Reaction to an unexpected opportunity
Oh, we got trouble. We’ve got The Donald flirting with his dark side and scaring Americans to death over Muslims. And by the way, did Ted Cruz really say that only Christian refugees from the middle east should be let into the country? How is he going to know whether they’re really Christian? Do they have to bring baptismal certificates with them? Yeah, I can see that being the first thing to grab when you’re leaving your house in a war zone. “Honey, where did we put those baptism pictures from last year’s evangelical revival tent show in Homs?”
Wait! What about agnostics or atheists? Are they allowed into the country as long as they’re not Muslim? You gotta ask these questions because from what I can recall, nobody is hated more than an atheist. Or how about panentheists? What kind of religious test are we going for here? What if you just don’t believe the Bible is an inspired godly text that needs to be followed, um, religiously?
I only ask.
But let’s get real. This debate is going to be about whether Hillary and Bernie can talk the nation off a ledge or whether they’re going to snap at each other over some stupid data model that presumes that we can all be broken down into our socio economic group and grocery store buying habits?
Bring it on.
Live blog the atrocities here.
Note that the debate is on ABC tonight. ABC isn’t streaming in Pittsburgh and I’m not dragging my butt down to my chilly basement family room to watch it on the big screen. But you can stream the audio on TuneIn radio. Go to the WSB station.
Filed under: General | Tagged: Bernie Sanders, datagate, debate, Democratic, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, religious test, Ted Cruz |
The Confluence 
I hate this. I really can’t stand this. Thank you for the laugh though. Unprecedented OMG.
IKR? I nearly peed over that one. Too funny.
Poor Martin O’Malley. He must have been stoned during 2008
OMG, the idiotic color play is going on about Big Data. Personally? I think Big Data is very important when it comes to finding an active compound in a 4 million compound database.
But voters can turn on a dime.
If the economy hadn’t collapsed in September 2008, all the big data mining in the world wouldn’t have helped.
The color play? Is that the word for the sportscasters? I have to find my inhaler. They’ve already triggered an asthema attack and this nightmare hasn’t even started
Quick! grab the albuterol!
What is she wearing?
Brown beige.
She is drawing a line in the sand between Dems and Repubs.
Ok, nice, short, sweet, concise.
On to O’Malley.
O’Malley is going to try to capture the security vote.
O’malley is trying to appeal to the common values thing
Bernie, the anti establishment candidate.
He’s got a point but if he starts going into percentages, he’s going to lose people.
He’s anti Citizens United.
Anti fossil fuel
Wants to destroy ISIS without getting hands dirty. Hmmmm, not sure this is possible.
Destroying ISIS without getting our hands dirty would be possible, if our masters in Saudi Arabia and in The Neocons’ Actual Country would let us do it.
Simply get out, and let Vlad The Magnificent Bastard do it. 😈
Oh, here we go. The poo flinging begins.
Well, he’s got a point. The Vendor needs to be investigated. The breaches could very well go both ways.
Sorry, sorry, sorry
I hope that’s the end of that
Sorry, not Sorry
Hillary, don’t spend so much time on data models. Srsly.
Ok, the Democrats are uniting behind moving on past this story.
Oh, Kumbaya. Let’s all talk about something else.
No, even better, let’s talk about the manufactured story that is distracting us from the issues
Grin
Am I the only one who cringes every time someone calls America the homeland?
No.
So Germanic.
Totally!
Hmmm, she is skirting the gun control issue
She’s calling out Trump. Radicalization point well taken.
Martin seems to be crashing the debate
Bernie is going to smack Martin.
Kumbaya moment over
So, Hillary wants to get serious about gun control
But it sounded to me like she wants apple to hand over their encryption keys, which is no bueno
Oh! Go, Hillary Go!
Oo! Oo! Maybe we could make law enforcement go to court for a one time decryption key! Yeah, what did they used to call those things? Warrants!
Oj, la-la-la! the 4th amendment, so quaint!
It’s not like the 2nd amendment, which has the status of a sacrament
Oh, fuck a duck, she just knows more than the other two.
Why is this even a contest?
Because…. Money.
??
I think she seems removed from the money issues — including health care — this time around. And a lot of people are sweating that.
I wish she had stayed out of the Obama administration.
Me too.
Me three. I like her on domestic issues, but foreign policy… 😦
Can we just elect her now?
See, this is what I heard in Chicago when Hillary was running in 2007. And Obama and John Edwards did not match her level. This is what was so frustrating about 2008. I am absolutely gobsmacked that we elected the type of guy who the left keeps insisting it loathes and passed on the type of politician that everyone seems to want.
Jeez, she’s having a real conversation with the moderator.
Her sentences are complete, they have subjects and predicates, they have fully formed thoughts based on informed analysis.
I’m just not thrilled with her this time around. I know she is brilliant and has experience.
But I really believe she has to acknowledge why people who have problems with Obama’s foreign policy have serious problems with her role in it.
I don’t know what I want her to say. But unlike 2008, she’s not saying it this time around.
