2020 Dems: Nevada (gonna make Iowa look competent!)

[Aqua Buddha 14,585]

1 minute ago, bonnieblue said:

I'm not sure what the break down is, but it's likely that half of his NW could just be from his equity in these homes. He probably purchased at least 1-2 of them on the relative "cheap" prior to this real estate market rocket ship that we've been on.

I think he bought the DC place quite a few years ago.

[heso 2,791]

6 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

I think he bought the DC place quite a few years ago.

An article I saw this morning said he still has ~300k left on the mortgage for his DC house and his lake house was bought with his book deal money and some of his wife’s retirement money. 

[SydneyCarton 48,071]

11 minutes ago, bonnieblue said:

I'm not sure what the break down is, but it's likely that half of his NW could just be from his equity in these homes. He probably purchased at least 1-2 of them on the relative "cheap" prior to this real estate market rocket ship that we've been on.

Lol. Most of it is from the last 3-4 years and book sales. The "amazing" lake house he bought for 600k for a lake on the Northeast is...modest isn't the right word. But it's a fucking cabin, man. It's hardly opulence. The article breaks down his home purchases and whatnot. It further illustrates if you read the whole thing that the entire thing is"Nothing To Fucking See Here" which makes the article's title and premise even more stupid. 

[SydneyCarton 48,071]

11 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

I think he bought the DC place quite a few years ago.

In that article, per his financial disclosures in 2009, the Net Worth of Bernie Sanders was estimated at 100k. That was as what, a damn near 70 year old man? I mean, this guy is basically a robber-baron tycoon. 

[bolverk 29,659]

20 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

This chart, and the numbers from the politico article are wildly different except LITERALLY for Bernie Sanders:

With the scale of the disparity between any of the other candidates on the stage and Bloomberg, does that really matter? I'm sure Bloomberg could scrape that kind of change (even in the perhaps inflated Business Insider estimates) in his couch cushions.

Hell, as "rich" as Warren is (and she is), her wealth tax wouldn't kick in until she was worth 10x or or a little more than 4x more than she currently is depending on the source.

[Biff Tannen 45,672]

1 minute ago, bolverk said:

With the scale of the disparity between any of the other candidates on the stage and Bloomberg, does that really matter? I'm sure Bloomberg could scrape that kind of change (even in the perhaps inflated Business Insider estimates) in his couch cushions.

Hell, as "rich" as Warren is (and she is), her wealth tax wouldn't kick in until she was worth 10x or or a little more than 4x more than she currently is depending on the source.

This.  Enough with the fucking purity tests.  Focus people.  There's an orange asshole about to swallow us all.

[SydneyCarton 48,071]

1 minute ago, bolverk said:

With the scale of the disparity between any of the other candidates on the stage and Bloomberg, does that really matter? I'm sure Bloomberg could scrape that kind of change (even in the perhaps inflated Business Insider estimates) in his couch cushions.

Hell, as "rich" as Warren is (and she is), her wealth tax wouldn't kick in until she was worth 10x or or a little more than 4x more than she currently is depending on the source.

No it doesnt matter. But that's part of my point. It's all fucking absurd. Most of the money these people have made, at least the Biden and Bernies, have been in the last 10 years in the twilight of their lives. Warren, I have no idea. 

[GRHorn 105]

44 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

God this article is so fucking stupid. I'm sure the numbers are factual, but I'd love to see his net worth up against literally every member of the house and senate laid bare, and I'd bet heavy he's in damn near the lowest tier, even compared to many dipshits new to politics and in their early 40's. And now they're writing this, acting like an 80 year old man with a net worth of 2.5 million dollars is some kind of amazing achievement, or scandalous secret? And that's his net worth, not his fucking paper worth. He's 80 years old, guess what, that's enough time to fucking pay off and keep 2-3 homes without extending yourself. And lets not ignore the fact that most of that wealth came extremely late in life. What was his net worth 10 years ago? 

I'm hardly a Bernie Bro, and I get that there are so many people with less privilege in this world, but the guy was relatively poor most of his life as a public servant. Living to 80 and having a net worth of a couple million dollars is so far from this guy being in a privileged class it's absurd. He's finished his life well by writing. Articles like this are fucking disingenuous and do nothing but stoke problems. 

Sounds like something a Bernie Bro would say

[GRHorn 105]

33 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

This chart, and the numbers from the politico article are wildly different except LITERALLY for Bernie Sanders:

JFC Any career politician under 1 million must have drug or gambling problem. Or family member with one. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by GRHorn

[SydneyCarton 48,071]

2 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Sounds like something a Bernie Bro would say

I will cut you. 

