Tag Archives: Bernie Sanders
The Sanders surge and the slippery slope
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Check it out:
One of our national great failures is that we, the people, have allowed our government schools to teach that communism, and its more polite brother, socialism, are anything other than the violent, failed doctrines of tyrants and lunatics. This is one of the reasons that Bernie Sanders is surging through the primaries and might be anointed the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party right here in Wisconsin.
Communism is not just an alternate form of organizing society or an altruistic expression of collective will. It is not just another way of accomplishing the same goals as capitalism and liberal democracy. Communism is an evil and murderous creed.
Communist governments have killed at least 100 million people over the last century. That is far more than every other kind of government combined. The oppression and killing by communists span cultures, geographies, and time. Whether in communist China, Soviet Russia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, Ethiopia, or elsewhere, communist violence is not a bug. It is a feature.
Some defenders of socialism and communism contend that the failures and atrocities of communism in places like Russia and North Korea were caused by externalities and circumstances that can be avoided on the next attempt. What these defenders neglect to share, or understand, is that centrally planned societies and economies require a tremendous concentration of power into the hands of a very small group of people. Those central planners are subject to the same emotions, flaws, passions, egos, jealousies, and sins of any other human. Communism does not bestow virtue on the practitioner. If anything, the old saw holds true that absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
Even if communism could be implemented by purely perfect noble beings, the very construct of the doctrine is contrary to the human condition. By eliminating free markets (legal ones) and individual rewards (except corrupt ones), people have little incentive to be productive or worry about making things that people actually want. The absence of incentive robs people of their initiative and denies society the benefit of their ingenuity. The result is the inevitable decline of a decaying society. The lessons of history are all too important today as a sizable number of our fellow Americans are supporting Bernie Sanders, and more importantly, his ideology. Sanders has put together a string of primary victories as he heads into Super Tuesday. Here in Wisconsin, a recent poll by the UW-Madison Elections Research Center shows Sanders the overwhelming favorite of Wisconsin’s Democrats with twice the support of his closest rivals, Joe Biden and Mike Bloomberg.
Now that he is a national figure, Bernie Sanders likes to disavow communism in favor of something he calls “democratic socialism.” It is a distinction without a difference. Wordplay has always been a favorite tool of communists. Without going into Sanders’ long history of support and praise for communism and communist regimes, one need only look at Sanders’ platform to see it for what it is.
Sanders’ “Medicare for All” is the same government takeover of the health care system that we have seen for decades. Sanders would have the government outlaw private health care providers in favor of a health care system run by the federal government. Such a system puts government bureaucrats in charge of our personal humanity — our health.
Enacting the Green New Deal would require the government to force action in the energy and construction sectors of our economy. It would also require the government to obliterate private property rights in order to impose environmental mandates across the country.
Sanders’ plans for what he calls “workplace democracy” would shove people into unions and require the government to dictate the policies of heretofore private companies. Given government control of wages, health care, private property, etc., unions would be relegated to little more than enforcement arms of the government.
Does this sound familiar? Look at the verbs in the preceding paragraphs. “Outlaw.” “Force.” “Require.” “Obliterate.” “Impose.” “Dictate.” All of these policies require a colossal concentration of power into the hands of a select few in faraway Washington, D.C., to centrally manage our health care, work, economy, energy, and homes. With such concentration comes the inevitable violence and oppression to bend the people to the will of the central planners.
While some of my fellow conservatives relish the idea of a Sanders’ victory because they believe that Sanders would be the easiest challenger for President Trump to defeat, we must not risk our great nation for game theory and political theater. In this case we must follow the communists’ example and smother the threat before it grows — peaceably in the voting booth.
Posted by Owen at 0706 hours
Bernie Wins Nevada Partisan Caucus
While entertaining, it is shocking that a washed up commie has this much support in the Democratic Party.
· Sanders is doing very well based on entrance polls and early results.
· There were reports of problems calling in results to a state party hotline.
· Biden is trying to revive his flagging campaign with a second-place finish.Sanders was leading comfortably in early returns, prompting three TV networks to call the race for him. Far behind him, Joe Biden was locked in a tight race for second place with Pete Buttigieg.
If that result holds, it will mark at least a partial victory for Biden after two demoralizing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Before the Super Tuesday contests, he will have an advantage in the South Carolina primary, the next contest in the campaign.
Posted by Owen at 1907 hours
Bernie Proposes Canceling all Medical Debt
Do I really have to explain why this is stupid and harmful? Apparently I do because some of y’all support this communist.
Sanders’s plan would cancel $81 billion in existing past-due medical debt, repeal parts of the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill and ensure that unpaid medical bills do not impact one’s credit score. Sanders has hit the 2005 bill for eliminating “fundamental consumer protections,” accusing it of making it difficult for Americans to pay back medical debt by imposing stringent means tests.
“In the United States of America, your financial life and future should not be destroyed because you or a member of your family gets sick,” Sanders said in a news release previewing his plan.
Let’s play this out, shall we? Let’s say Sanders gets elected and cancels all medical debt. All of the people who owe the money presumably received quality medical care for which they did not have the money readily available. Whether or not those medical fees were “too expensive” is not germane to the discussion because Bernie isn’t talking about only canceling debt where the medical provider could be shown to have overcharged for their service.
