In a debate in January at Drake University in Des Moines,
Iowa,
Sens. Bernie Sanders
and Elizabeth Warren finally addressed some of the escalating conflict between
the two when they tackled a question about sexism and the 2020 election.
Sanders emphasized that he had championed Warren for the
presidency in the past and said it was “incomprehensible” that he would argue a
woman couldn’t win. Warren, meanwhile, seized on this exchange to make her case
about why women’s electability in 2020 shouldn’t be questioned — the subject at
the heart of a supposed disagreement she had with Sanders.
The following weekend, body language expert Janine Driver
told Joy Ann Reid
He looks away, he laughs. I think he may have been coached
to laugh in this moment. A lot of politicians are coached to laugh in the
difficult times so we focus on the laughter and it's supposed to send a message
that this isn't serious. But it is serious.
If he said, which I believe that he did, he would have been
better to just own it. You know, Barack Obama wrote a book years ago. He said
what in the book? He tried cocaine and marijuana and he never touched the stuff
again. We never talked about it when he was President after that. If Bernie
just owned it, it would have just disappeared and we wouldn't be talking about
it six days later.
He should have owned it because many, if not most, voters
would have agreed with him.
Many people agree an overemphasis on gender as the cause of Hillary Clinton's defeat backfired, making Democrats overly cautious about nominating a female candidate in 2020.
This isn't the only reason that Elizabeth Warren's campaign
went up in flames. Sadly, many people
believed what the Vermont senator was accused of telling the Massachusetts senator was
accurate- that a woman could not be elected President at this time. And by calling Sanders on his remark, Warren may have reinforced the notion that a woman was a risky choice- in an election cycle in which Democrats are focused (perhaps obsessed) with nominating a candidate they believe can beat the incumbent.
Ironies abound in this campaign season. In this case at least, Elizabeth Warren's
boldness and candor may have helped sow the seeds of the destruction of her own
campaign.
I'm not psychic. So sue me. I couldn't possibly know, when on Friday I implied that Donald Trump wanted people to die, that the next day he would provide more evidence of that theory than had (though I should have remembered this). From CNN's fact checker
Here's where Trump said he'd prefer if people were kept on the Grand Princess cruise ship, since "I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship." pic.twitter.com/PcVhUtjUiA
The President understands why his advisers want the people to be taken off the cruise ship. Lots of deaths would be injurious to Donald Trump's re-election effort, and being indicted as an ex-President can be very awkward. It would do the career of those advisers no good, either. But if Trump were unencumbered with such details, he'd rather them stay on. And there can be only one reason for that.
Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio in December of 2015- over four years ago- told us what motivates Donald Trump when the author wrote
I’m a big believer in natural ability,” Trump told me during
a discussion about his leadership traits, which he said came from a natural
sense of how human relations work. “If Obama had that psychology, Putin
wouldn’t be eating his lunch. He doesn’t have that psychology and he never will
because it’s not in his DNA.” Later in this discussion, Trump said: “I believe
in being prepared and all that stuff. But in many respects, the most important
thing is an innate ability.”…
Trump has handed down his sense of entitlement to the next
generation. His son Donald Jr. told me: “Like him, I’m a big believer in
race-horse theory. He’s an incredibly accomplished guy, my mother’s incredibly
accomplished, she’s an Olympian, so I’d like to believe genetically I’m
predisposed to [be] better than average.”
The racehorse theory of human development explains Trump’s
belief in his suitability for political leadership, despite the fact that he
has never held office. He’s absolutely convinced that America’s problems will
be solved by his God-given management skills, bankruptcies notwithstanding. You
are either born with superior qualities — the right DNA — or you are not. And
people get what they deserve.
Donald Trump hosted an impressive campaign rally on March 2 in Charlotte, where he evidently called for the impeachment of Pete Buttigieg, who is not currently an elected official, and Joe Biden, who is not currently an elected official. This may have been the rally which inspired the following:
Because he doesn’t care about anything other than gratifying his ego. https://t.co/EKcvPEDBXc
If we assume this is solely about ego-gratificantion, we may be letting Donald Trump off easily. On Wednesday night
"A lot of people will have this and it's very mild. They'll get better very rapidly," Trump told Fox's Sean Hannity. "They don't even see a doctor, they don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people." "So you can't put them down in the category of the overall population in terms of this corona flu and/or virus," Trump continued. "So you just can't do that. So, if, you know, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work. Some of them go to work, but they get better." The CDC has advised that anyone exhibiting symptoms of coronavirus such as a fever, coughing, and/or shortness of breath stay home from work, avoid public areas as much as possible, and seek medical attention. "You should restrict activities outside your home, except for getting medical care," the CDC's website states. "Do not go to work, school, or public areas. Avoid using public transportation, ride-sharing, or taxis."
