Sanders
It’s the policy, stupid. Bernie isn’t perfect, especially on foreign affairs, but he’s better than anyone else I see in the field in terms of what he wants to do. Moreover, he’s credible, since he’s been for most of the same things all his life.
A lot of voters are very good at saying they support certain policies, then finding an excuse to vote for a politician who doesn’t actually want those policies. This is particularly endemic in Democratic primary voters, who never saw a left-winger they didn’t want to spit on while claiming to agree with.
Yes, he’s 79, but in good in shape for 79. All that really means is that he needs a VP candidate who shares his politics and is younger, rather than a “balance VP.”
As for the fact that he’s a white male, I’ve seen too many women and people of color turn into centrist or even right wing disasters. I understand the symbolism of a woman President, but Obama was a disaster, and I remember how much I got told how important it was that he was black.
Yeah, no. I’ll stick with “good policy” as my determinant, not genitals or quantity of melanin in the skin.
Bernie it is.
The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.
Bill Hicks
Personally, I’m with Tulsi–not because she’s woman or a POC, but because she IS good on foreign policy. Sanders had a chance to show he’s changed by putting out an unequivocal statement against Trumps’s Venezuelan coup as Tulsi did, and he fumbled. American cannot begin to fix its enormous domestic problems until it stops bombing, droning, invading and toppling foreign governments. What good is domestic “socialism” if we are still butchering innocent civilians around the globe?
Besides, Sanders stabbed his supporters in the back last time around, and I’ll never forgive him for it.
jonst
I’ve yet to make up my mind on who to support. But there is nothing Ian wrote here that i disagree with. I think if any candidate can master ‘a progressive plan’ re health care in America, I mean nail the facts of his or her plan down, how to implement it, and pay for it, they will have the complete attention of the American people. Bernie has thought a lot about this.
On the other hand….the accusations–and that is all I think they are at the moment–from the metoo crowd re the Bernie Bros could really hurt him.
Ian Welsh
Yes, jonst, I agree, Tulsi’s very good on foreign policy and I considered adding her as my alternative choice.
ponderer
He’s the most popular politician in America after all. In 2016 he was the only candidate who beat trump in the polls, lest we forget. Unfortunately, he got compromised during the campaign and came out for Hillary. He’s fallen for Trump’s trolling since then. That will all be used against him in 2020. I think he has a good shot, but not as good as he had in 2016. He looks weak because he was mistreated by the D and fell into line. My advice to him would be to find a pit bull for a VP and after the primary announce he will veto any 2nd amendment restrictions. That’s just kabuki because of the supreme court and constitution, but it will go a long way to mute his “socialism” criticisms.
Tulsi doesn’t have a chance IMHO. She’s an excellent candidate, but only for a subsection of people. The rest will get out to vote against her. It will be another tossup except for the later coup the MIC will arrange if she wins the general.
Bernie’s foreign policy is not what I would prefer. I’ve spent barrels of electronic ink decrying our out of control MIC and the ever ticking hand of the doomsday clock. The problem is that anyone who goes against that is subject to being assassinated. Some problems you don’t attack from the front. Watching Trump be ignored by the Generals and Executive apparatchiks makes me think that he might have the only viable tactic of gently wearing them down and playing them off each other. I could see Bernie do that but I can’t decide if he wants to. He’s probably the only Democrat I would vote for at this point.
Whatever happens, we will be living in interesting times.
jeff wegerson
77 if that helps any. Sept 8, 1941. So 79 when he takes office.
Alvin Murray
Instead of the word \”genitals\” maybe try \”gender\”. You are sounding like a terf.
Tom
Bernie didn’t fight the rampant vote rigging Hillary engaged in. Like Corbyn, he says the right progressive ideals, but when the chips are down, they don’t fight for them and get ran over.
Give me a fighter for a real progressive policy that isn’t invested with SJW nonsense and focuses on delivering Union Manufacturing Jobs, Healthcare for all, bringing the troops home and firing half the generals, ending all support to dictatorial regimes and apartheid regimes, and focusing on American Infrastructure.
Identity politics is a turnoff to the heartland as Trump proved when the Blue Wall went his way.
Bill H
@Bill Hicks
Tulsi would rate higher for me, too, based on her concept of foreign policy, but I have not heard enough regarding her ideas on domestic policy to really line up behind her yet.
@Jonst
Your comment about “to implement it, and to pay for it” is key in my book. Bernie has big plans for all kinds of good stuff, but his plans on paying for it should be sniffed out as nonsensical by a fairly intelligent third grader.
The “70% tax on the rich” raises, at best, less than 1% of the cost of “free health care for all.” Corporate taxes presently raise $225 billion, so you could triple them and generate enough for another 15% of the cost of one of his many programs. Warren’s “tax on wealth,” if it turns out to be constitutional, raises $225 billion per year, another 7% of the cost. So we’ve exhausted all of the “tax the rich” schemes and have managed to pay only 23% of the cost of Bernie’s free health care for all.
How many Democrats are talking about raising taxes to pay for free health care for all, free college for all, a car in every garage, a chicken in every pot, and a “guaranteed income” for everybody, and paying for all of it by “taxing the rich?” Bernie is. Tulsi isn’t talking about cost at all, and until she does I am not on board with her.
Mallam
Let me get this straight: people here support a right wing Democrat — arguably the most right wing for her district — in the Congress because of her “good” foreign policy? This says it all that you’re not actually about policy. Tulsi Gabbard is an Islamophobic bigot, who supports the War on Terror, doesn’t want to take in refugees, and thinks we need to bomb civilian areas more to kill terrorists. Is this what constitutes “left” foreign policy? What an embarrassment. I’m thankful Bernie is there to represent an actually good foreign policy, not kooky conspiracy laden bullshit.
Krystyn
Sanders/Gabbard 2020
Ché Pasa
No US politician will solve your problems; most won’t even give them a cursory acknowledgment.
Bernie has the advantage of a long career speaking intelligently about the economic issues that affect a broad range of the public, but he’s never had the power to do much more than speak. As president, his freedom of action would be inherently limited — both by constraints put on the office after the Trumpian overreach and by the conditioning he’s been subject to as a long-serving Senator. (Viz: Obama, Barack for an example of how that works on someone who hasn’t even served a full term as a Senator.)
Support any politician — or outsider — you want; just don’t expect more than minimal results.
False Solace
LOL, how do we “pay for” health care that is cheaper? What an inane question. The US has the most expensive health care system in the developed world. And our health outcomes rank well behind dozens of other nations, which means most of that money is wasted. We pay twice what the UK does and don’t cover 27 million people. We have declining life expectancy, again, for everyone but the very very richest. We have millions of bankruptcies every year because of medical costs that destroy our middle class. Our system is stupid and evil, it is morally wrong, and anyone with a soul and a lick of sense should support immediate changes. The only group our system serves is wealthy health care execs with stock options. The donor class.
The fact is the federal government already pays for half the health care in this country. It pays for the most expensive population group, senior citizens, and it pays for the very poor and veterans. It also subsidizes private insurance (and guarantees a profit!) to private insurers via the ACA.
A Medicare For All system with negotiation for prescription drugs would be far, far less expensive than what we have now. The US system is deranged. We need to change it, now, not sit around whinging about how “expensive” a cheaper system would be. What part of “we spend twice as much as the UK per capita” do people not understand? How is Canada magically able to do this while we cannot? US exceptionalism in action. Let’s go bomb a few more countries while the working class dies.
Pale White Dot
Bill H,
Amazing, isn\’t it, that nearly every Western democracy, each one with only a fraction of the economic force of the US, can manage to have socialized medicine that 1) works well, and 2) actually ends up costing individuals less than ours?
You seem to have spent some considerable time going through \”the numbers\” and concluded that the plans Dem\’s have put forth \”won\’t work\”. I must say, without going through your analysis, there must be something deeply flawed in this, if the above is true, don\’t you think?
And by the way, the idea that it is \”free health care\” is also clearly not accurate. If we socialize our medical care in the US, the money will come out of our taxes, not our after-tax income as it does now for most with private insurance. If any Dem politicians are saying this, it would be news to me (as well as being wrong)…sadly, rather, I think it is a canard employed primarily by Big Pharma shills or others with a warped ideology about the role of government.
