MSM is losing its mind today over Bernie winning in NH. They keep talking about Bernie's 25-30 percent and how we need to unify behind a moderate... I guess they forgot how hard it is to win without Bernie's 25-30 percent.
Bernie actually won both primaries based on popular vote, but you'd be hard pressed to find a moderate to admit that. So this Hillary won the popular vote thing can go just like Hillary too.
I wanted to start this thread instead of talking about primaries in threads like Pete did, Bloomberg said, Amy shows up, or where's Joe?... This is not a Bernie thread, but it looks like we will be talking about him since he's the frontrunner.
On the other side, Bill Weld took 10% of the republican vote in a low turnout fake GOPer NH primary. Roughly 10 thousand GOPer voters bothered to show up just to let Trump know that he won't get their vote in November. That's a good sign for the good guys.
In 2016 Bernie won NH with 60% of the vote against a very well known candidate. This happened in Bernie's back yard.
The two top vote getters of the far left are Bernie and Liz. They received a whopping 34.9% of the vote.
The two top moderate vote getters were Amy and Pete. They received 44.2% of the vote.
Both Bernie and Pete received 9 delegates in NH.
Everyone knew Bernie would win NH. He just won it by far less than he should have.
In 2016 there were 5 candidates and the other three got like 2% combined. Of course Bernie had 60% then. There were 11 candidates last night with 5 drawing a lot of support and 4 others over 2%. You sound like CNN spinning the moderates.
In 2016 there were 5 candidates and the other three got like 2% combined. Of course Bernie had 60% then. There were 11 candidates last night with 5 drawing a lot of support and 4 others over 2%. You sound like CNN spinning the moderates.
The top 2 moderates overwhelmingly received a much larger portion of the vote than the top 2 far left candidates. Bernie barley squeaked out a win. And this was in Bernie's back yard.
Sure they did, BUT they also couldn't put together a coalition bigger than Bernie's! I'd be happy if the flavor of the week keeps the moderate in second place all the way to the convention! Bernie WON! He had more votes in both primaries so far. Would it kill the moderates to acknowledge that?
The problem is, if the vote keeps being split like this, Bernie will never receive the 1,990 pledged delegates it takes to insure the nomination. Be careful what you wish for.
Yesterday out of the mouth of one of the top democratic reps Came the words ... “were expecting 400,000” ....
I’m not sure what source u googled .... but I’m going with one of the heads of the Democratic Party ... feel free to use whatever source it is u use .... mines just fine Mr. google king ..
The problem is, if the vote keeps being split like this, Bernie will never receive the 1,990 pledged delegates it takes to insure the nomination. Be careful what you wish for.
Let there be a brokered convention where Bernie goes in with the most delegates but doesn't get the nod... Millions of progressives dare the moderates to try that crap.
The problem is, if the vote keeps being split like this, Bernie will never receive the 1,990 pledged delegates it takes to insure the nomination. Be careful what you wish for.
Let there be a brokered convention where Bernie goes in with the most delegates but doesn't get the nod... Millions of progressives dare the moderates to try that crap.
But when you consider that, when it goes down it won't be nearly as black and white as you described, they've already (more or less) done just that in the last election... what then?
I may switch my vote from Bernie to Bloomberg in the primary ...
Bloomberg is a good thought. I think he was once a Republican.
If he gets the nomination it will give us a choice between Bloomberg, the Liberal Billionaire Republican or Trump, the Moderate Billionaire Republican.
Bloomberg will also get down in the gutter with Mr. President so it will make it easier on the independent snowflakes to vote for Mr. President or they will just stay home ...
And way more of the black vote will simply stay home or maybe even vote for Mr. President ...
Yup ... pretty sure the switch to lil Mikey is a done deal on my end ...
Please tell me why Bernie over him ...
I never thought wed be having a rational discussion on weather I’d vote for the bern or lil Miley in here ... *L* ...
On the other side, Bill Weld took 10% of the republican vote in a low turnout fake GOPer NH primary. Roughly 10 thousand GOPer voters bothered to show up just to let Trump know that he won't get their vote in November. That's a good sign for the good guys.
That's a bit of a stretch to get to that conclusion.
Our guy Pete is trying to make it happen!!! Warren had the juice but just couldn’t do anything with it. Oh well.
I'm just glad neither of you are stanning for Bloomberg.
Pfft... Bloomberg is the next big centrist flavor of the week, his past and his new surge is all MSM is talking about. Pete and Amy are yesterdays news. I even seen talk of a Biden comeback today because he is still second in the Nevada polls.
Not much positive coverage of the actual front runner though... Bernie 2020!
And if you seen Real Time with Bill Maher this week, then you saw Klobuchar get pretty much shut down and run over in an interview. Sad.
Right now, this moment, Bernie has the slight edge, but that could change by Super Tuesday. So I'd have to say it's still very much an open race to the finish. AND I'm good with that. I just want to see a fair primary and let the people pick the candidate. I'll be rooting for Bernie until it's over.
Bernie Sanders Seeks Greta Thunberg Endorsement, But Winds Up Pranked By Russian Jokesters
Bruce Haring
February 15, 2020
She was feeling the Bern. Then it turned into a burn.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was excited to speak to who he thought was climate activist Greta Thunberg. Then the conversation took a turn into the bizarre.
Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov are claiming credit for luring Sanders into a phone call with the ersatz Thunberg and her father, Svante. The two have a history of pranking US politicians, and they posted the results to YouTube.
Stolyarov played the role of Svante in the call, with an unidentified woman acting as Greta. They raised the possiblity of endorsing Sanders for US president.
“Let us continue to talk and when you come to the United States I will bring some people together and we can do some interesting things, and if you wanted to make a statement in support of my candidacy and the program we have outlined for climate change, I would be very very appreciative,” Sanders said.
But the conversation took a strange turn when “Greta” began asking about the Senator’s 1988 visit to the Soviet Union, where he was allegedly “recruited.”
“In the Soviet Union in 1988, after you were recruited you were programmed to work for Russia and your memory was erased so the CIA wouldn’t track you down,” she said.
“This is what you believe?” a shocked Sanders asked.
“Yes, you became a sleeper agent of the KGB. Now it’s time to wake up and fulfill your mission, become president of the United States, build communism in the United States and work for Russia!”
Sanders eventually caught on and hung up. So far, no comment from his camp on the incident.
That phone call was less of a prank and more of a trolling. I can see why you liked it.
The punching bag thing I think was Bernie being silly for the camera's but even if it wasn't, what did you expect, Rocky Balboa? lmao For a 78 year old Senator he at least hit the bag!
I don't think he needs bravado to do that. I think Trump wants dems to buy into Bernie being the easiest to beat exactly because he fears running against him AND his equally passionate base of supporters. Trump needed a lot of those Bernie crossover votes to beat HRC in 2016. He also needed the Bernie supporters that would NOT vote for him to stay home or cast protest votes. Without these things he would have lost and he knows it. So it's obvious Trump fears Bernie.
So I just got a robocall marked as unavailable. I answered at 1:30 pm on a Sunday just to hear a thick indian/pakistani accent tell me his American sounding name and state he was calling on behalf of Mike Bloomberg... only he pronounced it Mike Blum-BORG. Told him I support Bernie and he hung up.
Bloomberg Said U.S. Should Deny Treatment To Old People With Chronic Disease
If Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg was 95 years old and had prostate cancer, he could afford advanced and extreme medical care to improve and extend his life.
But if a 95-year-old non-billionaire has prostate cancer that requires medical treatment using taxpayer dollars, Bloomberg said in 2011 that he should be denied treatment.
“If you show up with prostate cancer and you’re 95, we should say ‘go and enjoy, have a nice day, live a long life.’ There’s no cure and we can’t do anything. If you’re a young person, we should do something about it,” said Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor.
Bloomberg warned that society was not yet willing to make hard choices with respect to treating older Americans and this is “going to bankrupt us.”
Bloomberg’s 2011 statement surfaced as he released a proposed health care plan to improve retirees’ lives, from giving low-income workers access to government-provided retirement savings plans to bolstering Social Security. Bloomberg said he would limit out-of-pocket drug costs and provide federal coverage for long-term care costs.
Dr. Robert N. Butler, M.D., (1927-2010), who coined the term “ageism” in 1968, said generations throughout history have justified the futility of granting the aged access to health care due to unfounded ageist beliefs. Butler defined ageism is ‘a process of systematic stereotyping, prejudicial attitudes and direct or indirect discrimination against people because they are old.”
In his book, Age-ism: Another Form of Bigotry, Butler writes: “Age-ism reflects a deep seated uneasiness on the part of the young and middle-aged – a personal revulsion to and distaste for growing old, disease, disability; and fear of powerlessness, ‘uselessness,’ and death.”
Scapegoating Older Americans
Moreover, Bloomberg’s 2011 ramblings while sitting Shiva with a Jewish family also seem profoundly misguided. There are many other criteria that seem just as likely to bankrupt the United States.
The U.S. health care system is notoriously inefficient and outrageously expensive. It costs four times more to run the U.S. health care system than Canada’s single-payer system. Why is America saddled with a failed system? The U.S. Congress has failed to act in the face of intense lobbying by insurers and pharmaceutical companies.
And why is aging singled out as opposed to other conditions, such as obesity? Some 40 percent of American adults aged 20 and over are obese, a condition that can lead to coronary heart disease and stroke.
The Centers for Disease Control states that coronary heart disease and stroke cost the U.S. health care system $199 billion per year and cause $131 billion in lost productivity on the job.
Why doesn’t Congress address America’s “new national epidemic” and enact sound policy changes, such as limiting unhealthy foods at schools and restoring “gym ” for all students. Congress could tax products that contribute to obesity or require informative labeling of food products Many blame lobbying by the mammoth food production and retail industries for Congressional inaction
Generational Competition
Butler, the founding director of the National Institute on Aging, also said inter-generational tension causes ageism and discrimination. He said both groups compete for public funding. Older Americans seek support for health care and Social Security, while young people are struggling to get an education and buy a home.
Interestingly, one of the reasons that Butler became interested in age discrimination was his experience as a medical student. when he noticed medical practitioners treated older patients with disdain and distaste.
Butler's research showed the ageing process did not cause senility, which instead resulted from disease, neglect and stagnation. He worked with consumer advocate Ralph Nader on an investigation into the poor care offered by nursing homes. His 1975 book, Why Survive? Being Old in America, won a Pulitzer prize.
So this Biden surrogate edited old video of Bernie talking about Russia to make him look like he supported communism while the full video shows nothing of the sort. She edited the video then posted it in a tweet that was shared/viewed 2.5 million times to smear Bernie on Biden's behalf. The rest of the article is mostly her complaining about being forced to resign.
Don't believe all the negative things you hear about Bernie.
That's who you should be listening to. A guy who just became a U.S. citizen and is a comedian. It's funny, when someone claims the left gets their news from comedian, you'll quickly point out that's not true.
Yet when it suits your purpose you'll point to a comedian as someone of actual relevance. Now you're sounding like a true Bernie Bro. Trash everyone else to make your candidate look better. No, actually that's a Trump thing.
I am a proud Bernie Bro, just not what you are trying to call me. But I expected that from you when the moderate corporatists started losing. Bernie is a great candidate and the current front runner.
Here's only a couple of your problems along with Bernies. You generalize just like the people you accuse of the very same thing.
Like "the one percenters".
Bill Gates called for higher taxes on the wealthy in a New Year's Eve blog post. Here's a look at the American billionaires and multimillionaires who have asked the government to raise their taxes.
I love Bill Gates Pit, he's one of my Favorite elites. He does a ton of good things with is philanthropy. I like Warren Buffett and Elon Musk too. Heck I even have mad respect for Bezos just because of the computing power of Amazon AWS and how he corned the retail world after starting with what amounted to an online used college bookstore.
As for Bernie followers taking the fight to others online and off, I don't deny they are as bad as others... But after 2016 who could blame them? You can't argue that. And it's not like Bernie is not up against the Dem establishment and MSM, have you watched any talking heads at all lately? The story should be how Bernie is the front runner and gaining momentum, but it's all about how do we stop Bernie. Y'all moderates have your hair on fire, not me.