Our impulse to attribute Trump's rallies to ego gratification has its corollary in our impulse to assume that the President gives out such wrong and dangerous advice because he believes it politically advantageous or because he's ill-informed or stupid.
Thousands of Americans have #COVIDー19 but have not been tested. They're walking around, going to work/school, shopping, visiting family.
All because Trump has screwed up the response to protect stock markets and his reputation.
The epidemic is here. https://t.co/IJAIsx9Y6I
Paradoxically, thought, the stock market will not fully recover until the President focuses on stopping the epidemic rather than on the stock market. And his reputation will suffer the more sickness and death which follow as the virus spreads
Donald Trump is not stupid. He was nominated for President by one of the two major political parties and was elected in an enormous upset. In March, 2016 he maintained "I have a very good brain;" the following month, "I', like, a very smart person;" eight months later, "I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day;" the following month, in January, 2017, "Trust me, I’m, like, a smart person."
And in October, 2017 the Wharton/University of Pennsylvania graduate stated "You know, people don’t understand. I went to an Ivy League college. I was a nice student. I did very well. I’m a very intelligent person."
He's a little insecure and extremely sensitive. Nonetheless, the betting here is that although exaggerating, the truth is not dramatically different. Nonetheless, even if it were, it doesn't take a very stable genius to realize that it there is a deadly virus going around and if you exhibit the symptoms, the best approach is not laissez-faire medicine, sitting around and letting nature take its course.
It's time we take the President at his word. He is not stupid. He is not crazy. He is interested in more than his reputation and probably himself has investments in the stock market. And he says this:
A lot of people will have this and it's very mild. They'll get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor, they don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people.
President Donald J. Trump has access to the best medical professionals in this country and probably has heard from several of them. And he has encouraged people who may have coronavirus not even to call a doctor. That gives us a little idea of the motivation of this President- but goes where no news outlet is willing to go.
In the same vein, I would say "come on- it's not only
Mitch McConnell." We know it won't
be only the GOP Senate leader because, as Jacobin's Branko Marcetic wrote last April
In journalist Bob Woodward's 2012 book The Price of
Politics, he portrays Biden during Obama’s first term eager to sacrifice Social
Security and Medicare for the sake of bipartisan compromise and achieving what
would be, in the eyes of Washington, a political victory.
Biden first displayed his friendliness to GOP entitlement
hawks when he appointed former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson to co-chair the president's National Commission on Fiscal
Responsibility, created in February 2010 via executive order. Simpson was one
of Congress's most high-profile foes of entitlements and a proponent of Social
Security privatization. In Woodward's telling, Biden even had to lightly
pressure a somewhat reluctant Simpson to take the role.
Sure enough, the Simpson-Bowles Commission, as it came to be
known, recommended cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, leading
liberal economist Paul Krugman to label the commission “terrible.” Failing to
secure enough votes from the commission to recommend the plan to Congress, the proposals
were never taken up.
But Biden took a far more direct role in undermining Social
Security and Medicare when he headed tax policy negotiations with Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in December 2010. In Woodward's telling,
Biden's eagerness to cut a deal with the Republicans sometimes elicited outrage
from his fellow Democrats, who felt he was giving too much away.
An Obama priority was to end the Bush tax cuts on top
earners. Woodard reports that, to achieve this, Biden's team at one point considered
dropping the poorest citizens—anyone who didn’t pay income taxes—from the Obama
stimulus payments of $400 a year. Economist Gene Sperling, then a counselor to
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, strongly objected, calling the idea
“immoral.” At Sperling’s urging, Biden’s team instead proposed a holiday for
payroll taxes, which are used to fund Social Security and Medicare.
The final deal extended the Bush tax cuts, cut payroll taxes
by $112 billion and met a host of other Republican demands: a lower estate tax
with a higher exemption, new tax write-offs for businesses, and a maximum 15
percent capital gains tax rate locked in for two years. In return, unemployment
insurance was extended for 13 months and the Opportunity Tax Credit for two
years.
