The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Warren Already Losing Swing States to Trump

    Nate Cohen, expert on polling and demographics:

    The results suggest that Ms. Warren, who has emerged as a front-runner for the Democratic nomination, might face a number of obstacles in her pursuit of the presidency. The poll supports concerns among some Democrats that her ideology and gender — including the fraught question of “likability” — could hobble her candidacy among a crucial sliver of the electorate. And not only does she underperform her rivals, but the poll also suggests that the race could be close enough for the difference to be decisive. link

    Warren will drop significantly more if nominated, from GOP attacks as a "tax raising big government elite east coast professor from Harvard", a "socialist", a "Maduro clone", "will turn America into Venezuela" etc. She has given the Republicans plenty of material to use against her in her 54 plans.  (yes, there are 54 of them) Even some of her single plans, like her 15,000+ word Medicare for All healthcare/tax plan make FDR's New Deal look like a business as usual continuing resolution. The Warren plan would kick 140 million or so off their current health care plans. Although some might not mind, millions who like their plans will mind. Many on Medicare may be concerned the system will go broke faster, leaving them at the end of the line.  Warren has no provision in the plan for anyone in the United States to pay anything per visit, which is an invitation to broken appointments and increased use of emergency rooms. There is no guarantee that doctors will not just opt out of the system and go full fee for service, causing further congestion at doctors still taking Medicare for All. It will overturn 18% of our economy and is sure to be a ripe target for all kinds of attacks from the Republicans and their PAC's.

    She attacks her fellow Democratic candidates with:

    "Serious candidates for president should speak plainly about these and set out their plans for cost control - especially those of us who are skeptical of Medicare for All"...every candidate who opposes my long-term goal of Medicare for All should put forward their own plan to make sure every single person in America can get high-quality health care and won't go broke - and fully explain how they intend to pay for it. Or, if they are unwilling to do that, concede that their half-measures will leave millions behind."

    When she says "every single person in America can get high-quality health care and won't go broke", isn't that what Obamacare was designed to do? It mandates a limit on co-pays, no denial for pre-existing conditions, and no cutoff of insurance at a certain dollar amount. She in effect admits the every American is already getting high quality health care, as she should, for the quality of care is not determined in the Oval office but in the hospitals and doctor's offices of America. Obamacare insures no one on it will "go broke" due to health care expenses. Expand it, improve it, that may pass Congress.

    Let's look at the Warren border plan. She calls it "A Fair and Welcoming Immigration System".  Much of the 3,100 word plan is about reversing policies of Donald Trump. Any Democrat if elected is going to reverse Trump's abuses at the border, and his cuts to legal immigration and his bans.  But Warren goes full open border. She has no mention of enforcement at the border, because her plan will decriminalize crossing it. If it is not a criminal offense to walk across the border, that is an open border. She does not mention the deportation of anyone.

    Someone crossing will not be turned back or detained. If caught, they will let loose in the US after being given a distant court date, free lawyer and free health care. She does not mention deportation of felons, only mentioning "focusing on real threats". The only targets would be to "disrupt and prosecute human trafficking". Beyond that she also plans "amnesty" for 11 million or more "illegals" already here, and for any undocumented people who come here in the future and settle down. She calls it a "Fair and Welcoming Immigration System". In total, her plan would never pass Congress, and just serve as a huge target for GOP attack ads.

    So the prospects are a Warren candidacy against Trump would end in an Electoral College defeat, perhaps even worse than Hillary. The "elite" Harvard professor would face a very uphill, almost certainly a losing battle, winning over the fence sitting, easily exploitable, low information voters in swing states as they are bombarded with preelection attack ads, funded by the huge cash hoard Trump and his allies are amassing.  They are the ones who will decide the Electoral College winner.

    Comments

    Wisconsin, swing state that went for Trump in 2016.  Note the "End Catch, Release", "Build the Wall". Although few voters may actually support the wall, many will be strongly against Warren's open borders plan.


    just noticed that you got some more assistance with your argument over at NYTimes op-ed this evening:

    The Warren Way Is the Wrong Way

    Her big-government plans would damage rather than improve our economy.

