senorgrand wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 4:30 pm

K9s wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 4:12 pm I think that is why they are going so far anti-gun... California primary. What else explains it? It explains why Swalwell thought he had a chance and ran on Cali platforms.

As discussed here before, being anti-2a allows dems liberal cred without upsetting their donor base.

NegativeApproach wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 9:51 am

senorgrand wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 4:30 pm

K9s wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 4:12 pm I think that is why they are going so far anti-gun... California primary. What else explains it? It explains why Swalwell thought he had a chance and ran on Cali platforms.

As discussed here before, being anti-2a allows dems liberal cred without upsetting their donor base.

The problem is, Warren and Sanders are trying to get downers from "common people", AKA Plebes. They don't want gun control. That's why Sanders is slipping, he can't realize that blue collar dems and radical dems don't want their rights taken away.

I'd argue that gun control is what cost Clinton the election in 2016. Warren and Sanders are taking a page out of the Clinton playbook and amping it up, and I think that's a losing strategy.

Every Democratic candidate is trying to outdo each other on gun control for the primary, and that's going to be a heavy liability in the general election.

As Warren has steadily marched upward in the polls, the reality that she could become the nominee has unsettled some of the party’s top donors, who worry that she would hand the race to Trump. If it starts to look like Warren will win the party’s nomination, a longtime Democratic bundler said, “there will be efforts to stop that.”

Los Angeles billionaire Tom Gores has been the target of activists since his private equity firm bought a prison telephone company accused of ripping off inmates and their families. The controversy was enough to lose him a $150-million pension fund investment — and now he’s found himself dragged into the Democratic presidential campaign.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is requesting that five private equity firms with portfolio companies that provide telecom, healthcare and other services to jails and prisons provide detailed disclosures about such holdings, including profits, the identities of other private equity co-investors and any legal or regulatory issues.

Gores’ Platinum Equity acquired Securus Technologies, the nation’s second-largest provider of telecommunications services to prisons and jails, for $1.6 billion in 2017. The Detroit Pistons owner and his Beverly Hills private equity firm have since been the target of activists who claim providers of prison services are making big profits off disproportionately poor and minority inmates and their families.

Warren introduced legislation in July that would make investments into private equity firms less attractive, accusing the firms of gobbling up some $5.8 trillion in capital globally since the end of the Great Recession by being able to capture the returns on their investments while being insulated from risks.

Her bill, which attracted Democratic co-sponsors, would require private equity firms to share responsibility of their portfolio companies’ debt, legal judgments and pension obligations, while banning investors from taking dividends for the first two years after an acquisition. It also would prioritize worker pay in the bankruptcy process, an issue that drew attention during the bankruptcy of Toys R Us.

Since then, Warren and Pocan sent letters to six private equity firms seeking information about their investments in for-profit colleges before they turned their attention to the prison services industry.

Mark Barnhill, a Platinum partner, said the company planned to provide all the requested information to Warren probably by next week and reiterated previous statements that the private equity firm is committed to reforming Securus and lowering rates. “We’re proud of the work we’re doing there to transform the company into a responsible — and responsibly run — market leader,” he wrote in an email.

On Thursday, amid the swirl of events, Securus announced a corporate reorganization that it said would reflect its transformation “from a traditional corrections telecommunications service provider to a diversified technology company providing innovative solutions to customers across multiple sectors.”

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg hit hard early in the debate, hammering Warren for refusing to directly answer a question about whether Medicare for All would lead to a middle-class tax hike. "Well, we heard it tonight, a yes or no question that didn't get a yes or no answer," Buttigieg said. "Look, this is why people here in the Midwest are so frustrated with Washington in general and Capitol Hill in particular. Your signature, Senator, is to have a plan for everything. Except this."

Warren retorted that overall costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations but down for middle class families. “I will not sign a bill into law that does not lower costs for middle class families.” Warren said. Sen. Amy Klobuchar also knocked Warren for how she’s gone about pushing her call for wealth tax, a plan that calls for a 2% hike on income for families making more than $50 million annually. Warren has said she would use the wealth tax to help fund tuition-free college, pay for universal childcare, and other programs.

“I want to give a reality check here to Elizabeth, because no one on this stage wants protect billionaires — not even the billionaire wants to protect billionaires,” said Klobuchar, referring to the billionaire candidate Steyer. “Your idea is not the only idea.” Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke said he thought Warren's message is often too divisive. “I think it’s part of the solution but I think we need to be focused on lifting people up and sometimes I think Senator Warren is focused on being punitive or pitting one side of the country against the other,” O’Rourke said.

Warren replied that she was "shocked at the notion that anyone thinks I'm punitive." "Look, I don't have a beef with billionaires," she said. "My problem is you made a fortune in America, you had a great idea, you got out there and worked for it, good for you. But you built that fortune in America. I guarantee you built it in part using workers all of us helped pay to educate. You built it in part getting your goods to markets on roads and bridges all of us helped pay for. You built it at least in part protected by police and firefighters all of us help pay the salaries for."

shinzen wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:05 am Bernie's answer on that question was the right one last night. Amy sounded desperate with her "I have ideas too!" statement. Warren was spot on that merely reversing the Trump tax cuts on the wealthy will NOT be enough to get the job done.

I'm also fed up with the line "You're throwing 150 million people who love their healthcare off of it". No. I don't know anyone who loves their healthcare. We've all seen our costs skyrocket while coverage goes down. Premiums go up, insurance companies rake in the dough. Fuck all that.

Also, as an aside- we recently switched from the Covered California exchange to buying plans directly from the provider. Same plan, $200 less per month- as if we needed more proof that the insurance companies were scamming consumers.