So please spare us the \”how will they pay for it\” trope already, it\’s a completely bankrupt argument to make at this moment in history when it is obvious it only applies to..ahem…Liberal policies that have huge public support.
False Solace
Bernie Sanders’ M4A bill does not include coverage for long term care which is a significant drawback. Jayapal’s M4A bill (to be introduced in two weeks) is expected to be significantly better. But at least Bernie has a workable bill and a consistent stance on this issue. No one else in the race comes close. Trump has been in office years and offered nothing.
If you will ever need health care in your life, Bernie is the only sane choice. Unless you’re already a millionaire, I mean, go buy whatever candidate makes sense.
anon y'mouse
if the federal government is not the creator of the currency, then who is?
if the creator of the currency can not “pay for” something, what does this mean?
where did the money in all of our pockets and bank accounts actually come from?
an outstanding bill is meaningless if i have a printing press in my basement, and the legal authority to use it.
wendy davis
‘Tulsi Gabbard’s Mixed Record’ stephen lendman
https://stephenlendman.org/2018/07/tulsi-gabbards-mixed-record/
to that i’d add that she’s on the odious, imperial council on foreign relations, wanted to partition iraq, and is conflicted about torture because: presidents and ticking time bombs.
an excerpt from in defense of tusli gabbard, progrssive army.com
abbard, a practicing Hindu, was also criticized for ties with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and right-wing Hindu groups. Ziad Jilani writes in a scathing article: “Gabbard has inculcated this base of hardline [right-wing] BJP supporters, which has propelled her into Congress with thousands of its dollars.” Eoin Higgins chimes in, highlighting the support she received from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) which he accuses of being “a foe of human rights, working to defend the Hindutva movement from much needed public scrutiny in the US.”
It’s important to note that it’s not surprising that Hindus, irrespective of their political views, would largely support the first Hindu member of Congress. Blaming her for the nationalist views of some of those supporters is like blaming Bernie Sanders because of the attitude of some of his supporters on social media (a.k.a. the Bernie Bros). The same logic applies to HAF’s support for Gabbard, which naturally will put all of its weight and support behind all Hindu candidates for Congress. HAF supported the progressive icon Ro Khanna, who also faced criticism as a consequence.
Soumya Shankar, however, highlights valid concerns such as Gabbard’s opposition to House Resolution 417 which chided India to protect “the rights and freedoms of religious minorities” and recommended that Modi should continue to be denied a U.S. Visa. This was a response to Modi’s negligence in the 2002 Gujarat riots which claimed over a thousand lives, most of them Muslims. Gabbard opposed the resolution, arguing that it “weakens, rather than strengthens, the friendship between the United States and India.” Gabbard also downplayed Modi’s involvement, stating that there is a lot of misinformation. I disagree with Gabbard, and her comments should be challenged. Despite a lack of evidence, Modi maintained that a Muslim mob attacked the Godhra train that sparked the violence. Fareed Zakaria also opines that “[i]t is a dark episode in India’s history, and Modi comes out of it tainted.” But Zakaria agrees with Gabbard’s position, saying that denying Modi a visa “has been selective, arbitrary and excessive.”
To Tulsi Gabbard’s credit, she is starting to distance herself from far-right Hindu nationalists when she decided to withdraw from Chair of the World Hindu Congress. Soumya Shankar reports that “[d]ispleasure with Gabbard’s recusal from the World Hindu Congress was widespread.”
http://progressivearmy.com/2019/01/22/in-defense-of-tulsi-gabbard/
but a spox for gabbard says now that she ‘doesn’t believe in torture’. just a momentary lapse of a moral compass.
once modi was permitted a visa under obomba (iirc) tulsi took him on two tours across amerkia, most notably to silicon valley. sure, with a population of 1.4 billion, what a market for IT.
sadly, there’s no one running for prez i’d vote for. but you ought to see what arundhati roy has to say about modi and the bjp. i’d link it, but that would trip my comment deeper into moderation.
Bill
One does get a bit tired of watching “political realities” turn Dems into “centrist or even right wing disasters” regardless of how they campaigned. Bernie may or may not be transformative, but seems the most resistant. Maybe the swamp will actually start to be drained. Maybe that’s the start we need.
different clue
I also will vote for Sanders here in the Michigan primary, assuming we have one.
How to pay for CanadaCare For All? Presumably instituting CanadaCare would eliminate the need for private health insurance companies. The privataxes we currently pay to them, called “premiums” , would no longer be charged by the private health insurance companies which would no longer exist. That money would be available to us to pay as govertaxes instead, to the govertax-funded CanadaCare system. If CanadaCare could provide us as much care and as good as the “better” insurance plans now provide for those who have them, and could do so at a price in govertaxes no higher than the price in privataxes ( “premiums”) we pay the insurance companies today, and if we could spread this good care to ALL legal residents of the US, then govertax-funded CanadaCare for all Legal Residents of America would be a step up. And that is how-where we would pay for it.
Sanders was always a domestic-focused person. He will not satisfy the people who wish to see Israel abolished. But he might try driving policy and support back to the Lesser Israel which might permit a Lesser Palestine to emerge. He might also back away from his current support for the mainstream AntiRussianitic Racist AntiRussianism which currently informs US goverpolicy against Russia. Then again, he might not. I will accept these foreign policy stands to get the domestic policy upgrades he would like to see.
About the various anti-Gabbard memes still circulating . . . I have not done a personal forensic inquest on where they came from and how they are currently propagated and re-propagated. I did read a little article about that somewhere which Naked Capitalism guided me to. It noted that much of that was based on deeply obsolete information from long ago, and much of the establishment hatred for Gabbard is based on her unwillingness to advance Cold War 2.0 against Russia, and her unwillingness to support the overthrow of Assad and the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Jihadistan on the territory of the current Syria. The Clintonite Media have tried dropping a Cone of Silence over Gabbard altogether.
Sanders and Gabbard are hated by all the right people. Someone who is so hated by the Imperial Establishment and the Jonestown Clintonites comes strongly recommended just based on that alone.
Right now, I think a strong “Dream Ticket” would be Sanders-Gabbard. If one or two terms of President Sanders works out well for the US, Gabbard would be right there to run for President on “Stay The Course”. With any luck, the evil Clinton would still be alive to see that happen.
( ” How dare she usurp the Throne? It should always have been MINE! >>Screech Howl<<")
Bill H
@Pale White Dot
It is the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office which says that “health care for all” will cost $3.2 trillion per year. No one seems willing to argue with or refute that, so any discussion of providing “free health care for all” must include naming a source of that $3.2 trillion per year.
And that is precisely what Bernie Sanders is proposing. The word “free” is included in his health care proposals, and in his proposals for college educations for everyone. Higher taxes are not mentioned ever by him, but tax cuts frequently are.
@different clue
No candidate ever says that private insurance would be eliminated, except for Kamela Harris who promptly walked back from that statement. I am 75 and in what should be the highest premium bracket, and I pay $5000 per year including drug coverage with no deductible or copays, which is $3000 per years short of what the CBO says would be the per person cost of “health care for all.”
I’m not saying it “won’t work” or that we can’t do it. We can and we should, but it will have costs and it won’t be easy or financially painless. Presidential candidates are leading the public down a primrose path with this “we’ll pay for it by taxing the rich” nonsense. In every aspect of life there is no free lunch. You get what you pay for. Sometimes less, but never more.
anon
Sanders/Gabbard is the winning ticket. I know people who are typically Republican or Libertarian who respect Gabbard and would even consider a vote for Sanders, especially if Gabbard were to be his VP choice. I really want to see these two go against Trump in the general. My fear is that the Democratic Party has already chosen Kamala Harris as its neoliberal candidate who will give Trump a second term.
