All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Michael Watkins]

Biden bros seem to be just as aggressive. they and the people still holding Hillary's grudge are going to lose it for us all again.

[PaulBullion]

surejan.gif

[Michael Watkins]

^see what i mean? i'm supposed to support Biden when treated this dismissively?

[Tazirai]

I'll admit that I've criticized Sanders for his appearance in the past -- granted that could be considered somewhat shallow and superficial, but I think it's a fair criticism with regards to running for national public office. It's likewise a minor criticism that is far more subjective than factual, but I do feel presentation is a relevant concern with regards to running for the highest political office in the country.

My other primary criticism regards running a progressive candidate in a national election -- not to say he can't win, but why constantly attack other candidates who have a better chance of winning in an election that has such important consequences for the future just because you disagree with their politics? I can even accept that if he wins he will have difficulty actually passing the legislation he promises to enact, but it's the fact that he actually has to win first that most concerns me.

Statistically speaking, Biden has a better chance of beating Trump in key states, so why constantly demean the best -- or second best depending on your perspective -- shot Democrats have at winning the White House?

If there was a rational explanation as to why these constant attacks on "corporate" and "centrist" Democrats might be the most effective way to remove Trump -- and the Republican party -- from power, it would make sense to support said strategy but as it stands we've already seen how destructive it was in the last election, so why take that approach again in this election?

Why is pointing out the records of his opponents a bad thing? Why is that always considered an "ATTACK" when a Progressive does it, but never when Biden lies to the American people everyday. Bernie apologized because he's a decent person, then Biden IMMEDIATELY attacked him with an ad that literally lied about his positions. Then he doctored his own video not saying that he didn't agree with Ryan, but that he didn't want to privatize Social Security, that's different than cutting it.
Sanders is attacked in the media DAILY, Gabbards, not so much anymore. They outright ignore Yang, when he polls better than the corporate Dems.
We don't attack, we respond, and the response is considered as an "attack!"

How is that possible?

To your next point, Clinton beat Bernie yes, But Bernie beat Clinton in nearly every state she lost. It's a fact you can Google it. Saying Biden is most electable is false. He's not. Biden has never won a Presidential bid, ever. He doesn't even campaign as much as the others, let alone Bernie. During the debates he always speaks the least, then outright just stops talking.
How is pointing out Bidens record demeaning him?

Tell me Aja do you defend Bernie when the media and his Opponents and last Opponent demean him? Today and Yesterday Sanders is literally number 1 nationally, more people including Independents and Conservatives agree more with Bernie than Biden. Bernie won Conservative states, but he's not electable? What evidence do you have?

Why are Corporatists and Centrists supposed to be immune from criticism? So in a Primary you can attack the Progressive, ask the progressive to CONSTANTLY support the nominee, have the media defend you constantly, have the media do what aboutism. Have the media call your supporters Racist, sexist, and Misogynist, but if we critique the Centrist it's an attack?

Hillary went after Obama FAR harder than Obama did her, and his supporters got called sexist, she literally smeared him with a photo of him in a turbin, while he visited his fathers home. She did this to Sanders in 2016 and this year. Yesterday the View literally spent 10 minutes lying about Sanders and his supporters. Why is that allowed?

Jennifer Epstein from the NYT pushed an whataboutism article yesterday saying Bernie used the words "Adjustment" also. But Bernie used it in terms of ADDING more benefits, and she purposefully left out the context, thinking people are morons.

All of this Bernie did this in 2016 and did that.

What evidence do you have that Bernie personally attacked his opponent outside of policy?
What evidence do you have that he smeared anyone, or that a Progressive supporter smeared Clinton or Biden?
Where is this evidence that he hurt her in 2016 when ALL the evidence and even Rachel Maddow did a segment on this.

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE HE HURT HER! There is no evidence he personally attacks Biden, he attacks POLICY!

This is a primary right? Centrists can attack us, but we can't fight back with your record?

Bernie Sanders Packs Schedule With Campaign Stops for Hillary Clinton
Bernie Sanders’s Hard Fight for Hillary Clinton

[PaulBullion]

^see what i mean? i'm supposed to support Biden when treated this dismissively?

