Yep and all the Bernie supporters that applauded him wearing the jersey are Mensa candidates. This whole country has gone bat shit stupid.
A serious pushback against corruption is important enough to me that I'm willing to look past a lot of really stupid shit. Just speaking in general, I find it interesting how because Bernie can't magic all of it away then it's therefore a bad reason for some people. I guess the clearer path is to kick and scream like a lunatic at anyone who criticizes the party, and just invent a bunch of crazy ulterior motives about closet alt righters and secret racists. What the fuck exactly that is supposed to accomplish, I'm not really sure. I can't even count how many times someone has said some iteration to me of "No, your real reason is [insert bullshit I made up 2 seconds ago]".
I'm all in favor of M4A, but to rephrase the question: why would I care about how other countries approach healthcare? It's not like it's realistic I can move there, or somehow tap into it for my average needs. I think this is a major flaw in that argument specifically, but one in favor of M4A in general: people don't and can't comparison shop for how their healthcare gets paid for. In response to growing the US government to epic proportions, it always kind of baffles me. The same government that put men on the moon, harnessed the power of the atom, built flying robot kill machines, and is at some level or another, responsible for an incredible percentage of the technological advances of the past 100 years? People talk about the US government like it's a bear, walking around at night, fucking up their pool, omitting that they participate in it. The bureaucracy involved in M4A ALREADY EXISTS. This is YOUR government too. For M4A implementation, I think the most logical process would be gradual expansion of services, by both income level and age. As the eligibility expands, existing insurance coverage mutates to higher-value services that we might not want the US public to pay for (massage? dietician? OTC meds?), assuming the role it plays in most countries: a luxury for those that want higher levels of care, like professional athletes. I also thought we had a version of this specific to pre-natal care? Maybe not, because I have never had crotch fruit, but I thought there were federal programs that paid for certain pregnancy-related procedures at a "universal" level? In the electorate, Republicans have stitched together some advantages (gerrymandering, rural voter consolidation, incumbent) that the Democrats have to overcome. They have to do this by forcing Trump voters to stay home, and animating Democratic voters. Bernie is the ONLY candidate I've seen that genuinely gets that level of animation. Who's fucking excited by the Booty egg revolution? Anyone getting off the couch in February to freeze their ass off for Joe-Bi and his finger guns, the sequel? What in God's name is Warren even running on, aside from her vagina and vague labels of "policy wonk'? Nope, Bernie is the only one with a head of steam. I think he wins SC, steamrolls Super Tuesday, and then pivots to court the traditional establishment by picking a running mate they will like (Warren would be ideal, but I doubt it. Kamala Harris would be another solid choice). Unlike Trump, Bernie can somewhat make amends to the established Democrats and can feasibly pitch "The VP will actually run shit, and the Pres can be the more aggressive one, you know just like what we have now, except less useless than Pontius Pence". The online head of steam he's built will likely continue as long as he keeps winning, with or without him. He needs to convince the regular Democrats to get on board, because if they don't (and Bernie isn't the nominee) they lose the Trump supporters he's swayed and Democratic voters that will stay home in disgust. The only people who are violently opposed to Bernie and are influencing the establishment Dems are the donor class that stand to pay more in taxes. The question is do they stand to lose more if/when Trump runs the economy for another 4 years, especially considering the current Corona crash and the TRILLIONS in debt he's racked up. I think a lot of the Republican economic policies are built on a "this is unsustainable as fuck, but let's hope it doesn't crash around our ears" principle and when you look at how much of the growth the past few years has been powered by a tiny set of tech companies, you start to get really nervous about how we're going to grow the economy with Palm Beach Palpatine in charge, because he clearly doesn't understand it beyond "taxes bad, billionaires good." It's also wildly entertaining to see how much Bernie mirrors Trump: -the angry old man tweets -hijacking a political party -wildly overpromising -rabid base that simply wants nothing to do with the actual reality of what he's proposing -causes foaming at the mouth in opposition -formerly ridiculed by establishment, having a "who's laughing now, bitch?" moment.
Why is pretending liberals are smarter so important to some of you? Yeah, I've never seen liberals act hysterical, misinterpret something, or whine about unbelievably pointless shit. That's like unheard of. And certainly not on twitter. I love how these condescending remarks are almost always about something they themselves do every day of the year without missing a beat. More importantly, do we really need to keep discussing random idiots on twitter? I don't mention it because I think we need to copy them line by line, but it is a point that someone claiming public healthcare would never work better than private is standing on some very flimsy ground when it clearly works better everywhere. And I think you should care a little when people elsewhere in the world are paying half, or even less than half what you are, and are still getting better treatment.
Here's the exact problem. Sure, the Government did those things 50 or more years ago. NASA is all but shuttered; now they provide OPM to make the process work that's all, private space does the heavy lifting because Government couldn't/can't figure out how to be efficient. The same thing goes for energy and military technology, the vast majority of everything is handled in the private realm with public money because the Government can't make it work in anything that resembles an efficient manner. I want a better healthcare system I want better schools I want cheaper higher education I want to see more care taken with the environment I just see Government as the worst imaginable vehicle possible to make any of that happen and pretending the Government from yesteryear in any way resembles the Government of the last 30 years is pure insanity in my opinion.
And then you see what happens when private companies takes over -- Space X is the obvious example, but it's literally everywhere, except (some) healthcare and prisons-- and you start to realize that maybe people are smarter and more industrious than they're given credit for.