Hugh
I agree with many here. We in the US spend about $3 trillion a year on healthcare. Most other industrial countries can cover everyone (We don’t. Millions remain uninsured, or paying for largely useless insurance, and still at risk of bankruptcy even with insurance.). They can do so at 2/3 the per capita cost, with better health outcomes and much higher approval and satisfaction. If the US could do the same, we would have a system where everyone had real access to real healthcare with better outcomes at 2/3 the cost, i.e. $2 trillion a year. It’s false and a canard that we can’t afford a universal single payer system. We can’t afford not to have one. I think it is a damning admission on the part of our elites (who do have good healthcare) that they do not want or are incapable of doing the same for the rest of us. No American should be afraid of getting ill. No American should be afraid of not getting the care they need. No American should be afraid that they and their family will be economically distressed or bankrupted by illness.
Sanders comes closest to representing views I hold, but like Tom I want a fighter. I want people who leave their blood on the floor.
As an aside, Establishment types, as represented by MSNBC, continue to push “centrist”, that is conservative Democratic pols like Biden and Klobuchar. They’re so bipartisan, don’t you know. Completely oblivious to the fact that this kind of more of the same, elitist, centrism is exactly why so many people sat out the 2016 election, voted Green, or for Trump.
Hugh
Not sure why a comment I wrote disappeared into the blue. Yet when I tried to re-post it, I got a duplicate comment notification. Oh well, Bernie is the best of a bad lot running against the nightmarish caricature currently occupying the Oval Office. Under more normal circumstances, Sanders would be a solid acceptable candidate. In view of the multiple existential threats we face, he is too little, too late.
Ian Welsh
As I’ve said many times comment moderation is automated. If you post something and it gets held, it goes into a moderation queue. That almost certainly doesn’t mean you’re on auto-moderation (almost no one is) and there’s only one person in the entire history of the blog whose comments get auto-deleted, and it’s pretty certainly not you.
Z
Harris is out of her league. She’s got similarities to Palin, though she is much smarter. Our rulers will try to stand her up for the nomination or Booker.
AOC, an outspoken advocate of speaking truth to power, the most uncompromising person I’ve ever seen walk boldly to the front of the American political stage (that’s a complement), will probably be in for Sanders, hopefully vocally. That ought to dampen the Bernie Bro BS.
Note that Obama, the horrible human being that he is, is assuming his former role as “head pr man for the establishment”, openly advertising (encouraging) an opportunity for a centrist candidate before they meet with his big money donors. With the AMZN/NY clash (that the people won!), it’s time to pull the crafty “lefty” closer, the Occupy extinguisher, from the bullpen.
Sure, he’s staying cool and keeping out of it and all but …
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/politics/obama-2020-democratic-candidates.html?action=click&module=Top+Stories&pgtype=Homepage
“He has urged candidates to push back on Mr. Trump’s bleak and divisive rhetoric about economic change, and to deliver a competing message that can resonate even in Republican-leaning areas, courting rural voters and other communities that tend to distrust Democrats.”
and …
“Mr. Obama has indicated to candidates that he worries about the possibility of a damaging primary fight, and has urged them to avoid attacking each other in bitterly personal terms that could help Mr. Trump. He has also hinted that he sees a relatively open space for a more moderate Democrat, given the abundance of hard-charging liberals in the race.”
Z
Z
Obama is feigning that he is so concerned about the party getting the right candidate to defeat Trump (it’s paramount!), when in actuality he is much more focused on preventing Sanders from getting the democratic nomination, regardless of Trump.
He’s always fought a lot harder and dirtier with the left wing of the democratic party than he ever did with the republicans. He doddered around for months allowing his health insurance bill to be weakened (need those 60 votes in the Senate!), but then when it became necessary to use reconciliation (which the left wing of the democratic party had been urging all along as a way to pass the public option, but Obama had steadfastedly refused to acknowledge as a possibility) he swooped in and wrapped that bill up quick before the momentum towards a public option became too much to quell.
Not to mention his Perez intervention …
Z
KT Chong
I like Tulsi better, but I think she has no chance of winning, especially now that Bernie has declared. Her inexperience showed when the corporate media torn her down over her anti-war stance.
IMO, Bernie-Tulsi would be the ideal ticket, followed by Bernie-Warren.
However, my fear is that, if Bernie wins the primaries, (and he has a very good chance of winning this time around,) he will pick a running mate who is a moderate establishment centrist as a maneuver to appeal to the “center”.
Typically, the running mate VP choice is largely irrelevant. However, in Bernie’s case, it is extremely relevant – because Bernie is really, really old. At his age, he has a very high probability of having health or mental problems – or just dying during his time in the White House. If he dies, the power will fall right back into the grasp of the moderate establishment centrist VP. That scenario will be so disheartening: after having fought such a long and difficult fight to finally put a progressive into the White House, then only to have the power slip right back into the control of the neoliberal establishment corporatist warmongering Democrats. That is gonna be so demoralizing.
Z
I don’t recall him ever being confronted about the Occupy crackdown, even after the proof came that it was federally organized, not that it wasn’t obvious anyway.
He should have been asked that immediately, but that’s America for you …
Z
Z
KT Chong,
I don’t have those worries. I don’t think there is anyway he’d go this far at his age just to sellout. And he is too smart not to realize what a sellout that would be.
Z
Phil Perspective
Gabbard’s foreign policy is a disaster. Look at the complete picture. She’s Islamophobic. She kisses up to Modi and Netanyahu.
Z
Bernie-Warren, it’s not perfect … I think less of her than I do of him … but it’s the best that we’ll get this time around.
Z
Z
Obama has a personal stake in the matter … which I wouldn’t be surprised that he’s been reminded of, in some sly manner … that here he is, very willingly being portrayed as a African-American hero. His legacy, his deceptive fairy tale, with the black community, which is the basis of a lot of his support, is of him being a transformative man. That takes a big hit if someone like Bernie gets in there and actually helps make their lives notably better. Because there’s one thing that can’t be denied amongst the black community, that can’t be explained away: their lives didn’t get any better when he was president.
Z
StewartM
Bill H.
t is the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office which says that “health care for all” will cost $3.2 trillion per year. No one seems willing to argue with or refute that, so any discussion of providing “free health care for all” must include naming a source of that $3.2 trillion per year.
Hmm, the US already spends $3.5 trillion on health care…so wouldn’t the $3.2 trillion be less?
And, as every other country with a truly national system covering everyone spends one-third to one-half less, then why wouldn’t our spending decline from $3.5 trillion to around $2.4 trillion, or even $1.75 trillion?
As for paying for it, you could something as simple as taxing ALL income at c. 12.5 %. Since every other country spends that much of GDP or less, and taxing all income would be the equivalent of taxing 12.5 % of GDP, that would do it. Of course, that would require raising the minimum wage, and pushing up the low-wage brackets, but that needs to be done anyway, and Sanders is for that too.
different clue
@Phil Perspective,
“Gabbard’s foreign policy is a disaster.” It is? What is so disastrous about preferring the semi-secular Assad to a seething pack of jihadis? What is so disastrous about non-war with Russia?
I believe she has said she rejects the whole concept of “regime-change wars”. That sounds like a recipe for future-disaster avoidance.
@KT Chong,
If Sanders were to win the nomination, I hope he would not do what you fear. One hopes he has read Hunter S. Thompson’s book Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail 1972. One especially hopes Sanders has read slowly and carefully the parts about where McGovern began the process of McGovernizing his own self by picking Eagleton for VP to begin with.
MojaveWolf
I love Bernie & Tulsi both and will be happy/ecstatic if either win.
Tulsi is my first choice, and she has the best foreign policy of any candidate by far (you can extend this back many decades and it would still be true) and I REALLY appreciate how she stands up to attacks (i.e. anytime she’s on a mainstream news show) but agree w/others that she went from a longshot to a nigh-impossible longshot now that Bernie’s in. Hopefully she will be his VP or SoS.
