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16 February 2020





So no actual federal legislation in 30 years that you can name and the 3 houses bought before the latest book didn't contribute to his being a millionaire, or come from it, nor did that college his wife managed to bankrupt while not losing her own golden parachute.


Once Sanders is forced to put flesh on the bones of his "plans" his whole shtick will unravel just as Warren's did when she attempted the same quintuple sommersault, 1080-degree rotation dismount. The resounding thud is still echoing across the entire Democrap primary landscape. In a recent interview Sanders actually said out loud in reference to his own proposals, "Look, no one knows how much it's actually going to cost." Run on that, Bern. And make the down-ticket candidates and the news media defend it throughout the general campaign. I can't wait.

And if he's not an actual socialist, why oh why has he never met a socialist dictatorship that he didn't admire? Denmark, my #$%. Even the prime ministers of those Nordic countries he routinely references have repeatedly come out publicly denouncing his characterizations of their societies as Socialist. Krugman and his ilk? It'll be amusing to watch this pig (Sandernista Socialism, not Krugman himself) eat tube after tube of their lipstick as these hacks try to make it up into a cover-model for the Swimsuit Edition. I've just been shopping for a used car and that pitch that he put forth sounds painfully familiar.

Then there are the project Veritas videos of the Sanders campaign staffers lauding the gulags and the White Sea Canal, suggesting Republicans need to be re-educated in camps, threatening street violence if they don't get their way, etc. These people still work for him, which begs the question - if he's not a communist, then why are such people so ardently attracted to him and his message, and why do he nor his campaign directors not banish them forthwith? Sanders himself has said his beliefs have remained consistent for 60 years. And when he was in his mid 30s, he was pretty enthusiastic for nationalization of all industry. I've never seen/heard him openly disavow this view, although I'm open to enlightenment on that if anyone has a quote handy.



Col. Lang, with respect, The success of the healthcare lobby is demonstrated by your concentration on how universal healthcare could be paid for instead of the more important question of why healthcare costs so much in the U.S. compared to the rest of the developed world.

The argument that U.S. care is somehow better than the rest of the world, and that justifies its cost, is rubbish.



Here is some old footage of Bernie admiring much about the USSR, Cuba and other authoritarian countries.Who knows how much he's changed? He says he wants to transform America. Into what, a safe boring country?Medicare for all is too violent a change all at once. First you need tort reform, doctors will be paid less and would find astronomical insurance policies ruinous. Also, their education will have to be subsidized, and much more needs to change. That's why a medicare option is a slower and better way to go.




I'm also concerned about the coronavirus as a black swan event. People were supposed to be back at work in China a week ago. instead, ramping up more isolation. People staying home, even cars prohibited outside of essential deliveries. Interruptions in the supply chain will cause shortages in a wide range of stuff China supplies. Lowering interest rates/printing money stimulates the economy but when you combine that with shortages the result is price increases. And more monetary stimulation won't fix shortages and can only cause further price increases. And the current low interest rates mask the large debt load extant. I'm very concerned about the impact this may have. I would not be shocked to see Bernie elected and, in office, shift even further to the left. Ugh.


Yes. I have been known for a long time as an easy mark for lobbyists. the only way to keep prices from rising once government puts money in the market is to set prices. We do that with what doctors make under Medicare and Medicaid. As a result their business consultants tell them to take only a set number of such patients. How do you do that in Australia? How many people do you have?


Elora Danon

Adios muchacha. Que no regresan!



Speaking of 'zoo', what's one to make of Israeli Intelligence Unit 8200 openly operating on U.S. soil?


What are U.S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement going to do about it?

NYC was U.S. soil last time I checked, not Israeli soil.


I have lived 40% of my life in Canada and 40% in USA, I make much more money here but I prefer the Canadian healthcare system by far. This preference would only go up if I had a family, I wouldn't even consider raising a family in the US due to prohibitive healthcare and education costs. I'm not going to deny the existence of rationed care and death panels, but from my experience those only apply to the very elderly with histories of alcoholism and cigarette use. My uncle was left to die of a broken ankle because he was an alcoholic smoker, they just put him in an induced coma for 1 month and waited for his heart to stop. This would never happen in the US. Personally I never had any issues getting ankle sprains or everyday maladies treated, didn't even have to wait for an MRI when I had a relatively minor issue with my gallbladder. All Canadians that I know that have been diagnosed with cancer were treated and scanned in a timely manner. This is in Quebec, might be different for Anglonadia. I voted for Trump and planned to do so again but I voted Bernie in the NH primary and would consider voting for him in the unlikely event that he clinches the nomination.