You're right, the government in the last 40 years isn't as functional as it was in the previous 40. I wonder why.... On the whole, I agree with you: I want a better healthcare system. Specifically, I want it cheaper, more transparent and more accessible. I want better schools, too. I want them to not just be college prep factories, but to prepare kids for the world we live in now, not the one that some board of education approved 30 fucking years ago. I want cheaper higher education, but I also want higher education to be exactly that, not a rubber stamp that suggests you're employable. I also want the environment to be protected at higher levels, and I think that starts with higher levels of accountability for the entities polluting it. The things that we want run counter to "maximizing stakeholder value", as the private sector is mandated to focus on. So, how do you propose ANY of that gets done without government? Again, this isn't some thing in the wilderness somewhere, this is us. Our cities, our counties, our states. This is OUR government, and we need to do a better job making it work for us. As an aside, most of the things we want already exist at a state or local level. Better schools? Look at Mass: some of the best schools in the world, from pre-k on up. Better healthcare? Look at what some of the individual states do to keep costs down. California, for example has one of the lowest costs AND largest, most diverse populations. Cheaper higher ed? Look in North Carolina, with some truly awesome schools for a 2017 average tuition of $7200. Better environmental protection? I can personally attest to South Carolina DNR, which does a tremendous job supporting the states avid hunters and protecting their wildlife. Rhode Island, weirdly ranks highly in this in terms of air quality and pollution. There are governments that do this shit well in our own borders and we can learn from them. I think it's unrealistic to believe you can have ALL of that EVERYWHERE, because that's not the world we live in.
In some markets, many markets, further government control IS a disaster, but you can't just apply that across everything as if everything was exactly the same in terms of cost sharing, incentives, required capital, and overhead. I'll never get what is supposed to be so great about a healthcare market that is specifically incentivized to see that you pay as much money as possible for as little care as they can get away with giving you. Make no mistake, that is how they make their money. That is what they go into work every day trying to figure out. How the fuck does anyone expect these people to look out for their best interests? How does anyone think the real problem with healthcare is that these people don't have enough control?
Looks like Biden will probably win South Carolina in a big way. I guess it’s time to care about Burisma and Hunter Biden again. Maybe one of those caravans is in sight too.
I really thought Sanders was gonna take it and that would be that. I'm crossing my fingers for biden or pete. At this point I doubt pete has any chance except as a VP. Biden I actually like though.
Pete will never win. Not the DNC nomination, not the presidency. I'm not surprised that Biden got such a huge gain in a Southern state, but we don't need another doddering old man as president. I'm just really happy to see that Bloomberg didn't even place.
I'm reluctantly supporting Bernie. I really, really want to support policies that promote and reward personal (and corporate) responsibility. Sadly I don't see anybody proposing or championing those. And really, it might be a lost cause; I'm not sure humans can, at large, be personally responsible. Individuals can, society can't. So now I'm a reluctant advocate for harm reduction. Universal healthcare is, in my view, a form of harm reduction. We can either pay up front for people to get health care or wait until they clog the emergency rooms and leave hospital bills unpaid, and then pay more. Nobody seems to really be serious about letting people die in the street who are capable of asking for help. On the other side, insurance companies and healthcare providers are maximally squeezing the fact that healthcare isn't, and never will be, something that operates in a perfect market (because at some point it's really not optional), and so you can't just let free market principles sort everything out. And to make matters worse they've been systematically engaging in regulatory capture for decades. 2008 was a watershed moment. In a just world, people who acted responsibly through the crisis should have come out way ahead, and people who acted irresponsibly should have been fucked. I'm not just talking about big banks or CEOs. I'm talking about people I knew personally with decent jobs who were whining about money because, "oh didn't I mention, I bought 3 additional homes I could never afford on no-doc interest-only mortgages." And so you have these amazing policymakers who decided that total economic collapse was worse than holding people responsible, and so - in order to avoid total economic collapse - everybody would get away with bad behavior. And since then, I haven't really seen anything change. My guess is that the next 2008-level crisis will be handled the same way. If you continue to incentivize people to make bad decisions, they're going to start getting the message. The campaign against "billionaires" seems to have some legs, but in the simplification of the rhetoric I think it loses a bit of its rationale. I have nothing against billionaires, per se, but it sure seems like - if you managed to accumulate a billion dollars - odds are you didn't accumulate all of that by playing fair. I am perfectly willing to let you keep and enjoy any amount of that money you earned through fair play and ethical behavior. Too bad it's so hard to quantify the difference. You made a wildly popular product or service that people wanted? Keep it. You built that product with slave or exploited labor? You used legalized bribery and regulatory capture to change the rules to benefit you and fuck everybody else? You used lax international tax laws to avoid paying taxes? Fuck you. Happy to take those portions back, thanks. Anyway Bernie, like all presidents, won't be able to accomplish more than 20% of what he sets out to. But 20% of what Bernie proposes is something, whereas 20% of what everybody else proposes is no change at all.
He was not. Tom Steyer goes out with the most embarrassing act of political pandering this world has ever known:
He has one demographic he does really well with, old black people, and SC just happens to have a lot of them. Not that Biden does terribly with other groups, but that is the only demographic he's actually leading with. This all but officially makes it a two horse race. Warren and Klobuchar have a chance to win a couple states on super Tuesday, but even that little piece is an outside shot. Buttigieg probably won't win any. If Bloomberg running is taking votes from other candidates he will draw from Buttigieg more than anyone else. Biden will almost definitely lose California and Texas, and probably not by single digit margins. He is going to have to really clean up with the smaller states if he wants to remain a challenge to Sanders.
Well, that was just excruciating. Is there anything more sad then when old people try and act “hip”? This has never worked. It’s like seeing a trendy tattoo ripen in age it’s... it’s just plain sad.