[Napoleon 8,667]

1 hour ago, GopherRock said:

Question for those of you who remember the 2015 GOP primary debates: Did anyone go after Trump in the debates the way Warren went after Bloomberg last night? IIRC no one did until it was too late in the process. 

No

No one could tear new assholes like Senator Warren and everyone was afraid of being bullied. A party of bitches. 

Warren would respond to a “Pocahontas” comment by stating “Native Americans were the first to harvest Big Orange Pumpkins...” and then go on to list various sexual assault me, failures, and embarrassments of the small-handed one. 

She would destroy Trump because he can’t remember facts and especially not numbers and every time he would throw a mouthful of vague lies at Warren, she would catch those lies, cover them with shit, and shove them down Trump’s throat while describing how others have perished when consuming things contaminated with shit that would be discovered, but for Trump’s goal of dismantling the EPA and the FDA. She would probably also bring up the difference in the cost of pharmaceuticals to save someone contaminated with shit in the USA vs Canada. 

[Napoleon 8,667]

Warren Debate Image

Edited February 20, 2020 by Napoleon

[bolverk 29,659]

14 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

No it doesnt matter. But that's part of my point. It's all fucking absurd. Most of the money these people have made, at least the Biden and Bernies, have been in the last 10 years in the twilight of their lives. Warren, I have no idea. 

Don't get me wrong. I totally got your point -- I was only trying to connect the supposed wealth of these rich "fat cats" politicians to a specific policy proposal and point out the absolute absurdity of those who think adding a bit of a lagniappe tax on the uber wealthy as some sort of dark descent into communism.

[NWBuck 8,552]

50 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Isn’t this the type of campaign finance people want done away with?  Billionaires bankrolling candidates?

Yup. But if Mitch is getting money from huge donors, so should the competition... until the rules are changed, play within the rules.

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Don't get me wrong. I totally got your point -- I was only trying to connect the supposed wealth of these rich "fat cats" politicians to a specific policy proposal and point out the absolute absurdity of those who think adding a bit of a lagniappe tax on the uber wealthy as some sort of dark descent into communism.

THIS! Upton Sinclair 101.

 

[bad_teammate 13,193]

*b_t going out neg farming*

[GSU&UT 1,798]

Warren did a good job to not buy into that stupid Bernie Twitter army argument and correctly punched Right almost all night.

[Hank Kingsley 20,914]

2 minutes ago, GSU&UT said:

Warren did a good job to not buy into that stupid Bernie Twitter army argument and correctly punched Right almost all night.

If you're a Bernie supporter, then the above is correct. 

If you want Warren to be the nominee, I'm not so sure this was the right move. 

 

[GSU&UT 1,798]

2 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

If you're a Bernie supporter, then the above is correct. 

If you want Warren to be the nominee, I'm not so sure this was the right move. 

 

Warren tried to get some of his base and it didn't work, it seems clear she lots support to Amy and Pete.

[bad_teammate 13,193]

She won the games she should have won, which is a key thing and not to be discounted.

Her mining walkback was OKish. Her healthcare dance is characteristically weak.

Last night was very fun because she was just beautiful to watch as the furious and brilliant guillotine operator.

[Hank Kingsley 20,914]

Just now, GSU&UT said:

Warren tried to get some of his base and it didn't work, it seems clear she lots support to Amy and Pete.

It worked in the summer. Now it's too late to get them back. Being the alternate version of Bernie will not win her the nomination. 

For her to win, she needs to punch left. Maybe she'd rather have Bernie win then go after him, which I can respect. 

 

 

[GSU&UT 1,798]

2 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

It worked in the summer. Now it's too late to get them back. Being the alternate version of Bernie will not win her the nomination. 

For her to win, she needs to punch left. Maybe she'd rather have Bernie win then go after him, which I can respect. 

 

 

I think we're both right because the polling done after NH showed most people thinking either she was too leftist or too conservative.

[Huckleberry 32,851]

16 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

*b_t going out neg farming*
 

Ha. This tweet can be summed up as "when Warren agreed with Sanders it was good. When she didn't agree with Sanders it was bad."

Fantastic insight. 

[F250 28,766]

1 hour ago, Huckleberry said:

This is important to actually write out for people. Most people have very little concept of how much a billion is. Humans don't just naturally comprehend numbers that large.

On a percentage basis, Bloomberg's wealth looks at Sanders's wealth the same way the average American's wealth looks at a guy who has $2.88 to his name. That's not a typo. 

Reminds me of Chris Rock talking about the difference between Shaq and the guy that signs Shaq's checks and wealth being generational but a rich person losing all their money over a bad summer on a drug binge.