For some reason, the establishment types hate her even more than they hate Bernie, probably because she is THE greatest possible threat to the state of perpetual war they want to keep us in, and because she’s much more willing and able to buck their BS narratives, on everything from Venezuela to Syria. (if you want laughs, google Ari Weiss / Joe Rogan / Tulsi Gabbard, in which NY Times reporter Weiss declares Tulsi is “the worst” and has awful policies, then cannot name her policies, but falls back on “Assad toady”, then cannot say what she means by “toady”)
To get a view other than “people telling lies” on Tulsi, you can see her on Rogan in a two hour clip (just google Tulsi Gabbard / Joe Rogan) , before there was any talk of her running:
Or google Jimmy Dore / Tulsi Gabbard (add “smears” if you want to narrow it down), to get a debunking, or check out Glenn Greenwald defending her from some of them even though he doesn’t like her either on Tucker Carlson or in an article (I’m not putting in all these links in hopes of avoiding the whatever thing tosses comments in moderation)
Kim Iverson, Kyle Kulsinki and Lee Camp have also debunked the many smears against her. They all have YouTube channels if you are interested (Iverson is new and great, I strongly recommend people check her out).
Likewise not on YouTube but more of a regular journalist, Michael Tracy has pointed out the flaws in the attacks on her.
She has thus far handled herself very well under fire when on MSNBC or CNN (i.e. every time she’s on one of them, where they start out with stuff like “Assad is evil why do you support him?” when she doesn’t, she just thinks regime change wars are counterproductive when you can be near-certain that the current regime will be better than will come after, and points to our history of such wars in the middle east etc), and, well, I’m sorry she will probably only be VP or SoS, but not sorry that Bernie is off and running, and look forward to seeing them both on the debate stage (too, too bad that Richard Ojeda dropped out, coz I really wanted to see him debate the two-faced corporatist crowd, search “Richard Ojeda the dirt poor will eat the filthy rich” to see why)
But yeah, Tulsi/Bernie 2020 (my preference), or Bernie/Tulsi. Any of this will be good.
Hugh
Thanks, Ian, I just thought I had screwed up somehow.
I suppose anyone can have a road to Damascus moment, but pretty much all the Democratic candidates are johnnie-come-latelies. They call themselves progressives, even the centrist/conservative ones, but they have no progressive track record and often do have an anti-progressive one. That is except for Sanders, and on financial issues Warren. I simply don’t know enough about Gabbard or Buttigeig, for example, to comment on them.
nihil obstet
The people who follow politics and consider themselves liberal have been deeply propagandized. I’m STILL hearing them say “I love Bernie’s policies, but we need somebody electable.” That was how they justified Clinton two years ago, and you’d think they could figure out that it doesn’t work. But the whole savvy voter who strategically casts her ballot based on her knowledge of how everybody else is going to vote is just loony. But the concept slouches on. It will be one of the legs of a three-legged stool, the other two being “we realists know that you can only have teensie tinesy tweaks to abominable policies” and “Sanders is an old white dude who doesn’t appeal to the women and poc’s who are the future of the party” (unlike Joe Biden, whose performance with regard to Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas hearings ought to be on continuous loop.)
Spring Texan
Bernie is great and I support him. Tulsi — no. She has major problems, including being anti-Muslim and her cult connections. Also likes Modi. That’s a deal-breaker. Also very iffy on social issues. It disappoints me that so many who are eager to support Bernie — as am I — can’t see the very real problems with Tulsi. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/what-does-tulsi-gabbard-believe Don’t forget that she criticized Obama for not being willing to talk enough about “Islamic extremism” (I have plenty of criticisms of Obama, but that’s not one). I think she’s sincere. I also think she’s quite bad.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/tulsi-gabbard-president-sanders-democratic-party
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/16/18182114/tulsi-gabbard-2020-president-campaign-explained
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/05/tulsi-gabbard-2020-hindu-nationalist-modi/
She is the very worst of the candidates, in my opinion.
Spring Texan
I would be very happy with a Sanders-Warren ticket.
bob mcmanus
The Clinton twists hate Sanders, they really really hate him, and there are too many and too powerful. No way in hell someone gets the nomination hated by so many Democratic women. I keep telling ya, we will never see a white male Democratic President again.
It was all about over about the time Perez got his job. South Carolina, then California and Texas moved up to Supertuesday. This is already rigged, and Harris is stroking and flattering the Southern blacks the way they like it. Harris has the full Clinton/Obama machine behind her: staff, money, corrupt local pols. If anything goes wrong, they will get a brokered convention and the superdelegates decide on second ballot.
Warren’s the schoolmarm wonk. Gillibrand is the #Metoo sacrificial attack dog. She will be at the debates to ask Sanders why he supports a rapey rapey campaign staff. Again and again. Truth won’t matter. Not sure why Gillibrand didn’t do better.
Harris/Beto will be locked in a third of the way through the primaries. It will probably beat Trump, but just Clinton/Obama Mark 3.0.
Ocasio-Cortez will be sent back to waiting tables after Chelsea beats her.
I ain’t voting. My only hope is for the Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez wing to walk out of the convention and run as independents. They won’t win, but we need it all more broken than it is yet.
Sid Finster
Every winning candidate since arguably Bush 1.0 (“Kinder, gentler America”) has run for office as a non-interventionist, and then morphed into John McCain immediately upon taking the Oath of Office. Not only that, but each president has arguably been a more reckless imperialist than his predecessor.
I don’t pretend to know how the process works, or even if it is the same for every president, but the results speak for themselves. Hell, look at Obama, who was elected in large part on a platform of ending the stupid wars. He not only failed to end a single war, he gave us a bunch of new and stupider ones. Trump? Even more explicitly? The results? The less said, the better.
A President Bernie might be more reluctant to start new wars, it might be necessary to emphasize suffering little children and not fat contracts for oil companies to get him to sign off, he might feel really really sad before he pushes the button, but unless and until the Deep State is eradicated root and branch, the results will be the same.
StewartM
My questions about Gabbard:
a) How can she be (supposedly) pro-Israel and pro-Assad at the same time? It’s the alliance of Israel and Saudi Arabia that wants Assad out.
b) How can she be (supposedly) for more normalized relations with Russia yet be also said things like this?
https://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/rep-tulsi-gabbard-russia-must-face-consequences-continued-aggression-ukraine
Me, I’m good with normalized relations with Russia, not making the Ukraine situation any huge obstacle to normalization, and good with standing up to “our [supposed] friend” Israel on human rights violations and because Bibi is for what he thinks is good for Likud, not necessarily good for even Israel as a whole and he certainly doesn’t lose sleep at nights worrying about what’s good for the US. Ditto with the Saudi royal family. But if this information is accurate, Gabbard’s points seem to be working at cross-purposes.
(Not that I should be surprised, as our ME policy seems designed to piss everyone off, and to consider everyone an enemy, save Israel. Our ME policy is akin to the US in WWII have a plan of helping the Brits fight the Nazis while helping the Nazis fight the Soviets while helping the Japanese overrun the French while helping the Chinese against the Japanese while helping the Soviets fight the Japanese…you get the idea.)
ponderer
I’ll tell you what I would like to see. I’d like to see a politician with some skin in the game. I’d like to see Bernie say “I’ve got three houses. I’ll put one of them up as guarantee that I won’t start any new wars. I’ll put another one up to guarantee I work to reduce inequality and provide health care to all. Alternatively I’ll refuse to take any money from speeches or other sources after I’m elected other than my retirement. I’ll put it in writing and get an independent panel to verify it happens. If after my term the panel decides I didn’t fulfill my promises, I’ll lose out just like the American people lost out. If nothing else you’ll know I’m not lying to you to get 500 million for a “library” or “charity” after I’m out.” Then I’d like to see the rest squirm with the camera’s rolling. Sure there are loopholes but its more accountability than we’ve ever seen from from any other candidates. If partisans could be trusted to hold their parties accountable it wouldn’t be needed, but they obviously can’t.
Willy
Who’re the big donors? What percentage are neoliberal/neocon?
StewartM
@Willy
Here’s info on the candidates’ funding sources to-date:
https://qz.com/1536793/kamala-harris-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-all-of-the-democratic-presidential-candidates/
Bill H
@Stewart M.
“…why wouldn’t our spending decline from $3.5 trillion to around $2.4 trillion, or even $1.75 trillion?”
I don’t know. Ask the CBO. They are the ones saying it will cost $3.2 trillion, not me.
