A Republican spokesperson for the Senate Finance Committee, the committee that drafted the unemployment provisions of the stimulus bill, has disputed the claims of three GOP senators that the text of the stimulus bill could create a layoff incentive.
&#8220;Nothing in this bill incentivizes businesses to lay off employees, in fact it’s just the opposite,&#8221; said the Republican spokesperson, reports NBC News. &#8220;The goal all along has been, first and foremost, to help businesses make payroll so employers don’t have to lay off employees, and to ensure that there’s a robust unemployment insurance program to help those who have lost their jobs.&#8221;
&#8220;Each state has a different UI program, so the drafters opted for a temporary across-the-board UI boost of $600 dollars, which can deliver needed aid in a timely manner rather than burning time to create a different administrative regime for each state,&#8221; the spokesperson continued. &#8220;This increase is designed to make the average worker whole. It’s also important to remember that nobody who voluntarily leaves an available job is eligible for UI.”
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/massive-drafting-error-three-gop-senators-call-for-stimulus-halt-argue-text-incentivizes-layoffs">The Daily Wire</a> previously reported, Senators Graham, Scott, and Sasse have objected to the current wording of the bill, saying that an alleged layoff incentive in the text poses an “immediate, real-world problem.”
“A massive drafting error in the current version of the coronavirus relief legislation could have devastating consequences: Unless this bill is fixed, there is a strong incentive for employees to be laid off instead of going to work,” said the senators in a joint statement.
In a press conference, Graham argued: “If this is not a drafting error, then it’s the worst idea I’ve seen in a long time, and that’s saying a lot given that we’re in Washington,” reports <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/massive-drafting-error-three-gop-senators-call-for-stimulus-halt-argue-text-incentivizes-layoffs">Fox News</a>.
In the joint statement, the senators announced they would oppose “fast-tracking” the bill unless the text was fixed, or the labor department created regulatory guidelines to prevent people from earning more money by not working.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has also threatened to hold up the $2 trillion stimulus as a response to the three GOP Senators. In a statement, Sanders argued that the trio was putting forth “anti-worker” views.
“In my view, it would be an outrage to prevent working-class Americans to receive the emergency unemployment assistance included in this legislation,” said Sanders. “Unless these Republican Senators drop their objections, I am prepared to put a hold on this bill until stronger conditions are imposed on the $500 billion corporate welfare fund.”
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who is running for president in the Democratic primary, proceeded to propose additional stipulations on companies receiving bailout funding, including a promise that they not pay workers “poverty wages.”
According to <a href="https://twitter.com/SherylNYT/status/1242908121879711744">The New York Times</a>, Sanders has agreed to vote for the bill on the condition that the three GOP senators drop their objections to its current form. 
“I cannot at the last minute allow some right wing senators try to undermine the needs of workers and think they are going to get away with it,” said Sanders.

Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Speak At The Iowa AFL-CIO Convention

GOP Spokesperson Disputes Stimulus Layoff Claim; Sanders Blasts Trio For ‘Anti-Worker Objections’