You may wish to send Bernie the memo. Because as much as the left shouts about class warfare, Bernie is waging one.
Expecting millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to pay their fair share is hardly class warfare. It's reversing the trickle down voodoo economics of the last 40+ years.
You do crack me up though, because we have we have:
Pete - who is a relative unknown that doesn't resonate with POC at this point, revised his progressive message to a more moderate on when Biden started showing cracks losing progressive support, and has to get past anti gay bigotry.
He has some good points in being young, educated and well spoken, and seems like a very real dude. But I have an issue with his religious views impacting his policy, the fact that he has struggled to deal well with POC in his town, his flip flopping on medicare for all to move to center, and his overall experience. But if he miraculously wins the nomination I'll happily vote for him.
Klobuchar - I personally think she has the personality of melba toast. Nothing she has said or done has really impressed me. She's just another middle of the road moderate IMHO. No idea how she will fare from here on out but I think she'll fade and be out after Super Tuesday.
Liz - I like Liz but her attack on Bernie hurt her. America looked and didn't believe her IMHO. She should have stuck to "I have a plan for that". She has a shot of bouncing back if Bernie somehow totally blows it and Pete gets out, but I think she fizzles and gets out after Super Tuesday too.
Biden - Joe was a good VP for Obama. But today I have doubts that he will be wiping his own ass in a year, let alone running the country. He has lost more than a step and he was never good at running for POTUS before. The establishment tried to have another coronation like it was Joes turn... that doesn't play well anymore.
Bloomberg - He's a Republican turned Independent turned Democrat using his vast wealth to buy the election behind the guise of spending unlimited funds to oust Trump. He will finally be on the debate stage this week but has more or less been a shadow candidate until now. His ads are causing his surge, but it's easy to target Trump and criticise other candidates if you are not putting yourself out there. If he does well in the debate and wins a few states by the end of super tuesday then the center will coalesce around him. But there is a lot of old baggage coming out that I think he's going to struggle to explain. This no medical treatment for a 95 year old prostate cancer patient thing is a killer. Some of the things he has said regarding POC are killing him too. But it looks like he might be the last best hope for the establishment, so we will have to see how things go. I can say I might struggle voting for him in the general, I will but I won't like it.
Bernie - He 's a good candidate by comparison. He has had the same message for 40+ years. He is fighting for the working class. But there is also a lot of fear for his policies from the establishment. He is easily the most attacked candidate in the field because he represents drastic changes and far left policies. Yet he has more than a third of dems supporting him and his momentum is growing. People like what he says and trust him.
Why do you want to attack me for this stuff? It's not my fault. It's just how it is.
That's my personal summary and opinions, you post yours and educate me unless you have nothing but huff and scorn. I can't see why you are feeling so spiteful. I'm not bashing any of these people, I'm just telling you what I see and how I think they are doing. I read the polls, I listen to the same news sources that you do, and I have no issue with voting blue no matter who at the end of the process. So you either don't like me supporting my choice of candidates or you think I'm missing something. Tell me what I'm missing. Don't just spew rhetoric and hate.
There's a difference in ones morals and ones religion. You're making assumptions that simply do not exist.
I don't really care who you support. But if you think the country is gong to elect a 78 year old man who just had a heart attack I think you're fooling yourself.
I love how the moderate corporate establishment dems are now attacking Bernie for NOT CONTROLLING HIS ONLINE FOLLOWERS... wth? How many times have hillary supporters attacked me, why isn't she controlling them. Why isn't Pete reining in Pit? lol, talk about weak sauce. Bernie has them shook man. smh
Bold, Daring, Direct! Time to make him feel the Bern!
lol 40! He is absolutely trying to buy the election. He hasn't even debated anyone yet, but he assumes he's the frontrunner if only Bernie wasn't a threat... I smell the DNC and establishment Dems dirty work coming. Bloomberg is the flavor of the week going into Nevada and SC. Is he even on the ballot in those states? smh
MSNBC has spent 90% of their time bashing Bernie or talking about who needs to beat him for days now. They are doing everything they can to slow him down. Chris Matthews has lost his mind over Bernie.
Bernie needs to hammer Bloomy on things he has said in the past.
Did you know that Bloomy is not only buying up all the advertising time but that is driving the prices up for the other candidates!
Bloomy is also giving money to other political campaigns at the local levels and those people turn around and say great things about him, endorsing him!
The Billionaires that Bernie hates are trying to eat him for lunch!
They are going to have to spend a hell of a lot of money to slow Bernie down. He raises money pretty much on demand and has a million+ volunteers doing grassroots work in the field. Bloomberg better get to hiring...
But I absolutely see the elite, the DNC and dem establishment, and the MSM doing everything they can to hold onto power. They want that status quo minus Trump and don't give a damn about working people and the poor.
I think the latino vote will show up for him in Nevada. I think the black vote will show up for him in SC. After that, they won't be able to argue electability or diversity... They are already down to crying about "Bernie Bros" like nobody else has online trolls or passionate followers. Wait until they meet Trump supporters.
More like, "Billionaires are the cause of all of our problems... more govt, admittedly controlled by said billionaires and employing millionaire "civil servants" will get right on fixing this".
Poll: Sanders now leading 2020 Democrats by 15 points
Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has jumped out to a double-digit lead over the rest of the 2020 Democratic primary field, appearing to cement his position as the front-runner to win the party's presidential nomination, according to a new ABC News-Washington Post poll.
The survey found that 32 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents favor Sanders, an 8-point increase from a similar poll conducted last month. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden's support dropped 11 points to 17 percent, giving Sanders a 15-point lead against his nearest competitor. The 15-point margin is nearly double Biden's biggest lead in the ABC News-Washington Post surveys during the 2020 cycle.
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who will appear in his first 2020 presidential debate in Nevada on Wednesday night, trails Biden in third with 14 percent support. The figure represents a 6-point climb since January.
The rest of the field had little movement over the past month. Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) support stayed stagnant at 11 percent, while former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg experienced a 2-point jump to 7 percent support. Buttigieg appears to be leading the field in the delegate count, but he has struggled to form a diverse coalition of support outside of predominantly white early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who finished in third in New Hampshire after a strong debate performance, has just 6 percent support in the new poll.
The survey indicates that Sanders is beginning to gain key support on the electability question, which has dominated the Democratic primary. Thirty percent of respondents said that they thought the self-described democratic socialist had the best chance of defeating President Trump, a 12-point jump since January.
Just 19 percent of respondents said that Biden had the best chance of beating Trump, a sizable 19-point dip since last month. Eighteen percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say Bloomberg has the best shot to win the White House. No other candidate received double-digit support in that category.
The ABC News-Washington Post survey falls in line with other polls focused on the Democratic race. An NPR–PBS NewsHour–Marist poll released on Tuesday found Sanders with a 12-point lead over the field.
His rise has coincided with a similar upward climb from Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman who is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into his campaign. Several Democratic candidates have criticized Bloomberg's presidential bid.
The ABC News-Washington Post survey was conducted among a random national sample of 1,066 adults between Feb. 14 and Feb. 17. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
MSNBC host Chuck Todd is under fire for “shoddy journalism" ahead of Wednesday night's Democratic debate, which he will help moderate.
Todd is being criticized for failing to ask the president of liberal advocacy group Center for American Progress about a New York Times bombshell report that 2020 Democratic hopeful Mike Bloomberg avoided critical coverage from the group after giving them money.
“It appears the left is following the Golden Rule -- the one with the gold makes all the rules," Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor told Fox News. "It's shoddy journalism to let them get away with this.”
George Zimmerman, the onetime neighborhood watch volunteer who was acquitted in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida, is suing Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg for $265 million, claiming both 2020 Democratic presidential candidates defamed him in an attempt to "garner votes in the black community."
The lawsuit filed in Polk County, Fla., Tuesday argues Warren and Buttigieg’s two separate tweets on Feb. 5, which would have been Martin’s 25th birthday, used the killing “as a pretext to demagogue and falsely brand Zimmerman as a white supremacist and racist to their millions of Twitter followers.”
What Happened to George Zimmerman? Acquitted Shooter Now $2.5 Million in Debt
George Zimmerman is reportedly in $2.5 million debt and has no income, according to filed documents that show his finances.
The Orlando Sentinel reported on Thursday that a court allowed public defender Blaise Trettis to represent Zimmerman in his misdemeanor stalking case after the paperwork filed at Seminole County proved his financial troubles.
Zimmerman is accused of misdemeanor stalking after sending intimidating messages to a private investigator Dennis Warren from December 16 to December 25 last year. Sheriff deputies told WKMG that Zimmerman called Warren a total of 55 times and left 36 voicemails. Warren also received 67 text messages and 27 emails over the course of nine days, WKMG reported. Warren's request for a restraining order was denied earlier this month by a judge, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Warren had contacted Zimmerman about a documentary series on Trayvon Martin, which was produced by rapper Jay-Z. In 2012, Zimmerman shot and killed Martin in Sanford, Florida, and had said he shot the 17-year-old out of self-defense during his trial. He was acquitted on a murder charge.
Zimmerman had previously accused the executive producer of the documentary, Michael Gasparro, of harassing him and his family during an interview with The Blast in December.
"I know how to handle people who [f--k] with me. I have since February 2012," Zimmerman told the publication. "Anyone who [f--ks] with my parents will be fed to an alligator."
Zimmerman has a long list of legal issues since Martin was killed six years ago. In 2016, Zimmerman attempted to sell the gun he used to shoot Martin on the website GunBroker.com. The auction of the weapon was canceled by the website.
"This is a piece of American history," Zimmerman reportedly wrote on the website.
In 2015, Zimmerman was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a weapon after he allegedly threw a wine bottle at his girlfriend. The victim recanted her statement and the charges were not filed.
Zimmerman's ex-wife, Shellie Zimmerman, had also admitted that Zimmerman allegedly punched her father and threatened to kill her family.
"He is in his car and he continually has his hand on his gun and he keeps saying, 'Step closer.' He is just threatening all of us," she said during a 911 call shortly after the two divorced in 2013.
Bloomberg Said Young People Support Bernie Because They're Dumb
“Because our kids no longer learn civics in school they longer study Western history, they no longer read Western literature.”
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a surprising theory about why young people love Sen. Bernie Sanders: They’re morons.
In a wide-ranging interview one month after President Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Bloomberg said Sanders would have won that race if he had gotten the Democratic nomination in large part because young people have no idea what they’re doing.
“I don’t mean to knock young people — I wish I was one again — but young people listened to [Bernie Sanders] and they said, ‘Yeah, Democratic: That’s good. Socialism: Yeah, that’s that social media stuff,’” Bloomberg opined. “Because our kids no longer learn civics in school they longer study Western history, they no longer read Western literature.”
“We are trying to change and dumb down the system and if you don't know what happened in the past you're going to have to relive it,” he continued.
The comments were delivered in December 2016 in front of a college audience at Oxford University’s Saïd School of Business. The school posted the entire discussion on YouTube.
Bloomberg was responding to a young woman, who asked whether Bloomberg agrees that lack of communication or socialization between the upper and lower classes led to breakdowns in society and the election of Trump or Brexit.
Bloomberg answered, unprompted, that social grouping has less to do with race and gender than it does with class, because people of the same class generally care about the interest of that class. Widening wealth gaps, however, do lead to gaps in understanding, he seemed to say.
“Look at a mirror if you want to see why society is the way it is,” he told the Oxford audience. “We're the ones that didn't see Brexit coming, not the people in the rest of the country. We're the ones that didn't think that Donald Trump had a chance; I don't know anybody that thought Donald Trump had a chance.”
But he added that lack of education among the lower classes is equally to blame.
“The solution to our problems is more open borders not closed borders. The solution to our problems is to improve education, not to try to penalize people because they are successful,” he said. “If you don't have successful people you're never going to have the wherewithal to support to help those who are not. We've tried socialism, it doesn't work.”