Oh, you poor man.
Make a silly post, get dismissed, driven away from voting for Biden.

A drama in three acts.

[zinderel]

Biden bros seem to be just as aggressive

ANYONE who puts a single candidate and fanaticism for that candidate above the greater good is a problem. But it is the Bernie fanatics HERE who keep us reliving 2016 every day. It is Bernie fanatics HERE saying that they will sit out the election again if their guy doesn’t get the nom. I haven’t seen a Biden supporter here say they won’t support Bernie if he gets the nom. I haven’t seen Warren supporters say that. I can’t stand Pete Buttiegieg and find him boring and wishy-washy and entirely too cozy with wealthy donors. But if - by some miracle - he gets the nom, you better believe I’m voting for him, and doing my best to get people to put aside their issues with him to support his presidency, because the ONLY other option is four more years (and if things keep going the way they are, a lifetime after that...) of Trump and Republican greed and corruption steering us all straight into Charybdis’ mouth...

No amount of protest votes or crossed-arm pouting or message board gloating about how ‘our guy would have won, but you HAD to support the actual nominee...suckers!’ is going to change the reality that 2020 presents a serious, stark choice:

A - Allowing Republicans to continue their corrupt mismanagement of the nation on every front (except enriching the already rich), more unqualified, hard right, lifetime court appointments, and more ripping apart and shitting on the purpose of the Constitution in order to appease religious fanatics, racists, and ammosexuals.

Or

B - Allowing Democrats - who are capable of at least SOME empathy for the underprivileged - begins the wheel again so we can get back to moving in the correct direction, even if those Democrats are imperfect humans who make bad decisions sometimes, but historically do work to better people’s lots in life.

Perfection isn’t possible. Only one candidate has vocal followers on this board DEMANDING perfection, that I can see.

[kidfresh512]

^see what i mean? i'm supposed to support Biden when treated this dismissively?

By a person on an internet forum? You either want trump to win or you don't. No one can make you vote for anyone else.

Random people on message boards "treatment" of you shouldn't decide you don't care if trump wins and you "sit it out". End of the day you will decide for yourself if protesting *chosen candidate here* not getting enough support to become the Democratic nominee is worth trump getting a win.

[Tazirai]

How exactly will Sanders pay for all of the programs he has proposed?

If it is via raising taxes, including on those in the middle class, how will he convince mainstream voters to vote for someone who wants to raise taxes enough to pay for these programs, and how will he pass said legislation through Congress?

----
"The fight between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders over Social Security, explained"

"Here’s the bottom line: Biden and Sanders each highlight the part of Biden’s 40-year record that’s favorable to their own arguments. Sanders emphasizes Biden’s statements decades ago that show a willingness to slow spending in an effort to reduce the federal deficit. Biden emphasizes his current position in favor of protecting or expanding benefits.

Biden then referenced PolitiFact, and called the video "doctored" and "a fake." We didn’t declare the video fake or doctored, though it was taken out of context and misrepresented Biden’s positions.

The video ignored the complete passage which showed that Biden wanted Social Security and Medicare protected.

The Sanders campaign omits what Biden said next (our emphasis is in bold):

"Now, I don’t know a whole lot of people in the top one-tenth of 1 percent or the top 1 percent who are relying on Social Security when they retire. I don’t know a lot of them. Maybe you guys do. So we need a pro-growth, progressive tax code that treats workers as job creators, as well, not just investors; that gets rid of unprotective loopholes like stepped-up basis; and it raises enough revenue to make sure that the Social Security and Medicare can stay, it still needs adjustments, but can stay; and pay for the things we all acknowledge will grow the country."

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...nders-over-so/

Did you ask how we pay for the 120 Billion we just gave Trump for the military, with Democratic help?
Did you ask how we pay for Trumps Tax cuts?
Did you ask how we pay for anything the Republicans are getting Democrats to co-sign with them on?


Politifact is a terrible Corporate rag now. They haven't been honest since 2014.

