Progressives (Liberals)

I can see that.

No such ignorance. As always, everything that I said was factually correct.

Leftists do consider it profanely insensitive when people confront their delusions with facts and reality, but that gets right back to my point about them wanting a safe space from the "dangers" of facts and reality.

No there aren't.

They wanted a safe space from the "dangers" of facts and reality.

Funny that he doesn't even mention the public option. That would be one way to transition to a public insurance scheme with broad coverage.

You're a very kind person. George, on the other hand, is just a kind of person.

TPM


A model American leader and a model human, Mr Trump. And the evangelicals love him at around 90% because that's one heck of a sane group of folks.

What is it, you might ask, that ties Trump and evangelicals so tightly together. It's integrity.

https://www.vogue.com/article/bernie-sanders-2020-brooklyn-rally-supporters

It was snowing when about 13,000 people got in line to see Senator Bernie Sanders kick off his 2020 presidential bid in Brooklyn on Saturday. Brooklyn is the borough in which Sanders was born, and it is where he attended the city’s first coeducational liberal arts college for a year in 1959. In those days, it was pretty much free. Public colleges in New York City charge tuition now. The same trajectory goes for rent control, the regulation that enabled Sanders, his mother, father, and brother to live in the Midwood neighborhood, along with inhabitants of the other 2 million rent-controlled apartments that could be found in the city when Sanders was growing up. It was notable that the senator later shared these stories with the assembled crowds; he has been notoriously reticent to talk about himself and where he comes from, focusing instead on our current version of New York, and America—where life is made easier for the ultra-wealthy, for corporations, for what Sanders likes to call “special interests,” and for people like Donald Trump.

“It used to be when you went to college, a summer job would pay for your tuition,” John Zimmerman, 72, a Vietnam veteran from Port Washington, New York, told me. “We’re going in the wrong direction.” The universal programs and socialist-leaning policies that Sanders has promised to implement—like tuition-free college, Medicare for All, and a federal jobs guarantee—theoretically provide a course correction. The people in line on Saturday talked about wanting to be able to afford an education, to buy homes, and health care, health care, health care. A few hours later, at a podium in the middle of the snow-sodden crowd, Sanders called the movement behind him “the strongest grassroots coalition in the history of American politics.”

Just what that coalition looks like is still a topic of debate among the pundit class and voters on the left. It’s now a familiar refrain, carried over from the last time we all headed to the polls to choose a Democratic nominee, when Sanders took on Hillary Clinton in 2016 and lost. Despite his progressive agenda, there’s doubt around who Sanders, to use campaign slogan speak, is really for. Critics say Sanders has had trouble reaching black voters; he has hesitated to call Trump supporters racist, preferring to say they were motivated by “economic anxiety”; and he has not done enough to condemn misogyny in his ranks, from a legion of “Bernie Bros” (known for harassing female reporters online during the 2016 election) or harassment within his own campaign.

The Brooklyn rally presented the first real-time, IRL answer to this question of who exactly wants Bernie Sanders to be president in 2020, in the New York metropolitan area at least. There were families, groups of friends, siblings, couples. There were certainly those that fit a certain archetype of who you might expect to meet at a Sanders rally: Zimmerman, the Vietnam vet, used the phrase “back in my day” several times when we talked. He was the second Jill Stein voter I met. I spoke to a New York University student named Halsey Hazzard who told me, regarding the trolling from Bernie Bros, “Men be like that.” People smoked from their vapes in the cold morning air. A white guy named Jacob, wearing Lil Peep merch, complained about the white singers of the reggae band who entertained the crowd for the first hour.

Others didn’t fit the profile: I talked to David, a 38-year-old Hispanic man who works for the city and who grew up in Williamsburg “before it was gentrified.” “I don’t know if his message is too big,” he said about Sanders, whom he voted for in 2016, “but it just pushes us in the right direction.” Alina Valdes, 18, from Queens, said that she was at the rally “to show people of color who do support socialism that it’s not just white people who are for it.” There were brothers Kapil, 27, and Tejash, 24, who said that Bernie is “for the people; he’s working for us.” When asked about why there is much ado about the identity of the Sanders coalition, Kapil told me he didn’t know, since Sanders didn’t seem to care about his own. “I do feel like journalists bring that up though, no offense,” Kapil said.

If supporters identified a personality trait they liked about Bernie Sanders, it was his longevity—which isn’t a personality trait, of course, but it is an ironic thing to compliment, given that some Sanders detractors say that he, at 77, is too old to run for office. A cochair of the New York Progressive Action Network, which formed out of the 2016 election, said that the organization made a list of policies a candidate must endorse, and Bernie merely “ticked all the boxes.” Some version of “I don’t support Bernie because he’s Bernie; I support him because of his ideas,” was expressed by many. And the idea that other Democratic candidates have moved leftward on issues like health care, free college, and corporate money in politics was treated with skepticism: “They’re getting on the bandwagon—Bernie is the bandwagon,” exclaimed Kristen Senior, at the rally with her wife, Jody. Eventually, in his speech, Sanders did get personal, a move reportedly encouraged by his advisors, and talked about growing up with family that had—and hadn’t—survived the Holocaust. “I know where I come from,” he said gruffly.

