Bernie Blows Away Other Candidates in First Night of Second Debate
July 30, 2019. Detroit, Michigan. Bernie had a good reason to smile after his performance in the second debate. In spite of obvious host bias for Elizabeth Warren, Bernie proved to be the candidate who represented the people and not a wannabe (as Nina Turner would say) or a Wall Street promoter, a term that applied to all but one of the other debaters on stage on the 30th.
Though Elizabeth Warren tried to claim to be the Medicare for All spokesperson, Bernie set the record straight. "I wrote the damn bill."
Bernie's comment was a reaction to Tim Ryan's attempt to tell Bernie what was in the bill that Bernie, not Ryan and not Warren, wrote. At the debate watch event this writer attended, the question was asked: "When is Tim Ryan going to withdraw?" Tim Ryan proved not to know the details of 9/11 in the June debate, when Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard had to explain to Tim Ryan who supposedly flew planes into the WTC on 9/11.
While the CNN hosts were promoting Warren, they asked multiple questions attacking Bernie. In the June debates, it was Tulsi who was attacked in a misleading and inaccurate question by MSNBC. But CNN turned its venom on Bernie asking whether he was too extreme, a question based on ageism and various attacks on his Medicare for All position. The debate audience and the watch party audience were clearly strongly in support of Bernie's positions and not with the CNN hosts.
While Bernie was under attack for supporting Medicare for All during the evening, he also presented the only College for All plan. Elizabeth Warren has a limited forgiveness plan that would cancel $50K of the $1.5 trillion dollars of college debt. Somewhere she forgot to do the math, claiming that $50K was 95% of $1.5 trillion dollars. A couple of people at the watch party questioned whether she passed first grade math.
Like Dennis Kucinich, Bernie does not support criminalizing people who risk their lives to come to America. Tulsi Gabbard has pointed out that the U.S. regime change wars are much of the reason people are fleeing their homelands. On the debate stage, Bernie got a lot of opposition on this issue. In supporting Medicare for All, something that is more comprehensive and less expensive than today's health care, Bernie pointed out that there would be plenty of money for even immigrants to receive health care. In San Juan Capistrano and Garden Grove, CA, there were major tuberculosis epidemics following the passage of anti-immigrant Proposition 187. Due to lack of health care for immigrants, epidemics have broken out elsewhere in the USA. Most doctors agree that, to keep American citizens healthy, immigrants must not be afraid to go to doctors for contagious diseases.
One major failing on the part of all the debaters was the failure to mention Tulsi Gabbard's OFF (Off Fossil Fuels) Act and to instead focus on the toothless research legislation known as the Green New Deal (not to be confused with the Green Party's Green New Deal) which allows a continuation of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Bernie did address the climate issue as a whole and the environmental destruction American corporations have done to this planet.
In second place in this debate was Marianne Williamson, a rich girl turned metaphysical guru. She made one of the most important statements of the night, something most people are saying but not the candidates:
Marianne: "We need to realize, we have a sickness care rather than a healthcare system. We need to be the party talking about why so many of our chemical policies and our food policies and our agricultural policies and our environment policies and even our economic policies are leading to people sick to begin with."
While the "I wrote the damn bill," comment was the most applauded statement of the night, the statement that brought the strongest applause was Bernie's response in the following exchange.
Jake (Tapper): "Senator Sanders, President Trump has argued that the United States cannot continue to be the, quote, "policeman of the world." You said the exact same thing on a debate stage in 2016. If voters are hearing the same message from you and President Trump on the issue of military intervention, how should they expect that you will be any different from him?"
Bernie: "Trump is a pathological liar. I tell the truth."
Judging from the thunderous applause, the audience agreed. Bernie went on to say the following.
Bernie: "We have been in Afghanistan I think 18 years, in Iraq 16 or 17 years. We have spent $5 trillion on the war on terror. And there are probably more terrorists out there now than before it began. We're going to spend -- the Congress passed -- and I will not vote for -- a $715 billion military budget, more than the 10 next countries combined.
