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Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
By Vandana Rambaran | Fox News
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner for the Democrats' presidential nomination, doubled down on his support for some of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's policies, saying in an interview that aired Sunday, "it's unfair to simply say everything is bad."
Speaking to CBS News' "60 Minutes," Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, pointed to social welfare programs introduced under Castro's regime that he described as redeeming, despite the communist dictator's often repressive human-rights violations against Cubans.
"We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it's unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?" Sanders told Anderson Cooper.
Fidel Castro relinquished power to his brother, Raúl, in 2011 after nearly half a century in charge of the island nation; Fidel died in 2016.
Some Republicans jumped on Sanders' comments. "It really makes a difference when those you murder at the firing squad can read & write," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tweeted.
In a resurfaced speech given at the University of Vermont in 1986, Sanders praised the socialist policies implemented in Cuba by the Castro regime and criticized bipartisan efforts in the U.S. to tamp down on Castro's spread of communism.
While Sanders said in the new interview he "condemns" any human rights violations Castro committed, he also took aim at President Trump for his unlikely friendships with some dictators or strongman leaders, including North Korea's Kim Jong Un and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
"I do not think that Kim Jong Un is a good friend," Sanders said. "I don't trade love letters with a murdering dictator. Vladimir Putin, not a great friend of mine."
Despite victories in all three of the earliest state contests, the Vermont senator has faced criticism from other party contenders, including billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who lambasted his socialist policies declaring they would never fare in a November matchup with Trump.
Sanders went on to define his brand of democratic socialism, which has tapped into a more progressive ideology that has been gaining traction with young voters across the country.
"When Donald Trump was a private businessman in New York, he got $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury housing. That's called corporate socialism. What democratic socialism is about is saying, 'Let's use the federal government to protect the interests of working families,'" he explained.
Trump has used Sanders' policy initiatives, including "Medicare-for-all" and free college tuition and elimination of student loan debt, to take aim at the senator, even going so far as to label him a communist.
"You know what? We will fight back," Sanders said of these attacks. "This is what we will bring up... that the president of the United States is a pathological liar, and it is increasingly clear that many people just don't believe anything that he says. He is a fraud. I look forward to taking him on."
RBP (02-28-2020)
By Gregg Re | Fox News
Bernie Sanders unexpectedly released a fact-sheet Monday night explaining that he'd pay for his sweeping new government programs through new taxes and massive lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, as well as by slashing spending on the military, among other methods.
The move sought to head off complaints from Republicans and some rival Democrats that his plans were economically unrealistic, especially after a head-turning CBS News interview in which the frustrated Vermont senator said he couldn't "rattle off to you every nickle and every dime" about his proposed expenditures.
He released his plan on his website just minutes after promising to do so during a CNN town hall.
However, the fact-sheet highlighted for the first time that many of Sanders' expected cost-saving measures relied on conjecture and best-case scenarios. For example, Sanders' document asserts that a "modest tax on Wall Street speculation ... will raise an estimated $2.4 trillion over ten years" and, in one fell swoop, make all "public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition-free ... and cancel all student debt over the next decade."
The proposal specifically would place a "0.5 percent tax on stock trades – 50 cents on every $100 of stock – a 0.1 percent fee on bond trades, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivative trades."
The National Review has likened a tax on so-called "Wall Street speculation" to a de facto tax on savings, saying the Sanders plan "would mean paying $25 to the federal government every time you traded $5,000 worth of stock — or five times what you’d pay the typical online brokerage in fees. ... Over the long term, that imposes serious costs on actively traded funds such as the ones containing many Americans’ retirement funds."
Meanwhile, housing for everyone would cost $2.5 trillion over ten years, and would be paid entirely by a "wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent," raising a total of $4.35 trillion, according to Sanders' fact-sheet. Similarly, "universal childcare and pre-school to every family in America" would be provided with a wealth tax on the "top 0.1 percent," again raising more than $4 trillion.
Sanders' plan did not discuss the possible stock market ramificiations of a major seizure of some of this wealth, much of which is held in markets and other investments. The plan also did not discuss how the government would be able to reliably obtain the money, given that many investments could simply be liquidated or transferred elsewhere before his administration took office.