He then launched into the above-mentioned rant about young people supporting Sanders, before concluding that centrists are necessary to moderate the impulses of “extremists” on both sides of the political spectrum.
“It's very dangerous, the world we're going into,” he said. “You see both the left and the right coming up here, and the middle is getting unfortunately not listened to anymore and it's the extremists that are going to shape the political culture if we're not careful going forward.”
“And we've had extremism before, particularly on this continent, and it didn't work out very well,” he concluded.
Asked if Bloomberg still stands by those 2016 comments, spokesman Stu Loeser responded with another attack on Sanders: "The Bernie who ran in 2016 called himself a truth teller. Even Bernie wouldn't honestly say that about himself anymore — let alone his allies."
I took all those classes in high school and I like Bernie. College educated people like Bernie. Many others my age and older like Bernie... I think he is just saying you are dumb if you like Bernie.
Mike Bloomberg's campaign is sounding the alarm that Bernie Sanders will soon amass an unsurmountable delegate lead if the Democratic field stays split — and took the extraordinary step of suggesting laggards should drop out.
What they're saying: Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg's top strategist, said: "The fact is if the state of this race remains status quo — with Biden, Pete and Amy in the race on Super Tuesday — Bernie is likely to open up a delegate lead that seems nearly impossible to overcome."
"I don’t think many people understand the dire circumstances here." Why it matters: Based on every national poll, plus steady access to money, Sanders is the indisputable — if underappreciated — frontrunner.
The Bloomberg campaign got high-profile validation of its theory:
David Plouffe, Barack Obama's 2008 campaign manager, tweeted in response to Nate Silver's delegate projections through Super Tuesday — which show Sanders with 41%, followed by Bloomberg and Joe Biden with 18% each. "If this happens, Sanders would have a pledged delegate lead he’ll never relinquish." In a "State of the Race" memo to Bloomberg gurus Sheekey and Howard Wolfson, senior adviser Mitch Stewart and states director Dan Kanninen argue:
"If Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar remain in the race despite having no path to appreciably collecting delegates on Super Tuesday (and beyond), they will propel Sanders to a seemingly insurmountable delegate lead by siphoning votes away from [Bloomberg]."
Mysterious group protests Dem debate by unleashing pigeons wearing MAGA hats
An anonymous group claimed it was behind the release of pigeons over the city of Las Vegas that are wearing MAGA hats and -- in at least one case -- a wig that resembles President Trump's hair.
The group, calling itself Pigeons United To Interfere Now, or P.U.T.I.N., called it an "aerial protest" of Wednesday night's Democratic debate.
BAM! Warren comes out dropping bombs on Bloomberg with a quick follow up by Klobuchar. Bloomberg went after Bernie, Pete went after Bernie and Bloomberg. Biden just beat his own drum. Bernie slap Pete back...
Bloomberg sounds unprepared. He's letting attacks go unanswered. He stumbled on medical. He thinks he's entitled to the nomination, you can tell by the way he talks.
Bloomberg sounds unprepared. He's letting attacks go unanswered. He stumbled on medical. He thinks he's entitled to the nomination, you can tell by the way he talks.
Bloomberg sounds unprepared. He's letting attacks go unanswered. He stumbled on medical. He thinks he's entitled to the nomination, you can tell by the way he talks.
Agree he comes across totally unprepared
That's what happens when you buy your way into an election.
Klobuchar is done. the fact that she react like that to Pete's counter is.....man you can't act like that. she's lashing out over a legitimate criticism.
Klobuchar is done. the fact that she react like that to Pete's counter is.....man you can't act like that. she's lashing out over a legitimate criticism.
Interesting to see what influences folks on how they vote.
I'll be succinct. I won't vote for Bernie. I won't vote for Bloomberg. I don't want "outrageous." I don't want "drastic changes." I don't want to pay even more for folks who don't want to work. I don't want to pay more for making the rich richer. I don't want for us to create rights by taking away the rights of others.
Instead, I want a balanced platform that respects the rights of all people. One that understands that hard work should be rewarded. One that believes in creating job opportunities. One that that believes in equal rights and social justice. One that understands that capitalism isn't such a bad thing for the welfare of our economic standing. Someone who understands that working together outweighs division.
This debate is like Red, White, and BOOOOOOOOM Fireworks!
By far one of the most intense ones I've watched... still don't know much about anyone's policy as it's a lot of yelling and fighting... entertaining though
I was just thinking Joe must have napped all day because this is the first time in weeks he doesn't sound half senile and look like he's slipping mentally.
This debate is like Red, White, and BOOOOOOOOM Fireworks!
By far one of the most intense ones I've watched... still don't know much about anyone's policy as it's a lot of yelling and fighting... entertaining though
there's a ton of debates already so honestly they need to be focused on running bloomberg off the freaking stage.
I was just thinking Joe must have napped all day because this is the first time in weeks he doesn't sound half senile and look like he's slipping mentally.
This debate is like Red, White, and BOOOOOOOOM Fireworks!
By far one of the most intense ones I've watched... still don't know much about anyone's policy as it's a lot of yelling and fighting... entertaining though
there's a ton of debates already so honestly they need to be focused on running bloomberg off the freaking stage.
Awesome.
Any news on their actual platforms or is it just an exercise of trashing one another in order to elevate oneself?
This debate is like Red, White, and BOOOOOOOOM Fireworks!
By far one of the most intense ones I've watched... still don't know much about anyone's policy as it's a lot of yelling and fighting... entertaining though
there's a ton of debates already so honestly they need to be focused on running bloomberg off the freaking stage.
Awesome.
Any news on their actual platforms or is it just an exercise of trashing one another in order to elevate oneself?
if you dont know what their platforms are by now, you're an uninformed voter. you're using the internet talking about politics. you should easily be able to familiarize yourself with these candidates policies.
Liz and Bernie are the only ones that understand the REAL threat of global warming. The others seem to be giving lip service to it. Klobuchar acknowledged it's a crisis.
Wait Joe, how is climate change hardest felt in minority neighborhoods with asbestos in the schools? His answer sounded senile, like the word salad POTUS 2.
This is where Bernie loses me.... blaming billionaires... when he's in the top one percent himself... it's all the billionaires fault...
Exactly. He is a hypocrite and a communist. He just wants to give everyone a hand out, he a danger and an evil to the economy and the country as a whole.
You can't have raise of wages, universal healthcare, put up 800 billion dollars. This ding bat Warren, what, does she think we have 100 trillion dollars laying around. She is a straight up dumbass!
Calling Bernie a communist in the debate! He just got a 10% bump from that. These fools don't understand the Bernie is the most popular politician in the country. Tio Bernie!
thats the thing that bloomberg has a point about, he just cant articulate it well.
we got a bunch of people on the stage who are in congress that havent done their part to make sure the tax code is written fairly. they're pointing the finger at him but they have direct influence in the senate.
thats the thing that bloomberg has a point about, he just cant articulate it well.
we got a bunch of people on the stage who are in congress that havent done their part to make sure the tax code is written fairly. they're pointing the finger at him but they have direct influence in the senate.
Bernie wants to tax them! You have to pass these things in congress. Pete claiming he used to be a bernie supporter. Not believing it.
Well there you have it. If Bernie has the most delegates going into the convention but not enough to be the nominee, they all agree the establishment will steal it from him.
I think Pete and Liz will tick up a little after tonight. I think Joe will fall more. He started out sharp but looked bad late. I think Bernie will stay in the lead but not sure if he will move any. Bloomberg and Amy both takes hits.
Do the Math: Sanders Won't Have Enough Delegates Before the Convention to Clinch It
By Rick Moran
February 19, 2020
He hasn't won any delegates and probably won't win many before Super Tuesday on March 3. But the Michael Bloomberg campaign is telling other Democratic candidates to drop out so that he can go one-on-one with Bernie Sanders -- and save the Democratic Party from itself.
IJR:
“The fact is if the state of this race remains status quo — with Biden, Pete and Amy in the race on Super Tuesday — Bernie is likely to open up a delegate lead that seems nearly impossible to overcome,” Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg’s top strategist, told Axios. “I don’t think many people understand the dire circumstances here.”
Obama's 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe agrees:
The Washington Post calls Sanders "uncatchable," but is he a sure thing to win the nomination? The math says he can't lock up the nomination before the convention.
And the reasons are varied, but you can start with the Democratic Party itself, which appears to have a talent for trivializing the momentous and complicating the obvious.
Those rules were clearly not designed for a situation like the one in which the party finds itself. Setting aside the self-serving argument by Bloomberg’s camp, the party is in fact headed toward a bizarre scenario. It could wind up with a clear front-runner in the delegate count — who is nonetheless unable to clinch a majority of the delegates, and therefore the nomination, before the party’s convention.
The key here is the 15 percent threshold that a candidate must reach in order to get any delegates at all. The delegates will be awarded proportionally, with better-performing candidates getting more delegates. But if you don't get 15 percent, you get nothing.
Nate Silver ran the numbers and came up with some pretty shocking results.
By the end of Super Tuesday, FiveThirtyEight estimates that Sanders will have earned about 4 out of 10 delegates that will have been awarded.
But remember: To clinch the nomination, candidates need to earn a bit more than 50 percent of the delegates awarded after New Hampshire. While Sanders is projected to have a lead, the percentage of the rest of the delegates he needs to win will have gotten bigger. Right now he needs to win 50.3 percent of the remaining delegates. If he does as well as projected on Super Tuesday, he will have won only a bit over 40 percent of the delegates to that point, well off the 50-percent-plus pace. After Super Tuesday, then, he will need to win more than 56 percent of the remaining delegates, in part because there are far fewer delegates remaining.
If it's still a three-person race after Super Tuesday, Sanders won't even come close. And even if he's one-on-one against Bloomberg, a guy who has more money than Midas isn't going to lose by a lot. Bloomberg will keep it close largely because there are so many Democrats who know that a Sanders victory would destroy the party.
And if Bloomberg gets tired of spending his own money, he can always tap Biden's bundlers.
CNBC:
Key fundraisers are jumping ship from Joe Biden’s struggling presidential campaign to instead support Mike Bloomberg’s ascending candidacy.
The development comes amid growing concerns within Biden’s affluent donor network that the former vice president is struggling to convince voters that he can defeat Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, for the Democratic nomination. The financiers are also impressed with Bloomberg’s self-funded operation.
It's an open question where the ceiling of support is for Bernie Sanders. Is it 35-40 percent? Or 40-45 percent? It's almost certainly not 50 percent. As long as there are a dozen candidates running, Sanders won't be able to crack 30 percent, much less 50.
In 2016, anti-Trump Republicans -- mostly -- fell in line to support Trump at the convention. Will that happen if Bernie Sanders ends up having a clear majority of the delegates but not enough to clinch it?
With "unity" being the party's watchword in the fall, it's very likely that most Democrats will swallow their tongues and eventually accept Sanders as the nominee. The alternative would mean chaos at the convention and the re-election of Donald Trump.
The average net worth of the Democratic candidates that were on stage tonight was $10,670,850,000.
Is Bernie Sanders going to give his "fair share?"
I know you struggle sometimes, so let me help you out, with a small number of delegates, and one delegate worth 64 billion dollars, talking about average net worth is completely, totally, my numbingly pointless. It's about as relevant as the 23rd number of pi
But carry on, don't let logic or facts get in the way of your Trump rhetoric and propaganda
people seem to have a problem with Bernie talking about billionaires contributing more, and look to his fantastic wealth and say he's a hypocrite. Having a net worth of $2 million is light years away from being a billionaire. fairly confident we have several people on this board who have a higher net worth than Bernie Sanders and they're considerably younger. But you know carry on with the propaganda if you feel inclined.
The average net worth of the Democratic candidates that were on stage tonight was $10,670,850,000.
Is Bernie Sanders going to give his "fair share?"
I know you struggle sometimes, so let me help you out, with a small number of delegates, and one delegate worth 64 billion dollars, talking about average net worth is completely, totally, my numbingly pointless. It's about as relevant as the 23rd number of pi
But carry on, don't let logic or facts get in the way of your Trump rhetoric and propaganda
Everything you just said is completely irrelevant. You also didn't answer my question.
