), I say I will support Bernie if he’s nominated.
FlipYrWhig
@Shantanu Saha:
Easy, by WANTING IT! That’s where Bernie Sanders is an outstanding public servant. Because he has a finely tuned sense of wanting things.
different-church-lady
@El Tiburon: Yes I did read it, and I was not convinced.
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
It would really help a lot if you understood the proceeding post before taking shit out of context.
Yes, when AND if Sanders becomes President, then he and his administration have a chance of “getting shit done”. But Sanders, now as a Senator in the minority party, can’t just “get shit done” as the poster clearly stated.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
Way to blow a hole in that sanctimony “they’re all corrupt” argument you’ve been hammering away at.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon:
Fighting how? By wagging his finger around? There’s no there there. There’s no anywhere anywhere. I can’t believe people are falling for this act.
D58826
@Just One More Canuck: I would vote for Bernie also. At least on BJ I haven’t seen anyone say they vote gop or sit out the election if Bernie is the candidate. And to be fair most of the Bernie folks have said they would vote for Hillary. Not sure who the 30% who claim they are the 2016 PUMA’s are coming from
schrodinger's cat
@El Tiburon: Aside from name-calling I noticed that you never answered my question.
starscream
If a Republican had given that interview, we’d be calling him or her the new Sarah Palin.
Linnaeus
The next thing Clinton should do is have a similar interview with the NY Daily News. She could then further contrast herself with Sanders by having a better performance.
Kropadope
@Mary:
You mean like how he chaired the Veterans’ Affairs Committee?
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: He will send banksters to Gitmo, after he breaks up the big banks, then we will have free tuition and free health care and live happily ever after.
El Tiburon
@different-church-lady:
Well, it’s an interesting dynamic in that HRC supporters see it as trainwreck while Bernie supporters may not. I find Ryan Grimm a rather reliable source and found validity in what he wrote. Whereas I found some of Ms. Cracker’s opinions (Bernie should have said ROBOSIGNING!) as more of just wanting it to be true.
Regardless, HRC supporters are going to use this interview as a cudgel, which is no problem. Bernie supporters use HRCs positions and words against her.
For the record, if HRC gets the nomination, then I will fully support her even though many of her supporters can be a bit douchey (just like Bernie supporters).
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: Whoopee, this time they’re not corrupt, they’re just the opposite of aggressive, sluggish I suppose, for unexplained reasons. He’s asked about whether he thinks they’re in the tank because he clearly believes they’re in the tank. Because he’s a smug asshole who thinks his rumpled suit and unrevisited 50-year-old ideas are proof of his superior virtue. Fuck him.
? Martin
@FlipYrWhig:
I actually think that it is but it a fairly indirect way. In any physical business as you scale in size you need to increasingly streamline your product offerings and narrow your defined customer base (usually you serve a smaller fraction of the population over a larger geographic area). We can use McDonalds as an example. As they scaled, they were forced into a standardized menu. There was minimal off-menu ordering permitted. They served a reasonably broad but well-defined demographic. If you are a vegan you are excluded, if you have certain food allergies, you are excluded, if you are a foodie, you are welcome, but there’s no real effort to appeal to you.
In the finance space this manifests in the elimination of community banking. Large banks have shifted away from small market lending (taking my money in deposits and loaning it to you as a higher rate) to using fees to provide a reliable flow of revenue while the investment side of the house chases more lucrative deals. That change means that people on the margins of the financial system have lost access to low-cost financial services. Worse, the fee structure is regressive. By virtue of my direct deposit income, high credit rating, large savings accounts, I don’t pay any fees. I don’t pay a monthly for an account, or credit card fees, or ATM fees, etc. If I earn $200 it gets deposited in my bank and I can earn a small amount of interest and later have $201 to withdraw and I get to keep all $201 of it. If I buy something for $200 I can use my no-fee credit card and at the end of the month pay $196 because I get 2% cash back on the purchase. The large system dominated by large financial players pays me as a high income, high wealth individual to participate. I came out $5 ahead on my $400 in transactions. Financially is it increasingly hard for me to not get ahead.
People on the margins (and that population is growing to now cover a lot of middle class people) have the opposite situation. They do have to pay for a checking account, or for ATM withdrawals. That $200 they earned costs them $10/month for the account and $3 for the withdrawal. They still earn the $1 interest but they wind up with only $188 in their pocket. And when they buy something for $200, their best case is often paying cash. They aren’t getting 2% ahead, but they’re subsidizing my cash back. At every turn they’re falling behind while I get ahead. The effect is overall relatively small, but as Einstein said, compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. Those small effects add up tremendously over time.
In smaller banking systems, these kinds of large structural systems simply can’t be built. Small banks are much more reliant on the people on the margins and they can’t afford to just toss them away (or charge them for the privilege of participating) in the sake of efficiency and scale. It’s a very diffuse, indirect effect, but its a real effect.
Now, this may change as we get away from physical banks. Online only banks, particularly if they can minimize the actual role of cash (and the physical infrastructure to handle cash) will start to flip this equation. Once the internet becomes the dominant infrastructure (not a branch office and ATM) then scale doesn’t need to come with the above constraints. Purely online activities have effectively zero marginal cost to acquire customers so they have no incentive to restrict their customer base. The little kid with $20 in their account isn’t trying to subsidize a physical office and human tellers. They’re only going to consume some infinitesimal fraction of an AWS machine and so the online bank doesn’t need monthly fees or any of that. The cost of having a customer is effectively $0 and so they can expand to appeal to a much broader demographic without having to extract regressive fees. Paypal was working on the compliment to this strategy of cashless money transfer. Other companies will follow. Apple is doing a bit in this space (but with a pretty expensive cost of entry – an iPhone) and I think you’ll see a lot of different market entrants here.
Bernie has one solution in his arsenal – turning the USPS into a low-end consumer banking system, where the cost of physical and human infrastructure is already being paid. If that could be combined with the no marginal cost benefits of online banking and the USPS introduced a very low cost money transfer system, it would be a powerful alternative.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: Bernie supporters make excuses for Bernie’s being unprepared, crotchety, and generally insufferable, which he totally meant to be, because that’s our guy? I find that easy to believe.
Dan
@Linnaeus:
I’d be delighted to see HRC have an interview like this.
And Trump. and Cruz. And Kasich.
Chyron HR
@Kropadope:
I’m trying to think of why we should care about the opinions of a self-proclaimed Trump supporter who professes to hate the Democratic party.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: <- Can rationalize anything to a conclusion that was already made.
FlipYrWhig
By the way, if Bernie Sanders wins the nomination, I will vote for Bernie Sanders. I don’t like him as a person, I don’t like his plans, I don’t like his campaign, and most of his supporters (ETA: online) are tedious finger-wagging crapweasels like he is, but I’ll vote for the guy, bright and early, because we need a fighting chance at social justice in this country and the Democratic Party is the best hope we have.
Kropadope
@Chyron HR: Did I say I was a Trump supporter? Everything about Trump makes me want to tear the flesh of my bones. But, frankly, the DNC, this primary, and Democrats generally have me considering reaching for the peeler too.
Mary
@Kropadope: You are correct, and I wrote without verifying the original implication that he had not chaired any Committees. That was a mistake on my part.
That being said, I’m not a political insider, but I suspect that the Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairmanship is not one that is highly sought. I suspect that he would have had a better shot at chairing a more meaningful Committee that could actually investigate the issues that he cares about if he’d joined the party sooner. Perhaps I’m wrong in that suspicion.
El Tiburon
@schrodinger’s cat:
Name calling is beneath me and not my style you moran.
I think Bernie was taking huge speaking fees from Wall Street during Dodd-Frank bill negotiations. Am I correct?
D58826
@Kropadope: Hmm true he was the chairman but from CNN and anderson cooper
So when he had thew power and the position he seems to have dropped the ball.
Gerald
Governance is the name of the game!
The Democratic Presidential nominee will need ALL the Democratic Senate and Congress members they can get …to get anything done.
The OBSTRUCTIONIST Party of NO will not relent their attempt to repeal 20th Century American progress and will demonize whoever the POTUS is!
Let’s step up our registration and get out the vote efforts AND raise MORE Money …because MO Money is going to win this game!
Yeah …and Super PAC money counts!
Paul in KY
@Howlin Wolfe: I will crawl over broken glass to vote for Sen. Sanders, if he’s our nominee.
Gindy51
@Betty Cracker: Ditto, he lost the three votes at my house with this train wreck. It seems way past time to stop the endless stump speech and get on to specifics and policy. I know it isn’t as sexy as the Feel the Bern stuff, but being president is not sexy. It is painfully hard work, just look at the before and after pictures of every single person who has been president. The fact remains that what happened to Obama, followers being pissed he did not fix everything Right Now and staying home in 2010 and 2014, will most definitely happen to Sanders if he wins. We will then lose the Senate in 2018, never see the House ever again, AND Sanders will lose BIG in 2020. He can’t
see the forest for the trees and has no concept of the very long game.
El Tiburon
@Mary:
.
So, you want Bernie to show more fealty to the Party? And if he doesn’t, then he gets punished? Even though he was a reliable vote on Democratic issues, not good enough for you? He should be a good democrat like DWS or Rahm Emanuel or Joe Lieberman?