The people received quality medical from professionals who trained for years and with, in most cases, advanced medical technology and medicine. The patients didn’t have the money at the time, so they incurred a debt. What happens when Bernie cancels it? Who is left holding the bag? The medical professionals and medical companies who provided the service are stiffed for their services.
How will they react? If you were stiffed out of money owed to you, how would you react? Most people would stop providing services unless people have the money up front. If the government can just cancel the debt, then why would you work for free? You wouldn’t. The only people you would reasonable provide services for would be people with the money (in cash and/or pre-qualified insurance) in hand.
If medical professionals stop providing services unless the patients pay up front, who is harmed? The people who don’t have the cash, of course. For rich people, this isn’t a problem. They can pay for it. The people who are harmed are the people in the middle and lower class. Sure, some of them could use a credit card, but how long would it take credit companies to stop allowing their cards to be used for medical services if the government can cancel the debt? Left without a way to incur debt to pay for services, the people in the middle and lower classes would be left without access to medical care.
And here we finally get to Bernie’s real motivation… if doctors and other medical professionals refuse to provide services for free to people in the middle and lower classes, how will Bernie, the communist, respond? He will respond the same way communists always respond. He will use the violent force of government to force them to do so. He will say that the government should compel medical professionals to surrender their time and talents to the collective. If they refuse, they will be denied a license to earn a living or worse.
And here again… who does that hurt? If qualified medical professionals are compelled to either work for free or leave the profession, many of them will choose another profession. With fewer and fewer medical professionals available, and the best and brightest certainly looking elsewhere to earn a living, it is the people in the middle and lower classes who will be denied service. This time they won’t be denied service because they don’t have the money. This time they will be denied service because there just isn’t anyone there to provide it.
Welcome to communism. This is how it always ends because the tenets of communism are not aligned with human nature and it relies on violence to bend, or break, people to its will.
Posted by Owen at 1132 hours
Sexual Abuse Allegations Riddle Democrat Presidential Contenders’ Campaigns
Senator Bernie Sanders has apologised to female staff members on his 2016 US presidential campaign who allege they were harassed by a male aide.
“To women in our campaign who were harassed or mistreated, I apologise,” the Vermont independent wrote in a statement on Twitter on Thursday.
His apology comes as he contemplates another White House bid under the Democratic banner in 2020.
Several aides have complained of a “predatory culture” in his campaign.
[…]
Claims of sexual harassment have recently dogged the campaign of Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, who may also enter the White House race.
Senator Harris has said she was “unaware” that a top aide paid a settlement of $400,000 (£314,000) in May 2017 to a woman who sued for sexual harassment.
The California senator’s biography, which debuted last week, contains praise for the aide, who resigned after the payout was revealed.
Posted by Owen at 1938 hours
What Hillary Really Thinks of Bernie’s Supporters
From the Daily Caller
A leaked audio recording of a conversation between Hillary Clinton and campaign donors reveals the Democratic presidential nominee calling Bernie Sanders supporters basement-dwellers who seek out a “political revolution.”
“They’re children of the Great Recession,” Clinton said of Bernie fans. “And they are living in their parents’ basement. They feel they got their education, and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves.”
One would think by now that politicians would understand that nothing they say is ever truly in private, except, perhaps, when they are speaking to their family and very close friends. It isn’t like people have to buy a recorder and secretly place it in the room. Almost everybody now carries a recorder with days of recording storage and a fantastic microphone. All it takes is one person recording for either malicious purposes or even just as a personal souvenir because they are meeting with a VIP.
So there it is. Frankly, Hillary is right. What she didn’t do is connect the dots that the very policies she supports led to their frustration.
Posted by Owen at 1343 hours
Bernie Doesn’t Want to Talk About End Game
This is too rich. Bernie Sanders is asked about a country that is seeing the end result of the implementation of many of the policies that he is advocating, but he doesn’t want to talk about it.
LEÓN KRAUZE, UNIVISION: I am sure that you know about this topic: various leftist governments, especially the populists, are in serious trouble in Latin America. The socialist model in Venezuela has the country near collapse. Argentina, also Brazil, how do you explain that failure?
BERNIE SANDERS, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: You are asking me questions…
LEÓN KRAUZE, UNIVISION: I am sure you’re interested in that.
BERNIE SANDERS, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: I am very interested, but right now I’m running for President of the United States.
LEÓN KRAUZE, UNIVISION: So you don’t have an opinion about the crisis in Venezuela?
BERNIE SANDERS, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: Of course I have an opinion, but as I said, I’m focused on my campaign.
Posted by Owen at 0653 hours
Sanders Fires Staffers
It sure looks like he’s throwing in the sponge.
(CNN)Bernie Sanders’ campaign is laying off more than 200 workers, campaign manager Jeff Weaver said Wednesday.
The campaign is downsizing from its current 550-member team to between 325 to 350 workers, said Weaver, who added that at one point the Sanders’ staff numbered more than 1,000.The decision follows a bad night for Sanders, in which he lost four out of five East Coast states that voted on Tuesday.“The calendar is coming closer to the end and there are not that many states going forward … it’s the natural evolution of every campaign,” Weaver told CNN.