When one person is worth 64 billion, it certainly skews the numbers. I'm certainly not a Bernie supporter by any means. However, if he raises taxes on millionaires and billionaires, yet, his taxes would increase too.
Quote:
Forbes estimates that Buttigieg has built a net worth of about $100,000, largely thanks to his six-figure salary as mayor of South Bend, Indiana—making him a financially comfortable Midwesterner, but one of the least wealthy 2020 presidential hopefuls.
Watching the train wreck that is Bloomy, I was reminded of when they pulled back the curtain to see the great and powerful OZ, only to find a wee turd of a man.
Watching the train wreck that is Bloomy, I was reminded of when they pulled back the curtain to see the great and powerful OZ, only to find a wee turd of a man.
MUST SPEND MO MONEY!!!
Then Bernie praises the healthcare system he wants to abolish!
"Thank you, Las Vegas, for the excellent medical care I got in the hospital for two days," said the 78-year-old senator of the treatment he received at the Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center in Nevada, after suffering a heart attack on Oct 1.
Well as long as they practice as they preach, which has not been in the past. I've heard on certain laws people in congress get exceptions which is BS.
To me there are a whole bunch of economic reasons why socialism doesn't work but just from a logistics and track record standpoint the government is >20 trillion dollars in debt. That's what they've done so far with the money we give them in taxes. People want to give them more?
Elizabeth Warren Has Reversed On Super PAC Support: "That’s How It Has To Be"
Warren, who has campaigned against money's influence in politics, said the day after her debate she would not disavow a super PAC supporting her.
LAS VEGAS — Sen. Elizabeth Warren is a longtime critic of the big-money organizations known as super PACs — and of candidates who are supported by them. But she reversed course on Thursday and refused to disavow a super PAC, called Persist PAC, created to support her presidential campaign.
It was a change so sudden that Warren's own campaign website still said the Massachusetts senator "rejects all super PACs" and "would disavow any super PAC formed to support her in the Democratic primary." She had criticized other candidates for them as late as last week on the debate stage in New Hampshire.
Warren told reporters she had called "dozens" of times for other candidates to agree not to accept the support of super PACs, with no success.
"So here’s where I stand: If all the candidates want to get rid of super PACs, count me in — I’ll lead the charge," she told reporters at a campaign stop Thursday. "But that’s how it has to be. It can’t be the case that a bunch of people keep them and only one or two don’t."
She connected the issue directly to gender, noting that the Democratic field was stocked with male candidates who were either billionaires or backed by big-money organizations.
"We reached the point a few weeks ago where all of the men who were on the debate stage all had either super PACs or they were multibillionaires who could rummage around in their sock drawers and find enough money to be able to fund a campaign, and the only people who didn’t have them were the two women," she said.
"At that point, there were some women around the country who said, 'That's just not right.'"
Bernie Sanders has a big-money group, Our Revolution, that functions similarly to a PAC, and is able to raise unlimited sums of money on his behalf. As a nonprofit, it does not have to disclose its donors, unlike super PACs. He's also supported by the country's largest nurse's union, National Nurses United, whose super PAC spent $5 million backing him in 2016.
Persist PAC booked nearly $800,000 in television ads for Warren this week, as her own campaign faces tight finances in the wake of disappointing finishes in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
She got a much-needed personal infusion of cash after a dominant debate performance Wednesday, raising $2.8 million — her campaign's biggest fundraising day by far. But she will need much larger sums of money to compete on Super Tuesday in early March, when big, delegate-rich, and expensive states like California and Texas will go to the polls.
Super PACs, which can raise unlimited sums of money for candidates, are by definition independent; they are legally prohibited from coordinating with campaigns. Technically, candidates have zero control over the groups. But practically, candidates can hamper them by openly disavowing them or calling for them to stop spending money on their behalf. Some campaigns have also found ways for years to skirt regulations to guide a super PAC's direction.
Just a few months ago, Warren took a different stance with an outside group supporting her campaign. When dark money group Women.Vote bought ads backing Warren in Iowa, her campaign disavowed the organization's activities to Politico. The campaign, a spokesperson said, “was not aware of this and asks that those involved immediately stop purchasing advertisements of any kind. Elizabeth Warren believes democracy is undermined by anonymous, dark-money attempts to influence voters — whether that influence is meant to help or hurt her candidacy.”
I was simply pointing out that it's not the quality of care that Americans have an issue with. It's the cost of that care. That isn't the way you represented it.
You see, we aren't #1 in healthcare. Many nations with single payer health insurance are ahead of America with much lower costs per patient. Those are just facts.
I'm not saying it will work here. I have no idea. It's a better system in some nations and a worse system in others. Right now we have a bunch of people going around trying to make this sound like the best thing since sliced bread.
And it could be. It could also be an epic failure. That would all depend on how it's implemented.
But never fear. For all of the raging we hear in this forum, the plan will never pass the senate. It's never going to happen. The pharmaceutical industry and healthcare insurance companies use their money to buy our politicians. It's the same thing with big tech and military contractors.
So don't worry, politicians aligned with big business will never allow any of this to happen. I mean that is the current system you seem to endorse. It used to be called a conflict of interest but it seems some of you have forgotten how that concept works.
I try to make this post once every year or so when we're talking about healthcare. I usually fail to clearly articulate my point, but I keep trying because I think people don't really understand the problem, and that's critical for coming up with a viable solution. The problem is that many parts of healthcare are unreasonably costly. The training of personnel in HC is expensive, the tools/devices are expensive, the facilities are expensive, etc. When what you're paying for is unreasonably expensive, who or how it's paid for is irrelevant. Single-payer healthcare simply shifts who pays for what. The root issue is still there.
I work (and have worked my whole relatively short career) in the medical device field. I've worked for huge companies, and I've worked for startups. It's insanely expensive to adequately run a med device company. The amount of regulation and oversight that translates to more overhead is crazy. Pharmaceuticals is 10x worse (I currently work at a company making a combo device, which is giving me a window into that world). For big med-device companies (I've worked for JnJ, Medtronic, and BD) it's a ton of work to implement a simple cost-savings update to a product, to the point where it's usually not worth it. For a commodity-type product (like an infusion set that tons of people make) that cost savings is always passed on to the customer in order to keep them from going to competitors. From my time working at startups, I can tell you that the revenue tax that was once part of Obama-Care would have been a death sentence for both of the places I worked at.
Long story short... the way I see it is a shift to Single-Payer Healthcare, while feeling like we've done good, is still just kicking the can down the road. Still doesn't address the main issues with the cost of healthcare in this country.
You bring up a point that I totally agree with. Until the regulatory restrictions and costs associated with healthcare are overhauled, we will all be on the losing end no matter how healthcare is funded.
To be clear, I'm not saying med device and other med-related companies should just be given free reign, but the level of regulation and how it's carried out is ridiculous.
Something I've oft-repeated on here and in conversation. In all med device companies you have the normal functions (R&D, manufacturing, finance, supply chain). You also have a relatively large (compared to non-regulated industries) Quality group, which is tasked with ensuring designs and devices are reliable and safe and do what they're supposed to do, and a Regulatory group that makes sure you comply with applicable regulations. A whole extra department to make sure you comply with regulations, on top of your quality group that makes sure the product is good. Think about that.
I think we are both pretty much in agreement in the general sense. Regulations are certainly needed in a lot of industries, to protect our environment and the general well being of our people. But as with most things it seems the extremes rule. People either want no regulations or things are regulated to death. Moderation and common sense have no place in the conversation.
To be clear, I'm not saying med device and other med-related companies should just be given free reign, but the level of regulation and how it's carried out is ridiculous.
I worked in medical device sales for awhile myself, specifically, in spinal hardware and related products.
We were billing hospitals and receiving PO#s for anywhere from $950-$1600 per pedicle screw. We manufactured the screw for around $12. An average single level lumber fusion was billing out around $8k-$10k in hardware and (hopefully, the surgeon used your companies allograft as well) per case.
Look what happened when Medtronic came out with their BMP product (bone morphogenic proteins) and they has surgeons putting BMPs in everyone that was getting a fusion when the FDA had only approved for use via an ALIF procedure (anterior lumbar interbody fusion) which are not typical. Surgeons were using the product off-label and the product worked "so well" bone was growing in peoples spinal column causing serious complications. Medtronic paid millions and millions to manipulate the BMP studies. Medtronics InFuse BMP were also outrageously expensive, so thankfully, for the patient's sake the quantity being used was being limited per surgery instead of per the manufacturers guidelines.
Also, who could forget when Medtronic's allograft supplier was found to have been illegal harvest bone from cadavers risking the health of numerous future patients receiving the bone.
I was working at the time when the DOJ levied huge fines on medical device companies for basically paying surgeons to use their products under the guise of "consultants" under the anti-kickback statute. I believe the company I worked for was fined ~$29M
DePuy's Charite artificial disc was being marketed to surgeons as disc replacement surgery. Meanwhile, lawsuits were mounting from patient complications to the point there was talk of the Charite was going to be recalled. I believe Medicare quit covering payments for the surgery which was arounf $40k-$50k, if I recall.
Yes, there is a lot that goes into R&D, but medical device companies, sales reps and surgeons were getting greedy and really pushing things to the limit. The Government was almost forced to enact more oversight
My previous job was working as an engineer in a manufacturing facility for a large spine company. The materials for the screws are probably $12. The money spent to get that $12 screw to market was much, much more (which is ridiculous because it's a screw with a pivoting, rotating tulip head). Don't even get me started on the cost of raw medical grade PEEK. That $12 also doesn't cover the cost of quality incurred via inspection and scrap for non-functional/cosmetic stuff.
I can't speak for sales as I'm only intimately familiar with what goes on up until the product gets shipped out. I know there has been significant recent legislation against incentivizing surgeons to use your products.
Your example of the BMP off-label use is actually a perfect example of what I'm trying to explain. Use of those types of products (allograft, autograft, synthetics) is the same regardless of which approach a surgeon is using (anterior, posterior, lateral). The goal of using something like BMP is only to help stimulate bone growth... It doesn't matter whether a surgeon cut from the front or the side or the back.
Bernie Sanders briefed by U.S. officials that Russia is trying to help his presidential campaign
U.S. officials have told Sen. Bernie Sanders that Russia is attempting to help his presidential campaign as part of an effort to interfere with the Democratic contest, according to people familiar with the matter.
President Trump and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also been informed about the Russian assistance to the Vermont senator, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.
It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken. U.S. prosecutors found a Russian effort in 2016 to use social media to boost Sanders’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, part of a broader effort to hurt Clinton, sow dissension in the American electorate and ultimately help elect Donald Trump.
“I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president,” Sanders said in a statement to The Washington Post. “My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do.
“In 2016, Russia used Internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020. Some of the ugly stuff on the Internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters.”
A spokesperson for the Sanders campaign declined to comment on the briefing by U.S. officials on Russia’s efforts.
Sanders has frequently warned about the threat of foreign interference in U.S. elections and criticized Trump for not doing enough to stop it.
“Let me be clear: We must not live in denial while allowing Russia and other state actors to undermine our democracy or divide us,” the senator in January. “Russia targets the divisions in our society; we will work to heal those divisions.”
Sanders’s opponents have blamed some of his most vocal online supporters for injecting toxic rhetoric into the primaries. At a Democratic candidates debate Wednesday in Las Vegas, Sanders indirectly blamed Russia, saying it was possible that malign actors were trying to manipulate social media to inflame divisions among Democrats.
“All of us remember 2016, and what we remember is efforts by Russians and others to try to interfere in our elections and divide us up,” Sanders said. “I’m not saying that’s happening, but it would not shock me.”
Also this week, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Russia had “developed a preference” for Trump in the 2020 campaign — an assessment that infuriated the president. Trump lambasted his acting intelligence director, Joseph Maguire, and DNI staff for sharing that information with lawmakers, believing that Democrats would use it to hurt Trump in the election.
