The US has a huge infrastructure deficit at this point. There's no question that we could go on a trillion dollar reinvestment plan and still have a lot left on the table to be done a decade out. Among other things there are about 30 states, including Connecticut, that would do well to put all the electrical power cables underground at this point. CL&P collected line fees for 50 years without reinvesting the money in making the power distribution system more efficient and less disaster prone. Then back to back statewide disasters essentially forced them to sell to EverSource, a Texas based energy concern. Now we're still sitting with most of our wires above ground and a decade of likely nasty weather in the offing. The rust belt has bridges ready to fall into rivers all over the place at this point. All the states that went heavily for fracking are going to need infrastructure reinvestment to make them more quake proof. Nuclear power is likely to get a restart also and it's going to take federal and state investments there to make that doable in many locations. Michigan, obviously, is going to need to reinvest in many of the public water utilities around the state. Flint was just the canary in the coal mine. The governor floats a figure of $1.5B to replace Flint's pipes. That's 1.5% of a trillion dollar investment in infrastructure right there in one small city.
Right - there are a lot to be done, of course. That said - there remains a lot of questions about how we will get that done, and where we will get the money from, and what we can expect to get in return. [This is the core of Sanders' plan.] Let me introduce a formal analysis of actual economists. Here goes: https://evaluationoffriedman.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/romer-and-romer-evaluation-of-friedman1.pdf
Thes say democrats fall in love and republicans fall inline. If these big liberal states fall in love with Bernie the way they hope to then you found your path.
Big liberal state who? NY doesn't count, does it? [Hillary up by some 65-25 in NY by the way.] Or... do you mean to say CA? [Hillary enjoys yet another double-digit lead here, as in 56-42] And I believe I specified the best case scenario that [can] happen; that is, Hillary and Bernie split at 50% in NY and CA. [A tall order, mind you.] When that happens, Hillary will be at 2150 with that votes alone. [With others, she will be well over 2380 she needs.]
Tall order indeed. The quote I used earlier "democrats fall in love while republicans fall in line" isn't something I made up. It's been a saying for at least 12 years according to the Internet (I thought I had heard it first in the '90s) It's funny that in this election cycle the dems are falling in line (behind an unlovable Hillary) and the republicans are falling in love (with an out of establishment line Trunp)
And now Professor Krugman makes a rather scathing remark on Sanders here. If what he alleges here is true - then that speaks volumes about how near-sighted Sanders actually is. Krugman alleges that, while Hillary is supporting the democratic party for the Senate/House election this November, Sanders isn't doing a thing about it. I have to wonder why that is the case. [If Krugman is not lying - I have no reason to think he is - Sanders has some answering to do.] True - one can make a claim about Sanders being an independent, so he has no affiliation with Dems. If that is true, why is he in Democratic candidate nomination to begin with? Didn't he say [he chose to join Democratic nomination because "he couldn't join the Republican nomination in good conscience"]? [That's a paraphrase - he said something to the tune of this.] Now - let's say Sanders does go to the oval office. Now are we supposed to expect that Republicans will work with him because [formally he is not affiliated with the Democratic party and is in fact independent]? [I for one don't even bother with this kind of stupidity.] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/feel-the-math/?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Hillary has definitely been one of the biggest fund-raisers for Democrats running for office this year. Sanders is a Social Democrat running under the Democratic aegis because there's nowhere else for him to go. He learned from the Nader experience that splitting the Left doesn't win you any elections. So he's running in the Democratic primaries but he's really not affiliated with the party in a big way. Most Democrats in office are to the right of him on many issues. He's really not interested in helping people who are in the lobbyists pocket get re-elected either. Unlike Obama he's going to use the Presidency as a bully pulpit if he's elected and keep the issues in the public eye. He won't really care if he's got a Democratic majority or a Republican majority because he's planning to drag either caucus over the coals repeatedly once he's elected. He's really more like Trump in that regards than is commonly acknowledged. It's the year of the anti-establishment candidate. Hillary has too much of a lead at this point though. She's going to get the nomination. On the GOP side things are very different.
That's the problem here. If he realizes that he shouldn't be splitting the left votes for presidency, he should also realize that he needs as many left-leaning senators/house representatives as he can get. Not doing a damn thing only makes him look like a person only concerned with his position in the oval office. Last but not the least, having obstructionists on one part of the House/Senate was bad enough already. Not having support from either side makes it doubly bad.
I don't support Sanders but he didn't really have much of a choice if he wanted a legit shot at running for President. You either run as a Democrat or a Republican or you have no chance. It's a shitty system that way. The two parties are too powerful.
That's what I am saying here basically; if he wants to run as a democratic candidate, then he should look further as well. [This is Prof. Krugman's contention as well, which I whole-heartedly agree, given the state of the complete clusterfuck that is the Republican party.]
I could be completely wrong on this but I'm guessing Sanders sees the two party system as part of the problem he is standing up against. So while he may see the Democratic party as the better of the two, he probably doesn't really see them as "good guys".
Apparently most women also find Hillary to be a smelly bitch. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433596/hillary-clintons-low-ratings-among-women
makes sense to me. As a man I could give no fucks but if you are a strong woman do you look up to another woman who didn't leave her husband after he banged half of D.C.'s skanks? Sticking by him not out of love but out of political benefit? That's not exactly a role model for daughters, sisters, etc, of the world.
At this remove I believe it is only slightly worth noting that such an explosive display of vituperation establishes beyond peradventure that, for some partisans, any recondite item, factual or otherwise, that tends to lower Clinton's esteem generally, will be deemed acceptable to parade and otherwise deploy in order to gain any advantage at all against her political fortunes. Those that would expect some measure of success from such a tactic might do well to disabuse themselves of that notion.
That won't matter when they 'coincidentally' have a guy who's saying women should be punished for having an abortion on the other partisan ticket.
