All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tazirai]

Biden's full answer was:



It wasn't that he would veto it for being Medicare for All, it was all about the details in how they were going to get the money for it - which can be a crucial difference in a bill.

The full details are no better.

Basically Healthcare is a human right, unless it costs my donors too much money.
Also, they can find 1.5 Trillion on a whim, to stop the crash for a few minutes. But Healthcare is a bridge too far?

I get it you like Biden, but the dude is a disaster and will split the party, and Some progressives will not vote for him, they are not obligated to do so.
Biden has already shit on them, and shows he will change nothing, so why vote then?
Trump bad, sad is not a winning issue, if you are going to change nothing.

[Tazirai]

BAH! Meant to edit the other post on NC Covid19

[XPac]

The full details are no better.

Basically Healthcare is a human right, unless it costs my donors too much money.
Also, they can find 1.5 Trillion on a whim, to stop the crash for a few minutes. But Healthcare is a bridge too far?

I get it you like Biden, but the dude is a disaster and will split the party, and Some progressives will not vote for him, they are not obligated to do so.
Biden has already shit on them, and shows he will change nothing, so why vote then?
Trump bad, sad is not a winning issue, if you are going to change nothing.

Biden will split the party less than Sanders though... unlike Bernie he was able to actually create coalitions to work together. It's why hes winning. Bernie and his followers are somewhat of an island which has somewhat aliented itself from the rest of the party. I'm frankly guessing the only reason the progressives haven't broken away from the DNC to create their own third party is because they KNOW they can't really accomplish anything on a national level apart from the Democratic party. They only win half the time as it is... breaking away basically hands the white house to the republicans on a silver platter.

That said, I agree Biden is a disaster. I think the corona virus is the only thing stopping Trump from having a relatively easy re-election.

[Kirby101]

How does a man that over half of voters say they will not vote for him, winning an easy reelection?

Poll show both Sanders and Biden beating Trump by similar margins.
It could only be the Electoral College that would get Trump in.

[XPac]

She was courting Sanders people, but then she realized that was the wrong path to go. So she returned to her own path, made a mid-road correction. Personally, i admire her for it. It shows that she can accept making mistakes and is flexible enough to make corrections and concessions if needed.

You can see why she did it... I think pretty much all the democratic candidates felt that shift away from Bernie long before the public or media got wind of it. When Super Tuesday came and went, Bernie was sort of left high and dry.

But the shift did seem to cost Warren any sort of support she might have from the far left. So her flexibility, while practical in the short term might not do her any long term good. We'll see.

[XPac]

How does a man that over half of voters say they will not vote for him, winning an easy reelection?

In all likelihood, the same way he did last time.

If he does lose this time around, it'll be more to do with the corona virus than Biden.

[Mister Mets]

The full details are no better.

Basically Healthcare is a human right, unless it costs my donors too much money.
Also, they can find 1.5 Trillion on a whim, to stop the crash for a few minutes. But Healthcare is a bridge too far?

I get it you like Biden, but the dude is a disaster and will split the party, and Some progressives will not vote for him, they are not obligated to do so.
Biden has already shit on them, and shows he will change nothing, so why vote then?
Trump bad, sad is not a winning issue, if you are going to change nothing.

The 1.5 trillion is a loan. It is a lot of money, but it's not being flushed away. It's not on a whim. Many people speaking about this are either careless, or lying.

The Fed is loaning money in exchange for treasury securities.

Annie Lowery of the Atlantic describes it.

Still, the online commentary was inaccurate both about what the Fed was doing and about why it was doing it. And there is a good progressive case for the Fed doing as much as it can to help the financial markets—and for Congress doing even more to help regular people.

A few technical points: The Fed did not spend $1.5 trillion. This was not a $1.5 trillion bailout. It did not cost Americans $1.5 trillion. It was not a $1.5 trillion subsidy for hedge funds and the like. It did not use up $1.5 trillion in resources that could have gone to another cause, whether Wall Street bailouts or Medicare for All.

The Fed works in weird ways, but here goes: The central bank announced that it would offer financial firms up to $1.5 trillion in short-term, collateralized loans. A firm can borrow $100 in cash overnight, for example, but only if it gives the Fed $100 in Treasury securities backed by the full faith and credit of the American government, and pays a small amount of interest too. Doing this costs the Fed nothing, and costs the American taxpayer nothing; when all is said and done, the central bank will probably make a small amount of money off the interest payments.

