#Biden beats Trump. Harris platforms on basically the same ideas as Biden. Harris loses. It's not rocket science.

[kushamisaru]

Everytime I remember Trump is the President Elect I get violently angry lmaooo. He shouldn't have even been allowed to run and now we have to go through this shit again but hey at least we stuck it to Harris right :)

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

So not to be dramatic, but if you could get a degree in discourse-ology, the topic of my master’s thesis would definitely be “Which political candidates did the characters of the CW’s Gossip Girl (2007-2012) support?” I’m doing this in order from most to least obvious, and considering both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

[ little ivy interjection here: i haven’t changed ANYTHING, except adding a screencap of the title + the submission, because that made me laugh & more people deserve to see it, and putting this under a read more because that’s how i generally try & organise stuff on this blog. so this submission is exactly as it was when i received it! also while we’re at it, anon, this MADE my day.]

Blair Waldorf: “Hillary Clinton is one of my role models. I do not break treaties, you ass!” (04x13) There’s no question that Blair would go hard for Hillary in 2016, she praised her on multiple occasions throughout the series. Blair’s a classic American neoliberal, third wave Democrat-type: she’s decently progressive when it comes to social policies, and would be decidedly supportive of causes like gay marriage, racial equity, and women’s reproductive rights, but she’s still very much in favor of maintaining the status quo when it comes to capitalism and the hegemonic structure of power that, lets face it, heavily favors her own class interests. To use the American healthcare system as an example: Blair would have been all for the Affordable Care Act, and is largely supportive of the idea of creating a public option - but single payer, nationalized health care? It just wouldn't work in a country like the United States for “X” reason (although the real reason, deep down, is that she doesn’t want to see her tax rate go up in any meaningful way). So she’s thoroughly for Clinton in both the 2016 primaries and the general election, she maybe even comes out with a line of high-end “I’m With Her” merchandise if she’s still CEO of Waldorf Designs, and is personally heartbroken when Clinton loses.

Flash forward to the 2020 primaries. Blairhates Donald Trump, like emotionally, viscerally hates him - his misogyny, his incompetence, and his blatant tackiness are a direct repudiation of her beliefs, and the fact that he’s representing Manhattan society and the Upper East Side to the world in such a godawful way is frankly embarrassing. So in a certain sense, her strategy, like frankly many Americans at the time going into the 2020 Democratic primaries is, “Which one of these candidates has the greatest chance at beating Donald Trump?” I see Blair being rather conflicted at first, but ultimately going for either Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris. She has a certain admiration for Elizabeth Warren given her professional background, but her policies are a bit too progressive for someone like Blair. Buttigeg is fine, but not especially thrilling. Biden, quite frankly, doesn’t seem like he has any real chance at winning, although I think he’d be Blair’s third choice after Harris and Klobuchar. I can see her leaning more towards Harris ultimately - although, after the “Amy Klobuchar throws staplers at her interns!!” rumors start spreading, Blair cannot help but, at a personal level, kind of respect her for that. When Biden unexpectedly takes South Carolina and then the Democratic nomination, Blair is a bit disappointed, but not overly so, and quickly marshals her financial resources into supporting and fundraising for him for the remainder of the election. At least it’s not Sanders - or Bloomberg. As a New Yorker, of course Blair’s opinion is “Fuck Michael Bloomberg”.

