Bernie Sanders: The Special Socialist Who Is More Equal Than Anyone – By Amanda S. Green

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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Bernie Sanders: The Special Socialist Who Is More Equal Than Anyone – By Amanda S. Green

If I had to describe Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders in just a few words, I’m not sure I could. I am a firm believer that we need to read (or listen or watch) what those who try to influence our country have to say. But damn, I also have to wonder why publishers today feel like they can’t edit memoirs by political figures. If Hillary Clinton needed an editor – and she did – Bernie needed a fleet (a flock?) [I think that for editors the technical term is either a flak or a flake, depending on the editors- SAH] of them. If nothing else, the best thing I can say about the book is it appears to be his stream of consciousness retelling of his life. Other things I could say include self-serving, delusional, inconsistent, insulting and WTF?!?.

Everything I would expect from a man who admits to being a socialist but who has no qualms running as a Democrat in order get what he wanted. Let’s face it, nothing about Bernie should be a surprise. He is the classic socialist, proclaiming he wants equality, especially economic equality, for all and yet he lives the life he condemns. He might be taken more seriously if he sold a home or three, distributed his wealth to the poor and actually got out and worked instead of being a career politician. In other words, Bernie is the living, breathing advertisement for why there should be term limits in Congress.

So, how long has he been in DC?

In 1990, Bernie was elected as Vermont’s lone Congressman, the first member of Congress in 40 years or so to be elected from outside the 2-party system. Reading his description of those first few weeks and months, you can almost see the “innocent” Bernie with stars in his eyes packing his bags and going to Washington where he was going to change the world. The Dems had promised him they’d play nice. But, sniffle, they lied. According to Bernie, he found himself in a sort of “no-man’s land” despite assurances he’d be welcomed by the Democratic caucus.

Here is the morning’s first WTF moment. Why in the name of all that is holy would he think the Democrats would welcome him with open arms? He wasn’t one of them. He had defeated democrat candidates during the course of his political career. He was not a supporter of their platform. Why in the hell would they want to welcome him into their hallowed halls?

A more important question, quite possibly, is why was he so naïve as to believe they would welcome him?

So, instead of spending his first few weeks after the election actually doing work for his constituents, he negotiated with the caucus so he could get the committee assignments he wanted. Once again, we see that good socialist ideal at work – we’re all equal except for those of us who are more equal. I want and so I will get and then I’ll worry about the rest of you.

There’s some of his usual, I did this and I did that and I hate war. Then, in one of his “ooh, I had this really cool idea” moments – or his mind wandered and his editor (did he have an editor?) didn’t have the balls to tell him “no” – Bernie suddenly jumps ahead to 2003 to condemn President Bush and blame him for the “hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced from their homes, massive instability in the region, and the growth of a number of fanatical terrorist organizations that continue to threaten the lives and safety of the American people and our allies” in Iraq. (OR, p. 42) Oh, and he’s still against war, no matter what the reason.

Then we jump back to his first year in Congress. Bern must be really flexible, or he owns stock in Bengay, because he really does love patting himself on his back. He started the House Progressive Caucus, which has been in “the vanguard in the fight for economic and social justice.” (OR, p. 42) He’s fought the deregulation of Wall Street and the “unfair” tax system. He claims to have one of the strongest voting records on worker’s rights, seniors, women, children, LGBT issues, and the environment. Man, he must get tired being so wonderful. If he opened his shirt, would he wear Superman’s emblem on his chest? (Or maybe a double-S for Socialist Superman?)

He gleefully applauds his actions in 1999 when he took constituents into Canada to buy their medicine because the evil pharmaceutical industry here charges too much. Mind you, I agree with him about the price of many of our medicines here. However, the solution isn’t to run over the border to buy meds that might not be as well-regulated as they are here. It certainly isn’t to do so in what amounts to nothing more than a media event to drum up support for your own political career.

The solution to the high cost of medicine is multi-fold. Among the steps that need to be taken is to stop giving pharmacy companies exclusive rights to meds for year after year when they can charge outrageous prices before other companies can finally start making generic versions. Yes, there should be some exclusivity but not to the point it’s at today. Another possible solution is to streamline the approval process for new drugs. But that sort of thing doesn’t get the press coverage or the “feelz” that taking a bunch of senior citizens or chronically ill over the border to buy cheap meds does. I guess if he’d been a Congressman in the South, he’d have taken them into Mexico.