Linnaeus
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Pedant alert: Kerensky wasn’t a Menshevik. He belonged to a different political party.
singfoom
Late to the thread, Sanders supporter. The interview was bad, he should have had some more examples. And for everyone above citing that “We couldn’t prosecute because it was legal….”
Robosigning was NOT legal. Hence the $25 billion dollar settlement. You can make the argument that the settlement was better than what we’d get if prosecution was tried. I can accept that argument in good faith. I disagree and think we should have flipped the low level employees that were instructed to robosign and go up the chain to get executives because someone obviously said to robosign at a high level.
What’s robosigning
So every single person saying it was all legal can just eat their hat. It wasn’t, the multiple settlements are PROOF of that.
gwangung
@Paul in KY: As will I. Might give and volunteer for him. But that still doesn’t mean I won’t focus on his shortcomings now.
Matt McIrvin
@Howlin Wolfe:
Hell yes. In pure policy-wish-list terms he’d probably be a better ideological fit for me than Clinton, which would make it easier. In addition, a world in which Bernie actually gets the nomination is one in which he somehow manages to crush the Clinton campaign in come-from-way-behind wins in the remaining big primaries, which would be an ample demonstration of his ability to compete in the general election.
It would also be a world in which the Democratic party had to unite behind him, which would mean that he’d have plenty of people willing to advise him in the areas where he seems weak now.
Kropadope
@D58826: Right, and that’s terrible. Nevertheless, as head of that committee, he was able to push through what has been supposedly the most sweeping VA reform in decades.
At least we know Hillary has never dropped the ball, never ignored available evidence or made a bad decision despite it. Now where is Iraq on that map?
Juju
@El Tiburon: I probably should have been more clear that I meant media in general and outside of Balloon Juice posters.
The NYDN Sanders interview was mostly about subject matter that was supposed to be his strongsuit. I’ve read parts of the interview and Sanders didn’t seem terribly knowledgeable. If Clinton came off as that addled or vague in an interview, major media would be in a tizzy, and you’d probably be demanding that she withdraw from the race. Think what you will of her policies, but she does have a grasp and fluency of subject matter of important issues. She has made misstatements, but most humans do at some point.
Linnaeus
@Dan:
Absolutely. Put all of the candidates to the test.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: Maybe Bernie Sanders should have filed that away in case there was a possibility that someone during his campaign for President might ask him something about his ideas and plans.
Betty Cracker
@Howlin Wolfe:
100%.
Paul in KY
@El Tiburon: Good to hear that!
starscream
All of this really makes me miss Barack Obama :(
El Tiburon
@schrodinger’s cat:
Other than the Gitmo statement, why do you find any of these scenarios so hard to envision? Oh, right right right because ZERO other countries have free healthcare* or free education*. And ZERO other nations send corrupt banksters to jail*.
*None of these statements are true. In fact, most other industrialized nations have some form of “free” healthcare and “Free”education. In fact, we have “free” education right now up until college. Also, other countries do send banksters to jail.
all of these are attainable. But not if HRC is elected because she doesn’t believe in any of these issues.
PST
The “whomever” in the Trump campaign statement bugs me. I’m not usually a grammar Nazi, but there is something wonderfully Trumpish about taking a fancy word that is disappearing from the vernacular, and won’t be missed, only to shove it into the one place in a clause where it doesn’t belong. Ignorance plus pretentiousness: that’s Trump!
Elizabelle
@dr. bloor: Groovy. Very cool.
Semi-feral cat. Aha.
Bob In Portland
I know when I recommend reading here it gives the villagers an excuse for book-burning, but I’ll mention it anyway because, you know, someone with an open mind might stumble across it. Thomas Frank’s LISTEN LIBERAL is a pretty complete condemnation of how the Democratic Party has abandoned the working class. He maps it back to ’72. Obama, both Clintons. He dissects the language of meritocracy that essentially conceals the real function of the rotating Wall Streeters and Silicon Valley billionaires. Lots of snark, so this goes to you, John Cole. He does a scathing review of a Clinton Foundation presentation about her “No Ceiling” presentation. “Roughly speaking, there were two groups present at this distinctly fir-world gathering: hard-working women of color and authoritative women of whiteness.” He concluded that the problem with “No Ceiling” was that there was no floor. So when in 2011 H. Clinton was talking about how the internet would enable us to achieve “post-conflict stabilization using information networks” in Libya.
TED talks from wealthy entreprenuers about micro-loans didn’t stop the raping and killing of women and children In Libya or all those other places where it takes a village. Or stop them from risking drowning to get away from that post-conflict stabilization. When Hillary talks about lifting up third-world women as America’s “vital interest” and for our “national security” a third-world woman is more likely to get a bomb on her head than become a successful businesswoman. Privatizing, deregulating, off-shoring.
And then Desmond Tutu or Bono come through and give a heart-lifting talk and everyone thinks they’ve done something good. Except that the lot of the working-class person has plenty of ceiling and no floor. As if the world will be saved by this massive “virtue-trade” while people are homeless and starving in the streets.
Maybe if they all get their new degrees at Phoenix University…
The book is essentially about the failure of the Democratic Party and its fabulously wealthy owners when it comes to working class Americans.
And in the book you will see how it will have to stop. The people who haven’t earned a raise in thirty years, or have lost their house and job, don’t get anything back for their loyalty to Hillary. It’s not going to last. It can’t. Either the Democrats will have to start delivering or the people will turn to fascism. Since H. Clinton will deliver no more than her husband or Obama, that means the end of the Democratic Party brand. Even low-information voters in the South will eventually look elsewhere. And it’s happening before your eyes and you poor schmucks don’t even know the part you play in it. That last line might be especially galling, because you folks are never able to connect the candidates you vote for with what happens with the working class. I’m sure that many of you consider yourselves part of the meritocracy. I bet a few of you keep your diplomas tacked on your office walls. You may have glanced at them as you dial for your Uber ride.
Paul in KY
@? Martin: Excellent comments, but online banks will find ways to gouge via fees too. All those intertubes cost a lot to maintain, dontchaknow.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: Because the important part is the envisioning. Doing, that’s pretty easy after the envisioning, with the will and the aggression and the people outside Mitch McConnell’s window and all.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, he should have. I suggested robosigning as a possible response in the thread about this yesterday.
Robosigning/fraud using allonges/title fraud. Seriously, it’s all there and I was incredibly disappointed that he didn’t bring up ANY of the specifics. I was shocked that he wasn’t able to recite multiple cases.
If I were running for President and I wanted to go after Wall Street, you can bet your ass I’d have specific PEOPLE I could name that were harmed and by this firm and by that firm and have that shit memorized and point to the crime.
I don’t know why he was unable to do that. Now, to be fair, I’ve been pissed about this and read waaaaaay too much about it, but even so, he should have been able to articulate at least ONE specific case.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@D58826:
Hand waving away is Bernie’s MO. There have been no consequences for him doing this, and in fact his supporters do it with him and for him. There has been and is no accountability for him, and the rules of cause and effect don’t apply to his lack of accomplishments and his failures of leadership, which can be hand waved away as his lack of corruption because he’s not Establishment, man.
His criticisms of Obama infuriate me – he can’t shine PBO’s shoes. PBO’s done more things for more people in 7 years than Bernie’s done in 30. I will however crawl over glass to vote for him if he’s the nominee. No question.
Bob In Portland
@schrodinger’s cat: Messiah? What was our dear President doing when he refused to separate investment banking from commercial speculation? He was being kinda liberal. Not quite that far. Like the Dems do in consideration of their rich friends who supply them with work after their work in Washington.
FlipYrWhig
@Bob In Portland: What is it that the Republican Party does for working-class people again? Thomas Frank is what the Russians call a one-way monkey.
Paul in KY
@Linnaeus: Thanks, but I already pendanted her on that.
japa21
@El Tiburon: I hope you have read the comments of many Sanders supporters who also felt the interview was not good for him.
But yes, many supporters of any candidate will tend to come to his or her defense when they screw up. That is pretty natural. And supporters of the other candidate will tend to be highly critical. That also is pretty natural.
And I am not a fan of name calling in either direction. Reality is that most Sanders supporters are very sincere in their beliefs, just like Clinton supporters are. That does not make them Wall Street lackeys or naïve unicorn lovers.
I think it is more telling when supporters of a candidate cringe at what their favorite says or does.
liberal
@El Tiburon:
Jesus, you’re really doing God’s work here. I know that blog communities change over time, but between the Obama worship that’s developed over the past few years, now culminating (quite ironically) in Clinton worship, this place has become insufferable.
Cheers
Paul in KY
@singfoom: I said in another thread that if your reason for buying Moodys was to stop it from doing it’s job, because you didn’t want that job done in order to steal the money from the people who believed their ratings about crap investments, then that’s criminal fraud right there.
Linnaeus
@Paul in KY:
Oh, sorry. I just got up about 45 min. ago. Should have read the entire thread.
Paul in KY
@gwangung: No problem with that. He’s finding out that running for Pres is a bit different/harder than running for Senate.
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Hand waved away? As I noted, no one’s perfect, and when he did respond, he did soon a big way. I honestly believe did as much as he could to improve the VA as the Congressional Republicans would allow to pass.
