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On February 20 2020 20:40 Belisarius wrote: Bernie isn't a social democrat, he's a democratic socialist. It sounds like nitpicking but the differences are significant and it's important to be precise.
His "wealth" is obviously not an issue to anyone who thinks about it for ten seconds, but there is a large chunk of the electorate that will not think about it for ten seconds. The optics are a little shaky. There will be blue-collar workers all over the country who will hear that a millionaire complaining about millionaires is planning to raise their taxes while remaining a millionaire.
Trump will push this button as hard as he can, and Sanders needs to have an answer that will fly with those voters.
He's a millionaire complaining about billionaires.
Using Forbes numbers, Bernie is worth 2.5 million. Bloomberg earned 8.7 billion last year.
Bloomberg will earn Bernie's 50+year career life's savings in less than 3 hours. And Trump is literally fighting in the supreme court to keep his tax returns hidden. I doubt these two have any angle here.
Based on these numbers:
Imagine finding 2.5 million one day. Surely this will change your life. You might want to buy a house, invest, pay debt or retire early. But sleep on it first, dont make a hasty decision. The next day on your way to the bank you find another 2.5 million, and the next day... and so on for about ten years. Then you have what this guy made in a year.
Sanders is really bad at defending his positions. I'm starting to become skeptical about how he'll do against Trump.
Warren and Klobuchar looked desperate.
You could see the moment that Klobuchar started going off script. As a Minnesotan, I really dont have any confidence in her.
Both Bloomberg and Buttigieg looked like massive douchebags. I thought the question about Buttigieg being out of touch with his own generation was especially needed. He is such a disingenuous tool with his arguments against progressive policies.
Bloomberg's rise corresponds pretty neatly with Biden's polling descent. I thought Biden had a solid performance last night for his standards, meaning he was slightly above treading water.
Lost in the frenzied pursuit of Bloomberg's scalp last night is that if Bloomberg's numbers were to fall off the map Biden would mop up most of that support and do very very well this super Tuesday.
My prediction is a second place finish in Nevada, a healthy win in South Carolina, and a solid super Tuesday performance to put Biden back on top. Probably will just be Sanders vs Biden after that and id put half my chips on Biden winning and the other half on it being a brokered convention.
Until further developments Bernie is running away with this and any other conclusion just seems weird to me based on the data that I've seen. Biden isn't going back up from this, he'll need to earn it and I don't know that he has it in him, Warren might get a few points since she had a strong performance but apart from that the front runner is reinforced. Not claiming he's a lock to get more than 50%, it could still be brokered obviously but the notion that Biden has a better chance of finishing ahead sounds like fantasy.
On February 20 2020 22:43 Stratos_speAr wrote: Sanders is really bad at defending his positions. I'm starting to become skeptical about how he'll do against Trump.
I honestly think that any of these candidates are going to have a less than even chance of defeating Trump. He's a sitting president, the economy is notionally doing well, and none of these folks have the simple broadly appealing charm of someone like Obama. But I'd say that only Biden and Sanders have any reasonable chance of winning that national, and Sanders is probably the better off of the two. To win, I think Sanders has to convince a broad coalition of his base to come out and vote, and a lot of moderates that it's better to elect a kinda-socialist than to reelect a highly unpopular president who promises the status quo.
The fact that Trump is so unpopular under favorable conditions means that there's a path to victory. It's just a matter of who campaigns better.
There are enough non-voters who might show up just to vote for Sanders such that he may not need as broad an establishment coalition as any other candidate. Nevertheless, some measure of cooperation from establishment candidates would definitely help.
On February 20 2020 21:43 farvacola wrote: I thought the debate went well for Sanders and Warren, appropriately awful for Bloomberg, and meh/middling for everyone else. Not a surprising result.
I felt Pete looked desperate honestly. On the moderate end Bloomy got boomed and Biden was already one foot out the door. I don't think he was happy at all with Klob's NH showing after only barely eeking out an advantage over Bernie in Iowa and is trying to clear his side of the table... but instead came off like a bit of a tool.