Despite Trump’s skepticism of Russian efforts to damage American democracy, officials in his administration have repeatedly warned that Russia has ongoing plans to interfere in U.S. elections and foster divisions among Americans, part of a strategic goal to undermine U.S. standing in the world. Some analysts believe the Kremlin’s goal is to cause maximum disruption within the United States and that it throws the support of its hackers and trolls behind candidates based on that goal, not any particular affinity for the people running.
After Sanders’s remarks at the debate, some social media analysts were skeptical of the notion that Russians already were masquerading as the candidate’s supporters.
“We have seen no evidence in open sources during this election cycle that an online community of Sanders supporters, known as Bernie bros, were catalyzed by what Sanders suggested could be ‘Russian interference,’ ” said Graham Brookie, director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, which tracks disinformation on social media sites. “Any candidate or public official casually introducing the possibility of Russian influence without providing any evidence or context creates a specter of interference that makes responding to real interference harder.”
It now appears, however, that Sanders may have had a reason to suspect Russia was again injecting itself into the U.S. electoral process, repeating some of what occurred in 2016.
In a February 2018 indictment of 13 Russian individuals and three companies that were alleged to have orchestrated the 2016 social media scheme, prosecutors alleged that the group “engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”
Prosecutors alleged that in February 2016, while Clinton and Sanders were locked in a bitter battle for the Democratic nomination, an internal memo was circulated at the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which prosecutors said led the online effort, instructing their paid online trolls to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them).”
The Internet Research Agency was bankrolled by a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin, according to U.S. officials.
Notice how a real leader comes out and tells them to stop, promising they won't get away with it after he becomes President. Meanwhile Trump calls it a dem disinformation campaign.
It's obvious you didn't watch the video I posted. Then you roll out fascism (Trump admin) and communism as the result. You are not a thinking man, but you do a fine job of parroting.
Already posted and he told Putin to stop and said when he becomes President he will make sure it never happens again. Meanwhile Trump got mad that his own intelligence reported the russians were helping him again and that the dems were informed and called it a dem misinformation campaign today...
I'm aware of what the goal of BMPs were/are and yes a lot goes into the development side.
What I'm telling you is, being the one in the field and in surgery with the surgeon, there was a lot of price gouging going on and surgeon kickbacks going on. There's a reason before I left the business that hospitals started capping prices and forcing medical device companies to either follow suit or they would no longer be a vendor at the hospital. We used to be able to strong arm the hospitals and have surgeons you had consulting agreements with or strong relationships with to move as many surgeries to a different hospitals. Thus forcing, the hospital to go back to the high prices. The DOJ lawsuit kind of squashed a lot of that
When I left, because of price capping and Stryker trying to gobble large market shares, pedicle screw prices were down to ~$250-$300/ea at area hospitals.
Another issue was patients typically have no idea, nor would they be expected to, if their surgeon had a financial interest in the product going into their body or a bone growth stimulator used afterwards.
NuVasive was a company that was relatively new to the market and was throwing money at surgeons hand over fist to use their monitoring equipment during surgery. The surgeons could bill separately/additionally to use it.
As one surgeon told me when I got into medical device sales, "You're about to see a side of medicine you never knew existed."
My only point after all that is that, yes, R+D is very expensive and costly to bring a new product to market, but let's not pretend everyone involved wasn't laughing all the way to the bank.
*Note, I left the business around 2009 or 2010 and I'm sure things have clamped down even tighter since that time.
**Also, didn't mean to sidetrack from the premise of the thread.
Bernie Sanders, a man who could be led astray so easily by KGB minders and a Potemkin tour of the USSR, should never be president of the United States. Katya SedgwickBy Katya Sedgwick FEBRUARY 21, 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner Bernie Sanders likes to market himself as a wise old man who just happens to have clown hair but is right about everything, such as the War in Iraq. Yet his opposition to the Iraq War was dictated not by cool-headed geopolitical calculations, but the lifelong habit of romancing American enemies — as is typical for communism-lovers.
The recently surfaced press conference Sanders gave following his return from his honeymoon in Yaroslavl, USSR, is a great example of leftist naïveté about totalitarian regimes. For Bernie to fawn over Soviet culture the way he did indicates a staggering degree of incuriosity. I was only 15 and growing up in Kharkiv, now Ukraine, when the couple visited the USSR, and I’m not impressed when I watch Sanders sing Moscow’s praises
Start with the metro. Sanders said at the time, “The stations themselves were very beautiful, including many works of art, chandeliers that were beautiful. It was a very, very effective system.”
It’s slightly creepy that Joseph Stalin initiated the tradition of building chthonian palaces underneath Soviet cities. The stations are beautiful, no doubt, but effectiveness is a whole different matter. Coverage was so-so, and the rush hour commute was a nightmare, so Sanders’ classification of the stations as “effective” is puzzling. People stuffed into trains like sardines.
More importantly, metros were only built in cities with populations exceeding one million. Investing money into extravagant projects makes sense if the goal is to dazzle foreigners, but it’s also highly unwise considering that the condition of roads across Russia has always been atrocious. Traveling in the USSR, especially in provincial towns such as Yaroslavl, Sanders, an American man with a driver license, would take note of the state of the infrastructure — one would think.
Free Theaters That Nobody Wants to Visit Bernie continued:
Their palaces of culture for the young people, a whole variety of programs for the young people, and cultural programs which go far beyond what we do in this country. We went to a theater in Yaroslavl which was absolutely beautiful, had three separate stages. Their cultural programs were put together by professional actors and actresses, including a puppeteer area. And the cost, the highest price of the ticket you can get was equivalent of $1.50.
It’s true that the Soviet Union subsidized all sorts of cultural programming for children, such as theaters and youth culture palaces with after-school enrichment programs. Unfortunately, in a socialist economy, that type of institution existed without any feedback from the markets.
I was part of the generation that took yearly field trips to the Theater of The Young Viewer. Ticket costs aside, there was just one such stage in the city, plus the Puppet Theater for the younger kids, and not a lot of demand for the shows. I don’t think American cultural programming is in any way inferior, albeit the cost to the consumer might be higher.
When I was 10, I started taking the metro across town to a children’s palace where the after-school activities were offered. The palace, a beautiful pre-revolutionary structure, was named after Stalin’s henchman Pavel Postyshev. Postyshev presided over Red Terror, purges, and Holodomor, before himself falling victim to Stalinist repressions.
Toward the end of his life, the executioner, by then an alcoholic, was displaying symptoms of paranoia. He once decided that the flame drawn on the box of matches resembled the profile of Leon Trotsky and that sausages, when cut, have swirls similar to swastikas. He ordered the confiscation of all matches and a purge of the grocery.
My generation of Soviets came of age knowing that the USSR was built on tyranny and lies. We are the most cynical generation in Russian history. Once the country crumbled, our lives spun out of control. As a result, Russian speakers my age suffered through high rates of substance abuse, low life expectancies, and through-the-floor birth rates. On the plus side, we grew up with gaudy chandeliers in public places.
The Incurious Nature of Bernie and Jane Bernie’s bride, Jane, picked up where her husband left off:
We were astounded with the openness, the optimism, the enthusiasm in the nation. … What struck me the most was the way that they dealt with children, and the cultural life of their community. As Howard [another man on the trip] mentioned, they put the money into public facilities, and they have palaces of culture which are paid for strictly by trade union dues, and those have movies and dances, and those have a lot of artistic outlets for people — for instance, they might become members of an orchestra and study to play an instrument and perform, and when they go off on performances, it seems not as — not something as they are doing on their own, and they need to take vacation time from work, but it’s seen as providing and contributing to the community life, so it becomes part of their work instead of compartmentalizing their life into job and hobbies. It’s all interrelated, and it’s all under the banner of community involvement.
The First-World problem Jane is trying to solve here is called “the fractured modern man,” and you wouldn’t know it was a problem until you took a fair number of college classes. I mean, is it really that bad to have a job and a hobby?
Her talk of “community involvement” is rather ridiculous, considering she visited a country with a very low level of trust, no meaningful civic culture, and lots of alcoholism. When the workday was over, most Soviet people didn’t go to culture palaces that they viewed as an extension of their work life. They didn’t practice violin. They went moonlighting, making money on the side, or shopping, a time-consuming process, or otherwise cared for their families.
Also drinking or maybe watching a foreign movie at the cinema — the USSR bought a limited number of those, but drinking was a favorite pastime. Alcohol consumption doubled from 1955 to 1979.
Nobody knows what paid for the construction and maintenance of Soviet culture palaces. In a planned economy with its web of subsidies and bribery, such things are not transparent. The trade union fees, however, were levied on everyone enrolled in a trade union, meaning every worker, because all those employed by the government were automatically enrolled in one, and everyone worked for the government — or at least pretended to. As the Soviet joke went, “We pretend we work, and they pretend they pay us.”
To be in awe of those palaces of culture performances in the late ’80s, a visitor would have to be really, really — I mean really — incurious. I understand the Sanderses went on their honeymoon surrounded by the KGB minders, but wow! The newlyweds were shown performance venues, but did they make an effort to meet an artist? Their tour was literally a Potemkin excursion through the Soviet Union: the best of architecture, no real people.
The Watchful Eye of the Censor The late ’80s was a difficult time, when the economy had suffered as the country struggled to compete with U.S. military spending. But it was also an incredibly exciting time because Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost provided an opportunity to learn about the country’s past and discuss a whole universe of new ideas. Jane Sanders is right that there was much enthusiasm and openness in the country, and ordinary people were eager to meet Americans. The Sanderses let them down by staying with their minders.
And the culture palaces? Through most of Soviet history, those were the sanctuaries for second-tier Soviet culture — amateurish and produced under the watchful eye of the censor. Top-level Soviet performers didn’t start in provincial adult education classes; they were groomed in major cities starting in early childhood.
The kind of entertainment Soviet people wanted most wasn’t created by youth puppeteers, either. A handful of officially produced Russian-speaking stars remained popular among people of all ages. Many of those born after World War II developed a preference for Western performers and homegrown underground acts. Recordings of banned performers were bootlegged from friend to friend and sometimes pressed on X-ray vinyl film — “na kostyah” or “on the bones.” A few Western performers, most notably David Bowie, were allowed to tour the USSR. Soviet bands usually played concerts in apartments.
After a smuggled recording of Soviet underground rock was released in the West, Gorbachev reportedly said, “Why can’t we do it here?” Shortly after, artists featured on the recording got contracts with the sole Soviet recording company, Melodia. Stadiums and other official performance venues opened for musicians who had endured years of prosecution, including being fired from work, expelled from official youth organizations, and sentenced to prison terms.
Bernie Sanders Is Hopelessly Naive That was happening when Bernie went to the USSR. Yet with all his excitement about chandeliers, puppeteers, and the KGB-sanctioned rehearsal spaces, he completely missed the zeitgeist. The Vermont communism-lover was as close to liberation as he could ever get, but he chose to bond with his minders. And millennial hipsters think he’s cool.
He is a special kind of tourist known to Russians. The “tell me something nice about your country” tourist, the “surely the bad things I’ve heard are all CIA propaganda” tourist, which is one grade below the “let’s be nuanced about your situation” tourist.
That said, the attitude toward those types of people was generally positive. They were still American, still in blue jeans, and they could tell us a thing or two about the music. We believed them to be basically well-intentioned but hopelessly naïve.
After moving to the United States, I no longer believe Bernie-types to be well-intentioned. Regardless, the man who could be led astray that easily should never be the president of the United States.
Katya Rapoport Sedgwick is a writer from San Francisco Bay Area. She has published at The Daily Caller and Legal Insurrection. You can follow her @KatyaSedgwick on Twitter.
Trump rips Democrats' 'reality show', says Bloomberg spent $500M to 'get embarrassed by Pocahontas'
The debate set a viewing record. And more watched than the Grammy’s and Golden Globes. And the early voting alone in Nevada almost passed the total votes from 2016.
Trump rips Democrats' 'reality show', says Bloomberg spent $500M to 'get embarrassed by Pocahontas'
The debate set a viewing record. And more watched than the Grammy’s and Golden Globes. And the early voting alone in Nevada almost passed the total votes from 2016.
