Oh, Snap! Bernie drops a truthbomb!
A good rule of thumb is that a joke is more effective when it contains some truth, but not too much truth, because then it stops being funny.
Bernie Sanders can be forgiven, because he's not a professional comedian.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is taking heat for a joke he made during an interview with comedian Sarah Silverman.During an episode of her Hulu show, "I Love You, America," Silverman met with the 77-year-old Vermont independent she calls "the voice of the Millennial generation" in his Senate office in Washington.
...
Later, Sanders continued: "And we can't even use dirty words. This is the United States Senate. We just starve little children. We go bomb houses and buses of children. And we give tax breaks to billionaires, but we don't use dirty words."
Oh, sh*t! Actual, unfiltered truth.
Donchaknow that some people's heads will explode on hearing that.
A Fox News panel on "America's Newsroom" weighed in on what an anchor characterized as Sanders "slamming America."
"You know, he was kind of joking here but it shows also what he thinks," said Chris Bedford, editor in chief of conservative site The Daily Caller. Bedford inferred that Sanders' crack was a reference to an incident in Yemen last month in which a coalition led by American ally Saudi Arabia bombed a bus, killing about 40 children.
Here's a clue Chris Bedford and Fox News: The fact that you immediately knew what Bernie was talking about proves that it also happens to be 100% accurate.
Bedford said that situation in Yemen was "serious" and that the conflict there shows "how just and how careful the United States is when we conduct any kind of operations."
Oh, right. We're so careful. So very careful.
Washington Post reporter Philip Bump said while Sanders was clearly joking, he has become the "voice of the fast left" and cautioned that "those sorts of jokes are going to land a lot differently now than they would have three years ago simply by virtue of his heightened position.""Joking or not, it's these kinds of statements that I think are damaging to the Democratic Party and people point to and say, 'This is why we don't believe the Democrats are supportive of America," said Capri Cafaro, a former Democratic member of the Ohio Senate. "It's an easy soundbite to point to."
Concern trolling from corporate Dems. Anyone who feels that way, including Silverman, wasn't going to support Bernie anyway, because they are in denial of the truth of our foreign policy.
And speaking of corporate Dems, they've had a problem with Bernie Truth for a while.
Case in point: His recent Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act, also known as Stop BEZOS. The bill, which Sanders introduced with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) earlier this month, would require companies with more than 500 employees whose workers still need to access benefits like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to pay the government back, dollar for dollar.
...
More surprisingly, many mainstream and left-leaning Democrats — both establishment figures and media pundits alike — derided it too, accusing Sanders of denigrating the government social safety net and promoting a policy that would make corporations less likely to support such programs and employ people who needed access to them. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, quickly published a paper tearing the proposal apart.“That’s inside-the-Beltway push back, I would argue,” Sanders said. “My political gut tells me what we are proposing is wildly popular.”
Bernie's political gut, unlike so-called "mainstream and left-leaning Democrats", is 100% correct.
Do you know how I know? By asking employees of Amazon.
More Amazon workers have donated to Bernie Sanders than Barack Obama over the past 14 years — and it could provide a boost for the Democrat's war on the tech company.
Amazon actually responded to Bernie, while it continues to ignore Trump's attacks.
That's because only one of them is speaking the truth and wants to change things.
Comments
gjohnsit,
I've been meaning to thank you for the essays you've been writing lately, and this one is priceless!
Huh? What?
What? Make corporations less likely to support such programs and employ people who needed access to them? Make corporations less likely to employ people who needed access to them? What?
Translation required
Matt Taibbi helps
I love
Matt Taibbi when he's good. And he is really good in saying this.
What's the purpose of "the Beltway bullshit artists"?
Why are they even part of the equation? Recent history has shown how useless they are. I've been following Beto O'Rourke's campaign in Texas. He seems to understand the point of it all and it's not to reward the narcissistic depravity of a few billionaires.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Be careful of Beto
He is a member of the "New Democrat Coalition". He's an Obama wannabe...Just say "We don't need a wall" and support the legalization of pot and everyone is singing Kum ba ya.
