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U.S. Politics: That's too bad for Carrots


Mr. Chatywin et al.

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17 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I think you’re overstating my position quite a bit much.

I don’t want to be given a government basket of food as well as people who need it. And pay higher taxes for being given food I could have bought. Just keep giving it to people in need. Not me. That is what I am saying.

The last thing I want is the government having any “noticeable difference in my life”

But this is what I'm going off of. 

It doesn't help you said your dad was in the military, the most socialist organization in our entire country. I don't know your relationship with him, but odds are you were a major beneficiary of socialism growing up. 

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30 minutes ago, DMC said:

Eh, not really.  First of all, Trump's gains among much of the Hispanic electorate merely reflected the increasing polarization of the rural/urban dichotomy.  Second of all, the Mexican-American vote was still key to Biden's victories in Arizona and Nevada.  And his significant weakness in south Texas largely had to do with the Tejano vote, which is unique to that region.

I blame the media. Seen too many stories of people saying, "I don't like Trump, but he did nominate Justice Barrett." That's on me letting a few stories color my glasses.

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14 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

My dad served six years in order to pay for medical school. That’s an equal exchange, IMO. Someone pays you / gives you something of value, and you work for them. YMMV.

However, if you could please take my clarifying point as given, I’d appreciate it. I can’t think of every angle of interpretation in an off-the-cuff remark.

Yah..  Like my BIL on another side who took it all in the military to get his med education and quit being a doctor immediately (while never needing to serve where the bombs and guns and etc. were) in favor of making REALLY BIG MONEY working with the REALLY RICH by  brokering Native American Art to people like Paris Hilton.  He's the only person ever I can think of who leveraged getting a medical degree in the military to enter the art market.  But evidently a whole lot of those guys in his medical classes did some version or other of that -- none of them wanted to work with you know really sick people. That was for chumps.  And it was gross.  Sports medicine OK.  But actually sick and blow up people, forget about it.

It took being threatened in his biz and art galleries by the virus to get him to think that republicans might not be so great after all.

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25 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

My dad served six years in order to pay for medical school. That’s an equal exchange, IMO. Someone pays you / gives you something of value, and you work for them. YMMV.

Yeah. And the government paid him with tax payer money a yearly clothing allowance. And a monthly food allowance. And a monthly housing allowance. On top of his base pay.

Was he married or did he have kids at the time? Then he got extra dependent pay. Did he work more than other people who weren't married or didn't have kids? Probably not. But the government paid him more just because.

He or his family had to go the hospital? It was taken care of, free of charge. Courtesy of the tax payer.

Also the government paid for his schooling. Not just the payment to the school, he was also given a monthly living allowance while he was taking classes. Way to go with the whole, " It's not socialism if it benefits me and mine"

I did six years myself, with 6 months 17 days in Afghanistan. I don't lie to myself about the benefits I received.

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5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah, this part is undeniable.  He was extraordinarily weak with minority voters.  But writing off his appeal as wholly "media-created" is incredibly stupid.  That's the same horseshit the GOP said about Obama, Buttigieg had plenty of other "media darlings" to contend with, and primary voters in IA and NH are particularly resistant to solely media-generated candidates.

This is all based on your warped view/definition of "centrist" and "neo-lib."  Overall, he's quite clearly very close to the median of the Democratic electorate.  If you wanna describe such positioning in a pejorative way, that's your prerogative, but it doesn't change the fact that that's the exact ideal ideological position for a Democratic politician with national ambitions to be at.

I think we're going to have to disagree on the media bit, Pete got overwhelmingly positive coverage and I think that coupled with the fact that he spent most all his time in Iowa and is from a culturally similar area. As far as NH goes he benefited greatly from the narrative coming out of Iowa being Mayor Pete won rather than Iowa Caucus clusterfuck leads to mixed outcome with Pete getting the most delegates but Bernie having the biggest turn out. Now I'm not going to re-litigate the Iowa Caucus, because that way lies madness, but the media dropped the Bernie part entirely to focus on Pete because that suited the narrative they wanted to build.

