State of the Supreme Court—Bernie Sandeers' Version

For John, BLUF:  I don't think Senator Bernie Sanders, and other Democrats, analyze Supreme Court decisions in terms of our freedoms, but tahrough a partisan lense.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

‘Out of control’:  Sanders calls for urgent Supreme Court reform following controversial rulings

Here is the sub-headline:

Bernie Sanders calls for immediate reforms to the Supreme Court, citing recent rulings that grant presidential immunity and criminalize homelessness as threats to democracy and justice.

From Nation of Change, by Reporter Alexis Sterling, 3 July 2024.

Here is the lede plus two:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has issued a strong call for Supreme Court reform in response to a series of controversial rulings that he argues threaten the foundations of American democracy. Sanders criticized the Court as “out of control,” pointing to its right-wing bias and the influence of corporate interests in shaping its decisions.

Sanders highlighted the 2010 Citizens United decision as a pivotal moment that ushered in a “corrupt, billionaire-dominated political system.” He also pointed to more recent rulings, including the removal of abortion protections, the criminalization of homelessness, the limitation of federal regulatory power, and the granting of unprecedented presidential immunity as evidence of the Court’s extreme agenda.

“These are just some of the dangerous rulings from a right-wing, corporate-sponsored Supreme Court that continues to serve an extremist agenda,” Sanders said. He emphasized that if conservative justices wish to make public policy, they should resign from the Supreme Court and run for political office instead.

I think the Good Senator is a bit over the top in his criticisms.  Abortions are up since Dobbs.  Yes, some Stat4s in the US have changed their rules, but that shows diversity.  As for the homeless (I have been on my City’s Hunger Homeless Commission), it is a question of balance.  Residents and visitors, walking the streets, should not have to step around those sleeping on the streets or the refuse of their lives.  Shelters should be provided, and mental health help provided (but ism’t, because of decisions from Government).  As for Presidential immunity, that is what Impeachment is about.  If Congress won’t do its job, why should the following Administration be allowed to pick up the cuddgle and do the work Congress should have done?.

With regard to Senator Sanderes' concerns for billionaires running the Republican Party and the Conservative Wing of the Supreme Court, he is 60 years out of date.  When I hear billionaire I immediately think of Mr George Soros.  He is the man who has funded numberous District Attorney campaigna, resulting in a slew of communities with weak enforcement of laws  In the long run this is counter-productive, in that the Citizens will eventually realize their safety is in their own hands.  That is not good for a civilized society.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Kudus to Sanders

For John, BLUF:  Many from the Democratic Party are calling for israel to back down with regard to Hamas and Palestine, but not all.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Wait... Who Actually Just Said NO to a Ceasefire with Hamas?

From PJ Media, by Writer Stephen Green. 6 November 2023, 8:00 AM.

Here is the last part of the Post:

But back to Bernie Sanders who, despite the growing pressure on the Left to force Israel into a ceasefire, stood fast on Sunday.  On CNN's "State of the Union," anchor Dana Bash asked, "Some of you fellow progressives say that there should be a full-on ceasefire which would require an agreement on both sides to halt the fighting.  Do you support a ceasefire and if not, why not?"

Sanders didn't hesitate when he answered, "I don't know how you can have a permanent ceasefire with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the state of Israel."

"And I think what the Arab countries in the region understand is that Hamas has got to go," Sanders added.

He's right on both counts and kudus to Sanders for getting it right this once.

I agree, kudos for Senator Sanders.  I don't always agree with the Senator from Vermont, but I find his position here straight forward and correct.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Alternate Fallout

For John, BLUF:  Democrats and the Media seem obsessed by the idea that Donald Trump will lose the election in November, but will not walk away on 20 January 2021.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

WHY THE NONSENSE ABOUT TRUMP REFUSING TO LEAVE OFFICE?

From Powerline, by John Hinderaker, 5 September 2020.

And. on 6 September 2020, New Yorker. Writer Jelani Cobb wrote Our Long, Forgotten History of Election-Related Violence.  He worked in the "Trump never leaving office" meme.
From the Powerline article, here is the lede plus two:

One of the Democrats’ more lunatic themes is their insistence that if President Trump loses the election, he likely will refuse to leave office, in effect staging a coup.  Most recently the claim was made by Bernie Sanders. 

Comparing Health Care Systems

For John, BLUF:  It is still early days in the Coronavirus Pandemic and no hard and fast conclusions should be drawn.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

In response to Worldometer Confirmed Cases and Deaths by Country, Territory, or Conveyance, which shows:

NATION	Cases per 1 Mil	Deaths per 1 Mil
US	315	5
Sweden	304	10

Someone on the Internet wrote:

Maybe Bernie’s right—Sweden is always doing better than us.

For my Brother Lance, that is sarcasm on the part of the writer.