Bernie Sanders

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) may be well behind in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination but, his campaign says, he&#8217;s staying in the contest, regardless, and will attend the next debate in April, if one takes place.
The Vermont socialist is aiming to win the New York primary, which is set to take place on April 28, and held a call with more than a thousand supporters earlier this week, where his campaign outlined organizing efforts and a plan for online meet-ups where supporters will make phone calls to select Democratic voters in the state.
&#8220;The Sanders campaign says they hosted a volunteer call with thousands of New York supporters this week,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/blog/meet-press-blog-latest-news-analysis-data-driving-political-discussion-n988541/ncrd1167691#blogHeader">according to NBC News</a>, &#8220;signing up more than 1,300 call and text shifts. The campaign is using their proprietary &#8216;BERN&#8217; app and old-fashioned phone banking, as well as organizing &#8216;Digital house parties,&#8217; while New Yorkers are holed up at home.&#8221;
Two weeks ago, after losing the last round of primaries held before most of the country went into coronavirus lockdown, Sanders told a crowd in Vermont that he was &#8220;reassessing&#8221; his campaign and that he and his staff would make a decision in the coming weeks as to whether it is worth it to continue pressing forward until the Democratic National Convention in July, even though there doesn&#8217;t appear to be a mathematical path to victory for Sanders.
Monday night, Sanders updated his message to say the campaign was taking things &#8220;day by day.&#8221;
&#8220;We are in a bizarre moment,&#8221; Sanders told MSNBC&#8217;s Chris Hayes in an interview Monday night, &#8220;so what we are doing is transitioning our campaign to a virtual campaign&#8230;We&#8217;re kind of moving day by day,&#8221;
Tuesday evening, the mood was different.
&#8220;Bernie Sanders is still a candidate for the Democratic nomination,&#8221; a Sanders senior adviors <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/sanders-camp-signals-his-presidential-campaign-will-go-n1168041">told NBC News</a> after the network reported on Sanders&#8217; efforts to community organize in New York state. &#8220;One of the things that means is working to secure votes in future contests.&#8221;
“If there is a debate in April, he plans to be there,&#8221; another aide <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sen-bernie-sanders-debate-in-april-campaign-says">told Fox News</a>, confirming NBC&#8217;s report.
Sanders may be trying to capitalize off weaknesses in former Vice President Joe Biden&#8217;s efforts. On Monday, Biden launched a series of &#8220;shadow briefings&#8221; on the coronavirus pandemic, meant to outshine President Donald Trump&#8217;s daily addresses on the subject and draw attention to the Trump administration&#8217;s shortcomings on virus response.
The first &#8220;shadow briefing,&#8221; though, fell flat, and Biden flubbed a media blitz meant to promote his presidential campaign, appearing on several networks, but giving almost inscrutable &#8220;updates&#8221; on his team&#8217;s efforts to combat the deadly disease.
Sanders might see an opening among Democrats who are increasingly worried that Biden appears &#8220;weak&#8221; alongside Trump, and is likely hopeful that canceled early April primaries, in places like Wisconsin, mean Biden won&#8217;t be able to secure enough delegates to meet the Democratic National Committee&#8217;s 1,991-delegate threshold, leaving the nomination up for grabs.
Unfortunately for Sanders, Democrats may not necessarily be impressed with his efforts, either. Sanders says he has been busy in session, hammering out a bipartisan coronavirus relief deal in the Senate. Last week, though, as the Senate voted on the initial legislative relief package, Sanders was busy hosting an online townhall with members of the &#8220;squad,&#8221; including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), not voting on the bill.

Senate Takes Up Coronavirus Relief Bill Passed By House

Bernie Sanders Says He’s STAYING In The Presidential Race, Will Attend Next Debate

2020 Election

Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; (I-VT) presidential campaign reportedly &#8220;signaled&#8221; Wednesday night that they may be open to ending their bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and admitted that they are &#8220;speaking&#8221; to former Vice President Joe Biden&#8217;s campaign staff.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaign-signals-sanders-may-be-open-to-exit/2020/03/18/9cd71a1a-692f-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html">The Washington Post</a> reports that Sanders, whose top advisors said Wednesday morning that they were &#8220;reassessing&#8221; the senator&#8217;s chances at snagging the nomination in the interim between now and the next set of primaries three weeks from now, may be looking for a way to bow out of the contest that will preserve his impact on the race so far and his followers&#8217; impact on the Democratic party platform.
&#8220;The next primary contest is at least three weeks away,&#8221; Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir told media in a statement Wednesday. &#8220;Sen. Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign.&#8221;
In a separate message to Sanders&#8217; supporters, campaign aides said that Sanders was returning to Washington, D.C., to help handle the coronavirus situation, but that he and his wife, Jane, would be speaking with supporters to determine whether carrying on a doomed presidential run would be somehow beneficial.
Wednesday afternoon, the Sanders campaign suspended social media advertising, a development that was initially reported as a full campaign &#8220;suspension&#8221; &#8212; a story that was almost immediately corrected.
Perhaps the Sanders campaign&#8217;s most significant move &#8212; and the best evidence that they are considering a swift and untimely end to the Vermont socialist&#8217;s bid &#8212; was reaching out to Biden&#8217;s campaign, which they reportedly did sometime on Wednesday morning.
<div class="salem-content-injection-wrap headline-quote-body">
&#8220;Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said that aides to the two candidates have been in touch regularly to discuss the public health crisis that has gripped the country,&#8221; the Washington Post reported, &#8220;disclosing talks that could form the basis of a broader agreement on policies and might make Sanders more comfortable leaving the race.&#8221;
Not every presidential campaign, of course, simply wraps up. Sanders may want to ink a deal with Biden and the Democratic National Convention that gives Sanders a place of prominence in the Democratic party, some control over the Democratic party platform (which will be rewritten and voted on at the convention in July) and some measure of visibility.
Back in 2016, Sanders and then-likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton inked their own deal &#8212; a deal which reportedly included an agreement to keep Sanders&#8217; supporters from protesting at the 2016 DNC.
&#8220;The recently released book &#8220;Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign&#8221; by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes reveals that Sanders Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver struck a deal with the Clinton campaign to keep Sanders delegates away from television cameras in order to hide the divisions in the party from audiences across the country,&#8221; <a href="https://observer.com/2017/04/shattered-bernie-sanders-supporters-convention-protests/">the Observer reported</a> in 2017.
Clinton also famously agreed to pay for Sanders&#8217; private jet, so that he could attend rallies in support of Clinton&#8217;s 2016 effort.
This time around, Biden may want to make the same trade: Sanders and the Democratic socialists can have some influence over what the party stands for, if they agree not to hold massive, public protests outside the Democratic National Convention, undermining Biden&#8217;s chances at defeating President Donald Trump.
</div>