“As for paying for it, you could something as simple as taxing ALL income at c. 12.5…”
I would have not problem with that. Democratic candidates have fainting spells at the mere thought of advocating tax increases, and get really nervous about not advocating tax cuts.
Willy
Thanks. I’d love to see some squirming while trying to rationalize corporate PAC money.
Willy
For a capitalist solution to have a chance at working, it has to be capitalism, and not CINO.
If the mail business can be any kind of comparison with health services, it seems the USPS is what keeps UPS and FedEx pricing and services reasonable. Without the USPS and with the current corporate lobbying system as it is, it’s not hard to imagine postal prices rising and services declining.
MojaveWolf
With the caveat that Bernie is the leader on domestic policy and is going to win unless he implodes, or he gets cheated (and I will NEVER fully trust voting machine results, we need hand counted, hand marked paper ballots mandated everywhere; Tulsi put forth such a bill to crickets and stonewalling from all the Dems freaking out screaming “Russia hacked the election!”, who very much all want to keep hackable voting machines), or something really bad happens to him, or I woefully underestimate the American people’s ability to resist propaganda (and I don’t think that much of said ability, so this is a really low bar), here are two takes on Tulsi’s most recent appearance, this time on The View (Morning Joe was similar, everyone pretty much like Meghan McCain on the view, except with an additional dose of “is Russia backing your campaign?”, CNN similar, and she is handling all these well:
Tulsi Has To Explain War Is Bad To Comfy Overpaid Hacks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsRz3ZAYBOM (Kyle Kulsinki’s Secular Talk)
(note: Kyle is for Bernie, not Tulsi, and has some reasonable issues with her)
Tulsi Gabbard Takes On The View (Kim Iverson)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ySQDfsxhA
Yeah, it’s the view, but I just saw these whilst snowed in, and Morning Joe / CNN were not different.
Re: the NBC/MSNBC/Morning Joe “news story” that Russian bots were backing Tulsi, Glenn Greenwald & others have done massive takedowns, showing that this story was entirely based on the claims of a “cyber security expert” who previously got caught sending his own bots to an Alabama election so he could claim they were Russian bots on the side of a candidate he didn’t like. That story already vanished, so that tells you where we are out in the MSM in this country, and just how much the powers that be wish to destroy her, which is one of the best reasons I can think of to support her and make sure she gets in the debates.
Keep in mind, this is the same Tulsi who has twice been groomed for future, Kamala type superstardom by the DNC and twice broken with them over principle, first over foreign policy, then after rising again, over Sanders/Clinton 2016, quitting the DNC to endorse Bernie, condemn Hilary’s & the DNC’s warmongering aspirations, and being the first insider to openly state that the Dem establishment was trying to make sure Hillary won, AND she did this at a time when Bernie’s campaign was on the ropes after some primary defeats and her action may have single-handedly kept him in the race at the time. Those of you who want a fighter who won’t back down and will stick up for what she believes in, this is your gal. (and yes, Bernie’s going to win)
MojaveWolf
Again w/the caveat that I’m not trying to persuade anyone to switch from Bernie to Tulsi (I may yet wind up voting for Bernie in Cali, it’s a long time to the election, there are a lot of factors, and he’s great too, albeit he’s disappointed me a few times over the last couple of years), several people said they don’t know enough about Tulsi to have an opinion, and most of the media’s reporting on Gabbard is just a wee bit wrong, so here is an approximately two hour conversation between Tulsi and Joe Rogan from last summer, well before she had decided to run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIb2lmHgd5s
She’s not perfect, but she’s very good.
She also has numerous town hall youtube videos up from Iowa and New Hampshire; they’re usually streamed live at the time. I haven’t seen all of any or any of most of them, but they’re there.
StewartM
Bill H.
I don’t know. Ask the CBO. They are the ones saying it will cost $3.2 trillion, not me.
Then 1) the CBO says Medicare-for-all would be in essence, slightly cheaper than what we have now, and moreover cover everyone (which our $3.5 trillion current system does not do).
However, I am distrustful of the CBO’s estimate as it flies in the face of the empirical record of every other country that has a universal health coverage plan. The only (slight) outlier is Switzerland, which covers everyone but uses an improved version of the ACA to do so (which is why it’s only modestly cheaper than ours). Everyone else saves at least a third, and some a half, of what we spend.
The only thing complicated about health care reform is, if done properly, is that armies of paper-pushers in the medical-industrial complex, the insurance industry, and the debt collector industry lose their jobs. That is a good thing for the nation as a whole, but it also means why health care reform is best coupled with things like a Green New Deal, a permanent WPA, and the return of industry to the US to be read to employ those armies in work that produces real, useful, tangible things.
Hugh
Re the CBO, I agree with StewartM. About the only numbers you can trust from them are the off-budget/on-budget budget numbers (the off-budget is the real budget for those who want to know), the overall breakdown of these, and what the government takes in in taxes–that sort of thing, because these numbers are fairly real. But the CBO is also required by law to price out ten years lots of things and these should be viewed as works of fiction, GIGO affairs. Who controls the inputs controls the outputs.
KT Chong
Tulsi Gabbard met with Narendra Modi when she was (and still is) the first and only Hindu US Senator and he was the Prime Minister of India. So, the first and only Hindu US Senator had a meeting with the Prime Minister of India. How exactly was that out of ordinary? It would be weird and out of ordinary for the two to not meet when they had the opportunity to so. It would be rude for Tulsi to refuse to meet with Modi.
Gabbard had already rebutted claims that she is a “Hindu nationalist”: “My meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s democratically elected leader, have been highlighted as ‘proof’ of this and portrayed as somehow being out of the ordinary or somehow suspect, even though President Obama, Secretary Clinton, President Trump and many of my colleagues in Congress have met with and worked with him.”
Link: https://medium.com/@TulsiGabbard/religious-bigotry-is-un-american-and-must-be-condemned-9f1897a768c4
Duck1
Re Healthcare
When they came for the shoemakers, I said nothing
When they came for the textile workers, I said nothing
When they came for the auto workers I bought a Honda
When they came for the health insurance paper shufflers, I whined about affordability.
Charlie
2020: And so it begins *groans*.
We’ll have two years of utter bullshit from everyone that will likely be reneged when any of them receive any amount of popular (read media) support. The US is likely too far gone for even a semblance of progress in renouncing the Roman Imperialist kabuki theater we call politics, and thus, I’ll likely be sitting this one out as well.
I might change my mind if, and this is a VERY BIG IF, some bill is brought from one of our imperial senators to Trump’s desk that either a) establishes an actual single payer health system or b) specifically limits the power of the intelligence community and/or C) sends those higher ups who engaged in war crimes to the international criminal court.
I actually envision none of these three to occur, and I’ve even left out a bill that forces the justice system to give some of these donors the perp walk. We’ll have to see the bottom first before any significant change happens.
Donna Curtis
It’s too early to make up my mind. Right now I’m leaning toward either Sanders or Warren but that’s because I know them. I donated and phone banked for both their campaigns. Plus, Warren is my Senator.
I don’t know anything much about the other candidates yet.
PS: For those of you who like to piss on Bernie because he supported Clinton, I doubt you were around before he even threw his hat in the ring. It is my understanding from his original intentions that he would enter the primary to do his best to pull Clinton leftwards. He said that he would not viciously attack Clinton if he ran and he also promised us that he would support Clinton later.
Those of us who were there from the very beginning did not expect to get the kind of reaction he eventually pulled in. I don’t even think Bernie himself was expecting it but he did exactly what he said he was going to do. He ran as hard as he could without viciously attacking Clinton and he supported her later. Stop pissing on the guy for being noble and keeping his word.
This next fight should be interesting. He will not be running with one hand tied behind his back.
Z
The more I read about Gabbard, the more I like her.
Warren is a centrist in more ways than Gabbard and Sanders. But the one thing that she is strongest on is going after the banks and they are the biggest problem in this country. They have got way too much money, way too much control over the money supply, and hence way too much power: the power to incentivize behavior, the power to reward and punish behavior. They need taken down and taken down hard. I’m not sure how aggressive Warren would be at going after them, but at least she has a very acute understanding of the system and its corruption.