I literally posted the pushback to the Politico article you sited two pages back.
But here's the video that describes that.

[Michael Watkins]

By a person on an internet forum? You either want trump to win or you don't.

if that were true, there wouldn't be several people slagging Bernie Sanders in this thread.

[Michael Watkins]

ANYONE who puts a single candidate and fanaticism for that candidate above the greater good is a problem. But it is the Bernie fanatics HERE who keep us reliving 2016 every day. It is Bernie fanatics HERE saying that they will sit out the election again if their guy doesn’t get the nom.

quote someone or it's just a straw man attack. what i've seen is that Bernie is ahead in the polls. so people against Bernie started attacking the polls.

[kidfresh512]

if that were true, there wouldn't be several people slagging Bernie Sanders in this thread.

Again this is a discussion forum. There is a difference with us airing out our grievances with *insert candidate here* and suggesting I am NOT supporting the Democratic candidate. If you are a trump supporter of course you don't want to support the Dem. But anyone who claims to be progressive who says nah I would rather let him win again thats' just nonsense.

None of the front runners who is eligible to be the Democratic nominee is worse than Trump. And what another 4 years of GOP control will do to push back any progressive policy progress.

[Michael Watkins]

Oh, you poor man.
Make a silly post, get dismissed, driven away from voting for Biden.

A drama in three acts.

i'm pointing out the hypocrisy of the latest string of anti-bernie posts. how do you call out bernie's supporters for being disrespectful if you're acting like an internet bully? and i didn't say one way or the other what my plans were for voting (except several pages back where i stated that i was simply voting to unseat Trump).

[BeastieRunner]

I really think Biden and Bernie should've been out stumping for new, younger, progressives than running themselves.

[Michael Watkins]

Again this is a discussion forum. There is a difference with us airing out our grievances with *insert candidate here* and suggesting I am NOT supporting the Democratic candidate. If you are a trump supporter of course you don't want to support the Dem. But anyone who claims to be progressive who says nah I would rather let him win again thats' just nonsense.

None of the front runners who is eligible to be the Democratic nominee is worse than Trump. And what another 4 years of GOP control will do to push back any progressive policy progress.

who is currently in the lead?

[Tazirai]

Bernie has no shame in taking money from gun lobbyist. Time did a piece of his nutty medicine beliefs. He had a heart attack.

Smearing again. You can't say things and expect people to not look at your sources.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...-campaign-2020

Hillary Clinton: Bernie Sanders 'has been largely a very reliable supporter of the NRA Rated False, also he ranges from a D to an F from the NRA

Sanders’s record on guns is mixed

A fight about gun control is at the heart of how Sanders got into Congress in the first place. In 1988, when Sanders was mayor of Burlington, he first ran for the House. During that campaign, he supported an assault weapons ban and lost. In his telling, his support for that gun control measure might explain why he lost: Vermont is typically seen as liberal, but it’s also rural, and people tend to hold fairly conservative views on guns.

This eventually played in Sanders’s favor. The Republican who won Vermont’s US House seat, Peter Plympton Smith, went on to vote for an assault weapons ban — and the National Rifle Association aggressively opposed him when he was up for reelection. Although the NRA didn’t directly campaign for Sanders, he likely benefited from the campaign against his opponent when he went on to win his House bid in 1990.

Next time post the full context instead of trying to make people look bad.
If Sanders has Wacky beliefs, then we all do.

The Vermont Senator’s free-thinking approach to medicine—which has ranged from the accepted to the unusual—is reflected in part by his home state and by his politics. The Green Mountain’s granola culture and 1960s expatriate population adheres to the alternative in everything, including medicine.

“I would classify [Bernie] as a huge supporter of alternative therapies and natural medicine,” said Michael Stadtmauer, a naturopathic doctor in Montpelier who attended an alternative health conference with Sanders in 2010. “In Vermont we have a general friendliness toward [alternative medicine] that doesn’t exist in other states.”

Sanders’ views on health appear to have changed over the years, but they began with some radical ideas.

https://time.com/4249034/bernie-sand...dicine-cancer/