[Actually the way to make medicine cheaper would be to cut down some of the unnecessary red tape on medical research way beyond safety.  It might also save lives by getting life saving drugs to market faster.  The disparity between drugs here and abroad is that due to some complex regulation we HAVE to sell cheaper abroad.  But the drug companies need the money from here to make the average 20 years experimentation/red tape jumping and the 10 drugs that don’t pan out for every one that does.  It’s a very complex issue and perhaps some of the bureaucracy could be cut down and make it slightly cheaper.  Probably not a ton, though, given the excess of caution that Americans demand. Sure we can have cheaper drugs.  We just can’t have cheaper INNOVATIVE drugs. Bernie is as usual an ignorant buffoon.  Oh, wait, he’s a self admitted socialist, so QED – SAH]

Can you imagine the coverage when his bus was stopped and arrests made because they’d brought back “medical” marijuana?

In 2005, Bernie cemented his intention of becoming a lifelong politician. He ran for Senate. Oooh, that young Illinois senator, someone by the name of Obama, came and campaigned for him. And guess what? Bernie won! He beat the rich man. Funny, not once does he talk about his own economic status at that point. I guess that might not fit his narrative of the poor little socialist running against the evil capitalist pig.

There’s page after page after page of “I did this” and “I did that”. I’ll be honest. I skimmed most of it. The whole section read like the kid in high school who kept stamping his foot in frustration when denied something he wanted and telling everyone who would listen why he should have gotten it. However, one part caught my eye.

It seems Bernie is our veteran’s biggest supporter, at least in his own mind. He spends much of a page or so describing how he introduced this wonderful bill that would have helped our veterans more than any other bill in recent history. Except no one, including the Republicans who so vocally espouse their love of vets, wanted to support it. What he doesn’t say in all this is what the bill was or what their objections happened to be. Again, doing so would ruin the narrative I guess. So instead of facts or specific details, we get to see him once again paint himself as the Sisyphus of Congress, except he never did anything deceitful (at least not that he’ll admit), rolling the stone of social justice uphill without any help or understanding. But, by damn, he will keep fighting until our great country falls to his Socialist ideals.

Three chapters and almost 50 pages into the book and he finally gets to the part where he is starting to think about running for president. I guess all the wordage before, all the “look at how wonderful I am”, was his justification for his run. To me, I’m beginning to wonder if he didn’t have the same editor as HRC did for her book, “What Happened”. Since they came from different publishers, it seems doubtful but, damn, both books suffer from many of the same problems. [That’s because both of their heads are filled with the same kind of fecalith-SAH] Too much jumping around, too much self-aggrandizing and much too much bullshit.

After assuring the country in an interview he was not going to run for president, what changed his mind? According to the Bern, there were four basic reasons.

First. Did it make sense that Hillary Clinton, the centrist candidate of the Democratic establishment, be anointed as the Democratic nominee and be allowed to run without opposition? Was that good for democracy? Was that good for the Democratic Party? Was it good for the progressive movement? (OR, pp 46-49)

Pardon me while I laugh more than a bit hysterically. First, why in HELL did Bernie think the DNC would allow him to beat their fair-haired, hand-picked successor to Barry O? Then there’s the whole “was that good for democracy?” bit. While I detest HRC and know she would be anything but good for democracy, especially in the long run, the thought that Bernie would be better is laughable. Does the old socialist really believe his ideas and desire destroy the foundation of our country would be good for democracy? Again, this first reason is more than laughable.

it was also assumed that Jeb Bush, the son of President George H. W. Bush and the brother of President George W. Bush, would be the likely Republican candidate for president. What was going on in our country? Was there really going to be an election between the son and brother of former presidents and the wife of a former president? Talk about oligarchy! Talk about political dynasties!  (OR, p. 49)

Is he serious? Maybe his memory is slipping. What else could explain how he apparently didn’t have any problem with the Kennedys. You know, that little Democratic dynasty with one brother who became President and two others who were senators and who ran for president. Or how about all their kids and spouses who have gone into politics? What gives them a pass while the Bushes don’t get one? Oh, I know. It’s that convenient little (D) beside their names.

Then there’s the problem of him not calling out Clinton here as well. Her husband had been president. She’d become senator after Slick Willy left the White House and now she was running – again – for president. Why wasn’t she included as a dynastic wannabe? Could it be that oh-so-convenient (D) behind her name as well?

Gee, does that mean our resident socialist has a double-standard? Surely not. Hah!