I don't understand why the fact that he is close to the median of the Democratic party is a good thing outside of his own future career. This is something I've said that I dislike about him, it feels like he is going to say whatever he thinks will get him to the next rung. The center of the Democratic party has done one significant thing in the last 30 years, that being the ACA which was still extremely business friendly and still left people in a position where they have insurance but can't use it because they still have an insane deductible. The Democrats have been anywhere from ineffectual to complicit in acting as an opposition to the Republicans in the last two decades, and I think it's largely because the Democrats also support big business (though not to the same extent), they also support austerity, they want to make sure that the money coming from Wall Street and Silicone Valley doesn't stop and are willing to cowtow to their interests rather than fighting for workers. In short, they love to be for things in principle, but when it comes down to putting it into practice, they come up with a million reasons why they can't do it. If we continue this way, it's game over, we're just going to continue in the same cycle, and I see no reason to think that Pete and the median of the Democratic party is going to buck that trend.

 

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4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Yah..  Like my BIL on another side who took it all in the military to get his med education and quit being a doctor immediately (while never needing to serve where the bombs and guns and etc. were) in favor of making REALLY BIG MONEY working with the REALLY RICH by  brokering Native American Art to people like Paris Hilton.  He's the only person ever I can think of who leveraged getting a medical degree in the military to enter the art market.  But evidently a whole lot of those guys in his medical classes did some version or other of that -- none of them wanted to work with you know really sick people. That was for chumps.  And it was gross.  Sports medicine OK.  But actually sick and blow up people, forget about it.

It took being threatened in his biz and art galleries by the virus to get him to think that republicans might not be so great after all.

I don’t doubt that this may have happened but the extrapolation you are doing here is bullshit and also maybe counterproductive to your point. To the vast dismay of both liberals and conservatives, depending on what either camp is bitching about, the United States military is a part of the United States government. The GI bill is a great example of a government program that works and that most everyone can get behind. If an individual does their time to repay the government for the degree that they were given, who gives a shit if they went into a different profession? If they got square with the government then if they want to sell art instead of practicing medicine then that is their right. Complaining about that feels like you are advocating a lifetime of indentured servitude because the government gave that person a leg up, and I don’t think you’ll find popular support for that position.

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16 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

I think we're going to have to disagree on the media bit, Pete got overwhelmingly positive coverage and I think that coupled with the fact that he spent most all his time in Iowa and is from a culturally similar area. As far as NH goes he benefited greatly from the narrative coming out of Iowa being Mayor Pete won rather than Iowa Caucus clusterfuck leads to mixed outcome with Pete getting the most delegates but Bernie having the biggest turn out.

If you could take a step back, you'd see how much mental gymnastics you're engaging in here to avoid giving Buttigieg any credit for his performance.  I honestly don't know where you're getting this notion that Buttigieg got significantly more positive coverage from the media than virtually any other candidate - other than Bernie and (to a considerably lesser extent) Warren who, yes, the "mainstream" media fear-mongered as "socialist."  Docking him for having a good strategy by building a superior grassroots organization in Iowa compared to almost every other candidate seems entirely ass-backwards.  And acting like momentum from Iowa leads to a boost in New Hampshire is unbelievably dubious - within both parties actually.  There's tons of counter-examples to that, but especially see Obama 2008.

24 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

The center of the Democratic party has done one significant thing in the last 30 years

This is a rather absurd premise to have.  The center or median of the Democratic party has shifted incredibly over the past 30 years, so I have no idea why you're treating it as a constant.  Accordingly, the median of the Democratic party today is significantly more leftist than it was in the Clinton, Dubya, and even Obama years. 

Overall, your view of the Democratic party of today - and of the Obama years - is laughably misinformed.  The deficit hawks have been almost entirely eradicated from the party.  Those espousing deregulation during the Clinton/Rubin era were eventually ousted by the Obama administration - which instituted more regulations than any presidency since LBJ.  And acting like the Dems have been "ineffectual" as the opposition party during this century - when they have been the opposition party - is simply empirically wrong outside of the first 4-5 years when they had 9/11 and Iraq to contend with. 

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So the recount in the Iowa 2nd wrapped up today, barring anything very odd the results will be certified on Monday.  The result?  The Republican won by SIX votes:

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Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks is hanging onto a single-digit lead in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District after a recount in a race that will help determine the size of Democrats’ majority in the House of Representatives.

