Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Republicans in disarray!

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

People are complicated. Love is not.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Election Year Open Thread: If I Can’t Vote for Warren, Biden’s Looking Better All the Time

Election Year Open Thread: If I Can’t Vote for Warren, Biden’s Looking Better All the Time

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112Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh36

    @joanwalsh
    1m1 minute ago
    More
    “We’re doing very well with the Latino community. We’re doing very well with the Asian community.” That is NOT an answer about how you’re going to win the black vote. I am sorry.

    @MattMurph24
    37m37 minutes ago
    More
    “His politics are not my politics.” ~ Bernie Sanders on Jim Clyburn

  2. 2.

    lamh36

    @LisaTalmadge

    More

    “Is president Obama part of the Democratic establishment?” -Maddow Sanders “No”

    8:46 PM – 4 Mar 2020

    Was he grinding his teeth and grimacing when he said this…

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    My sympathy for Wilmer can’t even be measured by Scott Lang in the quantum realm.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    lobbied colleagues to get endorsements and built relationships

    Unfair!  He’s using skills Wilmer does not possess!  Unfair!  Rigged!

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    Offering a hopeful vision for Democratic Party unity and a path to a better future, our Bern.

    I know Biden will have to moderate his remarks, but boy I sure hope his surrogates use the sharpest of knives from here on out. This is just disgraceful, me-me-me, reminiscent of you-know-who.

  6. 6.

    Rina99

    “His politics are not my politics.” ~ Bernie Sanders on Jim Clyburn

    LOL, that’s what he says about the guy who’s endorsement really kicked off Joe Biden’s comeback. Okay, then.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    @Villago Delenda Est: LOL

    ”Wait…no one told me that reaching out to other people…in the party I never joined but am always bashing instead of the trumpublicans…was a smart move and would pay off!  RIGGED!!”

    Principled to the last, Bern.  The principle being – and stop me if this sounds familiar circa 2015-2020 – ‘the only thing that matters is what’s good for me, logic be damned’

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    Interesting: Bernie Sanders, pressed twice by @maddow on whether he‘d explicitly reject Bloomberg spending $ to help beat Trump if he’s the nominee, says only that Bloomberg can do what he wants with his money and that the Sanders goal is to fix the system.

    — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 5, 2020

    2016 – “… Corrupt™ Democratic Establishment, Millionaires, and Billionaires™…”

    2018 – “… Corrupt™ Democratic Establishment and Billionaires™…”

    2020 – “… Corrupt™ Democratic Establishment …”

    Heh.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  12. 12.

    SFAW

    I was listening to some Bernie flack on NPR (Larry Rosen, I think his name was). He and some other guy (who appeared to support Biden, but was not part of the campaign, I think) were being interviewed/asked about Stupid Tuesday. More than a couple of times, Rosen launched into some whine/diatribe about 2016. I got disgusted enough that I shut it off, so I didn’t hear if he pulled the “Demon-rat Establishment is rigging these primaries” BS reply.

     

    Warren is still the one I want for President, but as long as Vermont Jesus doesn’t get the nom, I guess I can live with it. Not that I think he’ll do anything to help Biden if Biden gets the nom, of course. Just like that narcissist from Queens, I’m a-thinking.

  13. 13.

    The Dangerman

    Downstairs I said Trump needs to go away; BS needs to join him. Buy a clue, Dude, assuming you don’t want another 4 years of Trump (actually, he might just want that since both he and Trump are natural born arsonists).

    I’ve got a way, WAY too early prediction, but what the hell; Trump, if he loses, will try to run again in 2024 (health permitting or if they find a way to jam a tent pole up his ass so he can stand up kinda straight). 4 years of him bitching and moaning on Twitter about how he lost and how unfair it was.

  14. 14.

    Nicole

    I swear, even though I haven’t been able to track it down again, I remember, during the 2016 primary, reading somewhere that Al Franken said Bernie was hard to work with and I remember thinking, “When the guy who had to write for a coked-out John Belushi says you’re hard to work with…”

    Whatever else one can say about Biden, he knows how to forge relationships with the people he works with. Sanders has never demonstrated that ability. Hell, it seems like the only Senator who really got along with him is Warren.

    And we start to see the benefits of being able to play well with others for Biden now.

  15. 15.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

     

    @aritbenie
    59m59 minutes ago
    More
    .@BernieSanders on Maddow confirms he didn’t try to win Rep. Clyburn’s endorsement. “It is no secret…his politics are not my politics.”

