Bernie!

[BotanyBoy]

The biggies have not yet spoken. New York and California can certainly tip the popular vote in somebody's favor. Hillary is 2.5 mil ahead of Bernie? Pshaw. Strong Sanders support in Los Angeles County alone could reverse that. Bernie taking the Bay Area alone could reverse that. Bernie's home borough of Brooklyn alone would make a major dent.

That's what I'm saying. Especially if voting trends continue, Clinton hasn't been fairing very well outside of the deep red south and downright getting her ass beat in the more liberal states so far.

Can 1% donors buy-off the 99% followers? We shall see...

It wouldn't shock me.

 

[sr71plt]

If the electorate doesn't deal with the Senate and the House, nobody's going to get anything good for a long time.

Absolutely, which A. makes me post "hey, wait a minute" whenever someone speculates that it will be the Democrats who benefit in the congressional elections from the breakdown of the Republican Party. The breakdown is caused there from the right, not the left, and started with the overthrow of Cantor. So, chances are good that it will be rightists taking seats in Congress (and then caucusing with the leftover Republicans and leaving us as dead in the water if Clinton, Bernie, or even Trump win as we are now). And B., it's why I keep saying those super delegates, the party workers, deserve their say in the nomination. They are the ones who are going to have to get members of Congress elected from their party.

It's also why I ask, if Bernie Sanders wants to lead a Congress to control by a party that would have a hope of enacting his program, he still hasn't even symbolically declared himself a Democrat in the U.S. Senate. He thinks he can put together a controlling coalition of like-minded independents?

 

[BotanyBoy]

It's fun, though, how you and others completely ignore considering who could actually be president and have a prayer of doing "something good."

Almost as funny as you and others thinking Hillary is progressive.....almost.

 

[sr71plt]

She doesn't have to be progressive (although Bernie is pushing her to where she's going to have to be for a while) to get through aspects of a program that are more progressive than any other possible candidate is going to either be willing to provide or can get through. The fact alone that she's the only one who says she would preserve what we have now in Obamacare and just work to try to improve it rather than destroy it (which even Bernie says he would do), puts us in a better program position, to my thinking, than anyone else running will do--on domestic issues, and don't even get me started on the foreign policy aspects of the various candidates.

That's the problem with pie-in-the-sky thinkers on all sides in this campaign (which is nothing new, Obama did the same unachievable "Camelot" job on the voters)--they are so insistent on the unachievable that they are willing to accept the "absolutely none of it will happen" just so they can complain that Camelot doesn't happen overnight.

 

[BotanyBoy]

She doesn't have to be progressive (although Bernie is pushing her to where she's going to have to be for a while) to get through aspects of a program that are more progressive than any other possible candidate is going to either be willing to provide or can get through. The fact alone that she's the only one who says she would preserve what we have now in Obamacare and just work to try to improve it rather than destroy it (which even Bernie says he would do), puts us in a better program position, to my thinking, than anyone else running will do--on domestic issues, and don't even get me started on the foreign policy aspects of the various candidates.

That's the problem with pie-in-the-sky thinkers on all sides in this campaign (which is nothing new, Obama did the same unachievable "Camelot" job on the voters)--they are so insistent on the unachievable that they are willing to accept the "absolutely none of it will happen" just so they can complain that Camelot doesn't happen overnight.

Obviously not. And a lot of this stuff is unachievable only because the elites keep telling us that and everyone keeps going "well that's it I guess, rich people said fuck you, so everyone bend over!" .

You're right, which is why none of it really matters...this is like the WWE show the elites put on to fool us all into thinking we matter.

 

[sr71plt]

You're right, which is why none of it really matters...this is like the WWE show the elites put on to fool us all into thinking we matter.

Then why do you keep plugging "what could maybe almost mathematically be possible" as what's going to happen? Obviously you enjoy smoking something illegal.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Then why are you keep plugging "what could maybe almost mathematically be possible" as what's going to happen?

I don't.....

That bold part is just you making shit up again.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/98/ae/89/98ae891254f229842ff6e216eef76428.jpg

Obviously you enjoy smoking something illegal.

Obviously....yet I manage not to just make shit up and assign you positions.

Imagine that.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Sanders is trying to do the same thing to the Democratic Party that Trump is trying to do to the Republicans. Rather than creating a campaign apparatus of his own, he, like Trump, is trying to steal that apparatus from a party he wasn't even a member of before the campaigns started up (but in Trump's case it's a party that he doesn't really share any values with). Both are pointing to new people they are bringing into the parities, but these are folks devoted to the man, not the party.

Actually, I sort of agree with this, to my surprise. The point that you stubbornly miss, of course, is that the electorate despises both parties. Both have become emetic parodies of those institutions which at one time attracted popular support. Presidential races have become unpopularity contests. Anyone who would whore him- or her-self up through the ranks of either party deserves the contempt that electorate so generously provides. Sanders, regardless of whether he has the right membership card, does sort of stand for what the Democratic Party stood for in its heyday, at least in terms of domestic policy. Sanders is rather close-mouthed about his foreign policy and I worry that he may have some residual neo-con tendencies.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

The fact alone that she's the only one who says she would preserve what we have now in Obamacare and just work to try to improve it rather than destroy it (which even Bernie says he would do)

More power to him.