The Iowa Press-Citizen reports that Miller-Meeks had just six more votes than Democrat Rita Hart after the recount wrapped up Saturday in Clinton County, which was the last of the district’s 24 counties to report its results.

A state canvassing board is expected to meet Monday, the legal deadline, to certify the results of the race in which more than 394,400 votes were cast.

To the courts!

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2 minutes ago, DMC said:

If you could take a step back, you'd see how much mental gymnastics you're engaging in here to avoid giving Buttigieg any credit for his performance.  I honestly don't know where you're getting this notion that Buttigieg got significantly more positive coverage from the media than virtually any other candidate - other than Bernie and (to a considerably lesser extent) Warren who, yes, the "mainstream" media fear-mongered as "socialist."  Docking him for having a good strategy by building a superior grassroots organization in Iowa compared to almost every other candidate seems entirely ass-backwards.  And acting like momentum from Iowa leads to a boost in New Hampshire is unbelievably dubious - within both parties actually.  There's tons of counter-examples to that, but especially see Obama 2008.

This is a rather absurd premise to have.  The center or median of the Democratic party has shifted incredibly over the past 30 years, so I have no idea why you're treating it as a constant.  Accordingly, the median of the Democratic party today is significantly more leftist than it was in the Clinton, Dubya, and even Obama years. 

Overall, your view of the Democratic party of today - and of the Obama years - is laughably misinformed.  The deficit hawks have been almost entirely eradicated from the party.  Those espousing deregulation during the Clinton/Rubin era were eventually ousted by the Obama administration - which instituted more regulations than any presidency since LBJ.  And acting like the Dems have been "ineffectual" as the opposition party during this century - when they have been the opposition party - is simply empirically wrong outside of the first 4-5 years when they had 9/11 and Iraq to contend with. 

I literally said that Pete put all his chips in Iowa, I never said that he didn't build a good organization in Iowa, I said that he was boosted by a media narrative. Pete should have been in the Tim Ryan tier of coverage, but because the media gave him so much play, he was able to punch way above his weight in terms of fundraising and that is what allowed him to drive that strategy. I don't have numbers on this but its not like he came out of nowhere to pick up the win, he was absolutely being pushed in the media.  As far as how Iowa relates to New Hampshire, it doesn't change the fact that his win in Iowa thrust him in the national spotlight even more so than before. Now I'll concede his strategy in Iowa that generated the buzz and the media picked up on it, but from where I'm sitting, Pete got buzz just as the buzz around Biden started to fade when it became clear that he was going to invest heavily in SC.

Nancy Pelosi is a deficit hawk, she literally inserted pay-go into the House rules, is she not the "center"? As for the party being more leftist, yes, of course they are and they keep going after their left flank that has given them the reputation for being more left wing. Like I said, they are more left wing in that they talk like a somewhat more progressive party, but they are not actually putting it into practice. You need look no further than the HEROES act, where they knew that it was DOA and they still compromised.

As for them as the opposition party, Democrats have been weak as hell. Democrats try to work with the Republicans, the role of the opposition is to hammer the party in power over and over again, and the Democratic opposition tends to boil down to these people are rude and these people are violating norms. They need to be out there saying that the Republicans are killing people, they are depriving them of a future, they are selling the American people's lives and well being to corporate America. It's not enough to go on Maddow and say that the Republicans are being obstructionist, you say that they are toying with the lives of Americans because they either don't care, or because their lust for money and power supersedes what little conscious they may have.

Anthony Weiner is a massive scum bag, but this is how you act as the opposition in a situation like this, and you do it on the floors of Congress, and you do it in the media.

 

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I think a lot of people on the "left" throw around the word neoliberal the way the right throw around socialist, neoliberal just means bad. Pete Buttigieg ran well to to the left of Biden (even on certain issues to the left of Bernie) and he still got branded a filthy "neoliberal shill" He was also good a framing democratic policies in Republican language. But because he talks about God and Patriotism Twitter thought he was a republican. If we are ever going to win over those who are "voting against their own interests" or support democratic policies in polls but not in votes, we need more Pete Buttigiegs not less. I hope he has a bright future in the party and I hope he's president one day.