    He says he likes Clyburn and they worked together on funding community health centers, but he knew there was no way Clyburn would back him.

  16. 16.

    sdhays

    Atrios is getting all haughty about Biden’s commanding win. He has a petulant, whining, silly post (which describes at least half of his political posts anymore) about how Biden is going to be Hillary 2016, but EVEN WORSE!!11! What’s funny is how he often criticizes (with some justification) the Democratic political campaign industry for whining about voters when it’s their job to convince voters to vote for their candidate. And now he’s essentially whining about how stupid Democratic voters are for, I guess, not feeling the Bern? Maybe he should talk to Sanders’ campaign staff about not being stupid and incompetent, like he likes to tell Hillary’s campaign staff.

    I like his posts on Elon Musk and transportation issues, but I think he should have moved on to another “job” a few years ago, especially considering how much he whines about how hard it is to generate a paragraph or two of content (repeating himself in similar language at least half the time) every few days as his full time job.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: His comment about Congressman Clyburn isn’t going to play as well as he thought it would in his head before he said it.

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @sdhays:

    Atrios is getting all haughty about Biden’s commanding win. He has a petulant, whining, silly post

    Now that doesn’t sound like Atrios…

    /S

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: He pretty much grimaced through the whole thing. And I say this as someone who has had at least one ex girlfriend describe my outward facing presentation as grim.

  21. 21.

    JeffH

    @Nicole: 

    And being able to play well with others seems like it is a slightly relevant ability for a president to have…

  23. 23.

    Lyrebird

    @lamh36: And all this after Sen. Sanders had four years to listen and learn from his wrong steps…  Ugh.

    I have relatives & neighbors who are big fans, but my only word for Sanders is, Next!!!  (as in you had your shot and you blew it)

  24. 24.

    West of the Cascades

    What was the original Star Trek episode that had Melvin Belli in it as some sort of angel who was leading children, but whom Kirk and Spock eventually expose as evil? I remember the deterioration of the “angel’s” visage as its evil was exposed, vividly. Seems the same may be happening to St. Bernie.

  25. 25.

    piratedan

    for me, I really don’t have an issue with Warren stays in the game.  There are a couple of reasons for her to do just that…

    1. If she believes that her ideas and solutions and plans have been lost in wilderness of the previous 8 months while voices sorted themselves out, then this IS the opportunity to take her case to the people without spin, without someone trying to reduce her positions to a bumper sticker.  Legislation is hard, viable solutions are even harder.  I’m not a huge proponent of M4A, but Liz says that she can pay for it, she’s ready to show her work, all we got were sound bites and hot takes
    2. Both of her opponents are in their 70’s… one has already had a heart attack in the last six months, the other has a history of stepping on his dick in key moments.  Would you risk too much by simply staying in the game or will you alienate a nation or the national party vis a vis the media that has largely attempted to ignore you anyway.
    3. This campaign is about defeating the current POTUS and all of those who enable him.  She’s been the only candidate left who’s promised to hold him and them still accountable.  There’s no reason to believe that all of the shoes have dropped when it comes to scandals with this administration.  The longer she stays, the more this issue HAS to be discussed.  It NEEDS to be discussed.  The public needs to know and understand that these folks will be judged fairly and competently, but there needs to be a reckoning by the next administration and Warren continuing to make this point is essential, okay, so she’s taking one for the team, if so, the team needs to have her back.

    just my .02

     

    and to watergirl a couple of threads back, the lady reporter from WaPo has been the source of some deliciously placed spin aimed at sabotaging Warren’s campaign by misrepresenting what she has campaigned on, hence the comparisons to Chozick, who shaded Clinton for the NYT and was the source for a goodly amount of all of that “serious concerns” bullshit that was forever seized upon by our media (all for a glorious book deal, so she could further her career on the said same CDS that she aided and abetted).  So she could have very easily greenwalded Warren by putting the key speculation at the top, but not backing it up with anything solid and burying her both sides bonafides further down post the lede to generate the necessary spin.  She is apparently part of the Cruel Girls Journo club who seem to have issues with pols of the same gender.

  26. 26.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    Bernie’s problem is that his brand is the socialist iconoclastic outsider, and iconoclastic outsiders don’t play well with others.

    Hence his inability to put together a true coalition of people that don’t totally agree with him.