Waiting for the inevitable response to no one’s perfect, “Nuh, uh, Hillary Clinton is. She’s going to get all her plans through Congress by magical moderation and free access to a pony every second week on a day of the week to be determined by the last digit of your social security number.”
Paul in KY
@Juju: I’m beginning to get the idea that Sen. Sanders is a marketeer. He’s the pitchman, sells the product. The nitty-gritty will be left to his appointees.
Kropadope
@Paul in KY:
Also don’t forget Congress. EVERYBODY forgets Congress.
Bob In Portland
From the trainwreck:
You villagers can’t even acknowledge the damage done to the working class.
Bob In Portland
@Paul in KY: You mean how Obama leaves it to Tim Geithner and Larry Summers?
Paul in KY
@El Tiburon: Because it costs so much more to pay for these colleges, than it does for public HS. Also, public HS is funded partially thru property taxes & public colleges are not, so would property taxes go up?
Sen. Sanders needs to give a basic idea of how this would be funded. Major defense cuts would do it.
BR
As I said in another thread, I can’t imagine my preferred candidate, Warren, giving an interview like that. She matched righteous anger with substance. There’s no reason to have to settle for content-free anger.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
Let me get this straight – when pure Bernie can’t get things done as a Senator with power over a committee, it’s because of Republican obstruction, but when Obama can’t fix everything related to the economy like Sanders wants, you idiots say it’s because he’s corrupt. You’re all such frauds.
Dan
@Paul in KY: But a President needs to be policy-literate and numerate enough to be able to smell out BS. As has been pointed out by Richard Mayhew’s posts on here about the weak spots in Sander’s health care proposals, Sanders appears to lack that critical skill. Which means that Sanders is likely to go with advisers who flatter his already previously held conceptions, instead of ones that are actually, y’know, right.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: Yeah, nobody on this blog, front pager or commenter has ever noted the economic damage that specific neo-liberal policies have done to the American Working Class. Or bemoaned the fact that said neo-liberal policies were enacted by legislative coalitions including Democrats.
Nobody whatsoever.
Also, you might want to check your idea of “villager”. I’ve always taken that to mean members of the media/chattering class insulated in their own bubbles, mostly in DC and New York.
It’s more like:
But please, go on.
D58826
@El Tiburon:
And they have higher tax rates to pay for those ‘free’ benefits. I’m sure Bernie will get lots of votes when he promises to raise every ones taxes to pay for his ‘free’ stuff’. The GOP has demonized taxes to the extent that you could not get a tax increase thru Congress even it meant Jesus would walk down Pennsylvania Ave. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to the ideas in principle. Its how to implement them and more importantly pay for them.
Bernie has a couple of big ideas:
1. single payer which will have a major impact on the healthcare system.
2. breakup the banks which will have a major impact on the financial services industry.
3. ban fracking which will push the country back to burning more coal and creating more air pollution.
4. free college tuition assuming of course that the states are willing to pick up the 2/3rds of the tab that is their share under Bernie’s plan (just like they fell allover themselves to take the 90-10 split under the medicaid expansion in Obamacvare).
CaseyL
@dr. bloor: That is terrific news, and congrats to Our Overlord!
Peale
@singfoom: I find it funny that the Clintons and their supporters are now part of the village. The whole point of the village was was to thumb their noses at that classless, upstart redneck and his harpy, probably lesbian, wife.
Linnaeus
@D58826:
Long term, we’re probably going to need to do that in the US, if we’re going to provide the social benefits that most people here would like.
Mary
@glasnost: If Sec. Clinton had answered like that, she would have been crucified. Whether or not he’s being run off his feet in the campaign, it makes no difference. First, you’d think the banks stuff would have been burned into his brain by now-not something he’d need to read up on after first having a good night’s sleep. Second, presidents have rough days too; it’s an exhausting job, far more than the campaign, it seems to me. If that’s the reason for his poor performance, maybe it indicates his ability to stand up to the demands of the presidency. The last line in the article you quote (the writer was really stretching to find positives, in my view), said that his answer on the bank breakup sounded “mostly cogent”. That is damning with faint praise indeed.
Paul in KY
@Linnaeus: No problem at all. Glad someone else still remembers Kerensky & his rivals the Menesheviks.
Mary
@El Tiburon: Personally, I don’t see it as punishing Sanders, so much as giving preference to those who are on your team. This is a major reason why parties exist in the first place. If you disagree with that, then fine, but it’s unrealistic to expect Dem leadership to hand him the gavel to the finance committee or whatever just because he asks for it. In point of fact, they let him chair the VA committee only after he promised to vote with the Dem caucus on all procedural issues (although he was free to vote however he wanted on policy issues), unless he had permission from the whip.
As I have admitted, I’m only speculating as to whether he might actually have gotten a better committee assignment if he had joined sooner, and at this point it’s irrelevant. I’ve gone way down the rabbit hole in arguing things that, to be honest, I don’t really care all that much about, and I’m not changing anyone’s mind here, so I’m gonna go try to get some work done. I thank you for the spirited debate.
One last general observation before I leave – I just noticed that there’s another Mary here in the comments. I’m going to have to come up with a new handle, I suppose.
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, Frank goes into lots about how “centrist” Democrats do the scare stories about Republicans.
So what did Franco do for the poor? What did General Rios Montt do for the poor?
We know that B. Clinton started the process of shipping blue-collar jobs overseas and destroying the Mexican small farming culture. We know Bill put lots of people in jail with his reinvigorated drug war. And where are all those women and children thrown off welfare? I’m sure they’re all entrepreneurs now. We know that H. Clinton voted for every regime change, war and “free trade” agreement that came out of the Bush Administration and supported TPP (negotiated it) before she was against it.
Essentially, if you don’t deliver, and the Democrats haven’t for the working class, then they look elsewhere. Maybe Jesus or hate on a minority group feels like change. Stupid? Yeah. Almost as stupid as voting for Clinton if you want economic justice. I’m guess most of the villagers here are above 15 bucks an hour, or you at least get a silver star because you’re part of the professional class. And while Hillary may not invite you to sit next to Melinda Gates at the next “No Ceiling” event, you can always go watch the equivalent TED talk on YouTube.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Come on. Ponder that a minute. It’s delightfully desperate.
I worry you-all are not taking enough pleasure in this GOP primary. A train wreck this big won’t come along again in your lifetime :)
I remember so clearly how unbearably smug they were when Bush won in “00 and ’04. Now they’re forced to embrace Ted Cruz.
singfoom
@Peale:
Yeah, but that’s 25 years ago. Even so, I think an argument can be made that they’re part of the village now having spent so much time in Washington. But it doesn’t really matter…..
But that’s not even the kicker here:
Bob said:
Balloon Juice is part of the village now? Head’asplode.
El Tiburon
@D58826:
Yep. Part of Bernie’s appeal is his willingness I think to attack this idea that we are all against tax increases. While his proposal mainly speaks of raising taxes on the super wealthy, I have no problem with a tax increase if it saves me a large monthly payment for insurance and a ridiculous deductible. Also, it wasn’t that long ago where free higher education was the norm in many states. In fact, believe this or not, but we still have free primary education in all 50 states! Yeah, it’s true!
College and healthcare should be something easily attainable by all without having to go into massive debt and threats of bankruptcy while making millionaires our of investors.
So, yes, we have a lot of work to un-demonize ‘taxes’ and the word ‘liberal’and so on.
Paul in KY
@Bob In Portland: Like that excerpt. Agree with it.
Paul in KY
@Bob In Portland: Ha, ha…No.
ruemara
Well, if you were wondering why Sanders has failed to win Democrats and black voters, this interview was what’s shown of to you. He has many words; no ideas, no plans. What’s worse is the clearest path to what he’d like is a simple, 2 sentence statement: “This revolution is a peaceful one that’s happening at the ballot box. I want supporters to get out and vote for me and every progressive on the Dem ticket both during this important primary and in the general.” Bam! He failed, as he’s failed to say that in over 8 years of Breakfast with Bernie. So, pass.
El Tiburon
@Paul in KY:
Go here and look towards the bottom.
His plan is to impose a tax on Wall Street speculators. Now, I understand this is pie-in-the-sky and I have no idea if it would even work; and I admit it sure makes me FEEL good to hear this proposal. I also know Sanders is the only candidate talking like this. And this is why I support Sen. Sanders.
Paul in KY
@Dan: I guess you’re agreeing with me. That’s what a marketeer does. their job is to advance what they’re being paid to advance. They need to be able to talk up the product & intelligently answer basic questions, but the details of the sausage making are left to the ‘techs’.
El Tiburon
@ruemara:
Nothing in this comment is true. While he may lag in black and women voters, he certainly has his fair share. Also, he dominates in the youth vote.
Go to his website and you will see his words formed into sentences that make up plans. Real, actual plans.
Monala
@El Tiburon: Re: Obama strategy of doing nothing: today Obama announced new Treasury Department rules to prevent inversion, or companies re-incorporating in order to reduce the tax burden on income earned abroad. The new rules stopped an attempted inversion by Pfizer right in its tracks.