 

He's doing what so many say they want talking the fight to Republicans on Republican turf, blaming the nebulous "neoliberal media" for his success is almost Trumpian. 

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20 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Pete should have been in the Tim Ryan tier of coverage, but because the media gave him so much play, he was able to punch way above his weight in terms of fundraising and that is what allowed him to drive that strategy. I don't have numbers on this but its not like he came out of nowhere to pick up the win, he was absolutely being pushed in the media.

You're getting to Alice in Wonderland levels here.  The media "gave him so much play" precisely because he was polling among the top contenders in Iowa as early as March 2019.  By June, the Des Moines Register poll put him in basically a three-way tie for second (to Biden) along with Sanders and Warren.  It was his performance in polls that drove increased media coverage.  That's not being "pushed" by the media in any special way.  At all.  That's just how the (long-ass) presidential campaign season works.

26 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Nancy Pelosi is a deficit hawk, she literally inserted pay-go into the House rules, is she not the "center"?

This is a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the politics and history of pay-go, which has always been a bullshit rule that's never abided by.  In 2007, the incoming Democratic House "re-instituted" pay-go as a political statement against Dubya's coterminous tax cuts, funding two wars, and passing Medicare Part D.  This hardly makes Pelosi a deficit hawk, the suggestion is ludicrous.  In fact, Pelosi was decidedly viewed as the leftist when taking the Speakership.  It was (and still is) Steny Hoyer that was the "centrist."  The argument concerning pay-go is wholly about political tactics and has nothing to do with anyone actually being a "deficit hawk" like the Blue Dogs of old.  See here:

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That's the strangest part: The assumption that deficits are always bad, and "paying for" spending is always good, is already ubiquitous across both parties in Washington. As a result, in the unusual circumstance where a congressional majority is willing to pass a bill that's deficit-financed, there's also a congressional majority willing to suspend PAYGO pretty much by definition. Indeed, the Congressional Progressive Caucus straight-up said that Democratic leadership "have committed to us that PAYGO will not be an impediment to advancing key progressive priorities in the 116th Congress." As a result, the Caucus is going to go ahead and support the return of PAYGO.

Progressive opponents make the straightforward point that, even if the rule will be waived in practice, re-instituting PAYGO will make it at least marginally harder for Democrats to pass the big ticket items that are revving up their own base.

 

36 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

As for them as the opposition party, Democrats have been weak as hell. Democrats try to work with the Republicans, the role of the opposition is to hammer the party in power over and over again, and the Democratic opposition tends to boil down to these people are rude and these people are violating norms. They need to be out there saying that the Republicans are killing people, they are depriving them of a future, they are selling the American people's lives and well being to corporate America.

This is just juvenile whining.  The Democrats prevented Trump's two years of unified government from doing anything legislatively other than passing a tax cut, which is basically impossible to prevent.  The GOP couldn't even repeal the ACA on an up or down vote.  Then upon taking the House they, ya know, impeached Trump.  You can look at "centrist" Democrats not having veins about to pop like Anthony Weiner as some idiotic measurement they're not doing enough in opposition.  I'll look at the scoreboard, thanks.

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I could see how a leftist Democrat could see Mayor Pete as threatening. One minute you find your-self nodding along as he talks winningly of packing the Supreme Court. The next minute you are drinking lattes and pondering raising the Social Security Age. And you think, am I still a real Leftist?

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27 minutes ago, Darzin said:

I think a lot of people on the "left" throw around the word neoliberal the way the right throw around socialist, neoliberal just means bad. Pete Buttigieg ran well to to the left of Biden (even on certain issues to the left of Bernie) and he still got branded a filthy "neoliberal shill" He was also good a framing democratic policies in Republican language. But because he talks about God and Patriotism Twitter thought he was a republican. If we are ever going to win over those who are "voting against their own interests" or support democratic policies in polls but not in votes, we need more Pete Buttigiegs not less. I hope he has a bright future in the party and I hope he's president one day.

