Posted on 10/14/2015 7:24:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sure, this batch of candidates sounded like a bunch of loons. They contended socialism is mostly about standing up to the richest one percent and promoting entrepreneurs and small business; climate change is the biggest national security threat facing the nation; college educations should be free for everyone; all lives don’t matter, black lives do; Obama is simultaneously an enormously successful president in managing the economy and the middle class is collapsing and there’s a need for a “New New Deal” which is in fact an Old Old Idea, considering how FDR called for a Second New Deal in 1935. The audience in Nevada applauded higher taxes, believes that Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to answer any more questions, supports the complete shutdown of the NSA domestic surveillance program, and that Obamacare benefits should be extended to illegal immigrants. There are kindergarten classes with more realistic assessments of cost-benefit tradeoffs than the crowd watching this debate at the Wynn Las Vegas.
So yes, the candidates sounded like hard-Left, pie-in-the-sky, free-ice-cream-for-everyone, Socialist pander bears. But they do so because that is what the Democratic Party’s primary voters demand. Don’t blame them; blame the party rank-and-file that craves these promises, rhetoric, and worldview.
With that in mind, Hillary Clinton is the class of the field on that stage, and the only real obstacle to the nomination that remains is a Joe Biden bid. Compared with everyone else, she’s polished and knows what she’s doing. Even when she’s being robotic and inauthentic, she’s remembering her talking points, pivoting to her preferred issues. The software upgrades to her personality may look awkward when she’s alone, but she’s still a much, much better candidate than anybody else on that stage.
Sure, she was duplicitous, but she’s a Clinton; that’s baked in the cake — for example Hillary said during the debate she had hoped that the Trans Pacific Partnership would be the gold standard; in her book, she said it was the gold standard.
#share#In one of the few surprises of the night, Bernie Sanders did his best to try to save her on her troubles with her personal e-mail server. He’s an old fool if he thinks Hillary will return the favor when he needs it. Martin O’Malley, who sounded tough in cable-news interviews, wimped out in the end once he saw the audience’s roaring applause to Sanders’s declaration that the issue was settled and nobody needed to hear any more about “her damn e-mails.”
Sanders may rock the arenas when they’re filled with progressive grassroots activists, but his style doesn’t transfer well to a broader audience. He’s the party guest whom you instinctively don’t want to talk to, who begins shouting immediately, who grabs your lapel and spits a bit as he jabs his finger into your chest for emphasis. He’s Senator Larry David. You want to get away from his perpetually irritated (and irritating) ranting, but he just won’t stop talking, and he won’t let you gently back away or escape the conversation. Every two-minute answer felt like ten minutes of shouting — and he had the audacity to give Hillary grief about shouting.
Beyond his giant wimp-out on Hillary’s e-mails, O’Malley was more pleasant to listen to but is ultimately going to be a non-factor in this race. When Sanders finished his call for a revolution, O’Malley turned to the camera and said with a big smile, “What we need is a green-energy revolution!” And for a moment, he waited for applause that didn’t come. The Democratic audience wasn’t in a mood for innovation. They are in a mood for populist revenge against people who have more than they do. Sanders shouts, O’Malley whispers.
Jim Webb pointed out how affirmative action disadvantages poor whites, the need to respect the rights of gun owners, the seriousness of foreign-policy threats that Democrats rarely acknowledge — like cyber threats, hacking (ahem), and China. He was the lone voice of reality saying,“With all due respect to Senator Sanders, I don’t think the revolution is going to come, and I don’t think the Congress is going to pay for all this.”
Webb has a good chance of winning the Democratic nomination in 1948. You almost have to wonder how Webb would be doing in the GOP presidential primary, but at a key moment, Webb flinched, saying he wouldn’t have a problem with extending Obamacare benefits to illegal immigrants. But give him style points for his declaration that his biggest enemy was the man who tried to kill him with a grenade . . . a man who’s not around any more.
It seemed as if Webb complained he wasn’t getting enough time or enough questions every single time he was called on by Anderson Cooper.
Lincoln Chafee was there, and he thought Cooper was hard on him when he asked about one of the first votes he took in he Senate.
And it is HIGH TIME for opponents to start calling them SOCIALISTS.
The first paragraph of the above excerpt says it all.
We would do well remember that if they are willing to openly promote socialist views, their ultimate goal must be somewhere beyond that.
Yes, and it has the support of roughly half the population.
The US now has a robust and growing support base for Democratic Socialism. Win or lose, Bernie has changed the game forever. We are now Europe.
The strategy of the Democrats appears to try and convince two hundred million Americans, who live better than 99% of the people of the planet, that they’re one paycheck away from destitution. Only the new Democratic Socialists of America can save them. What a bunch of stooges.
This debate is Kabuki Theater set up to get free TV time and showcase Hillary.
