Joe Lii is a right-wing blogger who is really out there.
Why am I plugging his blog?
It's a long story but let me start from the beginning.
I first came across this character during the election campaign of 2008.
A friend of mine had engaged some of his friends and coworkers in a group email discussion about the victory of then Senator Obama. The group included people of varying political opinions -- left, right and center -- and in the case of this Joe Lii character, way, way far to the right. He stunned everyone with this incredible rant, which I saved because it was so priceless:
As they have conspired to plot, plan and execute the election of Barack Hussein Obama, the liberal media has succeeded in hiding the truth about the madrassa raised, terrorist sympathizing, America hating, infanticide legislating, socialist muslim.
Despite the heroic efforts of patriotic Americans like John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Sean Hannity, the American public was not allowed to learn the truth about this traitor.
He called our troops murderers!
How long before he nationalizes industry and turns over the profits to the millions of Mexican immigrants who will now be streaming across the border to collect their monthly welfare checks?
After he grabs the guns away from all white males, who will be left to stop his genocidal "cleansing" of those white males?
All this so he can force white females into sex slavery and then auction them off in return for political favors.
He will offer Kim Jong Il his pick of the finest white females in exchange for a promise that he won't use the nuclear weapons that we will now help him build.
Change your hair color ladies, the blonds go first!
Some people were appalled. Others didn't know whether to take him seriously. But the conservatives among the group loved him. I found him to be hysterical (in more ways than one). Why do I plug his blog?
Well, since that time, Joe and I have engaged in a "cordial" (at least on my part) conversation on political matters in which we agree to disagree. I think it's important to understand how people think, especially people who don't think like me.
If you read his blog, I think you might understand why so many conservatives find Trump so appealing. Here's a slice from his latest blog post, which he titled Who's The Real Alpha Male:
The other candidates, while infinitely superior to anything the Democrat party had to offer, were mere wimps next to alpha males Cruz and Trump...
At a rally in Sparks, NV, Trump described Sen. Cruz as a “soft, weak little baby.”...
Up until this point, I was convinced that Cruz’s credentials as a tough, macho, he-man were unquestionable. After all, he stood up to Obama and insulted him practically every time he opened his mouth. He threatened to shut down the government, like, how many times? Then there was Cruz’s “Machine-Gun Bacon” campaign video where he wrapped some bacon around the barrel of his AR-15 rifle and fired off a bunch of rounds until the bacon was cooked!...
But, all of a sudden, after Trump’s remarks, I began to see Ted Cruz in a completely different light. His soft, pear shaped body and womanly hips. That weak chin and jaw line. The pinched nasal tone of his annoyingly whiny voice. The guy is like the Pillsbury doughboy!
To read more click here:
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Monday, February 29, 2016
Monday, February 15, 2016
Chris Wallace Asks Sanders A Tough Question
In my post of 2/9/2016, I expressed a concern I had about Bernie's ability to defend the leftist/socialist views he espouses. I was concerned that he might not be able to handle the tough questions, both fair and unfair, that were sure to come his way.
These worries were based on my observation that whenever I hear him talk about these things, for the most part, he doesn't address the attacks that right-wingers use against those ideas. Plus, he tends to say things that the right would pounce on and use against him.
This, to me, was a sign that Bernie isn't really familiar with these "arguments" and has never really engaged in the kind of tough, rigorous debates that would have prepared him for the kind of question Chris Wallace asked him the other day on Fox News Sunday.
Wallace brought up a favorite FoxNews line of argument -- which they've been using for years to convince their audience that it's the wealthy who pay all of the taxes. From crooksandliars.com:
WALLACE: Senator, one of the central points in your campaign, you say it over and over again, is that the American economic system is, in your words, rigged. But I want to go over some numbers with you. In 1981, the top 1 percent paid 17 percent of all income taxes. Now the top 1 percent pays 37 percent. Question, sir, if the wealthy have rigged the system, why have they done such a lousy job of it?
Unfortunately, Bernie's response doesn't directly answer the question: "in recent years [there's been] a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top 0.1 percent, whose percentage of wealth in America has doubled. We're talking about trillions of dollars going from the middle class to the top 0.1 percent."
This response may work with libs and Dems but in the eyes of the Republiconservalibertarians, Wallace just exposed Bernie for the clueless dope and promoter of class warfare that they always "knew" he was.
The "huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top 0.1 percent" line is sure to enrage the right-wing talkers. As far as they're concerned, the wealthy are doing all of the heavy lifting and paying all of the taxes. They've earned their wealth with their hard work and good ideas. The rest of us are just ungrateful beneficiaries of their benevolence.
Bernie's "transfer of wealth" line will give them the ammunition that they will use to attack Bernie for his socialism.