    By Steven Rattner Mr. Rattner served as counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration.

    Nov. 4, 2019, 7:00 p.m. ET


    Do we need our own LibDems sanity party?


    don't know but in my gut I feel that the winning alternative to daily insanity is sanity. And that this is not a national winner either: offering radical controversial change after a narcissistic radical has tribalized the nation with agitprop.


    If we can't draft Nancy, can Sherrod Brown get back in the race? And Tom Steyer goes back to being the party's bankrolle money bags rather than another dull podium stuffer?


    You never know, maybe you still can get your President Nancy for Christmas:

    (I am even thinking: GOP Senators might change their current preferences on impeachment when they think of being able to use President Nancy as a bete noire for a full year, instead of having to defend continued support of Trump at election time.)


    Just 2 or 3 of her plans make the New Deal look like a continuing resolution. And FDR had the solid Jim Crow south behind him. Rattner misses a main point, the plans won't pass Congress. The federal tax on all property will likely need a Constitutional amendment.

    She has 54 plans one year out. LBJ and FDR had a tiny fraction of that, along with "slogans" which she scoffs at  -  as if a national election is like a Harvard Law School debating society.

    The free no copay healthcare would appear to swamp the primary care doctors who don't go full private, along with emergency rooms. Who is going to weed out the noncompliant patients, who fail appointments and take meds episodically?  How will they be handled?

    Her open borders plan will by itself guarantee an electoral college loss.


    The root of the anger against Warren

    But it’s clear in the venomous reactions Warren produces from the plutocrat class that they want not only to be able to be taxed and regulated as lightly as possible, they want to be told they deserve every bit of wealth and power they have.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/05/plutocrats-are-getting-very-worried-angry/


    The root of the anger against Warren is that she is a nut who lies through her teeth, can't do even simple math and thinks that qualifies her to run the most powerful nation in the world.


    No plan is going to make it through Congress without major changes.


    Warren has a Yale poli-sci (political science) professor , from her "team", touting how smart she and he are, today at the NYT  link

    He has gems like:

     " Given that the United States spends much more for much less complete coverage than any other rich democracy, it’s easy to come up with a health care design that’s much better than what we have. "

    If it's so easy, why hasn't it happened? He also displays the self aggrandizing conceit of a man of hubris when he goes on to say:

     "The problem is figuring out how to overcome 3 big political hurdles: financing a new system, reducing disruptions as you displace the old system and overcoming the backlash from those the old system makes rich."

    Professor Hacker believes anyone who would criticize his and Warren's plans does so for "the money". Ivy League professors, in fact, make as much or more than most US primary care providers, the heavy lifters in the system.

    Perhaps he meant insurance CEO's, but he doesn't say so, and at no point does he say anything good about US healthcare providers. They are out there beyond the ivory towers of Yale and Harvard dealing with a system he claims that he has been working on reforming (and getting rich?) for 20 years, and which he dismisses in his essay as simply "broken." This is not a guy or a team you'd want remaking a tens of trillion dollar system, or perhaps you ain't seen broken yet.


    I am grateful for small favors, though, that the current zeitgeist of the Dem primary may have turned from who can be the most lefty librul to who is the smartest? It's a good sign that Iowans at least, are arguing about which candidate is the smartest. Next step on memes, I would suggest: separate "smart" from "elitist". No need to talk about Yale, Rhodes scholar, Cambridge, Harvard or whatever, forget that shit, just go for "smart". Not highly educated, but smart.

    (I think Mayor Pete gets a mulligan on the elitism from many because he served in the military. I think that's a key thing, to have some experience doing actual average people stuff. This is part of the reason that in the past Senators traditionally failed at presidential races and governors were preferred.)


    Street smart. Blue collar smart.

    Someone who is familiar with the electrical odor of spinning rotors coming from a busy Midwestern machine shop.