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    Bernie Bros were right all along to call Warren a snake. She’s mostly respected their nonaggression pact. But one of the biggest reasons Sanders faces a big delegate deficit is Warren’s evisceration of Bloomberg at the debate, which let the moderate lane consolidate around Biden.

    So, let me see if I understand this. Warren eviscerated a Billionaire(tm). Good! But that evisceration hindered Bernie because it aided Biden. Bad! So Warren is a snake! Bad! But we want her endorsement. Good!

    This is political strategy as charted by M.C. Escher.

  29. 29.

    West of the Rockies

    @The Dangerman:

    If Trump loses, he is damaged goods.  Enough people will no longer be afraid of him so that he will receive more volatile pushback from the right.  But that’s just, like, my opinion.

  31. 31.

    sdhays

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ll give him this: he holds a long grudge, and sometimes it’s justified. I especially appreciate how he always “celebrates” the anniversary of Tom Friedman’s “Suck On This” interview. He’ll never forget, and no one should.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. Senator Sanders does not understand that politics is the art of the possible not the ideologically, inflexibly pure.

  35. 35.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman: Haven’t seen the clip just yet (and of course I *would* say this) but it wouldn’t surprise me if Sanders is actually in physical pain.  In all the video I’ve seen over the past week or so, he’s been visibly laboring to breathe.  If his wife or his staff actually cared about the man, IMO they’d tell him to withdraw ‘with honor’ (America doesn’t deserve such a fine leader!)… but the revenge-via-death-on-the-field (‘white martyrdom’) romance is strong in Irish-Americans of my generation such as Jane O’Meara.

    If that’s her goal… I only hope he achieves apotheothis before he does much more damage to the Democratic party and the United States!

  37. 37.

    Anya

    @Adam L Silverman: Jamal Smith was not impressed. It’s not something that a serious politician says. If you can’t win over people who agree with you on majority of issues, how are you going to win over anyone else.

    Sometimes, Bernie acts like a Tumblr blogger — only engage with people who agree with you, block everyone else,  and call them antis.

  39. 39.

    NotMax

    Biden’s Looking Better All the Time

    Biden is Biden; no better today than yesterday or the day before.

    He’s better positioned today but not a better candidate today.

  40. 40.

    Nicole

    @JeffH: And being able to play well with others seems like it is a slightly relevant ability for a president to have…

    Absolutely. It’s why, even if Warren hasn’t figured out what Sanders is about by now and eventually endorses him, I’d still favor Biden over him.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @sdhays:

    : I’ll give him this: he holds a long grudge, and sometimes it’s justified. I especially appreciate how he always “celebrates” the anniversary of Tom Friedman’s “Suck On This” interview. He’ll never forget, and no one should.

    True that. When he was good, he was very good. I honestly believe reading his own comment section broke him.

  42. 42.

    Anne Laurie

    @piratedan: the lady reporter from WaPo has been the source of some deliciously placed spin aimed at sabotaging Warren’s campaign by misrepresenting what she has campaigned on…

    Was the lady reporter in question Annie Linskey?  She’s been  hate-stalking Warren since Scott Brown lost his seat to her — I personally believe the WaPo hired her away from her earlier spot at the Boston Globe for just that reason.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    @sdhays: “I got nothing.  Talk amongst yourselves.”

    Heh.  ;-)

    I haven’t read him in years, and even then didn’t spend much time there.  He’s got a sharp mind on urban planning issues, and his point (that you mentioned) that politicians need to convince people to vote for them is a good one, but indeed it seems like he should either do the blogging job or move on.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    lamh36

    So wait, there are rumors that Andrew Yang is gonna run for Mayor of NYC…I don’t know why I thought he lived in Cali?

  45. 45.

    sdhays

    @Anne Laurie: In the British version of “House of Cards” (SPOILER ALERT), PM Francis Urquhart is about to lose the leadership of his Party and have all of his nasty secrets come out, so his wife has him assassinated. Better to die a martyr than go down in disgrace.

    That was some cold shit. I hope it’s not like that in the Sanders household (although I’m getting to the point where I can believe anything – is he actually considering picking Tulsi as his running mate, or is that just a fantasy from his toxic hangers on?).

  47. 47.

    piratedan

    @Anne Laurie: bingo…… if you click on the link a couple threads back, there she is… splains a LOT, don’t it?  Classic Greenwaldian tactic, come out with some attention grabbing headline, no one bothers to read the story and then feign outrage when people jump to the conclusion that you wanted them to…

  48. 48.