"What we need is a foreign policy that focuses on diplomacy, ending conflicts by people sitting at a table, not by killing each other.
"As president of the United States, I will go to the United Nations and not denigrate it, not attack the U.N., but bring countries together in the Middle East and all over the world to come to terms with their differences and solve those problems peacefully."
Bernie's final comment (broken up by applause) may explain why he is so popular with real Americans, as opposed to the corporate hacks running CNN.
Bernie: "As somebody who grew up in family that lived in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, New York, and lived paycheck to paycheck, I'm running for president not just to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of this country, a guy who's a racist and a sexist and a homophobe. I'm running to transform this country and to stand with the working class of America, which for the last 45 years has been decimated.
"Two days ago, I had a remarkable experience which should tell you everything you need to know about what's going on in America. I took 15 people with diabetes from Detroit a few miles into Canada, and we bought insulin for one-tenth the price being charged by the crooks who run the pharmaceutical industry in America today.
(Excited audience applause)
"But it's not just the price-fixing and the corruption and the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. It's what's going on in the fossil fuel industry. It's what's going on in Wall Street. It's what's going on with the prison industrial complex.
(Excited audience applause)
"We need a mass political movement. Please go to berniesanders.com. Become one of our million volunteers. Stand up and take on the greed and corruption of the ruling class of this country. Let's create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent."
(Excited audience applause)
Bernie did so well, compared to the CNN favorites in the debate, that CNN tried to hide the debate from the public, making it hard to find the rerun of the debate on YouTube and elsewhere. Videos of the debate put up on YouTube were pulled for copyright reasons. CNN had it's highlights which left out the most telling parts and which made other candidates appear mainstream, rather than Republican-heavy, which most were.
At the debate party I attended, everyone agreed Bernie was the clear winner. Among those who said they felt Bernie would be the best President, most prefer Tulsi Gabbard for his Vice Presidential running mate. She will be in Night 2 of the debates. The Democratic pollsters are still using questionable polls to attempt to determine who will debate.
Other than Bernie and Tulsi, the most popular candidate at the watch party was the one who qualified for the debate and was cheated out of his spot: Mike Gravel. The absence of Mike Gravel from the debate stage leads into more concerns that the nomination of 2020 might already be rigged.
Though Elizabeth Warren tried to claim to be the Medicare for All spokesperson, Bernie set the record straight. "I wrote the damn bill."
Bernie's comment was a reaction to Tim Ryan's attempt to tell Bernie what was in the bill that Bernie, not Ryan and not Warren, wrote. At the debate watch event this writer attended, the question was asked: "When is Tim Ryan going to withdraw?" Tim Ryan proved not to know the details of 9/11 in the June debate, when Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard had to explain to Tim Ryan who supposedly flew planes into the WTC on 9/11.
While the CNN hosts were promoting Warren, they asked multiple questions attacking Bernie. In the June debates, it was Tulsi who was attacked in a misleading and inaccurate question by MSNBC. But CNN turned its venom on Bernie asking whether he was too extreme, a question based on ageism and various attacks on his Medicare for All position. The debate audience and the watch party audience were clearly strongly in support of Bernie's positions and not with the CNN hosts.
While Bernie was under attack for supporting Medicare for All during the evening, he also presented the only College for All plan. Elizabeth Warren has a limited forgiveness plan that would cancel $50K of the $1.5 trillion dollars of college debt. Somewhere she forgot to do the math, claiming that $50K was 95% of $1.5 trillion dollars. A couple of people at the watch party questioned whether she passed first grade math.
Like Dennis Kucinich, Bernie does not support criminalizing people who risk their lives to come to America. Tulsi Gabbard has pointed out that the U.S. regime change wars are much of the reason people are fleeing their homelands. On the debate stage, Bernie got a lot of opposition on this issue. In supporting Medicare for All, something that is more comprehensive and less expensive than today's health care, Bernie pointed out that there would be plenty of money for even immigrants to receive health care. In San Juan Capistrano and Garden Grove, CA, there were major tuberculosis epidemics following the passage of anti-immigrant Proposition 187. Due to lack of health care for immigrants, epidemics have broken out elsewhere in the USA. Most doctors agree that, to keep American citizens healthy, immigrants must not be afraid to go to doctors for contagious diseases.