     " Given that the United States spends much more for much less complete coverage than any other rich democracy, it’s easy to come up with a health care design that’s much better than what we have. "

    If it's so easy, why hasn't it happened? 

    Oh come on. It has happened. Over and over and over again. When politicians designed Medicare designing it wasn't hard and it made things better. When they designed Medicaid it wasn't that hard and made things better. CHIP wasn't hard to design and made things much better for children. Even Obamacare for all it's flaws made things better for most people.

    I'll grant you that the politics are hard and I wish Warren didn't come out for Medicare for all. But it is an obvious truth  that , "Given that the United States spends much more for much less complete coverage than any other rich democracy, it’s easy to come up with a health care design that’s much better than what we have. " Coming up with something better is easy. It's selling it to the public that's hard


    True. Medicaid is of course run at he state level. Hacker comes across to me as an arrogant self promoting self absorbed asshole. I am sure his own health care at Yale is not "broken" and never will be, nor will it ever be seriously impacted by any of his and Warren's "plans".


    She doesn't give any hint of what candidate or what messages could lose the electoral college, it is nonetheless interesting that she is publicly stating this at this point in time:

    Hillary Clinton urges Democrats to pick a candidate who can win the Electoral College

    BY ALICIA COHN  @ TheHill.com - 11/04/19 10:58 PM EST

    Hillary Clinton on Monday urged Democrats to choose a nominee who can win the Electoral College in 2020.

    "We have to hope that whoever ends up nominated can win the Electoral College," she said at a discussion of her book, "The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience," in Denver. "I think several of our candidates could win the popular vote but as I know ... that's not enough," added the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. 

    "I don't think we have a choice; we have to win" in 2020, she said, speaking alongside her daughter and co-author Chelsea Clinton at a sold-out event. 

    She urged a supportive crowd of almost 2,000 people to "work hard for your preference in the primary" but "close ranks behind whoever is nominated."

    "Do not let anyone you know vote third party," she said [....]

    One thing clear about this statement is that it is clearly anti-litmus test on separate issues, that voters might need to let go of their favorite hobby horse when they vote for president. (Arta suggestion: Do your hobby horsing with lower offices! No electoral college problem there. Except for Senator, that's similar, as each state only gets 2 and they can be real important, like now for instance. Or with appointments of federal judges....)


    What blind lefties and the politically correct fanatics will refuse to see. IT'S STILL THERE, you win with these swings:

    In both cases, suburban voters delivered for Democrats.

    on VA and KY, from Democrats score suburban wins in warning sign for GOP by Reid Wilson @ TheHill.com, 11/05/19 11:45 PM EST 

    More GOTV in already blue districts: fairly useless!

    Firing up the lefty "base"? Only if they are prepared to canvas the burbs with moderate talking points on their clipboard.


    Agree. When it's pointed out in NYT or WaPo comment threads Warren's immigration plan is open border they think it's Russian trolling. They don't read her plans but fantasize or ignore the details in them.

    If doubt is evinced that her healthcare/tax plan will pass Congress, the lefties get irate about "ripoffs" and  Warren of course can do it ....a copy snd paste of GDP percent on healthcare  proves it:

    Belgium 10.4.   US around 16- 18%)

    Austria 10.4

    Denmark 10.4

    Canada 10.3

    United Kingdom 9.7

    Australia 9.6

    Finland 9.4

    New Zealand 9.2

    Spain 9.0

    Portugal 8.9

    Italy 8.9

    Iceland 8.6

    Slovenia 8.6

    Chile 8.5

    Greece 8.2

    Ireland 7.8

    Korea 7.7%


    I haven't any backup for this, it's just from anecdotals, but I am just going to throw it out there nonetheless. On health care I suspect the crucial suburban swing types are crucially split between salaried people who are happy with their employer-provided insurance, having no clue how much it costs, and the self-employed and small businesses that are desperate for help/reform because they are drowning on the quickly rising costs.