Chuck Bass: Now here’s where it gets interesting. Chuck, as you said, isn’t stupid - there’s no way he falls for the “build the wall” crap or any of Trump’s rhetoric, he knows it’s a bullshit farce and sees right through it. But you know what he definitely is? Deeply greedy and deeply selfish. I’m hardly the first person to point this out, but Chuck Bass is, in many ways, the fictional equivalent of the Donald Trumps and Michael Bloombergs and Brett Kavanaughs of the world - new money billionaire who inherited his wealth from his father working in the real estate industry, who despite his lack of business acumen and deeply problematic history with women, has managed to coast through life failing upwards with absolutely no social or legal accountability? I mean, back in 2010, Forbes Magazine actually did a real interview with the fictional Chuck Bass in which they outright compare him to Donald Trump. I couldn’t tell you if the Gossip Girl writers meant to write Chuck as their Trump analogue - I mean, they did invite Jared and Ivanka onto the show, after all - but the parallels are just too strong to ignore. All of which is to say, not only did Chuck Bass vote for Donald Trump, he held exclusive political fundraisers for him and was probably a substantial donor to his campaign. Now, did Chuck distance himself publicly over time as the political climate became increasingly caustic and public sentiment towards Trump plummeted even further? Perhaps, perhaps not. It really depends on if the board of Bass Industries felt like being connected to Trump was a liability or an asset - but privately, I imagine Chuck once again voted for him in 2020, because the one policy Donald Trump did effectively execute during his tenure in office was massive tax cuts for billionaires, and for someone like Chuck Bass, that’s the only political policy that really matters. He wouldn’t wear a red hat and wouldn’t be caught dead within sniffing distance of a MAGA rally and the hoi polloi, but dude is basically the image of what the kind of rich conservatives backing the Trump administration for personal gain look like. On the off chance that the distastefulness of it all got to be a little much for even Chuck post-2016, perhaps he might switch his vote to Bloomberg. But I highly doubt Chuck would be politically invested in anything other than his own wallet to such an extent that he wouldn’t vote for Trump, no matter how much it would no doubt completely infuriate Blair.

Dan Humphrey: As the unofficial king of the hipsters, Dan has been a Sanders supporter since before it was cool. Seriously, Bernie Sanders appeals to Dan intrinsically on every level - his policies, his rhetoric, even his aesthetic - the rumpled old man with wild hair wearing mittens and railing against the upper class is the sort of thing that’s basically political catnip for someone like Dan Humphrey. Not only would Dan vote for Sanders in both the 2016 and 2020 primaries, he’d go out and be one of the celebrities campaigning for him. This would definitely lead to him butting heads with Blair, and she would no doubt call him out on supporting someone like Sanders when Dan himself is now a millionaire, who made his money from writing stories about the upper class. The fact that in 2017 he apparently gets married to Serena, a billionaire heiress, and may or may not have been engaged to her back in 2016 when the Democratic primaries were happening might cause him a bit of cognitive dissonance, but really, just because he’s climbed up the socio-economic ladder now doesn’t mean his values have really changed, have they? (Debatable.) In any case, in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections, Dan would definitely vote for Clinton and Biden respectively - although he’d be significantly more disgruntled about it than Blair would be switching from Harris to Biden. I don’t think Dan would be a “Bernie bro” in the way that term is used, but he’d definitely chafe against Clinton’s past policy decisions, and would probably make some snippy Tweets about her during the election. Nevertheless, once it became clear that Trump was going to be the Republican nominee and was a serious threat, I think Dan would change his tone and start encouraging his fans and followers to vote for Clinton. Likewise, in 2020, Dan would probably become one of the Sanders supporters doing outreach for Biden, having become more politically pragmatic following the experience of living under the Trump administration.

Vanessa Abrams: Much like Dan, Vanessa is a progressive, although unlike Dan, Vanessa’s activism is more focused around specific issues and less around specific politicians. I can see Dan and Vanessa being in roughly the same place in 2016, and given that the only real choices were between Sanders and Clinton in the primaries (RIP to Martin O'Malley), Vanessa would no doubt go for Sanders. Whereas Dan might campaign for Sanders directly however, Vanessa would instead focus her time and resources around advocacy for specific causes that are important to her, like climate change and racial justice, and would probably use her platform as a filmmaker and documentarian to advance those causes. I could very much see her getting involved with movements like Black Lives Matter and organizations like the Sunrise Movement, and taking part in protests, marches, and sit-ins. When the 2020 Democratic primaries come around, I could see her possibly switching from Sanders to Warren for a while (and Dan would definitely argue with her about it if she did), but I can also see her switching back to Sanders after Warren amended her support for single-payer, “Medicare for All”. She’d definitely vote for Clinton and Biden in the generals, but not enthusiastically.