 

He's doing what so many say they want talking the fight to Republicans on Republican turf, blaming the nebulous "neoliberal media" for his success is almost Trumpian. 

Pete was not labeled a Neo-liberal by the left because he talked about god and patriotism he's been labeled a neo-liberal because he says (on twitter) shit like this, "I’d say neoliberalism is the political-economic consensus that has governed the last forty years of policy in the US and UK. Its failure helped to produce the Trump moment. Now we have to replace it with something better." and then proceeds to propose nothing that even remotely challenged or in any significant way impacted the structures that were put in place by the Neo-liberals of the last 40 years. Look at his Douglass plan for example, in it, his solution to the inequality in African American communities was more capitalism, as if maybe if we just encouraged African Americans to start a business, it would all even out. This of course ignores the fact that it is because of the carceral state, the exploitation of black and brown workers, and corporate greed that minority community are being perpetually ravaged. Now you may say that this ignores the role that racism plays, but the fact of the matter is that these are part of racism, and while we can't change the hate that is in people's hearts, we can change that.

Pete is a lot of lofty rhetoric with little substance other than his identity. He changed tack depending on what point of the campaign you look at, at first supporting universal healthcare then moving to his shitty ass Medicare for all who want it proposal when he realized that there was no room on the progressive lane where he originally positioned him until it became clear that Warren and Sanders were sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

Wait, please explain how saying that by giving Pete a platform the "main stream media" gave him the legitimacy to be able to go on to Fox News and take the fight to the Republicans?

15 minutes ago, DMC said:

You're getting to Alice in Wonderland levels here.  The media "gave him so much play" precisely because he was polling among the top contenders in Iowa as early as March 2019.  By June, the Des Moines Register poll put him in basically a three-way tie for second (to Biden) along with Sanders and Warren.  It was his performance in polls that drove increased media coverage.  That's not being "pushed" by the media in any special way.  At all.  That's just how the (long-ass) presidential campaign season works.

Certainly that is a candidate to watch, but looking at it more, it appears that what we have here is less so an attempt by the media to push a candidate and more so the media just wanting to talk to anybody. Apparently Pete's people just said yes to almost any media request that rolled his way which gave him something of an out sized media presence. I concede defeat on the Iowa discussion, however that does not change the fact that I think Pete is exactly the type of social climber that will say anything for a pat on the head.

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This is a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the politics and history of pay-go, which has always been a bullshit rule that's never abided by.  In 2007, the incoming Democratic House "re-instituted" pay-go as a political statement against Dubya's coterminous tax cuts, funding two wars, and passing Medicare Part D.  This hardly makes Pelosi a deficit hawk, the suggestion is ludicrous.  In fact, Pelosi was decidedly viewed as the leftist when taking the Speakership.  It was (and still is) Steny Hoyer that was the "centrist."  The argument concerning pay-go is wholly about political tactics and has nothing to do with anyone actually being a "deficit hawk" like the Blue Dogs of old.  See here:

Thank you for the education on this, I really do appreciate that article. I still do think that House leadership actively tries to blunt progressive goals and frankly any extra way they have to do that is a problem. I mentioned the HEROES act before and the fact that Pelosi blocked Jayapal's proposal was a clear bit of either deficit hawking, (it would have been 3.3 trillion vs 3 trillion if I remember correctly) or it was because Pelosi didn't want to put in something that might set a marker that progressive could use down the line to push for more progressive measures. A lot of Democrats are thought of as leftists due to have good politics on social issues like gay marriage, but I have seen no evidence that Pelosi is in any way a progressive on economic issues.

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This is just juvenile whining.  The Democrats prevented Trump's two years of unified government from doing anything legislatively other than passing a tax cut, which is basically impossible to prevent.  The GOP couldn't even repeal the ACA on an up or down vote.  Then upon taking the House they, ya know, impeached Trump.  You can look at "centrist" Democrats not having veins about to pop like Anthony Weiner as some idiotic measurement they're not doing enough in opposition.  I'll look at the scoreboard, thanks.

