That’s a hell of a good message. Yes, as usual, the Democratic Party candidates in an open primary (one where an incumbent Democratic President isn’t running again) are attacking each other. Par for the course. I’m not “over the moon” about any of them, but any one of them would be a vast improvement over trump. I’ve been supporting Pete, but I don’t think he will get the nomination. While I think he would be a great president, I don’t see enough of the country being ready to elect one that is gay. I would be thrilled to be wrong, but don’t expect to be. Of the remaining candidates, Bernie and Warren, along with a lot of their supporters, continue to forget that a majority of the country have moderate inclinations, certainly more moderate than my own. Those are the Americans that Democrats have to bring to the polls to vote for our candidate, and I’m skeptical that either Bernie or Warren can manage to do that. If either one gets the nomination, I certainly hope my skepticism is misplaced. Klobuchar is not going to get the nod. I’m convinced of that. So who are we left with? I don’t think Bloomberg will be able to buy the nomination. I think his reasons for running come from a good place. He thinks trump is a danger to this country, and he is right. He’s also not alone. Every remaining candidate feels the same way. Not all of them articulate that as well as they should be doing. The continual obsession with healthcare in all it’s permutations, while certainly an important issue, isn’t the paramount one, although a casual observer might be forgiven for thinking it is after watching these endless debates. Nothing is more important than defeating trump. He is a clear and present danger to our United States. Who does trump fear the most out of this collection of Democrats, along with one Democratic Socialist? It’s still Joe Biden. What a quandary.
I'm sorry I'm just now finishing up watching the debate lmao at Pete trying to call out Amy over voting to make English the national language and then busting out the always incredibly corny pandering deluxe decision to finish his sentence in Spanish... I really thought that cringe died with Beto and Booker lol.
One or two of those moderates needs to drop , along with Bloomberg .... let those moderate votes coalesce instead of being split among all of them. Otherwise we're going to get to a convention where Bernie has the most delegates gaining 25% in each state but not enough to secure the nom .... and he'll get screwed and leave his supporters mad again.
Pete eviscerated Amy’s experience across the board - appointing Trump judges, the English language vote, and not knowing the Mexican President or his policies despite being on the committee for border security. I don’t see how she recovers from them tbh Agreed. But which moderate would agree to dropping out? There is no love lost between Amy and Pete, Biden is a very attackable front-runner, and Pete currently has the delegate lead. I understand why all three are jockeying to win the moderate lane. Who can convince two of them to fall back before it’s too late?
great writeup https://nypost.com/2020/02/19/nevada-democratic-debate-was-the-greatest-debate-in-human-history/ Nevada Democratic debate was the greatest debate in human history By John Podhoretz February 19, 2020 | 11:40pm Forget Lincoln and Douglas. Forget Nixon and Kennedy. Hell, forget the Athenians and the Melians back during the Peloponnesian War. Last night’s Democratic primary slagfest in Nevada was the greatest debate in all of human history. Oh, was it glorious — the sheer raging hostility spraying across the stage as every campaign besides the Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg bids face the desperate possibility each might fade into the woodwork against the Bernie surge and the Bloomberg billions. It’s not that the gloves were off. No, my friends, everybody was wearing steel-tipped boots and going right for the crotch. Those weren’t snowflakes. They were nunchucks. more at the link
The so-called moderates are playing a health care shell game. Especially Pete with his "I trust the American people" BS.
That is not a bad idea to watch debates with CC only. It would give anyone who does that a different perspective of the debate. It is akin to how people who watched the Nixon/Kennedy debate thought Kennedy won and people who only listened to it without watching thought Nixon won.
These guys were playing parlor games compared to the 2016 GOP primary. Trump/Rubio/Cruz were like little babies talking about the size of their crotches and accusing one of them of having family ties to the Kennedy assassination. The Republican won the white house and the losers seem to have forgotten all about their differences. Apparently a lot of people have forgotten about their differences if they think the Dem debate was brutal. Case in point, the in-fighting is nothing special, unusual, or damaging in the long run.
1. No one know how much it would cost. The ranges from various models are huge (+/-10 ~Trillion over 10 years). Warren propose a plan that modeled to costing the same. That might be right, but it certainly is risky and we won't know until it get implemented. . 2. M4A is taking away private insurance. It's not that anyone is losing healthcare, it's that you lose what you have today, even if it's crap and not sustainable over the long run. That's scary to many people. 3. M4A doesn't give you any choice. It's either the government plan or nothing. M4A as an option give you the choice. Universal care but what about my current care? The current system is broken and not sustainable and that's not a risk but a known (most American feel this and know this). We have to change and M4A vs M4A as an option (public option) are both valid alternative. The argument is which is better? I think the M4A proponent would do better if they shift their attention to attacking and explaining why the public option is worse than the M4A. Most American already want to change so it's a waste to keep talking about M4A vs today broken health care system. Why should I go with M4A vs public option. M4A is losing that debate so far.
[ He is doing it because he knows what a dangerous man Trump is. He knows that he could manage the country better.
Their arguing was certainly no worse than Trump and the Republicans going at each other. The tiny hands comments, wives comments, and calling each other liars. All I know is I would trust even the least popular candidate up there to do a better job running this country. Time to make America good for all people, raise the quality of life, and treat workers like humans, not slaves. Why should hard workers not even even be able to afford insurance or vacations? All the top countries in quality of life studies give free healthcare for all, and better work benefits for all. It is sad, that greed and desire to keep getting richer is more important to many than saving and helping every human being you can. Greed and getting richer at all cost is a scary thing, when you see someone lose their house, or resort to begging on Go Fund Me to pay for medical bills. Greed, narcissism, lies, and corruption, added to the character of a lying bully is a scary thing. It's like watching JoJo Rabbit without the humor.
