Progressives (Liberals)

Lash wrote:

Interesting. There are reports surfacing in the last 20 minutes that Obama will make a statement trying to convince voters not to choose Bernie.

"Reports" by whom, where can we see them?

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The $97.5 trillion price tag is made up mostly of the costs of Sanders’s three most ambitious proposals. Sanders concedes that his Medicare For All plan would increase federal spending by “somewhere between $30 and $40 trillion over a 10-year period.” He pledges to spend $16.3 trillion on his climate plan. And his proposal to guarantee all Americans a full-time government job paying $15 an hour, with full benefits, is estimated to cost $30.1 trillion. The final $11.1 trillion includes $3 trillion to forgive all student loans and guarantee free public-college tuition—plus $1.8 trillion to expand Social Security, $2.5 trillion on housing, $1.6 trillion on paid family leave, $1 trillion on infrastructure, $800 billion on general K-12 education spending, and an additional $400 billion on higher public school teacher salaries.

This unprecedented outlay would more than double the size of the federal government. Over the next decade, Washington is already projected to spend $60 trillion, and state and local governments will spend another $29.7 trillion from non-federal sources. Adding Sanders’s $97.5 trillion—and then subtracting the $3 trillion saved by state governments under Medicare For All—would raise the total cost of government to $184 trillion, or 70 percent of the projected GDP over ten years

(...)

Sanders’s agenda is virtually impossible to pay for. Adding $97.5 trillion in new spending to an underlying $15.5 trillion projected budget deficit (under current policies) creates a ten-year budget gap of $113 trillion. Yet Sanders’s tax proposals would raise at most $23 trillion over the decade.

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Tax rates would soar. Sanders would raise the current 15.3 percent payroll tax to 27.2 percent due to an 11.5 percent Medicare For All payroll tax (with some exemptions), and a 0.4 percent payroll tax for paid family leave. (The full Social Security payroll tax would also be applied to wages exceeding $250,000.) Sanders proposes a top federal income-tax rate of 52 percent. Capital gains and dividends would be taxed as ordinary income, plus a 10 percent net investment-income surtax for the wealthy. The resulting 62 percent top tax bracket for investments would be so far beyond the revenue-maximizing rate that it would produce little actual revenue. Overall, upper-income taxpayers would face a marginal tax rate as high as 80 percent from their federal income, state income, and payroll taxes. They would also be assessed a 62 percent investment tax rate, an annual wealth tax of up to 8 percent, and a 77 percent estate tax.

Yet these $23 trillion in proposed taxes would still leave a staggering $90 trillion budget deficit, or 34 percent of GDP. Closing the rest of the gap—which comes to $66,000 per household annually—is basically impossible. Given that Sanders already maximizes taxes on the wealthy, that leaves the payroll tax or a value-added tax (VAT) to raise the rest. The CBO claims that each 1 percentage-point increase in the payroll tax raises $0.9 trillion over the decade, thus requiring an extra 100 percent rate on top of the 27.2 percent proposal. Alternatively, a European-style VAT would raise $0.4 trillion per percentage point, thus requiring an absurd 225 percent tax rate to close the remaining $90 trillion budget gap. Cutting defense spending to NATO’s European target of 2 percent of GDP would save just $3 trillion. Even seizing all $82 trillion in household financial assets would be insufficient.

Sanders claims that economic growth would produce enough revenue to offset much of these costs. [Where have we heard that before?] It’s more likely that exorbitant tax rates and the diversion of millions of private-sector workers into government “make-work” jobs would reduce investment, productivity, and growth. Yet even for the sake of argument, permanently doubling America’s trend economic growth rate from 2 percent to 4 percent would raise just under $6 trillion in new revenues over the decade—still leaving an $84 trillion budget gap.

(...)

