Celebrating Bernie Sanders' Victory in NH

Well, Waterfield, it’s a little frustrating when folks say that he says he’ll do something, but not how. Just a little, mind you.

That’s just beyond not true. If anything, Bernie’s beating a long dead horse so much so that his audiences repeat his speeches back to him almost with a Rocky Horror Picture Show-esque quality to it.

Free College: This is a misnomer. Bernie has said that PUBLIC Colleges and Universities would be free and that this would be paid for with a transaction tax on Wall Street. Conservatively, the transaction tax right now more than pays for this. Now, is this legislation? Of course not. There would be TONS of details to be worked out likely including things like a means test (the trope of not letting Donald Trump’s kids go to school for free), reining in the massive building boom on Public University campuses, and other issues relating to the COST of education such that the government doesn’t find Public College becoming another entitlement program. This is actually a HUGE idea and critically important and why much smaller economies are able to compete with us when our scale can’t be brought to bear. The money that doesn’t become a mortgage on a person’s future success instead goes straight into the economy, from home-ownership to cars and clothes and movie tix and umpteen services. There is currently over a TRILLION dollars of our economy right now tied up in student debt that would be a massive jump start to the economy if that debt weren’t there. Massive maybe isn’t a big enough word… But the answer to HOW is by employing a transaction tax on financial instruments. For casual investors who are in IRAs, 401ks and long term investment instruments, the tax would be negligible. For agencies who trade millions of stocks per minute and often manipulate the market… well, they’ll actually have to pay. It’s a reasonable cost of doing business.

And that’s just one of many points. No candidate can lay out enough detail that it could compete with legislation because that’s not feasible (unless they’ve already done that in the course of their former duties). Moreover, it will always be necessary for further details to be hammered out in the various committees so it wouldn’t make any sense to have that level of detail when the various committees would just make tons of changes to the fine details, anyway.

I’m not exactly a Bernie Sanders spokesperson, but I listen when I can and I’m happy to answer any policy questions anyone has that I know he’s answered.

Other than Medicaid for All, I don’t think he’s not given a HOW answer to any topic unless it’s not appropriate (like no one can give an answer to “how will you defeat ISIL/ISIS?” when the nature of their existential threat morphs as rapidly as it has). And I don’t think a single HOW answer for transitioning to Medicare for All works on the stump. That would be a “devil’s in the details” kinda thing where it could be great or could suck horribly because most of it would be issues of health policy and logistics and hoping to avoid unintended circumstances.

One of the big differences between Nader and Sanders is that Sanders is actually talking about HOW he’d do it and he’s done the FIRST, most honest part… that is that you simply cannot just elect ANYONE and expect ANYTHING to get done in the current climate of money in politics.

I doubt Sanders wins South Carolina. In fact, I expect him to lose by around 16 points, give or take. But considering he’s down by almost 40 right now, the idea that he can close more than 20 points in less than 10 days will show that he needs very little time to convince people of the validity of his message.

Well at the debate last night Bernie went full professor like a boss and actually brought up Mossaddegh in ’53 and how Kissinger was the WORST Secretary of State maybe ever.

As to what to do NOW about existential threats, no candidate can give a full answer without full information.

Remember, ISIS/ISIL was NOT the existential threat it is now when President Obama took office, but it became one once again due to the unintended consequences of our belief in regime change (a point Bernie just hammered home in the debate).

In retrospect it’s not close. I’d much rather have had Gore. Bush was a foreign policy disaster of epic proportions. We spent nearly 4 TRILLION dollars so that Osama Bin Laden could accomplish his goal of fundamentally changing our way of life. Galactically stupid doesn’t go far enough.

As for a direct answer of what he would do now, he would engage the region, but not in the antagonistic way Clinton and the Republicans want to. There is very little separating Clinton and the Republicans other that the crazies that want to start WW3 and bomb Iran. He’s talked about getting more countries in the region involved in relief efforts, directly involved in fighting ISIL and in securing the region.

I think the biggest mark in his favor is that when the next threat comes that we haven’t foreseen, he’s shown the best judgment of any of the candidates both with respect to short and long term answers and consequences.

Trump is just a more coherent version of Sarah Palin which isn’t saying much and Ted Cruz would be dangerous for significant populations including LGBT and there is so much disconnect between the utopia he envisions and the dystopia he’d begin to create that it’s scary.

Why not vote for Jill Stein?

Well, because at that point, the effort to not triangulate would have failed.

If… God Forbid, I am forced to choose between Hillary Clinton and one of the Republican candidates… then there is NO WAY IN HELL that I would embolden Republicans by giving them the White House.

A nominal Republican in the White House isn’t just that. It’s staffers, it’s the relationship with Congress, it’s which bills get worked on and go to the WH to be signed.

It’s SUPREME COURT JUSTICES!!!

So, there’s no way with me living in the battleground state of FL that I’d let a Republican nominee have a chance.

The Green Party is failing to make its case between elections that they are a viable electoral alternative and there’s no reason why Jill Scott or anyone else should become the next Ralph Nader and siphon progressive votes in a binary system that doesn’t allow for coalitions thus allowing for conservatives to take charge.

At that point, it’s not so much triangulation as the basic life math that every functioning public citizen should know…

I’ll say this about the “horserace”…ugh.

If Trump wins South Carolina, which it seems he just may and by more than 15 pts over Cruz, then I just may run the table come Super Tuesday and he’ll be the nominee, even if he doesn’t have the all of the delegates come the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

That said, what’s frustrating is that Dems say Hillary is “more electable”, but in EVERY SINGLE national poll, Trump beats or ties Hillary… ,but Sanders just CRUSHES Trump. It’s not close, something like 12-14 points. And electorally speaking, Sanders keeps New York whereas we’re left to wonder if Trump brings New York into play with Clinton. That would be… HUGE. (sorry)

Secretary Clinton will go on the offensive about the court and women’s rights. And she should. However, Bernie will hit even harder about Citizen’s United and the chance to actually make a difference systemically on all issues and since he’s IN the Senate, he’ll have a front row seat for the circus and he’ll be able to make speeches on the Senate Floor regarding nominees, a place where Secretary Clinton can’t go.

Funny. If there was a Republican President, they’d want Scalia replaced immediately.

Politics is so damned transparently without honor, code or even a shred of dignity or respect.

That’s why I say it’s pornography for polite society. Actually, I think watching penises enter various orifices is far less obscene that so much of what occurs in what we call the “Political Arena”.

Far. Less. Obscene.

Well, if they do, they’ll only be making the case for Bernie Sanders… All the way to the White House.

And who do they want appointing the Justice? President Obama or a possible President Sanders?