He has to be demonstrably better in the next debate or he will toast. Will be interesting to see how the polls shake out.
law prof Althouse analyzes how law prof Warren tore Bloomberg to pieces last night. https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/02/somebody-tell-mike-bloomberg-that.html
Disagree w those saying it was a good Biden night. He literally looked like a cadaver, and optics are important. Just looked very odd and ill on camera. Klob’s anger didn’t seem to be an act. She does have some kind of memory lapses (remember Kansas governor or whatever?) and is sensitive about it. being mad is okay with voters, I think, but sadly moreso for men and definitely only if you still seem in control of your wits. trump lives in a kind of angry flushed state but seems to be vaguely in control of himself... barely.
Watching these debates, it’s clear that healthcare is such a big issue. It’s frustrating that some people are afraid of something called Medicare. I guess it’s fear of the unknown and fear of losing choice. I wish people would take a good look at what Medicare is today for people who currently have it. It’s really good. I know that there are some people that are content with the insurance they get through their employer. But, in most cases that insurance is inferior to what a senior citizen can get with Medicare. I don’t know what Medicare for all would ultimately look like. But, if it looks something like the Medicare advantage plans both of my parents are on, then I think people would be thrilled. Everyone keeps talking about how we will pay for healthcare, or who will pay for it. Well, it will be the same people who pay for it now. It will be us. Maybe the very wealthy will pay for a greater share than lower income people, but I think that’s only right. Something we should all be concerned about, is how do we reduce out of control medical costs that impact everyone. The only real solution I’ve heard so far is to eliminate the middle man. The insurance companies. Some kind of Medicare-for-all could eliminate billions that currently go to insurance companies. That’s money that stays in our pockets instead of going to a large corporation. That sounds good to me. I just wish people would take a good hard look at Medicare, see how it currently works, and understand that it’s really good for people currently enrolled. Some people seem to think that people on Medicare lack choice of doctors and hospitals. From what I’ve seen, people on Medicare in the Houston area have a tremendous amount of choice. I understand people are sometimes afraid of change. But healthcare is one area where change is desperately needed.
another great writeup https://thebulwark.com/vegas-fight-night/ excerpts: Vegas Fight Night It's tough to say who won. But it's crystal clear who lost. by Jonathan V. Last February 20, 2020 1:02 am Wednesday night’s Las Vegas debate was what you’d get if you smushed Wrestlemania, UFC 251, and Mayweather-McGregor all onto one card. It had everything you hope for on fight night: A great opening bout, solid mid-card action, and then the heavyweight main event that everyone was waiting for. This was one of those special pay-per-views that gave you more than your money’s worth. Because if you tuned in for the entire two hours, you got to see the full panoply of the human experience: savagery, skill, elegance, drama, hatred, and respect. So let’s go down the card and grade the fights. *** Pete versus Amy. This was the fight no one saw coming. Two nice, Midwestern centrist candidates were just standing around in the desert doing their own thing when moderator Vanessa Hauc inexplicably went after Klobuchar for not knowing the name of the president of Mexico. Let’s be very clear: These sorts of gotcha questions are ridiculous. There are a lot of countries. Ask any candidate to name enough leaders and eventually they’ll come up empty on someone. And the name of the Mexican president has very little to do with the fundamentals of the U.S.-Mexico relationship. So Hauc making a big stink about this trivial mistake is a joke. But what was weird was Mayor Pete deciding that he was going to get into a major exchange with Klobuchar and hang her momentary brain freeze around her neck as if it meant something significant. And what was really weird was Klobuchar taking this beef to 11 and shouting at Buttigieg about how he thinks she isn’t smart or something. There was a moment where I honestly thought she might throw her briefing binder at him. Klobuchar won this fight. There was no need for Buttigieg to pick it in the first place. It made him look petty and it fed into the worst image for him: It made him look like the smart kid everyone hates, not the smart kid everyone looks up to. *** Mayor Pete versus Bernie. What made Buttigieg’s two foolish attacks on Klobuchar so mystifying is that he was the most effective critic of Sanders all night long. He crushed Bernie on the subject of his Troll Army. He hit him for his self-righteousness, saying out loud what everyone else is thinking. (“You’re not the only one who cares about the working class.”) When Bernie then trotted out the—I don’t know what to call this, theory? suggestion? possibility?—that all of the mean Bernie Bros are really Russian bots and not actual, asshat supporters, Buttigieg made the deep point about how Bernie never seems to accept responsibility for all of these things that just happen to occur around him. “Leadership is about what you draw out of people,” Buttigieg said. And he’s absolutely, 100 percent right about that. When Bernie was evasive on the question of his medical records, Buttigieg tied him to Trump—which is, again, exactly on point. Why does Sanders think he doesn’t need to be transparent with voters? Over and over, Buttigieg pounded the idea that he is “building a politics designed around inclusion” while Sanders starts out by saying that half the country isn’t good enough to be on his side. Bernie has no answer for any of these charges except bluster. And yet, that might be enough. more at the link
Bloomberg probably still lying in the fetal position this morning, not getting out of bed, much like Hume Cronyn's mortally-sick character's remission when he no longer has the aliens' pool to make him well: "Are you gonna get up, Mike?" "Not now. I'm a little tired. I'll.....I'll get up in a bit."
I watched the 1st hour, then switched over to the UH game. Will watch the 2nd hour tonight, but yeah...I kept waiting for someone to say "...that being said, the most important thing we need to do is get Trump out of office, and I think we can all agree on that." Trump's name barely even came up. I know this was a Democratic debate, but as a voter who would vote for Mike Fiers before voting for Donald Trump....the only message I care about is getting Trump out of office. Didn't hear much of that last night.