He seemed super desperate for relevance. He tried to make every moment into an attack speech. Yawn, get the hell out Buttigieg
On February 20 2020 21:43 farvacola wrote: I thought the debate went well for Sanders and Warren, appropriately awful for Bloomberg, and meh/middling for everyone else. Not a surprising result.
I felt Pete looked desperate honestly. On the moderate end Bloomy got boomed and Biden was already one foot out the door. I don't think he was happy at all with Klob's NH showing after only barely eeking out an advantage over Bernie in Iowa and is trying to clear his side of the table... but instead came off like a bit of a tool.
He seemed super desperate for relevance. He tried to make every moment into an attack speech. Yawn, get the hell out Buttigieg
And his attacks were most strongly targeted at Klobuchar. Which honestly just made him look like a bully more than anything else, especially considering that neither of them is going to win the nomination. She might not have had the most rousing defense, but it should have been clear to the viewers that those attacks were more petty than substantive.
On February 20 2020 21:43 farvacola wrote: I thought the debate went well for Sanders and Warren, appropriately awful for Bloomberg, and meh/middling for everyone else. Not a surprising result.
I felt Pete looked desperate honestly. On the moderate end Bloomy got boomed and Biden was already one foot out the door. I don't think he was happy at all with Klob's NH showing after only barely eeking out an advantage over Bernie in Iowa and is trying to clear his side of the table... but instead came off like a bit of a tool.
He seemed super desperate for relevance. He tried to make every moment into an attack speech. Yawn, get the hell out Buttigieg
And his attacks were most strongly targeted at Klobuchar. Which honestly just made him look like a bully more than anything else, especially considering that neither of them is going to win the nomination. She might not have had the most rousing defense, but it should have been clear to the viewers that those attacks were more petty than substantive.
They were particularly out of place amid him trying to play the role of the "unity" candidate.
Buttigieg's attacks on Klobuchar made sense to me. He needs to knock her out and take over her supporters as fast as possible so everyone will have to take him seriously because of his double digit support. I think she looked worse than him in the debate ("Are you saying I'm dumb?"), though largely thanks to the moderators who went easy on Buttigieg (no tough questions and tolerating his interjections) and hard on Klobuchar (president of Mexico question).
On February 20 2020 12:36 Wegandi wrote: It's funny hearing Bernie talk about the rich buying votes when all his plans are essentially, here's some free shit, $$$, vote for me. There's no pretense this debate is anything else. Every candidate is in a game of one upmanship to who can use the Government to give away the most shit. It's hilarious how transparent it is. There's almost no substantive and factual "talk" going on.
You're not supposed to notice that, or his three houses, or his $1.2 million spent on luxury private jets in one quarter.
"If we don't act incredibly boldly in the next six, seven years, there will be irreparable damage done. Not just to Nevada, not just to Vermont or Massachusetts, but to the entire world."
"The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s... Bernie will lead our country to enact the Green New Deal and bring the world together to defeat the existential threat of climate change."
He should make changes in his own life before preaching to others.
As long as he is willing to pay the increased tax rates there is not the hypocrisy you are trying to find. Because despite the scare tactics of the far right he is not a communist, he is a social democrat which allow for some difference between the classes, just not the exponential situation the US currently faces.
If you want hypocrisy you have to look at "self made man" in the presidents seat who calls others liars and crooks. Claims to have made his wealth. Insults actual war vets which he draft dodged. Got his wealth not at all selfmade but by tax evasion on inheritance. Son of a grifter and grandson of a grifter. And that is just his surface level hypocrisy before you get into the whole him being a "good christian" while being a admitted adulterer who pays women he has sex with to keep quiet. I mean that is most of the deadly sins and a bunch of commandments all in just a few acts. With Trump you dont have to stretch or make up any hypocrisy it is actually hard to find anything genuine about the man.
Agreed about Trump. Don't see how Bernie can call for radical restructuring of the economy because climate change is going to end the world and then fly around in lux jets and buy a 4 bedroom house for his third property. It's like Obama's new 12 million mansion yet he's buddies with Greta. He made climate change a "top priority" but not in his own life. They're all crooks.