? Martin
@Paul in KY:
I doubt it. Another benefit to many online markets is that the barrier to entry is extremely low. Need enough server capacity to handle a million people? Amazon will provide that and there are no capital costs on your end. Anyone can do it today basically for free and it’s not terribly expensive capacity to rent. When you’ve scaled and have revenue, you’ll then have options to build your own.
That’s wildly different from the costs of having to build branches and ATMs and all that. It means that the biggest obstacles to entering the market are regulatory (nontrivial, but navigable) and not financial. That means that if an online bank does gouge, odds are there will be some enterprising folks willing to build a new one that doesn’t gouge and you can switch. Freeing our economy from the fixed limitations of real estate can have very powerful effects. Banking is a natural to move fully online. There’s a ton of action in this space.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@ruemara:
He can’t do that. He’s used to old white mansplainin’ everything and getting away with it for far too long. He’s not a team player, and runs with scissors.
Paul in KY
@Bob In Portland: How exactly would Pres GHWB, in his 2nd term, or Pres. Dole have made these people’s lives better?
El Tiburon
@Bob In Portland:
Wow, I now see the light. Total trainwreck by Sanders. The gall to talk about keeping jobs in America. That’s un-American.
dogwood
@Mary:
Sanders had a committee chairmanship. The DNC facilitated his candidacy as an Independent running for the Democratic nomination. His reaction to those things is to call the DNC and the party leaders corrupt.
BR
@ruemara:
Exactly he should be saying that. And on another topic his response to :aren’t you going to raise our taxes” is so weak — all he has to say is “you’re already paying a tax — it’s called a health insurance premium, but the insurance industry thinks the word premium polls better than tax. What matters is which costs you more in dollars.”
Jim
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
“Sensible” is the new status quo
Paul in KY
@El Tiburon: One of the nastiest, yet smartest, things the Repubs have got in to the minds of low info people is that when you are being taxed at 38%, it’s your whole income being taxed that way, not just the portion that is above the cutoff line.
Makes people incorrectly sympathetic to the poor, overtaxed, ‘makers’.
Dan
@Paul in KY:
why no, I am not agreeing with you. Because in this formulation, the “marketer” needs to know if what he’s promising is even plausible. Can’t do that without some “tech” knowledge.
This shit isn’t easy. If it was, it’d be all solved by now, hooray!
I remember the ’08 primaries. Both Dem candidates did their homework and could talk reasonably fluently on their plans and how they’d work. This does not seem a tremendous ask for someone aspiring to have the most powerful job on Earth.
Paul in KY
@? Martin: Unfortunately, I’m more cynical than you.
Just Some Fuckhead
This thread is like one of those gangbang pornos where each participant takes his turn splooging on the face of the poor recipient.
Peale
So were either Hillary or Bernie enough to bring folks to the polls last night for the actual Wisconsin Supreme Court election?
Brachiator
It’s not the absence of nuance that bothered me about Sanders’ interview. It was the lack of any ideas behind the bullet point sloganeering. Bernie didn’t seem to know what he was talking about when discussing his own supposedly deeply held beliefs.
This is OK for the average dope on the street. It is unacceptable in a senator or presidential candidate. Contrast this with the late senator Ted Kennedy. Health care reform was one of his key issues. He did not have to unleash a ton of details to convince you that he had concrete ideas on what he wanted and how it could be implemented.
Paul in KY
@Dan: I’m just talking in generalities. Haven’t you ever met any glad-handing marketeer types? You may think they have a lot of ‘tech’ knowledge, but compared to a real tech person, they generally don’t. That’s not necessarily bad, as knowing the intricate product details is not their job. Their job is to sell product.
Don’t you think Sen. Sanders could be considered to be like one of those? Maybe not as cuddly as your stereotypical marketer, but doing the same thing.
? Martin
@El Tiburon:
I disagree on the former. One should go into debt for college. It is not some kind of evil plot that you pay for an appreciating asset, and education is unquestionably that. So long as that education will result in paying more, then you should pay for it. Why should people that don’t go to college and don’t benefit from that degree financially subsidize those that do? That’s regressive and that’s what Sanders is proposing. That’s not what liberals should champion.
That said, the mechanism by which we pay for it is pretty fucked up, and here is where I think Clinton has a more progressive solution. She’s backed an idea out of the UCs where the government would pay for college but graduates would be hit with an additional income tax for the first 20 years (or whatever) that would be mostly returned to your home institution. So you are still paying for that education directly, it’s not free, but the way that the education is financed changes and the risk shifts from one incurred by the student to one incurred by the institution. Right now universities have no incentive to help you get a good job. This would change that.
But none of these discussions are willing to tackle the growing problem that access to college is reducing, and how do we expand the number and size of our universities. Clinton’s proposal would conceivably do that by giving universities a direct revenue relationship to their size – growth would result in more revenue over the next two decades. I’ve yet to see an answer from Sanders. His proposal would flood universities with students, making them even more selective, and expanding access would happen how? No answer.
Jim
https://imgflip.com/i/12204r
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: That just won the thread, IMO.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead: You know about such things how?
grandpa john
@Davebo:
Brachiator
@Paul in KY:
This is not a Republican thing. Most people don’t understand how taxes work. And you even have people here who have written about restoring the high Eisenhower era top tax rates who don’t understand the difference between marginal and effective tax rates.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Immanentize: Yeah, it’s handy (even though pennies are almost worthless).
My 2.19 ¥
Cheers,
Scott.
Just Some Fuckhead
@different-church-lady: I’ve spent countless hours of hands-on research into the effects of pornography on the human body.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
This.
The interview was startling because it made Bernie sound like a not terribly bright or thoughtful guy.
If he bounces back with some detailed responses in a future interview, debate, etc., I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he just had a bad day.
If not…ouch. The press will smell blood in the water.
Brachiator
@Paul in KY:
Yes, I think Sanders is much like a snake oil salesman. I want something more in a president.
Bob In Portland
@El Tiburon: What? No I went to the link and it seemed to me, for an interview with a newspaper, at least for the first few hundred words, it all made sense. Considering that I flew cross-country all day yesterday I still feel a little discombobulated, but whatever Betty Cracker thought was a trainwreck inside that interview with the Daily News was no worse than Hillary saying that we would stabilize war-torn Libya with internet freedom.
El Tiburon
@? Martin:
No one is suggesting to not allow anyone to go into debt for college. Private institutions can still exist and charge thousands of dollars. But an educations is an investment, and the current system is hurting those at the bottom of the economic spectrum. Again, free or extremely cheap college at state institutions was the norm up to our beloved Reagan revolution.
If you qualify academically, you should be allowed and encouraged to attend college and post graduate work. If you can’t afford it, you should be able to attend. All this mumbo jumbo about taxing college graduates seems ridiculous.
Bob In Portland
@Brachiator: As opposed to what politician?
D58826
@? Martin: Why should people that don’t go to college and don’t benefit from that degree financially subsidize those that do? Couple of points
1. a plumber does benefit from the college education of his doctor
2. the free education should include trade schools/apprenticeship programs (the doctor needs working plumbing in the operating room)
3. depending on the circumstances there should be a stipend attached to retraining programs for people displaced by changes in technology or trade deals.
Somewhat OT but relevant to the discussion of criminal prosecution of the banksters. Cole has a tweet saying ‘ So Blankenship got a year in jail for the deaths of all those people.’ He was the CEO of the company that killed 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch mine a few years back. He was convicted on a misdemeanor if I remember correctly. He was found innocent on the more serious charges that could have landed him jail for the rest of his ill-begotten life. So even when people die the 1% dodge the bullet.
El Tiburon
@Bob In Portland: I was being sarcastic. What you quoted was opposite of trainwreck.
El Tiburon
@? Martin:
Read this.
Does any of this sound plausible to you?
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I never said any such thing, in fact I have been here consistently supporting Obama’s policies, no matter how compromised, because I genuinely believed that was roughly the best that cold be done given political realities.
But keep on beating on that straw man. It looks pretty flat by now, but maybe if you say “BernieBro” or “Messiah” a few times you can fill it with some hot air to then knock back out.
Davebo
Sanders claimed we’d see $324 billion in savings on prescription drugs under his plan.
When it was pointed out that we only spent $305 billion total on drugs in 2014 his campaign walked back the original number to claim the plan would save $241 billion which is, to be honest, incredibly implausible.
Brachiator
Republicans have been whipped into a frenzy. They were told by the GOP leadership that Democrats and Obama were an evil that had to be defeated, but then saw their leaders make deals with the devil. They want to shut the government down and return to Reagan White Man utopia.
Bernie supporters are passionate, not angry. I don’t understand why pearl clutchers are so afraid of passion and have this prissy insistence on political decorum.
The Bernie bots see progressive Socialist utopia just in front of them, almost in their grasp. Like a child reaching for a cookie. And it is here that their passion sometimes degenerates into a spiteful, immature hissy fit. Cookie is good for everyone. Can’t you see it? Don’t you understand that we must all have cookies?
