Feel the Burn

When I see an editorial entitled, "Why I'm Supporting Bernie Sanders", there are several preconceived notions I have:

1. The writer is either a moron, or naive, or both.
2. This should be good for a laugh.
3. I don't really have a third one, but I wrote "several" above, and I am just too darned lazy to change it.

Add in the fact the editorial is in the New York Times, and you know this will be a fun trip through progressive utopian ideals which are completely impractical in the real world, but let's give them a shot anyway cause they feel so darned good!

Let me get my tongue out of my cheek first, and then we can start to look at why Jeff Merkley wants to support Bernie Sanders.

Merkley starts the article with his life history. The first real tip-off to his low intelligence level is the fact he is a Democratic senator. If Harry Reid is the "cream of the crop" in Democratic senators...



 ...then Merkley must be as sharp as Vincent D'Onofrio's head.

 (visual image of Vincent D'Onofrio's head, or Jeff Merkley's sharpness. Hat tip to Esquire for the pic)

I hope you are sitting down for the next part, because it's a shocker: Merkley comes from a middle class background!

(hat tip to Protein Wisdom for the pic)

Then he goes on to say he is STILL living in the SAME middle class community! (cue Shatner expression above)

I hope you are still sitting down? Then he talks about how hard all middle class people have it, but what he actually means is this:

(hat tip to Photobucket for the pic)

Then we come to the "great disconnect":

And as economic power has become more concentrated, so too has political power. Special interests, aided by their political and judicial allies, have exercised an ever-tighter grip on our political system, from the rise of unlimited, secret campaign spending to a voter suppression movement. 

Under President Obama’s leadership, our country is fairer and more prosperous for all than it was seven years ago. But as we look toward the next administration, there is far more work to do. We need urgency. We need big ideas. We need to rethink the status quo.

I think he needs to take those two paragraphs and turn them into one:

Under President Obama’s leadership, economic and political power have become more concentrated. Special interests, aided by their political and judicial allies, have exercised an ever-tighter grip on our political system, from the rise of unlimited, secret campaign spending to a voter suppression movement. As we look toward the next administration, there is far more work to do. We need urgency. We need big ideas. We need to rethink the status quo.

That's much better. I mean, how can you suggest rethinking the status quo, without handing a little blame to the guy who was in charge for the past 7 years?

Then he starts off the next paragraph with, "Unlike the Republican primary circus," as if the Democratic Party's race between an unconvicted criminal and a socialist doesn't remind anyone of two clowns under the big top? Add in the Wyoming caucus where the socialist won by 12% of the votes and yet still got fewer delegates, and the Republicans are as interesting as the guy walking around yelling, "Popcorn!".

Seriously though, Merkley goes on to say a few nice things about Hillary Clinton (we shall not speak evil of fellow Democrats, nor mention email servers), before launching into why Bernie Sanders is the greatest thing since the Stalin Purges:

He has opposed trade deals with nations that pay their workers as little as a dollar an hour. Such deals have caused good jobs to move overseas and undermined the leverage of American workers to bargain for a fair share of the wealth they create in our remaining factories.

So he will oppose trade deals with most of the world? Next:

He has passionately advocated for pivoting from fossil fuels to renewable energy to save our planet from global warming — the greatest threat facing humanity. He recognizes that to accomplish this we must keep the vast bulk of the world’s fossil fuels in the ground.

Bernie Sanders is the modern equivalent of a "flat-earther"? One of those people who seem to believe the Earth is warmed by human activity, and not by the big glowing ball in the sky? On top of that, he wants us humans to quit pumping oil. We should probably stop exhaling too, with all that CO2 humans put out. Personally, I invite Bernie to hold his breath first...

Bernie is a determined leader in taking on the concentration of campaign cash from the mega-wealthy that is corrupting the vision of opportunity embedded in our Constitution.

I have no doubt he will happily "take on" that "campaign cash" personally, starting with his campaign...

And he has been unflinching in taking on predatory lending, as well as the threats to our economy from high-risk strategies at our biggest banks. 

While I don't disagree with the premise of what Sanders wants to do, I question whether he is the guy to do it. From his recent interview with the New York Daily News, when nhe was asked how he was going to fix the too-big-to-fail banks:

Sanders: How you go about doing it is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail. 

Daily News: But do you think that the Fed, now, has that authority? 

Sanders: Well, I don't know if the Fed has it. But I think the administration can have it.
Daily News: How? How does a President turn to JPMorgan Chase, or have the Treasury turn to any of those banks and say, "Now you must do X, Y and Z?" 

Sanders: Well, you do have authority under the Dodd-Frank legislation to do that, make that determination. 

Daily News: You do, just by Federal Reserve fiat, you do? 

Sanders: Yeah. Well, I believe you do.

 I guess that's the new change you can "believe" in...