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monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

 
 
Lash
 
  0  
Sun 17 Sep, 2017 02:19 pm
Sanders nay-sayers should at least note he is strong-arming Ds to finally publicly support single payer. He's making something happen toward enabling Americans to have affordable health care.

Lash
 
  0  
Sun 17 Sep, 2017 02:32 pm
A fair assessment of what Sanders is accomplishing for American healthcare.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/9/15/16304082/bernie-sanders-single-payer-medicare

Excerpt:

The debate Sanders is engaging lies upstream from arguments about health care policy. He is trying to remake the political framework in which future technocratic health care debates take place. And it is already working. Senate Democrats I speak to are thinking much more now about how to create single-payerish plans that they believe to be more technically and politically sound than the Sanders bill. Some of them are current cosponsors on Sanders bill. Absent Sanders’s advocacy, none of them would be seriously thinking along these lines. The same is true for left-of-center think tanks.

The Democratic half-measures that follow Sanders’s plan will be different from the Democratic half-measures that preceded it. He’s changing the party’s definition of success, and thus changing the future path of health policy.

Policy is all about goals
The lesson of the GOP’s repeal-and-replace fiasco is that making health care policy requires a clear sense of your ultimate goals. Absent those goals, it’s impossible to judge the trade-offs, weigh the compromises, and rally supporters around the final product.

The Democratic Party had a clear health care goal. They wanted universal coverage. The Affordable Care Act did not achieve universal coverage. But for all its compromises, deficiencies, and half-measures, it moved the country closer to universal coverage, and that’s why it passed.

This was clearest at the end of the debate, when Democrats had to decide whether to sacrifice the public option, a top liberal priority, or watch the bill die. The Democratic party’s consensus health care aim gave the Obama administration a persuasive, even unanswerable, final argument: The bill’s passage would lead to more coverage, and its failure wouldn’t. At the end of the day, every Senate Democrat — including hardcore liberals like Bernie Sanders — voted for the legislation because it furthered their goals even if it betrayed their preferred means.

0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  0  
Sun 17 Sep, 2017 03:36 pm
More relevant information about problems with American health care.

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/13/hillary-clinton-single-payer/

Excerpt:

That was certainly Clinton’s position back in the early 1990s, when she was developing her doomed universal coverage proposal for her husband, Bill.

But in the ensuing years, both Clintons have taken millions of dollars in speaking fees from the health care industry. According to public disclosures, Hillary Clinton alone, from 2013 to 2015, made $2,847,000 from 13 paid speeches to the industry.

Source: Public federal disclosures, Clinton campaign
This means that Clinton brought in almost as much in speech fees from the health care industry as she did from the banking industry. As a matter of perspective, recall that most Americans don’t earn $2.8 million over their lifetimes.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  6  
Sun 17 Sep, 2017 04:16 pm
@Setanta,
Quote:
What campaign?

I don't disagree; it wasn't a brilliant campaign by any stretch of the imagination. She wasn't that good on the stump. But I don't think you can just discount the other setbacks and lay the whole loss on where and how she campaigned. The steady stream of Wikileaks really made it difficult for her to get a footing. The DNC was embroiled in problems of its own and effective communications were hampered by security concerns. The Sanders challenge certainly wasn't a help. The Comey thing was huge. And people actually liked Trump. I don't see how she could have overcome all those factors. They would have tripped up a brilliant politician — which we agree she wasn't.
Setanta
 
  4  
Sun 17 Sep, 2017 05:22 pm
@hightor,
I was impressed by how little effort she put into it. At the end, when she finally turned to Mr. Obama, a swing through key states--such as the three I mentioned: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania--with him could have put her over the top. It was the lack of a coherent strategy, in my never humble opinion, which sank her. She won the popular vote, but didn't spread her effort out effectively. I really do think she thought she had it in the bag, and didn't make the necessary effort. Compare her effort to Harry Truman in 1948. He took nothing for granted, and threw himself into a whistle-stop campaign, while Thomas Dewey sat on his porch and joked with the reporters. Even though Strom Thurmond, the "Dixiecrat," took 39 electoral votes, Truman buried Dewey in the Electoral College. His margin in the popular vote wasn't that large, not even 5%. But he spread his campaigning around, and won in states all over the country. Clinton failed to make the same effort, and to achieve the same results.
Blickers
 
