I've made Medicare For All my litmus test for this election. She's got a plan for Medicare For All and it's not what I'd want but I'll applaud her for having a plan and for fighting for it.
Pinned Tweet
Kamala Harris Retweeted
.@KamalaHarris is the first candidate in this round of debates to bring up repealing the Hyde Amendment! 
#DemDebate
Kamala Harris Retweeted
Thank you, @KamalaHarris, for bringing up the Hyde Amendment.
For far too long, the United States has penalized low-income people seeking abortion. That needs to end. #BeBoldEndHyde #DemDebate2
The Hyde Amendment has punished low-income women and women of color for too long. #DemDebate
Kamala Harris Retweeted
I’ve been firm in my stance on the Hyde Amendment: It must be repealed. #DemDebate
The burden shouldn't be on women to prove they're being discriminated against. Corporations should prove they're providing equal pay for equal work. And if they're not, I will personally hold them accountable. #DemDebate
Trump has done nothing except beat people down. It's time for a president who lifts people up. #DemDebate
Trump said he would help farmers and rural communities, but instead he's enacted a Trump Trade Tax — and now we have farmers with soybeans rotting in bins and auto workers who may be out of their job by the end of the year. Enough. #DemDebate
How many more communities need to go without clean water before we act? Enough. I introduced the Water Justice Act with Flint's Congressman Dan Kildee because every American deserves the right to clean water. #DemDebate
Climate change is an existential threat. We currently have a president in the White House who obviously does not understand the science. Trump thinks wind turbines cause cancer, but, in fact, they cause jobs. #DemDebate
That's from her Twitter feed and she made many of those points on the stage tonight.
I don't know what Tulsi Gabbard was doing tonight.
I like Tulsi. But, even allowing for her not being called on or given as much time as others in the debate, I don't think she used her time well. I'm sure my son's going to disagree with me on that at his site and that's fine.
But Medicare For All is my litmus test.
If Tulsi had spoken passionately about the never-ending wars, I would score her better. But I didn't see fire. I didn't see passion tonight.
So for me, it's Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bill de Blasio and that's really it.
Health care is a right, not a luxury. It's a factory installed option, not an add-on that only the wealthy can afford.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Wednesday:
Wednesday, July 31, 2019. We take a look at night one of the Democratic Party's presidential debates.
We need more people who will analyze and critique. Yes, on the left, where we are, but also on the right.
Too many on the left can't deal with what Donald Trump said because they're too rabid and hear instead what they think he said and foam at the mouth in stupidity.
It's not just the left that can catch that brand of rabies.
Zach Haller was a leftist at one point. A primary -- as with Amy Suskind -- sent him the other direction. (Yes, I know Amy pretends she was always left, that's not the case. That's her pretense today.) Zach is now on the right. That's fine. If he used his some keen insight he could be as valuable now as he was before the 2016 election.
But that's not what he's doing.
We need more people who will analyze and critique. Yes, on the left, where we are, but also on the right.
Too many on the left can't deal with what Donald Trump said because they're too rabid and hear instead what they think he said and foam at the mouth in stupidity.
It's not just the left that can catch that brand of rabies.
Zach Haller was a leftist at one point. A primary -- as with Amy Suskind -- sent him the other direction. (Yes, I know Amy pretends she was always left, that's not the case. That's her pretense today.) Zach is now on the right. That's fine. If he used his some keen insight he could be as valuable now as he was before the 2016 election.
But that's not what he's doing.
*WE* are Yada Yada Yada? Sit and spin, Marianne. Good luck getting anywhere with that attitude against Americans.
That is not what Marianne Williamson was talking about.