There are three more reasons, but Bern doesn’t get to them right away. Hell, Bernie doesn’t get to the second reason for 12 more pages. Twelve pages where he does his own version of savaging Hillary. It is much too early and I haven’t had nearly enough coffee to deal with all that. So we’ll hold it and the other three reasons for next week. After that, there will be one more post on this book. I’m not sure I can stomach any more than that. Even if I could stomach it, I know I don’t want to continue exposing myself to the brain-killing stupidity of the book.

The only good thing I see happening right now is that Bernie’s so-called revolution looks to be passing into the hands of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. [I disapprove of this spelling of Occasionally Cortex – SAH] She has done more to show how much damage the so-called democratic socialists can do to our country than Bernie ever did on his own. I pray they don’t find a more well-spoken politician to take her place at Bernie’s side. But we also have to remember to look long and hard every time the DNC allows one of Bernie’s Bots to run as a Democrat. We need to point and laugh and call them out on it. The Dems by themselves are bad enough. Add in the rabid Bots and they are even worse.

For now, I’m going to find the brain bleach and consider if it is too early to drink.

(Help Amanda drink enough to keep snarking.  We’ll collect for her liver transplant later.
Hit her Pourboir jar now! – SAH)

134 thoughts on “Bernie Sanders: The Special Socialist Who Is More Equal Than Anyone – By Amanda S. Green”

  1. Sanders is your standard socialist ringleader…a con artist who intends to skim massive amounts of money and power off the top of “redistributed” wealth. Standard policy for big-name Leftists.

    I don’t think he realized the degree to which the fix was in on the primaries. He realized, in my view correctly, that HRC was a weak candidate and could be beaten. I honestly expected Martin O’Malley (aka O’Moron in Maryland) to beat her for the nomination. But again, the primaries were rigged on the Dem side.

    The GOP? Well, the GOP Establishment doesn’t “establishment” competently…and never has. They consistently neglect their base to chase marginal votes. And are blind to major issues. A competent GOPe would have told Jeb Bush to stay out of the race, the family being toxic by that point. Stay out, stay quiet, and take the Vice Presidency when it’s offered. Then force a winnowing of the field – 12 tickets out of Iowa, 9 tickets out of New Hampshire, 6 tickets out of South Carolina, 4 tickets out of the next primary. That gets you to a primary field that is reasonable.

    2. During Bernie’s concession speech, his body language fairly screamed “gun to my head” — and I concluded that someone in Hillary’s DNC has something on Bern that would be career-fatal, or even criminally-prosecutable. This wasn’t just defeat; this was fear.

      1. I wonder. In some ways Bernie is the political equivalent of a mass-market “microbrew” owned and distributed by one of the major beer makers… or big Hollywood produced “indy” Oscar bait films. While he plays at being the outsider, he’s a willing part and parcel of the machine, a wholly owned subsidy. He’s not that naive, and he wasn’t shocked, SHOCKED!! to find the machine was against him.
        The 2016 primary was an opportunity to advance himself in the party, to consolidate the more openly socialist and radical factions under his control. Bernie now is a player, a power broker in the Democratic party. Not just some hippie throwback commie.

        1. So basically, you’re saying that Bernie is the equivalent of Quentin Tarantino…

          (side note: i went to film school, and every wannabe director wanted to be edgy and indie like Tarantino… in one of the producing classes i finally talked the instructor into breaking down which of his films were ‘indie’ and how they were funded… answer: one.)

          2. I’ve always preferred Robert Rodriguez to Tarantino; if we’re talking about directors from that “generation.”

  3. Now just a sec, Amanda. You say, about Sanders, “Then there’s the problem of him not calling out Clinton here as well. . . . . Why wasn’t she included as a dynastic wannabe? Could it be that oh-so-convenient (D) behind her name as well?” And of course she has all the problems you allude to. But earlier, you quote Sanders as writing, “Was there really going to be an election between the son and brother of former presidents and the wife of a former president? Talk about oligarchy!” I don’t think I understand why you don’t count that as “calling out” Clinton.

    To put it in editorspeak, “AQ: Please clarify.”

    (Incidentally, having worked as a copy editor for thirty years, I would suggest that the collective noun for “editor” is “disagreement.” Any trained copy editor can go over a manuscript fresh from another editor’s hands, and find things that were missed and things where the other editor made the wrong change!)

    1. William, you’re right. I can only claim brain damage from having to read the dreck, especially before coffee had completely kicked in (which is the only way I can read it).

        1. For which I’m grateful since, after having to read Bernie so I could write this post, my washing machine decided to flood my utility room. Now, once my son and mom get home from running errands, he and I are tearing into the machine to find out why.