Bernie Sanders Signals He’s Open To Ending His Presidential Campaign

Joe Biden

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) may be approaching an exit to the 2020 presidential race, with reports indicating that the candidate’s senior-level staffers have been holding talks with former Vice President Joe Biden’s team. 
According to <a href="https://www.axios.com/bernie-sanders-suspends-facebook-ads-2020-election-8d888649-55fb-4358-a6e6-cac09584bac8.html">Axios</a>, the Sanders campaign suspended Facebook ads for the self-avowed democratic socialist’s second presidential bid, which received a crushing electoral blow from the three states holding Democratic primaries on Tuesday. 
Furthermore, Kate Bedingfield, the deputy campaign manager for the Biden campaign, has informed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaign-signals-sanders-may-be-open-to-exit/2020/03/18/9cd71a1a-692f-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html">The Washington Post</a> that the Sanders campaign and Biden campaign “have been in regular contact at a senior level” to discuss coronavirus.  
“While the two campaigns obviously have their differences, they are working together to try to promote the health and safety of their teams, those who interact with the campaigns, and the American people,” said Bedingfield. 
The news agency also reports that Sanders did not ask supporters for donations in an email Wednesday, and that the senator has plans “to leave Washington and return home, where he and his wife, Jane, would talk to supporters and determine the future of his presidential run.”
“Biden campaign officials have also adopted an internal policy of no longer attacking Sanders,” reports the news agency. 
According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/us/politics/march-17-democratic-primary.html">The New York Times</a>, Biden pushed for Democratic unity while speaking to supporters after a resounding victory in Tuesday’s voting contests, and even declared that he and Sanders, a self-avowed democratic socialist, share a “common vision” for healthcare, income inequality, and climate change. 
“Senator Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues, and together, they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country,&#8221; said Biden, reports the news agency. 
“So let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders: I hear you,” said Biden, reports the news agency. “I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do. Our goal as a campaign, and my goal as a candidate for president, is to unify this party and then to unify the nation.”
The former vice president, who has pitched his campaign as a return to normalcy, endorsed Sanders’ free college plan and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) bankruptcy plan in a tweet thread. 
&#8220;Bernie has put forward a plan that would make public colleges and universities free for families whose income is below $125,000,&#8221; said Biden in a tweet Sunday. &#8220;It&#8217;s a good idea, and after consideration, I am proud to add it to my platform.&#8221;
“Few people in the country understand how bankruptcy hurts working families more than Elizabeth Warren,” said Biden in a follow-up tweet. “Today, I am fully endorsing and adopting her bankruptcy plan.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
First: Bernie has put forward a plan that would make public colleges and universities free for families whose income is below $125,000. It&#8217;s a good idea, and after consideration, I am proud to add it to my platform.
— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1239280176594288643?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
During a bankruptcy bill hearing in 2005, then-Senator Joe Biden told Warren, who was testifying about the bill, that she was putting forward a “mildly demagogic” argument, reports <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/11/731370440/democratic-presidential-debates-could-reignite-warren-biden-bankruptcy-fight">NPR.</a>

Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate In Charleston Ahead Of SC Primary

Sanders Campaign Suspends Facebook Ads, Holding Talks With Team Biden About Coronavirus

On Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reportedly “lashed out” at CNN’s Manu Raju during a press gaggle when Raju asked the senator about his campaign.
In a series of tweets, Raju detailed the alleged encounter:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I noted he&#8217;s running for president, and he said: “Well right now, right now I&#8217;m trying to do my best to make sure that we don&#8217;t have an economic meltdown and that people don&#8217;t die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for today?&#8221;
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) <a href="https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1240363253152329730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Then <a href="https://twitter.com/LisaMascaro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LisaMascaro</a> asked what he&#8217;s saying to his supporters, and he sidestepped the question, noting he&#8217;s sent out a statement. Then, I asked about his timeframe &#8212; and he was furious
Afterwards, he mellowed out and answered questions about the crisis for about two more minutes.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) <a href="https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1240364038791536644?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>Sen. Bernie Sanders grew angry when asked about his campaign plans. During a gaggle with reporters in the Capitol, I asked Sanders about his timeframe for making a decision, and he lashed out: &#8220;I&#8217;m dealing with a f***ing global crisis. You know, we&#8217;re dealing with.&#8221;
I noted he&#8217;s running for president, and he said: “Well right now, right now I&#8217;m trying to do my best to make sure that we don&#8217;t have an economic meltdown and that people don&#8217;t die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for today?&#8221;
The blowup occurred about half way through a five-minute gaggle where Sanders talked about the &#8220;unprecedented crisis of our lifetime,&#8221; calling for a range of measures that the U.S. government should take in the midst of the economic crisis.
Then <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/LisaMascaro">@LisaMascaro</a> asked what he&#8217;s saying to his supporters, and he sidestepped the question, noting he&#8217;s sent out a statement. Then, I asked about his timeframe – and he was furious. Afterwards, he mellowed out and answered questions about the crisis for about two more minutes.</blockquote>
On Wednesday, Sanders also criticized President Trump’s <a href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/White-House-coronavirus-plan-aims-to-send-2-000-15140061.php">alleged plan</a> to provide many Americans with $2,000 in relief due to the economic difficulties that have come about in the wake of the coronavirus, saying that such a measure “isn’t good enough.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It&#8217;s been estimated that the unemployment rate could hit 20% if we don&#8217;t act boldly. A one or two time check isn&#8217;t good enough—the government must tell every small and mid-sized business owner that we&#8217;ll cover 100% of their payroll if they don&#8217;t lay off anyone during this crisis.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) <a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1240310632794279938?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
Sanders is coming off of three bruising primary losses, as Democratic voters in Arizona, Illinois, and Florida chose rival Joe Biden by significant margins on Tuesday.
As of publication, with 88% of precincts reporting, Biden leads in Arizona 43.6% to Sanders’ 31.7%. In Illinois, Biden leads 59.1% to Sanders’ 36% with 99% of precincts reporting. Biden’s largest margin of victory on Tuesday came in Florida, where he took 61.9% of the vote to Sanders’ 22.8% with 100% of precincts reporting.
Prior to the South Carolina Democratic primary, Sanders was on a roll, either winning or essentially tying for first place in the first three caucuses/primaries. Former Vice President Joe Biden performed abysmally during those initial votes, but roared back in the first-in-the-South primary, winning South Carolina with 48.4%, according to The Associated Press.
Then came Super Tuesday where Biden won ten of the 14 states that held their primaries and caucuses on that day.
As of Wednesday, Biden has 1,180 delegates, while Sanders has 884. In order to secure the Democratic nomination for president, a candidate needs <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/10/799979293/how-many-delegates-do-the-2020-presidential-democratic-candidates-have">1,991 delegates</a> by the end of the primary process.
Following his Tuesday losses, Sanders said that he is “assessing” the campaign, reports <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/politics/bernie-sanders-assess-2020-campaign/index.html">CNN</a>.
Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir said on Wednesday: “The next primary contest is at least three weeks away. Sen. Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign. In the immediate term, however, he is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders

Asked About Campaign, Sanders Bristles: ‘I’m Dealing With A F***ing Global Crisis’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is &#8220;reassessing&#8221; his presidential campaign, his campaign manager announced early Wednesday, after suffering a string of devastating losses Tuesday night in three separate primaries, two of which were in key 2020 &#8220;battleground&#8221; states.
<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/18/bernie-sanders-reassessing-campaign-after-democratic-primary-losses/2863183001/">USA Today reports</a> that Sanders is halting much of his campaign activity after losing both Florida and Illinois by wide margins Tuesday night. Every county in Florida went to former Vice President Joe Biden, who won the state 62% to 23% (former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg, who were still on the ballot in the Sunshine State, chalked up nearly 10% of the vote each).
In Illinois, Biden won 60% to 30%, handily besting Sanders in nearly every Congressional district, including a number of districts that went overwhelmingly to Sanders in his race against Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
Arizona, a &#8220;battleground state&#8221; like Florida, was a bit closer, but Biden still prevailed there,  40% to 30%. Both Bloomberg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) did well among Arizona voters who did not want to cast a ballot for either of the two frontrunners for the Democratic nomination.
Sanders suffered, again Tuesday, from a lack of motivated voters. Young people who turned out in droves for Sanders&#8217; rally in Chicago just a week ago, failed to make the same effort to turn out to the polls in the Illinois primary, leaving Sanders lagging even in the solidly blue city. And it&#8217;s emblematic of Sanders&#8217; troubles nationwide: although the Vermont socialist promised to &#8220;expand&#8221; the Democratic voter base and draw out new, energized Democratic socialists and progressives, that simply hasn&#8217;t happened.
Wednesday morning, the Sanders campaign seemed to finally be coming to grips with reality.
&#8220;The next primary contest is at least three weeks away,&#8221; Sanders&#8217; campaign manager Faiz Shakir told media in a statement. &#8220;Sen. Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign.&#8221;
Shakir, added, USA Today says, that &#8220;in the immediate term,&#8221; Sanders is &#8220;focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.”
&#8220;No sugarcoating it, last night did not go the way we wanted,&#8221; Shakir wrote in a separate email, this one directed to Sanders supporters. &#8220;And while our campaign has won the battle of ideas, we are losing the battle over electability to Joe Biden.&#8221;
Sanders himself is returning to Washington, D.C., and his job the Senate, where he&#8217;ll help to craft legislation addressing the ongoing coronavirus shutdown, Shakir added. &#8220;Once there, [the Sanders campaign will] begin holding conversations with supporters to get input and assess the path forward for our campaign.&#8221;
In order to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, a candidate needs 1,991 delegates &#8212; a clear, numerical majority of delegates available in the state primaries and caucuses. Biden now has 1,153 delegates. Sanders lags well behind at 861 and, at this point, there&#8217;s almost no chance Sanders will catch up and overtake the former vice president. It&#8217;s also unlikely that Sanders will gain enough delegates to keep Biden from obtaining a numerical majority &#8212; a scenario that might have thrown the Democratic National Convention into utter chaos.
In recent days, Sanders advisors and surrogates have begun a campaign to delegitimize Biden&#8217;s wins, suggesting that independent states &#8212; and the Democratic party, at large &#8212; have been trying to &#8220;suppress&#8221; Sanders voters, but the message has not, it seems, caught on.

