These types of posts are so funny. — Maw

I'm glad to see a Bernie supporter maintaining a sense of humor. I'd assume most are in a state of shock and depression. Liz quit today and failed to endorse anyone. It's down to Bernie and Biden. How did the Democrats come to this? I wonder if lifelong centrists who swerved left, like Cory and Kamala, realize that they would have had a better chance staying in the middle. I'd gladly have supported the business-oriented Democrat Cory Booker, but not the bug-eyed Spartacus nonsense that started when he decided to run for president.

Uhh... that's really misrepresenting it. Basically, the US has the same system as the majority of Africa and a couple of failed (middle) Eastern States.

overview universal healthcare in the world

The NHS is set up differently than other European countries. Part of the reason why it's struggling is because conservative governments keep reducing funding increases (it still increases but at a much lower rates) and lowering taxes, making it appear as if it becomes disproportionaly more expensive as part of the budget. — Benkei

I'll stipulate that we disagree on health care policy. This thread's not the place. But if health care is "free," who pays for it? Taxes would go through the roof. And what makes you think the Democratic party could run health care for 300 million people? You already forgot the Obamacare rollout debacle?

Ah yes, another amazing piece of statistical analysis from the "American Thinker" by a blogger considering one single anecdote compared to the alternative course of events in the US that he simply imagines. — boethius

This is not the thread to debate health care policy. To my mind, government-run health care would be the worst of the post office and the VA. Note that current Medicare is a public/private partnership, with private companies having a central role via Medicare Supplemental and Medicare Advantage plans. You abolish private insurance and you take all the flexibility out of the system. And when has a government takeover of industry ever resulted in cost reductions? Medicare for All as Bernie sees it would be a humanitarian disaster.

could mean nothing or it could be that we've reached peak Woke and the voters have had enough. — fishfry

There's nothing new under the sun.

Getting behind senile and corrupt old Joe will be a disaster. — fishfry

No, he's a good man. It feels good to have a good person in charge. That's enough. The rest is the delusion that we control any of this.

No, he's a good man. It feels good to have a good person in charge. That's enough.
— frank

Ok just help me out here on this "Joe's a good person" bit, or that he represents a "return to normalcy" etc. He's a tool of the banking industry, helped pass the punitive bankruptcy bill of the Clinton era that hurt many people. He's a warmonger. He hates civil liberties and has even bragged about writing the original draft of what eventually became the Patriot act. He's been on the wrong side of every major issue for the past forty years. He's spent decades corruptly enriching his family.

His schtick is to pose as friendly Uncle Joe, "just regular folks." Behind the scenes he's a venal, corrupt, warmongering shit. That's before his recent obvious cognitive decline.

Can you explain why you think he's a good guy?

The rest is the delusion that we control any of this. — frank

I have no such illusions. I voted for Tulsi in the California primary as a protest vote against the war machine.

He just strikes me as good. He may actually be the devil incarnate.

Are you a pacifist?

If I were to stipulate that Bernie doesn't want the US to be the USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, and Mao's China rolled up in one; wouldn't you at least agree that this is a credible charge that he will be accused of anyway? His record on this is terrible. He's made many public statements and has many political alliances that argue my side of the proposition and not yours. — fishfry

No, they don't. Not if you make an attempt at understanding Bernie, of course. If you're not willing to understand his position, fine. In that case, refrain from "translating" until you do or simply don't talk about it.

Bernie has never -- not once, not ever -- claimed he wants the US to be like China or Cuba or the USSR or wants to turn them into that. You won't find one statement of his that suggests this. Not one -- in 50 years. That's such a preposterous claim, and it's shocking you don't recognize it. Yet you want me to take you seriously regarding your analysis?

I skipped the rest of your post after this. Not interesting until you show you've at least understood Bernie's brand of Democratic Socialism. It's not hard to do, he's had a decades-long record which, approached without your inherited, preconceived notions, is easy to comprehend.

No, they don't. Not if you make an attempt at understanding Bernie, of course. If you're not willing to understand his position, fine. In that case, refrain from "translating" until you do or simply don't talk about it. — Xtrix

I've noted several times that I perused his latest plan on his website and consulted several sources who analyzed the probable costs, the spending ramifications, and the dubiosity of his revenue projections. I've also run the numbers of the total wealth of all the billionaires in the country versus projected federal spending under Bernies plans as described, I repeat yet again, on his website. The government would be broke within a few years and they'd be into the millionaires and then the middle class.