Z
Z
Wall Street has a very large incentive to push down American wages. The Fed bases its inflation gauges primarily on wages. If wages stay down, their inflation gauges stay down. If there is low inflation, they inject money into the banking system via open market operations (buying government bonds from the banks). That gives Wall Street leverage to push around the markets to their advantage. That’s why it was so important that the banks and brokerages be kept apart (thanks corporate lap dawg Clinton!) because now the money that the Fed injects into the economy pretty much never makes it into the real economy, it goes straight into the markets and acts as a wealth multiplier for the 1%. Little of that makes it back into the economy because the 1%ers are filthy flush to begin with.
So what do the 1%ers do with it? Rule us with it.
Z
Z
AMZN and Bezos are creatures of Wall Street. AMZN did not make money for a very long time and only became so wealthy and powerful via the stock market. Because their valuation was so absurd, a lot of short interest piled into the stock which gave its stock price a built-in velocity. Wall Street poured gasoline on it and drove it up. Bezos, a monster, sold the absurdity with his disarming smile (NEVER TRUST A SMILE), and by creating innovative metrics to show growth. Wall Street backed it and made it real. Again, for a long time AMZN didn’t make any money and just lived off of their stock price.
Now AMZN is the richest company on earth (or close to it) and Bezos is the richest man. He dominates the retail market along with WalMart and they both push down wages for retail workers. American wages are very likely lower than they would be otherwise. And inflation is low, according to the Fed’s metrics. And the circle of corruption continues as the Fed pours more money into Wall Street because inflation is low.
Z
Donna Curtis
@Z
Warren really does want a bite out of Wall Street’s ass. I can’t see her ever taking money from bankers but a lot of progressives aren’t so sure about her now because she backed Clinton instead of Bernie. This is my guess regarding why that happened:
When Warren ran for Senator I bet my former boss, Swanee Hunt, swung her considerable influence (donations and fundraising) behind Warren to help out. I can’t be sure because I wasn’t working for Swanee anymore by that time and I only did phone banking for Warren but… Swanee and Liz speak a lot of the same language and they worked for Harvard (Swanee at JFK School of Government and Liz at Harvard Law) so I find it very hard to imagine that Swanee did not back Warren.
The trouble of it is that Hunt is an acquaintance of Bill and Hillery Clinton and she was Ambassador to Austria during 1/2 of Bill’s administration. Warren might have felt obligated to her big Massachusetts donors to back Hillery during the primary.
Now if Liz can get out there and build up donors the way Bernie did she’ll feel like a free presidential candidate. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen.
Hugh
Donna Curtis, serious question. To whom should officeholders and politicians give their first allegiance, voters and the country or their friends, cronies, and class?
Z, it is a problem, i.e. typical, in both standard economics and MMT that they look only at wages and/or the CPI as indicators of inflation even as they ignore multi-trillion dollar bubbles in the stock markets. Such bubbles represent massive dislocation of societal resources into non-productive ends. And they are incredibly destructive rewarding companies and C-class executives for making decisions that are harmful to the company, its workers, and society in general but nevertheless please Wall Street.
StewartM
I’m seeing these reports about Joe Biden entering the race, and being preferred by 30 % of Democrats.
All I can figure out by that is that the DLC is still in good shape, that a hell of a lot of Democrats haven’t learned a thing, and are going to blunder away the Presidency over to Trump again in 2020.
S Brennan
I don’t really want to comment here anymore but, I have been on the public record, with my own name, for over 18 years so, to make it short:
I support Tulsi, I have followed her doings since ~ 2013 and believe her to be genuine.
Bernie is going to do what he did in 2016, suck the air out of the room and then fold like a cheap suit. Bernie’s run will clear the path for Hilla…uhm..uh..Kamala…both women having something in common…they slept with detestable men for the sole purpose of gaining power.
As I said in 2014-5, if [D]’s insist on running a Hillary/neoliberal, I will vote for the person most likely to defeat them.
The lessor of two evils is…the evil of two lessors.
Z
Greed is an insatiable emotion, it is infinite in nature, it can never be satisfied. The only thing that can cure greed is fear, fear of losing what they already have.
Wall Street fears Sanders more than any other politician because they know that he will go after their ill-gotten capital and the corrupt system that they’ve created to enrich themselves. They know that they can’t buy him or blackmail him because he is essentially clean.
Z
Tom
Tulsi is in bed with dictators and murderers, that automatically disqualifies her.
Bernie won’t fight it out for his principals. Ocassio Cortez is a moron who doesn’t even understand her own position and is too young to run anyway and drags others down as she turns off the Heartland.
Everyone else is SJW nonsense which turns off the heartland who are needed on board to get reforms rammed through.
The Republicans are for war and more of it. Trump is well Trump and thrives on utter chaos like a Masochist.
Only Tucker Carlson, amongst Republicans, seems to understand war and more war is stupid and needs to stop and the troops come home, the Generals fired for non-performance, and the Neo-cons made socially dead persons. He also understands we need to get manufacturing jobs back and the middle class restarted. But he isn’t a politician.
The US is systematically broken and in terminal systemic collapse. We need to hit rock bottom and go through a cleansing civil war before things get back on track.
ponderer
If any of these people were credible they would start by condemning Clinton for rigging an election. Then the DLC, and they should be insisting that they be removed from the party. They don’t do that because they are all politicians. As much as I wanted to trust Bernie, I had to hear about about major party corruption from wikileaks. The best you can say is that Bernie isn’t going to stand up to well financed interests even if he’s not part of the collusion.
As long as voters continue to treat politicians like human beings (or idols) and not the tools they are, they’ll never be taken seriously. That’s not on Trump or the other party, that’s on Democrats only. I’ll give Points for stubbornness though, no matter how many times they fail to deliver we always end up back here. You guys are still talking about what you want from the candidates like you were buying lottery tickets. You should be focused on how we can make sure they deliver.
S Brennan
Congresswoman quits Democratic National Committee, endorses …
https://www.reuters.com/…/congresswoman-quits-democratic-national-committee-end…
Feb 28, 2016 – WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Tulsi Gabbard resigned from her post on Sunday to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, following months of rising tensions within the group. … Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, is competing with …
MojaveWolf
Thank you, S Brennan!
& to quote myself upthread…
“Tulsi … quit … the DNC to endorse Bernie, condemn Hilary’s & the DNC’s warmongering aspirations … the first insider to openly state that the Dem establishment was trying to make sure Hillary won, AND she did this at a time when Bernie’s campaign was on the ropes after some primary defeats and her action may have single-handedly kept him in the race at the time. Those of you who want a fighter who won’t back down and will stick up for what she believes in, this is your gal. ”
&
“we need hand counted, hand marked paper ballots mandated everywhere; Tulsi put forth such a bill to crickets and stonewalling from all the Dems freaking out screaming “Russia hacked the election!”, who very much all want to keep hackable voting machines
Donna Curtis
@Hugh
I think politicians should be leaders. They should stand with the people who need them most even if those people aren’t their donors. Warren has walked a middle ground up till now, trying to please both (at least that’s my theory) so I’m going to be interested to see how she handles being a presidential candidate.
Z
I don’t agree with the cynical view that some of you seem to take towards Sanders and his relationship with the democratic party, in essence that he consciously tries to absorb the leftist factions to round them up and deliver them to the dems. I agree with Donna Curtis that his intention was to draw Clinton to the left to address some of their concerns. I also believe that he deserves some of the criticism that he gets from buying into the “save us from Trump” campaign that Clinton and the dems ran … as well as other demo-zombie pathologies … and also for any assumptions he may have made that Clinton would ever honor any pirouettes to the left she made in the primaries if she had become president.
I agree with Donna that he didn’t anticipate the amount of support he got … who did? … the dude has been whistling in the wind for a long time. His primary expectations were to create traction for the left within the party. I think he accomplished that more than he ever expected and his approach in some ways has been validated. I also believe that this time is different: he is running to win, not to show.