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "
Don't see it
Beto is getting his money from small online donations just like Bernie did, just like everybody will in the future. Better yet, we'll have public financing of transparent, clean, factual information oriented elections, like I've heard Bernie support numerous times. Ted Cruz is the face of everything wrong with our current government and the billionaire serving bullshit peddlers that prop it up.
Beware the bullshit factories.
boriscleto's correct--see below,
From Wikipedia,
Beto O'Rourke
Political views
O'Rourke is a member of the New Democrat Coalition, which is described as moderate or centrist.[42] He is sometimes considered to be a progressive or liberal Democrat.[55][56]
Also, from Wikipedia,
New Democrat Coalition
The New Democrat Coalition was founded in 1997 by Representatives Cal Dooley (California), Jim Moran (Virginia) and Timothy J. Roemer (Indiana) as a congressional affiliate of the avowedly "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council, whose members, including former President Bill Clinton, call themselves "New Democrats." . . .
The New Democrat Coalition is a Congressional Member Organization within the United States Congress made up of Democrats who support an agenda that the organization describes as "moderate" and "pro-growth" and support a balanced budget. . . .
New Democrat Coalition members (House)
Texas
Joaquin Castro (TX-20)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Beto O'Rourke (TX-16)
O'Rourke's also a major player in privatizing VA healthcare services. This particularly rankles us, in that it affects an earned benefit (of Mr M's) if he were to 'want to' take advantage of his Category 8 eligibility. The El Paso VA system is one of the largest in the nation, and the so-called privatization 'test pilot' that he implemented could affect the entire system, nationwide.
Frankly, I'm not much into LOTE. But, as they say--to each his own.
Blue Onyx
"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."
~~W. R. Purche
“At the end of the day, people won't rememhttps://canineconnexion.wordpress.com/wp-login.phpber what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
~~Maya Angelou
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
lol ~~~
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
talk about broken epistemology.
the only way for Amazon to avoid employing people with access to Medicaid and SNAP is to either:
A. Avoid employing people altogether
OR
B. Pay the people Amazon employees enough that they do not qualify for Medicaid and SNAP.
the numbskull who wrote that seems to think that Amazon is nobly trolling the bottom of the economic barrel to find employees, whom it then lifts up out of their former misery -- but if forced to pay a living wage, Amazon will just employ ... well, I don't know. people with independent means? people who qualify for Medicare and Social Security checks? the reality is that Amazon is just employing regular folks, at poverty wages that leave those employees down at the bottom of the economic barrel.
this is always the difficulty with government subsidies -- they leave the market free to lower wages or raise prices (depending on the nature of the subsidy). there are two solutions:
A. The "naive" MMT approach, which is print the money, deliver the subsidized goods and services, and fuck the market.
or
B. The "sophisticated" MMT approach (i.e., Keynesianism with a good dose of Fiscal policy), which is tax the revenue from the employers, deliver the subsidized goods and services, and fuck the market.
For reasons having to do with intellectual honesty, human nature, and the properties of dynamical systems in equilibrium and/or "steady state", I much prefer B, but ONLY A or B will ever ensure that everybody in a modern society will have access to the basic needs for modern existence: Food, Shelter, Transportation, Education and Healthcare.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
"...everybody in a modern society will have access,
, to the basic needs for modern existence: Food, Shelter, Transportation, Education and Healthcare."
Don't forget toilet paper. Like I did. Please.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
and excellent tunes
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Dude!
I left out the tunes in my post, but they were indeed an integral part of an epic trip through the Sierras, way back in 1979. Our mantra became "Food, Clothing, Shelter, Music, and Toilet Paper (not necessarily in that order)."
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
party on garth
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
ok, i overstated it.
there are other schemes that are workable -- such as requiring employers to pay directly into non-governmental healthcare systems, and to either train their employees or pay to have their employees trained, etc.
you'll note that both of the examples i gave there involve requiring employers to spend money -- the alternative to taxing them and spending the money for them.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
No you didn't overstate it.