          1. Clearly your washing machine is just the leading edge of the revolt of the worker machines. Soon you will have machine collectives meeting all around your house, and eventually, they will regretfully have to lock you in the basement and shoot you.

            Or it could be the drain line clogging up. Hard to say.

            1. Drain line is okay. My guess is a hose connection inside the case or the pump. I’ll be tearing into it later today to find out for sure.

            3. To quote Insty: “Skynet smiles.” 🙂 My sympathies.

              Our LG washing machine started to make squeaks after 6 years. I quieted it briefly by tightening the Moloch Bolt (said machine doesn’t deserve a Jesus Nut), but then it started to make very expensive squeaks. The transmission is a $200 part, and the ‘net said that was the issue. The replacement machine does a LOT better. Electrolux for the clean!

          2. If it’s a top loader and all the hoses and internal pipes are okay, then it’s probably the shaft bearing; not economically fixable. Had one lose its housebreaking that way; it spent its last few years sitting in a shower liner to contain the effluvient. (Which in the desert, evaporated quickly enough, tho eventually the legs rusted off. By then it was ready to be scrapped anyway.)

  4. As a politician, he was in a position to enact changes to our pharmacy and healthcare system, and his solution was to take people to Canada instead? Am I understanding that correctly?

    1. Dottie, yep and he is proud of it. Take money away from American companies and give it to Canadian companies instead of dealing with the problem. Of course, it did give him good PR, at least in his mind.

      1. And part of why it’s cheaper is because the govt systems basically say “we’ll pay this much. Take it or leave it and you won’t be allowed to enter market” on a good one. India reportedly has said give it or we’ll just make it ourself regardless of patent.

        1. The basic underlying premise behind the Medicare and (much lower) Medicaid reimbursement rates is “We’re the government, thus we have the aircraft carriers and jet fighters and nuclear weapons and tanks and stuff, so we can dictate what we will deign to pay you and you don’t get a choice. Hey, you’re lucky we pay you anything at all. Oh, and fill out all of these piles and piles (now electronic piles) of paperwork, or we’ll throw you in jail, there’s a good Doctor. Aren’t you glad you went to Med School?”

          1. Oops, didn’t finish the thought:

            So there’s no surprise that same authoritarian premise is extended into how Drug Companies are treated

            1. OTOH, lobbying by Big Pharma was a good part of the push for Obamacare, so my ability to give a damn is severely diminished.

      2. It is a bit more complicated. Canada has told our companies that if they charge more than cost of production + (reasonable) profit, then Canada will void their patents. Please note that R&D costs do not come into this equation at all. Thus even though they are the identical drugs with at least as much oversight as here, they are much cheaper in Canada. At the same time, our prices go up as the US market is the only market that the companies can soak to repay their R&D costs, so we pay those for the entire planet. It is my hope that Trump does something about this. He is hated enough already by the left that telling other countries that if they don’t respect our drug patents it will be BAD for them couldn’t make it much worse.

        1. That’s exactly the explanation I would have given.

          I learned in freshman microeconomics that there are fixed costs and variable costs. Manufacturing a pill is a variable cost, but once you have FDA approval, the research to come up with it (and the research to come up with the fifty other drugs that didn’t work, and the legal procedures for getting approval, and the interest on your costs while you wait) is a fixed cost. And businesses will produce and sell something as long as they make anything more than the variable costs, because paying any of the fixed costs is better than not. So foreign countries with pharmaceutical monopsonies pay virtually none of the costs of coming up with new drugs.

          I’ve been saying for years that if I were dictator, I would tell all those other countries that until they either established competitive markets for drug sales, or agreed to pay US prices, they could go on getting existing drugs, but when we came up with new drugs, they could whistle for them. TANSTAAFL.

          1. Note that competitive markets does not necessarily mean US prices all over the world. In Asia, you can easily buy DVDs for five or six dollars that would cost $20 in the US. Not because of any government interference (in this particular market; there’s plenty of gov’t interference in other markets), but because that’s the price point people are willing to pay. So if the pharmaceutical market was completely open and free of gov’t interference, the drug companies might still have to price their drugs a little lower in some regions than others because of the lower average income in those regions. (OTOH, movies are entertainment while drugs are sometimes life & death, so demand for drugs is less elastic — and it also means that there can be questions of ethics and morality involved in drug pricing, which isn’t necessarily the case for most other markets).

            1. P.S. I should add that I’m not talking about pirated DVDs (which can often be had for $1 or so). I’m talking about legitimate releases where the movie studio gets their fair share of the sale.