I can hear it now, "Bernie wants to take from the producers and give to the moochers! He wants to soak the rich! Class warfare! Makers and takers! Politics of envy! Socialist swine!"
Here's what I wish Bernie would have said:
"Yes, Chris, what you've just said is one of the central points in Fox News' campaign to cut taxes for the wealthy and cut programs for the non-wealthy. Those numbers that you chose to go over with me are very misleading for the following reasons. You said, and Fox News has been saying this over and over again, that the top 1% pay 37% of all income taxes. But that number is for federal income taxes and you said all income taxes. Many people who don't pay federal income taxes still pay state and local income taxes, which are much more regressive.
And as Josh Barro of Business Insider points out, the federal personal income tax only makes up 28% of all U.S. government tax collections. Federal, state and local governments collected $4 trillion in taxes last year; just $1.1 trillion of that was federal personal income tax. And people whose incomes are not high enough to pay federal personal income tax, do pay lots of those other taxes: payroll tax, state income tax, sales tax, property tax, excise taxes, and more. They also pay other taxes indirectly: workers bear the burden of employer-paid payroll taxes and part of the burden of corporate income taxes.
But I've heard Sean Hannity say over and over again, that 50% of Americans pay no taxes whatsoever.
Question, sir, why do you
guys at Fox keep saying things like that?
That's neither fair nor balanced.
Another point. You said; in 1981, the top 1 percent paid 17 percent of all income taxes. Now the top 1 percent pays 37 percent. Those numbers, by themselves, make it look like we are taxing the 1% more than ever. But in actuality, their tax rate has been reduced dramatically.
Let me point out that in 1981 the top marginal tax rate was 50%. In 2013, the year you referred to, the top marginal rate was only 35%. So, even though the tax rate is much lower now for the 1%, why do they pay a higher percentage of the federal income tax? The main reason for that, by far, is that the percentage of wealth in the top 1% has grown exponentially, while wages for the rest of America have been stagnant. Are the top 1% exponentially smarter or harder working than they were in 1981? Of course not. Are the poor and middle class less hard working? No. It's because the economy offers more opportunities for a few to make obscene amounts of money -- in many cases without creating jobs or doing anything good for society -- while offering less opportunity for the poor and middle class to find good jobs. Yet that wealth, which concentrates at the top, is created, in very large part, by the hard work of the poor and middle class. Without that work, that wealth would not be possible. This is why it is fair to redistribute some of that wealth.
Don't you think that would have given the Fox audience something to think about?
Instead of putting the right-wing talkers on the offense (Bernie wants to take from the producers and give to the moochers! He wants to soak the rich! Class warfare! Makers and takers! Politics of envy! Socialist swine!) it would have put them on the defense and forced them to address these other facts.
The time for Bernie to laugh would have been after Wallace's next question:
WALLACE: But, sir, isn't a lot of that because of the economic policies of President Obama and of the Federal Reserve, which put interest rates at basically zero?
Bernie: Do you mean President Obama, the Marxist?
Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ah, ho, ho, ho, he, he, ha, ha...
No Chris, Ha, ha, ha,ha... it's just the nature of free market capitalism, ha, ha, ha, ho, ho, he, he...
Because this is not PBS, Wallace runs out of time and goes to commercial.
From Ezra Klein at Washington Post.
When all taxes paid are included. Click on image to enlarge:
These worries were based on my observation that whenever I hear him talk about these things, for the most part, he doesn't address the attacks that right-wingers use against those ideas. Plus, he tends to say things that the right would pounce on and use against him.
This, to me, was a sign that Bernie isn't really familiar with these "arguments" and has never really engaged in the kind of tough, rigorous debates that would have prepared him for the kind of question Chris Wallace asked him the other day on Fox News Sunday.
Wallace brought up a favorite FoxNews line of argument -- which they've been using for years to convince their audience that it's the wealthy who pay all of the taxes. From crooksandliars.com:
WALLACE: Senator, one of the central points in your campaign, you say it over and over again, is that the American economic system is, in your words, rigged. But I want to go over some numbers with you. In 1981, the top 1 percent paid 17 percent of all income taxes. Now the top 1 percent pays 37 percent. Question, sir, if the wealthy have rigged the system, why have they done such a lousy job of it?
Unfortunately, Bernie's response doesn't directly answer the question: "in recent years [there's been] a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top 0.1 percent, whose percentage of wealth in America has doubled. We're talking about trillions of dollars going from the middle class to the top 0.1 percent."
This response may work with libs and Dems but in the eyes of the Republiconservalibertarians, Wallace just exposed Bernie for the clueless dope and promoter of class warfare that they always "knew" he was.