I don’t think she had as much influence over Obama’s foreign policy as you think. He micromanaged and appointed people that would report directly to him.
Plus, he was determined to pull out of Iraq. People who cover the region said that was as big a mistake as going in the first time.
And she can’t say that because she wants to claim the experience. She really has to face it though. Someho.
There is a difference between having experience and knowledge and analytical skills, and having the authority to use them.
This mess in Iraq is Obama’s.
Speaking politically, I think she has to make that clear.
Not that I actually care. … I still believe this is a rigged game. Both the primaries (votes, I laugh) and the general election.
Look at Jeb! Why is he haning in? He knows through personal experience how to still an election when it counts.
The mess in Iraq is the neoconservatives’ mess. The Chimperor, Darth Cheney, and the “geniuses” they listened to.
But I’m not so enthused about how those of us who got shafted by prolonged unemployment are supposed to just get on with it now without any policies to address our problems.
Yes, she really has to remove herself from that. All of them do…. Things are not peaches and cream here
Bernie just says what Hillary said.
Hillary says Bernie just said what she said.
She has learned since 2008.
Good point. There was a sweet spot in Libya. We missed it in Syria.
Yes, the problem is complex. It requires a complex answer.
Fuckity, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!
She’s hammering them
Bernie is floundering. This is not his territory
Did O’Malley just get booed??
Maybe. It sounded like he was booed when he walked out too.
Bernie sounds fine to me.
It’s hard to have a conversation. The server is slow to update so I see your stuff in bursts.
Pay equity sounds great, bernie, how are you going to do it?
I know how *I* would do it. But what are you going to do specifically?
The problem with the ACA is there are no price controls
Period
Say it Hillary
Health insurance, blah blah blah. She is blowing this.
She’s skirting the issue with prices. You can’t have two different hospitals charging vastly different amounts for the same procedures.
We are still paying a fourth of our income on healthcare. It is insane. And Medicaid expansion wouldn’t have hepked my situation.
I know, right?
It is insane
She know these numbers. Or she did in 2008.
I am too bitter Bout 2009. I just can’t get over it.
The last debate, I felt I was watching Silly Rabbit, Angry Rabbit, and the Presidential one (even if she is working against stereotype as a woman). Am watching the reruns on You Tube. My opinion of the three hasn’t changed. Does O’Malley have much support? He doesn’t come across as all that bright.
Nah, this is Hill vs. Bern. I expect O’M will drop out fairly soon, and I expect Hill to win the nomination.
Unfortunately, no matter who wins the general election, we’ll get more of our blood and treasure spilled overseas to facilitate the 0.1%’s satanic ambition to own everything–and everyONE–on the Planet Earth. Only Russia and China, no saints themselves, stand in the way of those foul worshippers of Mammon.
I don’t like the Russian or Chinese regimes, either, mind you.
It’s as if the Federation were taken over by the Orion Pirates, and only the Klingons and Romulans can save the galaxy now. 😦
May the force be with her.
I had thought many the H Clinton 2008 voters, had the same position as mine on the issue of 0bama lying & killing the Medicare For All Public Option in 2010. I was disgusted with 0bama Reagan Jr for this betrayal of the USian people. Harvard Public Health Profs’ estimate that pre-ACA situation killed ~60K USians/yr with respect to Canada-style MedicareForAll, while post-ACA will reduce the murders to “only” ~30K/yr by 2022. As such 0bama & the Rs blocking MedicareForAll kills many more USians that either the trivial numbers killed by Terist Boogeymen Du Jour TM, or even the significant yet less important that MedicareForAll problems of ~11K non-suicide gun violence or ~1K police violence on innocent USian deaths.
Is this true? If so, why are you OK with Hillary 2016 being anti both MedicareForAll, and even the weaker yet useful Public Option? Afaict, Hillary supports the ACA status quo, with nebulous non-specific promises to “improve it”.
Sanders (as well as the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein btw) is a strong consistent supporter of MedicareForAll, & has been for decades.
I just don’t understand the mindset of how it was correctly bad for 0bama to kill MedicareForAll & Public Option in 2010, but it is OK for Hillary to perpetuate this same policy in 2015. Are Hillary voters voting primarily for non-policy reasons?
—
PS: I read another stat that 100K-400K USians die due to preventable medical errors, some of which are as simple and stupid as an incompetent physician or nurse being too lazy to hand-wash in a situation where hand-washing is medically appropriate. This seems to be an ignored issue, even by the few smart, earnest, good politicians & media sources.
I am curious if the US preventable medical errors is similar to the rate of civilized nations like Canada, or if it like gun violence where the US rate is an atrocious outlier with a 10-100X+ rate than that of civilized nations?
PS2: I’d summarize the general broad problem that the US public policy bears no relation whatsoever to actual mortality risk probabilities.
fw: Kyle Kulinksi on the Sat Dec19 Debate, contrast on H Clinton v Sanders on MedicareForAll, Free Public Univ Tuition, & Regime Change Wars like Syria https://youtu.be/bAZUqr59yAE