"My uncle was left to die of a broken ankle because he was an alcoholic smoker, they just put him in an induced coma for 1 month and waited for his heart to stop. This would never happen in the US." How humane they are up there!


Maybe Mayor Pete won't be elected this time around however no one thought a young African American with a name like Barack Obama would be elected either. He has my vote and half of my families, the other half are big time Trump supporters.


As I recall you were quite pro-Warsaw Pact and anti-NATO during the Cold War.

I did my duty as officer of the Bundeswehr which was and is a part of NATO.

As for Sanders, here is quote from a WaPo">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe-is-watching-the-us-presidential-campaign--and-holding-its-breath-about-trump-and-sanders/2020/02/16/ecdd1b9a-4dc3-11ea-967b-e074d302c7d4_story.html">WaPo piece today which debunks the 'Marxist' nonsense:

Some Europeans, cautioning calm, point out that Sanders’s policies align with those of most social democratic parties in Europe — not radical, but rather the European center-left.

“From a European perspective, Sanders is definitely not far-left,” said [Norbert Röttgen, a center-right Christian Democrat and the chairman of the German parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.]

“We could welcome him as a member,” he joked.



Indeed this severely shook my faith in socialized medicine, but I put the blame more on his ungrateful children who should have raised hell with the doctors instead of passively accepting what they were obviously doing. He was my favorite uncle. Death panel/rationing cases could be more prevalent in the USA too if we applied the Canadian system(what Bernie seems to want)due to the heterogeneous population. I am confident a happy middle can be reached, perhaps a modified form of the Swiss system. The current system with its skyrocketing deductibles etc is untenable. My only worry would be the loss of the US as a center for pharmaceutical innovation in the world, but I am ignorant as to the specifics of this Republican talking point and how it ties into the greater system of private insurance.


All true. As I find myself saying repeatedly about Mr. Trump, with enemies like these, who needs friends?


CROWDSTRIKE is still managing to stay in the news, but only to let the liberal media continue to debunk it - 60 Minutes devoted to trashing Trump and burying Crowdstrike. Makes you think there really is something there - as the media lackies doth protest too much. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/exclusive-60-minutes-pushes-complete-bs-on-the-american-public-again-in-a-shoddy-crowdstrike-segment-while-smearing-president-trump-and-the-gateway-pundit/

Upstate NY'er

The Canadians that prefer their system to ours are the majority who are healthy and have little or no contact with that "system."
I remember meeting Canadians in the US for chemotherapy (hotel and meals paid for by Quebec government).
A Canadian acquaintance had to go to a US hospital for surgery because the hospital in Vancouver couldn't do it that month.
And this was surgery to prevent him from losing all function in his hand.


Wouldn't it be great if Steven Chu would throw his hat into the ring? Probably he is not interested, but isn't it a problem for America that so few people of such professional and academic caliber are not interested in public service?

Too many politicians are divorced from most aspects of physical reality. They are neither close the people, nor are respectful of the scientific way of thought.


Surely using bicycle in Denmark and even more so in Flanders has nothing to do with real. Lutheranism or Catholicism! Would the lack of indigenous fissile fuel resources and abundance of alternative alternative energies, thanks to the Greens, have anything to do with it or should the Danes thank the AltRight?

D’ analysis of Danish healthcare system gets an F from me. I have no experience about Danish healthcare but no doubt know much more about the Belgian, Dutch, English and US healthcare than D, having had PRACTICAL experience in all. If Danish system is remotely similar to the Flemish on and if the left wing Encyclopedia Brittanica can be believed www.britannica.com/place/Denmark/Health-and-welfare PUBLIC health interventions by the STATE have a major contribution to the wellbeing of the Danish population. You know, the AltRight would call it “Communism”.

Also, let us not forget that the Danes don’t spend half their discretionary budget playing with fireworks and another 15% healing the their own burn victims. They spend that money on themselves.

Immigrants in Denmark are, without any doubt, a much smaller burden than the poverty draft victims here.
And let us not forget that the extremists under the “Rasmussenites” contributed to the forced population transfer from the very countries that Danish AltRight bombed. As refugee stream proved it, when Denmark burns its gluteal region, it will be forced to sit on it.

D’s immigrant-unfriendly rhetoric is not even applicable to US. We are protected by two giant moats, freezing Communist hell in Canada & the Mexican desert inferno South of Rio Grande. The Syrian-, Libyan-, Iraqi-, Afghani-, Yemeni-,... refugees caused my liver-eaters & their Langley-friends, can’t even come here and end up in Denmark.