 

 

[Hank Kingsley 20,914]

1 minute ago, GSU&UT said:

I think we're both right because the polling done after NH showed most people thinking either she was too leftist or too conservative.

No one paying attention thinks Warren is too conservative. 

 

The only obvious thing going on right now is that life is good if you're Bernie Sanders. All the little battles going on right now favor him. If you're a Bernie supporter, you love that Klobuchar is still in this race and taking votes away from Pete. You love that Bloomberg entered the race. You love that Warren swiped at everyone last night but generally left Sanders alone. You love that Biden has zero momentum. 

[Dropout 355]

48 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I will cut you. 

Also a thing a Bernie Bro would say. You’ll fit right in.

[bad_teammate 13,193]

I looked up average wealth by age and after seeing multiple sources I would put it around $1.3M in assets.

Bernie is 1.9x richer than the average 70+
Mini Mike is 46,154x richer than the average 70+

[Brandywine 1,316]

13 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

Should have done that already, no?  And hired the world's best actors to play the roles of other candidates in a mock debate. Looks like he didn't spend all his money wisely. For his investment, he should have seen most of this debate coming and had a serviceable reply ready. 

Could have hired the full SNL cast for a couple weeks prep. 😊

[Bama Chick 28,596]

Good for Warren, not good for Bloomberg.

[bad_teammate 13,193]

$2.7m for Bernie yesterday.

[Pato del Muerto 52,488]

2 hours ago, NWBuck said:

Yup. But if Mitch is getting money from huge donors, so should the competition... until the rules are changed, play within the rules.

These are politicians and political parties. Those that win the elections don’t want to change the rules, that could negatively impact future elections. 

only those that lose elections want to change the rules, to benefit themselves in future elections. 
 

that makes it tough when we the people want changes that they don’t want. 

[NWBuck 8,552]

27 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

that makes it tough when we the people want changes that they don’t want. 

I see you've met my wife (and all wives).

[Fudge Nuggets 19,190]

3 hours ago, bolverk said:

With the scale of the disparity between any of the other candidates on the stage and Bloomberg, does that really matter? I'm sure Bloomberg could scrape that kind of change (even in the perhaps inflated Business Insider estimates) in his couch cushions.

Hell, as "rich" as Warren is (and she is), her wealth tax wouldn't kick in until she was worth 10x or or a little more than 4x more than she currently is depending on the source.

I didn't realize politicians were so poor.  I figured they had ample opportunities to steal enough money to all be worth at least $5MM.

[Pato del Muerto 52,488]

32 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

I didn't realize politicians were so poor.  I figured they had ample opportunities to steal enough money to all be worth at least $5MM.

Stolen money doesn’t always show up In official filings and such. 

[High Plains Drifter 11,035]

5 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

God this article is so fucking stupid. 

(snip)

Articles like this are fucking disingenuous and do nothing but stoke problems. 

 

Your first line is incorrect. That article did exactly what it was supposed to do, which you correctly point out in your last line. Its not about changing minds. Its about confusing people who eventually throw up their hands and go "fuck it, they're all corrupt, what's the use."

[SydneyCarton 48,071]

5 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Your first line is incorrect. That article did exactly what it was supposed to do, which you correctly point out in your last line. Its not about changing minds. Its about confusing people who eventually throw up their hands and go "fuck it, they're all corrupt, what's the use."

Saying my first line is incorrect sort of presupposes that confusing people, long term for the sake of all humanity in general, is anything other than fucking stupid. 

[High Plains Drifter 11,035]

Just now, SydneyCarton said:

Saying my first line is incorrect sort of presupposes that confusing people, long term for the sake of all humanity in general, is anything other than fucking stupid. 

 

Whatever. The article was written for a reason. Toward that end, it was well written. I wouldn't characterize that as being stupid.

 

 

 

[SydneyCarton 48,071]

Just now, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Whatever. The article was written for a reason. Toward that end, it was well written. I wouldn't characterize that as being stupid.

 

 

 

We're quibbling over nothing. It was certainly effective, until you read the whole thing and the facts lay out "Holy shit, literally there's nothing to see here about this guy's net worth."

But effective and stupid aren't mutually exclusive. The people voting against their own interests in middle america and lower income brackets for Trump are doing something FUCKING STUPID. But damned if it isn't part of something effective. Etc. Etc. But yeah man, it's not like we're in huge disagreement over anything here. I'm just frustrated at the state of information, communication, and general accountability we're demonstrating as a species at the moment. 