Nate Archibald: For someone whose family business is politics and who, in 2017, is apparently a candidate in the New York City mayoral election, Nate seems to be rather removed from politics. As Vanessa puts it in 02x19, “The only thing Nate’s ever voted for is American Idol.” Still, as Editor-in-Chief of The Spectator, Nate kind of has to have an opinion, and in that respect, I see him gravitating towards the type of center-left “establishment” candidates that he and his family would no doubt have close ties with. In the Gossip Girl universe, the Vanderbilts are portrayed as being a lot like the Kennedys, and I think Nate’s policies as a mayoral candidate would really reflect that. In 2016, he would vote for Hillary Clinton in both the primaries and the generals without much of a second thought - after all, she’s the obvious choice, and there’s no way a candidate like Donald Trump could actually beat her, right? Actually, optimistically, maybe that’s why Nate decides to jump into the mayoral race in 2017 - previously, he had been for all intents and purposes politically apathetic, but seeing someone as genuinely vile as Donald Trump ascend to the office of the presidency stirs him out of that apathy, and he wants to make a positive difference in the only way an incredibly privileged white man from a politically prominent family knows how. So he runs as a Kennedy-esque center left candidate, further left of someone like Hillary Clinton, but more moderate than someone like Elizabeth Warren - sort of like Kamala Harris, now that I think about it. I have no idea if he would actually be able to beat Bill de Blasio given the major incumbency advantage de Blasio would have, but who knows. Come the 2020 Democratic primaries, I think Nate would probably just vote for whoever he believed was most likely to beat Donald Trump. I don’t see him having any sort of clear preference - maybe he would gravitate towards Biden on the basis of him being the most established candidate, or maybe he would gravitate towards Harris on the basis of her campaigning as the “moderate progressive” candidate. I could also seeing him liking Andrew Yang, come to think of it. In any case, he would most definitely support Joe Biden in the generals. How involved he’d be in supporting him really depends on whether or not Nate actually gets elected to mayor - if he was the mayor, he’d definitely endorse him and probably donate to him, but I think he’d be too wrapped up in his own political responsibilities to really do much more than that. If, however, he lost the election and was still the Editor-in-Chief of The Spectator, I can see Nate getting more involved alongside the rest of his family, officially endorsing him in The Spectator, hosting political fundraisers for him, and maybe even campaigning for him. The Vanderbilts in the Gossip Girl universe (I have no idea what the family’s actual political beliefs are in real life) definitely seem to me like they’d be Biden supporters, and I imagine they’d use their political clout to try and get Biden in, and more importantly, Trump out.