Maybe Zack just saw a meme and missed the point? Or saw the FOX NEWS article that managed to devote itself to an episode of SEINFELD that used the phrase and detailing that episode while ignoring what Marianne actually said. This is what she said:
For politicians, including my fellow candidates who themselves have taken tens of thousands and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars from these same corporate donors, to think that they now have the moral authority to say, ‘We’re going to take them on,’ I don’t think the Democratic Party should be surprised that so many Americans believe ‘yadda, yadda, yadda,’”
So many Americans believe that's just more talk. That's what she's saying. Politicians keep taking thousands, "hundreds of thousands of dollars," from corporations and then stand before the American people and claim that they will take on the corporations -- Big Pharma was one of her targets throughout the night -- the American people who hear that are going to believe "yadda, yadda, yadda" -- that it's just more empty talk.
She was not, as Zach Tweets, calling the American people stupid. She was saying that talk from a politician bought and paid for by, for example, Big Pharma can stand on the stage claiming he or she will take them on but the American people are not going to believe that person. Rightly so.
Zach, for those who don't know, loves to climb on the cross. His pinned Tweet, all these months later, is still about how he was banned from MEDIUM back in March (March 18th is the date of the pinned Tweet). To Zach, that is the most important event in March, in April, in May, in June and, yes, still in July. Others have been banned from various platforms since then but, even today as July wraps up, it's still about Zach the victim. Which is hilarious because as he's moved to the right, he's attacked 'victim mentality' and pretended it is something exclusive to the left.
But he is so upset that this person or that person did him wrong.
Is the greatest crime really when Zach's done wrong by others?
He's done Marianne Williamson wrong. Why? She attacked Donald Trump last night and Zach's new brand has been all about pro-Donald Trump. He can't listen because he's too busy gearing up for his attack.
And that's a shame. First of all, it distorts what Marianne said -- a statement that he not only actually agrees with but that he could have used to call out many other Democrats onstage last night. Second, it makes him less honest and less useful. He cheats himself by doing that and he cheats the public debate.
Marianne was onstage last night with nine other Democrats: Tim Ryan, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, John Hickenlooper, John Delaney and Steve Bullock. Tonight Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gilibrand, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Andrew Yang, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Mike DeBlasio and Joe Biden take the stage. The debates are airing on and moderated by CNN. 20 of the 25 candidates running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination made the cut -- five will not be permitted to stand onstage and debate.
CNN tried to be more in-your-face with the candidates. It led to a lot of nonsense.
Don Lemon was especially an embarrassment. In the first hour, he was repeatedly sarcastic and patronizing in his tone when addressing (usually just trying to silence) Marianne. But his most embarrassing moment was when he wanted to ask about gun control.
Don, you understand, is all upset about people being shot dead.
Well . . . not really.
Because he waited until the 'race' segment to bring up the issue that should have been brought up immediately with regards to gun violence.
The numbers do not lie, police in America have killed 12.8 times more citizens than mass shooters in just the last 4 years. Why do you tolerate murder behind the badge?
If Don wants to talk about ending gun violence, the issue of people shot dead by the police is not a topic to be ignored. It's not something to be shelved until the issue of race is raised. Police shootings are part of gun violence, stop pretending otherwise.
This is not "Piss on the police!" This is not me saying, "All police are bad!" This is me stating, as I've noted before, there is a culture of violence that our society participates in and that participation includes some police officers. I have noted before my shock over a police training I observed where the speaker went on and on about what he saw as ''protecting yourself'' but which declared every one you encounter should be treated as a dangerous criminal.
Why do you shoot a child? And don't say you shot the child because they were holding a toy gun and you thought it was a real gun. That's not an answer. The question is why did you shoot a child? Tamir Rice was 12-years-old. Why was he shot?
You thought his toy gun was real. Okay, I can understand how that would make you approach the child and try to reason with a child. I don't, however, understand how that makes you shoot a child.
You didn't know it was a toy gun? I get that, I understand that. But by the time you're shooting a 12-year-old child, you should have been addressing the situation, sussing it out and you should have ascertained that it was a toy gun.
There was never a reason for Tamir Rice to have been shot.
That's one example, there are many more.