[Biff Tannen 45,672]

1 minute ago, SydneyCarton said:

We're quibbling over nothing

New motto?

[SydneyCarton 48,071]

Just now, Biff Tannen said:

New motto?

Definitely not. Some things here matter. Like the fact that Oscar Giles is a shitty recruiter. 

[Bullneck 19,073]

7 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

*b_t going out neg farming*
 

I'm having a bit of a problem comprehending anything in this post.  

[Goredho 17,397]

19 hours ago, NWBuck said:

Yup. But if Mitch is getting money from huge donors, so should the competition... until the rules are changed, play within the rules.

There are no rules whatsoever in American politics now.  Anyone playing by rules either legal, ethical or moral is playing to lose.  You should be breaking every rule you can, throwing meat to a polar base and promising the world to billionaires and foreign governments if they raise you up and/or tear your opponents down.  That’s the only winning national political strategy anymore.

Our only real hope for the American experiment is that Dems:

1.  Adopt that strategy

2.  Take back the power seized by the GOP using these methods

3.  Then put in place guardrails to make all of this shit impossible in the future.

And that is very unlikely to happen.  1 and 2 maybe, but not 3.  Because to win, the Dems have to become what the GOP is now — willing to win at any cost using any method.  And if the Dems were to do so and find themselves where the GOP is now, with control of the nation for the foreseeable future there for the taking, it would be an extremely rare leader to not take it.  After everything we would have just been through, every impulse would be to crush the opposition.  

And more of us than we would like to admit would cheer it on.  Like Cletus at a Trump rally with free beer and corn dogs.

[B00M 6,414]

20 hours ago, Napoleon said:

No

No one could tear new assholes like Senator Warren and everyone was afraid of being bullied. A party of bitches. 

Sure, but... Trump had no political record to criticize, unlike Bloomberg. I think the expectation was that he would lose because he's a clown that didn't know shit about shit, so attacking his character only brought you down to his level. Exposing him as a fool at the debates (for those that hadn't seen his rallies) was probably the best approach in the primary, but he says so much stupid shit that there's seemingly no gaffe that can hurt him. He's so dumb he can't be embarrassed. It's a gift. Now that he has more knowledge of the system, I don't see how anyone can damage him at a debate. Any Dem may be better off simply not debating him. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

14 minutes ago, B00M said:

Sure, but... Trump had no political record to criticize, unlike Bloomberg. I think the expectation was that he would lose because he's a clown that didn't know shit about shit, so attacking his character only brought you down to his level. Exposing him as a fool at the debates (for those that hadn't seen his rallies) was probably the best approach in the primary, but he says so much stupid shit that there's seemingly no gaffe that can hurt him. He's so dumb he can't be embarrassed. It's a gift. Now that he has more knowledge of the system, I don't see how anyone can damage him at a debate. Any Dem may be better off simply not debating him. 

I agree in part, but someone with good instincts might have an edge. Not everyone agrees that he may have some neurological issues arising from either a stroke or dementia and if one can exploit that (and this sounds cruel) expose it, and then goad him about it, it may achieve some transparency about his fitness for office. He may have no sense of embarrassment but the viewers may be less forgiving if they start to recognize Memaw in the nursing home in his words.

[gmr548 16,576]

free beer and corn dogs.

I'd vote for this platform

[gmr548 16,576]

I agree in part, but someone with good instincts might have an edge. Not everyone agrees that he may have some neurological issues arising from either a stroke or dementia and if one can exploit that (and this sounds cruel) expose it, and then goad him about it, it may achieve some transparency about his fitness for office. He may have no sense of embarrassment but the viewers may be less forgiving if they start to recognize Memaw in the nursing home in his words.

That's incredibly unlikely. America has been saturated with Trump for four years. Minds are made up. If you haven't seen anything out of him that tells you he's not fit for office now, I don't see how that could change. The only caveat is if something major happens that can fundamentally alter how people look at tge state of affairs in America - i.e. he goes and starts a war, the economy crashes (at this point it'd almost have to be a suden crash event because we're getting close enough to the election that a standard slowdown isn't going to be that impactful on the outcome), etc.

[bad_teammate 13,193]

Seems cool

 

[Hank Scorpio 17,729]

 

[bad_teammate 13,193]

b_t's 2/16 (pre-debate) predictions

1) Bernard 28%
2) Biden 24%
3) Pete 20%
4) Warren 18%
5) Klobuchar 4%
6) Field 6%

Anyone else want it? What do y'all think?

I don't know why I feel so confident about Biden overperforming and hitting 2nd pretty clearly.

 

[Neonmoon 38,129]

What happened to the Klobosurge?