Tag Archives: Elizabeth Warren

Political Rants

What’d they say?

All right, so, I watched most of the debate last week, and the thing I came away with was something like what Anand Giridharadas said the weekend after – that I had watched what should amount to Joe Biden’s retirement party. The odd thing about that phenomenon is that almost no one on mainstream television appears to agree with that. In fact, some of the usual pundits were saying that this was Biden’s best night of the three debates. I have to scratch my head when I hear this stuff – did they see the same show I saw? Or is it just that they have lowered the performance bar for Biden to such an extent that he basically can do no wrong. That is not the Biden I saw.

His worst moment, namely his response to the question about the legacy of slavery in America, was aptly dissected by the Majority Report crew, who I think nailed it on the head. In his halting way, Biden began his response by talking about his fight against segregation, then pivoted quickly, recalling that this was a trouble area for him. He then talked about education, specifically poor kids in inner city schools, and once again he equated black kids with being poor. His solution sounded positively draconian: let’s send social workers into these kids’ homes, because their parent(s) don’t know how to handle them. What? Kind of astonishing, but that’s where the guy is coming from, so he was doing a public service of sorts.

Get off my lawnism.

The health care debate was probably the most contentious that forum got. This is probably where the usual pundits got the notion that Biden did better than usual. He was old man-splaining Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as to why Medicare for All can’t work and is too expensive. The questioning, of course, sought to support Biden’s case – It will raise taxes, right? Right?? The ABC team, like their predecessors at CNN and MSNBC, are trying their best to generate a soundbite of Warren saying “Yes, I’m going to raise your taxes!” If they ever succeed, they’ll probably blow some kind of ship horn. Biden seemed to think that $1,000 out of pocket was no big deal. Not surprised that that wasn’t the headline.

I think the biggest threat on that stage is the possibility of Biden becoming the nominee. I don’t know how to tell centrist Democrats this, but nominating him would be like rewinding to 2016 and running it again. We’ve already seen that show – let’s get someone on that ticket who will inspire the masses, not grab a couple of centrists here and there. That didn’t work out real well in the last election, and it won’t this time either.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

The line up.

Bolton’s gone. We survived Bolton. That’s something to celebrate, at least. When Trump hired him, I honestly didn’t see how we would avoid a precipitous war with Iran, but thus far it hasn’t happened and now Johnny Mustache has died and gone to Fox. Good riddance.

Now that I’ve got THAT out of my system, just a head’s up that I’m going to do another debate night notebook this week. The major Democratic presidential candidates will all be on one stage this time around, and I’ll be tapping random stuff into my tablet as they spar. It’s either going to be really interesting or the usual bland corporate show we’ve gotten previously. Really a much stronger chance of the latter, but we’ll see.

First comment: What the hell corporate network is this debate on? This is the problem with this model of campaign debates. They become proprietary content, and as such, none of the other networks will talk about the details until the program’s over.

Next, health care. This exchange reveals what tremendous douchebags the so-called moderates are.  They roll out the same tired conservative arguments about people loving their health insurance. I can tell you, I’ve had what was described as a “cadillac” plan, and it was no great shakes. Why anyone would love their policy is beyond me. All I can say about the centrist plans is this: a public option is going to end up being an insurer of last resort, which is essentially what we have now. The only justification for it is preservation of profit.

Still too many ... but better.

Forty eight minutes in, I would say that Harris is doing herself some good. Bernie sounds hoarse, unfortunately – probably a lot of rallies. I haven’t heard a lot of Warren in the last half hour, which is annoying. Booker has gotten a few good comments in.

Lots of praise for Beto on stage for his time with victims in El Paso. Kind of a competition. O’Rourke gave a good speech on assault weapons, credit where credit is due.

Bernie and Warren have their hands up. Finally, another question for Warren, more than an hour in. Both she and Bernie make impassioned arguments against gun violence from a systemic perspective.

Some short takes:

  • Andrew Yang on immigration: “The water’s great.” What
  • Someone should elect Mayor Pete the next Bayer aspirin man.
  • Beto is speaking Spanish again. He’s makes some sense on immigration.

First foreign policy question is a trade question: tariffs on China. They seem to be attacking Trump more this time around. Warren is asked about trade policy, and she tilts against corporations. Good answer. Bernie takes a shot at both Biden and Trump on trade. Booker takes a shot at Trudeau’s hair. Harris makes a short joke to Stefanopolis. Warren argues for leaving Afghanistan, pretty eloquently. Mayor Pete argues for a 3 year sunset on every AUMF. Booker talks about veterans.

Bernie swats back a cheap shot about socialism and Venezuela. Climate change question: Warren gets specific and concise. Yang asked about education, gets some cheers. (Still no tie. Good on him for that.) Warren talks about universal pre-K.

Bernie makes an argument for more investment in education, debt cancellation via a tax on Wall Street speculation. Biden grinds out a response, muddled as hell.

Where was climate change? In the margins … again. I’ll post more on the reactions next week.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Muddle in the middle.

If you’re as obsessive about politics as I am, you probably watched the “CNN Democratic Debates” this week, brought to you by CNN, hosted by CNN, and did I mention CNN was somehow involved? What the hell ever happened to the League of Women Voters, anyway? This notion of presidential debates being treated like commercial media properties is beyond ridiculous. Debates should not be some pre-packaged product served up by powerful corporations who benefit from the free-for-all media environment our bought politicians have built for them over the years. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the three purported journalists moderating the event were hell-bent on getting the various candidates to mix it up, posing questions that were, at worst, the equivalent of “Are you just going to stand there and let her say that about you?” and, at best, cheap rehashes of Republican party talking points. (Jake Tapper is such a freaking waste of space.)

Night one had the two progressive candidates plus what seemed like a legion of also-rans and never-heard-of-ems. Bernie and Warren both did fine, given the full-on frontal attack both were subjected to from the Frackenlooper chorus and the “moderators” (they kind of gave that term a new meaning, come to think of it). I thought Warren was, once again, particularly sharp, agile. Delaney appeared to be the main foil, and he got roasted once or twice, despite Tapper and company’s best efforts to cue him up as the reasonable alternative to what they consider to be radicalism, but which is no more radical in the main than the types of policies Eisenhower was comfortable supporting. Night two was cast as a re-match, in essence, between Harris and Biden – I saw CNN’s run-up to the main event, and it was a cross between reality show and prize fight promo. Ridiculous.

Never-Trump windbags attempt to school dems

The whole spectacle told us more about our prevailing media culture than it did about the candidates’ positions. One small example – in a brief discussion of the Green New Deal and related legislation, one question centered on the idea that the bill would entail guaranteed government jobs with benefits. As the candidates responded, the super showed the question as something like: “Should the Green New Deal include guaranteed government jobs with paid vacations?” These people are so steeped in the neoliberal myth of our current “prosperity” (based on millions of crappy jobs) that the very concept of stable work with benefits seems bat-shit crazy to them.

Speaking of bat-shit crazy, the CNN shills were outdone by their counterparts on Morning Joe on Thursday morning. Joe, Mika, and the whole crew were appalled by the previous night’s performance, saying the candidates were attacking Obama all night. Not sure they saw the same debate as I did, but this is the type of input Democrats should expect from never-Trump Republicans like Scarborough: We should rewind back to 2008 and stay right there, folks. Take that from someone who endlessly criticized Obama from one end of his presidency to the other. Oh … and here comes uber-moderate Claire McCaskle (sp) to tell us how to win in swing states like Missouri, which she lost only last year.

What an enormous pile of shit.

luv u,

jp