    Mary G

    Connie Schultz has a great column out called “A Not-So-Super Tuesday:

    I try never to lead with my injuries, but it’s one thing to work hard to get over a disloyal love. A heart can heal, after all. It’s something quite different when the betrayal never comes to an end.

    Once again, it seems, we will have to wait at least another four years to see a woman sworn in as president of the United States.

    “It’s not because she’s a woman,” people tell me.

    “It’s because she’s that woman,” people tell me.

    “It’s because of Hillary’s loss that it feels like a woman could win,” people tell me.

    You can tell me and you can tell me and you can tell me — but let me tell you: There’s not a lie I haven’t heard about what a woman can and cannot do. At my age, every act of sexism and misogyny is an encore production.

    ETA: She says the “could” in the next-to-last paragraph in the blockquote is a typo and should read “could not.”

  49. 49.

    dmsilev

    Sanders Supporter Urges Importance Of Listening To Minority Voices Just Not Specifically The Ones Who Handed Victory To Biden

    Stressing the need for inclusivity and intersectionality in the 2020 Democratic primaries, local Bernie Sanders supporter Kevin Randall took to Facebook Wednesday to stress the importance of listening to minority voices, just not any of the ones that have handed victory to Joe Biden. “We need to make clear that, with the exception of those who showed up in droves to vote for Biden in South Carolina and on Super Tuesday, our movement has room for all people of color,” wrote Randall, who explained that it’s important to avoid becoming siloed within one’s own narrow worldview and to empathize with Americans from every background who did not just make Biden the new frontrunner last night. “Marginalized groups are being shut out of these conversations, so we need to take a moment to hear what, in particular, 18-to-35-year-old, college-educated, progressive black and Latino voters from western states have to say. They, along with the tiny minority of working-class citizens in disenfranchised minority communities who object to the moderate platform of Joe Biden, should not be made to feel invisible in our democracy.” Randall later added that it was also important to listen to older Jewish people, except for the ones who cast ballots for Mike Bloomberg.

  50. 50.

    sdhays

    @Another Scott: I check in to see what he says occasionally. Sometimes it’s interesting, but I never read the comments. It’s like they’re in a different language and I can’t decipher it.

  51. 51.

    Adam L Silverman

    @West of the Cascades: And the Children Shall Lead

    https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/And_the_Children_Shall_Lead_(episode)

    https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Melvin_Belli

    Melvin Mouron Belli (29 July 1907 – 9 July 1996; age 88) is most famous as a criminal defense and personal injury lawyer, not an actor, but is also known for playing the role of “Gorgan” in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “And the Children Shall Lead“. He filmed his scenes for the episode on Monday 1 July 1968 and Friday 5 July 1968 at Desilu Stage 9.

    Among his many legal accomplishments are the defense of Jack Ruby, the man who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald, and numerous refinements to personal injury litigation, including “day in the life” films designed to graphically demonstrate the impact of injuries on their victims. He was also the defense attorney of Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones. In this capacity, Belli appeared in the 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter, which dealt with the disastrous Altamont Free Concert and its aftermath.

    In 1954, his accomplishments led Life magazine to dub him the “King of Torts.” Walter Koenig objected to his playing the role of “Gorgan“, believing the role should have gone to someone in the acting business. (Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages) Fred Freiberger said of Belli, “He wasn’t the greatest actor in the world, but was very cooperative [….] He was fun to work with.” (The Star Trek Interview Book, p. 164) He was the father of Caesar Belli, who played Steve O’Connel in the same episode.

    He had a peripheral role in the investigation of the “Zodiac” killings, which took place in the San Francisco area between 1969 and 1973, and was portrayed by Brian Cox in David Fincher‘s 2007 film Zodiac, which dramatized those events. The film includes a reference to Belli’s guest role in Star Trek.

    He died in 1996 of complications due to pancreatic cancer.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    @sdhays

    And then there’s Alan B’stard.

    Later, B’Stard would intentionally mismanage the Tory election campaign so Labour would be blamed for an economic crisis, stage his own assassination to bring back hanging (and make £1,000,000 in the process). Source

    :)

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: He does.

    He’s running on declaring everything between Manhattan and his house in California as “the suburbs”, so he doesn’t have to relocate. His gentrification plan for Iowa is going to be lit!//

  58. 58.