All of it (Trump included) reminds me of this part in a Chomsky interview which I think can apply to politicians. Long filtration process before anyone steps on stage. + Show Spoiler +
Chomsky: “Well, I know some of the best, and best known investigative reporters in the United States, I won’t mention names, {inaudible}, whose attitude towards the media is much more cynical than mine. In fact, they regard the media as a sham. And they know, and they consciously talk about how they try to play it like a violin. If they see a little opening, they’ll try to squeeze something in that ordinarily wouldn’t make it through. And it’s perfectly true that the majority - I’m sure you’re speaking for the majority of journalists who are trained, have it driven into their heads, that this is a crusading profession, adversarial, we stand up against power. A very self-serving view. On the other hand, in my opinion, I hate to make a value judgement but, the better journalists and in fact the ones who are often regarded as the best journalists have quite a different picture. And I think a very realistic one.”
Marr[BBC journalist]: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are..”
Chomsky: “I’m not saying you're self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
I'm not qualified to understand the legal details of this, but some weird stuff is going on where DoJ didn't actually retract the sentencing memo of the 4 prosecutors (that quit earlier because DoJ/Barr intervened and released a second sentencing memo that asks for lower punishment.) So there's now two memos conflicting, but the new prosecutor is going for the higher penalty again:
Not sure what is going on, do they now want higher sentencing so Trump has more ammo to pardon Stone? Or is the new prosecutor going against Barr as well?
On February 20 2020 12:36 Wegandi wrote: It's funny hearing Bernie talk about the rich buying votes when all his plans are essentially, here's some free shit, $$$, vote for me. There's no pretense this debate is anything else. Every candidate is in a game of one upmanship to who can use the Government to give away the most shit. It's hilarious how transparent it is. There's almost no substantive and factual "talk" going on.
You're not supposed to notice that, or his three houses, or his $1.2 million spent on luxury private jets in one quarter.
"If we don't act incredibly boldly in the next six, seven years, there will be irreparable damage done. Not just to Nevada, not just to Vermont or Massachusetts, but to the entire world."
"The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s... Bernie will lead our country to enact the Green New Deal and bring the world together to defeat the existential threat of climate change."
He should make changes in his own life before preaching to others.
As long as he is willing to pay the increased tax rates there is not the hypocrisy you are trying to find. Because despite the scare tactics of the far right he is not a communist, he is a social democrat which allow for some difference between the classes, just not the exponential situation the US currently faces.
If you want hypocrisy you have to look at "self made man" in the presidents seat who calls others liars and crooks. Claims to have made his wealth. Insults actual war vets which he draft dodged. Got his wealth not at all selfmade but by tax evasion on inheritance. Son of a grifter and grandson of a grifter. And that is just his surface level hypocrisy before you get into the whole him being a "good christian" while being a admitted adulterer who pays women he has sex with to keep quiet. I mean that is most of the deadly sins and a bunch of commandments all in just a few acts. With Trump you dont have to stretch or make up any hypocrisy it is actually hard to find anything genuine about the man.
Agreed about Trump. Don't see how Bernie can call for radical restructuring of the economy because climate change is going to end the world and then fly around in lux jets and buy a 4 bedroom house for his third property. It's like Obama's new 12 million mansion yet he's buddies with Greta. He made climate change a "top priority" but not in his own life. They're all crooks.
All of it (Trump included) reminds me of this part in a Chomsky interview which I think can apply to politicians. Long filtration process before anyone steps on stage. + Show Spoiler +
Chomsky: “Well, I know some of the best, and best known investigative reporters in the United States, I won’t mention names, {inaudible}, whose attitude towards the media is much more cynical than mine. In fact, they regard the media as a sham. And they know, and they consciously talk about how they try to play it like a violin. If they see a little opening, they’ll try to squeeze something in that ordinarily wouldn’t make it through. And it’s perfectly true that the majority - I’m sure you’re speaking for the majority of journalists who are trained, have it driven into their heads, that this is a crusading profession, adversarial, we stand up against power. A very self-serving view. On the other hand, in my opinion, I hate to make a value judgement but, the better journalists and in fact the ones who are often regarded as the best journalists have quite a different picture. And I think a very realistic one.”
Marr[BBC journalist]: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are..”