The "huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top 0.1 percent" line is sure to enrage the right-wing talkers. As far as they're concerned, the wealthy are doing all of the heavy lifting and paying all of the taxes. They've earned their wealth with their hard work and good ideas. The rest of us are just ungrateful beneficiaries of their benevolence.
Bernie's "transfer of wealth" line will give them the ammunition that they will use to attack Bernie for his socialism.
I can hear it now, "Bernie wants to take from the producers and give to the moochers! He wants to soak the rich! Class warfare! Makers and takers! Politics of envy! Socialist swine!"
Here's what I wish Bernie would have said:
"Yes, Chris, what you've just said is one of the central points in Fox News' campaign to cut taxes for the wealthy and cut programs for the non-wealthy. Those numbers that you chose to go over with me are very misleading for the following reasons. You said, and Fox News has been saying this over and over again, that the top 1% pay 37% of all income taxes. But that number is for federal income taxes and you said all income taxes. Many people who don't pay federal income taxes still pay state and local income taxes, which are much more regressive.
And as Josh Barro of Business Insider points out, the federal personal income tax only makes up 28% of all U.S. government tax collections. Federal, state and local governments collected $4 trillion in taxes last year; just $1.1 trillion of that was federal personal income tax. And people whose incomes are not high enough to pay federal personal income tax, do pay lots of those other taxes: payroll tax, state income tax, sales tax, property tax, excise taxes, and more. They also pay other taxes indirectly: workers bear the burden of employer-paid payroll taxes and part of the burden of corporate income taxes.
But I've heard Sean Hannity say over and over again, that 50% of Americans pay no taxes whatsoever.
Question, sir, why do you
guys at Fox keep saying things like that?
That's neither fair nor balanced.
Another point. You said; in 1981, the top 1 percent paid 17 percent of all income taxes. Now the top 1 percent pays 37 percent. Those numbers, by themselves, make it look like we are taxing the 1% more than ever. But in actuality, their tax rate has been reduced dramatically.
Let me point out that in 1981 the top marginal tax rate was 50%. In 2013, the year you referred to, the top marginal rate was only 35%. So, even though the tax rate is much lower now for the 1%, why do they pay a higher percentage of the federal income tax? The main reason for that, by far, is that the percentage of wealth in the top 1% has grown exponentially, while wages for the rest of America have been stagnant. Are the top 1% exponentially smarter or harder working than they were in 1981? Of course not. Are the poor and middle class less hard working? No. It's because the economy offers more opportunities for a few to make obscene amounts of money -- in many cases without creating jobs or doing anything good for society -- while offering less opportunity for the poor and middle class to find good jobs. Yet that wealth, which concentrates at the top, is created, in very large part, by the hard work of the poor and middle class. Without that work, that wealth would not be possible. This is why it is fair to redistribute some of that wealth.
Don't you think that would have given the Fox audience something to think about?
Instead of putting the right-wing talkers on the offense (Bernie wants to take from the producers and give to the moochers! He wants to soak the rich! Class warfare! Makers and takers! Politics of envy! Socialist swine!) it would have put them on the defense and forced them to address these other facts.
The time for Bernie to laugh would have been after Wallace's next question:
WALLACE: But, sir, isn't a lot of that because of the economic policies of President Obama and of the Federal Reserve, which put interest rates at basically zero?
Bernie: Do you mean President Obama, the Marxist?
Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ah, ho, ho, ho, he, he, ha, ha...
No Chris, Ha, ha, ha,ha... it's just the nature of free market capitalism, ha, ha, ha, ho, ho, he, he...
Because this is not PBS, Wallace runs out of time and goes to commercial.
From Ezra Klein at Washington Post.
When all taxes paid are included. Click on image to enlarge:
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Do I Owe Hillary An Apology?
After posting my last article, from 2/9/16, I realized a bad error I made, which was based on some wrong assumptions on my part.
Based on these assumptions, I accused Hillary Clinton of backing up a dump truck in order to drop a load of horseshit on Bernie's healthcare plan.
I singled out a particular word from her statement that: "A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year."
I claimed that the word "more" proved her deceitfulness.
Furthermore, I used this claim as justification for my description of her as a #%$#&%$##ing piece of $%&#!
Upon further investigation, I discovered that Ms Clinton was apparently, correct. As a matter of fact, she may have understated it.
Professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Jerry Friedman, who was responding to a hit piece on Sanders by the Wall Street Journal, put the additional federal spending for health care under HR 676 (a single-payer health plan) at $15 trillion over ten years. (that's 1.5 trillion more per year)
Do I think I should apologize to Ms Clinton?
In the immortal word of the late Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens:
So how do I justify my refusal to apologize?
By the fact that, while her offense is not one of commission (a lie), it is a deceit by omission.