In the warmth of one of the administrative buildings, with chants of “Ber-nie!” filtering in from outside, former Ohio state senator Nina Turner said that Sanders has learned from the last go-round. “He does listen, and change is inevitable for all of us, so it’s really good to see.” She counted herself as evidence of this, having been appointed as cochair of a new committee that includes Rep. Ro Khanna and San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. “People really believe in the policy platform that Senator Bernie Sanders is pushing. And that doesn’t have an ethnicity or a gender—it really is about humanity,” said Turner.

The people at the rally were overwhelmingly young. It wasn’t a surprise, given that more millennials voted for Sanders than for Trump and Clinton combined in 2016. But there were so many even younger voters, who were only recently 18, for whom the future is not a subject of cable news debate, but an urgent mess. They talked about climate change. They stood in anxious, excited groups. One couple had come down from NYU because they got an email from a LISTSERV. Two Brooklyn College sophomores who didn’t want to be photographed for religious reasons said they were just trying to get more involved with politics.

This was a thrilling possibility: that there were more and more kids who were coming to electoral politics fresh, unfettered, even by very recent history. I asked a pair of friends, Larry and Kirk, what they thought about the term “Bernie Bros.” “You said that there are misogynist white guys that support Bernie?” Kirk asked. “Honestly, I’m not even familiar with that.” Larry added, “That sounds like propaganda from the other side, like they’re slipping that into the algorithm.” Valdes, the young socialist from Queens, said she thought it was about fear. “I think people underestimate us. I think older people are a little scared of us figuring out that we can do something about our lives.”

Or maybe, just kind of a person.

Is this serious or am I missing more tongue in cheek sarcasm?

I did not know that, Lash. Thanks.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/13/ilhan-omar-is-right-about-the-influence-of-the-israel-lobby

Excerpt:

Ilhan Omar is right about the influence of the Israel lobby
Alex Kotch
Following the Ilhan Omar controversy, it’s incredibly important to be able to decipher between real antisemitism and basic political facts

@alexkotch
Wed 13 Feb 2019 06.00 EST Last modified on Thu 14 Feb 2019 15.35 EST

It’s important to remember how the controversy around Ilhan Omar, who Trump said should resign over tweets critical of a pro-Israel lobbying group, began. The first two Muslim congresswomen in the history of the United States – Ilhan Omar, a freshman representative from Minnesota and Somali refugee, and her fellow freshman representative Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American – have bravely criticized the Israeli government for its grotesque treatment of the Palestinian people.

Acknowledging this apartheid system is a dangerous thing for American elected officials to do. Just in 2016, when presidential candidate Bernie Sanders dared to say that “We are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity” it became a major media event.

Omar and Tlaib endorse Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led movement to pressure Israel to change course on Palestine. Opponents have dishonestly cast it as inherently antisemitic.

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The furor over BDS has led more than half of US states to pass laws attacking BDS. These laws clearly trample on the constitutional right to free speech and expression, but that didn’t stop the US Senate from passing the very first piece of legislation this session, which forbids Congress from pre-empting such state laws.

The “Bernie Bro” smear has been widely sold by media and pundits. Glad they’ve given up on it.

I bow to your formulation.

You do not have my support on that sentence. There are trolls operating (not just on one side) to cause division. But in any case, the very stupidest thing supporters of Sanders and Clinton might do is continue bitching. Another Trump win and the US is done for - except as a soulless and undemocratic machine to facilitate corporate and religious dominance of the nation.

From Bernie Sanders:

Ten Fair Ways to Reduce the Deficit and Create Jobs

Republicans in Washington, D.C. want to balance the budget by slashing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, education and other federal programs that millions of Americans rely upon.

I have a better idea. At a time when we are experiencing more wealth and income inequality than at any time since the 1920s, and when Wall Street and large corporations are enjoying record breaking profits, I believe that we should be asking the very wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes. That way, we will not only lower the deficit but we will bring in enough revenue to invest in our economy and create the millions of new jobs we desperately need.

From both a moral and economic perspective, we must not balance the budget on the elderly, the children, the sick, working families, and the most vulnerable.

Here are 10 examples of how we can raise revenue and reduce spending in a fair way.

1. Stop corporations from using offshore tax havens to avoid U.S. taxes. Each and every year, the United States loses an estimated $100 billion in tax revenues due to offshore tax abuses by the wealthy and large corporations. The situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the “home” to more than 18,000 corporations.