The Republicans didn't repeal the ACA because John McCain did something decent for once and voted against it. If he doesn't have brain cancer, I don't know if he does that. Impeachment was all well and good, but just impeaching him for Ukraine was kind of dumb. There are so many things that Trump had done to that point that the prosecution may have resonated with people more, but instead they narrowed it and made it about something that while wrong and an impeachable offense was probably one of the least resonant crimes. There was already Russiagate fatigue, for a lot of people, and this was just the next act in that play. Obviously there wasn't a ton they could have done before 2018, but once they took the House, they should have had Trump administration officials in front of committees every single day with cameras trained on them 24/7. And even if there isn't much point to those hearings, the substance doesn't matter so much as the fact that the hearings are happening.

Maybe it is a stylistic disagreement here, but to me, people respond to anger, it shows people you are serious just look at how Kavanaugh weaponized anger during his confirmation, and if ever there was a time to be angry, it was during this presidency.

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12 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

however that does not change the fact that I think Pete is exactly the type of social climber that will say anything for a pat on the head.

This is the ol' authenticity argument.  I'd say Pete's decidedly average in that regard - as are, btw, the vast majority of "progressives" or "leftists" you'd prefer.  So, guess I pretty much agree.

Don't have much to say about the rest of your response (to my post at least) that isn't just getting really nitpicky.  Except one thing:  Nancy Pelosi will undoubtedly go down as the most progressive - and successful - Speaker since Sam Rayburn.  Any leftist or progressive owes her an immeasurable debt of gratitude for her dominant tenure as leader of the House Democratic Caucus.  To say there's "no evidence" of her progressive bona fides on economic issues reveals an utter lack of perspective on contemporary American political history.

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4 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Pete is a lot of lofty rhetoric with little substance other than his identity. He changed tack depending on what point of the campaign you look at, at first supporting universal healthcare then moving to his shitty ass Medicare for all who want it proposal when he realized that there was no room on the progressive lane where he originally positioned him until it became clear that Warren and Sanders were sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

 

Pete's health care policy was exactly the same from beginning to end Pete's medicare for all who want it plan IS universal health care unless you consider like Germany to not have universal health care. Pete's whole rhetoric was that if government health care really is better people will choose it and we should let them. Incidentally offering government health care is insanely popular forcing people to use government health care is very unpopular. So why not just do what is popular and let the insurance companies die a natural death.


I like how he anchored liberal policies to conservative values and religion, I like how he had a plan for a national service program were people could join up and get military style benefits for actually helping America.

4 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

however that does not change the fact that I think Pete is exactly the type of social climber that will say anything for a pat on the head

And AOC isn't? That's part of being a politician. She's said stuff she knows to be false on national TV. Complaining about the fed finding trillions of dollars for companies so why can't we pay for healthcare? She has a degree in economics she knows why that's not true, but it plays well to her base and probably moves us in the right direction. Half of politics is saying stuff for head pats hell that's pretty much what an election is.  

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1 hour ago, Darzin said:

Pete's healthcare policy was exaclty the same from begining to end Pete's medicare for all who want it plan IS universal healthcare unless you consider like Germany to not have universal healthcare. Pete's whole rhetoric was that id government healthcare really is better people will choose it and we should let them. Inceidently offering government healthcare is insanely popular forcing people to use government healthcare is very unpopular. So why not just do what is popular and let the insurance companies die a natural death.

I like how he anchored liberal policies to conservative values and relgion, I like how he had a plan for a national service program were people could join up and get military style benefits for actually helping America. 

And AOC isn't? That's part of being a politician. She's said stuff she knows to be false on national TV. Complaining about the fed finding trillions of dollars for companies so why can't we pay for healthcare? She has a degree in economics she knows why that's not true, but it plays well to her base and probably moves us in the right direction. Half of politics is saying stuff for head pats hell that's pretty much what an election is.  