This is the same charge Friedman leveled at the conservative WSJ:
“The Journal correctly puts the additional federal spending for health care under HR 676 (a single-payer health plan) at $15 trillion over ten years. It neglects to add, however, that by spending these vast sums, we would, as a country, save nearly $5 trillion over ten years in reduced administrative waste, lower pharmaceutical and device prices, and by lowering the rate of medical inflation.”
Bern and Hill had another debate last night where they went back and forth again about whether Bernie's plan would save the middle class money or, as Hillary actually claimed, cause many people to be worse off than they are now.
Bernie said that someone at the median income level would pay $500 more per year in taxes but save $5,000 in total costs.
Hillary claimed that "every progressive economist who has analyzed that says that the numbers don't add up."
I think I smell something and it reminds me of the time I was in a stable. I'll see what the fact checkers have to say about that later.
This does not make any sense to me because, if Bernie's plan is funded by taxes, and taxes are based on income, where the rich pay more per person (even if it's a flat tax) -- and if the total cost of the plan is less than we are currently spending -- how could this not be good for the middle class? The current system is based on private company premiums that cost individuals the same amount no matter what that person's income is.
Hillary could be engaging in double talk, like she did in the last debate, when she tried to make us think that Bernie's plan would be an unthinkable burden on the middle class. Notice she claimed that every economist said the numbers don't add up. She didn't say that they said there would be no savings at all. She merely implied it. Maybe they'll only save $3,000 a year.
Then, when she said that many people would be worse off, she didn't say "middle class people." She merely implied it with her impassioned warning that "this isn't about math, this is about people's lives."
Oh my goodness.
Maybe she's just talking about the wealthy (who would be paying more in taxes).
Thanks to Bernie and his socialism, these poor rich folks would be unable to afford one more redundant luxury.
Maybe that's the human tragedy she's referring to.
The other mistake I made that needs correcting is my estimate of the total cost savings -- to the country -- of Bernie's plan. My original estimate was based on the incorrect assumption that the total cost of his plan was 1.4 trillion. Like Hillary said, that is additional to what the government currently spends.
So here are my revised numbers. In 2014 total healthcare expenditures was $3 trillion. Government spending -- Medicare $618.7 billion plus Medicaid $495.8 billion equals $1.114 trillion plus Bernie's $1.4 trillion equals $2.514 trillion. Subtract from $3.0 trillion and, hey that's almost $500 billion less per year, or as the economist Friedman said, "nearly $5 trillion over ten years". And because my calculator wasn't working, I literally did that on the back of an envelope.
Oh, one more thing. Hillary said something else that was demonstrably false. "Senator Sanders is the only person who would characterize me, a woman, running to be the first woman president as exemplifying the establishment."
Apparently, at least 362 other persons characterize you in exactly the same way as Bernie does, your gender notwithstanding.
From fivethirtyeight.com:
"Clinton leads 362-8 among superdelegates, who are Democratic elected officials and other party insiders allowed to support whichever candidate they like.
Superdelegates were created in part to give Democratic party elites the opportunity to put their finger on the scale and prevent nominations like those of George McGovern in 1972 or Jimmy Carter in 1976, which displeased party insiders."
So my charge against Hillary still stands.
She's still a #%$#&%$##ing piece of $%&#!
Based on these assumptions, I accused Hillary Clinton of backing up a dump truck in order to drop a load of horseshit on Bernie's healthcare plan.
I singled out a particular word from her statement that: "A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year."
I claimed that the word "more" proved her deceitfulness.
Furthermore, I used this claim as justification for my description of her as a #%$#&%$##ing piece of $%&#!
Upon further investigation, I discovered that Ms Clinton was apparently, correct. As a matter of fact, she may have understated it.
Professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Jerry Friedman, who was responding to a hit piece on Sanders by the Wall Street Journal, put the additional federal spending for health care under HR 676 (a single-payer health plan) at $15 trillion over ten years. (that's 1.5 trillion more per year)
Do I think I should apologize to Ms Clinton?
In the immortal word of the late Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens:
So how do I justify my refusal to apologize?
By the fact that, while her offense is not one of commission (a lie), it is a deceit by omission.
This is the same charge Friedman leveled at the conservative WSJ:
“The Journal correctly puts the additional federal spending for health care under HR 676 (a single-payer health plan) at $15 trillion over ten years. It neglects to add, however, that by spending these vast sums, we would, as a country, save nearly $5 trillion over ten years in reduced administrative waste, lower pharmaceutical and device prices, and by lowering the rate of medical inflation.”
Bern and Hill had another debate last night where they went back and forth again about whether Bernie's plan would save the middle class money or, as Hillary actually claimed, cause many people to be worse off than they are now.
Bernie said that someone at the median income level would pay $500 more per year in taxes but save $5,000 in total costs.