Chomsky: “I’m not saying you're self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
FYI the type of argument you are making regarding "how can you preach ____ when there are imperfections with how you execute what you are saying" isn't considered valid in a technical sense. Pointing out the existence of imperfections in someone's execution in what they preach does not disqualify the critique. Many major political and civil rights leaders throughout history were not perfect. It doesn't make what they say less true.
We've covered your argument in this thread many times. Every now and then someone wanders into this thread and basically says exactly what you said word for word. It is a common cheap pundit point that doesn't stand up to actual argumentative theory.
On February 20 2020 12:36 Wegandi wrote: It's funny hearing Bernie talk about the rich buying votes when all his plans are essentially, here's some free shit, $$$, vote for me. There's no pretense this debate is anything else. Every candidate is in a game of one upmanship to who can use the Government to give away the most shit. It's hilarious how transparent it is. There's almost no substantive and factual "talk" going on.
You're not supposed to notice that, or his three houses, or his $1.2 million spent on luxury private jets in one quarter.
"If we don't act incredibly boldly in the next six, seven years, there will be irreparable damage done. Not just to Nevada, not just to Vermont or Massachusetts, but to the entire world."
"The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s... Bernie will lead our country to enact the Green New Deal and bring the world together to defeat the existential threat of climate change."
He should make changes in his own life before preaching to others.
As long as he is willing to pay the increased tax rates there is not the hypocrisy you are trying to find. Because despite the scare tactics of the far right he is not a communist, he is a social democrat which allow for some difference between the classes, just not the exponential situation the US currently faces.
If you want hypocrisy you have to look at "self made man" in the presidents seat who calls others liars and crooks. Claims to have made his wealth. Insults actual war vets which he draft dodged. Got his wealth not at all selfmade but by tax evasion on inheritance. Son of a grifter and grandson of a grifter. And that is just his surface level hypocrisy before you get into the whole him being a "good christian" while being a admitted adulterer who pays women he has sex with to keep quiet. I mean that is most of the deadly sins and a bunch of commandments all in just a few acts. With Trump you dont have to stretch or make up any hypocrisy it is actually hard to find anything genuine about the man.
Agreed about Trump. Don't see how Bernie can call for radical restructuring of the economy because climate change is going to end the world and then fly around in lux jets and buy a 4 bedroom house for his third property. It's like Obama's new 12 million mansion yet he's buddies with Greta. He made climate change a "top priority" but not in his own life. They're all crooks.
All of it (Trump included) reminds me of this part in a Chomsky interview which I think can apply to politicians. Long filtration process before anyone steps on stage. + Show Spoiler +
Chomsky: “Well, I know some of the best, and best known investigative reporters in the United States, I won’t mention names, {inaudible}, whose attitude towards the media is much more cynical than mine. In fact, they regard the media as a sham. And they know, and they consciously talk about how they try to play it like a violin. If they see a little opening, they’ll try to squeeze something in that ordinarily wouldn’t make it through. And it’s perfectly true that the majority - I’m sure you’re speaking for the majority of journalists who are trained, have it driven into their heads, that this is a crusading profession, adversarial, we stand up against power. A very self-serving view. On the other hand, in my opinion, I hate to make a value judgement but, the better journalists and in fact the ones who are often regarded as the best journalists have quite a different picture. And I think a very realistic one.”
Marr[BBC journalist]: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are..”
Chomsky: “I’m not saying you're self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
FYI the type of argument you are making regarding "how can you preach ____ when there are imperfections with how you execute what you are saying" isn't considered valid in a technical sense. Pointing out the existence of imperfections in someone's execution in what they preach does not disqualify the critique. Many major political and civil rights leaders throughout history were not perfect. It doesn't make what they say less true.
We've covered your argument in this thread many times. Every now and then someone wanders into this thread and basically says exactly what you said word for word. It is a common cheap pundit point that doesn't stand up to actual argumentative theory.
Much like how pointing out larger problems in the world - like hunger - doesn't invalidate smaller problems. It's naive at best, and disingenuous at worst, to jump from those facts to that conclusion in such an argument. You'd discredit nearly every environmentalist on the planet on the basis of our still-strong dependence on fossil fuels, when their entire argument is that we need to take the steps to break that dependence.