I've made these points several times. If you want to claim, after the posts I've written recently, that I make no attempt to understand Bernie, I'm not interested in further conversation. I written extensively and clearly on the subject. If you want to toss false and gratuitious stinkbombs then as Donna Brazile said to Ronna McDaniel the other day, you can Go to Hell.

She's a Dem by the way so I'm just stooping to the latest socially acceptable parlance used by your side. She's the one who gave Hillary debate questions in advance. Why's she even on tv?

Bottom line is I've made substantive posts repeatedly recently on this subject and all you've got is a totally unfounded and untrue personal attack. Have a nice day.

Oh and also when it comes to Bernie, I'm not your enemy. I like him a lot better than I like Biden. Your beef is with the DNC and the media, with Obama working in the background, who just knifed Bernie in the back. You did notice that I hope. Liz stayed in long enough to hurt Bernie on Super Tuesday then dropped out without endorsing anyone.

You think I'm your problem? I hope Bernie comes out fighting hard and calls Joe on his corruption and warmongering. Let's see if he does.

↪fishfry He just strikes me as good. He may actually be the devil incarnate.

Are you a pacifist? — frank

I don't believe I wrote the words quoted. But as I say I voted for Tulsi as a symbolic vote against the war machine. I would not call myself a pacifist. I'm not against all wars. I'm against stupid, evil wars run for profit and against the national interest. All of our effing Middle East and North African wars since 9/11, to pick several you may have noticed yourself. I would say that the Dems lost me the day Hillary voted for the Iraq war (and gave cover to all the other Dems to do the same); and then when Obama chose to institutionalize rather to investigate and punish Bush's lawless torture regime.

And, I also happen to prioritize foreign policy. The left these days is more interested in domestic issues. Before Obergefell I used to say that if you throw the liberals a bone on gay marriage they'll look the other way on torture. That's my take. I support gay rights but not at the expense of our wretched and appalling foreign policy.

Hope that was a suitable response to your question. By the way between Trump and Biden, Trump is the peace candidate.

I'm glad to see a Bernie supporter maintaining a sense of humor. I'd assume most are in a state of shock and depression — fishfry

It's down to Bernie and Biden — fishfry

These types of posts are so funny.

Now you're just playing semantics and pretend you don't know what it means when people refer to free universal health care. Taxes are not through the roof. I'm in the highest tax bracket and pay a premium for health care insurance.

Brian Williams and NYT Editorial Board Member Mara Gray doing math. I wonder if they’ll fact check themselves.

You think I'm your problem? I hope Bernie comes out fighting hard and calls Joe on his corruption and warmongering. Let's see if he does.

Unfortunately for Bernie he is not breathing enough fire. He has the excited base but is too scared or too principled to hit Biden for whatever reason.

Unfortunately for Bernie he is not breathing enough fire. He has the excited base but is too scared or too principled to hit Biden for whatever reason. — NOS4A2

"Nobody wants to hear about emails." He lost the nomination that night. He should have hit her hard on her corruption and incompetence handling classified data. Instead he wants to be a "gentleman" and make nice. That's his fatal flaw. He came out yesterday and said what a great guy Joe is. He should be hammering Joe on corruption and warmongering. Let's see what happens next debate.

Rumor has it they'll change the rules to keep out Tulsi, who just won herself a delegate and thereby qualified. Can you imagine Tulsi up there with those two fossils? She could get elected president just by not being an 80 year old guy.

Now you're just playing semantics and pretend you don't know what it means when people refer to free universal health care. Taxes are not through the roof. I'm in the highest tax bracket and pay a premium for health care insurance. — Benkei

I get that you disagree with me. I don't want the US government running my health care. They can run yours if you like. How is that? Isn't that Mayor Pete's plan, Medicare for all who want it? I would go with a public option as it used to be called. Let free enterprise and the government compete and see which system people prefer. You ok with that?

These types of posts are so funny. — Maw

You replied to me the same way twice in a row but never tried to make a point. What is your point?

Public option isn't medicare for all who want it because losses aren't mutualised across everyone. The whole reason why medicare for all would be the cheaper is then defeated and you just create a little bit of extra competitive pressure. So far that pressure is such that insurance companies get away with a lot of shit in the USA at the detriment of quality of healthcare and coverage.