Bloomberg's why they tuned in and he didn't disappoint, well except his followers.
The only candidate who I truly support is Bernie. If Warren won the nomination, I wouldn't be too disappointed, but she is def a 2nd choice rather than 1st.
If any of the other jokers win the nomination I will be voting Green and know that I can sleep easy doing what my morals and conscience tell me is the right thing to do. And, as I live in a blue state I also don't have to worry like those who live in a swing state do.
Sadly, I suspect the fix is in and the DNC are going to do whatever they can to get Biden, Pete B. or Bloomberg the nomination.
I watched the debate and I saw a bunch of "Adults" acting like children, not a great example for our youth ...
I saw a lot of squabbling, for sure. However, nothing compares to the 2015/16 Republican debates. That was literally like a bunch of 4th graders on a playground or worse...a Yahoo comments section. It sunk so low that even wives were insulted. Just terrible. Sadly, that behavior hasn't changed since 2016 as it continues to this day, but unfortunately it now comes out of the WH.
Agreed for the most part. You forgot to add bloomberg and his ads in this situation. Billboards saying "Trump Cheats at Golf", really doesn't do much one's platform.
Agreed for the most part. You forgot to add bloomberg and his ads in this situation. Billboards saying "Trump Cheats at Golf", really doesn't do much one's platform.
Bloomberg sucks and easily the worst of them all. It is totally disgusting how much $$$ he has spent and will continue to spend. I just read in our local alternative paper that Bloomberg has thus far spent 2.9 million on tv ads just in Portland! Steyer has spent $29k. The others....a whopping $0.00!
I wonder why people would try to overthrow a dictator who controls the military?
Posting this crap from a GOPer channel? lmao. What he said is that just because we Americans hated Castro and communism that doesn't mean the people that he actually done things for like healthcare and schools early on were going to hate him or want to overthrow him...
I'm not going to get my hopes up until he gets the 1990 delegates, the establishment is not out of dirty tricks. I honestly think they might risk 4 more years of Trump to stop Bernie any way they can.
I can't believe Biden is showing so well. With 14% in Biden is at 25%! Bernie is still winning big with 44% but that Biden number shows me that older Blacks and Latinos came out for Biden. SC might go Biden after all.
You and your 000s... of course I know what that saying means, just no idea what you were referring to because you struggle with communicating coherent thoughts.
You and your 000s... of course I know what that saying means, just no idea what you were referring to because you struggle with communicating coherent thoughts.
Looks like Bernie is gonna absolutely dominate Nevada, which is a much more diverse state than Iowa and New Hampshire.
Bernie will probably cruise to the Nomination. I’m actually really looking forward to bernie Vs trump on the debate stage.
If trump doesn’t throw a hissy fit and actually shows up, of course.
No way he shows. No way. Would love to Vegas odds on it.
U don’t need Vegas .. how much ... name it ...
Actions speak louder than words ... u just running your mouth as usual? ... let me know ..
First off I want to correct my initial post. I meant to say “I’d love to ‘see the’ Vegas odds on it.”
That said, I don’t gamble. Not on sports. Certainly not on politics. I also never stated I’d place a bet. I’m just curious on the Vegas odds. Much like I’d be for a Browns game... that I’d also not bet. Beyond that trump is a low intellect clown. I doubt he shows as he’ll get destroyed by anyone that holds him to policy talk and not name calling and or outright lies... like having the greatest and bestest most wonderfully affordable healthcare plan, or Mexico paying for the wall, or locking Hillary up... or any other of the drooling fraud’s talking points that never came to fruition.
I actually hope he shows. Watching him get intellectually de-pantsed on TV will be hilarious. His smug, preening face and his inability to use anything beyond 4th grade schoolyard bully English has kept him off my tv since ‘16. This I’d watch.
You and your 000s... of course I know what that saying means, just no idea what you were referring to because you struggle with communicating coherent thoughts.
Yup, just like I’m the gullible one .... ...
You support Trump bro, you don't get to insinuate that anybody else is gullible.
The source is Bernie. And if you don't think Republicans will use this if Bernie gets the nomination, you're only fooling yourself. Any way you slice it, it's not a good look.
Running a far left progressive candidate will already alienate most moderate independent voters. I'm not sure why so many Bernie supporters can't see that. They act as though they don't need them to win. But they do.
A lot of people will once again be on the fence. It won't take much to sway them. Watching Bernie claim the reason the Cuban people didn't revolt because they "liked Castor's policies" is, well, a stupid thing to say. Castro controls the military and people aren't foolish enough to be slaughtered.
This video will be used to support their assertion that Bernie is a communist sympathizer. If Bernie ends up being the nominee, none of this will end well.
I've made it quite clear many times that I'll vote for whoever the Dems nominate. So you can stop with your BS any time now.
We already saw in Nevada how their largest union didn't like Bernie's medicare for all. In the swing states where the margin of victory has shown to be very small, it may very well decide the election.
Sadly those who can't see the forest for the trees will learn the hard way.
I think that some don't see it that way. I just hope that enough of them see it that way not to blow the election in some of the swing states.
Then you have a lot of moderate voters who simply will refuse to vote because while they despise Trump but won't endorse a far left extremist. We both want the same thing. I just don't believe Bernie is going to accomplish that goal.
I know this was for Portland, but I'll make a bet with you.
Trump wins in 2020, and I'll stop posting on DawgTalkers forever.
Trump loses, and you stop posting on DawgTalkers forever.
U got it ...
I know I’m a man of my word ... u on the other hand ... ..
Difference between U and I .. if i win ... i wouldn’t want to take u away from this place ... so I’ll make it even sweeter for u ..
U risk nothing, if Bernie wins I’ll never make another post on dawgtalkers ... I’ll still PM the folks I choose ... no worries as u won’t be one of them ...
Now if u wanna send me $100 if Trump wins that would be acceptable to me ...
GO BILLS ... u showed your true colors that day ...
Let me know .. my offer stands ... Trump wins were even ... if Bernie makes it and beats trump I’ll never post ... let me know ...
YouGov Poll: Majority Expects Trump to Be Re-elected
By Eric Mack
Sunday, 23 February 2020
Even in a Democrat-heavy sample, 65% of registered voters believe President Donald Trump will probably be re-elected, according to the latest CBS News/YouGov poll.
Also, just 12% say Trump "definitely will not" be re-elected.
The findings are particularly alarming because almost 65% of the sample self identifies as a Democrat or an independent planning to vote in a Democratic primary this year.
According to the poll results, responding to the question, "regardless of who you are supporting, do you expect Donald Trump will get re-elected?" voters answered:
Definitely will: 31%. Probably will: 34%. Probably will not: 23%. Definitely will not: 12%.
Republicans are virtually certain with over 90% saying Trump definitely will be re-elected, and more than 33% of Democrats even admit it is at least probable he will, according to the poll.
In the Democratic primary, among likely primary voters, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., leads nationally, while former Vice President Joe Biden leads South Carolina's primary, which is Saturday, Feb. 29.
The poll was conducted for CBS News by YouGov, surveying 10,000 U.S. registered voters, including 6,498 self-identified Democrats or independents who plan to vote in the Democratic primary. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.
You'd be better off voting for mayonnaise. Because mayonnaise would be better for this country.
As an independent in Oklahoma, I can’t vote republican, but I can vote democrat. If there’s anyone Trump can beat, it should be a socialist wanting to give away the farm. So I’m going to do my part to see that match-up.
You'd be better off voting for mayonnaise. Because mayonnaise would be better for this country.
As an independent in Oklahoma, I can’t vote republican, but I can vote democrat. If there’s anyone Trump can beat, it should be a socialist wanting to give away the farm. So I’m going to do my part to see that match-up.
I hope you get what you wish for in this match up. Bernie will crush Trump.
You'd be better off voting for mayonnaise. Because mayonnaise would be better for this country.
As an independent in Oklahoma, I can’t vote republican, but I can vote democrat. If there’s anyone Trump can beat, it should be a socialist wanting to give away the farm. So I’m going to do my part to see that match-up.
I hope you get what you wish for in this match up. Bernie will crush Trump.
I hope you get what you wish for in this match up. Bernie will crush Trump.
Nobody is crushing Trump.... despite being a POS and abusing his power and leading the country like a bully and being totally divisive ..... his hard core faithful are always going to vote for him: The christian right (because Trump is such a paragon of religious virtue - we should all act like him right?) and the Alt Right and Racist Right (whether you think Trump is racist or not doesn't matter - Trump flirts and courts those voters so they all *think* he's one of them regardless of whether he is or no).
Bernie, Warren, Pete, Biden, Bloomberg .... it matters not. None of them will crush Trump. Thinking it and saying it are totally counterproductive to actually beating Trump.
A great example of the challenge of beating Trump and expands beyond his hard core religious and alt right base.
" The Brookings Institution, in November 2019, reported: "53 million Americans between the ages of 18 to 64—accounting for 44% of all workers—qualify as ‘low-wage.’Their median hourly wages are $10.22, and median annual earnings are about $18,000.” "
"I talked to Trump voters in 2016, and many of them felt that Trump was not a nice person, even a jerk, but their fantasy was that he was one of those rich guys with a big ego who needed to be a hero. Progressives who merely mock this way of thinking rather than create a strategy to deal with it are going to get four more years of Trump."
Well, sitting here watching the morning news and seeing the moderate dems deliver all the right wing attacks they can muster on Bernie, jumping from smear to smear with their hair on fire, I'm forced to agree with you. By the time Bernie and Trump hit the first debate stage, Bernie will have had to defend himself from every attack you can think of. BUT Bernie has to get to that stage and the dem establishment seems hellbent to stop him.
Bloomberg stages massive media barrage against Sanders, prepares for critical debate showdown
Mike Bloomberg is preparing a massive media campaign against Bernie Sanders, whose commanding Nevada caucus victory has also drawn the attention of other top Democratic candidates -- and rankled establishment Democrats who believe that the far-left, self-avowed "democratic socialist" could alienate moderates and cost the party the White House.
CNBC first reported Bloomberg's new approach, which will employ opposition research, surrogates, and advertisements across multiple platforms. The volley began on Monday, as the Bloomberg campaign unveiled a video accusing Sanders of being weak on gun control -- an issue that Bloomberg has previously sought to corner. The former New York City mayor already has spent over half a billion dollars in campaign advertising, reports said.
The all-out blitz comes as Sanders' partial defense of Fidel Castro's brutal Cuban Revolution in an interview televised this weekend only underscored his possible vulnerabilities among Democratic moderates heading into Saturday's South Carolina primary and the 14 critical Super Tuesday contests three days later.
Additionally, Bloomberg’s campaign on Monday delayed a scheduled CNN town hall so that he can spend more time preparing for Tuesday’s debate. He was scheduled to appear on CNN on Monday, but he'll now join the network for the live question-and-answer program on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for Bloomberg called the debate “crucial” and said, “The country can’t afford to let Bernie Sanders skate by another debate without a focus on his extreme record.”
With mikey and comrade both being 78, it’s going to be a geezer off tomorrow night. Each armed only with their EKG’s. It’s the only thing left they can still lift. I will give comrade the edge here as all the free stuff he’s offering, using other peoples money, he’s using to lift the spirits of the morons who still believe free stuff exists. Mikey, needs stilts more than stents, he’s just going with Hillary’s plan, “I have more money than you so I should win. I’ve paid people good money to tell me that.” Comrade’s attack hound, warren, who’s vying for the vp slot on the south paw ticket, is doing her best to distract mikey. She realizes being comrade’s hound dog is the only spot her lyin’ butt can still get her. The DNC is quickly becoming a Dateline story, unfolding in real time.
It’s just too bad we don’t have commercial skip so we can avoid all mikey’s ad blitzkrieg.
The Dems drive me nuts. Bernie? Seriously? And they expect "working folks" to vote for them?
I won't. My family won't. It pains me to say this, but we would have to vote for Trump if the Dems trot Bernie out there. We work too freaking hard to just give it away for folks who don't want to work.
and bernie supplied the establishment way too much ammo last night with that 60 minutes interview/question about Castro.
that was beyond dumb.