House Democrats were furious at both the estate tax
provision and the Bush tax cut extension, partly because, according to
Woodward, Biden had failed to mention the extension was on the table when he
briefed Democratic leaders during the talks. Even conservative Democrats like
House Whip Steny Hoyer had strongly opposed the extension, and the deal drew
consternation from across the party. Dianne Feinstein balked at its size, and
Bernie Sanders and two other senators interrupted Biden's presentation of the
package. Sanders later vowed to “do everything I can to defeat this proposal,”
including filibuster it. However, enough Democrats eventually capitulated, with
some grumbling, for the deal to pass, overcoming an eight-hour filibuster by
Sanders.
Biden subsequently led the debt negotiations with then-House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Sen. Jon Kyl and other Republicans. Biden's
“opening bid” was cutting $4 trillion in spending over ten years, with a 3 to 1
proportion of cuts to revenue. Biden later proposed $2 trillion in cuts to
general spending, federal retirement funds, Medicare and Medicaid, and, at
Cantor's urging, food stamps.
At one point, Biden suddenly called for $200 billion more in
cuts that had never been discussed, which, according to Woodward, led
then-Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen—also involved in the negotiations—to
believe Biden had gone over to the Cantor-Kyl side. Biden again crossed Van
Hollen when he offered to take revenue-raising out of the “trigger”—a
combination of revenue raising and spending cuts meant to be equally
unpalatable to both parties, which would automatically kick in if a deal failed
to be reached.
Later in the negotiations, Biden dangled the possibility of
Medicare cuts in return for more revenue—meaning higher taxes. Soon after, he
suggested Democrats might be comfortable raising the eligibility age for
entitlements, imposing means testing and changing the consumer price index
calculation, known as CPI. (Means testing is often seen a Trojan horse for
chipping away at these programs, because their universality is one of the
reasons they've remained virtually untouchable for almost a century. It’s also
been criticized for imposing an unnecessary and discouraging layer of
bureaucracy.)
At one point, Biden reportedly called the Medicare provider
tax a “scam.” “For a moment, Biden sounded like a Republican,” Woodward notes.
Biden’s team was forced to remind him that such a move would force states to
cut services to the poor, to which he replied, “We're going to do lots of hard
things,” and so “we might as well do this.”
As Woodward writes, “this was a huge deal” for Cantor
(“Biden had caved”), and showed the administration had adopted the Republican
view on the matter of the Medicare provider tax. Despite this giveaway, the
Republicans continued their stubborn opposition to any revenue increases in the
proposed deal.
The negotiations were ultimately scuttled by Cantor, after
Biden inadvertently revealed to him that then-Speaker of the House John Boehner
was secretly holding his own “grand bargain” talks with Obama. But the Biden
portrayed in Woodward's book continued this pattern of bending over backwards
to achieve the Republicans' cooperation in subsequent negotiations.
Senator Sanders may not know the entire record as well as does Marcetic, who goes into additional detail, but he has a pretty good idea:
This is not good. And it should be a warning to Democratic
politicians coalescing (at least as of this moment) around Joseph Robinette
Biden. The constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act will be decided- butpossibly not until June 2021 because
The Supreme Court said Monday that it will take up a legal
challenge to Obamacare, agreeing to hear the case in its new term that begins
in October. That means the program will continue for at least another year.
It also means the justices won't be handing down a ruling on
the contentious issue of health care in June, just as the presidential campaign
heats up. That may be good news for Republicans, who would prefer to avoid the
issue in an election year.
A federal appeals court ruled in December that the
individual mandate in Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act,
is unconstitutional. But it sent the case back to the trial judge for another
look at whether the entire law is invalid or some parts can survive.
The entire premise and raison d'etre of the Biden campaign
has been "Barack Obama."
That's entirely understandable for the candidate who until this past Saturday never had won even
one primary or caucus. However, he had
served loyally for eight years as vice-president to Obama, who is extremely
popular among Democrats, for whatever disturbing reason. Therefore, it was
unsurprising, totally in character, and wise for the former vice-president to have
bragged in the Las Vegas debate
I'm the guy the president turned to and said, go get the
votes for Obamacare. And I notice what everybody's talking about is the plan
that I first introduced. That is to go and add to Obamacare, provide a public
option, a Medicare-like option. It cost -- and increase the subsidies. It cost
a lot of money. It cost $750 billion over 10 years. But I paid for it by making
sure that Mike and other people pay at the same tax rate their secretary pays at.