Serena van der Woodsen: Oh Serena. Look, she knows it’s important, okay? It’s just, she’s been really busy lately, and she doesn’t really like to think about politics, and hey, remember that fundraiser she did with her mom for last month’s philanthropic cause du jour? Serena’s a Democrat, vaguely, but if you tried to really pin her down on her political beliefs she’d probably just change the topic. So who does she vote for in 2016? The truth is, she doesn’t. Not in the primaries, not in the general, not at all. She meant to, okay, Blair’s definitely been pestering her to send in her mail-in-ballot for weeks, but she just got distracted and forgot. Serena really strikes me as the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy thinking or talking about politics, save for perhaps a few specific issues, and she has a sense that everything will work itself out eventually and she doesn’t really need to participate. And then the 2016 election happens, and holy shit, she didn’t vote. Blair and Dan might have spent early 2016 bickering with each other over Clinton versus Sanders, but the one thing they can definitely agree on is “What the fuck, Serena?!?!” They both reminded her like, a million times, how could she possibly forget?! Serena feels really bad about it - she didn’t think it was such a big deal, she didn’t think Donald Trump could actually win! - and so she starts overcompensating whenever the topic of politics comes up, maybe even joins Vanessa at a few protests and marches, even though she’s still sort of clueless about the actual issues at hand. She does vote in the 2018 midterms, although only in the general election - straight blue ticket, all the way down. She takes a picture of herself at the voting booth wearing an “I Voted!” sticker and posts it on Instagram, tagging both Dan and Blair in the post (who already voted weeks ago using mail-in ballots, but it’s the thought that counts). Flash forward to 2020, and she really needs to make a decision about who to vote for in the primaries… but there’s just so many choices. Everything seems so scary and stressful and real in a way now that it didn’t back in 2016, and she can’t just ignore it and assume things will work out for the best like she did back then. So who does she vote for? Well, Serena always wins, so she votes for Biden. Conspiratorially, both Dan and Blair privately wonder if her voting for Biden isn’t on some cosmic level the reason for his unexpected victory, even if they know there’s no logical way that’s possible, right? But it would be such a Serena thing to do… In any case, Serena’s just happy her candidate won, and would probably host political fundraisers for him with her mom’s circle of philanthropic friends. Assuming she and Dan are still married at this point, she offers to help him do political outreach to Sanders supporters to get them to vote for Biden, which he sweetly dissuades her from given that most Sanders supporters would probably dislike her on principle.

So that’s how, in my opinion, the main cast would vote, ordered roughly in how confident I am about that analysis. You could make the argument that perhaps some characters would vote or act differently based on whether or not they’re dating or married at the time - like, would Chuck openly fundraise for Trump when Blair is a dyed-in-the-wool Clinton supporter if they’re married? (He totally would.) But I tried to consider them purely on the merits of their personalities and values, and not on the particularities of their situations at the time (with the exception of Nate, just because him being in office or not would obviously make a huge difference in regards to how politically involved he’s going to be).

I wish I put as much effort into my actual university essays as I did on Gossip Girl political analysis.

[hachama]

Second Democratic Debate Analysis, pt. 2

If you’re still with me, I am sorry to inform you that we are not done yet and have now reached what I call The Disappointment Zone: Yang, Buttigieg, Bennet, Harris

You may be thinking that Harris has fallen a long way since the first debate.  You would be right.

Onward!

12) Harris

Senator Kamala Harris. I had such hope for you after the first debate.  I ranked you in my top four.  You were one of the Chosen Ones, even though even then I knew you probably didn’t deserve it based on your prosecutorial record and support of SESTA/FOSTA.  But you could have been great.

A moment of silence, for my hope that Kamala Harris would be better than this.

Despite her low rank in my list, Kamala has some good ideas.  She also has some really nasty skeletons in her very-public closet. While the accusations were somewhat sensationalized in the debate, the facts aren’t that much better.  

The accusation: held prisoners past the end of their sentences for use as cheap labor What happened: lawyers working in then-Attorney General Harris’s office argued against releasing prisoners at the end of their sentences.  Harris claimed not to be aware of the practice and told the attorneys to stop when she found out.  The practice was officially ended by a federal court.

The accusation: denied death row inmates the right to an appeal based on new evidence. What happened: Harris blocked a new DNA testing methodology from being used to potentially exonerate a death row inmate, until the press found out and it made her look bad.  The new testing has not exonerated the inmate, but he was given permission to use the evidence.

Kamala’s healthcare plan includes a 10-year phase-in period, would preserve private insurance as an option, and was endorsed by a private insurance company.  She is, however, pretty sure that Joe Biden’s plan is worse, so there’s that.

On the plus side, Senator Harris wants to rejoin the Paris Accord and achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, supports decriminalizing the border, and believes we should separate healthcare from employment, allowing workers to keep their insurance when they change jobs.  She also proposed fining companies 1% of their previous year’s profits for every 1% difference between the average pay for men vs. women.  And, relying on that prosecutorial record, she says that “predators are cowards, and I know how to beat them.”  I will admit, despite all the reasons I’m not a fan, I would love to see Kamala Harris turn a debate against Trump into a cross-examination.