That's the problem with pie-in-the-sky thinkers on all sides in this campaign (which is nothing new, Obama did the same unachievable "Camelot" job on the voters)--

No, Obama simply lied, and then quietly implemented a right-wing agenda.

 

[sr71plt]

Actually, I sort of agree with this, to my surprise. The point that you stubbornly miss, of course, is that the electorate despises both parties.

Where I have given you the impression I don't see this? Point to where I have a discussion here that indicates that I deal with this at all. I've pretty much been discussing candidates' interactions with the parties they want to be standard bearers for. The two major parties have no obligation (or desire that I can see) to go with outsiders who are just going to ignore them for their candidate no matter what they perceive the general electorate thinks of the parties.

I'm part of the electorate, though, and I don't despise both parties. So what? I'm just more sophisticated than the electorate you're talking about? (Actually, I think I am--I think that most in the citizen segments that are being vocal now are short sighted and dumb as rocks.) I despise certain wings of the Republican party. But I don't blame the Democratic Party for anything going on now. It has a good man in office now (he just was named the international man of the year for the seventh year in a row), and I don't think it's the Democratic Party's fault all he has heard from Congress is "no" and the suggestion that he is a terrorist or not even an American. I blame the dumb segments of the electorate you mention for that.

It's fine for me for the two major parties to just continue trying to field the best candidates they can and damn an uninformed, unwashed, despising electorate (which I don't see as the majority of the electorate--so I disagree with you if you do. The bulk of the electorate just isn't out there screaming). Let them form up their own parties and then learn themselves how hard it is to win an election when faced with a dumb electorate and govern.

 

[sr71plt]

No, Obama simply lied, and then quietly implemented a right-wing agenda.

Obama hasn't been given the option to implement much of anything. And he didn't lie. He was wet behind the ears and genuinely thought, I believe, that he could motivate unity behind what were, on the whole, either generally moderate programs or pie-in-the-sky dreams that he was too naive to realize wouldn't fly (at least yet). That didn't stop him from offering the candy in the primary campaign, though, when Hillary Clinton refused to give promises she knew she couldn't deliver (because she had already been in the presidential arena). But in the nomination process and beyond an easily duped electorate saw the candy offered and assumed they could have it. They couldn't. Bernie's doing the same candy offering, and once more voters are thinking they can have the candy just because he says he's going to give it to them. He can't give it to them.

And you're just being nonobjective dogmatic, prone to ride sweeping generalizations out to the edges of the galaxy. That's a pity, because it makes people like you really upset and rotting inside. I'm not going to be like that.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Obama hasn't been given the option to implement much of anything.

On the contrary, he has made history. He became the first president to assert the authority to have American citizens assassinated without even being charged with a crime. He carried out the vigilante assassination of the sickly and unarmed Osama bin Laden, thus ensuring that there will never be a trial and the world will never know the true extent of bin Laden's alleged involvement in the 911 attacks (along with many, many other interesting projects which are not widely known.) Then he strutted around and played the macho about it. He massively expanded Bush's loathsome policy of drone assassinations, even personally presided over the Tuesday night "kill list" sessions, despite the findings of his own administration that 90% of the people they kill are innocent bystanders. It was Obama's DOJ that initiated the ground-breaking "Too Big To Jail" policy with respect to Obama's Wall Street sponsors. Don't try to tell me that Obama has been constantly thwarted in his objectives.

 

[JackLuis]

Do #MuslimLivesMatter? US Officials Dismiss Civilian Casualties in Middle East

The broader problem with Hayden’s rosy view of the effectiveness and precision of the drone program is that it just doesn’t square with the facts. According to a major report, “The Drone Papers,” released by The Intercept in October and based on classified documents and inside sources, during just one special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan between 2012 and 2013, US special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people, only 35 of whom were the actual intended targets. The Intercept’s documents further reveal that “during one five-month period of the operation…nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.”

So drones could be said to be only 10% effective, or on the other hand they are 100% effective at promoting more enemies for America. Thank you Kenyan Usurper Terrorist In Charge.

 

[JackLuis]

Back to our original thread topic.

Why Polls Undercount Sanders, And Why He Can Win New York

By now it is widely understood among Sanders supporters that the mainstream media has been relentlessly pro-Clinton in its coverage of the Democratic race. Twitter hashtags such as #BernieBlackout regularly trend on nights when Sanders wins a caucus or primary, only to have the cable news networks ignore his victory speech or cut away halfway through. Most media failed to cover a recent major #BernieBlackout protest outside CNN’s Hollywood, California offices over lack of coverage.