              1. When do they get the rights to make the DVDs? Because if it’s six months later than the US release, $6 may well be close to the US price point.

                I used to get ranted at about video prices pretty regularly (I worked for Suncoast, the video offshoot of Sam Goody.). The usual “Why is this $$! They only spend ¢ to make it!”. And I would patiently explain that if they wanted a video market at all, they had to pay the costs of all the copies of films that DIDN’T sell.

                *shrug*

                1. And one feels the DVD/Video price is too high, don’t by it. If enough people agree with that opinion, the price will come down. If not, and others buy it at that price, then the price wasn’t too high.
                  The Bernie and the Socialists crowd clearly disdain the concept of profit and free markets; after all it is their attitudes that led to how Ferengi were portrayed in Trek (at least until certain Ferengi were broadened in DS9) and the left’s socialism, which is inevitably totalitarian, is driven simply the envy and greed that can be summed up as “want, take, have”, around which a lot of pseudo-scientific babble is then created to justify “want, take, have.”

                2. That, I don’t know. I haven’t really paid attention to DVD release dates over here since I have Netflix. But I could check: look at the movie stores and see what Hollywood movies they have in stock that are new, then look up those movies’ theatrical release dates.

                  But I get the impression that they get the rights to the DVDs around the same time that US DVDs are released. If that’s correct, then the lower price point is definitely for geographical rather than temporal reasons.

  6. The deciding to run part seems halfway sane and he halfway succeeded, too.

    It WAS ridiculous that Hillary was setting up to run unopposed. I believe with all my heart that the only reason that Bernie was allowed to run was that he (like Trump, HA!) was not a threat so why not let him? And him being there made it a little less obvious that she had arranged to have the nomination “in the bag”.

    And he almost beat her. That’s how terrible a candidate she was.

    (And none of that changes a danged thing about the basic psychology involved in socialism where the people pushing it always assume that they’ll be in charge. There are a few “worker’s” communists around who make a point of being laborers and doing the work, but there are so few that it’s utterly remarkable when they show up. Which is why “communes” usually fall apart. HA!)

      1. I believe that he might have beat Trump. Trump was disruptive and scary and it was easy to believe that Bernie would be ineffective and mild, and therefore no real danger when it came to moving policy. I knew people who voted third party who would have voted for him.

        This might mean (since Trump is doing okay so far) that we ought all thank the DNC for being crooks. 😉

        1. This. And a lot of people who would’ve voted for him because some of the stuff he had on his platform sounded nice (socialism always sounds nice on the surface), and certainly, more substantial than anything Hillary had, and Jeb was just… empty and nothingness. Bernie being the ‘safer’ candidate was his advantage, and well… Yeah. Thanks, DNC, for being crooks, and continuing to not understand people.

          1. Ah, but if there had been a serious chance of Sanders or O’Malley being the nominee, I don’t think Trump would have lasted far past South Carolina.

            Though I’ll concede Trump was very lucky in being able to knock Perry and Walker out fast. Either were outstanding candidates.

            1. I don’t think it had been long enough since Perry’s “three departments” gaffe in 2012. That’s one of those self-inflicted things that can and will be used to make a politician look foolish and ridiculous.

      3. Yes, Berie might have beaten Her Shrillness, if the Democrat Establishment hadn’t mugged him. I don’t think he would have won against Trumo, but I think there’s room for his supporters to think otherwise, and I believe (as I have said here before) that that gives the Democrat Washington Old Boys Club (of which Shrillary is a member) the leaping fantods. Why. if the Rank and file decided that the Old Boys had screwed the pooch the base might insist on a structural shake up that would leave The Club in ruins.

  7. Oh yeah on the pharmaceutical approval process. There’s a reason I bring sunscreen back from Europe. The companies that make it can’t be bothered to waste their time and money on all the flaming hoops they’d have to jump through to sell the active ingredient on the US market. It’s been available in Europe and Canada for over a decade without any problems reported, but heaven forefend that the US accept that. “Remember thalidomide!” is the battle cry of the FDA bureaucrat.

    1. It’s the same reason friends of ours go to Mexico every six months to buy their meds. They know the danger but they can’t afford the US versions.

      1. A large percentage of those meds, regardless of country of sale, are made in India (and there are direct marketplaces online, tho am not sure how reliable). Thank the legacy of British colonization.

        1. I checked the direct marketplaces for metformin, it turned out that it was a lot cheaper to just buy it at Walmart. YMMV.

