Progressives (Liberals)

Are the Electability Fears About Elizabeth Warren Overblown?

Ben: Elizabeth Warren is not only creeping up in the polls — she’s drawing
record crowds (15,000 people the other day in Seattle), more endorsements, and after two solid debates, is viewed the most favorably of the primary candidates among Democratic voters, according to an aggregate of August polls.

Yet the questions about her electability — which is a dirty word to some – persist, as a recent New York Times story detailed. Those concerns include Warren’s gender, her Native-American heritage issues, her not-that-impressive 2018 reelection victory to being a deeply liberal Harvard professor from Massachusetts. (I admit that I myself have voiced some of these concerns — in a chat from April, before her candidacy exploded, I worried that she could not beat Trump.) To what extent should Warren’s impressive performance this summer quell the doubts many had/have about her fitness as a general-election candidate?

Ed: I don’t think some of those who “doubt” Warren’s electability will ever be convinced — particularly those who don’t believe a woman can be elected until 2048 or something. But yeah, she is demonstrating that perceptions of candidates can and do change.

Sarah: With the caveat that it’s still kind of early: I think her recent performance really should quell most if not all of the concerns people previously raised about her candidacy. Trump is going to keep calling her Pocahontas, but it doesn’t seem to land anymore if it ever did in the first place. She’s shown that she can be personable and engaging in ways that Hillary Clinton never mastered, and while it may be true that the primary won’t turn on policy, I think it’s fair to say that people are attracted to the ideas that she’s putting out there. Certainly if we compare her to Joe Biden, she looks like a much more reliable bet for the party.

Ed: She’s also a more plausible unity figure than either Biden or Bernie Sanders...

But Jesus Christ. Did you vote for Hillary?

Dissent Is Being Criminalized Right Under Our Noses

to show party officials she is aligned with them.

Her point was easy to grasp: While her liberal agenda may be further left than some in the Democratic establishment would prefer, she is a team player who is seeking to lead the party — not stage a hostile takeover of it.

I don’t even know the Walsh guy at all

“500,000 people go bankrupt every year because they cannot pay their outrageous medical bills.”
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in an interview on CNN's "Stae of the Union" Aug. 25, 2019

“500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year from medical bills.”
— Sanders, in a tweet, Aug. 20, 2019

[...]

The Pinocchio Test
This is a classic case of cherry-picking a number from a scientific study and twisting it to make a political point.

Sanders’s statements — “500,000 people go bankrupt every year because they cannot pay their outrageous medical bills” and “500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year from medical bills” — are unambiguous. He’s saying medical debts caused those 500,000 bankruptcies. However, correlation is not causation, and the study he’s citing doesn’t establish causation for all 500,000 bankruptcy cases.

One of the authors sent us rough estimates showing that Sanders might be on target, but those numbers deserve scientific scrutiny before they can be taken as fact.

In the meantime, the statistic Sanders’s campaign cited includes bankrupt debtors for whom medical expenses may have been a minor or relatively small contributing factor. A different, peer-reviewed study arrived at a much different conclusion, suggesting the medical bankruptcy rate is far lower, although it measured only hospital patients and not all types of medical debt.

The omissions and twists are significant enough to merit Three Pinocchios for Sanders.

Sanders’s flawed statistic: 500,000 medical bankruptcies a year

Quote:

“500,000 people go bankrupt every year because they cannot pay their outrageous medical bills.”
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in an interview on CNN's "Stae of the Union" Aug. 25, 2019

“500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year from medical bills.”
— Sanders, in a tweet, Aug. 20, 2019

[...]

The Pinocchio Test
This is a classic case of cherry-picking a number from a scientific study and twisting it to make a political point.

Sanders’s statements — “500,000 people go bankrupt every year because they cannot pay their outrageous medical bills” and “500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year from medical bills” — are unambiguous. He’s saying medical debts caused those 500,000 bankruptcies. However, correlation is not causation, and the study he’s citing doesn’t establish causation for all 500,000 bankruptcy cases.

One of the authors sent us rough estimates showing that Sanders might be on target, but those numbers deserve scientific scrutiny before they can be taken as fact.

In the meantime, the statistic Sanders’s campaign cited includes bankrupt debtors for whom medical expenses may have been a minor or relatively small contributing factor. A different, peer-reviewed study arrived at a much different conclusion, suggesting the medical bankruptcy rate is far lower, although it measured only hospital patients and not all types of medical debt.

The omissions and twists are significant enough to merit Three Pinocchios for Sanders.

Great example of bullshit liars in the media desperately attempting to assassinate Bernie’s character.

Great example of bullshit liars in the media desperately attempting to assassinate Bernie’s character.

Goddam that’s disingenuous, Edgar. Just tell the truth and stop twisting things to make Bernie perfect and everything else corrupt.

Snod is right. that vice article is incredibly santed and inaccurate as to what biden actually said.