The Fed chose to do this not as a payoff for Wall Street or to calm the stock market. (It has nothing to do with the stock market at all, though equities crashing is in part a sign of the very financial strain the Fed is attempting to soothe.) It did it to help make sure that the market for Treasury bonds continues to function normally. It was not using taxpayer dollars to juice a money-losing industry, but instead acting as an emergency backstop for the markets writ large.

Signs indicate that it needs to do more, not less, in the coming days: The markets continue to act in strained and strange and erratic ways. Investment banks expect the central bank to drop interest rates to zero soon, and to begin purchasing huge sums of assets, something called “quantitative easing.” There is some chance, as well, that the Fed might end up setting up special facilities to supply liquidity to the financial system, as it did during the 2008 debacle.

There’s a lot for average folks to like about what the Fed is doing, as much as it might seem arcane or technocratic or unfair. For one, recessions complicated by financial crises are much, much harder to fight, and much, much worse than plain-vanilla downturns: If the Fed and other central banks keep the markets functioning, that benefits everybody. But a credit crunch would hurt everybody. Businesses are already seeing revenue evaporate. Many will seek loans to help tide them over. Low interest rates and liquid markets will help those businesses, the families that rely on them for work, and the communities they serve.

Incidentally, the cost for Medicare For All would be significantly higher.

[Kirby101]

In all likelihood, the same way he did last time.

If he does lose this time around, it'll be more to do with the corona virus than Biden.

But this time he is way behind in Arizona, and Pennsylvania and Michigan, and MI an WI don't have GOP Governors to suppress the vote.

The polls are just as good for Biden v Trump as Sanders.

[Kirby101]

Incidentally, the cost for Medicare For All would be significantly higher.

But still much cheaper than our current system.

[Mister Mets]

Dude STOP LYING!. Obama was down 300 delegates this time during his run, and last time I checked the loser was Hillary, X2...

Even if Steel Inquisitor were wrong on key details, why do you think he's lying and not mistaken?

That said, there are significant details between the two primaries. And I'm not sure where you get the idea that Obama was down 300 delegates.

By this time twelve years ago, most primary states had voted.

https://www.nytimes.com/elections/20...tes/index.html

There was a month long gap between Mississippi (March 11) and Pennsylvania (April 22)

Obama had claimed a delegate lead by February 8 after Super Tuesday.

https://www.politico.com/story/2008/...te-lead-008358

He then won the majority of subsequent elections.

A further issue with the current primary is that there aren't many states coming up where Sanders is favored.

[Mister Mets]

Update. Someone at the airport got coronavirus. Airline won’t rebook my flight. I’m actually stuck

Best of luck, man.

Raising taxes is a bipartisan problem because the Democrats have for some inexplicable reason, completely ceded the high ground on the issue to the Republicans, who get to run up massive bills when they're in power on giveaways to the rich and then troll every Democratic president endlessly about fiscal responsibility meaning we never get to enact any of OUR policy priorities. This has to change, and it can only change with a president who's willing to stake out a position on Medicare for All, something that the vast majority of Americans want by the way, and fight tooth and nail to get it passed, not one that is promising to VETO it. Fuck Biden, seriously.

The polls about Americans wanting medicare for all show different results when they're told they've gotta give up private insurance.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ong-democrats/

[Kirby101]

The full details are no better.

Basically Healthcare is a human right, unless it costs my donors too much money.
Also, they can find 1.5 Trillion on a whim, to stop the crash for a few minutes. But Healthcare is a bridge too far?

I get it you like Biden, but the dude is a disaster and will split the party, and Some progressives will not vote for him, they are not obligated to do so.
Biden has already shit on them, and shows he will change nothing, so why vote then?
Trump bad, sad is not a winning issue, if you are going to change nothing.

Bernie is an outside who wanted to shake up the Party. Nothing wrong with that, but it is a harder road.
Biden is a long time insider that the rank and file are now rallying around.

And Biden splits the Party? No , the only thing that splits the Party is people not voting for the nominee in November because they were never going to vote for anyone but Sanders.

[Kirby101]

Best of luck, man.



The polls about Americans wanting medicare for all show different results when they're told they've gotta give up private insurance.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ong-democrats/

70 years of Corporate propaganda will do that.