Regards  —  Cliff

Sunday Dem Debate

For John, BLUF:  I admit I had forgotten about the debate and was watching a Hallmark mystery movie.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Live-blogging the Democratic debate:  coronavirus edition

The JALTCOH Blog, by Blogger John Althouse Cohen, 15 March 2020.

Here is the conclusion:

My verdict:  Biden won. Sanders is so far behind that in order to make any real progress in turning things around, he would have needed to have a fantastic performance while Biden stumbled badly.  That didn't happen.

We are still a ways from the Democratic National Convention, 13-16 July 2020, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The other thing of interest is that Former Vice President Joe Biden committed to putting a woman on the Ticket, as the Vice Presidential nominee.  Who was not revealed.  Possibilities include Senator Klobachur, Senator Warren, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Gillibrand, former DNC Chairman Donna Brazille and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Given the terrible way the Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez has treated Representative Tulsi Gabbard I double she is in the running.  I am guessing the call will go to .

As a side note, a guest on Fox and Friends Mr Tony Katz, just made the point that the lack of an audience seemed to hurt Senator Sanders, who feeds off the crowd.  He also made the point that to know what is happening in the hinterland, follow the reporting of Reporter Salena Zito.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Regards  —  Cliff

Italy Fails to Cope

For John, BLUF:  Italy is showing what happens when you have weak health care and then you get a pandemic.  The example floating around is if the virus victims doubles daily, seven days before it hits 100%, it is less than 1%.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Elderly Will Be Denied Intensive Care as Coronavirus Overwhelms Italy's National Health System, Experts Warn

From PJ Media, by Reporter Paula Bolyard, 12 March 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

Health officials in Italy have issued guidelines for rationing care as hospitals there struggle to keep up with the surge of patients infected with the coronavirus.  Doctors are being told that they'll likely need to deny care to senior citizens and those with other health conditions as the virus explodes across the nation.

Italy has been rocked by the still not-well-understood COVID-29 (sic), with more than 1,200 confirmed cases and 827 deaths—second only to China—and 16 million residents currently under quarantine.

An article published by the Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (translated here by Yascha Mounk) warns that "It may be necessary to establish criteria of access to intensive care not just on the basis of clinical appropriateness but inspired by the most consensual criteria regarding distributive justice and the appropriate allocation of limited health resources."  The report goes on to recommend rationing care to certain populations.

Rationing health care is nothing new in Italy and in fact has become an "established trend" in recent years amid an ongoing economic crisis that has strained government resources, including the government-run healthcare system.

I am guessing Italy is not one of those European nations Senator Bernie Sanders looks up to as an example of universal medical care.

Pr Reporter Tim Pearce, at The Washington Examiner, ‘Not a single EU country’ responded to Italian plea for help with coronavirus.  I hope President Trump is aware of this and doing something to help Italy, so they know WE haven't forgotten them.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Let us hope things turn the corner on this, and soon.  Regards  —  Cliff

Playing the Wrong Game

For John, BLUF:  One does have to know the game one is playing.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Bernie’s Whole Campaign Was Based On a Misreading of the 2016 Election

From New York Magazine, by Reporter Jonathan Chait, 10 March 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

Four years ago, Bernie Sanders put up a surprisingly strong fight against Hillary Clinton on the strength of his support among white working-class voters...

... who proceeded to desert Clinton in November... [T]he left quickly [concluded that]... the Democrats had failed to offer the kind of progressive radical alternative Sanders stood for, voters instead opted for Trump’s reactionary attack on globalism.  In order to win them back and defeat Trump, Democrats needed to reorganize themselves as a radical populist party....  The second Sanders campaign has shown conclusively how badly the left misunderstood the electorate....  White working-class and rural voters have swung heavily against him....  The factor that actually explains 2016, as some of us chagrined liberals insisted at the time, was Hillary Clinton’s idiosyncratic personal unpopularity.  It turned out large portions of the public, even of the Democratic electorate, simply detested her....  Clinton hatred allowed Sanders to draw more than 40 percent of the primary vote, and Clinton hatred allowed Donald Trump to narrowly win....

It is not only that President Trump is playing four dimension chess, to the Democrats' two dimensional game.  One suspects the President doesn't care who he is playing against, except maybe Tulsi.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Regards  —  Cliff

Tracking E Warren

For John, BLUF:  Senator E Warren, sort of like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has made it her job to tell us less breeds how to live our lives.  I am glad she is out of the running for the Democratic nomination.  She is out, isn't she?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Washington Times:  “Meet the Cornell law professor who tracked Elizabeth Warren’s missteps”

From Legal Insurrection, by Professor William A. Jacobson, 6 March 2020.

Here is the lede plus five:

“When tracking the reasons Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential bid fell short, don’t forget the conservative law professor in Ithaca, New York, who wouldn’t let the world forget that the Massachusetts Democrat for years had identified herself as an American Indian.”