    If they are retirement age or help manage the lives of elderly parents who are, they already get that Medicare as it is is no panacea for that! About to approach enrollment myself, I just finally dragged the numbers from a 70-yr. old friend in Westchester: he pays $325 per month for supplemental for Part B from United and $90 a month for a drug plan. That's in addition to the $135.00 a month federal premium for Part B that everyone on Medicare pays. Ergo--his "free" Medicare coverage, for one person, costs him $550 per month. And there are still co-pays and deductibles with that! But they are relatively low.

    That's $550 per month to insure that one will not have to file bankruptcy if one needs a lot of medical care under Medicare for all the things Medicare doesn't cover. (It only covers 80% of provider charges, and that 20% these days can really mount up fast.) Needless to say, most retired people can't afford the good coverage he has. I certainly won't be able to come up with that, I'll have to figure something else out. The managed care Advantage Care plans that are "free" or low cost are notorious among the retirement community for being quagmires and possibly hellish depending on the network, many have very few providers in them and those providers are constantly changing.

    One real big downside to signing up with Advantage Care managed Medicare plans is that you can get stuck in them, you have only one chance to buy a supplemental instead that is not subject to underwriting for pre-existing conditions. One you switch out of supplemental coverage for an managed Advantage Care, if you are unhappy and want to go back to supplemental policies next Medicare open enrollment period, Obamacare rules don't apply: you can be underwritten for pre-existing conditions. I.E., if you have any illness(es), you could be quoted whatever they want to quote you for a supplemental. In order to get you to go away. They only want healthy seniors, of course.



    Sykes is an old reformed, right wing radio hack, and Wilson a never trumper, they have a pretty good grasp on those voters however.


    some confirmation bias for you, hon cheeky:


    I find it interesting that Bernie's critics lambaste him for being too vague, while Warren's critics lambaste her for being too specific (except of course, when she's being too vague). If you're an ambitious liberal, I guess you can't win.

    I also recall how Hillary Clinton was supposed to be so electable--so experienced, so pragmatic, so well-tested, mobilizing suburban moms all over the country.

    I suppose that I've lost faith in conventional wisdom about electability. That's not to say that I'm not worried about Warren vs Trump, just that I'm sick of being lectured by people who know less than they think they know about how Americans choose their presidents.


    Here's a piece by Thomas Edsall that consults the experts to determine whether people vote for policies or for tribes. The consensus: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Instead of voting for who they think will win or who they think will appeal to some other voter in some other state, I suspect that Democrats would do better by voting for who they want to president.


    The problem is, of course the Electoral College. Democrats have lost only one presidential election since 1988 by popular vote (2004). And yet Republicans have held more power longer, and have loaded the Supreme Court.

    The other problem with our federal government is the Senate, the most powerful body in Congress is controlled overwhelmingly by senators representing the fewest, least educated , least diverse voters, from our economic backwaters. Vox:

    "In 2013, the New York Times pointed out that the six senators from California, Texas, and New York represented the same number of people as the 62 senators from the smallest 31 states."

    You might say our structure of government is failing, and being exploited by a minority Party that to survive, must prevent it's successful and necessary reform. While also using demagoguery, fear,  bigotry, lies and bad faith to keep it's base tightly identified with the Party, regardless of policy.


    Someone sure doesn't like those dumb founding fathers who cobbled together that out of date piece of paper that's interfering with postmodern elite one party mob rule. 

    With brilliant leadership like AOC and her squad waging the dog victory, reform and delicious unlimited power is just over the horizon.


    They were just men forced to make brutal compromises to create a nation. You can deify them if you want but I don't. I think it's unlikely they would have set  up the same system today. The population difference between the largest state and the smallest state in 1778 was about 8 times. Now it's about 80 times. I doubt they would have thought 2 senators per state would have been ok with that great a difference.


    Brainfarts troubling you?