Instead, Sanders' proposal said only that it would eventually establish a "national wealth registry and significant additional third party reporting requirements," buff up IRS funding and, and "include enhancements to the international tax enforcement." The plan would require the IRS "to perform an audit of 30 percent of wealth tax returns for those in the 1 percent bracket and a 100 percent audit rate for all billionaires," and would include a "40 percent exit tax on the net value of all assets under $1 billion and 60 percent over $1 billion for all wealthy individual seeking to expatriate to avoid the tax."
A new "income inequality tax on large corporations that pay CEOs at least 50 times more than average workers" would take care of $81 billion in past-due medical debt, Sanders further claimed.
Sanders' projections also stated without providing details that his Green New Deal plan would create "20 million new jobs," thus ensuring $2.3 trillion in "new income tax revenue."
Additionally, Sanders cited "economists" as he promised that by "averting climate catastrophe we will save: $2.9 trillion over 10 years, $21 trillion over 30 years and $70.4 trillion over 80 years."
No information was provided to validate that assertion, although the Trump administration's National Climate Assessment found that it was possible climate change could reduce the size of the U.S. economy by 10 percent by the end of the century, assuming no substantial changes in technology (including carbon-reducing innovations) or policy occur in the meantime.
Sanders claimed to be able to raise "$3.085 trillion by making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies." He has repeatedly suggested on the campaign trail that he would direct the Justice Department to pursue the fossil fuel industry, although it was unclear how successful that legal strategy would be.
"If we do not act, the U.S. will lose $34.5 trillion by the end of the century in economic productivity," Sanders alleged -- putting the consequences of climate change in stark economic terms.
On health care, Sanders has previously vowed to provide benefits, including health care, even to illegal immigrants. It's unclear how many people that unprecedented proposal would cover, especially given that such a plan would likely lead to a rise in immigration to the United States and that the number of illegal immigrants presently in the country is unknown. The issue is not mentioned at all in Sanders' fact-sheet.
Instead, although some nonpartisan estimates have put the cost of Sanders' "Medicare-for-all" proposal at over $32 trillion, Sanders' fact-sheet simply doubled down on a "proposed a menu of financing options that would more than pay" for the program.
Among the available options: "creating a 4 percent income-based premium paid by employees, exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four," as well as imposing a 7.5 percent "income-based premium paid by employers, exempting the first $1 million in payroll to protect small businesses."
Other savings would come from eliminating "health tax expenditures, which would no longer be needed under Medicare for All," and "raising the top marginal income tax rate to 52% on income over $10 million."
Reducing defense spending by "$1.215 trillion" would be achievable by "scaling back military operations on protecting the global oil supply," Sanders' fact-sheet continued. Defense spending is slated to total $934 billion from Oct. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021.
As the numbers were released, Sanders doubled down on his comments praising Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's "literacy program," saying it was a positive outcome from the violent Cuban Revolution that literacy rates quickly rose.
The pro-Castro remarks had drawn scrutiny even from Democratic lawmakers, especially in Florida, which has a large Cuban-American population.
"As the first South American immigrant member of Congress who proudly represents thousands of Cuban Americans, I find Senator Bernie Sanders’ comments on Castro’s Cuba absolutely unacceptable," wrote Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. "The Castro regime murdered and jailed dissidents, and caused unspeakable harm to too many South Florida families. To this day, it remains an authoritarian regime that oppresses its people, subverts the free press, and stifles a free society."
Other Democrats pointed out that Cuba's literacy was on the rise pre-Castro, and asserted that the literacy program amounted to an indoctrination effort. Even so, on Monday, Sanders refused to apologize for his remarks at the CNN town hall, when pressed by moderator Chris Cuomo.
"Truth is truth," Sanders said to applause. "If you want to disagree with me, if somebody wants to say -- and by the way, all of those congresspeople that you mention, just so happen to be supporting other candidates -- accidentally no doubt, coincidentally. But, you know, the truth is the truth. And that's what happened in the first years of the Castro regime."
Also at the town hall, after arguing that people should not be judged solely by their skin color, Sanders promised that his vice president "definitively" would not be an "old white guy."
RBP (02-28-2020)
That commie is fucking insane.
Warning: The posts of this forum member may contain trigger language which may be considered offensive to some.
Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
Better keep a low profile, if he wins, you'll be on "the list" to be shipped of to the gulag and he will seize your assets to help pay for the free stuff for everyoneOriginally Posted by DemonGeminiX
RBP (02-28-2020)
Ha. Whoever comes to my door will get cut down by a hail of gunfire. I'll go out swinging like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
Last edited by DemonGeminiX; 02-25-2020 at 09:27 PM.
Warning: The posts of this forum member may contain trigger language which may be considered offensive to some.
Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
KevinD (02-26-2020), PorkChopSandwiches (02-26-2020), RBP (02-28-2020), Teh One Who Knocks (02-28-2020)
Dem Superdelegates: We Won’t Hand Bernie Sanders The Nomination If He Doesn’t Have The Votes
By Emily Zanotti - The Daily Wire
The Democratic party’s so-called “superdelegates” will not hand Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) the nomination, The New York Times reports, if the Vermont socialist fails to collect a majority of available delegates during the primary season.
The Times interviewed 93 of the party’s top officials, who have the ability to cast an independent vote for the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, and a majority believe that Sanders will not secure the necessary votes to take the nomination on the first vote, and even fewer believe that Sanders can defeat President Donald Trump in the general election.
Worse still, a “presidential candidate Sanders” would likely tank the Democrats’ chances of holding the House and challenging for the Senate.
“From California to the Carolinas, and North Dakota to Ohio, the party leaders say they worry that Mr. Sanders, a democratic socialist with passionate but limited support so far, will lose to President Trump, and drag down moderate House and Senate candidates in swing states with his left-wing agenda of ‘Medicare for all’ and free four-year public college,” the Times reported. “Jay Jacobs, the New York State Democratic Party chairman and a superdelegate, echoing many others interviewed, said that superdelegates should choose a nominee they believed had the best chance of defeating Mr. Trump if no candidate wins a majority of delegates during the primaries.”
Of all of the superdelegates the Times interviewed, only nine said they’d vote for Sanders to take the nomination — bad news for the Vermont socialist who is currently the Democrats’ frontrunner.
In 2016, the Democrats’ superdelegates were allowed to weigh in on the Democratic National Convention’s first vote and then-candidate Hillary Clinton courted the superdelegates early, making the early primaries almost meaningless.
When Sanders complained about the system, which he said “stole” the nomination from him before he even began to compete, the Democrats changed the rules, allowing the superdelegates to weigh in on the nomination on a second vote only — a second vote that would only come if the frontrunner candidate for the nomination failed to take a numerical majority of the delegates in the primaries.
The nomination was never supposed to go to a second vote. Now, because of the number of nominees still in the race, Sanders isn’t guaranteed a majority and will, more than likely, go into the Democratic National Convention with a mere plurality — not a majority.
Sanders’ argument is that, if he gets the most delegates, he should win the nomination. But the superdelegates just aren’t so sure. It doesn’t help that candidates like former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and 2016’s failed nominee, Hillary Clinton, are still hovering around the periphery. Bloomberg appears to have entered the race specifically for this eventuality, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in ads, but neglecting to get on the ballot in most states. Bloomberg won’t be an option for primary voters until Super Tuesday, and then only in a handful of states (though he did make the ballot in delegate-rich California).
So far, Sander is leading going into Super Tuesday and is projected to take a majority of Super Tuesday delegates. Former Vice President Joe Biden, also an option for delegates looking for a “moderate” candidate, will likely win South Carolina and Florida.
RBP (02-28-2020)
I think it's entirely possible the Hillary gets installed as the nominee.
I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.
She's starting a new podcast.
https://nypost.com/2020/02/27/hillar...ing-a-podcast/
RBP (02-28-2020)
I saw that headline. This year could be HILLarious.
I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.
I think Hillary would make a great president.
RBP (02-28-2020)
We all know Bernie can't win yet the (D) will destroy their own party to not give him a chance and place someone else in place to lose
RBP (02-29-2020)
That's what I think the DNC did with Hillary. They were as shocked as the rest of us that she did as well as she did.
Now they are just riding the wave and will be content to let Trump have a second term.
We will all be fucked in 2024.
Probably before that, when the bottom drops out of the stock market. I'm hoarding gold, ready to buy cheap US dollars
The market will rebound. The economy is healthy. The only reason stock prices are falling now is because of fear. It'll pass.
Warning: The posts of this forum member may contain trigger language which may be considered offensive to some.
Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
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