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: It damn sure is. Rich people are Republicans (mostly). This meme helps them out. Whenever they talk about marginal tax rates, you better damn well believe they are trying to advance this misconception.
aimai
@El Tiburon: But Bernie doesn’t need to convince only “his supporters” he has to convince fence sitters who are still considering both candidates. At this point there is a decreasing number of potential voters who will turn out to vote in the next few primaries–that is people are making their minds up now, or have already made up their minds. Every minute Bernie (or Hillary) burns free publicity with something that isn’t really great is a loss. I’m sorry if that seems harsh but its true. He got an interview with a major newspaper in a state in which he is competing and he did a really sucky job.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: I never expected any less with you ;-)
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
Berniebros in my FB feed all day long tell me Sanders has nothing to learn from the Establishment Obama, because he’s a sell out, and Bernie won’t compromise. So yeah, no strawman. Poe’s Law’s for the left, also too.
Betty Cracker
@Just Some Fuckhead: That’s gross, but I gotta admit I laughed.
Scarcelight
Boy, Clinton supporters are getting more and more thin-skinned and frantic about having to play defense against this obvious buffoon Sanders who don’t know nothin about nothin. It’s entertaining to watch, I must say.
Next time: pick a stronger candidate.
Cacti
@? Martin:
My problem with Sanders free college plan in its current form is that its benefits will primarily flow to the already affluent. Low quality K-12 education is much greater barrier to the kids of the poor and working class being able to attend a university, and making college free doesn’t address this in any way, shape, or form. Absent a comparable investment in improving K-12 education, free college will be gated community dweller welfare.
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: So, what makes the unverifiable Berniebros on your FB feed more representative of Bernie supporters than the Bernie supporters here who, by and large, are pretty damn supportive of Obama.
And yes, it’s a straw man. You’re not responding to the argument presented. Your last two responses to me were essentially “squirrel!!!” Although, that’s better than the last response I got from you which was more along the lines of “I don’t have to dnify you with a response because I support Hillary who is so obviously better in every way, which I know because the MSM tells me she’s the only serious one and the MSM will never lead me astray.”
D58826
A bit more on the coal baron
dogwood
@D58826:
It’s not just the 1% who dodge the bullet, elites in general operate in an alternate universe of privilege. Jane Sanders fails at her job and gets a payout that the majority of Americans couldn’t accumulate after a lifetime of hard work.
Bob In Portland
@Paul in KY: Yes, Thomas Frank talks all about this defense mechanism of the modern-day liberal. But the bottom line is that for the last thirty-five years of our history the Democrats have continually failed their former constituency, and doing the same thing with Clinton will change nothing.
If “centrist” Democrats like Hillary and her crew at the DNC can’t do it then they should step out of the way. In the meantime, we just get one of those payday loans to tide us over.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: Years ago I actually personally taught a guy about how marginal tax rates work, and he was so stunned by the fact that he’d learned this for the first time that he wrote a long enthusiastic blog post about it. He was a software engineer who worked for a movie visual-effects firm, a smart essayist on many subjects, and he’d never understood that when you go into a higher tax bracket it only applies to taxable income above the cutoff, until that moment. It was one of my prouder moments.
Kropadope
@Matt McIrvin:
My dad used to know, somewhere along the years-long way of listening to AM radio, he forgot.
? Martin
@Bob In Portland:
How would Apple moving iPhone manufacturing to the US fix that? Two clues:
1) iPhone manufacturing was never in the US. That was not outsourced. No jobs were lost.
2) The only reason the iPhone exists as a product is because Shenzhen existed. Without that Chinese manufacturing base, Apple never could have successfully brought this product to market and today could not sustain it.
Apple has over 1 million workers producing 250,000,000 devices per year, devices that have an annual refresh requiring retooling and large scale production line changes. The US manufacturing sector has never managed to operate on that kind of time-to-market pace. We were always structured around 3-5 year time-to-market paces as you find in durable goods markets – cars, appliances, etc.
Consumer electronics is in many respects a completely different type of manufacturing to what the US excels at. The supply chain is completely different. The time-to-market is different. That’s not to say that the US couldn’t do it, but the US manufacturing sector from end-to-end never sought that market. We have no tool and die makers for that kind of work, no automation expertise in that area, no existing capacity. Apple would need to invent the entire industry in the US, or import it all from China. There’s nothing at all to borrow from the automakers or GE.
And where does Apple find that concentration of skilled workers in the US? Apple’s factories have hundreds of thousands of employees per factory. Distributing those across the country would destroy the product economically as they would spend tremendous sums of money on packaging and transportation. It would be a massive destruction of capital. California and Texas can’t put up those kinds of worker numbers – maybe with a huge immigration influx, but not from our existing base. There are 12 million people working in manufacturing. Apple would take 10% of the entire manufacturing base of the country. The US graduates about 4500 industrial engineers per year. Apple routinely hires 10,000-20,000 annually. Those would need to be H-1B visas until the education system responded, which would take a minimum of 6 years and most likely closer to 10 (in order for universities to start a program the would first need to hire faculty to design it – that’s slow).
The biggest problem the US has in manufacturing is that everything here is too slow. Universities are too slow, worker migration is too slow, regulatory approval is too slow, capital allocation is too slow, and we are highly risk adverse. Those are difficult problems to change. The wage differential is the least of the obstacles for Apple to move manufacturing here.
Davebo
@Scarcelight:
Do you have some examples?
Bob In Portland
@Kropadope: When Deval Patrick, a fine liberal, takes a job at one of the banks that wrecked our economy after his time in office battling state unions, it’s just samo samo. Samo samo hasn’t worked for most people’s lives. Of course the corporate Democrats are irrelevant to most Americans.
El Tiburon
@aimai:
This is up for interpretation. Again seems it’s matter of faith among HRC supporters it sucked, others disagree. We all see what we want to see.
Let me ask you and other HRC supporters: this whole Panama Papers thing where old video exists of Bernie coming out forcefully against the Panama trade agreement while HRC was for it.
How does this rate? For a Bernie supporter, it sure does seem to show Bernie had the foresight and smarts to be against the Panama trade deal for the exact reason we are seeing now; HRC, on the other hand, supported it. To me, this seems much more damning than this ‘trainwreck’ interview. Just curious how you HRC supporters rationalize or dismiss this Panama deal.
Bob In Portland
I don’t have the time or energy right now, but later I’ll find that quote from Larry Summers about how poor people deserve to be poor. I’m sure the villagers here can rationalize it.
Bob In Portland
@El Tiburon: Yeah, but you can’t change everything overnight and besides, it would have been worse with Republicans.
That was my snark.
Paul in KY
@Bob In Portland: We (Democratic voters) managed to defeat those 2 with our imperfect Bill Clinton. I don’t think we would have beat them with Tom Harkin (to pull a name out and Sen. Harkin is a fine man who would have made a good President).
You have to win the damned thing & if it takes a more-right-wing-Democrat-than-I-would-really-like to do it, that’s who you go with.
Kropadope
@Bob In Portland: Could you try to express that again a little more coherently?
As far as Deval Patrick, from what I could tell the unions loved him. I worked for his campaign and the bulk of the volunteers were union folk. I was talking to my friend’s cousin a few weeks back and Deval was one of the few politicians to get a positive mention over a few hours of discussion (the others being Obama and Sanders), because Deval stood up for his union when they were on strike.
Davebo
@El Tiburon:
Exactly what does the Panama trade agreement agreement have to do with what was revealed (that everyone really should have already known) by the Panama papers?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
I answer you, and you hand wave everything away, then put words in my mouth. I can’t stand any of you Berniebots, and can’t wait til he loses and gets to go back to being useless in Vermont.
El Tiburon
@? Martin:
First, the argument is not “100% of manufacturing jobs need to be brought back to the US”.
While it’s true it may be easier to mass produce the iPhone in China or wherever because there are no regulations on worker safety or whatever. But this doesn’t mean the US couldn’t compete with any country in the world. The problem, of course, is that US workers would demand real wages and benefits. And this is why we can’t have manufacturing in the US – corporations would see reduced profits to their shareholders.
Bob In Portland
@? Martin: And even if your points are correct, that Americans couldn’t have made these things, how about paying taxes? Or is that the reward a corporation gets for bestowing the world with iPhones made in third-world countries?
Davebo
@Bob In Portland:
What’s with this the villagers stuff? I love in a city of over 6 million and I’m certainly not a pundit.
Kropadope
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: You didn’t answer me. You dismissed my pointing out that I, as a Bernie supporter, as well as the other Bernie supporters here have been very supportive of Obama by pointing to likely fictitious (and definitely unverifiable) Bernie supporters on your Facebook feed. Classic misdirection.
What am I to expect though. Earlier you were throwing around casual racism, so you’re probably a lost cause anyway.
Cacti
@El Tiburon:
If Senator Obama had given a similar interview in 2008, he’d have been dismissed immediately as a lightweight by the chattering classes.
Sarah Palin did give a similar interview in 2008, and it was a spade-full of dirt on the grave of the McCain campaign.
Bernie may come out of it okay because he’s a white male, and American culture accordingly holds him to a lower standard.
Dan
@El Tiburon:
I’m so glad you asked! No, it doesn’t seem very plausible, as the Sanders plan depends on states picking up 1/3 of the tab and the federal government picking up the other 2/3. as noted elsewhere, we couldn’t get most red states to expand Medicaid when the federal government picked up 90% of the tab.
that Sanders campaign page is an extraordinarily high-level look at the issues, and while I agree with some of the things he proposes, it doesn’t drill down into the details far enough. Compare and contrast with Clinton’s initial page on college, which goes into further detail, and has prominent links to a more thorough policy briefing on the subject.