    Nicole

    @lamh36: He was born in NYS, and I think lives here, though I’m not sure if he’s a city resident (though easy enough to fix, when you have $$ to buy NYC real estate). I guess after watching Bloomberg’s Presidential campaign he figures, “If that moron could win the mayorship of NYC, imagine how I’ll do when I offer every city resident oNe thOusAnd DollArs!”

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Catching up on the O’Donnell program and enjoying watching Amy Klobuchar struggle to nice things about Sanders while in her head I suspect she’s stabbing him with a comb and bouncing red Swinglines off his noggin

  66. 66.

    Mallard Filmore

    @The Dangerman:

     

    Trump, if he loses, will try to run again in 2024

    I have a lot of unjustified confidence that Trump will die in jail if the Democratic party wins the next election.

  68. 68.

    randy khan

    @dmsilev:

    That is remarkably tone deaf – “has room” for people of color and excluding “the people who came out in droves” in South Carolina.  I can guess how well that will go over with black voters.

  69. 69.

    Morzer

    I have to say, based on his recent aggrieved rantings, it rather looks as if Sanders is trying to run a third-party campaign from within the Democratic primary. All these Trumpian contrasts between humble Bernie the working man’s comrade and effete Beltway Joe the tool of neoliberal capital don’t exactly suggest a glide path towards loving unity at the convention and then total war on the Umber Bulk.

  71. 71.

    dmsilev

    @randy khan: Check the URL

    (it’s from The Onion, though I appreciate that these days it’s increasingly hard to tell the difference between that and reality)

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @piratedan: Thank you so much for this!

    and to watergirl a couple of threads back, the lady reporter from WaPo has been the source of some deliciously placed spin aimed at sabotaging Warren’s campaign by misrepresenting what she has campaigned on, hence the comparisons to Chozick, who shaded Clinton for the NYT and was the source for a goodly amount of all of that “serious concerns” bullshit that was forever seized upon by our media (all for a glorious book deal, so she could further her career on the said same CDS that she aided and abetted).

    So she could have very easily greenwalded Warren by putting the key speculation at the top, but not backing it up with anything solid and burying her both sides bonafides further down post the lede to generate the necessary spin.

    She is apparently part of the Cruel Girls Journo club who seem to have issues with pols of the same gender.

  74. 74.

    Barb 2

    Sanders is either a narcissist or has tendencies. Only HE can fix what is wrong. He doesn’t play well with others. Etc. His way is the only way. He isn’t will listen to others. He is inflexible. He has a rigid streak. Some of his cu!t members are bullies. He lies and steal. (He stole Hillary Clinton email list in 2016). He likes a certain kind of dictator.

    He is rather like Trump in ways.

    I haven’t done a full personality profile. But what I’ve seen and heard I done trust him.

  77. 77.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @L85NJGT: you made me curious, so I went over  and as I was scrolling through I thought, I wonder how long before I get to some Obama-bashing. Two seconds later:

    Obama believed he was charming (haha sorry mr. Kenyan Muslim you can’t charm everyone) and popular (you basically disbanded your movement, dumbass, nobody cares what David Brooks thinks of you)

    What a bitter and odd little person he turned into

    ETA: one of his commenters:

    rhymes with mofo rexreroth • a day agoIt’s what happens when atrios goes day-drinking with Stoller and Nathan J.

  80. 80.

    Barbara

    @Adam L Silverman: He must have some association with NYC. His wife was one of the victims of the NYC gynecologist who groped a multitude of female patients — the one that Cyrus Vance decided to plead out with no jail time (his license was revoked).

  81. 81.

    Eolirin

    @Cacti: That’s a weak ad. Like I’m glad to see an actual attack on Sanders, and his response to finally getting some actual pushback has been both expected and revealing.

    But that’s amateur hour.

  85. 85.

    L85NJGT

    It’s all projection, all the time with this fucking guy.

    Is a “dysfunctional and cruel health care system” his puke funnel of dark money?

  87. 87.

    Ohio Mom

    I recall Atrios saying he feels a responsibility to his commentators, they are a long-standing community and what would they do, where would go, if he closed up shop?

    I don’t read him as much as I used to but I still find him thought-provoking more often than not. Never read the comments though, too much inside baseball for me to follow.

  88. 88.