11) Bennet

Senator Michael Bennet really shouldn’t be ranked this high.  His inclusion in the Disappointment Zone has more to do with the poor performance of the lower-ranked candidates than anything good he had to say.  He’s another white male centrist, barely worth an also-ran mention, but I said I was going to include everyone still in the race and he hasn’t conceded, so here we are.

He was accused, multiple times, of parotting Republican talking points, and insisted that he was not doing so.  He supports healthcare “choice,” and believes that making Medicare for All a platform plank will hand Trump a second term.  He wants us to “put the divisive politics of the last 10 years behind us” which seems like a funny way of saying the Republicans losing their mind when a black man was elected is the same as progressives’ fury over Trump’s abuses. For all his protests, he sounds like a Republican parrot to me.  Polly want a 100% white flour saltine?

To his credit, he discussed structural racism in education, not that he said the words “structural racism,” of course.  He believes we need to fix our schools to fix the prison pipeline.

10) Buttigieg

Mayor Pete Buttigieg had a slightly better debate in the second round, but not enough to get out of the Disappointment Zone.  

He’s still a proponent of healthcare “choice,” calling his plan “medicare for all who want it,” which is a big problem for me.

That said, he wants to see the end of the electoral college and overturn of Citizens United, supports universal background checks and an assault weapons ban, wants immigration reform, and to decriminalize the border to let civil courts deal with undocumented immigrants.  He had a pretty good line, saying that democrats should stop worrying about what the Republicans will say, because they’re going to call us crazy socialists no matter what.  He also referred to Trump as a symptom of a bigger problem in America.

9) Yang

Andrew Yang continued his call for a universal basic income, holding it up as a solution to everything from a low minimum wage to wage inequality to healthcare to racism.  He was also one of the candidates pleading for other participants in the debate to not “tear each other down,” which is mind-boggling to me because it’s a debate, Andrew.  Someone is supposed to win, and someone is supposed to lose.  It’s not a town hall, it’s a competitive event.

He also thinks we’re already too late to do anything about climate change, which aside from being defeatist also sounds suspiciously like a justification for doing nothing, which isn’t acceptable.

He had a couple good moments, saying that the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math. I’d like to see how he reached that conclusion, because I have some alternative theories.

He wants to “get healthcare off the backs of businesses and families,” and said that immigrants are being scapegoated for issues that have nothing to do with them.

[mcdouglecompany-blog]

Stossel Defending Capitalism, Designer Babies, The Best and Worst Ideas, Hilarious Remy Raps on Dems Debate and Bernie.

Stossel Defending Capitalism, Designer Babies, The Best and Worst Ideas, Hilarious Remy Raps on Dems Debate and Bernie.

This ACU Show consists of 5 segments from ReasonTV. Subscribe for free today!

Stossel: In Defense of Capitalism.

Stossel: Don't Be Scared of Designer Babies

Stossel: 2020 Candidates’ Worst and Best Ideas.

Remy: Democratic Debate (The Rap)

Why Bernie Sanders' Communist Misadventures Still Matter

  Stossel: In Defense of Capitalism.

https://youtu.be/X5ZDgz8MO1M

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 18, 2019

People acting in their own self-interest created modern prosperity, says Ayn Rand Institute's Yaron Brook.

Progressives claim capitalism is "immoral" because some people become rich while others stay poor. Yaron Brook, chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute, says the opposite is true. "We have basically made about $2 a day for 100,000 years," Brook told John Stossel. "In other words…we could eat what we farmed and that was it." "And then something amazing happened." About 250 years ago, a few countries tried capitalism. For the first time, people were allowed to profit from private property. "Two-hundred and fifty years ago we suddenly discovered the value of individual freedom," says Brook. "We suddenly discovered the value of leaving individuals free to think, to innovate, to produce without asking for permission, without getting the state to sign off." As a result, humans "doubled our life expectancy," says Brook. "We have dramatically increased the quality of our life and we are wealthier than anybody could have imagined." Brook, who's an objectivist, says that "doing for others is fine—but only if that's what you want." "The key is that somebody else's need is not a moral claim against your life," he adds. "Your life is yours." Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes. The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

  Stossel: Don't Be Scared of Designer Babies.

https://youtu.be/Mh7KoFwSyQU

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 11, 2019

Gene-editing technology will eventually allow parents to alter their future offspring's intelligence, height, eye color, and more. And that's worth celebrating.