Elizabeth Warren has suspended her campaign for president.  She’s not going away, though, she’s obviously maneuvering for something behind the scenes, hence her unwillingness to endorse either Bernie or Biden at this time.

What does she want?  It could be a V.P. slot, but Bernie or Biden would be out of their minds to do that.

Bernie doesn’t need to prove his far-left bona fides by adding Warren to the ticket, and two leftists from New England on a ticket would be a disaster.  Biden also doesn’t gain anything from adding Warren, as she would be an unhelpful distraction.  ‘Sleepy Joe’ has enough issues without bringing Warren’s Native American and other problems to the ticket.

Warren may be doing what she did in 2015-2016, when she used the threat of her challenging Hillary to try to extract concessions from Hillary, including getting Warren’s people in key places in a future Hillary administration.  Or perhaps Warren wants a senior cabinet position in the Biden/Bernie administration, a position where she would control much of the economy and try to implement her delusional economic plans without having to be elected.

Czarina Warren has a certain ring to it.

Here is the Sentor Warren Wiki mentioned in the article.

.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Dastardly President Trump

For John, BLUF:  It is going to be interesting between now and 3 November.  Buy more popcorn and enjoy the show.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

On Criminal Justice, Biden Has No Moral Standing Over Trump

From New York Magazine, by Reporter Zak Cheney-Rice, 8 March 2020.

Here is the excerpt Professor Althouse started with:

Trump is going to try dampening black voter enthusiasm for Biden by contrasting the two men’s criminal justice records.  The framing will be simple:  Trump signed a bipartisan criminal-legal reform bill, the First Step Act, and has been generous with his pardon powers toward unjustly imprisoned black people, like Alice Marie Johnson.... ...Trump’s status as a self-styled reformer is laughable, [but] Biden’s record is grotesque.  Most of its lowlights occurred in the 'tough on crime' 1980s and 1990s... [when] he viciously characterized people who commit crimes as sociopathic 'predators' who are beyond rehabilitation.  He cast then-President Bush’s escalation of the War on Drugs as lacking 'enough police officers to catch the violent thugs, enough prosecutors to convict them, enough judges to sentence them, or enough prison cells to put them away for a long time.  He authored the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act [that]... expanded the death penalty, eliminated education funding for imprisoned students, created harsher sentencing guidelines for a wide range of crimes, and increased funding for local police departments and corrections departments....  Perhaps more than any other official of the era, he embodied the Democratic impulse to outflank Republicans from the right by locking more people in jails and prisons.  He helped catalyze the most dramatic expansion of the carceral state in the history of the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world.  He said he was 'not at all' ashamed of his involvement as recently as 2016....

First point.  Our incarceration rate is very high.  Second point.  It may well be driven by the welfare reforms of the 1960s, as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan told us a half a century ago.

The third point is that to Progressive writers the President seems to have some sort of Midas touch, in that everything he touches turns out bad, even when it is better than his Democratic Party opponents.  I frankly don't care if his actions are from a desire for justice reform or are from political calculation.  Either way we get to a better place.

I would observe that the President does seem to be playing this game at several levels, while his opponents are playing at a single level.  Does he prefer his opponent be Senator Sanders or does he prefer it be former Vice President Biden?  Or does he really want former SecState Hillary Clinton?  Or is he indifferent, but enjoys watching the speculation, like entertaining himself by throwing a twig to a little puppy on a lazy afternoon?

In the end the Progressive journalists will think that President Trump is sneakily stealing Black voters by offering them things.  Things like jobs, better wages, less police abuse, better criminal justice outcomes.  They will follow Miss Greta Thunberg and say, "How dare you!"

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Regards  —  Cliff

A Female President?

For John, BLUF:  This is an unnecessary kerfuffle.  Are policies not more important than gender?  Unless, of course, we hold the position that a woman or minority who doesn't hold Democratic Party positions isn't a real woman or minority.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Watch:  Liz Warren Tries to Console Rachel Maddow About Her Exit

From Town Hall, by Ms Cortney O'Brien, 6 March 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was one of the last women standing in the 2020 presidential race.  But on Thursday she followed the lead of former competitors Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Kamala Harris (CA), and Amy Klobuchar (MN), and bid farewell the contest.

She did her best to console MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in a new sit down interview, but as you can see it was to no avail.  The melodramatic host predicted that with Warren's exit, there's no chance she'll ever see a woman president in her lifetime.

You can listen to part of the exchange at the website link above.

Ms Maddow dismisses Rep Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), by not mentioning her.  And no mention of future Republican options, such as Governor Nikki Haley.

Don't give up hope, Ms Maddow.♠

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  And don't buy into Senator Sanders' position that a woman can't be elected President.  Heck, Ms Golda Meir was leading Israel in 1969.