    2. The thing is, thalidomide is perfectly safe, and a lot better than the sleep aids that were available at the time (or now, when you can’t buy sleep aids that work for people who, like me, are habituated to antihistamines) for anybody not a woman in a particular stage of pregnancy. John W. Campbell wrote an editorial about it—it’s in his collected editorials.

      1. “antihistamines” Sleep Aids.

        I “can’t” take antihistamines or sleep aids based off them. Or rather I’m not suppose to. Not that they won’t work, they will, very nicely, hard & fast, thank you. BUT, packaging warns not to take if you are being treated for Glaucoma. So I can’t take them (where can’t = shouldn’t).

  8. Re the Sanders Veteran bill which went nowhere, it appears this is a summary of that:

    https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/s-1982-summary?inline=file

    Long summary, so I didn’t read the entire thing in detail, but one bit that caught my eye was section 301 where it let any veteran not otherwise eligible to enroll in the VA health care system getting to enroll anyway if they are eligible for any O’care exchange.

    Being so hot for O’care, I’m surprised Comrade Bernie wants to opt out so many Vets from paying into and supporting that wonderful system (/sarc). Just another data point supprting the explanation the O’care was intended to fail all along as a lead-in to single-payer.

  9. no mention of being bought off by DNC once it became known that he’d been set aside even before the primaries? That the Fix was in? 190K car, 3 million dollar lakeside home…guarantee that his wife wouldn’t see jail for her and his tax fraud at a university or misuse of those moneys?
    How he has 3 homes now and several luxury cars?
    Plus security from the govt he hates?
    As for vets. His never mentioned HELP for vets included requirements that they give up their 2nd amendment rights to get needed care.

    1. Have a bounce around Youtube; there are videos there (for now!) about the average person not knowing that The Bern has 3 homes, lots of wealth, etc, etc. Or, for the matter, that the Clintons have tons of money, and so on and so forth. They expect it of Ben Carson, or (insert conservative person here) but not their various DNC heroes!

      As for the vets, that does not surprise me at all. SOP in socialism: give up something huge, essential and important, or die.

      And then die anyway.

      1. all too many politicians, especially Dems are millionaires or multimillionaires and yet have never had a business or full time job, just their political office, that pays a few hundred thousand dollars a year at most.
        all too many people don’t stop to wonder how exactly this comes to be

        1. George McGovern went into business after leaving politics. He famously wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal in which he flat out said that he would have done things quite a bit differently during his time in politics if he’d known then what he learned later about running a business. Note that he didn’t say he wouldn’t have been a Democrat. But the knowledge he gained post-politics about running a business helped him to recognize some of the foolish positions he’d advanced while in politics.

  11. Thanks for reading what I couldn’t and giving us a synopsis. Now I don’t even have to turn a page. Please don’t go insane on us. 🙂

    1. I read one random page via Amazon, and learned that Bernie did not know the basics of living in a Vermont winter (which anyone of his generation should understand very well, even if they did grow up in New York) and seemed quite astonished that people around him knew how to cope.

  12. Lood gord! I am on vacation this week, and someone else is driving most of the time. I just had lunch, with drinks, and… ouch, I fear I might order something potent (moreso than usual, that is) with supper this evening as a neurocleanser.

    Poor, poor Amanda. She got the full force of this idiocy.

    Amanda: Do we need to get you some right proper 190 proof rectified spirits, or is that putting you at too much risk of self-harm? [I am vacationing in the land where the Tavern League is one of the big political forces… and they still do LESS damage then the ‘$STATE Education Association.’ There is no silly 151 proof limit here.]

      2. At 190 proof it is solvent or fuel more than drink. And I am serious, I *can* get the stuff. And it does make a *wonderful* marker solvent, is quite flammable, and powerfully astringent. For drink, it needs mixing down. That said… I *can* get the stuff… but it might be while to get such to anyone as shipping is… problematic… so, LibertyCon meeting or such.

        1. My senior year of college, someone had the not so brilliant idea of making kamikazes using Everclear (190 proof grain alcohol) because they couldn’t find the right booze to make it with. I stayed away from it. Those who didn’t though….fugly.

            1. Well that and I just never liked kamikazes to begin with, so I wouldn’t have had them even if made according to recipe. Now Northern Lights (Yukon Jack, Cranberry Juice and Orange or Pineapple Juice) on the other hand…..

          2. Before there was “Purple Drank”, there was “Purple Jesus”: Everclear and grape Koolaid.

          1. No. One Manhattan and then Jameson on the rocks, with a lot of water, so I should be alright. How my Aunt drinks more than one glass of nearly straight Jameson, I perhaps should not ponder.