Have you heard of "designer babies?" Parents who use in vitro fertilization can already select an embryo by gender and screen for diseases. Gene-editing technology will eventually allow them to alter their future offspring's intelligence, height, eye color, and more. This scares some people. Eighty-three percent of Americans say editing human genes to improve intelligence goes too far. "Of course they say that," says Georgetown University Professor Jason Brennan in an interview with John Stossel. "When you have any kind of intervention into the body that's new, people think it's icky. And they take that feeling of 'ickiness' and they moralize, and think it's a moral objection." Jenna Bush Hager, who's the daughter of former President George W. Bush, recently said that "there should be things that we leave up to God." "I'm not really sure I'm going to take her word for it," says Brennan. "If God appears before me and says 'don't do this,' I'll stop." "We already give our kids music lessons, braces, tutoring, karate lessons," Stossel says. "Any advantage we can—why not also give them the best genes?" In the future, he notes, humans could be much smarter—perhaps possessing the wisdom enough to avoid wars and travel to other planets. Sheldon Krimsky, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Tufts, argues that it'll "be a new way to create disparities in wealth." "Every bit of technology that we enjoy today follows the same pattern," says Brennan. "You look in your automobile, and you have a CD player or an MP3 player, and a GPS. All of these things, when they first became available, were incredibly expensive," he says. When asked if he was simply opposed to technological progress, Krimsky responded, "I love change…But I think there are some boundaries." Will there be social pressure for everyone to have "designer babies"? "It's not so clear why that's a problem," Brennan says. "If everyone is making their kids healthier and stronger and smarter, and less prone to disease, and you feel social pressure to go along with that, good. Shouldn't you do that as a parent for your child?" Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes. The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

  Stossel: 2020 Candidates’ Worst and Best Ideas.

https://youtu.be/1_PDfZ9BP24

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 25, 2019

Stossel reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2020 campaigns.

The 2020 campaign season is getting started. John Stossel says he's "repulsed by most politicians" because "not only are they mad for power, they push bad ideas." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has proposed that the post office go into the banking business, so that poor people can access banking. Sanders says the "Postal Service could make billions of dollars a year by establishing basic banking services." Stossel wonders: "Really? The people who mishandle mail?" The post office loses billions every year. "Now they're going to manage our money?" he asks. Sanders doesn't stop there. He wants "a ban on for-profit charter schools" and a moratorium even on nonprofit charters. He wants that even though the vast majority of studies show charters increase learning. The bad ideas keep coming. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) wants to force everyone to buy fertility treatment insurance. Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) wants government to guarantee everyone a job and to pay many people's rent. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) would cancel student loan debt of up to $50,000. Former Vice President Joe Biden would make college free. Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) would force companies to prove they pay men and women equally for the same work. And she'd "hold social media platforms accountable" for "hate." "That sounds nice," Stossel points out, "but if politicians get to decide what is 'hate,' they will censor any idea they don't like." President Trump also has bad ideas. For example, Stossel says, he misunderstands the trade deficit. That's led him to start trade wars around the world. Fortunately, many of the candidates also have good ideas—from Trump's regulation cutting to Biden's support for free speech, to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's (D–Hawaii) steadfast opposition to war. "All the candidates have bad ideas," Stossel says. "But some are a bigger danger to our liberty than others." The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

  --------- Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: https://goo.gl/az3a7a Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------

  Remy: Democratic Debate (The Rap)

https://youtu.be/QL0g6KmFRYw

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 28, 2019

Remy joins the debate stage to out-Democrat the Democrats. Apparently they'll let anybody up there. Written and performed by Remy. Mastered by Ben Karlstrom. Video by Austin Bragg.