Z
ponderer
Tulsi Gabbard when asked about those remaining at the DNC after her departure:
Sounds like (a less forceful) Obama to me. Not exactly a stinging rebuke of Clinton or her methods.
paintedjaguar
@Donna Curtis
Sorry, you are being disingenuous about Bernie’s “nobility”. I’m not saying you shouldn’t support him, but it’s a fact that he betrayed us in the primary. Yeah, it was known that he’d promised to support Hillary after her expected win, but he PROMISED us a contested convention. It’s pretty clear that he made another deal before the convention, a deal that he didn’t share with us, which included going back on his promises to his supporters. Then there was his disinclination to raise important issues like Hillary’s personal corruption and the various sorts of election rigging that were evident during the primary.
What apparently happened with Bernie is, he got into the race purely to publicize his pet issues then unexpectedly found himself leading an actual movement. After the Dems essentially broke their deal with him, I think Sanders arguably had an opportunity to birth a credible third party presence. He chose instead to support both Hillary and her post-election “Russia, Russia” narrative. I’d love to see his memoirs one of these days.
I may yet vote for Bernie myself, but at this point I’m more enthusiastic about Tulsi, who has shown a lot of political courage and grace under fire without caving. I thought Sanders was kind of weak sauce even back in the 90’s when he started doing “Brunch With Bernie” on Thom Hartmann, but I had hoped that the strength of the movement behind him would embolden him more than it has so far.
S Brennan
TULSI GABBARD dateline November 2, 2017, Aaron Maté interview:
“It’s not about me, Aaron. This isn’t about me or my feelings or what impact they’ve had on me. I think the important question here is what has the impact been on our democracy. That is the critical point. That’s what we should all be concerned about. I don’t care who you supported in the presidential election, whether it was Hillary or Bernie or somebody else. The point here is about strengthening our democracy and coming together to enact real reforms that will actually do that in a real way. I think the time for kind of pointing fingers and infighting and bickering is long past. There is so much at stake here. I’m just encouraging people whether you’re involved with Democratic politics in a very direct way or if you’re not involved at all, now is the time for us all to stand up and raise our voices and say this is the kind of democracy that we want and actually fight for those changes to make it happen.”
As any reader with the wit of a wet noodle can see, “Ponderer” by quoting out of context, without a timeline or, something as simple as a link hopes to sell a falsehood against Tulsi. Too bad such behavior works because it degrades all who come to argue in good faith.
https://therealnews.com/stories/tgabbard1102dnc
Donna Curtis
@paintedjaguar
I’m not being “disingenuous” but I probably should have noted that I had to quit working the primary about a week before Arizona voted (iirc) because my Mom had to have emergency surgery. I have no clue what Bernie may have said to his supporters after that point.
KT Chong
Look at it this way: if Bernie had not kept his promises to the DNC to support the primary winner Hillary, the DNC would NOT have allowed Bernie as an independent and outsider to run again in the Democratic primaries.
ponderer
@S Brennan
Its the same quote, with the same meaning, just more text. Obama already gave us the look forward not backward speech, so I don’t think it necessary to belabor the point. She, like Bernie, has to tone down her criticism of the DNC and the neoliberals in the Democratic party. Her “principle stand” hasn’t cost her anything yet, it’s put her ahead. She’s a politician and she’s acting like one. Brevity prevented me from quoting Obama saying something eerily similar, go back and read his speeches. If anything he was more of a firebrand. They are just speeches not actions as we learned to our cost.
Let’s not point fingers? The Hillary campaign was running the DNC and no one thought to tell the public? Tulsi didn’t do that, Donna Brazille did. Tulsi kept her mouth shut until it was already out. She resigned with unspecific charges, but maybe she knew if it ever came out it would ruin her chances in the future..
People have been deciding on politicians by gut feelings or attractiveness or obvious lies for hundreds of years. We still don’t have a way to turn all that hope into actual change.
S Brennan
Yeah “Ponderer”, quoting out of context [negating the actual response], without a timeline [not allowing the reader to know that it was two years after your implied time-frame] or, something as simple as a link [so people could find out that your context/conclusion was artifice]…yeah..sure. Too bad such behavior works because it degrades all who come to argue in good faith…
ponderer
I have to admit I do get a little kick out of the American Idol “Presidential Special” we have every four years. Our society has turned what should be a chance to reasonably and rationally discuss what we need to improve and how to do it into a mashup between fantasy football and an episode of the Kardashians. Almost 50 years of open, wide-spread propaganda have passed and the average voter still treats criticism of their favorite pol like a slur against their dear departed mother.
I’d just like to know that you have a better plan than Obama and Clinton before him. As an independent I can’t do anything about the primaries, or the kind of candidates that get vetted. NAFTA, ACA, extraordinary rendition, all those things that your “mom’s” do and I won’t be a part of make it awfully hard to trust any partisan nominee or political party. Since you don’t share my ethical standards and insist on making me choose between a shit sandwich and a turd hoagie, I hope you are prepared for 4 more years of Trump.
MojaveWolf
As an independent I can’t do anything about the primaries, or the kind of candidates that get vetted.
Depending on state, this is not true. Definitely California and I think over half of the states, indies can vote in the Dem primary (take it from one who is and does). And if you actually liked any candidates significantly better than the others, even the other states will let you register as a Dem if you can stomach it. (I unregistered as a Dem way back in 00’s, so I understand if you can’t). I believe New York has the earliest deadline for this, but it’s still possible in all of them. If you’re interested, check.
Our society has turned what should be a chance to reasonably and rationally discuss what we need to improve and how to do it into a mashup between fantasy football and an episode of the Kardashians
Well, yes. Except just the Kardashian part. Not the fantasy sports part. If you try play fantasy sports for money without doing research and basing your picks on popularity narratives, you will go broke fast.
the average voter still treats criticism of their favorite pol like a slur against their dear departed mother
Not sure about the average voter, but yes, some voters do this. What you are failing to differentiate between is reaction to legit criticism vs deliberate lies and distortions (or takes so misguided they might as well be deliberate lies & distortions). “Tulsi didn’t stand up to the DNC and has no more willingness to take on the establishment than Obama or Clinton” would fall way, way out in the latter camp.
This isn’t even concern trolling along the lines of “AOC pays too much for clothes and food” or “Bernie took deductions on his income tax” or “Tulsi met with world leaders who had problematic elements instead of mindlessly yelling at them on twitter and encouraging war profiteers,” it’s more like saying “Tulsi is cheering on more invasions just as much as CNN and wants a new cold war!” Whether you actually believe what you are saying or not, it bears no relation to observable reality.
Since you don’t share my ethical standards and insist on making me choose . . . I hope you are prepared for 4 more years of Trump
Didn’t you say upthread you weren’t going to vote anyway? But yes, vote or don’t vote for whoever you want.
But if you *really* want someone who’s a genuine flamethrower and Tulsi isn’t good enough for you, try getting this guy back in the race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebovVxfO1t4
S Brennan
Thanks MoWo;
BTW, “Ponderer” also lied about the framing; ARON MATÉ most assuredly did not say anything like “Ponderer” implied when he said: “Tulsi Gabbard when asked about those remaining at the DNC after her departure”, what Aron Mate:
What ARON MATÉ asked was: Finally congresswoman Gabbard, you resigned in February 2016 from the DNC as vice chair to openly endorse for Bernie Sanders. Do you feel betrayed that those who stayed behind were working behind the scenes to elect Sander’s opponent?
So that’s why “Ponderer” didn’t link or quote fully, or, share a link, he was here to sell a lie. That’s why blogs have lost their traction, political operatives get on, spew lies, discredit the blog and move on. It’s sad but, the parties/lobbyists figured this out in 2004 and subsequently destroyed the blogging platform. A political operative for the DNC I know outlined the defensive strategy to neuter competing voices back in 2004…he might have been drunk when he was bragging…and he was a wimp in high school but, the little suck-up was right, the anonymous nature of comments allows nefarious actors to destroy reasonable conversation…they don’t have to win, just create enough discord to allow evil to thrive in [See Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and now, the USA].
https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060971847/thriving-on-chaos/
ponderer
This is easy. Tulsi calls for complete overhaul of DNC in April 2017 well after Wikileaks releases Clinton’s emails and after Donna Brazille spills the beans.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tulsi-gabbard-not-surprised-by-donna-braziles-dnc-bombshell-but-surprised-it-went-public
That’s all a rational unbiased observer needs to know. She may be the best candidate of the bunch, but she’s hardly rooting out corruption or challenging the status quo. She said she heard rumors of impropriety, but didn’t have any specific knowledge. The antiwar talk is nice, but its just talk thus far. Have we forgotten Obama’s pledge to get out of Iraq already? How about his rousing speech about reforming Congress ethics rules?