Hillary claimed that "every progressive economist who has analyzed that says that the numbers don't add up."
I think I smell something and it reminds me of the time I was in a stable. I'll see what the fact checkers have to say about that later.
This does not make any sense to me because, if Bernie's plan is funded by taxes, and taxes are based on income, where the rich pay more per person (even if it's a flat tax) -- and if the total cost of the plan is less than we are currently spending -- how could this not be good for the middle class? The current system is based on private company premiums that cost individuals the same amount no matter what that person's income is.
Hillary could be engaging in double talk, like she did in the last debate, when she tried to make us think that Bernie's plan would be an unthinkable burden on the middle class. Notice she claimed that every economist said the numbers don't add up. She didn't say that they said there would be no savings at all. She merely implied it. Maybe they'll only save $3,000 a year.
Then, when she said that many people would be worse off, she didn't say "middle class people." She merely implied it with her impassioned warning that "this isn't about math, this is about people's lives."
Oh my goodness.
Maybe she's just talking about the wealthy (who would be paying more in taxes).
Thanks to Bernie and his socialism, these poor rich folks would be unable to afford one more redundant luxury.
Maybe that's the human tragedy she's referring to.
The other mistake I made that needs correcting is my estimate of the total cost savings -- to the country -- of Bernie's plan. My original estimate was based on the incorrect assumption that the total cost of his plan was 1.4 trillion. Like Hillary said, that is additional to what the government currently spends.
So here are my revised numbers. In 2014 total healthcare expenditures was $3 trillion. Government spending -- Medicare $618.7 billion plus Medicaid $495.8 billion equals $1.114 trillion plus Bernie's $1.4 trillion equals $2.514 trillion. Subtract from $3.0 trillion and, hey that's almost $500 billion less per year, or as the economist Friedman said, "nearly $5 trillion over ten years". And because my calculator wasn't working, I literally did that on the back of an envelope.
Oh, one more thing. Hillary said something else that was demonstrably false. "Senator Sanders is the only person who would characterize me, a woman, running to be the first woman president as exemplifying the establishment."
Apparently, at least 362 other persons characterize you in exactly the same way as Bernie does, your gender notwithstanding.
From fivethirtyeight.com:
"Clinton leads 362-8 among superdelegates, who are Democratic elected officials and other party insiders allowed to support whichever candidate they like.
Superdelegates were created in part to give Democratic party elites the opportunity to put their finger on the scale and prevent nominations like those of George McGovern in 1972 or Jimmy Carter in 1976, which displeased party insiders."
So my charge against Hillary still stands.
She's still a #%$#&%$##ing piece of $%&#!
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
The Idealist Versus The Pragmatist
(A note to readers of this post. After doing some additional research into Bernie's healthcare plan, it occurred to me that my thinking on certain points in this article may be flawed.
I was thinking in terms of total healthcare spending, government and non government.
Hillary was talking about government spending only. So she may have been right about the one trillion more in government spending.
Also, I think my assumption that the 1.4 trillion dollar figure covers the entire cost of Bernie's plan may also be wrong. I'm still looking into this and trying to figure it out. I will get back to this when I do. On the bright side -- can you feel the Bern? Sanders wins New Hampshire by a landslide! Bern, baby, Bern!)
I was nervous going into last week's debate between Bernie and Hillary. I was expecting Hillary to attack Bernie on his socialism because that's the kind of thing "politicians" like Hillary do. They attack idealism in the name of pragmatism.
The reason for my nervousness was that, despite my excitement over the fact that someone like Bernie has become a viable primary candidate, and as much as I appreciate Bernie's enthusiasm for single payer healthcare and redistribution of wealth, whenever I hear him talk about these things, for the most part, he doesn't address the attacks that right-wingers use against those ideas.
This, to me, was a sign that Bernie has never really engaged in the kind of dirty, bare-knuckled fight that any of the Republican candidates would be itching to have with him. (Trump: "Oh, would l love to run against Bernie. He wants to tax you at 90 percent.")
Hillary didn't really go after Bernie's "socialism" like I thought she would but she did hit him on single payer healthcare with precisely the kind of fallacious attack that a dishonest to goodness right-winger would use.
In the early part of the debate, Hill and Bern went back and forth a few times over his position on single-payer. She said it would cost too much and he would have to raise taxes on the middle class. Bernie explained that those people would be saving money based on reduced medical costs.
Instead of refuting what Bernie said, she just repeated her bullshit argument.
Now, you would hope that the audience would be paying enough attention to what Bernie was saying so that they would get the point he was making. Unfortunately, based on my observations of things like this, rather than paying attention to what a person says, most people pay more attention to the way a person says it. And, if you notice, the pundits and analysts do the same thing and reinforce this flawed way of thinking.
