19th February 2020, 3:01 PM
Two big attack ads against Sanders lately. Warren's been disappeared by the media the way they tried to do to Sanders earlier in the campaign.
The first is a tired old argument. "He's taking away your CHOICE of insurer!" Well, so what? Under universal health care, you don't NEED insurance! You just walk into a clinic and get treatment! That's how it works in England, and Norway, and Canada. No one cares about being able to pick their insurer, they care about being able to pick their doctor and treatment, and you get MORE choice with universal health care by that metric.
But Jon Oliver covers this far better than I could.
Another ad just goes after Sanders supporters. It's a rather confused ad. The most abusive actors are a minority that are actively discouraged by Bernie himself, as opposed to Trump who actively encourages that behavior, and frankly according to in depth analysis the progressive side are the LEAST likely to "DOX" or threaten physical violence against others. I know I haven't done that. The ad also equates posting a bunch of "rat" emoticons under Pete Buttigieg's posts online is somehow equivilent to death threats and doxxing. No, it isn't. Also, Pete's a rat, so it's justified.
The last one is a genuine criticism of Sander's policy, something that really matters and which made me disappointed when I read about it then verified that it was true. Well, it's about time they found SOMETHING real to go after him for.
He voted yes on a bill to relocate nuclear waste into land where the closest community was latino. That's not good. Frankly, there are better places to put such waste, such as underneath mountains. That's geologically the most stable location for stuff like this. Here's Sander's reasoning. The waste was in a place with too high an amount of rainflow originally, a location that was never meant to store the material and was likely to eventually lead to a leak that polluted the water supply. The new location in Texas was far dryer and more stable a location, and thus far less likely of leaks. The ads give the impression he was actively targetting latino communities, and that certainly doesn't appear to be the case and doesn't match his long term records regarding those communities, but it was still a bad vote. I really don't know what I would have done. I could also point out that unlike votes on "political feasibility" and "fiscal responsibility", this was a matter of physics instead of purely human constructs we merely defined into existance like money and politics. Choices really are limited in this case. Still, I would have proposed something like Yucca Mountain.
Oh, and while this vote does disappoint me, as you might imagine it doesn't change my mind when the entire centrist wing has far more abusive policies they've voted for that were active attempts to screw people over, such as ending social security or firing black police officers or arresting black teens without evidence or just plain treating black people like second class citizens for YEARS.
The first is a tired old argument. "He's taking away your CHOICE of insurer!" Well, so what? Under universal health care, you don't NEED insurance! You just walk into a clinic and get treatment! That's how it works in England, and Norway, and Canada. No one cares about being able to pick their insurer, they care about being able to pick their doctor and treatment, and you get MORE choice with universal health care by that metric.
But Jon Oliver covers this far better than I could.
Another ad just goes after Sanders supporters. It's a rather confused ad. The most abusive actors are a minority that are actively discouraged by Bernie himself, as opposed to Trump who actively encourages that behavior, and frankly according to in depth analysis the progressive side are the LEAST likely to "DOX" or threaten physical violence against others. I know I haven't done that. The ad also equates posting a bunch of "rat" emoticons under Pete Buttigieg's posts online is somehow equivilent to death threats and doxxing. No, it isn't. Also, Pete's a rat, so it's justified.
The last one is a genuine criticism of Sander's policy, something that really matters and which made me disappointed when I read about it then verified that it was true. Well, it's about time they found SOMETHING real to go after him for.
He voted yes on a bill to relocate nuclear waste into land where the closest community was latino. That's not good. Frankly, there are better places to put such waste, such as underneath mountains. That's geologically the most stable location for stuff like this. Here's Sander's reasoning. The waste was in a place with too high an amount of rainflow originally, a location that was never meant to store the material and was likely to eventually lead to a leak that polluted the water supply. The new location in Texas was far dryer and more stable a location, and thus far less likely of leaks. The ads give the impression he was actively targetting latino communities, and that certainly doesn't appear to be the case and doesn't match his long term records regarding those communities, but it was still a bad vote. I really don't know what I would have done. I could also point out that unlike votes on "political feasibility" and "fiscal responsibility", this was a matter of physics instead of purely human constructs we merely defined into existance like money and politics. Choices really are limited in this case. Still, I would have proposed something like Yucca Mountain.
Oh, and while this vote does disappoint me, as you might imagine it doesn't change my mind when the entire centrist wing has far more abusive policies they've voted for that were active attempts to screw people over, such as ending social security or firing black police officers or arresting black teens without evidence or just plain treating black people like second class citizens for YEARS.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)