We don't value life -- as a society, we don't value it. That's why a Tamir Rice can be killed so quickly and so easily.
These community sites covered the debate last night:
The debate
8 hours ago
Elizabeth and Bernie
10 hours ago
Hickenlooper is Nixon reincarnated
10 hours ago
Lipless Delaney is the village idiot
11 hours ago
Like many of them, I do wonder who Bullock, Delaney, Hickenlooper and Ryan appeal to? Then I look at the polling and see that they appeal to no one. This despite all four getting some of the easiest press in the world.
After last month's debate, remember it was Senator Kamala Harris that many took to lecturing -- including the fat ass who wrote the column for USA TODAY and who will have his own MeToo moment when we pull back to include sexism in the debate (women have long complained about the way they are treated and ignored by that professor in a classroom setting).
Kamala, they felt, needed a lecture about busing. Why?
Apparently because she was a woman.
Kamala does know about busing. She experienced it first hand -- something her critics couldn't also say.
They went after Kamala, trying to 'school' her and they ignored Tim Ryan. There was no bigger idiot in the first two debates last month than Tim Ryan. He claimed the Taliban attacked the US on 9/11. It was al Qaeda.
If someone needed to be "schooled" following those first two debates, it was Tim Ryan, not Kamala Harris.
CNN got a little schooling watching what had happened on MSNBC and they were better, for the most part, about insisting that all stop speaking once their time was over. MSNBC, by contrast, had an urge to cut off women while, after telling men there time was up, allowing the men to keep talking and talking and talking.
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders came off very strong last night. Hickenlooper and Bullock tried to mock them -- and, as Betty noted, Bullock tried to mansplain to Elizabeth -- but their theatrics didn't play well. Bullock came off smarmy while Hickenlooper, as Ruth noted, minced like no one's ever minced before.
Delaney just looked repulsive -- both in presentation and appearance -- on the latter does the US really want to elect Curly from The Three Stooges to the Oval Office?
Weak candidates like Delaney were called out by Elizabeth and Bernie for using "Republican talking points" -- they also called out CNN moderator Jake Tapper for doing that.
Delaney was nothing but a Republican talking point and those who know history will especially roll their eyes at this nonsense.
DELANEY: Folks, we have a choice. We can go down the road that Senator Sanders and Senator Warren want to take us, which is with bad policies like Medicare for all, free everything and impossible promises that will turn off independent voters and get Trump re-elected. That's what happened with McGovern. That's what happened with Mondale. That's what happened with Dukakis. Or we can nominate someone with new ideas to create universal health care for every American with choice, someone who wants to unify our country and grow the economy and create jobs everywhere. And then we win the White House.
By the way, I'm using the transcript that NBC has posted.
I don't remember Mondale, Dukakis or McGovern offering Medicare For All. Do you?
Delaney has no big ideas and, honestly, he's got no ideas at all. Elizabeth, for example, has a Green New Deal that will create over a million new jobs and Delaney's notion to spur job growth is probably more along the lines of having a garage sale this weekend and getting granny to 'work' it with the promise of buying her lunch from McDonalds.
On appearances, Mayor Pete? Betty wasn't the only one wondering what was on his forehead.
Somebody, PLEASE SOMEBODY WIPE THAT SMUDGE OFF PETE'S FOREHEAD
#DemDebate #PeteButtigieg
Red mark on forehead -- five o'clock shadow -- sweaty upper lip. @PeteButtigieg may be gay, but his makeup artist sure isn't. #DemDebate
I think @PeteButtigieg smacked a fly to death on his forehead right before #DemDebate2
What's up with @PeteButtigieg's forehead tho #DemDebate2
The blotch is now gone from Pete Buttigieg’s forehead!
Looks like the EMTs came in and cleaned up Pete Buttigieg’s forehead...#DemocraticDebate
THE MARK ON HIS FOREHEAD IS GONE #DemDebate @PeteButtigieg
Why does @PeteButtigieg have a gash on his forehead?