The Justices could have considered the case before the
election inasmuch as
The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, and a
group of blue states urged the Supreme Court in January to take the case and
issue a decision promptly, in its current term, instead of leaving the fate of
the law in limbo.
"That uncertainty threatens adverse consequences for
our nation's health care system, including for patients, doctors, insurers, and
state and local governments," they told the court.
But the justices rejected the invitation for expedited
scheduling, agreeing instead to follow the normal rules.
Of course they did.
If it had ruled against the ACA- as expected, with five conservative
Republican judges- Democratic voters would be very mad in November. And they would be
energized, with turnout jacked up.
Independents also would have taken note. Many of them are
unconvinced Obamacare is a really good system but do not wish to lose their
health care. As is commonly understood,
Americans do not love whatever health care we may have at the time but are
afraid to lose it, fearing they will be left with nothing in return.
For them, Joe Biden (and Mike Bloomberg) have an answer:
Obamacare. If it is declared unconstitutional or rendered useless by the Court,
their answer, up to this point, is.....?
That is nothing. It is remarkable- and should be disturbing-
that the one issue upon which the two progressive candidates have been most
vociferously attacked this campaign season has been health care. Medicare for All is too expensive,
Americans don't want to lose their private insurance, or it's just not Barack
Obama. Instead, the one thing uniting
all Democrats vying for the party's nomination should have been that Obamacare+
doesn't cut it.
"I believe we have to protect and build on
Obamacare," Biden can be seen stating in the video below from last July. "Starting over makes no sense to me at
all." Unfortunately, we may be faced with no choice but to start over and
Joe Biden, so proud of his role in enacting the ACA, is not the best choice to
do it.
US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders “is a
liar, an ignorant fool or both,” Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations
Danny Danon told the annual Washington gathering of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday morning.
“We don’t want Sanders at AIPAC. We don’t want him in
Israel. Anyone who calls our prime minister a ‘racist’ is either a liar, an
ignorant fool or both,” Danon said.
He spoke in response to a comment Sanders made during a
Democratic presidential debate, in which he called Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu a racist.
Bad timing. If Danon had waited an hour or two, he might
have had more grist for the mill. On Sunday's Face the Nation, CBS' Margaret
Brennan received a surprisingly revealing response from Bernard Sanders
following the journalist's question about politics, not policy. Brennan asked
You've been sparring with the pro-Israel lobby known as
AIPAC. You said it gives a platform for bigotry, which was seen as a swipe at
Prime Minister Netanyahu. Today, Israel's ambassador to the U.N. says of you
that you're not welcome in that country and anyone who calls our prime minister
a racist is either a liar, an ignorant fool, or both. Do you see a political
cost in taking on the pro-Israel lobby in this way?
Sanders has run an excellent campaign, and this was a
softball enabling the Vermont senator to suggest either that the American
people see things his way, or that he always has believed that comforting
sacred cows must give way to principle, or (similarly) that Americans don't
want politicians who won't take on the "special interests." Instead, Sanders replied
Yeah, I do. I mean
they have a lot of money. They have a lot of power. Look, I'm Jewish and I'm
very proud of my Jewish heritage. As a kid I spent time in Israel. I am not
in-- anti-Israel. I will do everything I can to protect the independence and
the security and the freedom of the Israeli people. But what we need in this
country is a foreign policy that not only protects Israel but deals with the
suffering of the Palestinian people as well. You got seventy percent youth
unemployment in Gaza. People can't even leave that district, that area, major,
major crises. It is not sustainable that we-- continued conflict in the Middle
East until the United States develops an even-handed policy.
Sanders dispenses with "more even-handed" than
President Trump's policy, which has been brazenly solicitous of Netanyahu's
hawkish policies. "Even-handed
policy" without qualification is as it always has been- a shout-out to
opponents of Israeli territorial integrity.
It's not surprising that Sanders, a long-time critic of USA
foreign policy, would support a foreign policy tilted toward Arab Palestinians
at the expense of Israel. But the real tell is "I will do everything I can
to protect the independence and the security and the freedom of the Israeli
people."
The "Israeli people?" Israel exists as a Jewish
state, with the Arabs living in Israel proper given full citizenship.