Medicare For All is a major driver of Sanders’s budget deficits. The proposal would essentially replace all health premiums and out-of-pocket expenses with a new “single-payer tax” and federal provision of health care. Despite their assertions that families would come out ahead—that their health taxes would be lower than past premiums and out-of-pocket costs—Medicare For All proponents have failed to design a tax that could replace the current $35 trillion spent by families, businesses, and state governments. Sanders’s Medicare For All legislation includes no tax mechanism, and his worksheet of tax options adds up to just $19 trillion. Fully funded Medicare For All legislation doesn’t exist.

A new CNN survey showed that about as many Democrats under 50 would be upset or dissatisfied with Mr. Biden as the nominee as they would be enthusiastic. And among those older than 65, views were even starker about Mr. Sanders: just 23 percent said they’d be enthusiastic about him while 33 percent said they’d be upset or dissatisfied.

The Sanders endorsement by Rogan and the way Bernites are defending and justifying it is rich.

Wait, so these are the same people who every day for years now have rained holy purity-test hell on any candidate or candidate’s supporters who even breathed a hint of trying to be inclusive of people who didn’t share all their views verbatim?
These are the people who are now saying Bernie is just being pragmatic and smart in his embracing of the hero of incels, racists, misogynists and transphobes, Joe I-think-blacks-should-reclaim-colored Rogan?

Hypocrites ain’t nearly a strong enough word for these holier than thou pieces of work. Especially certain people who like to sachay around here telling people they have no self-awareness.

Bernie Sanders “must reconsider” his acceptance of an endorsement from Joe Rogan, the president of the Human Rights Campaign said on Friday, given that the comedian and podcast host has “attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of colour and countless marginalised groups at every opportunity”.

In a statement that followed a flood of progressive protest over the endorsement, which Rogan made on Thursday, the HRC’s Alphonso David said Sanders had “run a campaign unabashedly supportive of the rights of LGBTQ people”.

But, he said, Rogan had among other remarks “compared a black community to Planet of the Apes” and “dehumanised transgender people by misgendering them and promoting misinformation”

The Joe Rogan Experience is one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes and Rogan has nearly 6 million followers on Twitter. His podcast attracts high-profile interviewees. In September 2018, for example, the tech billionaire Elon Musk smoked marijuana on the show, an act which sent Tesla stock prices tumbling. Rogan has also faced criticism over interviews with far-right figures such as Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Sanders, who was interviewed by Rogan last August, is a frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic nomination to face Donald Trump in November.

Some observers said Rogan’s announcement that he would “probably vote for Bernie” was a win for the Vermont senator, showing he can win back white male voters who propelled Trump past Hillary Clinton in 2016. Rogan, who claims to “lean FAR more left than right”, has said he voted in that election for the Libertarian Gary Johnson.

Rogan spoke about Sanders and 2020 in an interview with the author and columnist Bari Weiss. Asked who he would “vote for in the primary”, he said:

"I think I’ll probably vote for Bernie.”

He added: “He’s been insanely consistent his entire life. He’s basically been saying the same thing, been for the same thing for his whole life. And that in and of itself is a very powerful structure to operate from.”

Sanders, a lifelong democratic socialist and independent, tweeted video of the exchange. It prompted a progressive backlash.

Rogan’s views on transgender issues – regarding UFC athlete Fallon Fox, for example – have attracted widespread controversy. His reference to the Planet of the Apes emerged in the fallout over his remarks about Sanders.

In a 2013 podcast, Rogan discussed seeing the film in question in an African American neighbourhood.

“We get out, we’re giggling, ‘We’re going to go see Planet of the Apes,’ we walk into Planet of the Apes,” he said. “We walked into Africa.”
Rogan also said “Planet of the Apes didn’t take place in Africa, that was a racist thing for me to say” and said his trip to see the film had been “a positive experience”.

But the HRC was not giving him or Sanders a pass.

“We should always be willing to educate individuals who operate from a place of bias,” David said, “but we should not directly or indirectly validate or celebrate them.

