All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[Tami]

Would there be a practical way to implement M4A? Like roll it out in a way that gives people time to consider the benefits of it. Better Analogy could be the national parks, money getting taken from them to fund other things. I can see it working, but you would need to do something to make sure that hospitals can stay afloat and can't get bought out. I know the form in Japan isn't perfect and the smaller countries that use it do great, but is there anyone that uses it and is the size of the US that we can look at, other than Canada.

It took, maybe two years to develop the ACA and get the bill passed. Even then, it was still incomplete due to obstruction by Republicans.

Any new Health Care plan should take at least that amount of time to work out the details and get it right.

[worstblogever]

Interesting thing, post-debate I noticed...

After about 750 votes were cast in a DailyKos poll, the early runaway winner of the debate in that poll was Elizabeth Warren, who had over 50% of the vote.

Of the next 6000 votes cast, 3000 were suddenly for Andrew Yang, who now leads the poll with 46% of the vote. Based on what he did on stage, that makes zero sense. What does make sense is the tech guy has a lot of bots voting for him.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Perhaps the reactions you're seeing are not a good representative sample of the people who will actually be voting.

I mean I don't really follow super far left people on twitter or social media and generally have the main establishment players who are far more partial to Biden. If he's making them cringe he's doing poorly. The reality is, what I expected with Biden is coming to pass. Warren is closing in on him and the more beatable he looks the more his aura of "electability" is shaken. Warren is now viewed as a legitimate frontrunner and she's leading most of the early states. Once Biden is no longer ahead nationally, he's going to have serious issues. Whether that's in the coming months or when he loses the first few primaries that he's behind in. He has serious issues. And the polling reflects that. We've seen much larger frontrunners with bigger leads ultimately lose and he's going to have issues.

His biggest problem is that it's basically him and then two progressives immeidately after. Every poll has Sanders and Warren as the other canidates in the top 3. Nationally it's Biden, Warren, and then Sanders. The big issue with that is he probably doesn't want to pick one of them off too early because then he just raises the next one and runs the risk of them consolidating support from the left. The rest of the field is a little too weak and disjointed to mount a serious challenge. Buttegieg and Harris are polling at a 3rd of Sanders right now who has been stagnant while Warren surged and everyone else is 2% or less.

He's in a very unfortunate position where he has to play keep away from two popular challengers and he can't press too hard on one or it might strengthen the other.

[Tendrin]

Statements on twitter from various usally reliable sources are that AOC, followed by the rest of 'the Squad' will be endorsing Sanders on Saturday.

https://twitter.com/WaPoSean/status/1184300037653831681

(Former Sanders Delegate Endorses Sanders should not be huge news, but given her incredibly elevated profile, it is.)

[Dalak]

Statements on twitter from various usally reliable sources are that AOC, followed by the rest of 'the Squad' will be endorsing Sanders on Saturday.

https://twitter.com/WaPoSean/status/1184300037653831681

(Former Sanders Delegate Endorses Sanders should not be huge news, but given her incredibly elevated, it is.)

I expected a WWE Heel Turn endorsement of Trump while the nWo music starts playing.

[Tendrin]

I expected a WWE Heel Turn endorsement of Trump while the nWo music starts playing.

While dancing.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Interesting thing, post-debate I noticed...

After about 750 votes were cast in a DailyKos poll, the early runaway winner of the debate in that poll was Elizabeth Warren, who had over 50% of the vote.

Of the next 6000 votes cast, 3000 were suddenly for Andrew Yang, who now leads the poll with 46% of the vote. Based on what he did on stage, that makes zero sense. What does make sense is the tech guy has a lot of bots voting for him.

Yang's weird in that his hype just doesn't reflect any polls whatsoever. Nationally he's at 2.4% which puts him in 7th and less than 1% ahead of the 10th ranked canidated. Then he's not even in the top 10 for Iowa, not in the top 5 for NH, 7th place in Nevada (and there nobody is even at 1/3rd of any of the top 3), and then he's 9th in South Carolina which tells me he has no real prospects at a Southern strategy like a Biden could pull off. Tangibly he's basically no different from O'Rourke who everyone left for dead and a tiny step up from people like Klobuchar and Castro who have no chance at all.

Buttgieg I kinda see because he's at least slightly broken from the bottom of the pack and has made some gains and has real fundraising.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Statements on twitter from various usally reliable sources are that AOC, followed by the rest of 'the Squad' will be endorsing Sanders on Saturday.

https://twitter.com/WaPoSean/status/1184300037653831681

(Former Sanders Delegate Endorses Sanders should not be huge news, but given her incredibly elevated profile, it is.)