He explained that crap away, people just don't listen. So Yep, he will pay a price. But at least in the general he'll be running against our own wanna-be castro dictatorship, the stupid ass paranoid version 0.00.1 beta.
Look for mikey to offer Chris Matthews a cabinet spot.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews under fire for comparing Sanders' victories to Nazis in WWII
Good Point!
I find it very funny that OCD's go to Media over the years has completely turned on him with Bernie.
Never liked Matthews much but I am surprised at the left media's attacks. Fortunately today I started seeing some of them come to terms with what is happening, Bernie or not, the future is left.
Bernie likes Castro? Maybe he can make Kaepernick his Minister of Foreign Affairs. I doubt that Kaep would accept the pay-cut and martyr status he has so wisely cultivated, but it is worth a shot.
I don't think anyone should stop posting on DawgTalkers in a bet over who wins the election. I think folks favoring different candidates and platforms is actually a good thing. I don't think we should limit the number of opposing "voices." I think we should encourage free speech and the exchanging of ideas w/out drastic repercussions.
So many young people want to go socialist. Freebies galore. There are some things money can’t buy, but are only paid for by things much more preciously
I disagree. He will get a lot of votes from those that think there should be a lot of handouts.......whether it be the folks that are actually sticking their hand out or the folks who think that others should stick their hands out.
It has been my contention for years that those in power who enable others to stick their hands out are actually doing so in order to keep a group of people down. I'm not talking about the folks w/good hearts who want to help poor folks. I am talking about the powers that be.
The thought process is to give them just enough to sustain them. This keeps many of them from striving to fulfill their potential. It's a passive-aggressive approach to keep the minorities down and it upsets me that more people can't see it for what it is.
Through teaching and coaching.....my message to my minority brothers and sisters has been to educate yourselves, use loopholes in the system to get free education, and work your asses off to beat the oppressors at their own game.
Don't put your freaking hand out. Instead, snatch what you can get by working hard and taking advantage of some of our laws.
Sorry for the rant..........back to your point. Bernie's votes will come from people who expect others to gain from something from nothing. The issue for the Dems is this........you trot Bernie out there and working-class America is going to come out in full force to defeat you. And even though it is Trump and many of us hate him..........we'll vote him in because we don't want Bernie stealing our money.
The bottom line is this for most working folks: It's much easier to say "Trump is a despicable human being than it is to say the government is stealing our money.
I disagree. He will get a lot of votes from those that think there should be a lot of handouts.......whether it be the folks that are actually sticking their hand out or the folks who think that others should stick their hands out.
It has been my contention for years that those in power who enable others to stick their hands out are actually doing so in order to keep a group of people down. I'm not talking about the folks w/good hearts who want to help poor folks. I am talking about the powers that be.
The thought process is to give them just enough to sustain them. This keeps many of them from striving to fulfill their potential. It's a passive-aggressive approach to keep the minorities down and it upsets me that more people can't see it for what it is.
Through teaching and coaching.....my message to my minority brothers and sisters has been to educate yourselves, use loopholes in the system to get free education, and work your asses off to beat the oppressors at their own game.
Don't put your freaking hand out. Instead, snatch what you can get by working hard and taking advantage of some of our laws.
Sorry for the rant..........back to your point. Bernie's votes will come from people who expect others to gain from something from nothing. The issue for the Dems is this........you trot Bernie out there and working-class America is going to come out in full force to defeat you. And even though it is Trump and many of us hate him..........we'll vote him in because we don't want Bernie stealing our money.
The bottom line is this for most working folks: It's much easier to say "Trump is a despicable human being than it is to say the government is stealing our money.
If Bernie gets elected, I’ll just chalk it up to The fact that our nation is getting what it asked for, what its been fighting to get for years, and it isn’t good. We are slowly being turned over to reprobacy
I can only hope that the ultra left eventually shows what they are sooner than later by imploding before they destroy our nation
Candidates face pressure to exit presidential race
Pressure is mounting on some candidates to drop out of the Democratic presidential primary race as moderates scramble to unite their faction around a single contender and prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) from gaining an insurmountable lead in the nominating contest.
The pressure is most acute for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and billionaire activist Tom Steyer, both of whom posted lackluster showings in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday and face increasingly difficult paths to the nomination.
But other candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, also are facing heat.
Even former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who notched top finishes in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary but has struggled to gain traction among minority voters, is facing questions about his prospects as the contest turns to more diverse states, like South Carolina and those that hold their primaries on Super Tuesday.
“I think sooner rather than later, a bunch of these candidates are going to have to understand that they don’t have a viable path to the nomination and need to get behind someone,” said Rufus Gifford, the finance director for former President Obama’s 2012 campaign who is backing Biden.
Biden himself will hear calls to exit the race if he does not win South Carolina’s primary on Saturday.
The onetime front-runner in the race, Biden finished second in Nevada but saw his campaign land in the dumpster with disastrous results in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“For months, Biden’s people have been saying that South Carolina is their firewall,” Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, said. “If he doesn’t deliver on Saturday, he’s going to be under tremendous pressure to drop out whether he wants to or not.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has placed third, fourth and fourth in the first three contests, but believes she is building momentum after a solid debate performance last week. She will need to build more momentum at Tuesday’s debate and then see that turn into votes if she is not to face calls for her to bow out of the race.
There is growing concern among Democrats opposed to Sanders as their party’s nominee that he could amass a lead so great on Super Tuesday, when roughly a third of pledged delegates are up for grabs, that it would become nearly impossible for any other candidate to catch up to him, let alone surpass him.
The field is also poised to get larger on Super Tuesday, when Bloomberg will appear on primary ballots across the country, raising the possibility of an even-more fractured moderate vote.
None of the candidates are likely to drop out before the South Carolina primary on Saturday, frustrating some Democrats.
“They’re all clogging the drain and no one is accepting any responsibility for it,” one Democratic strategist who has worked on recent presidential campaigns said.
There aren’t any signs that the candidates are facing pressure to drop out from congressional leaders, who have so far been reluctant to inject themselves into the Democratic primary race, given the large number of current lawmakers seeking the party’s nomination.
Klobuchar’s best showing in the nominating contest so far was a third-place finish in New Hampshire. But her sixth-place finish in the Nevada caucuses over the weekend underscored her ongoing struggle to build a diverse coalition of voters, and recent polls suggest that she’s not positioned any better in South Carolina, where a majority of the Democratic electorate is black.
A CBS News–YouGov survey released on Sunday showed her running in a distant sixth place in the Palmetto State with 4 percent support. Among black voters, she notched only 2 percent support.
“Her rationale for staying in the race is pretty shaky,” Bannon said. “She hasn’t really won anything yet to show that she’s competitive.”
Speaking to supporters in Minneapolis on Saturday after the Nevada caucuses, Klobuchar said that she had “exceeded expectations” in the Silver State and would continue on to South Carolina and Super Tuesday, when her home state of Minnesota holds its primary.
Asked by a reporter on Sunday about her rationale for staying in the race, Klobuchar said,“Why would I get out? That’s not even a close call for me.”
Steyer is banking on a top finish in South Carolina’s primary on Saturday to salvage his presidential prospects after finishing near the bottom of the pack in the first three nominating contests. He has spent heavily in the state and is among the top-polling candidates in the lead-up to the primary.
But Steyer, who has yet to win a delegate, faces long odds to win the nomination. Critics say he is effectively siphoning off votes from Biden or Buttigieg.
“Tom Steyer should absolutely be looking for an exit sign,” Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist, said. “His money would be far better spent protecting down-ballot candidates and down-ballot incumbents. He’s not going to win. He’s not going to be president.”
Advisers to Bloomberg’s presidential campaign warned in a memo issued last week that Sanders would be “all but impossible to stop” if three candidates — Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar — continued to splinter the moderate vote.
“If Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar remain in the race despite having no path to appreciably collecting delegates on Super Tuesday (and beyond), they will propel Sanders to a seemingly insurmountable delegate lead by siphoning votes away from [Bloomberg],” wrote the advisers, Dan Kanninen and Mitch Stewart.
Another memo from Buttigieg’s campaign sent to reporters days later made an identical argument about Bloomberg’s presence in the race.
“If Bloomberg remains in the race despite showing he can not offer a viable alternative to Bernie Sanders, he will propel Sanders to a seemingly insurmountable delegate lead siphoning votes away from Pete, the current leader in delegates,” Buttigieg’s campaign wrote.
Buttigieg now has 24 delegates to Sanders’s 35. Biden has 10 delegates, while Warren has 8 and Klobuchar has 7.
One major Democratic donor said that there’s little incentive for any of the candidates to end their campaigns right now, arguing that they each have arguments for remaining in contention.
“Why would Pete drop out now?” the donor said. “He basically won the first two states and came in third in Nevada. Why would Amy drop out? She can also make the case that her fundraising is good and she’s exceeded expectations. And Bloomberg and Steyer won’t feel any pressure to drop out. Certainly if Biden wins South Carolina, he’ll stay in.”
Republicans are eagerly watching Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) surge toward the Democratic presidential nomination.
GOP lawmakers and strategists believe Sanders, who identifies as a democratic socialist, is not only beatable in November but could have a disastrous down-ballot impact for Democrats in key congressional races.
“I would think that in a lot of those swing states it’s a very complicated factor to have him at the top of the ticket if you’re a down-ballot Democrat running for House or Senate, I would be really concerned,” said Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican.
Asked if he thought Sanders’s surge was a “blessing,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is up for reelection, called it “a little scary that there would be that much support for an avowed socialist.”
“It splits the Democratic voters, the people who don’t like President Trump very much but when presented with that option might say, ‘Well I’m not going to vote for a socialist. I’ll vote for President Trump rather than do that,’ ” Cornyn said.
The predictions that a Sanders nomination would be a headache for Democrats comes as he holds a lead in the hunt for delegates while moderates remain torn among several potential alternatives.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), in a video taken while he appeared to be driving down a road, said “unless the Democratic establishment steals it from him,” Sanders would be the nominee.
“It’s a big deal for America, and I hope people start waking up to that reality,” Rubio added.
Sanders, who has diversified his base since his failed 2016 White House run, is showing up as a boogeyman for Republicans looking to defeat Democrats up and down the ballot.
Steve Guest, the Republican National Committee’s rapid response director, argued on Monday that Sanders’s ideas are a “danger to America and to our way of life.”
“Good luck Democrats who may try and distance themselves from Sanders’s praise of communist dictators,” he added.
Sanders caused a headache for Florida Democrats on Monday when the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) seized on remarks about Cuba he made the night before on “60 Minutes,” saying that “it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad” just because it is associated with Fidel Castro.
In two separate email blasts by the NRCC, the group questioned if Florida Reps. Donna Shalala (D) and Stephanie Murphy (D) would support a “Castro fanboy.” Both have disavowed Sanders’s comments.
“Does this mean Stephanie Murphy will refuse to support Sanders when he is the nominee? Or will she upset her socialist base instead?” asked Camille Gallo, a spokeswoman for the NRCC.
A GOP strategist pledged that Republicans would use Sanders as an anchor to pull down Democratic Senate hopefuls.
“Right now, Bernie is their front-runner, and socialism doesn’t sell in the Atlanta suburbs, in their Charlotte suburbs and in the Phoenix suburbs,” the GOP strategist said, referring to the Senate races in Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.
Sanders, who supports free college education and “Medicare for All,” is already being name-dropped in key Senate races as Republicans try to activate their base. While most of the 24 Senate seats the GOP is defending are in safe Republican states, a handful of key toss-up races are expected to make or break the GOP efforts to hold onto the majority.
Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), appearing with Trump at a Colorado rally last week, pledged that Republicans would fight “socialism.”
“There was a dangerous thing that happened in 2016. It was the normalization of socialism by Bernie Sanders,” he said.
Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) recently called former astronaut Mark Kelly, who is likely to be her Democratic opponent, the “the 51st vote for all of Bernie’s wildest Soviet-style fantasies.”