God knows why people such as you have such an issue with government run healthcare when the outcomes in other countries are vastly superior to the crap you have in the USA. It's a silly ideological position and fails to take into account how the government runs a lot of things far more efficiently than markets could. But whatever. Here's the full market solution:

1. obligate insurance company to provide basic health insurance (contents of which are decided by law) for everyone with no right of refusal;
2. insurance companies set their own premiums for this care;
3. have insurance companies pool the premiums for basic care and pay out from the pool if someone draws care that falls under the basic health insurance;
4. give them rights to audit each other in the event that a company's customers draw more from the pool than premiums those customers provide to ensure pay-out standards are harmonised across the board;
5. insurance companies negotiate health care costs directly with hospitals and other care providers;
6. insurance companies offer additional health insurance packages, which is left entirely optional;
7. severely limit liability for professional neglicence for health care providers that provide basic health care and that have been contracted by insurance companies to provide such care. The costs of negligence will fall on the insurance company as they have to pay for additional care for their clients and this will put a lot of pressure on them to contract with health are providers that are actually good. In the medium-to-long-term this will mean quacks will go bankrupt and the money goes to better healthcare.

This way, insurance companies can compete on premiums and what they negotiatie with health care providers. You still have mutualisation of all basic healthcare costs this way and allow a lot of freedom for people to buy more insurance.

I doubt that Warren dropping out would help Bernie much at this point. It could've helped in Super Tuesday if she dropped out and endorsed him like Pete and Amy did but that ship has sailed.

Anyways, I think we have to hand it to Warren for ending her campaign the way she did. She ended up abandoning her friend when he needed her most, going back on the values she claimed to be fighting for by kneecapping the progressive movement and taking superPAC money from an oil lobbyist that clearly only had an interest in her role as a spoiler, in a delusional and selfish attempt to win the presidency via. stealing the nomination on a second ballot and potentially fracturing the democratic party in doing so, and what did she get from all that? Losing in her home state and coming in third. I can't think of a more worse and embarrassing way for someone to end their political career and I consider her to be the biggest loser of the night, second being the billionaire who spent $500 million just to turn himself into a national laughing stock.

One interesting take I read is that the Dems might have been wrong to coalesce around Biden. The GOPs failed to coalesce to stop Trump, but Trump won the general election. There's something to be said for that. Getting behind senile and corrupt old Joe will be a disaster. — fishfry

To be fair, if senile and corrupt were things that would disqualify someone, then Trump wouldn't be president right now.

Can't wait for the debate between two senile geriatrics.

Yup. Bernie has the heart but not the cojones. Just like he let Hillary off the hook on her email scandal He should have hit her hard on her corruption and carelessness with classified documents. He should hit Joe hard on his corruption. There's a debate coming up soon, we'll see if Bernie wants it or not. — fishfry

He fears that tearing down Biden (or running as third candidate) will simply get Trump re-elected. That's the lack of cojones.

It could mean nothing or it could be that we've reached peak Woke and the voters have had enough. We'll find out. — fishfry

I think we have reached "Peak Woke" already.

Just to look at things from a totally different perspective, have you noticed the response that Greece got to closing it's borders and how the EU responded to Erdogan? There simply isn't the "woke" responses anywhere. Nobody started shaming Greece. No EU member (that I know) has reprimanded Greece. Even the leftist politicians here say "If the international argeements have to be followed, a state needs to take care of it's borders". One even purposed that asylum applications could be just given with the people remaining in Turkey. The EU has decided to give Greece 700 million euros and is setting up a 'rapid intervention team' with Frontex. If Greece asks for more border personnel, likely it will get it. The EU is finally starting to close it's borders as, well, the US.

Just look at the response Ursula von der Leyen gave:

The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “This border is not only a Greek border, it is also a European border … I thank Greece for being our European aspida in these times,” which was translated as “shield”.

A Sea change from the confusion of 2015-2016. Von der Leyen's response now would be attacked as populism and Trumpist rhetoric back then. What a difference few years make.

Few if any woke calls for solidarity or us having to do our share, especially when Erdogan's move is so obvious and calculated, that even idiots understand that the refugees and migrants are just a political pawn in the game of the Turkish dictator.

Now this is good, because what it does is that takes all that important fuel from the right-wing populists. They need that annoying wokesters to get their people supporting them. And also the futility and indifference of the state. But if the mainstream doesn't follow the wokest, people aren't interested in them either.