I need the deets on what happened to @PeteButtigieg forehead?!?! #DemDebate
Me: What's on @PeteButtigieg forehead?
Schwarzenegger: It's naught a tumaw.
#DemDebate
Whoever tells Pete Buttigieg he's got something on his forehead has my vote. #DemDebate
What had happened to Mayor Pete’s forehead???
#facegate
Internet freaks out about mysterious blotch on Pete Buttigieg’s forehead | Raw Story
rawstory.com/2019/07/intern… via rawstory
What the hell is on @PeteButtigieg's forehead? #demdebate2
What was on Pete Buttigieg’s forehead? Wrong answers only. #DemDebate
Is there a booger on Pete Buttigieg’s forehead?
That's how you run a campaign?
You're at a nationally televised debate. You've been unable -- despite a ton of easy press -- to break through in the polling. You know the June debates had historic viewership levels and you're on the first hour of the debates with something on your forehead? Some splotch or scab or booger or dead fly or whatever?
They took commercial breaks throughout. Why did it take so long for Team Buttigieg to get their act together and clean the candidate's forehead? And, honestly, why didn't he notice it himself? He's going before the cameras it is actually his duty to do a self-check in a mirror. That's not vanity, that's taking the time required to present yourself properly.
Beto O'Rourke? He may have scored points on likability but, on policy, he was a big disappointment. With regards to Medicare For All, his position expressed in the debate was not clear and, as Trina noted, that was more due to CNN moderators refusing to allow him to finish answering their question then it was to Beto's flubbing the response.
That said, he has only himself to blame for the big moment of the debate to those of us who care about these never-ending wars.
TAPPER: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor.
(APPLAUSE)
I
want to bring in Congressman O'Rourke. Congressman O'Rourke, responding
-- returning, rather, to the question of whether you would withdraw all
U.S. servicemembers from Afghanistan during your first year in office
as president, how do you respond, sir?
O'ROURKE:
I would in my first term in office. Agree that there is nothing about
perpetuating this war, already in its 18th year, that will make it any
better. We've satisfied the reasons for our involvement in Afghanistan
in the first place. And it's time to bring those servicemembers back
home from Afghanistan, but also from Iraq, also from Yemen, and Somalia,
and Libya, and Syria.
There is no reason
for us to be at war all over the world tonight. As president, I will end
those wars, and we will not start new wars. We will not send more U.S.
servicemembers overseas to sacrifice their lives and to take the lives
of others in our name. We can resolve these challenges peacefully and
diplomatically.
So the war needs to end and has gone on to long and Beto agrees with that but he says he will bring troops home "in my first term in office." The question Jake Tapper asked was if he would do it in his first year in office? No, Beto won't promise that. He'll promise to do it in his first term.
That's very disappointing.
Especially when Mayor Pete could -- and did -- speak so much more clearly on this issue.
TAPPER: Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.
Mayor
Buttigieg, you served in Afghanistan where just yesterday two U.S.
servicemembers were killed. There are currently about 14,000 U.S.
servicemembers in Afghanistan. You've said, quote, "One thing everybody
can agree on is that we're getting out of Afghanistan." Will you
withdraw all U.S. servicemembers by the end of your first year in
office?
BUTTIGIEG: We will withdraw. We have to.
TAPPER: In your first year?
BUTTIGIEG:
Yes. Look, around the world, we will do whatever it takes to keep
America safe. But I thought I was one of the last troops leaving
Afghanistan when I thought I was turning out the lights years ago.
Every
time I see news about somebody being killed in Afghanistan, I think
about what it was like to hear an explosion over there and wonder
whether it was somebody that I served with, somebody that I knew, a
friend, roommate, colleague.
We're pretty close to the day when we will wake up to the news of a casualty in Afghanistan who was not born on 9/11.
I
was sent into that war by a congressional authorization, as well as a
president. And we need to talk not only about the need for a president
committed to ending endless war, but the fact that Congress has been
asleep at the switch.