Somehow the media and the democrats were able to round up three people who have no chance at all of being nominated but don’t mind being shills for the Hillary campaign.
We “now” have a socialist party?? I hate to tell you, National Review, but the Demonrat party was hijacked by socialists as far back as Woodrow Wilson.
I would add the word "National" to the headline, as in "National Socialist".
And yes, we need to do to them what we did to the last batch of National Socialists.
Why?
Socialism, even Communism, has lost its sting.
Say “Communist” and everybody thinks of the viciously slandered Senator McCarthy his ‘witch hunts’ not about the millions of dead and persistent poverty that Communism has left behind in its wake.
It looks like Webb was almost the lone voice of sanity among this bunch of Looney Tunes.
Yup, never call them “liberals”, call them “leftists”, or “socialists” (even though technically, socialism means government ownership of production output), or “tyrants” (closer because unconstitutional federal acts are tyranny by definition). Fabian Society also fits pretty well.
Obama has moved polarization of our nation way down the line, causing clearer separation of the sheep from the goats and the freedom lovers from the lovers of big government.
Socialist and fascists, and liars and fools.
They want taxpayers to pay for hundreds of billions in new entitlements. They want all kinds of new taxes without recognizing once that as soon as they impose new taxes the thing they are taxing will change - sometimes radically. If they want to tax hedge funds differently than others, they need to know that hedge funds will change the way they operate either to avoid the tax or because the risk/reward has been fundamentally altered thereby reducing the desire to invest in hedge funds. And as a result the money they think they will be able to tax will dwindle, leaving them with an ever larger deficit.
They spent considerable time talking about how horrible it is to lock up non-violent small time pot users. They are right but that is not the point. The real problem and only Rand Paul (whom I do not support for President but agree with on this issue) has the courage to address it. Black Lives Matter is an unfortunate name for a very important cause. The War on Drugs is why thousands of Americans are killed each year, why thousands of black men are killing thousands of other black men in places like Chicago and Baltimore and New York (where the POTUS and 2 wannabe POTI claim as home). The War on Drugs is why the police are militarized, and why they are very aggressive with encounters from traffic stops to warrant searches. Not to mention, the profits since police departments get to keep many the assets seized in raids this creates a distortion in police work where the police brass are incentivized to conduct more and more drug raids, increasing the risk of violent confrontation.
Drugs is all about money. Take the money out of it and the violence goes away. I am not saying to legalize drugs. I am saying to decriminalize it when it is between two consenting adults. Lock up people who harm children or give drugs to children. Lock up rapists and murderers and thieves and con men and corrupt politicians with them. But fighting a war against drug supply is folly when the financial rewards are so great that thousands of people are willing to murder thousands of other people every year just for a piece of it. There is no disincentive the government can create that is severe enough to win this war when the participants are already willing to kill and die just for a chance to be in it! The only way is to reduce the demand and to eliminate the economic incentive to be violent.
The guys who complain to the moderator cannot win. Presidents don’t whine about how much time they get, they command the time and they shut down moderators who interrupt them. You would think that everyone on the stage knows this but in all the debates, from both parties, there are always a few who whine about fairness. “Fairness” may be good word to say at a government workers union rally but it won’t win votes.
Democrats Truly Do Love The PoorThat's Why They Keep Creating So Many Of Them
I would add the word "National" to the headline, as in "National Socialist".
And yes, we need to do to them what we did to the last batch of National Socialists.
I would put the Democrats in the International Socialist camp. They intend to erase our boarders and have the US tax payers support the population of the third world.
The ultimate goal of the US Democrat party is a one world socialist government under the UN.
“I would put the Democrats in the International Socialist camp. They intend to erase our boarders and have the US tax payers support the population of the third world.”
You are 100% correct! They are the Internationalists, Globalists and hate borders and Nationalism Huge proponents of the UN and their various power (money) grabbing schemes.
Taxpayer funded public education will of course cause about 90% of private schools to shut down. Who would pay to go to a private university when adults will pay for you to go to public schools? Oh sure, Harvard, Yale of course will still get the top students and the wealthy. Sanders doesn’t realize he would be creating an even more disparate and elitist system than what we have today? And the cost? If we are going to pay for tuition, I guess we should get some kind of bulk discount on the cost of tuition (and cost of medicines, and cost of health care etc)? And we are going to underwrite every state’s public university system? Why only university? Why don’t we pay for state’s K-12? (I am not proposing we do, just leading to the obvious conclusion).
Introduce something called "PC" ... PC becomes reality and law
introduce something called "equal rights" ... equal rights become reality and law
Introduce something called "gay" ... gay becomes reality and law
etc., etc., etc. (Yul Brynner)
We Americans have GOT to learn the English language and use it asgainst those that don't ..
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