“Given Rogan’s comments, it is disappointing that the Sanders campaign has accepted and promoted the endorsement. The Sanders campaign must reconsider this endorsement and the decision to publicise the views of someone who has consistently attacked and dehumanised marginalised people.”

In an earlier statement, a Sanders aide said: “The goal of our campaign is to build a multiracial, multi-generational movement large enough to defeat Donald Trump and the powerful special interests whose greed and corruption is the root cause of the outrageous inequality in America.

“Sharing a big tent requires including those who do not share every one of our beliefs, while always making clear that we will never compromise our values.

“The truth is that by standing together in solidarity, we share the values of love and respect that will move us in the direction of a more humane, more equal world.”

Mike Pompeo Dares Veteran Foreign Correspondent to Find Ukraine on Map (She Does)

...Which brings us to Pompeo’s interview with NPR. It got off on the wrong foot when Pompeo complained about being asked a question on Ukraine — a country that is, you know, in the news — only to be told that the topic had indeed been cleared beforehand with his staff. Reporter Mary Louise Kelly asked Pompeo about complaints that he had failed to defend his staff. Pompeo dismissed those complainants as “unnamed sources,” to which Kelly replied that at least one was Senior Adviser Michael McKinley.
(sound file of this conversation include here NYMag)

Pompeo refused to answer Kelly’s questions and ended the interview abruptly. Then he brought her into his office living room, where he shouted at her and asked, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” (Remember, the Trump party line is that the administration cares deeply about Ukraine and it was peacenik Barack Obama who failed to supply Ukrainians with the military aid that was delivered under this administration.)

Then, in what was apparently intended to be a decisive blow for Pompeo, he “asked if I could find Ukraine on a map,” Kelly reports. She said yes...Even if it were hard to find Ukraine on a map, Kelly has two decades of foreign-affairs reporting experience and a master’s degree in European Studies from Cambridge.

...So obviously, Kelly replied yes. But then, instead of taking her word for it, Pompeo told his staff to “bring us a map of the world with no writing.” One unanswered question is, Why does Pompeo’s staff have unlabeled maps lying around? Just so he can trap reporters who question him with his geographical pop quizzes? Regardless, at this point, Kelly successfully identified Ukraine on Pompeo’s unlabeled map.

It would be tempting to say the pressure of the Ukraine scandal is getting to Pompeo, but it’s probably more likely that this is just the kind of person Pompeo is — and the sort of behavior that has drawn him to Trump, and Trump to him.

Daniel Dale
@ddale8
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly says the following happened after the interview in which she asked some tough questions to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Jenna McLaughlin
@JennaMC_Laugh
Have had Pompeo’s people call my boss to try and embarrass me and kill my stories while he was CIA Director, have heard others about him throwing things in anger etc. Shocking he’d do this to
@NPRKelly
and think it was a good idea or it would teach her a lesson. It’s a pattern.

Amanda Marcotte
@AmandaMarcotte
I’m not sure how anyone who lived through 2016 doesn’t realize this, but the GOP’s main strategy in 2020 will be to use cut-outs and bots attacking the Democratic candidate from the left, to convince core constituencies to sit this one out.

Trump cannot add to his coalition. But he can subtract from the Democrat’s. And the method will be to use puppets who appear to be of the left, accusing the candidate of being racist, or secretly conservative, or sexist, or probably some combo.

This is coming for the candidate no matter what. But it will be more effective if you give the cut-outs, bots, and puppets pretending to be of the left grist for the mill.

How cognizant a campaign is of this threat needs to be a primary factor in determining how “electable” the candidate is.

@RobbieGramer
· 55m
Official response from Pompeo about his NPR interview. Haven’t seen anything like this before with a State Department seal on it:

Given Rogan’s comments, it is disappointing that the Sanders campaign has accepted and promoted the endorsement. The Sanders campaign must reconsider this endorsement and the decision to publicise the views of someone who has consistently attacked and dehumanised marginalised people.”