And on my watch, I
will propose that any authorization for the use of military force have a
three-year sunset and have to be renewed, because if men and women in
the military have the courage to go serve, members of Congress ought to
have to summon the courage to vote on whether they ought to be there.
TAPPER: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor.
(APPLAUSE)
I want to bring in Congressman O'Rourke.
"I want to bring in Congressman O'Rourke" is included so that everyone gets that Pete had already answered the question and he answer it: Yes, I will promise to bring home US troops in Afghanistan in my first year as president.
But Beto couldn't, wouldn't make the same promise.
That's very disappointing. He's called out the forever wars but he can't promise to immediately address them. He can't promise to end them in his first year as president. Give him a four year term, though, and he promises that, at some point, he'll get around to ending the never-ending war in Afghanistan. At some point.
Bernie was asked about the issue of these wars and we'll include his response.
TAPPER: Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator. I want to turn to foreign policy now.
Senator
Sanders, President Trump has argued that the United States cannot
continue to be the, quote, "policeman of the world." You said the exact
same thing on a debate stage in 2016. If voters are hearing the same
message from you and President Trump on the issue of military
intervention, how should they expect that you will be any different from
him?
SANDERS: Trump is a pathological liar. I tell the truth.
(APPLAUSE)
We
have been in Afghanistan I think 18 years, in Iraq 16 or 17 years. We
have spent $5 trillion on the war on terror. And there are probably more
terrorists out there now than before it began. We're going to spend --
the Congress passed -- and I will not vote for -- a $715 billion
military budget, more than the 10 next countries combined.
What
we need is a foreign policy that focuses on diplomacy, ending conflicts
by people sitting at a table, not by killing each other. As president
of the United States, I will go to the United Nations and not denigrate
it, not attack the U.N., but bring countries together in the Middle East
and all over the world to come to terms with their differences and
solve those problems peacefully.
TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.
SANDERS: The United States cannot be the policeman of the world.
We should point out the obvious here, CNN's three moderators refused to ask that question of all on the stage. Commander-in-chief is a power of the presidency. How they would use that role and that power is of serious concern. It was only addressed with four male candidates. (Amy Klobuchar discussed diplomacy.)
Throughout, Marianne Williamson addressed larger issues than the narrow scope the moderators tried to impose. We'll note this exchange:
BASH: Thank you, Senator Sanders. Ms. Williamson?
WILLIAMSON: I'd like to respond.
BASH:
You are proposing to make college free for all qualified students.
Should the government pay for children from wealthier families to go to
college?
WILLIAMSON: I think that all
domestic and international policy should be based on the idea that
anything we do to help people thrive is a stimulation to our economy.
That's how you stimulate your economy. So if a few people take
advantage, but there are four or five people who were going to take the
money that they then have in the bank -- when you look at this $1.5
trillion college debt -- this is why I agree with Bernie, or I would be
-- OK, why don't we swap it? We had a $2 trillion tax cut, where 83
cents of every dollar goes to the very, very richest among us, that does
not stimulate the economy.
If we get rid
of this college debt, think of all the young people who will have the
discretionary spending; they'll be able to start their business. The
best thing you could do to stimulate the U.S. economy is to get rid of
this debt.
(APPLAUSE)
This
is not just about a plan to to do it. It's about a philosophy of
governing. And I've heard some people here tonight, I almost wonder why
you're Democrats. You seem to think there's something wrong about
using...
(APPLAUSE)
...
about using the instruments of government to help people. That is what
government should do. It should -- all policies should help people
thrive. That is how we will have peace...
BASH: Thank you.
WILLIAMSON: ... and that is how we will have prosperity.
Amy and Steve repeatedly tried to sell themselves as people who had appealed -- in their own state -- to Donald Trump voters. Polling would indicate that they struggle to appeal to voters on a national level and that's in every state except their own. They may be huge in their own states but winning one state only doesn't win the White House.
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