So at this point in the debate, I'm sure most of the audience is thinking "well, Bernie says this and Hillary says that -- it's just a 'he said, she said.'" But then, a little while later, Bernie makes one of his most powerful points in the debate. He described the way his large grassroots/small donation campaign contrasted with her special interest/super PAC financed campaign and how she represents the establishment.
The power of this argument was not lost on Hillary. So she knew it was time to back up the dump truck she had waiting, and drop a load of horseshit on the audience. She responds -- judging from the applause -- with what her supporters must have thought was her best moment of the debate. She says "Senator Sanders is the only person who would characterize me, a woman, running to be the first woman president as exemplifying the establishment." Oh woman, please. You are the pragmatic politician. That is the definition of establishment politician. You posses all of those distinctly negative characteristics of the typical American politician.
(In a future post I will explain why a Hillary presidency would be the worst possible thing to happen to the progressive movement.)
So, while riding high after using the "gender card," Hillary then went after Bernie's best argument -- his position on single-payer healthcare. Now she needed to back up the other dump truck and drop a load of bullshit on top of the horseshit she already unloaded:
"A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year... I don't want to see the kind of struggle that the middle class is going through exemplified by these promises that would raise taxes and make it much more difficult for many many Americans to get ahead and stay ahead, that's not my agenda."
Why you #%$#&%$##ing piece of $%&#!
What the F*** kind of $%&# is that?
A trillion dollars more a year? That makes no sense whatsoever.
OK, so I tried to fact check this. Amazingly, I had a hard time just finding any mention of this part of the debate. I had to dig deep to find this:
"Reality Check: Clinton on Sanders' $1 trillion health care plan
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney
Clinton accused Sanders of not telling voters the truth about his proposals, particularly his Medicare-for-all plan.
"I am not going to talk about big ideas like single-payer and then not level with people about how much it will cost. A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year. I'm not going to tell people that I will raise your incomes and not your taxes and not mean it," Clinton said.
Actually, according to that health economist, Gerald Friedman of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sanders' universal health care plan would cost nearly $1.4 trillion a year.
But Sanders has recently been upfront about how much it will cost. He released Friedman's assessment alongside his plan for Medicare-for-all last month.
Also, Sanders has acknowledged that the plan calls for a new 2.2% income tax on all Americans and a 6.2% levy on employers, as well as additional taxes on the wealthy. The Vermont senator, however, argues that ultimately middle class Americans will save money under his health plan because they will no longer pay premiums to private insurers.
That said, Sanders initially was reluctant to spell out his proposal. Clinton pushed him earlier this year to release the details, pointing out that she pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class. Sanders finally unveiled the plan a few hours before a Democratic debate last month.
Verdict: False."
If you'll notice, the reporter fact checks Hillary's claim that Sanders "didn't tell the truth about his... Medicare-for-all plan.", not her claim that a health economist said it would "cost a trillion dollars more a year", the operative word being "more." Please notice that the economist's cost estimate is nearly 1.4 trillion a year, not 1.4 trillion more a year.
What a sneaky little so and so.
Funny thing -- I looked up the definition of the phrase "operative word" and it says:
"the most important word in a phrase, which explains the truth of a situation"
Ironically, the truth that word explains is the truth of Hillary's dishonesty.
She purposely used that word so people wouldn't ask "what are we spending now?" and just assume those costs to be additional.
So, what I did next was google how much the US spends per year on healthcare. Guess how much we spent in 2013? I'll give you a hint.
2.9 trillion. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that means Bernie's plan, using the 2013 numbers, would save the country, including those struggling Americans Hillary cares so much about, 1.5 trillion dollars! Not to mention the fact that it would cover the millions of people the Affordable Care Act does not. This is what Bernie should have been emphasizing, emphatically.
My point is, most people will not pay attention to what Hillary said, but how she said it.
The timing was perfect -- coming after her dramatic declaration that by the mere fact that she is a woman, she can't possibly be an establishment politician -- and before Bernie had only thirty seconds to respond to the original question of her "establishmentness." Bernie chose to answer the establishment question and let her deceit stand. Now the truth had been lost.
Unfortunately, most people, especially conservatives, will come away from that exchange thinking "A trillion dollars more!? That's shocking! Raise my taxes!? That's unthinkable!"
Bernie needs to do a much better job at explaining and defending single-payer, because Hillary's crap is nothing compared to what the right-wingers will say.
In my next post, I will give Bernie my advice, not only on how to promote and defend single-payer, but how we can finance and transition to it. No charge, Bernie. Pro bono publico. For those of you who forgot your Latin, that means "for the public good."
I was thinking in terms of total healthcare spending, government and non government.
Hillary was talking about government spending only. So she may have been right about the one trillion more in government spending.