Senator Sanders Observed

For John, BLUF:  Local Blogger, but a global view.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Super Tuesday:  resolving the struggle between head and heart

From The Richard Howe Blog, by Ms Marjorie Arons-Barron, 2 March 2020.

While reviewing the Super Tuesday Democratic list, the author made this comment about Sentor Bernie Sanders:

In earlier blogs, I’ve made clear my reaction to self-styled democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, notable more for his angry and impassioned speechifying and fringe political views than any legislative achievement.  His breathtakingly expensive proposals – including eliminating private health insurance, guaranteeing federal jobs, decriminalizing immigration violations and providing tuition-free college education without means testing – are all general election non-starters.  He claims his goal is to have the US become a social welfare state akin to the Scandinavian countries, but Nordic leaders insist that their systems are not at all what Sanders describes.  They complain Sander’s vision sounds like a naïve 1960s graduate school student’s bull session, embracing Cuba more than Denmark.

I think the author is on the mark.  The Press has been soft on Senator Sanders, not pressing him on his real socio-economic views.  I want to hear him articulate more of his view.  The Senator seems unable to reject the actions of Fidel Castro of Cuba, or the recent leaders of Venezuela.  For sure, someone who has looked at the history of socialism will realize that some efforts to implement it in the last century led to massive deaths.♠ 

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  MSNBC Commendator Chris Matthews was not wrong about that.  It fact he wasn't wrong about the French evaluation of the Battle of France in 1940.  One wonders if Democrats read history?

Democrats Divided

For John, BLUF:  I have been hearing about how "this is the end" for one party or another, from my youth, but differences of opinions make political parties happen.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The Party Cannot Hold

From TheNew York Review of Books, by Mr Michael Tomasky, 26 March 2020 Issue.

Here is the lede plus four:

In early January, as Democratic voters began to focus more intently on the approaching primary season, New York magazine published a profile of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  The writer, David Freedlander, spoke with her about the divisions within the Democratic Party, and asked what sort of role she envisioned for herself in a possible Joe Biden presidency.  “Oh, God,” Ocasio-Cortez replied (“with a groan,” Freedlander noted).  “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.”

This was in some respects an impolitic, even impolite, thing for the first-term politician to say.  AOC, a democratic socialist, had endorsed Bernie Sanders the previous October, so it was no secret where her loyalties lay.  Still, Biden was at that point the clear front-runner for the presidential nomination, and freshman members of Congress don’t usually make disparaging remarks about their party’s front-runner.  Her comment thus carried a considerable charge—a suggestion that if Biden were the nominee, this luminary and her 6.3 million Twitter followers might not just placidly go along.

And yet, she is correct.  In a parliamentary system, Biden would be in the main center-left party and AOC in a smaller, left-wing party.  So her comment was an accurate description of an oddity of American politics that has endured since just before the Civil War—the existence of our two, large-tent parties battling for primacy against each other, but often battling within themselves.

At the moment, as the Democrats struggle over their future, one can legitimately wonder whether the poles of the Democratic tent are strong enough to hold.  The divisions are stark.  This historical moment is often compared to 1972, when a youth movement similar to the one Sanders leads today took over the party and nominated George McGovern.  But if anything, today’s divisions run far deeper.  Then, the party was split chiefly over the Vietnam War.  There were other issues, to be sure, and the New Left—the 1960s movement of student radicals that spread from Madison to Berkeley to everywhere—pressed a broader critique of American society; but McGovern’s was fundamentally an antiwar candidacy.  And while the Vietnam debate was shattering to the party for a few years, wars eventually end, as indeed that one did, not long after the 1972 election.

Once it ended, and once the Watergate scandal mushroomed, the party was able to stitch itself back together with surprising ease.  In the 1974 midterms, both liberals and moderates were able to run aggressively against Richard Nixon, and the Democrats made historic gains that year.  Then, with the country still agitated over Nixon and Gerald Ford’s pardon of him, and with a sunny southern moderate vaulting over several better-known and more liberal senators, they recaptured the White House in 1976.

Then, this sentence to describe the current issues of division:

The current divide is not about one war.  It is about capitalism—whether it can be reformed and remade to create the kind of broad prosperity the country once knew, but without the sexism and racism of the postwar period, as liberals hope; or whether corporate power is now so great that we are simply beyond that, as the younger socialists would argue, and more radical surgery is called for.

And there we have it.  The United States is a nation that has prospered due to good natural resources, a working economic system and a political system that does a good job of reflecting the opinions of both the majority and minority—the political majority and minority.  This is reflected in the fairly routine replacement of one party by the other in our highest office.  And it is facilitated by our willingness to move on.  Southerners were forgiven.  No one today blames Puerto Rican’s for the Capitol being shot up post WWII.  Moving on and succeeding is our mode, and the best revenge.