    That our Founding Father's in 13 tiny Atlantic states of 4 million people total pre-Napoleonic times before the steam engine cobbled together a document that besides balancing the disparate interests of the different regions and politicians, also codified slavery, disenfranchised women, had no serious means of taxation and couldn't remove a brain-dead president didn't foresee the great distortion their electoral system would suffer in expanding to 50 States and 330 million people is just an insult to their memory. We should ignore Russian hacking/payoffs and global warming too, because that's be unkind to our sacred Founding Fathers.


     

    Hey... Back on topic...

    Sarcasm Alert! Sarcasm Alert!

    Warren Schmorren, Biden Schmiden, and Bernie Schmernie

    3 days ago - Voters would prefer to see Hillary Clinton win the 2020
    election that President Donald Trump—and she isn't even in the race.
    A new poll from A new poll from Fox News, released on Sunday, shows
    Clinton polling ahead of the president in a match-up between the pair.

     

    ~OGD~


    The FF's were flawed men of their time and reality  and they produced a document that reflects their and humanities nature. They were wise enough to produce a document that could be carefully improved to produce a more perfect union without destroying the all important union of very different states.or destroying the freedom and liberty it creates.Some of them were wise enough to see that partisan politics would divide us and threaten the union. This was displayed when the people of one party, North and South couldn't evolve enough to address the evils of slavery and pushed us into civil war. I don't view them as all bad people but they certainly clung to bad ideas. 

       The FF's were wise enough to  foresee that we would always be plagued with tyrants, useful fools and the mob. They learned from the Greeks that majority/mob rule without strong codified minority protections could lead to tyranny and was the fatal flaw of democracy. Removing this protection from the core of the C is not evolution it's devolution and it would diminish the freedom and liberty of the individual by subjugating them to the whims of the mob. This will not be allowed to happen. 


    Now we are subject to the self aggrandizing depraved lies and malevolent whims of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.  A Party which stands for one thing only,  power unconstrained by the spirit or letter of the law, principles, truth, decency,, democracy, human rights, ethics or good faith.

    BTW, Trump just settled the fraud case against his Trump charity. He robbed from his own charity.

    Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, were also named, as they were official Trump Foundation Board members, the board not having met since 1999.

     "If the Führer calls and commands, each of us must obey without question, whatever he may say. With the Führer we are everything, without him we are nothing."

    Hermann Anonymous Göring 1942


    Trump subjecting you to peace, prosperity, rule of law, and especially MAGA must be hard to tolerate. The people who elected Trump weren't seeking a saint but a fighter and they got a great one. 

    Marxists are long practiced at projecting their own worst traits onto their enemies as you illustrate and that tactic may have worked for Stalin and Mao but it won't work here. 

    Fraud is a crime and Trump has never been charged with a crime not even one of the made up crimes the coup plotters have tried to frame him with.


    He's a fraud, he's paid for it in cash.

    Paying out court ordered money for his fraudulent charity.
    Paying out court ordered money for his fraudulent university.
    Paying out money to silence porn stars and mistresses.
    Paying out money to an army of lawyers to cover his shady lies, schemes and hiding his illicit financial dealings.

    His campaign manager, national security advisor, current lawyer, numerous associates and flunkies in jail, convicted, under investigation or working plea deals.

    This is the president of the United States. God help us.


    I won't defend Trump's mistakes if they  are true, he's not a golden calf he's human. You can be sure that with his long time enemies such as Mueller and Nadler he would have been charged with any real crime he might have committed. Repeatedly quacking 'fraud' won't change that fact.

    Manafort appears to have been convicted on the basis of the now debunked Black Ledger so he also may have been framed just as altered documents were used to frame Flynn, Pappadoc was set up for a fall by MIfsud, a probable friendly operative, and others and Mueller still had to use a perjury trap to get him to submit. Stone is facing the wrath of Mueller and his henchmen because they were unable to deliver Trump's head to the resistance. Cohen is a sleaze and is paying for his crimes which have nothing to do with his work for Trump. .