            1. I can do that.
              but then I’d likely not get back up
              oh, and I am about out of Jameson.
              Well I am out of the Caskmates I had. It is great too, but not as smooth, so I was using it to mix.
              In the 2 years I have been up here, I have drank more whiskey and rye than I drank the previous 32.

  13. [I think that for editors the technical term is either a flak or a flake, depending on the editors- SAH]
    I’ll answer to either one, though flak is more appropriate to my days of gubmint service. I would never even on my worst day have considered touching anything created by the Bern.
    The rest of you lot, slackers all, need to be pumping out more books for folks like me to rip to shreds.

              1. Sending that is. Stupid traditional keyboard. Who the heck stuck the s and d keys next to each other?

    2. ‘Scuze me, some of us are trying to put words on screen. And enjoy the last day of freedom, er, ahem, that is, vacation before Day Job resumes.

  15. “I also have to wonder why publishers today feel like they can’t edit memoirs by political figures.”

    I wonder if it’s worth it from their perspective? In general, people will either buy the book or not based on their opinion of the politician; the quality of the writing never enters into the calculation. Plus, given that only professional pundits, reviewers, and complete lunatics ever actually open these books, the quality of the writing and editing remains entirely unknown to the general public.

    I’m not sure it’s irrational for the publishers to save the money that they would have paid the editors. Especially not for Democrat politicians, where the “book advance” is little more than a laundered campaign contribution.

    1. This is why they don’t care how poorly the book is written. It is not intended to actually be readable; it is intended to funnel cash to Democratic Party politicians and to give them the ability to do “book tours” paid for by the publisher which are in fact campaign stops.

    2. Ben Shapiro vs. Occasional Cortex…I think the only way that could be practical is if they added a mercy rule, like how little league games will get called if one team is just beating up the other one too badly.

      1. Not to worry. Occasionally Miss(ing) Cortex knows she’s totally incapable of having a debate with Ben, much less winning it; so she’s resorting to insinuating that he’s a sexual deviant.

        1. I don’t think she’s that self-aware. Her handlers probably nixed the idea before she could text “Yo, bring it on!”

          1. Wonder what kind of excuse she will come up with to avoid debating her general election opponent.

            2. It’s a super extra Democratic district. She can just flat out ignore her opponent with no consequences at all.
              Besides, the House Democrat Idiot Caucus needs some fresh new faces- Corrine is in prison, and Maxine isn’t getting any younger.

                1. That would be pretty funny if the new rising star of the party got cut off and wound up not an elected representative.

                2. I think he is. I could be mistaken, but I think he got the nomination for one of the lesser socialist parties in that district, and so will still be on the ballot in November.

  17. All you need to know about Bernie is that he thinks medical care is a Right, capital R. Every person has a RIGHT to medical care.

    One problem with that, medical care is a service. People train hard to know everything they can about the human body, disease, and treatments. We call them doctors, nurses, physical therapists.

    Bernie baby is saying that everyone has a right to the service provided by medical professionals. No word on what his plan is for when those professionals all stop working because they didn’t get paid. Probably involves guns, beatings and jail, at a guess.

    1. Also, even if something is a right, does not mean that one has the right to compel someone else to pay for it. Otherwise, I should be able to have my own personal taxpayer funded radio/tv program and a taxpayer funded firearm.

      1. Absolutely. You have the right to own property, in the USA. That does not give you rights to other people’s property.

        Y’all should know that Canadians (and Brits, and Aussies etc.) do -not- have the right to own property. The Crown has rights. We have privileges. The Crown is sovereign. We are subjects.

        Something to ponder, eh?

      1. Clearly. And just as clearly, they’re very intent on making new ones.

        They tried this crap in Quebec a few years ago. There was a shortage of ER coverage. Emergency room docs were issued a command that they would cover all the ER shifts in the province, and they would be told what shifts at what hospitals they would work. That was received about the way one would expect, and not much further was heard about it.

        But they -tried- it. They went for the bully move, “do as we say or we pull your license.” Because that’s how they think.

        1. I hold a medical license in my state for EMS. First year I had it in this state I got a summons to the tax agency asking why I hadn’t paid taxes in 2010-12. Namely that i wasn’t living in the state. But there was still the stick of taking away livelihood. Part of why import docs, too.

    3. A friend of mine (possibly now former after the 2016 election) informed me on Facebook a few years ago that the UN had declared that health care is a basic human right. It’s not just Bernie.

      1. These days, it turns out that starving the poor, imprisoning criminals, and torturing my political opponents are healthcare. Why do you hate human rights?