It's important in the sense that Congressionally the Squad is seen as the next wave of progressives and it makes a statement that the youth and far left views Sanders as a clear choice. Though there is the chance Ayanna Pressley who is from MA might break and go for Warren. Also having AOC touring for him will be very powerful. Also there is a perception that Bernie is an old white guy who hasn't been as agressive on women issues and minority issues as some others, so having some of the most visible female POC's in Congress pushing for him is going to have an optical impact imo.

[Robotman]

Statements on twitter from various usally reliable sources are that AOC, followed by the rest of 'the Squad' will be endorsing Sanders on Saturday.

https://twitter.com/WaPoSean/status/1184300037653831681

(Former Sanders Delegate Endorses Sanders should not be huge news, but given her incredibly elevated profile, it is.)

I think this is good news for Biden. If he can keep Warren and Bernie playing tug of war over the more left leaning voters he could definitely win. Warren was surging but if this boosts Bernie most of his gains will come from people who currently support her. I don’t see many centerist Dems being swayed to vote for Bernie because of The Squad’s endorsement.

[Tendrin]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas' GOP House speaker sought help ousting members of his own party in 2020, called a female lawmaker "vile" and said President Donald Trump is "killing us" in pivotal races in a secretly recorded meeting with a conservative activist released Tuesday.
House Speaker Dennis Bonnen also profanely disparaged another Democratic House member in the hourlong tape, which also reveals other political scheming and has thrown the GOP-controlled Legislature into disarray at a fragile moment when their majority is at stake.
The tape has uncorked the biggest Texas political scandal in years. Democrats filed a lawsuit accusing Bonnen — the third-most powerful Republican in the Texas Capitol — of breaking campaign finance laws during the June meeting with the head of a conservative group called Empower Texans, which has spent lavishly in pursuit of pulling the Legislature far to the right on issues such as abortion and guns.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-gop...161015269.html

I think we're getting a clearer reason of why Texas GOP is in so much trouble.

This last line makes me blink, though:

Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, remained largely silent after the tape was released, making Bonnen's future unclear. He is coming off his first term as House speaker and the Texas Legislature won't meet again until 2021.

[Darkspellmaster]

I think this is good news for Biden. If he can keep Warren and Bernie playing tug of war over the more left leaning voters he could definitely win. Warren was surging but if this boosts Bernie most of his gains will come from people who currently support her. I don’t see many centerist Dems being swayed to vote for Bernie because of The Squad’s endorsement.

True enough, but I'm wondering what sort of move this is on the ladies parts. Early bid for a future run using Bernie as a platform? And for that matter why are you endorsing a white guy over a woman who could be the first female president. No offense to senator Sanders, but how does it look when you are already in the 2020s and you have yet another old white, albeit Jewish, male as the head of the US? By now other older countries have had women as leader, why is it that we, once more, have women endorsing a guy when the woman that is running has almost the same platform. Jeeze!

[numberthirty]

True enough, but I'm wondering what sort of move this is on the ladies parts. Early bid for a future run using Bernie as a platform? And for that matter why are you endorsing a white guy over a woman who could be the first female president. No offense to senator Sanders, but how does it look when you are already in the 2020s and you have yet another old white, albeit Jewish, male as the head of the US? By now other older countries have had women as leader, why is it that we, once more, have women endorsing a guy when the woman that is running has almost the same platform. Jeeze!

- Probably got something to do with that it is about the ideas and not gender.

- Also, "Almost" ain't the same. Some folks will be able to just throw their support behind "Almost". Some folks will not.

[Tendrin]

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is no longer considering running for one of Arizona’s seats in congress, he said on 98.7 FM Arizona Sports Station Tuesday.

Schilling, an outspoken conservative, hinted in an August radio appearance that he was “absolutely considering” moving back to Arizona and running for a Democrat’s seat. President Donald Trump quickly endorsed the idea.

But since that interview, he’s apparently faced pushback.

“The things that have been said and done to my wife and kids since I announced interest in running” are not worth it, Schilling reportedly said.

Reading this just made me laugh.
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/curt-sc...004513394.html

[Gray Lensman]

- Probably got something to do with that it is about the ideas and not gender.

- Also, "Almost" ain't the same. Some folks will be able to just throw their support behind "Almost". Some folks will not.

Since AOC was a former delegate for Bernie, she is likely predisposed towards him - even if things are otherwise equal, her history with Sanders tells us which way she is probably going to lean.

[worstblogever]

Reading this just made me laugh.
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/curt-sc...004513394.html

On the upside, it looks like I won't have to profile him.