Posted by Owen at 1904 hours
Sanders Going Through to California
That’s a change. Notice that he’s not vowing to go through to the convention anymore.
“We’re not giving this thing up,” the self-described democratic socialist said. “We’re going all the way to California. But if she is the nominee, I would hope that she puts together the strongest progressive agenda that says, ‘Yes, we’re going to stand with the working families in this country. We are prepared to take on the fossil fuel industry and the drug companies Wall Street and the billionaire class.’ And if she has a candidate for vice president who is prepared to carry that mantle, prepared to engage in that fight, I think that would be a very good thing for her campaign.”
On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Sanders focused on the present.
“We are in this race. We are not writing our obituary. We’re in this race to California,” he said, before letting a tense change slip. “And we’re proud of the campaign we ran.”
Posted by Owen at 1610 hours
Bernie Wins Wyoming
So he wins by 11 points and they each get 7 delegates? Socialism works!
(CNN)Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming Democratic caucuses Saturday, providing his campaign with one more jolt of momentum before the race against Hillary Clinton heads east.
The Vermont senator was favored going into the caucuses. Wyoming is similar to other places he’s won with big margins: rural, Western and overwhelmingly white. The victory is Sanders’ eighth win out of the last nine contests — including a contest that counted the votes of Democrats living abroad — and a big morale booster heading into the crucial New York primary on April 19.Sanders, speaking at a rally in Queens, New York, when the state’s results were projected, announced the victory to his supporters after his wife, Jane, joined him on stage to say they had won.“News bulletin: We just won Wyoming,” Sanders said as the room exploded into cheers.Sanders won 55.7% of the vote to Clinton’s 44.3%, giving each candidate seven delegates. That helps Clinton maintain her pledged delegate lead over Sanders, 1,304 to 1,075.
Posted by Owen at 1917 hours
Bernie Blows It
Anybody who took the time to listen to Bernie all these years already knew it, but apparently it’s a revelation that he’s bat s*** crazy.
Time and again, when pressed to get beyond his rhetoric on the evils of corporate America and Wall Street, Sanders struggled. Often mightily. (The Daily News published the full transcript of the interview today so you can check it out for yourself.)
A few examples make the point.
Here’s an exchange between the editorial board and Sanders on how, specifically, he would break up the biggest banks in the country:
Daily News: And then, you further said that you expect to break them up within the first year of your administration. What authority do you have to do that? And how would that work? How would you break up JPMorgan Chase?
Sanders: Well, by the way, the idea of breaking up these banks is not an original idea. It’s an idea that some conservatives have also agreed to.
You’ve got head of, I think it’s, the Kansas City Fed, some pretty conservative guys, who understands. Let’s talk about the merit of the issue, and then talk about how we get there. …
Daily News: Okay. Well, let’s assume that you’re correct on that point. How do you go about doing it?
Sanders: How you go about doing it is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail.
Daily News: But do you think that the Fed, now, has that authority?
Sanders: Well, I don’t know if the Fed has it. But I think the administration can have it.
Posted by Owen at 2009 hours
Clinton Defends Against Sanders
It looks like the Democratic debate might have actually been mildly amusing to watch last night.
After yet another Sanders swipe at Clinton as part of a political establishment bankrolled by Wall Street and drug companies, she unloaded.
“Time and time again, by innuendo, by insinuation, there is this attack that he is putting forth which really comes down to, you know, anybody who ever took donations or speaking fees from any interest group has to be bought. And I just absolutely reject that, senator, and I really don’t think these kinds of attacks by insinuation are worthy of you. And enough is enough,” Clinton said.
Then she challenged him: “If you’ve got something to say, say it directly, but you will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation I ever received.”
And finally, Clinton made it just a little bit more personal, saying: “I think it’s time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out in recent weeks.”
While I have little doubt that Clinton herself has not actually traded favors for money, what she says is true of most people. Usually when you see that a particular special interest or group of people financially support a candidate it is a reflection of supporting a fellow believer rather than an attempt to change a politician’s behavior. For example, the NRA supports Governor Walker because Walker has a long history of supporting gun rights and the NRA wants to see Walker continue to be in a position to support gun rights.
Posted by Owen at 0727 hours
Bernie the Socialist
In case you forgot, here is a very long article reminding us of Bernie’s 40 years as a rabid socialist.
“I think from one end of this country to the other, people are ripe for political revolution. Fifty percent of the people do not bother voting in the presidential and statewide elections,” Sanders said. “The vast majority of those not voting are low-income people who have given up on America. The whole quality of life in America is based on greed. I believe in the redistribution of wealth in this nation.”
Posted by Owen at 2114 hours
Bernie’s Briefs
I bet you Bill Clinton has a pair.
NECN (http://bit.ly/20el7Og ) reports that the underwear, which features the message “Feel the Bern,” is available for men and women and costs $15 plus shipping and handling. The three workers with KSE Partners, a strategic communications and government affairs firm, say they created Bernie’s Briefs as a fun side business.
Posted by Owen at 2004 hours