Davebo
@Bob In Portland:
You’ve obviously never been to Taiwan or Longhua Town. Far from what most would consider third-world.
Gin & Tonic
@El Tiburon: Interview aside, the Daily News certainly does not seem to be feeling the Bernmentum.
Bob In Portland
@Kropadope: Again, read Thomas Frank’s book if you can’t follow my comments. Deval Patrick became a corporate lawyer for Ameriquest, America’s largest subprime lender. He’s an icon for centrist Democrats. When taxi drivers in Boston staged strikes Patrick came out on the side of Uber. Not saying that it was because Uber hired a Patrick aide as a lobbyist for them. Now that Patrick has served his constituency he is a lawyer for Bain Capital.
A better example would be the mayor of Chicago. Ask how the teachers feel about Rahm. Or ask Schultz’s Floridians how happy they are that she delayed someone overlooking the payday loan industry for a few years.
Yeah, but if the Republicans were in the White House…
You guys don’t get it. How long until the meek inherit the earth, villagers?
Davebo
For the record, iPhone components are manufactured in Germany, France, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, China, South Korea, The Netherlands, Singapore and yes, the United States.
Bob In Portland
@Davebo: How much are the people in mainland China getting paid. We were talking about making iPhones, right? How much union representation was guaranteed in those trade agreements along with all those corporate protections?
Paul in KY
@Davebo: The agreement allegedly made it easier to do what the Panama Papers show is being done. Rich people who were wanting that done were allegedly the driving force behind the agreement.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Scarcelight: We already have the better candidate. How’d those inner city exit polls go again?
Next time, get a better candidate and not an applause line for internet contrarians.
Bob In Portland
@Davebo: The villagers here at Balloon Juice who can see no reason why Sanders has won seven of the last eight primaries/caucuses. It’s because they’re stupid or something. The Enterprise didn’t have deflector shields as strong as the intellectual ones you folks carry around.
pseudonymous in nc
@El Tiburon:
This isn’t about what I believe, it’s about the Sanders campaign rhetoric. And so we go around again to the idea that Bernie can somehow get shit done outside the usual channels and institutional frameworks by collecting underpants or something.
He’s caucused with the majority over his time in Congress. He’s been the entire Vermont House delegation.
Bob In Portland
@Paul in KY: If you are saying that the bottom 90% can’t win against the wealthy and their thrall, well, let’s try to see.
It’s quite simple. Bill Clinton made the lives of the working class worse than it was. Hillary Clinton voted for just about every war and trade deal that surfaced in the Dubya years. Obama bailed out banks but not the rest of us.
If you cannot see that then you are intellectually blind to needs of most Americans.
Cacti
@pseudonymous in nc:
He’ll tell Mitch McConnell to look out his window.
Stop laughing, damn it!
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: Before that, he’s going to TRY. Other politicians won’t, because they’ve been bought. But he will. And then Bernie’s Window Brigade leaps into action!
Bob In Portland
@pseudonymous in nc:
So Sanders theoretically cannot get things done as opposed to the Clintons and Obama actually not getting things done and doing things that fuck up working people’s lives.
I expect the first thing that happens if Sanders wins is that a lot of DLCers are going to be unmasked. Then their constituencies can ask the Debbie Wasserman Schultzes of the world whose side they’re on.
gwangung
@Cacti: How well did that work in Wisconsin?
Paul in KY
@Bob In Portland: A whole shitload of the ‘bottom 90%’ votes Republican. That’s what we are up against here, nimrod.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
In brightest day, in blackest night
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil’s might,
Beware my power, Green Lantern’s light!
Bob In Portland
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: You mean in Milwaukee? How about all the other counties in Wisconsin? Or that white enclave known as Hawaii?
As I recall from the reports on CNN last night while flying across country, Clinton won a majority of black voters in Milwaukee. Not as good as she did a couple of months ago. So, yeah, her support is eroding there too. Maybe if we made micro-loans to the inner city, or if Bill Gates could open an innovation school for the homeless…
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: People are homeless, people are dying because they can’t afford medicines and healthcare. More and more people lose their houses. More and more people are working multiple jobs to put food in their kids stomachs.
But it’s nice you memorized something from the Green Lantern. It shows the seriousness of Hillary supporters here for the issues of the bottom 90% of the country.
Brachiator
@El Tiburon:
. I am not a big Clinton supporter. Right now I see her as barely the best of an extremely weak batch of candidates. And I have tried to look for interviews with Sanders and information about his campaign, because he has never been given the same amount of media attention as Trump or even Clinton. Before this, I liked much of his YouTube interview with the Young Turks.
At this point in the primary campaign, I would expect to see Sanders open up and expand on his basic positions. There are groups of voters he has still failed to reach. Instead, the Daily News interview not only failed to seal the deal, but causes me to wonder whether Sanders is more than a lovable but ineffectual crank.
And I would happily submit the Sanders interview to neutral parties for review.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
And what we need is free college. ;-)
Bob In Portland
@Paul in KY: The use of “nimrod” does not advance your argument. And you know why lots of poor people vote Republican? Because the Democrats do nothing for them, and haven’t for decades.
I guess you haven’t noticed that.
Mike D.
It’s a thing.
Meaning, the pathetic loser economic left-behinds and pie-in-the-sky clueless white intellectuals exclusively supporting Bernie Sanders in this contest. I.e. like 40% of the Democratic primary-participating base. It’s “a thing.”
Which she’s not ignoring, luckily. That’s the concession.
Nice.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: We need a higher minimum wage. We need to make forming unions easier. Remember when Obama promised and almost did that? We need consumer protection, just like what Schultz has delayed. We need improvements in our welfare system. We need big money out of politics.
Acting like a simpleton does not advance your argument. Making college more affordable is one of the many things that can be done to better our people, but maybe you think a transaction tax would be a terrible burden on the 1%.
Kropadope
@Cacti: College raises incomes and no one said it needs to be a 4 year degree for every single person. We should be helping displaced workers update their job skills, though.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Yep.
And it’s just a giant coincidence that the voting patterns of “lots of poor people” changed to Republican in national elections after 1964.
Paul in KY
@Bob In Portland: Why do you think all those Southern states, that reliably voted Democratic, till about 1968, stopped doing so? Was it the Democrats not doing anything for the poor & less fortunate?
Nimrod is an apt moniker (IMO) as you seem to fail at understanding that in the example of Bill Clinton, he was the best we could do & still get him/her elected. You can run the greatest populist serve-the-poor candidate there is or would ever be, but if he/she doesn’t get elected, you got nothing.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
The kids of 1 percenters will benefit in much greater proportion from the Sanders free college proposal than will the children of the bottom economic quintile.
AxelFoley
@El Tiburon:
Why am I not surprised you’re a Berniebro?
Bob In Portland
@Mike D.:
I was going to search for the Larry Summers quote about how the poor deserve to be poor, but you’ve managed to express it even more clearly. Yes, the left-behinds. Fuck ’em, you got yours. And how does this make you and your fellow villagers here more morally fit than Ted Cruz or Donald Trump? It must be your compassion and your education. What is pie-in-the-sky? People in the US are not able to pay for medicines. We have the highest prices in the world. Did any Democrat fix that? Perhaps mention it to Advartis when they held their fundraisers? Well, then the Democratic Party is useless for the left-behinds. So don’t come around asking the left-behinds to support another corporate Democrat who will further screw over them.
Bob In Portland
@AxelFoley: That comment did not advance your argument. It further suggests that you don’t actually care about a safety net or income for the poor. Feel good? Feel nice and moral? If you can’t find a hippie to punch just kick a homeless person or yell something to the left-behinds on the side of the road.
Nice reference to an old movie, though.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: Who will benefit from daycare for all? Who will benefit from better schools? Who will benefit from a higher maximum tax rate? Who will benefit from a jobs program to rebuild our infrastructure? Who will benefit from a rollback of our drug wars?
Well, women who can’t pay for daycare now will benefit from daycare for all, not kids with nannies. Who will benefit from a higher tax rate that makes the wealthiest pay more? Even the wealthy get flats on their Lamborghinis when they hit a pothole while speeding past the left-behinds, although they may not give up their arbitrager jobs to repave the roads. And who benefits from ending the drug wars? The people in prison, their wives and husbands and children.
Glad to help you out. Really, if you just think about it your questions are easily answered. Now try answering this:
What separates the rich and the poor? Think hard.
Heliopause
In case no one has posted it yet, here is Mike Konczal on the supposed train wreck.
Heliopause
And here is Dean Baker.
Bob In Portland
What is most shocking about that paper is that Mort Zuckerman is such an even-handed mogul you could never imagine him or his employees printing anything against Sanders. I’m sure when Mort is vacationing in the Hamptons he’s not really vacationing but doing investigative reporting on his neighbor Hillary over a plate of lobster.
Bob In Portland
@Heliopause:
I’ve very concerned, I need to know: Has Chris Cilizza been left behind? Has Mort Zuckerman been left behind?
Hello?