The threat to the American system and success is our fascination with the allure of socialism.  These United States has its flaws, and they need fixing.

A question for the voters:  Do we go with steps of progress or do we go with a revolution?  The problem with slow steps of progress is you never actually get to that ideal State.  The problem with revolution is that the minority, which thinks it is going too fast, will resist and sabotage, and the only path of resolution is suppression.

It is said that in the implementation of socialism in the last Century there were 100 million deaths.  That is a lot of resistance crushed.  Did it happen everywhere?  No.  It didn't happen in Israel or the Scandinavian nations.  But, they backed off before it hit that tipping point.  On the flip side you have Russia (Soviet Union), China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and a couple of African States.  We don't count Italy and Germany, because Benito Mussolini had rejected Communism early on in favor of a more nationalist approach.

You may think this time will be different, but when you have the map to Utopia in your hands you are unlikely to want to listen to people with alternative ideas.

Regards  —  Cliff

Ideological Drift

For John, BLUF:  I blame this drift on [poor] education; education in school and in the home.  We don't remember where we have been and we can't project where we may be heading.  It is the long march through the institutions.  One would think Senator Sanders would have known better.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Bernie Sanders is The Corbynizer

Here is the sub-headline:

A true socialist, Sanders has been poised on his Marx all his life for this moment

From The Spectator (US edition), by Mr Dominic Green, 23 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

Historians of the future, if there are any, will note that though the demieducated youth of the United States shed their belief in God, they still believed in Father Christmas.  Uncertain of their futures, and in no hurry to pay off their student loans, the young entrusted their faith and debt jubilee to the Santa Claus of socialism, a little man with fluffy white hair proffering gifts from a big sack of other people’s money.

In Victorian England, this traditional figure was known as Jeremy Corbyn, a vegetarian who gave every worker a lump of nationalized coal and scourged the Jews because they would not recognize him as their savior.  In the United States, where people are wealthier and more generous in spirit, young Americans know their redeemer as Bernard Sanders.  Every four years he descends from one of his homes in Vermont, which is not far from the North Pole, to hail spittle-flecked imprecations upon the heads of the rich and regale the children with fantastical tales of nationalization.

As a stopped clock is right twice a day, so socialism again looks right a century after 1917.  Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have offered the young middle class only the parental bromides of Clintonism.  Sanders, however, still possesses the freshness of the truly passé.  The subversion of humanities education by the radical left has scoured the tarnish off 20th-century history and restored the gleam of ideals to ‘actually existing socialism’.  Americans born since the end of the Cold War have grown up thinking that a gulag is a Hungarian stew and a White Russian is just a cocktail, if only because their parents made them watch The Big Lebowski.  Meanwhile, the Democratic party’s abandonment of American workers has done more to create a genuine proletariat than all the New Left’s xeroxing and leafleting ever did.

A true socialist, Sanders has been poised on his Marx all his life for this moment.  His first order of business is to make war on his own party while ranting about essentially middle-class obsessions like zero-emissions reindeer in order to pacify his juvenile followers. Sanders could well win the most votes in the Democratic primaries and, the DNC and his coagulated arteries permitting, become the Democratic nominee.  American workers being in no hurry to go the way of the bison, Bernie would lose to the bourgeois capitalist Donald Trump, quite possibly in a landslide of the kind that pulverized Jeremy in last December’s British elections.  But whatever happens in November, Sanders will have won the battle for the spot where his party’s soul should be.

Sadly, this and the rest of the article are spot on.  We don't know our history and we have been failed by the Democratic Party.  Maybe it is just me, but I long for the heroes of the past, the Governor Adlai Stevensons and the Vice Presidents Hubert H Humphrys.  I thought of them as politicians who understood the American system and the American Dream.

The important thing is to not get cocky.  "There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip."  For example, the Coronavirus could cause major economic and social problems for President Trump and the Republicans.  It is possible that Nancy the Ripper could come out of this looking good.  Unlikely, but possible.♠

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  No, I wouldn't raise the issue of Senator Chuck Schumer.  He is a _ _ _z.  I am sure lots of people do like him, but he is what he is.

For John, BLUF:  .  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Socialized Medicine Killed Princess Diana, Surgeon Tells CPAC

From PJ Media, by Mr Matt Margolis, 27 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus eight:

Congressman Steve Scalise introduced a panel discussion called “Prescription for Failure:  The Ills of Socialized Medicine" at CPAC on Thursday.  He established what was at stake in 2020:  “2020 will be a contrast election,” he said, between Trump’s freedom agenda or socialism.

“You don’t want socialism, you surely don’t want socialized medicine,” he said.  “Tens of thousands of Canadians come to America for life-saving treatment.  Do you see Americans going to Canada for life-saving treatment?” he asked rhetorically.

