Interesting article on Citizen's United

Waterfield, I agree with almost everything you said there. I admire the way Clinton handled the Benghazi hearings, too. Not that I watched them. Just from what I saw and read which was admittedly someone else’s condensed version, but she seemed to have held up well. And Sanders says things that bug me, and I think Warren would be a superior candidate and executive. I don’t, however, dismiss him as incapable. I rather suspect – and his record bears this out – that Sanders would be much more competent at a conference table than he is as a candidate in front of a camera and mic. That is a different skill, you will admit, and not necessarily an important one. I mean…if we go by debate performances, then Trump is the best possible president because he dominated his debates. So that aspect of Sanders bothers me, but not much. I believe the money and resources are already THERE for us to pursue Sanders’ policies. It is more a matter of mustering the political will to accomplish them. And it takes someone pushing for them to happen in order for them to have a chance, and Hillary has already said she doesn’t think the plans are feasible, so she isn’t going to try. That’s where we are.

I will read the la times article later, after I’ve graded more term papers.

Thanks.

My perception of Sanders in the White House is him sitting there in a tweed jacket smoking a pipe with invited post grads philosophizing about all that’s wrong and what he “intends” to do

W to be fair that’s just you. And it’s the same stereotype you have had of the left the entire time you’ve posted in this forum (old and new incarnations). YOu are always just going to construe it that way.

It just means you have apparently no idea, for example, how Sanders behaved in Congress and the Senate.

All I see you doing is painting the picture W would paint.

That’s why, for example, there’s no real reply to an important point many posters made…that things you (and your articles) call “utopian” are all done, and done successfully, elsewhere.

waterfield wrote:

I think your wrong on that Zooey. I believe she’s battle tested and has already been attacked by the Senate and House on those precise statements-to no avail. My perception of Sanders in the White House is him sitting there in a tweed jacket smoking a pipe with invited post grads philosophizing about all that’s wrong and what he “intends” to do. Mike Tyson once responded to a reporter who asked about an opponents “plans” -he said plans are good-until your hit. Politics and governing -especially in this country-is all out warfare. Clinton has been hit over and over again even before she was senator. Each time she has gotten up and hit back. She is tough as nails. I don’t see Sanders in that vein. He’s never been to war. Nor has Stein. For that matter neither has Trump. I would rather have a tough pragmatist who has been tested in combat than an idealist who has never been to war. She is the only one the democrats have nominated in a long long time, including Obama, that has the balls to tell the Republicans to go fuck themselves. And she will.

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I know you are talking to zooey, but, I’ll butt in — my two cents iz…i couldnt care less how “tough” Hillary Clinton seems. Or how “battle tested” Hillary Clinton seems to be.

I loathe the POLICIES she believes in and has fought for. The Policies.
Personally, i dont care about her “toughness” at all.

At any rate, none of her “toughness” is going to mean anything to a Republican Senate. They will oppose her policies the same way they would oppose Bernie’s policies. I doubt either Hillary or Bernie would get much done. But at least Bernie would be fighting for the right policies.

Hillary would be STARTING with Republican-Lite policies, and the Reps would start from the HardCore-Rep part of the spectrum, and ‘tough’ Hillary would ‘compromise’ and we’d end up with ‘moderate republican’ policies. No thanks.

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• This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by wv.

Cal wrote:

Look at the ACA–people want something done. A system where insurance executives make tens of millions every year while Americans struggle to pay or can’t pay for medical makes no sense.

And the system that Clinton supports and defends–the ACA–doesn’t really solve anything. Americans are still struggling to pay the rising costs of prescriptions and medical care.

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Obama-care is a crock of @@@@. I know this because i have conversations with working-poor every week. The pro-Insurance crowd likes to remind everyone of how millions of people are now “covered by health insurance”. Which sounds good. (Course there’s still millions who are not covered)

But when I have actual, real conversations with those folks “covered by health insurance” i get story after story after story about, how someone was sick and they went to a doctor and the doctor wrote a prescription and the prescription cost, like $500 bucks and it was not covered by the “health insurance”. Five hundred bucks may not seem like a lot to ‘middle class’ people, but real actual poor people cannot pay that. They are already in a hole.

I hear that story so often if it wasn’t so infuriating, it would be funny.

Its very simple — Wealthy people should…not…get…to live longer,
just because they inherited a bunch of money. Wealthy people should…not…get…better health care than poor people.
Its…wrong. It astounds me that people can twist and turn and rationalize a way of ignoring that.

In the richest nation in the history of humans, certain things should not
be left to ‘the market’. Even in a capitalist country. Health care, dental care, education, and probably energy are some of those things.