[Mister Mets]

You do realize that "but how are you gonna pay for it?" is just Republican concern trolling right? Obviously people will be paying for M4A the same way that they are currently paying for their health insurance premiums and hospital bills now, only that a single payer system will presumably spend the money more efficiently since there won't be a huge chunk of it being siphoned off as profit to insurance companies. Of course what the GOP REALLY means, and what I can only infer that you mean here, is "why should *I* have to pay MY hard earned money so YOU people can get health care?!" which of course is an argument that gets just about as much attention and respect as it deserves.



Staying in place is not really an option, the world is changing around us whether we like it or not and we can either adapt or bury our heads in the sand and pretend like none of the bad things are happening. If this virus isn't enough to wake people in this country up I don't know what will.

Asking how much something will cost isn't concern trolling. It's the most basic question possible.

It's not as if there's a secret understanding among the elites that Medicare For All will work, but they're fighting against it because they want sweet, sweet money.

There are a lot of questions about it, and disagreements among the potential benefits.

Medicare costs have been skyrocketing over the years, so we should understand the skepticism that putting more people on Medicare will ultimately lower costs.

The virus will determine the fate of Trump and he seems to have no control over it one way or the other. The virus will do what the virus will do. I read scientist saying 480,000 dead is a conservative estimate but it could well be in the millions. It looks terrible for the world but really good for Democrats. Barring a miracle Bernie or Biden should surely win.

Bernie with his love of Castro, Stalin and Chavez is a disaster which Democrats finally realized, so they propped up Biden.
Biden seems like a nice guy. I could vote for him, I would never vote for Bernie. The trouble is that Biden had that brain surgery
that left him brain damaged. It comes out when the heat is on. Bernie is sharp as a tack and in full possession of his faculties. In the Bernie to Biden debate
Bernie has two choices to just wait until Biden self destructs, or push him hard and watch the gibberish and the non sequiturs come rolling out; it won't look good for Biden. But I don't care that Biden has some brain damage that scrambles his vocal abilities. Something similar is wrong with Trump, too. He says amazing things that make you wonder what world he's in. And baby Bush, that boy wasn't right. And Reagan, one time it was on camera, he was on the White House lawn and he was dazed and couldn't talk, he looked so befuddled. Nancy kicked him and started stage whispering to him what he should say and he eventually got going. But something was wrong. So I don't care if Biden is fumble tongued.

Still I think Bernie will make mincemeat out of him and get the nomination. Barring a miracle the virus will end Trump and Bernie should be our next President.

That is unless everyone is still too scared to go into crowded voting areas. Maybe we'll all do the absentee ballot thing.

The political consequences are unknown.

Coronavirus could be a disaster that really lifts Democrats, the equivalent of if Hurricane Katrina had hit during George W Bush's first term and had hit all 50 states.

The disease might be manageable, but there could be significant economic consequences. Many restaurants and stores could go out of business, and the new unemployment and cascading effects of an inability to pay could easily result in a new recession.

It could go another way. Perhaps it's not as bad as feared in America, and by the time the election comes along, there's a vaccine and significant consumer optimism so that even those who were hit hard are busy and employed.

We really don't know at this point.

[Tazirai]

Biden will split the party less than Sanders though... unlike Bernie he was able to actually create coalitions to work together. It's why hes winning. Bernie and his followers are somewhat of an island which has somewhat aliented itself from the rest of the party. I'm frankly guessing the only reason the progressives haven't broken away from the DNC to create their own third party is because they KNOW they can't really accomplish anything on a national level apart from the Democratic party. They only win half the time as it is... breaking away basically hands the white house to the republicans on a silver platter.

That said, I agree Biden is a disaster. I think the corona virus is the only thing stopping Trump from having a relatively easy re-election.

He's winning because the media WANTS him to win. You can't look at politics as if the voters are the only reason a person wins. Humans are not terribly intelligent and easily influenced. When the media runs a narrative on a person they like, it changes the game.
Bernies coalition is winning, it's why he's changed the narrative, the biggest problem is voter suppression, and narrative. When you have a corrupt media pushing an agenda that suits them it hurts voters.

The Media is for entertainment, not information. It's a reason I DESPISE American media about America, and would rather get it from Independent media like on Youtube, and foreign media. Because they are more unbiased.

Elections are not as simple as you make them out to be. It's not how it works.

It's also one of the reasons that people who SHIT on Sanders and his supporters so hard are now like, Well damn, Biden might actually get nominated, damn...

Joy Reid just made a post today, and Tapp Jaker did a video, and other Media heads.

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