S Brennan
…after you get caught lying, you change your lie to fit the facts that you concealed to sell a previous falsehood…your deception counts on the laziness of people not to read the thread through, but, if they do, they’ll see that see that you are fraudster…and after that…you change your name…what’s your next name “contemplater”? Sheesh….
different clue
@S Brennan,
Did “ponderer” have a previous name before the name “ponderer”? If so, what was it? Knowing that, if it is possible to be known, could help us all do a longer-range looking-back forensic analysis of all the relevant comments.
S Brennan
Dunno DC, but my point is, without a traceable history, [S Brennan is over ~20 y/o], nobody can call you out. As you will recall, ~ 6 mos back, I was called out for things I said in the 2014-5 run-up. The accusations were true but, they were after the fact criticisms that required me to possess prorogation powers unequaled in human history….still, I owned them. I did not do as characterized in above commentary, wriggling about like a venomous viper, trying to escape retribution for a biting comment only minutes old.
S Brennan
Correction: not [things I said in the 2014-5 run-up] but, [things I said in the 2006-7 run-up].
MojaveWolf
@SBrennan — you are totally right, though they don’t need the anonymity of online to do this — see the recent Bernie Sanders town hall on CNN, where about half the questioners were easily identifiable as either Democratic Party operatives or employees/interns for lobbying firms (i.e. person listed on TV as “retired biology professor” would have been more accurately listed as “Chair of Baltimore County Democratic Party” or person asking “what are you going to do to stop dictators?” works for a lobbying firm representing both weapons contractors and pharmaceutial companies, neither of which count as “fans of Bernie”)(there’s a couple of podcasts and magazine articles covering this; I remember Kim Iverson on youtube and a Paste magazine article off the top of my head)
Another interesting and imo particularly evil thing is the escalation of slightly more subtle swift-boating type attacks, where you use a lie or distortion about a person’s strength rather than debating the strength and weakness of their actual positions. That seems to be the order of the day when attacking progressive politicians this year.
In the interest of discussion about real things, I STRONGLY dislike Tulsi’s position on H1B visas, and very much wish she had come out more strongly against torture when asked about it in an old vid clip that was making the rounds as soon as she declared; I see what she’s saying but the problem is when you allow it to be officially sanctioned, the chances of our government using it only super rarely and in highly unusual/unlikely circumstances is effectively zero and she should know this.
Interesting that she is almost never attacked for either of these; instead we get “diplomacy is bad when she does it” or “when she was a teen and until she was 21 she had the position of her hyper conservative parents on gay rights and defended her parents in public” Or the crazy in this thread. Ye gods.
ponderer
One thing trolls tend to do is accuse others of their biases. Whatever logical fallacies they use to gaslight their opponent are transferred to their opponents instead. Here is an example
The only difference between those in meaning is that Tulsi was asked if she felt betrayed. Betrayed by whom? The DNC vice chairs who didn’t quit is a logical assumption. Those who remained in their positions in the DNC. This is another example of sophistry and quibbling. That a very narrow reading could produce a lie that somehow changed Tulsi response when it clearly does not. Ad-hominem attacks also a favorite with the disingenuous. The more desperate ones will create multiple identities in order to create a perceived consensus against a target. It’s boring but that’s the internet. A real, compelling argument doesn’t depend on the personality of those delivering it or their opponents. It doens’t even depend on their motivations and instead is supported by facts.
S Brennan
“One thing trolls tend to do is accuse others” exactly “Pondarar”, now that you’ve outed yourself, go away.
ponderer
When one attacks people instead of their arguments, it shows a serious lack of intellectual fortitude. It’s sad really. I only comment on it when it becomes obvious and a barrier to reasonable debate. I considered several rebukes to my own positions that were nuanced and rational, but instead I was accused of creating new identities (easily spotted by Ian if looked into) and outright deception from innocuous comments.
A good rational argument that defends Tulsi’s record would be that we can’t know what someone else is thinking. She might and most likely does have NDA’s with the DNC that would limit what she could say. That’s why she had to wait until after Donna Brazille spoke out about the rigged election. It very well may be that she can’t attack Clinton’s record directly without some sort of legal reprisal and that she can still be an effective force against the establishment by changing the way the DNC is run once elected. It could also be said that as part of that “inside baseball” position she occupied she determined that Bernie wouldn’t have the assertiveness to prevent a repeat of 2016 and that is why she threw her hat into the ring. It could further be argued that we shouldn’t rush to judge someone as corrupt because we’ll never find genuine candidates with the lies and propaganda that accompany any discussion of politics.
That’s a reasonable position that doesn’t call people names, doesn’t lower the tone of the discussion or use deliberate falsehoods to “sell” a candidate. For those of us to come for a rational discussion of issues and candidates I think its important to point out the “Kardashian style ” is not necessary or helpful. The previous views of some others expressed in a dismissive manner will not work in the General Election and if one *truly* wants to represent progressive values that should be the main measure. Put them in the context and format to be the superior ideology instead of tribal signaling.
S Brennan
“When one attacks people instead of their arguments”
Says the commentator who started with an attack using lie atop deception, when that was outed you switched to personal ad hominens and now that was re-tributed you plead like an innocent…this is why blogs have become pointless…
ponderer
I didn’t attack anyone. I quoted a statement from Tulsi (easy to google I might add), and gave my impression. I’m also on record saying Tulsi is an excellent candidate further up in the thread, just not for the general election. That was before I knew anything about her leaving the DNC position during Sanders run. That was just based on her policy positions on her web site.
It’s obvious to me that there is some sort of grievance from prior threads. That’s why the facts are so firmly on my side and others would prefer to poison the well against their own candidate by using ad-hominem attacks instead of reasonable arguments. Any readers will note the near complete lack of action on Tulsi’s part to address the corruption in the Democrat party and her supporters use of standard astroturf tropes to deflect from her record. We’re supposed to believe that her principled stand of leaving the vice chair position because she felt (but did not name) anti Bernie bias somehow makes up for her later supporting Hillary Clinton. We are also supposed to believe in these principles even though she remained quiet for 2 years after said events to call out the corruption and lobby for “reforms” *after* Donna Brazille finally confessed. Tulsi never saw fit to address the allegations in wiki leaks until Donna brought it up. Her supporters still don’t.
S Brennan
ponderer permalink
February 28, 2019
“I didn’t attack anyone.”
================
Spoken shortly after:
===============
ponderer permalink
February 28, 2019
“One thing trolls tend to do is accuse others of their biases”
===============
Sheesh…
ponderer
S Brennan
Says the commentator who started with an attack using lie atop deception, when that was outed you switched to personal ad hominens and now that was re-tributed you plead like an innocent
ponderer:
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-simple-reason-ill-probably-support-bernie/#comment-102112
SBrennan
…after you get caught lying, you change your lie to fit the facts that you concealed to sell a previous falsehood…your deception counts on the laziness of people not to read the thread through, but, if they do, they’ll see that see that you are fraudster…and after that…you change your name…what’s your next name “contemplater”? Sheesh….
S Brennan
“Ponderer” didn’t link or quote fully, or, share a link, he was here to sell a lie. That’s why blogs have lost their traction, political operatives get on, spew lies, discredit the blog and move on.
Ponderer:
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-simple-reason-ill-probably-support-bernie/#comment-102209
ponderer:
It’s difficult to know someone else’s mind so I don’t call people trolls or plants as a general rule. I only point out troll-like behavior. I also point out illogical arguments where helpful.
S Brennan [in one of their most profound moments in 20 years commenting here]
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-simple-reason-ill-probably-support-bernie/#comment-102313
Sheesh..
Indeed.