The wealthy and large corporations should not be allowed to avoid paying taxes by setting up tax shelters in Panama, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas or other tax haven countries. The first bill that I introduced in the Senate (the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act) would raise more than $580 billion over the next decade by eliminating the most egregious corporate offshore tax haven abuses.

2. Establish a Robin Hood tax on Wall Street speculators. Both the economic crisis and the deficit crisis are a direct result of the greed and recklessness on Wall Street. Creating a speculation fee of just 0.03 percent on the sale of credit default swaps, derivatives, options, futures, and large amounts of stock would reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the job-creating productive economy, and reduce the deficit by $352 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

3. End tax breaks and subsidies for big oil, gas and coal companies. If we ended tax breaks and subsidies for big oil, gas, and coal companies, we could reduce the deficit by more than $113 billion over the next ten years. The five largest oil companies in the United States have made over $1 trillion in profits over the past decade. Exxon Mobil is now the most profitable corporation in the world. Large, profitable fossil fuel companies do not need a tax break.

4. Establish a Progressive Estate Tax. If we established a progressive estate tax on inherited wealth of more than $3.5 million, we could raise more than $300 billion over 10 years. In 2010, Sen. Sanders introduced the Responsible Estate Tax Act that would reduce the deficit in a fair way while ensuring that 99.7 percent of Americans would never pay a penny in estate taxes.

5. Tax capital gains and dividends the same as work. Taxing capital gains and dividends the same way that we tax work would raise more than $500 billion over the next decade. Warren Buffet has often said that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. The reason for this is that the wealthy obtain most of their income from capital gains and dividends, which is taxed at a much lower rate than work. Right now, the top marginal income tax for working is 39.6%, but the top tax rate on corporate dividends and capital gains is only 23.9%.

6. Repeal all of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax breaks for the top two percent. In January, Congress finally repealed the Bush tax breaks for the top one percent – households making more than $450,000 a year. But the Bush tax breaks have been continued for the top two percent – households with incomes between $250,000 and $450,000 a year. Repealing the Bush tax breaks for all of the top two percent would reduce the deficit by about $400 billion over the next decade. After President Clinton increased taxes on the top two percent, the economy added over 22 million jobs. After President Bush reduced taxes for the rich, the economy lost over 600,000 private sector jobs.

7. Eliminate the cap on taxable income that goes into the Social Security Trust Fund. If we are serious about making sure that Social Security can pay all of the benefits owed to every eligible American for the next 50 to 75 years, we don’t do that by cutting benefits, we do that by scrapping the cap on taxable income so that a millionaire and a billionaire pays the same percentage of their income into Social Security as someone making $40,000 or $50,000 a year. Right now, someone who earns $113,700 a year pays the same amount of money in Social Security taxes as a billionaire. This makes no sense. Applying the Social Security payroll tax on income above $250,000 would ensure that Social Security remains solvent for the next 50 years. This plan would only impact the wealthiest 1.3 percent of wage earners; 98.7 percent of wage earners in the United States would not see their taxes go up by one dime.

8. Establish a currency manipulation fee on China and other countries. As almost everyone knows, China is manipulating its currency, giving it an unfair trade advantage over the United States and destroying decent paying manufacturing jobs in the process. If we imposed a currency manipulation fee on China and other currency manipulators, the Economic Policy Institute has estimated that we could raise $500 billion over 10 years and create 1 million jobs in the process.

9. Reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon, which now consumes over half of our discretionary budget. Much of the huge spending at the Pentagon is devoted to spending money on Cold War weapons programs to fight a Soviet Union that no longer exists. Lawrence Korb, an Assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan, has estimated that we could achieve significant savings of around $100 billion a year at the Pentagon while still ensuring that the United States has the strongest and most powerful military in the world.

10. Require Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Requiring Medicare to negotiate drug prices, similarly to what the VA currently does, would save more than $240 billion over 10 years.

Boy. This chap is really quick of mind.

The moral argument for bribing a porn star to keep her from revealing that he had been ******* a porn star while married to another woman. It was the only right thing that Trump, who loves his family so very much, could do.

I had totally forgotten this brilliant piece on Hans von Spakovsky from Jane Mayer in 2012 HERE

For those interested, Talking Points Memo has covered this guy for years more regularly and thoroughly than anyone. But Mayer's piece is a must read.

Not looking for support; just telling a fact.

You do understand that was a satirical article, don't you? Or do you honestly believe a moral man cheats on his wife because he "loves" her?

I learned today that on Vox political podcast, that the bill that Sanders, Jayapala and most presidential candidates have introduced is BY FAR the most generous of any “universal healthcare” countries.

I also learned that the Canadian system does not pay for prescription drugs, which is a significant amount of healthcare expenditures. Free care is one thing, but if you can’t afford the medicine then you still have a problem.

It was an interesting podcast with people who generally support the initiative, like myself, but need to see more details.