“Healthcare is only one example of what’s at stake in this election,” he said, before concluding that individual freedom will win out in 2020 and predicted that Republicans will keep the Senate and win back the House.

Author Dr. David Schneider, an orthopedic surgeon from Colorado, explained how with socialized medicine, wait times for care “are disastrous.”  In Canada, the wait time to see a specialist is two years, and then another two years to get the procedure.

“People in this country would go crazy if you were told you had to wait four months,” he said.

Then he explained how Princess Diana would be alive today, if not for socialized medicine.  “Princess Diana was in the car accident in France,” he explained.  “They actually don’t have any trauma specialists in France.”

“For the first hour after that accident, she was still in that tunnel,” he continued.  “And after an hour, they took her to a nearby hospital and she was alive for another three hours and they couldn’t control the bleeding from her pulmonary artery.”

Schneider explained that “there were no trauma-trained people there.”

He continued, “I really believe, knowing what I know about her care and comparing it to what Congressman Scalise had, Princess Diana would have lived had that accident happened here in America.”

This is a fine kettle of fish.  I must admit that I have had questions about Senator Sander's plan for health care. For instance, as health care consumption increases, where are the trained medical professionals coming from?♠  Then there is the question of the money to pay for it.  For example, the first year we can do a wealth tax, but then that large amount of wealth is no longer in private hands, it having been confiscated by the Government.  You can't confiscated wealth twice.  A new source of revenue will be needed.

Good luck to us.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  RAND Corporation did a study that concluded that when you make health care free the demand goes up.  This is not from the additional people picked up but rather from those already with health care who increase the consumption of health care.

Bernie the Socialist

For John, BLUF:  It appears that Senator Bernie Sanders has no historic understanding or memory.  No historic feel, at least from a Western perspective.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The Time-Warp Socialist

Here is the sub-headline:

Bernie Sanders’s vision has been refuted by reality—and history.

From City Journal, by Mr Guy Sorman, 26 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

Socialism these days is like the Hydra of lore: for every head chopped off, the monster regrows two.  One cannot escape this metaphor when watching Bernie Sanders’s seemingly irresistible progress toward the Democratic presidential nomination.  He defines himself as a socialist and clearly meets the criteria, starting with the historical models that he cites.  The European social-democratic template of the 1960s, as achieved in the Scandinavian countries (the so-called Swedish model) and in France and Germany, is Sanders’s blueprint for the United States.  Nostalgia likely inspires Sanders, at least to some degree—social democracy was at its peak when he was young.

The same nostalgia, mixed with a significant dose of ignorance, may explain his positive comments about Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba.  He could not bring himself to condemn totally a government that had launched literacy programs.  This is the classic posture of the “useful idiot,” Lenin’s term for intellectual admirers of Communist regimes.  Sanders shows no sympathy for Communism’s victims and voices no qualms about Castro’s violence.  And he gets the facts wrong:  Cuba’s people were educated before Castro seized power, and they had the most reliable health-care system in Latin America.  Sanders’s admiration for Castro and other dictators in the region—he often mentions Nicaragua—reveals an attraction for the aesthetics of violence, widely shared among leftists.  In Marxist parlance:  one can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.  Sanders, perhaps, would not mind breaking some eggs to achieve his goals.

Sanders touts the proverbial free lunch:  a free national health system and free education.  As free lunches don’t exist, someone would have to pay for all this—presumably the rich, though Sanders avoids giving specific figures.

This vision may sound new and attractive to the young, but it has all been tried before. In Europe, where we do have national health systems and national pension systems, the results have been ghastly.  The financial burden does not fall on the shoulders of the wealthy, because we don’t have enough rich people; all taxpayers foot the bill for national health-care service.  France finances Social Security, which includes health and pensions, with a withholding tax.  Consequently, France has a chronically high unemployment rate, around 10 percent, because the cost of labor is too high, a disincentive to recruit new employees.  The cost of labor also makes our products and services less competitive.  When British or French citizens go to the doctor or buy drugs, it looks “free”:  we don’t pay out of pocket, because we already paid, through our taxes.  Such public-health systems control how much doctors and other health workers can be paid.  In the United Kingdom, they are considered public civil servants.  In France, a general practitioner is paid 25 euros ($28) for an office consultation.

Senator Bernie Sanders seems not to have learned anything from the events of the last 50 years.  Nor did he learn from Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, who told us about the crimes of Joseph Stalin.  His understanding of Cuba and Fidel Castro seems flawed.  Willfully flawed.

One man off the beam is one thing, but millions of voters following him is another.  What are those people thinking?  More important, who was educating them over all those years?  It sounds like a failure of our education system.  Is this a reflection of the long march through the institutions?♠

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Funnily enough, in neither this article nor the Wikipedia article on the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci was Democratic Presidential Candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg's Father mentioned.  The elder Buttigieg, a Professor at Notre Dame, was an influential translator of Mr Gramsci's works.