The idea that a government plan means that the health insurance industry will just die away is laughable. What is going to happen is that because there is now a government healthcare plan available to everyone, healthcare companies will move to start dropping their higher risk customer and keeping their healthy customers around, there by shrinking the number of at risk people in their risk pool. Not only does that mean that they will not be having to pay people's insurance claims, but also it means that the government plan now has a substantially higher risk pool so more sick people equals more expensive for everyone else since the government plan will end up having to spend a lot more money, because guess what, you probably still haven't nationalized the hospital system. Beyond that, you also still have one of the most powerful lobbying groups who already have some cache with the American people because private insurance is all most of them have known, throwing hundreds of millions of dollars undermining the public option. Also if you are allowing private insurance to remain, you are creating a two tiered system which inevitably leads to resentment because you can't just say that anyone who isn't enrolled in the government plan is free of paying taxes on it, it has to be a shared burden or else the whole thing collapses not to mention you have now created a block of voter who probably make good money and are therefore more likely to vote, who are angry that they are paying taxes for something that makes no difference in their lives, which is why universality is so important.

This is the difference between us under that plan and Germany, Germany has a tradition of mostly government run healthcare, we do not. Things that are new are scary, and humans tend to play it safe even if safe is somewhat uncomfortable because it is what they are used to. Couple that with resentment that you are paying for something you don't receive, and the efforts of lobbyists to undermine it, you've got a perfect recipe for a healthcare system ready to collapse.

As for AOC, if you think that there is no difference between AOC and Pete in terms of authenticity, you are not someone to be taken seriously. Pete has made no secret that he has spent his entire life setting himself up to be president some day, and it is clear that he is willing to do whatever he has to in order to cozy up to those in power and gain their patronage. He does not come across as someone who is out for the little guy, he's not out to do the work to make things better, he is out for himself. AOC meanwhile was an overqualified bartender. That's not to say that she doesn't have ambitions, but she absolutely comes across as someone who is actively trying to help her constituents.

Also as far as the trillions of dollars to bailout wall street, if it is what I think you are referring to, what she is saying is not untrue. It is precisely the same as saying that we have unlimited funds for war, but when it comes time to do shit that will actually help people (other than Raytheon and Lockheed Martin investors) suddenly the coffers are bare. Turns out you don't need to have an economics degree to know that the cries of poverty when it comes to shit that will make a material impact (rather than a ballistic impact) on people's lives are crocodile tears.

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36 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

The idea that a government plan means that the health insurance industry will just die away is laughable. What is going to happen is that because there is now a government healthcare plan available to everyone, healthcare companies will move to start dropping their higher risk customer and keeping their healthy customers around, there by shrinking the number of at risk people in their risk pool. Not only does that mean that they will not be having to pay people's insurance claims, but also it means that the government plan now has a substantially higher risk pool so more sick people equals more expensive for everyone else since the government plan will end up having to spend a lot more money, because guess what, you probably still haven't nationalized the hospital system. Beyond that, you also still have one of the most powerful lobbying groups who already have some cache with the American people because private insurance is all most of them have known, throwing hundreds of millions of dollars undermining the public option. Also if you are allowing private insurance to remain, you are creating a two tiered system which inevitably leads to resentment because you can't just say that anyone who isn't enrolled in the government plan is free of paying taxes on it, it has to be a shared burden or else the whole thing collapses not to mention you have now created a block of voter who probably make good money and are therefore more likely to vote, who are angry that they are paying taxes for something that makes no difference in their lives, which is why universality is so important.

This is the difference between us under that plan and Germany, Germany has a tradition of mostly government run healthcare, we do not.

The ACA makes most of this illegal. As insurance companies are not allowed to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. Also in Germany most people use the public plan. If the public plan really is better, and I fully believe it will be as it doesn't need to turn a profit and can even operate at a loss do you really think people and companies  are loyal enough to their health insurance companies that they won't choose a cheaper and better option? I certainly don't think  so.

  Also I'm fundamentally against banning services unless they are harmful. Workers work hard for their money and they have a right to spend it how they choose. In our society the government provides free roads, free education, free security, yet we don't ban people from purchasing private alternates. The existence of private security has not caused the police department to collapse. I was all for Bernie Sanders bill until I found out it banned private insurance, that's like a cartoon conservative parody of universal health care.

50 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Also as far as the trillions of dollars to bailout wall street, if it is what I think you are referring to, what she is saying is not untrue.

I was talking about her equating the Fed giving loans to banks with the government spending money. Those are not the same thing and even if they were congress doesn't control the Fed. I don't disagree that we should spend much more money on healthcare but there was definitley a white lie there. 

 

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