(Residents of the occupied territories have far less.) The threat to the rights of Arab citizens
comes not because Israel was founded as, and has been, a haven for Jewish
refugees for over 70 years but from its current Prime Minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu.
So Sanders would be right to call out Netanyahu for being an
impediment to a peaceful resolution of the ongoing Middle East crisis. He would
be right, also, to support the independence, security, and freedom of Israelis,
Jews and Arabs alike.
However, when he substitutes "of the Israeli
people" for "Israel as a Jewish state" or "the Israelis,
Jew and non-Jew alike," he is saying something very significant. When the Democratic front-runner refers-
without explanation- to the Prime Minister of our nation's most loyal ally in
the region as a "racist," he knows what he is doing. And it appears that under a President
Sanders, if Israel's security is threatened, Tel Aviv probably will not be able
to look to Washington for the support it has received in the past.
Five weeks ago, before Sander succeeded in Iowa, New
Hampshire, and Nevada and failed in South Carolina, history professor at
Dartmouth College lamented
the weaknesses in his background, which are little known to
wide swaths of voters. How many Americans know that Sanders is not just an
avowed democratic socialist but a former supporter of the Trotskyist Socialist
Workers Party, which wanted to abolish the federal defense budget and supported
“solidarity” with revolutionary regimes like Iran’s and Cuba’s? Do people know
that he spoke positively about Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution (“a very
profound and very deep revolution”) and even praised the Soviet Union and
criticized the United States during a honeymoon trip to the U.S.S.R.? Could
Sanders successfully distance himself from these statements, or would the
public perceive them as disqualifying? No one knows, but the downside risk for
Democrats has no precedent among front-runners in contemporary American
political history....
Sanders also has a long paper trail of writings and
statements about sex, gender and race that have received relatively little
attention but are likely to provoke far more controversy if he wins the
nomination. In one 1969 essay, for instance, Sanders wrote that the “manner in
which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well
determine whether or not she will develop breast cancer, among other things.”
And does his diverse coalition of young supporters know he once compared
workers in Vermont to slaves?
If they did, they wouldn't care. Nor is it likely that these
things would be sufficiently persuasive to undecided or persuadable voters to
cost Sanders the presidential election.
To a large extent, these characteristics have already been
factored in to the assessment of most voters toward Bernard. Additionally, most
of the country already has decided whether it likes or dislikes President Trump
while some voters will be swayed primarily by the events of the next eight
months, such as the economy, Coronavirus, or a foreign crisis.
Although Sanders has thus far largely avoided the scrutiny a
front-runner should expect to get, he has heard the complaints, the charges,
the smears. And for the most part, he knows how to respond.
If the Vermont senator is nominated, the presidential
election may be the least of our worries as Democrats.
In November, 2018, thirty (30) House districts represented
by a Republican went Democratic. Of
those 30 Democrats elected in what evidently are "swing" districts,
exactly zero (0) have endorsed Bernard Sanders' presidential candidacy.
Some are moderate Democrats, some are not. But what
virtually every one has in common is that he or she wants to be re-elected. And
none has endorsed Bernard Sanders.
They probably know something the rest of us don't know, or
can only speculate about. There have
been press reports of concern among these candidates and others that nomination
of the Vermont senator could be deadly to their re-election efforts, as well as
the chance Democrats could add to their majority in the House (and take over
the Senate, which after Trump's acquittal was a live, even lively,
possibility).
And they should be worried. At one time or another, from one
direction or another, Sanders has heard of all the allegations, justified and
otherwise, about his record or character. However, incumbent House Democrats
have not, or at least have not had those charges directed at them.
It's one thing to defend one's own record as a Democratic Socialist. It's quite another- and much more difficult- to be centrist,
center-left, or even definitively liberal, to have built one's brand on that,
and then be branded yourself as a "socialist" or something
more incendiary. They will have serious trouble navigating that.
It makes it that much more difficult when the head of the
Party, the guy running for the top job, has openly confronted you. Such it was
when
If the candidate for President has established himself as an independent, even rebellious, thinker, it might redound to his advantage in his own election. But if in the process he has disparaged you, re-election is an uphill battle.
So Bernie Sanders might prove to be an effective and successful candidate. Nonetheless, he could in the process find himself facing an increased GOP majority in the Senate and a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