  6  
Sun 17 Sep, 2017 10:50 pm
@Setanta,
I think Hillary worked hard in the campaign actually, but the press didn't cover it much. Instead, they were all analyzing the fallout from Trump's Tweets, and made them the story.
glitterbag
 
  4  
Sun 17 Sep, 2017 11:41 pm
@Blickers,
I think this last election was between a 'reality tv bozo' clown and an accomplished and seasoned professional. Sadly, my country has no respect, only scorn for well-educated, bright, hardworking people..........some of my fellow citizens worship nitwits like Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee and the rest of the inept. They want to feel smarter than the folks they choose to govern......Well, God help them.
Finn dAbuzz
 
  -1  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 01:05 am
@glitterbag,
Wait a minute, haven't you and your friends been pointing out since the election that HRC won the popular vote?

If more people voted for her than the reality tv bozo clown, how do you figure that her defeat means your country doesn't respect well-educated, bright, hardworking people? It's a crock of an excuse, but you made it so maybe you can explain how it works given the actual results of the election.

I sort of figured you included Clinton in that bunch of really swell Democrats, but maybe not
0 Replies
 
Finn dAbuzz
 
  0  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 01:08 am
@Blickers,
Blickers wrote:

I think Hillary worked hard in the campaign actually, but the press didn't cover it much. Instead, they were all analyzing the fallout from Trump's Tweets, and made them the story.


She may have worked hard, but she didn't work smart.
izzythepush
 
  2  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 01:10 am
Quote:
The number of North Koreans defecting to South Korea has dropped by 13% this year, officials in Seoul say.
From January to August, 780 North Koreans escaped to South Korea, the Unification Ministry said.
Most of the defectors were workers and farmers thought to be fleeing poverty.
The fall is believed to be a result of tighter government surveillance and reinforced border security by both North Korea and China, to where most people go before reaching South Korea.
Seoul says more than 30,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the end of the Korean War, in 1953.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41299670
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  6  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 01:39 am
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote:

Hillary has been described as a neocon for years, by lots of people, long before the 2016 election.

Yeah, I know. I was hoping you'd take a shot at explaining what makes her a neocon - if you agree with that.
Lash
 
  1  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 04:34 am
You didn't ask me, but the answer is her policies, comments, and decisions.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/hillary-clinton-necono-republican-endorsements-donald-trump-policy-issues

At my count, this article only covers two indicators that clinton is a neocon, but they are two clearly-evidenced indicators.

Excerpt:

Several neoconservatives have spent years gushing about Clinton’s penchant for supporting basically every foreign war or military escalation in the last decade, including Kagan, who said in 2014: “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy ... If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue, it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

Her campaign hasn’t really deviated from that position, either. While she’s hit Trump for being too erratic and dangerous a man to have in charge of the nuclear codes, she also promised more ground troops in the fight against Isis, expressed support for a no-fly zone in Syria (effectively a declaration of war against Assad) and called for more weapons for various rebels in the region.

Just this past weekend, we learned yet another lesson about what constant military intervention in the Middle East has gotten us: one more disaster where untold numbers of US guns and weapons fell into the hands of the people we are fighting. The New York Times reported that the classified CIA program that armed and trained Syrian rebels directly fighting Assad – a policy Clinton pushed for while in the Obama administration and that she has subsequently said we should expand – led to the systematic stealing of millions of dollars of US weapons, which were then sold on the black market and even contributed to the killing of Americans.

On the economic front, Hank Paulson – former Goldman Sachs chief and the man who oversaw the financial collapse and economic bailout as George W Bush’s treasury secretary – put himself firmly in the #NeverTrump camp while also endorsing Clinton in a Washington Post op-ed. After talking about Trump’s business acumen (or lack thereof) and Trump’s appeal to ignorance, Paulson says this: “I find it particularly appalling that Trump, a businessman, tells us he won’t touch social security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

Really? There are many “particularly appalling” things about Trump: that he congratulated himself upon the Orlando terrorist attack, has called for a ban on all Muslim immigrants, that he insinuated Barack Obama was working with Isis, and so on. But pledging to keep economic and health programs that tens of millions of Americans rely on is not one of them.