Miss Bianca
@Bob In Portland:
NOBODY will benefit from all these nice things proposed by Sen. Sanders if he can’t get nominated, would most likely lose to a nightmarish cartoon of a Republican opponent even if he did get nominated, and who even if he did win is apparently incapable of articulating how these things would actually get done, much less provoke any confidence that he knows how to work well enough with enough people to get these things done. He’s caught the car, and now he’s mouthing the bumper going “ohh, big banks bad! Jail banksters! How’m I gonna do it? I dunno, cuz I can’t even name a law – one law, any law – that they’ve broken! But trust me, THEY’RE GONNA GET IT!”
Which is why a bunch of us have decided that Sen. Sanders is a poor joke of a candidate. That’s what we’re trying to say here, Bob, and all your “Oh, you heartless Clintonistas just don’t care enough about the poors!” isn’t going to change that.
ETA: Oh, and nice try with someone saying, “Oh, well – Bernie doesn’t have to know how to break up the big banks – the big banks will know!” So, they’ll be in charge of their own dissolution, huh? Big Boss Man doesn’t need to know the details?Yeah, that’ll go well.
Uncle Cosmo
@scav:
Typos aside–Of course not.
One calls the police & shrieks My car’s been stolen!–& after an officer arrives & spends half an hour trying to calm you down & get details, s/he calls the city impound lot where it was towed because you’ve been blowing off parking tickets since Clinton’s first term. :p
Davebo
@Bob In Portland:
Don’t count me in that group. I can see a lot of reasons and I also predicted he would win them.
@Paul in KY:
Allegedly? I don’t know who told you that but are definitely not familiar with the Panama Trade Agreement.
Uncle Cosmo
@Paul in KY:
Wrong. “In 1912 … Kerensky was elected to the Fourth Duma as a member of the Trudoviks, a moderate, non-Marxist labour party that was associated with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party,” FTR the SRs were one fuck of a long way left of the Cadets.
(You could have looked it up but instead you shot from the lip. Nice going!)
Germy
@Cacti: The kids of 1 percenters don’t go to state college. Not many of them in SUNY Buffalo.
Bostondreams
@El Tiburon:
I don’t think we want to compare ‘free K-12 public education’ in any way to the push to reduce college costs. Most k-12 public education financing is horrific and inequitable, and relies on local property taxes that can crush education spending.
J R in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
Granted the block quote font is large, the other fonts are visible for people with vision problems. The right column is the size it is because of the stuff that lives there at the head of the page – links and ads. Ads which help pay for servers and bandwidth.
Testers begged for fonts big enough to read easily. Font size isn’t really up to coders, I’m pretty sure it would be easy to change if Cole thought it necessary. I’m an old – a retired coder. We always allowed the user community to push font sizes up if they needed it. Everyone doesn’t have 20/20 vision, exp. on the web.
Just like many of us never listened to Elon’s audio posts – I can’t hear that kind of audio very well. I asked for transcripts often, it can even mostly be done by computer rather than someone listening and typing, but he didn’t care about hearing disabled people. A shame, many sounded interesting, but I just couldn’t go there.
? Martin
@Bob In Portland:
Apple is the largest taxpayer in the US by quite a bit. And Apple is required to pay taxes on income earned in the US. They do not pay taxes on a phone sold in China, only on one sold in the US. That’s how every corporation works and nobody is proposing any alternative. You want them to pay more US taxes, buy more of their stuff.
And if Apple were really determined to pay less in taxes, they’d move out of California to Nevada as California has a corporate tax rate and Nevada does not. That they’ve never entertained that idea suggests that they aren’t really that determined to cut their tax liability.
And you don’t want that to change the foreign profits system either. It does not benefit the US to tax exports and make US made products even less competitive. That’s the opposite of a protective tariff. You guys need to figure out what the hell it is you are trying to achieve. I get that you are pissed off, but at least be pissed off in productive way.
Monala
@BR: Even that isn’t necessarily true. In many cases (especially for people who currently have a government or employer-based insurance plan), their tax increase under Bernie’s plan might exceed what they are currently paying in premiums (if they are paying anything). I know that according to Vox’s candidates’ tax plan calculator, my family would pay thousands more in taxes than we currently pay in premiums. And the question of co-payments and deductibles is up in the air, since these still exist for people on Medicare. (Speaking of which, are seniors on Medicare and fixed incomes also going to face tax increases?)
? Martin
@El Tiburon:
Sure, but the education system was open to all then. It’s not now, because we’re sending 60% of young people to college instead of 30%. We have insufficient capacity and that requires us to choose who gets to go. If you want to send everyone to college you either need to address the cost of capital expansion, or you need to simultaneously answer the question of who shouldn’t get to go even if its free.
It’s difficult to expand capacity when something is free. That’s a longstanding failure of socialism – lines for bread because there was no allocation of funds to build bakeries or farms. Supply and demand pricing is at least a solution to that problem. It’s an often unfair one, but it does at least cause supply to be created. The problem in higher ed is that the demand is there but the state budgets aren’t responding to that demand, so the universities have no money to expand. We’re trying to achieve that through admitting international students that bring the money the state doesn’t want to give us, and we get criticized for even doing that.
AxelFoley
@El Tiburon:
Oh, the sumbitch who admitted stealing documents and taking them to China and then Russia? The guy who sought asylum in Putin’s backyard? That asshole?
Yeah, I’m not surprised the least that you’re a Berniebro.
? Martin
@El Tiburon:
But this doesn’t mean the US couldn’t compete with any country in the world. The problem, of course, is that US workers would demand real wages and benefits.
Davebo
@? Martin:
Actually I think Apple is #2 or #3 but I can’t find data for anything after 2013 so I could be wrong. With the collapse of oil prices they may well be #1 now.
SFAW
@Germy:
Well of course not – they go to SUNY West Palm Beach. Much warmer, a lot less snow.
Of course, in 20 years, they’ll have to swim or kayak between classes.
Bob In Portland
@Miss Bianca: So don’t vote for him because he might not be nominated?
Matt McIrvin
@Kropadope: I think there might be people who know this when they’re doing their taxes but not when they’re thinking about politics. Compartmentalization is a wondrous thing.
Bob In Portland
@singfoom: There are many villages. I was referring to the villagers here at Balloon Juice. In the land of Balloon Juice. So sorry if this confuses you.
Monala
@? Martin:
It’s my understanding that many of the European countries that offer free college, also have strict admission requirements that limit the number of students who can attend. So it’s not, “free for all, open for all.”
However, some of those same countries also do a better job than we do of providing job training and apprenticeships for the non-college going.
aimai
@El Tiburon: I don’t really think about it at all, actually. These trade deals are never all good or all bad–they usually have something we want mixed in with a lot of bad shit. That is how anything gets done. I’m sure its nice that Bernie was against it. So what? Being against stuff is not what the entire Presidency is going to be about. He’s going to have to be chief negotiator and horsetrader in a world where he doesn’t control everything and can’t simply refuse everything.
kc
Sanders could have done better at communicating, imho, but here’s a counterpoint. (apologies if someone already posted this or the articles it refers to; I’m not gonna read all 450 comments)
aimai
@Bob In Portland: This totally puts the cart before the horse. Bernie can win all the caucuses. He can win everything and still not be a good President. We are having two different conversations here simultaneously. Is Bernie getting over on enough Democratic voters to win the Primary? Maybe, but its a longshot. 2) or B) Would someone like Bernie, with Bernie’s actual stated positions and history, be good at the job of Presidenting as it is currently constituted? Answer: some say yes, some say no. Its not that hard. But whether Bernie can get over on enough people to win a primary here or there has nothing to do with either of these two things anymore than Trump getting over on the republican side for quite a while tells you whether 1) he will be the nominee or 2) whether he will be a good president.
kc
@Bob In Portland:
“Axel Foley” is the dumbest man on the Internet, FYI.
Gin & Tonic
45 more to a TBogg unit.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Betty Cracker: What’s gross about it?
Miss Bianca
@Bob In Portland:
No, Bob, I didn’t say that. I’m saying Sen. Sanders is weak sauce. I’m saying he’s not ready for prime time. But is he better than anything the Republicans throw at us? F*ck yeah. If he manages to make it to the nomination, I’ll vote for him. But speaking as a Democratic Socialist, I find Bernie Sanders’s evident lack of preparedness for the big chair almost personally insulting.
Davebo
I also fault Sanders for sponsoring the Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act.
He sponsored it a week after announcing his campaign. This isn’t some talking point in an interview but actual legislation but it to offers no details at all in it’s whopping four pages.
It was a blatant political stunt and unsurprisingly no other senator signed on as a co-sponser.
How big is “Too big to fail”? Who knows, it’s not in the bill.
WarMunchkin
@Miss Bianca:
Ditto. It stung.
Also, why the hell is this thread this long and awful.
different-church-lady
Ooh, c’mom, c’mon, let’s see if the new code can handle a TBogg unit…
different-church-lady
@Heliopause: Here’s the thing: I did not need someone in the media to tell me it was a trainwreck. I read it myself, unfiltered, and my reaction was, “What the holy fuck?”
