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Democratic Debate 9/12/2019

Hard question to Yang, but a good opportunity: what makes you the best potential Commander in Chief. He replies that judgment and values will be what he needs.
 
Q to Bernie, how is your kind of socialism different from that of dictators. He answers that they are tyrants, and they are bad. Pivots to wealth inequality in America.
 
Yang on schools: pay teachers better and give parents cash.
Buttigieg: Make Sec’y of Ed someone who believes in education. Pay teachers more. Respect teachers like we respect soldiers. (YES! I agree!)
Warren, don’t rob the public schools and send the money to private ones.
 
Booker - and don’t forget about segregaed environmental harm. Hear hear!
 
Resilience
Biden: on losing family and finding purpose.
Warren: Dealing with losing job due to pregnancy and buildng again
Sanders: growing up in rent controlled immigrant community, losing elections, then taking on special interests.
...
 
Harris: told she couldn’t do it, “not your time” but kept going
Buttigieg: served under don’t ask-dont tell while Pence was governor. Coming out while in an election because of trust. Need to know what we’re about.
Yang: First company flopped, started small again and kept going, started non-profit to help other youngsters
Booker: Fought the political machine and lost. Don’t give up on the people, came back and won 4 years later.
 
O’Rourke: Resilience learned from El Paso. See differences as foundational to strength.
Klobuchar: Dad struggled with alcoholism, her daughter was sick at birth. Motivated to step up and demand change.
Castro: single parent household in poor neighborhood - quit his job to vote his conscience.
 
Rhea said:
Harris: told she couldn’t do it, “not your time” but kept going
Buttigieg: served under don’t ask-dont tell while Pence was governor. Coming out while in an election because of trust. Need to know what we’re about.
Yang: First company flopped, started small again and kept going, started non-profit to help other youngsters
Booker: Fought the political machine and lost. Don’t give up on the people, came back and won 4 years later.
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Yang was more specific: after his first company flopped, he was forced to suffer the indignity of *checks notes* being a lawyer
 
TV and credit cards said:
Rhea said:
Q to Bernie, how is your kind of socialism different from that of dictators. He answers that they are tyrants, and they are bad. Pivots to wealth inequality in America.
Click to expand...

When doesn't he pivot back to wealth inequality? The man is a broken record.
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Biden wants parents to "make sure they put the record player on for their kids." :hysterical:

Bernie and Biden, a couple of old duffers.
 
TSwizzle said:
TV and credit cards said:
Rhea said:
Q to Bernie, how is your kind of socialism different from that of dictators. He answers that they are tyrants, and they are bad. Pivots to wealth inequality in America.
Click to expand...

When doesn't he pivot back to wealth inequality? The man is a broken record.
Click to expand...


Biden wants parents to "make sure they put the record player on for their kids." :hysterical:

Bernie and Biden, a couple of old duffers.
Click to expand...

I agree. I've always been a Sanders guy but last night he did look very old. Biden did pretty good compared to previous showings. But then there's things like that. At least he didn't suggest leaving on the Victrola. Trouble is none of the younger ones have enough experience in managing power. I guess I'm going with Warren despite not liking the wealth tax idea. But that would never pass anyhow. I hope she has the stamina.
 
TSwizzle said:
TV and credit cards said:
Rhea said:
Q to Bernie, how is your kind of socialism different from that of dictators. He answers that they are tyrants, and they are bad. Pivots to wealth inequality in America.
Click to expand...

When doesn't he pivot back to wealth inequality? The man is a broken record.
Click to expand...


Biden wants parents to "make sure they put the record player on for their kids." :hysterical:

Bernie and Biden, a couple of old duffers.
Click to expand...

Biden is clearly courting the hipster vote.
 
Rhea said:
I like Andrew Yang’s answer bringing in how the health care system holds people hostage to jobs. But the “I’m Asian so I know a lot of doctors,” comment is weird and wrong.
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It's not weird, it is clearly a reference to the proclivity of East and South Asian immigrants to press their children into stereotypically high-status jobs, like doctor, lawyer etc. People of Asian ethnicities are highly over-represented in medicine. Have you really never heard of this?
 
Disappointing that Sanders caved and regurgitated the standard Venezuela talking point re: Maduro, but in the context of his entire response it's unsurprising. He favors Canadian/Scandinavian paternalist regulated capitalism on even days of the week, and indicates support for more radical bottom-up socialism on odd days. Still, he was good in reminding everyone that Biden swallowed the Bush administration's justification for Iraq no matter how much he denies doing so, and that any Medicare "for All" plan that includes a place for private insurance companies is garbage. His voice was a bit rough from shouting all the time like the angry Brooklyn Jew he is, and I'm okay with it. I'm also fine with his approach of remaining angry about a problem that continually gets worse and worse and is at the root of all our other problems. I agree that his delivery could use a refresher, though.
 
Sanders looked weaker than usual. Yang did well. Biden did better than the last two debates. Warren did very well. I do fear that Warren will lose to Trump though. Harris did mediocre. Booker did better than he has done before. Pete and Beaton were just sort of there. Castro's attack on Biden was uncomfortable to watch.
 