LYRICS: Free contraception! That's right, that's my mission Yeah I'm stopping more wangs than Harvard admissions They say they'd fund Planned Parenthood? Well that's not enough Not only would I fund it, son I'd start a loyalty club You think they would spend more than me? You'll change your mind in a hurry I'm dropping more Jacksons Than Conrad Murray I'm dominating this debate Spartacus is impaired How do I know all the answers? Let's just say I prepared… They say they got plans They'd do a lot for the nation But unlike some people on this stage I got reservations Para el climate change-o Despacito Cinco de Mayo Burrito There's people locked up in cages We gotta act fast Not at the border, mind you Amy Klobuchar's staff I'll comb through the laws See which ones are valid Beam me to the next debate Here, use this for your salad I don't know half of these people Y'all ain't go no chances Got more write-offs on this stage Than Bernie Sanders' taxes Joe straight up killed busing You know it was gory Axed it like NBC News On a Weinstein story It's the economy, stupid It's like no one is hearing me I'd be the best thing for business since Russia conspiracies Reminds me of an accident I encountered today Not that kind of accident, Beto Why you running away? I got a plan to beat ISIS Install a puppet leader who'd lead them into insolvency Hmm…who could we choose… And North Korea is evil I just honestly learned it By checking that foolproof resource Bernie's Travelocity searches Guns are bad Of that I'm the most cognizant I'd get rid of arms so fast You'd think you're at the Saudi consulate

------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7a Reason is the leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ------------------

  Why Bernie Sanders' Communist Misadventures Still Matter.

https://youtu.be/K2d3DMC6qyg

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 3, 2019

Sanders no longer favors government takeover of "the major means of production." But his four-decade quest for political revolution continues.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has spent his entire career explaining away the inevitable downsides of massively increasing the power of the state over the individual. Sanders once identified as a socialist who, with reservations, admired the economic achievements of Cuba under Fidel Castro, of Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, and of the Soviet Union right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Running for office as a candidate for the Liberty Union Party in Vermont in the 1970s, Sanders sought a top tax rate of 100%, saying "nobody should earn more than $1 million." Sanders wanted to stop businesses from moving out of their original communities, arguing that the ultimate solution to protect workers was national legislation that would "bring about the public ownership of the major means of production." He favored the government seizure of "utilities, banks, and major industries," without compensation to investors or stockholders. Shortly after he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981, Sanders told a room full of charity workers, "I don't believe in charities," because only the government should provide social services to the needy. He traveled to Nicaragua in 1985 to meet Sandinista leaders, who had installed a socialist government after overthrowing an American-backed dictator. Sanders attended the sixth-anniversary celebration of the Sandinistas' revolution and praised Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega. In 1988, he visited the USSR, three years before it collapsed. After his trip, Sanders praised the Soviets' social and cultural programs, saying American leaders had much to learn from the communist system. In 1989, Sanders traveled to Cuba to seek a meeting with Fidel Castro—though he ended up settling for the mayor of Havana. Today, Sanders calls himself a "democratic socialist" and has become a millionaire. He favors single-payer health care, free public college for all, and a $15 minimum wage. And he has distanced himself from some of his former positions in support of the Sandinistas and Castro, pointing instead to Nordic countries as examples to follow. But one thing has remained constant as Sanders has shifted his focus from Nicaragua, Cuba, and the USSR to Denmark, Finland, and Sweden: In all of these countries, he's misled his followers about the political and economic realities on the ground. Produced and edited by Justin Monticello. Graphics by Joshua Swain. Audio production by Ian Keyser. Music by Silent Partner; Jingle Punks; Topher Mohr and Alex Elena; Jimmy Fontanez, Doug Maxwell & Media Right Productions; The 129ers; Sir Cubworth; MK2; and Riot. For full text, links, and credits, go to https://reason.com/video/why-bernie-s...

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