Xxio is saying that because the problem of the environment isn't solved yet, Bernie shouldn't get a chance to do so. It's absurd. If he was genuinely concerned about these things that form his alleged objection to Bernie, he'd have far more problems with Trump, instead he equivocates them.
On February 20 2020 12:36 Wegandi wrote: It's funny hearing Bernie talk about the rich buying votes when all his plans are essentially, here's some free shit, $$$, vote for me. There's no pretense this debate is anything else. Every candidate is in a game of one upmanship to who can use the Government to give away the most shit. It's hilarious how transparent it is. There's almost no substantive and factual "talk" going on.
You're not supposed to notice that, or his three houses, or his $1.2 million spent on luxury private jets in one quarter.
"If we don't act incredibly boldly in the next six, seven years, there will be irreparable damage done. Not just to Nevada, not just to Vermont or Massachusetts, but to the entire world."
"The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s... Bernie will lead our country to enact the Green New Deal and bring the world together to defeat the existential threat of climate change."
He should make changes in his own life before preaching to others.
As long as he is willing to pay the increased tax rates there is not the hypocrisy you are trying to find. Because despite the scare tactics of the far right he is not a communist, he is a social democrat which allow for some difference between the classes, just not the exponential situation the US currently faces.
If you want hypocrisy you have to look at "self made man" in the presidents seat who calls others liars and crooks. Claims to have made his wealth. Insults actual war vets which he draft dodged. Got his wealth not at all selfmade but by tax evasion on inheritance. Son of a grifter and grandson of a grifter. And that is just his surface level hypocrisy before you get into the whole him being a "good christian" while being a admitted adulterer who pays women he has sex with to keep quiet. I mean that is most of the deadly sins and a bunch of commandments all in just a few acts. With Trump you dont have to stretch or make up any hypocrisy it is actually hard to find anything genuine about the man.
Agreed about Trump. Don't see how Bernie can call for radical restructuring of the economy because climate change is going to end the world and then fly around in lux jets and buy a 4 bedroom house for his third property. It's like Obama's new 12 million mansion yet he's buddies with Greta. He made climate change a "top priority" but not in his own life. They're all crooks.
All of it (Trump included) reminds me of this part in a Chomsky interview which I think can apply to politicians. Long filtration process before anyone steps on stage. + Show Spoiler +
Chomsky: “Well, I know some of the best, and best known investigative reporters in the United States, I won’t mention names, {inaudible}, whose attitude towards the media is much more cynical than mine. In fact, they regard the media as a sham. And they know, and they consciously talk about how they try to play it like a violin. If they see a little opening, they’ll try to squeeze something in that ordinarily wouldn’t make it through. And it’s perfectly true that the majority - I’m sure you’re speaking for the majority of journalists who are trained, have it driven into their heads, that this is a crusading profession, adversarial, we stand up against power. A very self-serving view. On the other hand, in my opinion, I hate to make a value judgement but, the better journalists and in fact the ones who are often regarded as the best journalists have quite a different picture. And I think a very realistic one.”
Marr[BBC journalist]: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are..”
Chomsky: “I’m not saying you're self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
FYI the type of argument you are making regarding "how can you preach ____ when there are imperfections with how you execute what you are saying" isn't considered valid in a technical sense. Pointing out the existence of imperfections in someone's execution in what they preach does not disqualify the critique. Many major political and civil rights leaders throughout history were not perfect. It doesn't make what they say less true.
We've covered your argument in this thread many times. Every now and then someone wanders into this thread and basically says exactly what you said word for word. It is a common cheap pundit point that doesn't stand up to actual argumentative theory.
saying that important people flying around on jets is hypocrisy is a dumb logical argument. a president cant govern from his house via web conferencing and neither can a candidate campaign. planes are useful. you need to weigh the cost of any particular plane trip vs the benefit of the trip. global warming is a question about how to distribute the total social use of the commons, not an argument that nobody can use the commons for any reason
In other news, Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months of prison time.
Less than the 7-9 years initially recommended, but more than the 0 prison time the DoJ put out. Probably an unhappy medium for all sides, but it makes it harder for Trump to justify a pardon of any kind.
EPT