This isn't an improvement. It is absolutely essential that the idea of repairing the human body and maintaining it is totally severed from the concept of one's work or career.
It is this degrading cross-linking that stands in the way of Americans receiving even the most basic human rights declared to be universal. Let's stop it.
I thought your A or B construct was just the right starting point. The only thing I'd add to it is that it is mandatory for all citizens to receive it and use it, no matter how wealthy they are. That money (those resources) must flood right back into the economy without delay. The faster it cycles continuously, the healthier the economy.
Instead of paying taxes on what people earn, what if people had to pay taxes on what they didn't spend at the end of their fiscal year? Along with nationalized banks and abolishing the poison pill of interest (replacing it with profit/equity sharing) that would be a versatile economy that would work well with UBI. We are at a place now where we must create utopias, or die.
Thank you
for saying this so well. The numbskull, as you say, really doesn't get it that if employees are going to stay alive and pay outrageous rent for shelter and outrageous prices for utilities and outrageous prices for gas for their cars, someone has to provide it. I guess that someone should be the taxpayer so the employer can make more profit, and the landlord, and the privatized utility investor, and the investor in everything else essential, can make a killing. We're happy, as taxpayers, to help in any way we can.
Of course, we could go all Mitt Romney:
Just
reading Romney's remarks again, and to add that he was speaking to a group of donors to his presidential campaign, I have to ask, don't you just love this part?
Aww. Saving for potentially staying alive so they could someday potentially get married, if of course they somehow managed to stay alive. Aww. So sweet.
what an insight!
if it's a choice between starving and eating, people will choose to eat, no matter what else you insist that they sacrifice! they'll hammer your door down begging you to let them work for a crust of bread!
if Romney had read Adam Smith, he wouldn't have been the least bit surprised, since Smith understood that this is exactly what would happen in a free market society -- a de facto serfdom largely indistinguishable from the formal serfdom of feudalism.
bah. for most people, it takes an actual effort to achieve the obtuseness expressed in that Amazon apologist's blather.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd You might want to
You might want to educate yourself on what MMT is proposing rather than spout off. The luminaries, like Kelton, Tcherneva, Winningham, Kaboub etc., etc, want a Federal Job Guarantee. And they have the data and information to back it up and answer your objections. As for the market, the gov't controls the market despite all of the rhetoric to the contrary. Full stop.
every fucking time i call out MMT
i'm accused of being ignorant, and it pisses me right the fuck off.
i am not ignorant.
i know exactly what MMT proposes -- or at least, what some MMTrs propose, since it's not exactly The One True Church, with fixed catechisms, creeds and dogmas. hell, i also know that different adherents disagree on what the letters MMT fricking stand for, and whether the "Modern" modifies the second word or the third.
the issue is not about what the serious adherents seriously think ought to be done. the two issues are that:
A. evangelists for MMT invariably oversimplify and overstate the theoretical foundation of their plan, primarily via two slogans, one of which implies that we can have the government fund an unlimited amount of public goods (because after all, the government just creates the money out of thin air), and the other of which elides the reality of how accounting works in our society.
B. MMTrs keep talking like they've got a new idea, when there is nothing -- not one thing -- about MMT's policy prescription that is novel or clever or surprising. At least, none of the true bits. No, no, I stand by the unqualified statement: not one thing. Even the false bits have been done before.
Of the two problems, A is the most acute, because everyone who hears the two MMT slogans understands (or, if they lack the requisite education, intuits) that the speaker is either a lunatic or a liar -- and that's not a very good way to get your philosophy off the ground.
So, no, I'm not ignorant, I understand the MMT prescription, and I don't give a fuck until they start presenting their case to the public in a way that doesn't pretend that something can be had for nothing -- because nothing can be had for nothing.
And just a heads up -- this was a much more polite response than people usually get when they attempt a rebuttal to something I've said with smug assertions that they either know something I don't, or are smarter than me. You don't, and you're not, and you're welcome to put that inconvenient truth in your MMT pipe and smoke it till you see heffalumps and woozels.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd It's obvious you
It's obvious you don't fully understand MMT from your comment. The FJG is a policy proposal. MMT is fact, it just is, it is the system we have. It can be utilized many ways, obviously badly, as in the US, UK, AU, lately. Depends on what the money is spent on. It does not however change, monetary systems' reality.
and there ya go.
As soon as one engages by pointing out shortcomings in the approach, one is brought up short with inane pedantry, typically founded on the particularist jargon of the cult -- which is exactly how I came to be educated, incidentally, on the differing definitions of MMT itself.
What the fuck do you even think you mean when you say that MMT is "The system we have"? What system? We who? This is fucking nonsense. Every debate one ever has with an MMT proponent devolves into a ludicrous series of bait and switch episodes where the one thing one never gets is straight talk about the essential problems. If you mean to say that MMT is the actual financial system we have, then you're abusing the language and by extension your audience, because the word that "T" stands for labels, not a thing itself, but the analytical model with which investigators study, probe, describe, and contemplate a thing. "Evolutionary Theory" isn't "the system we have", evolution is the system we have. There is, it's worth noting, a curious linguistic phenomenon in English where one word describes both the study of something and the thing being studied, for example, "Biology", which is both the science of living things and the actuality of life and living things. One technique speakers will use to disambiguate the two is to make the word an adjective: Biological Science. One can similarly talk of Biological Theory -- which would be, taken in aggregate, all of the well-accepted models and systems that are applied by the practitioners of Biological Science.
One thing that nobody would ever do is confuse, linguistically, Biological Theory with the actuality of life and living things. If you and your fellows have taken to linguistically confusing MMT with the systems, abstract or concrete, by which money is made manifest in our societies, then I suggest, not for the first time, that you think harder about the language you're using.
"MMT is just fact" -- by which you mean to say "The system of finance that is money is a fact, and MMT is the best, most accurate current description we have of it": Just as Evolution is fact, and Evolutionary Theory is the best, most accurate current description we have of it. And if that is all that MMT is, then people like you ought to stop talking about it as if it's something else -- in fact, you should stop talking about it altogether, since it becomes so broad as to be useless in policy debate, since it sets nothing apart from anything. For that matter, you ought to stop promoting your policy prescriptions (which you've derived from your understanding of MMT) on the backs of two slogans that are not factual.
In the meantime, the rest of us will continue to use the abbreviation as a shorthand to label a particular cult of economics and its adherents -- recognizable by their invocation of those magical three letters as if revealing the knowledge of God.
You're welcome. Now please sit down and stop distracting the class with self-serving comments and questions whose purpose is not to elicit, or even elucidate, but merely to demonstrate your own superiority. Nobody likes that guy..
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Bernie-Tulsi 2020
It's a killer combo.
Bernie completes the term, hands baton to Tulsi in 2024, retires to Vermont.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I say,
Yes! to this combo. I'm prepared to hear from Big Al and others about each of them, such that I should not vote for either of them. And they are right. And I have sworn off of each of them for various reasons. But I would vote for the combo. Why? Because what they have in common is the best part of both of them, which I perceive to be social democracy and anti-war conservatism. I say, yes. I would vote for the two of them.
But Big Al is right about each of them.
And
I would vote for Rand Paul for similar reasons.
What??? OMG, good that I can't vote in the US. /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
I think
Rand Paul is strongly anti-war. At this point, with a government flirting with ending all life on earth, I would vote for an anti-war conservative. But I respect your objections to him.
Just forget my comment, all the issues are foreign to me
and are clearly not my field of knowledge. I just revealed my gut's dislikes for certain people I don't like or trust and find irritating.
I am just human. With daemons and angels inside me.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Do you know how many neoliberals would end up in therapy?
I could take a daily bath in neoliberal tears. But then I'd need a shower to wash the donor cooties off.
Worth it though. I could adopt a slight smug superiority on DailyKos, ending each comment with a chuckle, regardless of topic.
Well then name names and then look at the hands
of a worker at Amazon's distribution centers, working at the packaging belts in NJ and still tell me if you would vote for the slimey wordsmiths like Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham and others I don't know.
I actually looked up locations of Amazon's facilities near Hamburg Germany and will apply there for a job. Sure they wouldn't accept me in my age, but it itches in my fingers to turn my bitching over Bezos into reality-based factual reporting from the ground.
Wow, Big Al. Bitch for me please. Folks are trying to outsmart me.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Go Mimi
Beware the bullshit factories.
You say:
"Amazon actually responded to Bernie, while it continues to ignore Trump's attacks. That's because only one of them is speaking the truth and wants to change things."
But the article you linked to has different explanations for Amazon's actions, including this:
"Engaging in a public feud with Sanders doesn't have the same potential impact, because the senator lacks the executive power to make sweeping changes that could hurt the company.
"They can respond to him without worrying about share price," said Pallavi Kumar, a communications professor at American University. "But if they engage with Trump even one time, they will escalate into a Twitter war with no end in sight.""
The article you linked to also notes that: "The heart of Sanders' claim is that Amazon doesn't pay its lower-level employees a fair wage, while Bezos is the richest person in the world.
It's an issue that all Americans can understand, particularly as the wealth gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. Trump's criticisms, by contrast, are more obscure and often don't make much sense, like when he said that Amazon was causing the post office to lose money or claimed that the Washington Post is protecting Amazon's ability to pay little in taxes."
So, the article you cite doesn't seem to support your assertion and provides some plausible reasons for the difference in Amazon's reactions.
dfarrah
The Truth hurts
The Donor Class doesn't want the peasants to get any uppity ideas, though. If only the proles could stop obsessing over the Kardashians long enough to take their country back. Just one party would do it. We have seen, as Joan Baez sang, "Little victories, and big defeats." But all hands on deck for the midterms; not voting means siding with the current fascism.
The deplorables will certainly vote. Cruelty to children, rapists on the Supreme Court . . . all part of their god Azathoth's plan.
@SancheLlewellyn
Deplorables? Really, Hillary?
Cruelty to children? You mean like sending them back to probable death in the Central American hell we created, "to make a point"? Or like Haiti?
Rapists on the supreme court? Killery defended our rapist president -- and attacked his victims. She also kept someone on her staff well after she knew of his behavior toward other female staffers.
Omfg, I'm going to be sick. Beam me up,
ScottyBig Al.Like Obama's statement about clinging to guns and religion,
which is also the God's honest truth, the only question about Hillary's "deplorables" statement is whether the proportion is really as low as 50%. Given how the Republicans in Congress vote in lockstep with Donald Jesus Trump 99.9% of the time, that argues for a higher number. The people in Puerto Rico know this first hand, and they have the paper towels to prove it.
Speaking of rapist presidents, do you mean this one?
Eww, condescending democrat stench!
Thanks for reminding me of the typical commentator at dkos, and what a shit hole it is. Typical holier-than-thou attitude without any substantial rebuttal, just more poo flinging and Blue Team worship regardless of actual actions, policies supported or even illegal, unethical and possible outright treasonous past behavior. Even pulled the Obama God card. Gross.
Have a nice day, and another blue pill with your koolaid.
I am not a Democrat
But I did vote for Hillary because "Not Insane" is always a viable option. Wanted Bernie, didn't get him, but now we find ourselves securely in the pits of Hell.
You do realize that everyone who "drank the Koolaid" died, right? People throw that around so flippantly when they encounter someone who doesn't agree with them 100% on every issue. Kind of like the DailyKos "purity tests."
Great Essay gjohnsit
This is why I can’t stay mad at Bernie.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Oops
On my phone in the car with cell only. Sorry
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Oops twice
This one isn’t saving. I’m going to hit it again. If this multiple posts too, I’m just going to pretend it didn’t.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
F**k Ted Cruz
Go Beto
Beware the bullshit factories.