Senator Sanders on Parsing History

For John, BLUF:  If we have to acknowledge the "good things" done by the Communist Dictators who killed 100 million of their own people in the 20th Century, what about the other dictators of that Century and this?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

As CPAC Condemns Socialism, Dems in Congress Protect Castro

From PJ Media, by Mr Tyler O'Neil, 27 February 2020.

The article starts by talking about the CPAC () Conference condemning socialism and socialists, it cuts to Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and his resolution in the House condemning President Fidel Castro:

Yet House Democrats refused to listen.  Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a nephew of Fidel Castro's first wife, has strongly condemned the late dictator's regime and condemned Sanders' infamous comments on 60 Minutes.  Sanders insisted that "it's unfair to simply say everything is bad" about the Castro regime because it supposedly provided health care and literacy programs for its people.  Sanders, now the frontrunner in the Democratic primary, doubled down on these remarks in a debate this week while insisting that he opposes authoritarianism.

"It really makes a difference when those you murder at the firing squad can read & write," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) quipped in response.

Diaz-Balart argued that Sanders' comments were "blatantly false."  He condemned the "racist, terrorist, murderous Castro regime in Cuba." He mentioned former Cuban political prisoners who are now his constituents in Florida.  "You see, for years, the Cuban regime has been on the list of state sponsors of terrorism for its support of other terrorist states, terrorist organizations, and violence around the world and in this hemisphere."

"So that is why I filed a resolution that condemns the blatantly false comments of Democratic Socialist candidate Senator Bernie Sanders.  This resolution also rejects the false claims that Cuba's health care, education, and literacy rates have improved as a result of the Castro regime — the Castro dictatorship," Diaz-Balart explained. Cuba's infant mortality rate was low, and its life expectancy and literacy rates were high before the Castro regime.

Democrats defeated the resolution by a procedural vote along party lines, 224-189.

"Dems have moved so far left and are so afraid of their socialist base that they can't even condemn a murderous communist regime anymore," Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House minority whip, tweeted.

I guess we could say that Dictator Fidel Castro wasn't a real socialist.  But then what is he?  A National Socialist?  Senator Bernie Sanders thinks he did [some] good things, like education and medical care.

But that raises the question of if we can say a nice work for National Socialist Germany for its autobahns?  Senator Sanders seems to suggest that—"it's unfair to simply say everything is bad".  Is Senator Sanders wrong?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Bernie and the Executive Order

For John, BLUF:  If a politician can not convince the voters to elect legislators who will support his or her program, then modesty would suggest the politician has more work to do.  The idea of just bypassing the Peoples' legislators is not just unconstitutional, it is wrong.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Sanders Plans to Sign Dozens of Executive Orders Upon Taking Office: ‘We Cannot Accept Delays from Congress’

From National Review, by Reporter Zachary Evans, 30 January 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

The Bernie Sanders campaign has outlined dozens of possible executive orders that Sanders might enact upon assuming office, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

“As we continue discussing the early work of your presidency and the progress we can make, below for review is a brief overview of executive actions you could take early in your administration,” read a document reviewed by the Post.  “We cannot accept delays from Congress on some of the most pressing issues, especially those like immigration where Trump has governed with racism and for his own corrupt benefit.”

Several of the executive orders would reverse President Trump’s policies on immigration, including an immediate halt of border wall construction, removing a limit on accepting refugees for asylum, and reinstating the Obama-era DACA program.

Other orders include a ban on the exportation of crude oil to combat climate change, and the severing of any federal contracts with companies that pay employees less than $15 an hour.

I was taught, in school, that the US Constitution was crafted to slow things down, to prevent any one person ruling by fiat, or some legislative house, responding to a recent election, rushing through major changes.  Majority rule, but with minority rights  Not minority in terms of race or ethnicity, but in terms of ideas.

Here is a look as Executive Orders issues by recent Presidents, by Calendar Year in Office.  Thus the drop off in the last year, for the time in office is less than a month, except for President Trump, where the last point represents mid-February.

It worries me when a President goes into office planning on using Executive Orders to overcome the regular process of Government.  President Trump, and President Obama, tried to work with Congress before they picked up their pen and phone.  It smacks of last Century's Communist governments, Stalin, Mao and Castro, not to mention Kim.

As an aside, I am put off by people crying "racism".  It is a very unbecoming look.  I don't care how angry you are, you should not do it.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Chris Matthews Crumbles

For John, BLUF:  Two questions.  Are we now banning all history involving National Socialists?  If National Socialism is banned, why not 20th Century Communism?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Chris Matthews Issues On-Air Apology to Bernie Sanders:  ‘I Was Wrong’

From Mediaite, by Reporter Josh Feldman, 24 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus four:

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews opened his show Monday night with an apology to Bernie Sanders.