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nittany ram wrote:

As Zooey said, Sanders is far from an ideal candidate. I was disappointed with his performances in the debates too. But Hillary also is not an ideal candidate with her baggage from Bill’s affairs and the email nonsense. Why not support the candidate who has the best ideas?

There are a few things about Bernie that bug me…

He supports Israel.

He did vote against the Iraq war but he voted in favor of funding it. He also supported NATO’s bombing of Kosovo.

Although he’s saying all the right things now his record on gun legislation is pretty weak.

He’s for labeling GMO foods in VT.

There are others but despite all that he’s still the best Democratic party candidate of my lifetime. I’m 52 and it’s taken this long for a candidate who I see eye to eye with on the majority of issues to actually be relevant nationally. He’s not going to be president but the support he gets from the youth of America gives me hope that the left may finally be emerging as a legitimate player in American politics.

As for the LA Times hit piece–it’s pretty terrible “journalism”. It doesn’t offer much in the way of specifics. It’s merely some statements by whoever they could find on the left who didn’t feel Bernie was “left” enough.

In terms of funding the war. Bernie clearly opposed the war–voted against it. But once troops are there you can’t simply not fund them. If your country is at war and you vote NOT to fund the troops(and that is EXACTLY how that would be presented)you could not run for dogcatcher.

There are always devils in the details of votes and sometimes it’s complicated. Sometimes there are side deals. I remember him voting for the “for profit” ACA after first negotiating health care clinics for the poor. It’s never completely black and white.

As for Israel—Bernie has not done enough to appease the pro-Palestinian groups legislatively–but Israel is far from happy with him either. He has spoken out on it many times–seeks the 2 state solution and of course did not attend AIPAC–and everyone does that.

There will never be a perfect and pure candidate. There are too many varied interest. The left may find that person but that person stands little chance of ever winning. So which flaws are acceptable? To me–I’ll take Bernie 7 days out of 7 days. As you said, Nittany–he is the best candidate of my lifetime–and I’m 54(Today by the way–where’s my cake?).

<img src=”http://image: http://cdn.cakecentral.com/gallery/2015/02/900_46856Vna8_labor-day-tool-box.jpg

Read more at http://www.cakecentral.com/gallery/i/984853/labor-day-tool-box#e0LXUoPvOD7ER1yd.99&#8243; alt=”labor cake” />

nittany ram wrote:

PA Ram wrote:

. As you said, Nittany–he is the best candidate of my lifetime–and I’m 54(Today by the way–where’s my cake?).

Happy birthday, PA. As I’ve said before, pound for pound you’re our finest Amish poster.

If that commie cake is red velvet, I’ll take a piece.

Oh, you old commie sympathizers should know better. It’s a combination of wheat flour and wallpaper paste.

Hey–thanks guys–and Zooey–I love the Marx cake but couldn’t he be wearing a Rams helmet? Oh–I don’t mean the fancy bourgeoisie blue and gold horns—not at all. I mean the old blue and whites. Marx definitely woulda favored the blue and white unis.

waterfield wrote:

The training of lawyers:

An interesting personal experience that validates WV’s post on how lawyers are trained to think: First day in law school and first class -Torts. Literally weeks had gone into my preparation for this first day. Mostly out of fear. Read all the cases, outlined them, even researched the issues in the library and ended up “knowing what was right”. Come to class which had about 60 people. Professor Kleinberg tells everyone to close their books and put away all written material they have brought. He then brings out a wooden spoon and a wooden fork. He starts by calling each student by name to stand up and tell him what they see. The first 20 or so students say roughly the same thing:” I see a wooden spoon and a wooden fork” Sometime around half way through the session a middle age woman stands up and says: I see two utensils”. Then someone else gets the idea: “I see two tools”. Another:”I see pieces of art”. Still another: “I see two weapons”, etc,etc. After class there was a rush to the podium with many asking the prof. what about the cases I spent so much time reading and outlining? Kleinberg says: ” if by the end of this semester you don’t understand the exercise we just went through you should not be a lawyer”. I went to his retirement not long ago and-you guessed it-he brought out his wooden “utensils”. (He also confessed that when he was a young student at Yale that same exercise was trust upon his initial class)

True story.

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Good story.

I remember i didnt really figure out what my law-professors meant by “thinking like a lawyer” until about half-way through my first year. I mean, it took me that long to figure it out. Coz the teachers always acted like it was a great mystery that we had to ‘discover’ or figure out….

It annoys me that they treated it like a zen koan,
instead of just stating flat out, that it means learning
to see cases from all kinds of angles and being creative in how
you interpret arguments and patterns and stuff.

I do like the spoon thing, but I would have followed that up
with a plain, straight, explanation-example of what the point is/was.

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