However, in addition to this media bias is an increasingly clear and worrisome phenomenon in which polling organizations and data analysts consistently underestimate Sanders’ relative strength in a given caucus or primary. The most notable example is the Michigan Primary, where polls showed Clinton with a 20-30 point lead just days before the race, which Sanders ultimately won by 1.5%.

I have already written about how obviously biased in favor of Clinton many of the data analysts that use statistical modeling and poll aggregation to make predictions have been. Some are even open about their preferences. Perhaps the most prominent is Nate Silver, the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight, who in a February editorial shamefully dismissed Bernie Sanders as “another old white guy.”

 

[sr71plt]

On the contrary, he has made history. He became the first president to assert the authority to have American citizens assassinated without even being charged with a crime.

Thanks for the laugh. Laughed so hard I stopped reading your post here. I worked in U.S. intelligence under six presidents. Oh, yes, I laughed.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Can anybody point to when Bernie actually said he'd tear down Obamacare cus I can't find it.

 

[JackLuis]

Can anybody point to when Bernie actually said he'd tear down Obamacare cus I can't find it.

That's just a Clinton slur, he said he want so expand it and make it single payer to eliminate the Insurance Co's markup.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Thanks for the laugh. Laughed so hard I stopped reading your post here. I worked in U.S. intelligence under six presidents. Oh, yes, I laughed.

Other presidents carried out assassinations on the sly, taking care to preserve the fig leaf of plausible deniability. Obama publically proclaimed himself the Assassin in Chief, and the blow-back was negligible. As I recall, you were just whimpering about how Obama "hasn't been given the option to implement much of anything".

Can anybody point to when Bernie actually said he'd tear down Obamacare cus I can't find it.

Bernie has consistently called for single-payer, universal health care along the lines of the Medicare For All Act. This is pretty much the opposite of Obamacare -- instead of a federal requirement that you purchase private heath insurance, the government would simply provide actual health care at no charge to the patient, as is the case in France, Cuba, Canada, and most of the civilized world.

 

[BotanyBoy]

I'm just more sophisticated than the electorate you're talking about? (Actually, I think I am-

Oh well thank gawd ya told us SR.....otherwise you're just so humble none of us would have ever guessed you were such an elitist.

 

[Sean Renaud]

His name is pilot! I'm SR!

-snip-


Bernie has consistently called for single-payer, universal health care along the lines of the Medicare For All Act. This is pretty much the opposite of Obamacare -- instead of a federal requirement that you purchase private heath insurance, the government would simply provide actual health care at no charge to the patient, as is the case in France, Cuba, Canada, and most of the civilized world.

Unless he plans to remove Obamacare prior to putting that in place it makes no difference. Most Obamacare supporters would prefer single payer. But a lot of us have heard Bernie wants to tear down Obamacare that given the current political climate that's scary. Because Paul Ryan would happily repeal Obamacare and then never replace it. So exact wording is vital here.

 

[sr71plt]

Oh well thank gawd ya told us SR.....otherwise you're just so humble none of us would have ever guessed you were such an elitist.

It should be fairly obvious that it doesn't take much to be more sophisticated on government than most of the vocal electorate sounding off at present. And I really don't give a shit whether you think I'm elitist or not. It wouldn't take much to be more elite than you based on your posting history, I think.

 

[sr71plt]

Can anybody point to when Bernie actually said he'd tear down Obamacare cus I can't find it.

Guess you haven't tuned into the debates. I did.

 

[BotanyBoy]

It should be fairly obvious that it doesn't take much to be more sophisticated on government than most of the vocal electorate sounding off at present.

It's not, all you do is kiss establishment partisan ass like a good lemming regurgitating MSN/CNN bullshit.

This is just you once again thinking you're so special that your shit doesn't stink.

And I really don't give a shit whether you think I'm elitist or not. It wouldn't take much to be more elite than you based on your posting history, I think.

Oh look more claims about how your shit smells of roses.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/98/ae/89/98ae891254f229842ff6e216eef76428.jpg

 

[Sean Renaud]

Guess you haven't tuned into the debates. I did.

I did and I never heard him say it but I sometimes get a drink. I was assuming that someone had actually heard it. I spent an entire day googling and cannot find any evidence of him saying that.

 

[sr71plt]

Unless he plans to remove Obamacare prior to putting that in place it makes no difference. Most Obamacare supporters would prefer single payer. But a lot of us have heard Bernie wants to tear down Obamacare that given the current political climate that's scary. Because Paul Ryan would happily repeal Obamacare and then never replace it. So exact wording is vital here.

I've heard him say in debates that he would dismantle Obamacare and then build his own dream program. There's just about zero chance of him having a Congress land in his lap that will let him build anything--and it's most likely they'll be happy just to dismantle Obamacare (which, I'm willing to bet is the best deal most folks opposing it, including some of those on this forum, are ever likely to get as a health care plan they need. I think soooo many are shooting their own interests in the foot over this on some false sense that it will be the end to them being true-blue 'Mericans.) But, again, I have a cushy federal plan paid by the government and backed up by Medicare, so if they want to be dumb, I can survive that.