  18. You’re a bit unfair.

    Bernie asks “Would it be good for democracy if the… candidate of the… establishment be anointed as the … nominee and run without opposition?”

    That’s a legitimate question, and has nothing to do with the positions or merits of that candidate or a prospective challenger.

    Then you ask why he doesn’t call out Hillary Clilnton as well as Jeb Bush, but in that sentence he names both as dynasts: ” the son and brother of former presidents and the wife of a former president”.

    But just a bit. And in general much too kind to Sanders’ maudlin farg

    Incidentally, Sanders was not the first independent in Congress in 40 years. William F. Buckley’s brother James was elected Senator from New York as a Conservative in 1970. There were other “independents” who actually caucused with the major parties: Wayne Morse (Oregon, 1953-1954), Harry F. Byrd (VA, 1971-1982).

    Though it is interesting to note that in 1950, the American Labor Party disappeared from the House, and FDR jr, elected as a Liberal in 1948, also went away. (I.e. Sanders entered the House after exactly forty years with only Democrats and Republicans there).

    1. Rich, I commented above that I made a mistake re: HRC and being the wife of a president. As for your comment about me making a mistake and your cite of Buckley — that wasn’t my mistake. I was reporting what Bernie wrote. HE says he was the first elected in 40 years.

      1. Missed your correction Zbout HRC. However, as to “first independent in 40 years”: you didn’t report this as what he wrote, as a quotation or cite; you stated it without attribution. I’m glad you pointed out it was his mistake – one more thing he’s wrong about.

  19. “Everything I would expect from a man who admits to being a socialist but who has no qualms running as a Democrat in order get what he wanted.”

    See the New Party, which was created in the 90’s with the explicit intention of using that tactic. Obama was a member. I have met sf fans who saw nothing wrong with stealth socialists running as Democrats in order to deceive voters into thinking they are not that radical.

  20. did you hear? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who dismissed an offer to debate as “cat-calling”, not only made an offer to debate to Crowley, but went to his office to do it in person:

    Are they going to elect a cat-caller?

      2. Her other excuse for not debating Shapiro (or apparently anyone else offering to) is that he is not a “politician” and she has no obligation to debate non-politicians. In other words, she has no obligation or interest in discussing anything of substance with the plebes she intends to rule over and will only talk with other members of the political nobility.

  21. I posted a comment two days ago that was held up for moderation- perhaps because it had a link. Where is it?

  22. comment reappeared when I posted a comment. I am reposting, but without the links.

    For the last half century, Bernie has been a fanboy of Latin American despots.From the Senator Sanders websitesanders.senate.gov website:
    1)Chavezuela, in 2011
    Close The Gaps: Disparities That Threaten America.

    These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who’s the banana republic now?

    The American dream is more likely to be realized in Venezuela than in the United States, Bernie Sanders tells us. As we all want to realize the American dream, we should emulate Venezuela, Bernie Sanders tells us. Just as Mayor Bernie said that Sandinista Nicaragua should be a model for Vermont.

    BTW, while Venezuela was purported to have those GREAT inequality statistics that Three-House-Bernie adores, they don’t take into account all the billions that the Chavista insiders are skimming off the top. If that were reported in the income figures, the reported inequality figures for Venezuela would be a lot higher.

    The absurdity of Bernie’s claim with regard to Venezuela is rather obvious. Today, no one in his right mind would claim that the American dream is best realized in Venezuela.

    The World Bank has little GINI data for Venezuela past 2006, so I will merely post data for Argentina, Ecuador, and the US. The lower the GINI, the more equal the income distribution. Let us investigate how accurate Bernie’s claim is about income being less equal in the US compared to Ecuador and Argentina.

    Country Name 2007 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
    Argentina 46.3
    Ecuador 53.3
    United States 41.1

    Country Name 2010 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
    Argentina 43
    Ecuador 48.7
    United States 40.4

    Country Name 2013 GINI index (World Bank estimate)
    Argentina 41
    Ecuador 46.9
    United States 41

    When Bernie Sanders made his claim in 2011, he would have had GINI data for about 2007 or 2008. For 2007 and 2010, the US had a lower GINI- and thus more equal income- than Argentina and Ecuador.
    That is, Bernie’s castigation of the US was based on a false claim.

    Bernie claims, “I know much more about Latin America than you proles.”
    No, you don’t, Bernie. You are bullshitting us.

    https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI

  23. Pingback: Why did Bernie Run? – By Amanda S. Green | According To Hoyt

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