Heliopause
@kc:
What’s so notable about Konczal, who says that the criticisms of Sanders over this interview are “not correct,” is that he is an official member of the Paul Krugman Wonk Brigade.
different-church-lady
@Davebo: Away with your pesky facts, we’re trying to create villains here.
different-church-lady
@Davebo:
Good god, how do you keep up?
Davebo
@different-church-lady:
Orange Juice. Lots and lots of Orange Juice!
Miss Bianca
@different-church-lady: @Davebo: I was wondering the same thing…is it wrong?
Davebo
@Miss Bianca: If loving is wrong, I don’t want to be right….
But yes, obviously a type of perhaps a freudian slip.
Heliopause
@different-church-lady:
Could you read Konczal’s piece, which I linked to above, and explain to me where he is wrong?
Miss Bianca
@Davebo:
“Pardon me, my Freudian slip is showing?”
But yeah…giggling quietly over here, thanks for the laffs!
Davebo
@Heliopause:
I’ve read the piece but it doesn’t answer the question I posed up thread.
Why didn’t the legislation Sanders sponsored:
Again, this is in stark contrast to the bill Sanders sponsored over 8 freaking years after the banking collapse.
Just as with his health care reform claims, he’s just tossing stuff out (we’ll save more on prescription drugs than we spend total now).
The man is passionate, but not at all serious.
liberal
@aimai:
LOL.
different-church-lady
@Heliopause: If Sanders has a clear plan to break up the banks, why could he not describe it clearly in the interview?
dantanna
@WereBear: This.
And after seeing that interview with Bernie I didn’t think it went bad for him. In fact I thought it went well.
And Bernie’s right, those trade deals have fucked us over too. They promised all these jobs and never come close. I found myself liking Bernie even more for pointing that out — probably the only one who is doing that.
But I voted for Hillary yesterday in Wisconsin because I’ll trade a somewhat improbable that has most of what I want for a mostly probable that has some of what I want.
Heliopause
@Davebo:
I think you’re asking three questions here, though they aren’t quite worded as such, so maybe I’m not quite understanding your point.
On the first two, you’re asking the wrong person. Politicians propose broadly similar but somewhat different policies over the course of their careers, based on what they think is possible or desirable in the short, medium, and long terms, depending on conditions on the ground, audience, and so on. Nothing particularly unusual about that, but as I said, you’ll have to ask Sanders. I can tell you that Konczal, who as you know is not a Sanders partisan, called the arguments against Sanders “not correct” and “bad.”
As for the third point, both Konczal and Dean Baker say that this is not only not a problematic answer, it’s the correct one. Not sure why you wouldn’t be happy about that.
Seems pretty obvious that what is happening here is that Sanders, speaking to a mass media outlet, is being held to a standard of precision that no serious person would ever dream of holding their preferred candidate to. It’s another ginned up controversy du jour and, thankfully, will probably be gone by tomorrow.
Heliopause
@different-church-lady:
Mike Konczal and Dean Baker say that he did. At least, to the level of precision one would bother giving the Daily News.
different-church-lady
@Heliopause: Well Mike Konczal and Dean Baker are full of shit as far as I’m concerned. Okay? Who the fuck made those two the gatekeepers of my own fuckin’ judgement?
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: And how does Hillary explain that money-laundering scheme that had the Sri Lankan lobbyist send money to the Montana Democratic Party who pocketed ten grand and sent the rest back to a Hillary PAC. She’s explained how that works, right?
Oh wait, you don’t care how Hillary launders campaign donations.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Oh great, the surrealism generator just got switched on.
Bob In Portland
@aimai: And he’d still be a better President that H. Clinton. She is owned by the monied class.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady:
Bob In Portland
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: Picked up your copy of Thomas Frank’s LISTEN, LIBERAL yet? It’s as if Frank knew you.
Bob In Portland
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Pick up a copy of my new book, LISTEN, CRANK.
The only reason I’m bothering to reply to you is because we are so close to a TBogg.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady:
Gee.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: C’mon, Bob, we can do it! Just 14 more! You can cut and paste at least 14 more conspiracy theory claptrap quotes, can’t you?
Llama
Obama hasn’t done nothing. Talk to any banker, securities or white-collar defense lawyer from NYC. There’s been more civil prosecutions that have been historically tougher than anyone can remember that has resulted in multiple multi-billion settlements. It might not be what you consider enough but it’s not nothing.
John S.
You’d think Sanders and his supporters were the second coming of Stalin from reading half of the comments here.
The awful reality is that Clinton and Sanders will both suck as President in their own ways. But either of them are 100X better than anything the GOP has to offer.
Ruckus
@? Martin:
The time to mfg the production tooling is pretty much the same in the US or in Asia. The difference is that in Asia the labor rates are lower and there is training for skilled workers. That training is sorely missing in the US. And yes there are exceptions but they are few. The old skilled tool makers like me are retiring and dying off. And many refused to keep up with the technology changes that have happened over the last 25 yrs. And as we get older there is less incentive to train up, our time is limited. However the production rate of companies that have kept up is right up there with the rest of the world. You are right that Apple has invested in China but China also invested in itself. The US really does not invest in production. We don’t invest much at all in training skilled craft workers, but we have some great engineering schools. Which is nice but it takes skilled craft people to create the hardware that engineers design. Part of the issue is that we’ve been doing this wrong for decades. It’s one reason Germany works so well. Their workers make good wages, and have been trained well because the country realized that all the engineers in the world still would not be able to build the products, you need skilled people to cut the metal, to make those engineering ideas work.
different-church-lady
What do I have to do, get out and push this thing over the TBogg line myself?
SectionH
Possibly not.
AirBreathingMamal
I’m puzzled. When did Sanders promise to prosecute Wall Street executives for the 2007 melt down?
I’ve heard Sanders say they should have been prosecuted, but as far as I know he’s never made retroactive prosecution a priority for his campaign. So why the big stink about him not having a plan to do it? He’s not trying to be a partner in a law firm, he’s busy running for President.
So what if he hasn’t spent a month in a law school library pouring over all the relevant case law with respect to white collar crime, or sifting through mountains of accounting records designed to obscure criminal activity from actual accountants.
The main qualifications for President is to have good judgement and enough smarts to understand what the experts tell you. Sanders has more of that than Hillary. Yes, she’s a fact magnet. Yes, she’s good at looking presidential. But when it comes right down to it, her judgement has been bad more often than it has been good. Hell, just this week the world is rocked by news of a $2B international finance scandal. Hillary helped put the trade deal that made it possible into place, and was proud of her achievement. Sanders opposed it because he thought it would be misused. Who’s judgement was right on that one? Sanders.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@singfoom: Not to be pedantic, but there are laws and there are laws.
Was the Robosigning stuff a Criminal offense or a Civil offense? I don’t know. AFAIK, when Bernie talks about going after Wall Street and putting people in jail, he wants us to think of violations of federal criminal law. If there are only federal civil laws and rules that were applicable, then it’s hard to claim that people at G-S or Citi or AIG or Fannie and Freddie that should be in jail, AFAICS.
I don’t know. IANAL. But Bernie should know since he’s making these charges and implying that Corruption™ is the only thing keeping them out of jail…
One of your earlier links to NOLO links says:
It doesn’t look like the criminal law is too helpful in this effort.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who agrees with the proposition that CEO flouting the laws and destroying lives should face criminal sanctions in addition to civil sanctions. The question is, was the law there at the time?)
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Paul in KY: I’d like to see more of a connection between the dots between the Panama trade deal and these Panama Papers. The BBC is saying that 1/3 of the Panama Papers stuff is about China and Hong Kong. We’ve heard about Putin/Russian connections. We’ve heard about Iceland. Very little if anything has been released about US persons yet AFAIK. IIRC, someone said that most of this US tax-avoidance stuff doesn’t go through Panama but through places like the Cayman Islands…
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
SectionH
. brb
why in the fuck to they thing I had a link?
SectionH
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: To answer your last, parenthetical, question: almost anyone with a conscience. I incline to the Villago Delente Est answer to that one.
The answer to your rhetorical question is: bought and paid for by the Republicans. They’ve spent Decades with the “best” lawyers their money could buy to make the laws work that way.
It’s why Bernie’s completely lacking. The banksters didn’t get nailed, because they’ve been paying clever weasels for decades, so it was “mostly” legal. I admit that the tiny innocent part of my heart kinda does want an “Off with their Heads!” payback.
Let me also just add this: Anyone who voted Pro-NRA, and doesn’t apologize for THAT, is dead to me. I had no idea back then. Fuck that.
Craigo
@burnspbesq: Find me one criminal complaint or true bill that doesn’t name the violated statutes.
Don’t take advice on criminal law from tax lawyers, people.
Paul in KY
@Uncle Cosmo: Thanks for the correction.
I hope Mr. Kerensky’s ghost doesn’t haunt me for that egregious mistake.
Paul in KY
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: The agreement supposedly made it easier for law firms to do what they are doing here.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Paul in KY: Yeah, that’s the speculation I’ve seen, e.g., Bernie’s clip, (but I haven’t read in detail). Trouble is, unless someone can actually be charged, then it’s just Bernie railing against Millionaires and Billionaires™. We’ll see what happens, if anything, as far as criminal charges go.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who feels like a cheater posting this and giving us a TBogg.)