To be fair, Clinton has strengthened her wishy-washy language about protecting Social Security somewhat since early in her campaign (after being pressed on it by Bernie Sanders during the Democratic debates). But with the Clinton camp planning on pushing for more Republican endorsements, it does leave open the question: if Paulson is so appalled by Trump’s alleged positions on Medicare and social security, does he think Clinton is more likely to “reform” – ie cut – them too?

In any case, the fact that Republicans may have ulterior motivations for endorsing Clinton, even as her campaign pushes for more of them, is a prime reason why progressives should not abandon criticizing Clinton when they disagree with her. Holding her accountable for her positions in the general election is vital, even while everyone also loudly denounces Trump.

0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  0  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 04:45 am
ne·o·con·serv·a·tive
ˌnēōkənˈsərvədiv/Submit
adjective
1.
relating to or denoting a return to a modified form of a traditional viewpoint, in particular a political ideology characterized by an emphasis on free-market capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy.
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  0  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 04:47 am
Other examples of Clinton's neoconservativism

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18998/neocon-war-hawks-want-hillary-clinton-over-donald-trump.-no-surprisetheyve

It’s not just neocons specifically. War hawks of all stripes have been happy to shower praise on Clinton’s foreign policy. In 2011, Lindsey Graham told the Council on Foreign Relations: “This is an outstanding national security team put together by President Obama. I hope he will listen to them. Secretary Clinton is a great choice to be our secretary of state.”

Any time Lindsey Graham, who eagerly supported the Iraq War and has repeatedly called for a war with Iran, endorses your national security team, it should stop and give you pause. Then again, given that Clinton threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran in 2008, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising.

John McCain, another outspoken supporter of untold numbers of American wars, had this to say about Clinton on Chris Matthews’ Hardball in 2014:

MCCAIN: Do I think that she is good on foreign policy issues? I think it’s a—this is a legitimate question. Look, it is well-known that Secretary—Hillary Clinton and I have a good relationship. We have…

MATTHEWS: Well, don’t you agree on a lot?

MCCAIN: But—yes, we do agree on a lot.

During the 2008 campaign, Clinton did at one point appear to praise McCain’s “lifetime of experience” at the expense of Obama, so maybe he was just returning the favor.

-----------------------------------------
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  -1  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 05:00 am
@Finn dAbuzz,
She thought she had it sewn up. She bought a neighboring house in Chappequa for security and staff. It was a done deal to her, so why fret with an irrelevant state like Wisconsin.
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  3  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 06:20 am
@hightor,
I agree completely. Plus, the gender factor was present even though it is not PC to admit to it in this day and age.
maporsche
 
  5  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 07:04 am
@Lash,
No Lash. You're giving yourself too much credit.

I don't want to hate him, I want to like him (and I do). I may have misstated that earlier.

But when I see you support him, my gut instinct is to hate him. I have to fight that. I actively fight that instinct.

It's like a gag reflex when you smell or taste something sooooo toxic you reflexively gag. I don't think it's a personal problem for me at all.
Lash
 
  -1  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 07:16 am
@maporsche,
Total ad hom. There's no place for that in legitimate discussion of ideas.
Lash
 
  -1  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 07:24 am
@revelette1,
I disagree.

In the current climate, choices outside the white male pull in voters, as long as the choice isn't fatally flawed. Several people on this thread thought Obama didn't have a chance in hell to be elected president. I argued that America was ready for it, and events bore me out.

Being a woman was a PLUS for Hillary, but she blew that advantage because she was corrupt, and obviously a neocon running as a democrat.

Take a look at the annointed Dem candidate for 2020. Only on the national scene a very short time--remind you of anyone?

Kamala Harris: black and female. The Dems know what appeals to their base.

If the progressives hadn't splintered off, she'd be a shoo-in.

It's a great time to be a reasonably believable Democrat female without tons of baggage.
Lash
 
  -1  
Mon 18 Sep, 2017 07:27 am
@maporsche,
maporsche wrote:

You make me want to hate Bernie Sanders

Just keeping you honest.
 

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