One major failing on the part of all the debaters was the failure to mention Tulsi Gabbard's OFF (Off Fossil Fuels) Act and to instead focus on the toothless research legislation known as the Green New Deal (not to be confused with the Green Party's Green New Deal) which allows a continuation of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Bernie did address the climate issue as a whole and the environmental destruction American corporations have done to this planet.
In second place in this debate was Marianne Williamson, a rich girl turned metaphysical guru. She made one of the most important statements of the night, something most people are saying but not the candidates:
Marianne: "We need to realize, we have a sickness care rather than a healthcare system. We need to be the party talking about why so many of our chemical policies and our food policies and our agricultural policies and our environment policies and even our economic policies are leading to people sick to begin with."
While the "I wrote the damn bill," comment was the most applauded statement of the night, the statement that brought the strongest applause was Bernie's response in the following exchange.
Jake (Tapper): "Senator Sanders, President Trump has argued that the United States cannot continue to be the, quote, "policeman of the world." You said the exact same thing on a debate stage in 2016. If voters are hearing the same message from you and President Trump on the issue of military intervention, how should they expect that you will be any different from him?"
Bernie: "Trump is a pathological liar. I tell the truth."
Judging from the thunderous applause, the audience agreed. Bernie went on to say the following.
Bernie: "We have been in Afghanistan I think 18 years, in Iraq 16 or 17 years. We have spent $5 trillion on the war on terror. And there are probably more terrorists out there now than before it began. We're going to spend -- the Congress passed -- and I will not vote for -- a $715 billion military budget, more than the 10 next countries combined.
"What we need is a foreign policy that focuses on diplomacy, ending conflicts by people sitting at a table, not by killing each other.
"As president of the United States, I will go to the United Nations and not denigrate it, not attack the U.N., but bring countries together in the Middle East and all over the world to come to terms with their differences and solve those problems peacefully."
Bernie's final comment (broken up by applause) may explain why he is so popular with real Americans, as opposed to the corporate hacks running CNN.
Bernie: "As somebody who grew up in family that lived in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, New York, and lived paycheck to paycheck, I'm running for president not just to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of this country, a guy who's a racist and a sexist and a homophobe. I'm running to transform this country and to stand with the working class of America, which for the last 45 years has been decimated.
"Two days ago, I had a remarkable experience which should tell you everything you need to know about what's going on in America. I took 15 people with diabetes from Detroit a few miles into Canada, and we bought insulin for one-tenth the price being charged by the crooks who run the pharmaceutical industry in America today.
(Excited audience applause)
"But it's not just the price-fixing and the corruption and the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. It's what's going on in the fossil fuel industry. It's what's going on in Wall Street. It's what's going on with the prison industrial complex.
(Excited audience applause)
"We need a mass political movement. Please go to berniesanders.com. Become one of our million volunteers. Stand up and take on the greed and corruption of the ruling class of this country. Let's create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent."
(Excited audience applause)
Bernie did so well, compared to the CNN favorites in the debate, that CNN tried to hide the debate from the public, making it hard to find the rerun of the debate on YouTube and elsewhere. Videos of the debate put up on YouTube were pulled for copyright reasons. CNN had it's highlights which left out the most telling parts and which made other candidates appear mainstream, rather than Republican-heavy, which most were.
At the debate party I attended, everyone agreed Bernie was the clear winner. Among those who said they felt Bernie would be the best President, most prefer Tulsi Gabbard for his Vice Presidential running mate. She will be in Night 2 of the debates. The Democratic pollsters are still using questionable polls to attempt to determine who will debate.
Other than Bernie and Tulsi, the most popular candidate at the watch party was the one who qualified for the debate and was cheated out of his spot: Mike Gravel. The absence of Mike Gravel from the debate stage leads into more concerns that the nomination of 2020 might already be rigged.