Keith Harbaugh

Re the DOJ/FBI/McCabe/Wolfe/Flynn situation,
the following is highly recommended:
by sundance, 2020-02-16.
It is an extension of his post one day earlier,

Upstate NY'er

Re. your boy, Bernie.
NEVER held a job not on the public payroll and is a millionaire, owns THREE houses - public "service" is good.
Did honeymoon in the USSR, did brag about interfering with Reagan's policy re. the Sandinistas, biiiig fan of Castro dictatorship, had a Cuban flag, NO American flag in his Burlington Mayoral office.
Advocates open borders, NO immigration enforcement.
Never a fan of the USA.
A bad guy and a parasite
What kind of person follows this?
Someone who just wants their free stuff and/or dislike of America.


Looks like the Fed has gone over to the communists:

Keith Harbaugh

An opinion column from The Hill supports the feeling of inconsistent justice that many on the right are feeling:
"A tale of two lies: Stone, McCabe and the danger of a double standard for justice"
by Kevin R. Brock, 2020-02-17

What seems confusing is really becoming quite plain to all of America:
Those on one side of the political aisle are feeling the heat of the justice system, while those on the other side are not.
It’s kind of like political “stop and frisk” enforcement:
“Hey, Republican, what are you doing in this neighborhood?
Up against the wall.
Let’s see what we can find on you that we can take to court.”


I found in the Bild Zeitung, a sadly popular "yellow press" outlet, an article by US ambassador Grenell (that allows him to talk to many with little), in which he demanded invited more obedience cooperatrion to with Trump's various, tweety and intense Huawai and 5G hysterics and dictates. Grenell has been criticised here to be an annoying colonial officer, is thus widely disliked here and by now mostly ignored.

Indeed, why listen to the US ambassador who says that he always says what the whitehouse says (basically underlining his expendability) - after all - we can read Trump's tweets ourselves.

I read that recently Barr said in an interview that Trump's tweetery (not coordinated with anyone else in the government) is making his job (on cases like Stone) impossible. Since Trump is a type who demands utter and complete loyalty (but doesn't return) I have a hunch that Barr has risen up on the list of "not yet resigned or fired" Trump government employees.

Back to Grenell on that, once he has served his purpose he is also pretty much dispensable (and he has not many friends in the whitehouse, particularly not in Pence).

Keith Harbaugh

Worthy of note:
sundance's comments on the Trump/Barr imbroglio:
"WaPo Report: AG Bill Barr Threatens to Quit…", by sundance, 2020-02-19
An arresting image from the piece:

President Trump is an apex predator. A genuine titan; not a politician.


Here are IMO amusing news about the fortunately soon former US ambassador in Germany Grenell.

I wrote about him here two posts before. So, what to do with an "ambassador" so annoying that no body listens to him anymore (i.e. who is an utter failure so to speak)?

Well, it depends on what are perceived as qualities.

I recall that not that long ago Trump's daughter Ivanka was, apparently seriously, proposed as head of the World Bank, qualified with a cum laude bachelor in economics. Fortunately a job she (wisely?) 'rejected'.

In light of that it shouldn't surprise that Trump "solved the Grenell problem" in similar way:

He promoted Grenell to be the next national intelligence director (replacing Joseph Maguire), a position in which he will be 'directing' 16 US intelligence agencies (CIA. DIA, ONI, Air Force ISR Agency, MCIA, NSA, NRO, NGA, FBI, DEA, CGI, OIA, INR, OICI, OIA). Congrats, I think. Grenell will then also be responsible for ... the content put in Trump's President Daily Brief.

What qualifies him for that? Well, he has a bachelor in Government and Public Administration, a master in Public Administration, was a FOX commentator - not to mention him being a noisy US ambassador. Grenell will probably accept the new job with the greatest most grandest grandiose humility ever ever (perhaps "GreMoGraGraHuEvEv"?).

I think it is a good advice to Grenell that insiders said that "keeping it really short, blunt, many pictures" works best with Trump. And never speak the two evil words 'climate change'.

As we in Germany learned during his ambassador time - blunt he surely can, even though he didn't quite get the diplomatic part of the job. Also, he is IMO very unlikely to be blunt to Trump. Whether he is particularly skillful or knowledgeable about intelligence things ... no comment. IMO his focus is more political, a thing likely more important for Trump.

At the moment there is carneval here (Kölle alaaf!) and I saw a guy costumed with a black leather jacket that had a big "FU" sticker on the chest and above that a silver eagle with the text "Fly High". My thoughts were "Darwin Award Candidate?" and "Well, better don't fall too deep then".

Since Grenell is going to be the fourth man on his new position since Trump took office, he probably should wear bulletproof vest, parachute and helmet. It's a position with a short half-value.

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