    PJ

    @sdhays: I just watched Taxi Driver for the first time last week, and “Suck on this” is what Travis Bickle says before he shoots Harvey Keitel’s pimp character.  If Friedman saw himself as Travis Bickle when he wrote that piece justifying the Iraq War, he was more right than he will ever know.

  90. 90.

    Jay

    Stop telling your daughters they can be president when you are unwilling to vote for a woman president.— June Diane Raphael (@MsJuneDiane) March 4, 2020

  92. 92.

    Morzer

    Interesting and promising rumor going around that Steve Bullock IS going to run for the Montana Senate seat after all.

  93. 93.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Another Scott:

     

    Just got an EM fm senior IC friend, it began: “He will die in jail.”

    The beauty of a Democratic president is that no dependence on the IC is required.

  94. 94.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    @L85NJGT: A blog that is “A driver-less car filled by cats, ducks and naked mopping accidents”

    My personal submission for a rotating tag-line.

  98. 98.

    Morzer

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:  I thought Warren had raised a huge amount after her savaging of Bloomberg.  I would have guessed that the big problem for her going forward was the lack of wins. It’s hard to rally more support when the team doesn’t put points on the board. You can trust a Dolphins fan on this one.

  103. 103.

    burnspbesq

    Bernie isn’t wrong to characterize our health care system as “dysfunctional and cruel.’ For far too many people, it is all that and more.

    The problem is that none of his proposed solutions stands a snowball’s chance in hell of ever becoming enacted legislation—and God help us all if any of them ever did.

  104. 104.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    “His politics are not my politics.” ~ Bernie Sanders on Jim Clyburn

    Trashing Clyburn. He sure knows how to win over the Black vote.

  105. 105.

    TriassicSands

    @piratedan:

    I’m not a huge proponent of M4A…

    If one assumes that M4A is a well-designed universal health care system and not simply an expansion of the current Medicare system (which is a poor model for universal care), why are you not a proponent?

  106. 106.

    Martin

    @TriassicSands: Not directed at me, but here’s my view.

    M4A is inevitable. It costs half of what we’re paying now, even if you expand coverage to everyone, so it is a massive economic good.

    That said, it cannot coexist with the current system, and people will be harmed with the removal of the current system. The million or so workers that hold the medical finance system together. Physicians with debt that rely on their sometimes magnificent salaries (or they’re a GP struggling to pay off said debt). Those unions that couldn’t get salary concessions but have managed to hold onto their health coverage, so it’s literally the only labor benefit they have to hold onto.

    So, you have to construct either a graceful way to transition from one to the other such that you aren’t just unemploying entire cities of people, or you need to come up with a clever solution that gives people choices but leads them to the single payer option such that it dismantles the existing system through market effects. I think Harris’ plan came the closest to that.

  107. 107.

    Kathleen

    @piratedan: Yeah. I saw the “Warren negotiating with Sanders” item on Twitter then saw the byline. Thanks to AL I knew to take it with the proverbial grain.

  108. 108.

    patrick II

    @dmsilev:

    not to mention how Bernie hates billionaires but evidently is o.k. with one buying his way into the Democratic primary.

  109. 109.

    JWR

    Late Night with Seth Meyers’ “A Closer Look” was really good last night. (The part about Elizabeth Warren eviscerating Mike Bloomberg on national TV is priceless.) They followed that up w/ another episode of “Dioramas”, which was pretty good, too. I don’t know if I liked it so much because it really was so good, or if not worrying about politics for one friggin’ day has me in a better mood. ;)

  111. 111.

    kindness

    Bernie is really good with his 33% who back him.  Bernie has no clue how to get the rest of us to join him and his (and his toxic Bros) statements really only drive me further away.  Uncle Joe isn’t who I wanted but I’ll take him over the increasingly elderly crank that Bernie is.

  112. 112.

    PenAndKey

    @Anya: Sometimes, Bernie acts like a Tumblr blogger — only engage with people who agree with you, block everyone else,  and call them antis.

    That’s really it in a nutshell. Do I like some of the things Sanders proposes? Yes, and as a goal they’re good to hear and with his voice on the field the other liberal proposals seem almost moderate in comparison. If he was willing to play good cop bad cop that way I’d be fine with him. That’s not the case, and he’s surrounded himself with true believers who act like they learned their outreach skills on Tumblr or Facebook. The aggrieved enabler of purity trolls is, himself, a purity troll. All the progressive dreams on the planet won’t make that more appealing without a path to actually accomplish those dreams.

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