McSally is running for the final two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) term. Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), has distanced himself from the tag, noting that he’s a “capitalist.”
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is trying to reclaim his old Senate seat in Alabama, sent out a fundraising blast earlier this month after Sanders won New Hampshire, warning about the spread of “socialism.”
“I know Bernie Sanders well. I confronted his extreme ideas and spending policies for years on the Senate Budget committee where we both served. I went toe to toe many times with him. I was the leading opponent of these extreme ideas on the committee,” he said in the email to supporters.
Republicans have worked for months to make the 2020 election a referendum on “socialism.” It’s a narrative they think is a good fit for Sanders.
An ABC News-Washington Post poll found that 31 percent of adults say they would be less likely to support Sanders if he was labeled as a democratic socialist and 38 percent said so when labeled as a socialist.
Even as Republicans have worked overtime to make Sanders the face of the Democratic Party, there are a slew of warning signs against underestimating the 78-year-old’s potential strength as a general election candidate.
An ABC News-Washington Post poll found Sanders leading Trump in a potential head-to-head match-up, similar to several of the Democratic candidates.
It also found that 30 percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters believe Sanders is the best choice to beat Trump — the highest percentage for anyone in the still-crowded 2020 primary field.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) warned during an interview with “CBS This Morning” that he thought Sanders is Trump’s most difficult potential opponent.
“I would say that the biggest threat to President Trump is President Trump. ... If there is a second choice other than himself it would be Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders brings that outside game in a similar fashion that President Trump did in 2016,” Scott said Monday.
The GOP is attacking him hard because they don't want him to run against Trump. They wouldn't come at him like this now if they were giddy about him getting the nomination. All that hype about Trump wants to run against Bernie was BS. Trump was happy Clinton didn't put Bernie on the ticket in 2016 admitting on tape that it would have been a game changer.
If someone like Sanders gets elected I want to be there when every single one of his supporters from the middle class find out they have to pay out the ass in taxes.
That won't happen though because nobody but economically illiterate lunatics support Sanders. His own party doesn't even support him right now. Personally I think the Democrat party is dead.
Nope. And you will be paying more taxes. Especially you, because we are going to create a new densa members tax. Yep, you and Trump and most of his supporters are going to have to pay more for the right to be so willfully ignorant about pretty much everything.
Former Vice President Joe Biden notched another gaffe Monday night in South Carolina when he discussed his experience negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement -- with a Chinese leader who has been dead for decades.
"I'm the guy that came back after meeting with Deng Xiaoping and making the case that I believe China would join if we put pressure on them," Biden said.
I don't know. And while I can't say how much it divides the Democratic party as a whole, I can say how much it divides my house.
My wife and I would vote for Bernie if he gets the nomination. My actual reasoning for that is first, I'm an anyone but trump voter. But secondly it's because I know Bernie will never get his agenda passed into law. For all of the rah, rah, pro Bernie rants we hear, medicare for all is never going to happen at this point in time. Neither is free college. Nor free day care.
It's all a hypothetical impossibility.
We have four voters in my household. I know two of us would vote for Bernie. One is on the fence about him and one would most certainly not vote for him. All four of us voted for Obama.
What this will do is tear the Democratic party apart only to insure that moving forward the party will be so fractured it will lose its ability to elect anyone. Bernie is the answer to Republicans prayers.
Yea, he better be prepared to answer some tough questions for tonight’s debate.
Bloomberg caught him with a few jabs last time. Will this time be haymakers?
I actually can’t wait for tonight ... lots of interesting angles starting with Mikey and how prepared he is ... then how many are going to attack Bernie ... then will Warren go after the burn or keep herself alive as a potential VP for the bern ... many more interesting “side battles” after that ...
My wife reminds me that in Europe, Bernie is a moderate. But I have to explain to her that the majority of the country is center-right, even with those who vote Dem. so when somebody like Bernie comes along, it really is a culture shock and a lot of people will naturally push back on that.
But then I have to ALSO remind myself of this: none of bernie’s ideas are anything new or shocking really. We’ve been hearing this from our leadership since Atleast the 1940’s. How much of bernie’s ideas be relevant today if FDR didn’t pass away?
Yea, he better be prepared to answer some tough questions for tonight’s debate.
Bloomberg caught him with a few jabs last time. Will this time be haymakers?
The real question is will Bloomy lick the blood off Bernie's neck? I agree, Bloomberg's best moments were going toe-to-toe with Bernie. I expect a lot more of the same.
Yea. I also think this could be the final death blow to Biden. He’s starting to be a bit incoherent on stage and I have to wonder about his health. had a wave and lost it, and has struggled to close the gap.
Bloomberg can definitely have sanders on the ropes, but the audio that just dropped on Bloomberg is gonna have warren roaming at the mouth. Bloomberg is just what the doctored order as far as her campaign goes. So I can see warren indirectly providing cover for Bernie.
However, this is where Pete and Klobuchar come into play, as they WONT be distracted by Bloomberg. They’re attention will be on each other and attacking Bernie.
Welcome to front runner status, Bernie. It gets ice cold reaaaal quick.
Bernie really took a massive L with the Latino community in Florida. Florida could have very well been in play this election for him, with healthcare and such. But instead he found a way to piss off the Cuban community in the area.
There are. And it's not like a lot of the things he says he wants to accomplish aren't goals I think are good. It's the fact that I understand that our nation as a whole will not embrace all of these wholesale changes at one time. It's just never going to happen.
Saying you have a plan to pay for things that you have no idea what they will cost is a crazy notion to try and sell.
What I do find amazing is how all of those European nations pay for the same things Bernie is endorsing while those who oppose him keep coming up with some end of the world scenarios why it will ruin our country.
I don't think that's true, while at the same time I realize the American people will never support those wholesale changes overnight.
I agree with that, but isn’t that also the frustrating part that got trump elected to begin with?
People got tired of the can getting kicked down the road. Regardless of whether I think their policies and ideas are good or not, from that perspective, people are tired of waiting around.
Yea, nobody wants wholesale changes overnight, but we’ve put surgery off for so long in this country that other organs are starting to be effected. At some point the stitching has to get ripped out so we can get to work.
People are now earning less than those 20 years ago, yet we keep hearing that we need more time. A lot of people are sick of it.
And it’s tough to support that kind of perspective when government certainly hasn’t had an issue snapping their fingers and making wholsesale changes for the wealthy. So why is it all of a sudden a problem for the middle and lower class? We always have to wait, while they get whatever they want, when they want.
It’s why Bernie Sanders is the front runner. It’s also why trump ended up the front runner in 2016.
But Bernie does
Such
A
Horrible
Job explaining to American people why such changes are necessary. I mean he gets the academia kids who don’t know [censored], but for the rest of us....it comes across like he’s trying to put a cap on people’s success. As if somehow my dreams Or anyone else’s need to have a limit.
And I hate that because that’s not his intentions with the policies, but then can’t Articulate that to the masses. Warren can, but for whatever reason, she isn’t left enough.
Honestly I feel like trump supporters. Making a better argument for policies than the freaking leader can.
Actually the changes that have been made to benefit the wealthy have been done through a very long process. Beginning with Nixon and being followed up with every GOP president since. Maybe it went back even further but I've only been alive for so long.
And while I do understand what you're saying, much as you have described, I don't think Bernie is a man who can who can sell those wholesale changes. And the numbers strongly dictate that you can't win the presidency without garnering a lot of the independent vote. At this time it's simply not a winning message.
If you look at Trump's message which helped get him elected, a lot of it was directed the fact that people simply did not and do not trust the government. They see the inefficiency with which it is ran. Bernie's message is to trust the government by a much greater margin than ever.
Warren is back on the attack on Bloomberg. She’s shooting for the VP slot. Sanders leads everything and she’s attacking Bloomberg who’s not even been on a ballot yet.
I love warren roasting Bloomberg over his funding of republicans. The fact that Bloomberg’s response was “I’ve been training for this job since 9/11” is beyond scary.
I agree with that, but isn’t that also the frustrating part that got trump elected to begin with?
People got tired of the can getting kicked down the road. Regardless of whether I think their policies and ideas are good or not, from that perspective, people are tired of waiting around.
Yea, nobody wants wholesale changes overnight, but we’ve put surgery off for so long in this country that other organs are starting to be effected. At some point the stitching has to get ripped out so we can get to work.
People are now earning less than those 20 years ago, yet we keep hearing that we need more time. A lot of people are sick of it.
And it’s tough to support that kind of perspective when government certainly hasn’t had an issue snapping their fingers and making wholsesale changes for the wealthy. So why is it all of a sudden a problem for the middle and lower class? We always have to wait, while they get whatever they want, when they want.
It’s why Bernie Sanders is the front runner. It’s also why trump ended up the front runner in 2016.
But Bernie does
Such
A
Horrible
Job explaining to American people why such changes are necessary. I mean he gets the academia kids who don’t know [censored], but for the rest of us....it comes across like he’s trying to put a cap on people’s success. As if somehow my dreams Or anyone else’s need to have a limit.
And I hate that because that’s not his intentions with the policies, but then can’t Articulate that to the masses. Warren can, but for whatever reason, she isn’t left enough.
Honestly I feel like trump supporters. Making a better argument for policies than the freaking leader can.
I find this post to be reasonable and passionate. I like that combination.
Bro, I don't follow this stuff like you do.............why did Warren fall of the map? I don't know much, but she is my favorite.
The Pocahontas issue is still dragging her down a bit.
There some other issues but....we can’t be about identity politics then support someone who ran with a Native American heritage. So liberals are hesitant.
The Pocahontas issue is still dragging her down a bit.
There some other issues but....we can’t be about identity politics then support someone who ran with a Native American heritage. So liberals are hesitant.
Thanks for answering.
Personally, that means crap to me. I am not getting on you. I just don't agree w/the Dems philosophy. I think she is by far the best candidate that most of America could get behind.
This is not an attack on Diam, but he and I were talking about Warren a year or two ago and I was saying how I liked her and he brought up the Native American thing and I actually started laughing. I don't even see how it is an issue. Who freaking cares?
I care about the well-being of our country. And she is our best bet in my humble opinion.
It’s about credibility. Liberals constantly bring up identity politics, from race and discrimination and such.
So what does it look like to conservatives that liberals would constantly bring it up, then turn around and support someone who took advantage and lied about her identity to get ahead?
Trump and his supporters would be on full attack mode. Look I want warren. She’s my top choice. But she has her own polarizing issues just like Bernie.
I hope everyone on this board understand that the vast majority of black Americans view reparations as undoable and a pipe dream. So please don’t think we just want handouts.
It’s about credibility. Liberals constantly bring up identity politics, from race and discrimination and such.
So what does it look like to conservatives that liberals would constantly bring it up, then turn around and support someone who took advantage and lied about her identity to get ahead?
Trump and his supporters would be on full attack mode. Look I want warren. She’s my top choice. But she has her own polarizing issues just like Bernie.
Yeah, I get that bro. However, I could give a rat's ass about BS like that. My bottom line is what is best for my country and for my family.
So, she messed up..............but, she's our best bet for productivity. That is what is important to folks like me, bro. We could care less about the "OMG" and the "he said, she said" crowd.
I mean seriously... I feel like I'm in the middle.. I typically vote republican but if we could get a viable decomratic candidate that's a moderate I could vote for them.... most of These fools I can't vote for...
I mean seriously... I feel like I'm in the middle.. I typically vote republican but if we could get a viable decomratic candidate that's a moderate I could vote for them.... most of These fools I can't vote for...
Exactly. I'm a libertarian and and I voted Trump in 2016. At this point I'm 99% sure I'm going to do it again.
Its not because I'm married to Trump or anything either. He just represents the cross platform of my values better than any candidate the Democrats can field. less government interference, America first, strong military, strong foreign policy, free market, pro 2nd amendment, etc.
If the Democrats had a viable moderate candidate I'd consider voting for that person. This is in all seriousness. Why can't they field someone like Bill Clinton or JFK? Where did those types of values go?
The closest thing they have to a real candidate is mayor Pete, that's just my opinion.
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