    If you were truly interested in the real story of Spygate I'd recommend you watch the Dan Bongino Show as millions of people already do. He's been reporting on the evidence as it is uncovered over the last three years and has been proven correct on most of his assumptions and predictions about this convoluted coup plot. That might not be a good recommendation as watching Dan might make your head explode.


    Trick of the trade - when your tinfoil hat starts slipping, use regular household clothespins (the old wooden kind) so doesn't interfere with the electromagnetic resonance.




    Trump could have won that civil case over Trump U and I like how he cut out the bottomfeeder lawyers from the settlement.

    The misuse of funds in his charity case was also a civil case as you well know that didn't rise to the level of a crime.He improperly borrowed money from the charity but paid it back. 


     The FF's were wise enough to  foresee that we would always be plagued with tyrants, useful fools and the mob. They learned from the Greeks that majority/mob rule without strong codified minority protections could lead to tyranny and was the fatal flaw of democracy. Removing this protection from the core of the C is not evolution it's devolution

    That supposed bulwark was the electoral college, but that protection has already been removed with states binding electors to vote as their state with punishments if they don't. We can disagree whether Trump is that tyrant or a useful fool and whether his supporters are the mob. But if you weren't a partisan hack and a hypocrite you would be railing against state laws binding electors. Eventually cases involving so called "faithless electors" will reach the Supreme Court. I suspect that those state laws will be found unconstitutional. 


    Yes!  Because we don’t have a “like” button.

    you are so right!


    The Electoral College is a problem. The Senate is another. So are gerrymandering and dark money and Russian meddling and Facebook ads. We should address these problems, but they shouldn't be used as excuses for rationalizing our choice of president.

    All I'm saying is that we should have more humility in our electability assessments because the truth is, we're not very good at it. I think we'd actually be more successful if we focus instead on who we think would make the best president and which policies are best for the country.


    Obama to Liz, chill on border and M4All.. :

    "Yet, Obama also raised concerns about some of the liberal ideas being promoted by some candidates, citing health care and immigration as issues where the proposals may have gone further than public opinion."

    Exactly what was pointed out in this post on her open borders plan, total amnesty for all, and her M4All.  She is now backing off of M4All with a new "100 day" plan for free healthcare for all low income persons, and all families making under 50k. link

     


    Yeah, i put that in the news section too, first of all, it's definitely big political news because:it's not exactly traditional for ex-presidents to do this publicly! (Though in private "backroom" days of "primary," might have been more like the rule rather than the exception, if ex-prez was a two-termer that is.)

    Second, I think fascinating the emphasis on immigration by many advisors, so much so that I suspect the poll numbers on topic that are available to the public are only the half of it. That what a candidate says and does on it is seen as having much much more effect than us plebian commentariat and news fans imagine. That it may be key to Obama/Trump type voters especially, but also a bigger bang than is usually stressed. Along the lines of: too much change, too fast, can't take it anymore.

    Medicare 4 all: no brainer to make it "Medicare option for all". To the point where: I don't get anyone who really wants to win pounding on Medicare 4 all meme. It appeals to a passionate minority frustrated with health care system and access right now. The minority is correct to be passionate but the majority has not figured that out yet, it's going to be a gradual process cumulating in hellish scenario for the majority including like doctors and nurses on strike can't take it no more. Meantime, here's the way I see it: political candidates who push it are basically volunteering to be sacrificial lambs to educate the public more and faster, including the huge public on employer paid plans, at the risk of losing their elections. And I've read enough on the Warren example to be convinced that that was an error in judgment by her campaign to appeal to the passionistas as to the primary, and they are trying to figure a way out of it. They might still.. it may even be that Obama is trying to assist and has been asked to assist....

    Likewise with immigration, this is M4all has the "too much change too fast" taint. I know that terminology was used in the past to denigrate progressivism. But people got to let go of that, because every single one of us, if honest with ourselves, is now experiencing the stress and anxiety of "too much change too fast" in one way or another.


    But "they" want plans: