Quote of the Day, Good Thing Nobody Watched The Democratic Debate, Huh? edition.

Good for Democrats, that is. Megan McArdle:

Last night, on the other hand, Clinton decided to stop mucking about with vague promises to bring Wall Street to heel. Instead, she claimed that she was a financial regulator of rare foresight and rarer steely will, hated and feared by the denizens of New York’s financial district. Presumably we are supposed to see that $675,000 she was paid by Goldman Sachs to make three speeches less as a warm gesture between close friends, than as the bags of gold left outside the city gates for the Visigoth king who is threatening to sack the place.

Megan is naturally enough torn between hostile appreciation for Hillary Clinton’s chutzpah-saturated hypocrisy, and weary resignation that both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are all that the Democrats get.  To which I would add: those two are all that the Democratic party leadership deserves, too.  But, fortunately: they’re not really what America as a whole deserves – including ordinary, decent Democrats*.

Moe Lane

*Like my mother.

Tweet of the Day, Even Chelsea Clinton Can’t Quite Believe That Hillary Will Win edition.

Can’t say I blame her.

Also, buried lede: Chelsea Clinton is a little nuts when it comes to gun control. I recommend that she see her neurologist at the earliest possible opportunity. No, seriously: that particular opinion is like a illithid when it comes to a victim’s long-term cognitive function.

Tweet of the Day, Why Bernie Sanders Still Hasn’t Won The Nomination Yet edition.

It’s because you’d have to be extremely stupid and tin-eared to lose to Hillary Clinton. It’d take real skill for that. And Bernie Sanders is up to the challenge:

…Spoiler warning: the very rich will figure out how to avoid a confiscatory tax marginal rate of 62% or higher. Most of the people reading this would end up being stuck paying the extra 8.4% in taxes, though. You do, as they say, the math.

Moe Lane

PS: It occurs to me that the peculiar genius of the American upper classes was (note tense, alas) in realizing that the American public will largely not care if rich people are rich, just so long as the rich people do not hassle the not-rich people.  This was a genuine innovation, and I’m sorry to see it fall into disuse.  But not as sorry as the aforementioned rich people might end up being.

Quote of the Day, I Guess Hillary Only Thinks WHITE Babies Count edition.

OK, here’s the quote from Hillary Clinton:

And I guess at the end of the day, for me—you know, people talk about their extraordinary grandchildren, but I actually have one—and we’re going to do everything we can to give her opportunities…

…and apparently she’s talking about Bernie Sanders’ grandkids.  Three of them were adopted from China by his biological son; the other four are children of the stepchildren from Sanders’ second marriage.  Which makes them all… BERNIE SANDERS’ GORAM GRANDCHILDREN.  Jeez.  There is a time for pedantry.  Any situation involving the ‘real’ status of grandchildren isn’t one of them.

Good GOD, Hillary.  Don’t make me defend Bernie Sanders!  I don’t like it!

Via @JohnEkdahl.

Tweet of the Day, @Wu_Tang_Finance Smacks Bernie Sanders Upside The Head edition.

I’m not going to try for the last in trendy slang*. I’m middle-aged, amiable, and stout. But this is an awesome graph.

Free translation of graph: global poverty rates are not so much falling as they are in a power drive. Because FUCK COMMUNISM, that’s why. And that includes the ones who would be Communists, only they don’t quite dare to be public about it.

*Honestly, I don’t really know if ‘upside his fool head’ (which is what I originally wrote) is in fact recognizably trendy slang.  I’m not really what you’d call tuned in, if that’s what you’d even call it. I just hit the keys on the keyboard, and words come out.

Bernie Sanders panders to pot smokers.

I ALMOST used a mean pun about ‘burnouts,’ but I refrained.

So apparently the man is trying to run for President, after all: “After calling for an end to the federal prohibition of marijuana last week, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders introduced a bill Wednesday to remove marijuana from the federal government’s list of Schedule I drugs.” As the Buzzfeed article notes, this varies from previous medical marijuana Senate bills in that it would leave in-state marijuana use legality up to the individual states; you still couldn’t sell it across state lines, but it would get the feds out of the business of Colorado marijuana sales. Although ‘would’ might be the wrong word to use; I’m not sure that English has a word that can convey the utter impossibility of this legislation ever making it to Barack Obama’s desk for him to veto. Which is a shame. Continue reading Bernie Sanders panders to pot smokers.

All y’all understand that Bernie Sanders is not enamored of the marijuana, yes?

Came up in context to this:

Here’s the thing: Bernie Sanders ain’t that big on weed. Continue reading All y’all understand that Bernie Sanders is not enamored of the marijuana, yes?