Over the weekend, Matthews compared Sanders’ ascendancy in the Democratic race for the presidency to when the Nazis took France:

“I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940, and the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’  And Churchill says ‘How can it be?  You’ve got the greatest army in Europe.  How can it be over?’  He said, ‘It’s over.’”

Tonight Matthews addressed those comments and apologized:

“As I watched the one-sided results of Saturday’s Democratic caucus in Nevada, I reached for a historical analogy and used a bad one.  I was wrong to refer to an event from… the first days of World War II.  Senator Sanders, I’m sorry for comparing anything from that tragic error in which so many suffered, especially the Jewish people, to an electoral result in which you were the well-deserved winner.  This is going to be a hard-fought heated campaign of ideas.  In the days and weeks and months ahead, I will strive to do a better job myself of elevating the political discussion.”

This is a corrupt case.  Reporter Matthews didn't compare anyone to Nazis.  This was not an insult to the memory of Senator Sanders' relatives who were consumed in the Holocaust.

This was about conveying surprising bad news.  I like the historic example.  The reaction of MSNBC shows a sensitivity to appearance over an understanding of history.♠

I am sad for Mr Matthews.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The German Army success in France in 1940 owed little to the ideology of National Socialism and a lot to do with the German Army going to school after The Great War, and the French not.

Who Is Bernie?

For John, BLUF:  People have been talking about the "Corbynization" of the Democratic Party for a while.  sometimes it was about Antisemitism and sometimes about ideas on how to organize the economy.  Infrequently it touches on individual freedom.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Bernie Sanders is far more radical than Corbyn’s Labour

From CAPX, ♠ By Ryan Bourne, 17 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

• It is wrong to downplay just how radical Bernie Sanders would be
• Sanders is no European-style social democrat - just look at his platform
• You thought Corbyn was radical? Just wait till you see Bernie Sanders' proposals

It may be early days in the Democratic primary race, but Bernie Sanders is now the favourite to win the party’s nomination and set up a Trump-Sanders presidential election.

As the prospect of Sanders winning becomes ever more real, some commentators are downplaying his socialist credentials, painting the veteran Senator as no more than a moderate social democrat.

“Memo to left-wing Americans who adore Sanders’s radical ‘socialism’…” says Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan, “in most other Western/European countries, Sanders would be considered a pretty mainstream, centre-left social democrat.”

His view is shared by the economist Paul Krugman. Dastardly Republicans might have the audacity to use Sanders’ own preferred label to describe him, but since he doesn’t want to “nationalise our major industries” or “replace markets with central planning”, Sanders “isn’t actually a socialist.”  Ignore scare stories about Venezuelan economics then, Krugman advises.  Sanders just wants the US to look more like Denmark.

Krugman is right to say that Sanders shuns nationalisation.  To simply label him a socialist, without any caveats, is misleading.  But it’s even more grossly misleading to suggest his “democratic socialist” ambitions stop at a Scandinavian-style welfare state.  More redistribution is central to his agenda, sure, but he also proposes massive new market interventions, including the Green New Deal, a federal jobs guarantee, expansive price and wage controls, overhauling labour and corporate governance laws, and enforced mutualisation of companies.

Based on his performance as a prognosticator during the era of Trump, I wouldn't put a lot of trust in Dr Krugman's views.

I wounder why the media is not working on helping us understand the core of Senator Sanders' beliefs.  It is one thing when he is one of one hundred Senators, and from Vermont at that.  it is another if he is President, with a pen and a telephone.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  From the Centre for Policy Studies.

Mayor Bloomberg Makes a Move

For John, BLUF:  Mayor Bloomberg is late to the open game, so he has to bust a few moves to allow him to dominate some news cycles and to disrupt and disturb the apparent front runners.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Bloomberg is considering Hillary Clinton as his running mate, says Matt Drudge

From CNBC, by Ms Lauren Hirsch, 15 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is considering Hillary Clinton as a vice presidential running mate after positive internal polling about the potential pairing, according to the Drudge Report, which cited sources close to the Bloomberg campaign.

According to Drudge, in such a partnership Bloomberg would change his official residence from New York to Colorado or Florida. The constitution suggests there may be limitations in both members of a presidential ballot residing in the same state.

Of course it is being denied.  It is a trial balloon.

There will be plenty of time between now and the Convention to massage this part of the campaign.  In the mean time, there is a pocket of 2016 Hillary voters that will not be easily floating to Senators Warren or Klobuchar or to Senator Sanders or Mayor Buttigieg.  A successful campaign includes a lot of strategic thinking.

Hat tip to my Wife, who found this item.

Regards  —  Cliff