7 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Tuesday (May 5)”

1. Re Clinton and Sanders: yes. I think we do.

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   1. We'll have 12 opportunities to hear the ever-more-crowded clown car of Republicans debate; 6 Democratic debates doesn't seem a bad thing, and given the smaller field (maybe with O'Malley as a third) the debates might be topic-focused…

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      1. Agree. After all, the whole point of Bernie running is to bring attention to and pressure to bear on issues. To do that we need a full schedule of debates. It's not as if anyone, including Bernie, thinks he's got a serious shot. His is an issues and pressure campaign. Kind of like all the clown car candidates on the right who know they don't have a snowball's chance in hell but want to push the Republican party choice or eventual candidate in a more Tea Party direction except that Bernie is no clown and, in fact, Bernie's ideas make more sense than anyone's.

         Warren isn't running so it's going to be just Bernie for a more progressive than dead center voice. HRC had better get used to some pressure before the general and where else is it going to come from in the primary stage? All the other as yet uncommitted maybes (and more likely nots) are just as centrist as she is or farther to the right.

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         1. BTW, Glad the click to edit is still around.

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2. Shameful!!!  Parker teens (Chaparral HS) show themselves not only classless, but racially insensitive and tone deaf about gun violence.  Aurora theater trial underway only 4 miles from the HS.  http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/gun-toting-colorado-teens-pose-for-prom-pics-with-confederate-flag-as-parents-egg-them-on/

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3. Arghhhh!

   That is all.

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4. Do we really need to hear Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders talk to each other six different times?

   If you don't care about policy, as CO Pols likes to pretend (I'm guessing this relates mostly to Dems who they dare not criticize)  then you wouldn't want these debates

   But many of us do care about policy, CPols, and we know that politics affects the policy, and that even discussing the issues on our side can drive intelligence into the debate and can provide resistance to the constant rightward drift of our politics and policies the last 30+ years.

   In an article in Rolling Stone entitled "Give 'Em Hell, Bernie," Matt Taibbi weighs in on the Sanders presidential run. About that run, the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, includes these three items: 

   1. Bernie Sanders appears to be serious about challenging both Clinton and the system, which are, in my view, somewhat coextensive.

   2. If elected, he'll certainly do what he says he'll do. He won't be one more Mr. "Yes we can, but sorry, No I won't."

   3. He may be the "place to park an anti-Establishment vote" that I've been looking for — a Eugene McCarthy for this decade's version of the fed-up, Occupied generation.

   Why does the last point matter? Because resentment among both Democratic voters and rank-and-file Tea Party voters is very high. (Obama is largely responsible for the negative effects of No. 2 above, and there's no telling how much momentum was lost by Democrats and Progressives who lacked the political will and the policy smarts to follow up on Obama's campaign promises.-z) 

   Elizabeth Warren is said to be quite popular among the rank-and-file right. No one in the country wanted bankers bailed out — only the One Percenters, and the professional class that runs the world for them, were in favor of giving bankers money by the bucketful.

   This is the dilemma Michael Bennet finds himself in now. The politics of several of these issues has changed dramatically over the course of Obama's presidency. Where Bennet and Udall could openly flout more populist elements of the Democratic Party in '09 and link their stars to the DLC, Fix the Debt, Corporate Democrats who hadn't yet been thoroughly vanquished at the polls, that political strategy and policy emphasis has since lost its momentum, and many of its adherents, thanks to Bennet and the wayy too predictable DSCC and the disemployed Udall.

   If Bennet continues to ignore those shifts, continues to ignore the economic realities that Hillary Clinton quite obviously sees (at least for now), and ignores the results of a valueless, technocratic campaign, and ignores the true populism and popularity of Bernie Sanders then he probably won't invoke the wrath of CPols, but he won't incite the enthusiasm of voters, either.

   Good luck with that, guys, and your specious claim to care about the politics, not the policy.

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