Also, I think my assumption that the 1.4 trillion dollar figure covers the entire cost of Bernie's plan may also be wrong. I'm still looking into this and trying to figure it out. I will get back to this when I do. On the bright side -- can you feel the Bern? Sanders wins New Hampshire by a landslide! Bern, baby, Bern!)
I was nervous going into last week's debate between Bernie and Hillary. I was expecting Hillary to attack Bernie on his socialism because that's the kind of thing "politicians" like Hillary do. They attack idealism in the name of pragmatism.
The reason for my nervousness was that, despite my excitement over the fact that someone like Bernie has become a viable primary candidate, and as much as I appreciate Bernie's enthusiasm for single payer healthcare and redistribution of wealth, whenever I hear him talk about these things, for the most part, he doesn't address the attacks that right-wingers use against those ideas.
This, to me, was a sign that Bernie has never really engaged in the kind of dirty, bare-knuckled fight that any of the Republican candidates would be itching to have with him. (Trump: "Oh, would l love to run against Bernie. He wants to tax you at 90 percent.")
Hillary didn't really go after Bernie's "socialism" like I thought she would but she did hit him on single payer healthcare with precisely the kind of fallacious attack that a dishonest to goodness right-winger would use.
In the early part of the debate, Hill and Bern went back and forth a few times over his position on single-payer. She said it would cost too much and he would have to raise taxes on the middle class. Bernie explained that those people would be saving money based on reduced medical costs.
Instead of refuting what Bernie said, she just repeated her bullshit argument.
Now, you would hope that the audience would be paying enough attention to what Bernie was saying so that they would get the point he was making. Unfortunately, based on my observations of things like this, rather than paying attention to what a person says, most people pay more attention to the way a person says it. And, if you notice, the pundits and analysts do the same thing and reinforce this flawed way of thinking.
So at this point in the debate, I'm sure most of the audience is thinking "well, Bernie says this and Hillary says that -- it's just a 'he said, she said.'" But then, a little while later, Bernie makes one of his most powerful points in the debate. He described the way his large grassroots/small donation campaign contrasted with her special interest/super PAC financed campaign and how she represents the establishment.
The power of this argument was not lost on Hillary. So she knew it was time to back up the dump truck she had waiting, and drop a load of horseshit on the audience. She responds -- judging from the applause -- with what her supporters must have thought was her best moment of the debate. She says "Senator Sanders is the only person who would characterize me, a woman, running to be the first woman president as exemplifying the establishment." Oh woman, please. You are the pragmatic politician. That is the definition of establishment politician. You posses all of those distinctly negative characteristics of the typical American politician.
(In a future post I will explain why a Hillary presidency would be the worst possible thing to happen to the progressive movement.)
So, while riding high after using the "gender card," Hillary then went after Bernie's best argument -- his position on single-payer healthcare. Now she needed to back up the other dump truck and drop a load of bullshit on top of the horseshit she already unloaded:
"A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year... I don't want to see the kind of struggle that the middle class is going through exemplified by these promises that would raise taxes and make it much more difficult for many many Americans to get ahead and stay ahead, that's not my agenda."
Why you #%$#&%$##ing piece of $%&#!
What the F*** kind of $%&# is that?
A trillion dollars more a year? That makes no sense whatsoever.
OK, so I tried to fact check this. Amazingly, I had a hard time just finding any mention of this part of the debate. I had to dig deep to find this:
"Reality Check: Clinton on Sanders' $1 trillion health care plan
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney
Clinton accused Sanders of not telling voters the truth about his proposals, particularly his Medicare-for-all plan.
"I am not going to talk about big ideas like single-payer and then not level with people about how much it will cost. A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year. I'm not going to tell people that I will raise your incomes and not your taxes and not mean it," Clinton said.
Actually, according to that health economist, Gerald Friedman of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sanders' universal health care plan would cost nearly $1.4 trillion a year.
But Sanders has recently been upfront about how much it will cost. He released Friedman's assessment alongside his plan for Medicare-for-all last month.
Also, Sanders has acknowledged that the plan calls for a new 2.2% income tax on all Americans and a 6.2% levy on employers, as well as additional taxes on the wealthy. The Vermont senator, however, argues that ultimately middle class Americans will save money under his health plan because they will no longer pay premiums to private insurers.
That said, Sanders initially was reluctant to spell out his proposal. Clinton pushed him earlier this year to release the details, pointing out that she pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class. Sanders finally unveiled the plan a few hours before a Democratic debate last month.
Verdict: False."
If you'll notice, the reporter fact checks Hillary's claim that Sanders "didn't tell the truth about his... Medicare-for-all plan.", not her claim that a health economist said it would "cost a trillion dollars more a year", the operative word being "more." Please notice that the economist's cost estimate is nearly 1.4 trillion a year, not 1.4 trillion more a year.
What a sneaky little so and so.
Funny thing -- I looked up the definition of the phrase "operative word" and it says:
"the most important word in a phrase, which explains the truth of a situation"
Ironically, the truth that word explains is the truth of Hillary's dishonesty.
She purposely used that word so people wouldn't ask "what are we spending now?" and just assume those costs to be additional.
So, what I did next was google how much the US spends per year on healthcare. Guess how much we spent in 2013? I'll give you a hint.
2.9 trillion. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that means Bernie's plan, using the 2013 numbers, would save the country, including those struggling Americans Hillary cares so much about, 1.5 trillion dollars! Not to mention the fact that it would cover the millions of people the Affordable Care Act does not. This is what Bernie should have been emphasizing, emphatically.
My point is, most people will not pay attention to what Hillary said, but how she said it.
The timing was perfect -- coming after her dramatic declaration that by the mere fact that she is a woman, she can't possibly be an establishment politician -- and before Bernie had only thirty seconds to respond to the original question of her "establishmentness." Bernie chose to answer the establishment question and let her deceit stand. Now the truth had been lost.
Unfortunately, most people, especially conservatives, will come away from that exchange thinking "A trillion dollars more!? That's shocking! Raise my taxes!? That's unthinkable!"
Bernie needs to do a much better job at explaining and defending single-payer, because Hillary's crap is nothing compared to what the right-wingers will say.
In my next post, I will give Bernie my advice, not only on how to promote and defend single-payer, but how we can finance and transition to it. No charge, Bernie. Pro bono publico. For those of you who forgot your Latin, that means "for the public good."
Monday, February 1, 2016
A Correction, Some Omissions and a Clarification
I'm taking this opportunity to issue a correction, include some omissions and make a clarification.
First of all, a couple of months ago I sent an email to my legion of fans. (actually, I don't know how many fans I have. My blogsite tells me how many visits my blog gets but not how many unique visitors I get. Last month I got 327 visits. If I were to be honest, I would not be able to say how many of those visits were from separate individuals or how many of those visitors could be considered "fans." But we live in the age of Trump. And if the Republican frontrunner in the nomination for president of the United States can tell the world that he saw "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the attacks of 9/11, why can't I say that my fans number in the thousands and thousands?)
In my email, I related a health crisis I experienced some months ago that sent me to the emergency room in critical condition. I erroneously stated that I came down with Toxic Shock Syndrome. That was a slip of the tongue, so to speak. It was actually Septic Shock Syndrome. They are similar but not the same.
I also said that I would give an account of my experience -- solely as a public service, in order to raise awareness of this potentially fatal illness -- in my next blog post. Well, I still intend to do that but, instead, after I get some political issues out of the way.
The omissions relate to a previous post where I presented a graph that showed the correlation between two variables: the hate a person has for Obama and the love that same person would have for Ted Cruz.
I have added some detail to that graph. The revised graph is shown below.
The y axis represents the degree of hate for Obama while the x axis shows the degree of love for Cruz.
Click on the image to enlarge:
The clarification regards the plugs I've been giving to right-winger Joe Lii's blog at
America's Truth Detector | Just another WordPress.com site
Who is this character and why do I plug his blog?
I will explain in my next post.
First of all, a couple of months ago I sent an email to my legion of fans. (actually, I don't know how many fans I have. My blogsite tells me how many visits my blog gets but not how many unique visitors I get. Last month I got 327 visits. If I were to be honest, I would not be able to say how many of those visits were from separate individuals or how many of those visitors could be considered "fans." But we live in the age of Trump. And if the Republican frontrunner in the nomination for president of the United States can tell the world that he saw "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the attacks of 9/11, why can't I say that my fans number in the thousands and thousands?)
In my email, I related a health crisis I experienced some months ago that sent me to the emergency room in critical condition. I erroneously stated that I came down with Toxic Shock Syndrome. That was a slip of the tongue, so to speak. It was actually Septic Shock Syndrome. They are similar but not the same.
I also said that I would give an account of my experience -- solely as a public service, in order to raise awareness of this potentially fatal illness -- in my next blog post. Well, I still intend to do that but, instead, after I get some political issues out of the way.
The omissions relate to a previous post where I presented a graph that showed the correlation between two variables: the hate a person has for Obama and the love that same person would have for Ted Cruz.
I have added some detail to that graph. The revised graph is shown below.
The y axis represents the degree of hate for Obama while the x axis shows the degree of love for Cruz.
Click on the image to enlarge:
The clarification regards the plugs I've been giving to right-winger Joe Lii's blog at
America's Truth Detector | Just another WordPress.com site
Who is this character and why do I plug his blog?
I will explain in my next post.
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