I actually thought that Biden did better in the last debate. In this one, he dredged up an old, discredited theory that black kids did poorly on IQ tests (vintage early 70s controversy) because they didn't hear enough words as children. The solution back then was to enrich their development by exposing them to more words, just like what white kids got from their parents. Part of that old racist meme was that black parents didn't talk to their kids enough, so the solution seemed apparent to all the concerned white people. Biden's solution: turn on the radio and the record player regularly so that those kids would build vocabulary! He apparently forgot about modern technology and almost said "phonograph" before he caught himself.

Warren just let Bernie and Biden shout back and forth at each other. Since she is perceived as promoting the same ideals and policies as Bernie (not really an accurate perception), she did not need to fight with either of them. She is very good at promoting ideas, and that is why she has become my favorite candidate for the top of the ticket. Her main problem will be motivating African American and Latino voters to get out and vote, but I suppose that Trump will help her with that. Whoever makes it to the top of the ticket will need to think hard about who would be the best complement for a running mate.
 
Copernicus said:
I actually thought that Biden did better in the last debate. In this one, he dredged up an old, discredited theory that black kids did poorly on IQ tests (vintage early 70s controversy) because they didn't hear enough words as children.
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Is it really discredited that intellectual stimulation in early childhood benefits intellectual development for later life? Or is it just not fashionable these days?
Professor: If You Read To Your Kids, You’re ‘Unfairly Disadvantaging’ Others

Part of that old racist meme was that black parents didn't talk to their kids enough, so the solution seemed apparent to all the concerned white people.
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There is still the issue that, on average, black kids have lower academic achievement compared to others. What do you propose be done about it, other than the old-and-tired "it's all racism"? Certainly the solution is not to try to hide it by for example scrapping all gifted programs because too few blacks and hispanics qualify for them, like NYC is proposing to do.
Desegregation Plan: Eliminate All Gifted Programs in New York

Biden's solution: turn on the radio and the record player regularly so that those kids would build vocabulary! He apparently forgot about modern technology and almost said "phonograph" before he caught himself.
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Apparently vinyl is very "in" right now. He is probably just pandering to Millennials. :)

She is very good at promoting ideas, and that is why she has become my favorite candidate for the top of the ticket. Her main problem will be motivating African American and Latino voters to get out and vote,
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She is already too deep in with identity politics for me. She already called the justified shooting of Michael Brown "murder" and she is in favor of giving blacks so-called "reparations".

but I suppose that Trump will help her with that.
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Maybe, maybe not.
Black unemployment rate falls to a record low

Whoever makes it to the top of the ticket will need to think hard about who would be the best complement for a running mate.
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That is always the case. I always chuckle at these non-complementary fantasy tickets like Warren-Sanders (or Sanders-Warren). If Warren gets the nomination, she will pick somebody like Buttigieg.
 
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Derec said:
Is it really discredited that intellectual stimulation in early childhood benefits intellectual development for later life? Or is it just not fashionable these days?
Professor: If You Read To Your Kids, You’re ‘Unfairly Disadvantaging’ Others

The solution back then was to enrich their development by exposing them to more words, just like what white kids got from their parents.
Click to expand...

Make that some white kids, and also some black kids and some brown kids and so on. Some kids get a lot more from their parents from the start and have that advantage to start with all their lives. But it's not just white kids with that advantage.

Some kids (of all colors and genders and any ethnicity, etc) also just excel, despite a lot of odds stacked against them from the get-go.

We need to not pre-judge kids period, but especially not pre-judge kids based on what we think of their parents or their color or their clothes or their background.

There is still the issue that, on average, black kids have lower academic achievement compared to others. What do you propose be done about it, other than the old-and-tired "it's all racism"? Certainly the solution is not to try to hide it by for example scrapping all gifted programs because too few blacks and hispanics qualify for them, like NYC is proposing to do.
Desegregation Plan: Eliminate All Gifted Programs in New York
Click to expand...

We need to stop pre-judging kids based on their color or first language, country of origin, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, etc. AND we need to teach all kids based on the kids, not our pre-judged perceptions of what we think they can do.

Yeah: that means giving some extra support to kids who get double or triple or 10X the stress with not even a fraction of the love and support that other kids get.

FWIW, gifted programs are under threat in virtually all white areas, as well. It disappeared in my town after an oh, so brief appearance, 20 years ago and trust me, almost every kid in the district is pretty damn white. All the ones in the gifted programs were, for sure. Gifted programs are perceived as being more expensive (they are not) and as being geared towards kids who already have a lot of advantages (too often too true but still: kids who need extra, well, need extra and it's stupid to have them bored in classes teaching Little Bear when they're reading Dickens and Tolkien and Shakespeare). Teachers and districts who are struggling to meet the needs of kids with serious disadvantages (and yes, I'm still talking about a virtually 100% white school district) find it difficult to see it as 'fair' to provide 'extra' to students who surpass their classmates by 2 or more grade levels.
 
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