Back to the elections, I should note that Bernie has never been the hero of the wokest. Sanders is actually a traditionalist when it comes to the left and what he has been for is very traditional western social democracy. As an old leftist, he of course has a lot of positive things to say about the Soviet Union, but luckily he hasn't praised Venezuela (or what later came of the Sandinistas). Smart politician would look at this and understand what needs to change, but likely an old fart like Biden won't understand. Just like Hillary didn't.

By the way between Trump and Biden, Trump is the peace candidate. — fishfry

Yes. Trump is an aspect of the US sinking off the world stage. Biden would try to reinforce the illusion a little longer, none of which matters much. In the 22nd century I think natural disasters and peak oil/natural gas will initiate conflicts. Maybe nuclear ones. I think we as a species came close to creating a global government. We had the global economy as a threshold to it. We just won't take the next step into it.

Unless a new global religion appears. I guess that might do it. So anyway, I don't see the point in trading pithy comments about politics. My head is located a few centuries or millennia from now.

FiveThirtyEight has finally updated their election odds predictor with Super Tuesday results, and it's showing Biden with close to 90% odds of having a majority of delegates, "no one" somewhere pretty far behind, and Bernie now just the front-running among everyone else who has almost no chance.

I was already sad today, and now I am more sad. Another four years of Trump are probably ahead, and even if not, it's not likely that anything is likely to actually improve under Biden, at best they'll just stop getting continuously worse.

The guy who is least mentally competent to be President won because of... electability. You have to laugh...

You replied to me the same way twice in a row but never tried to make a point. What is your point? — fishfry

It's funny because in each case your first statement is contradicted by the second.

First you said offer a eulogy to the Sander's campaign based on the results of Super Tuesday, but then a sentence later you say "of course a lot can happen between now and the convention so we shall see."

You say that Bernie supporters should be despondent; that we should be in a state of shock and depression, but then the next sentence state that it's just "down to Bernie and Biden", as if Bernie supporters should be upset that in a field that consisted of 20+ candidates we should be upset that we are down to two and the only other candidate is someone who can't speak coherently for more than two minutes.

Hard to take you seriously at all.

It's also because young people didn't show up. I'm sorry, but as much as young people on here may complain about the way things are, they're to blame for Bernie's loss more than anything. They just didn't show up on Tuesday when they had a progressive option, and the moderates did turn out in big numbers, which says alot about the state of things.

:up:

Hard to take you seriously at all. — Maw

Likewise.

Unless a new global religion appears. I guess that might do it. So anyway, I don't see the point in trading pithy comments about politics. My head is located a few centuries or millennia from now. — frank

Agreed, I'm politicked out. The DNC just changed their rules to ban Tulsi from the debate. Can you imagine her appearing alongside those two fossilized relics Bernie and Biden? The contrast would be so striking, Americans would start listening to her anti-war message. Can't have that.

Even though we knew it was coming, I'm sad today. Let's see if the left squawks about misogyny over Tulsi. I'm not holding my breath.

To be fair, if senile and corrupt were things that would disqualify someone, then Trump wouldn't be president right now. — Mr Bee

He seems pretty sharp to me. Blew up the Republican party then blew up the Democratic party, confounding the experts and beating the "inevitable" Hillary. Survived three years of everything the "#resistance" could throw against him. Unleashed the most vibrant economy in the world. Stood up to China. Didn't start any new wars.

You call that senile. That makes you look like you have your hands over your eyes while you shout insults at a guy you don't like and whose achievements you won't recognize. Or as it's called, Trump Derangement Syndrome. You got it bad.

God knows why people such as you have such an issue with government run healthcare — Benkei

People "such as me" would include a big majority of the Democratic primary voters, who resoundingly pushed back on Bernie. Take it up with them, not with me. As I told another Bernie supporter the other day, I'm not your enemy. Your fellow Dems are the ones who have it in for your candidate. I'm just spectating.

I do apologize that I'm politicked out and will skip discussing the details of health care policy. I've been watching this since Hillarycare blew up in 1993, I've lived through Obamacare, and now we have Medicare for All, which will inevitably degrade to health care for none. You want to defend the VA? That's government health care.

But to answer your question directly, as to why I'd feel that way, I instinctively distrust any humongous one-size-fits-all government program. I do like Mayor Pete's idea of Medicare for all who want it; that is, a public option. But giving people choices is not what leftists are about. It's their way or the highway, and that's the kind of authoritarianism I oppose. Not to mention the competence issue. The government could never pull it off, even with the best of intentions.