Sanders supporters Michigan

Bernie Sanders To ‘Reassess His Campaign’ After Latest Round Of Losses

Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; (I-VT) advisors are laying the groundwork for possible objections to the ultimate delegate count, suggesting on national cable news programs that entities, including various states and the Democratic party as a whole, are working to &#8220;supress&#8221; Sanders&#8217; supporters votes.
Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden are going head to head in three states Tuesday, Illinois, Florida, and Arizona. Ohio was slated to have a primary contest Tuesday but, after a protracted legal battle that went deep into Monday night, the state&#8217;s governor effectively postponed the contest, rescheduling the vote until the summer, when the threat of coronavirus has, hopefully, passed.
Biden is expected to win all three contests by a substantial margin. In Florida, the former Veep leads in polls by more than 40 points. In Illinois, Biden leads by 20 points and, in some Congressional disticts, by as much as 70 points. In Arizona, Biden is likely to win by between 20 and 30 points.
Until yesterday, Biden was also leading in Ohio. But by the time that primary surfaces yet again, he may well have snagged the 1,991 delegates he needs to secure the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Until a few weeks ago, Sanders&#8217; campaign was still holding out hope that, at the very worst, they could force a brokered convention. Now, it seems, they are hoping to delegitimize Biden&#8217;s win by suggesting the DNC conspired with state parties and voting authorities to keep Sanders&#8217; supporters from the polls.
On Monday, Sanders adviser Phillip Agnew told CNN that holding certain primaries, including last week&#8217;s primary in Mississippi, during college spring breaks was a form of &#8220;voter suppression,&#8221; given that Bernie Sanders&#8217; core demographic is voters under the age of 35.
&#8220;There were a number of black colleges who were on spring break during Election Day,&#8221; Agnew said. &#8220;So we are up against rampant voter suppression efforts that are pushing young black folks out of the booth.&#8221;
“I think across the board, the Democratic Party has a lot of work to do to make sure that young black folks and older black folks have access to the ballot box,” Agnew added. “And our campaign is proud to actually been a part of that. And it’s not just our campaign. Across the board, we got a lot of work to do.”
The vote in Mississippi wasn&#8217;t close; Joe Biden won the state 80% to 20%. College students were certainly not the difference between a Sanders win and a Sanders loss &#8212; and holding primaries a week earlier or later probably would not have given Sanders an edge, particularly given that, across the board, Sanders&#8217; supporters have been willing to attend rallies but less willing to cast ballots.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) now famously made the same claim about young voters in Michigan who were &#8220;suppressed&#8221; because same-day voter registration lines at the Ann Arbor, Michigan, city clerk&#8217;s offices were sometimes hours long &#8212; even though college students could have registered to vote at any time before last Tuesday&#8217;s primary.
&#8220;I think one thing that isn’t being talked about is the rampant voter suppression in this country,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez told Fox News. &#8220;Right there, in Ann Arbor, where we had that rally, those kids were waiting three hours in line to vote in Michigan.&#8221;
But, the Detroit News reported, Ocasio-Cortez had her story wrong.
&#8220;The long lines were at clerks&#8217; offices, not polling stations, multiple election officials said. At the clerks&#8217; offices, some voters, especially in college areas, waited in line to register to vote on Election Day before casting their ballots,&#8221; a spokesperson for Michigan&#8217;s Secretary of State, Democrat Jocelyn Benson, reportedly told the paper.
A change, which allowed for same-day registration &#8220;significantly increased the Election Day workload for local election clerks,&#8221; the spokesperson added. &#8220;Our office worked to provide them extra support, but long lines were unavoidable when, late in the day, thousands of same-day registrants simultaneously went to a handful of clerks’ offices.&#8221;
Ann Arbor&#8217;s city clerk attacked Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s statements directly: &#8220;That&#8217;s simply not true and to state that is misleading,&#8221; she said.&#8221;In fact, there were hardly any wait times anywhere in the city, except at city hall to register to vote.&#8221;

Bernie Sanders Advisor Suggests Holding Elections While Colleges Are On Spring Break Is ‘Voter Supression’

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Most Americans are under orders to &#8220;shelter in place&#8221; amid concerns about the quickly spreading coronavirus, but the four states set to hold Democratic primaries Tuesday say they&#8217;ll be accepting ballots and that voting will go on as planned &#8212; and that&#8217;s good news for former Vice President Joe Biden.
Battleground states Ohio, Arizona, and Florida will cast ballots on Tuesday, as will reliably Democratic Illinois and all four are expected to go to Biden over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Biden already leads Sanders 860-706 in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but could extend the lead by more than 300 delegates on Tuesday if he inks conclusive victories in all four states, putting him that much closer to the number 1,991 &#8212; the majority of delegates needed to secure the nomination ahead of the Democratic National Convention in July.
An <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/nbc-news-marist-polls-biden-holds-big-leads-over-sanders-n1160536">NBC News/Marist</a> poll put Biden well out of reach of Sanders in Ohio and Arizona, both states crucial for Democrats if the intend to win the White House in 2020.
&#8220;In Ohio, Biden garners 58% of support among likely Democratic primary voters, compared with 35% for Sanders, I-Vt,&#8221; NBC News reported Monday. &#8220;Biden has a smaller but still significant lead over Sanders in Arizona. He gets 53% of support among likely voters in Tuesday’s contest, while Sanders comes in at 36%. Ohio awards 136 pledged delegates. Arizona allocates 67.&#8221;
Ohio, like Michigan last week, is a key &#8220;battleground state&#8221; where more &#8220;moderate&#8221; Democrats handed the election to Donald Trump back in 2016. While both Sanders and Biden lead Trump by small margins according to the NBC News poll, Biden does almost twice as well as Sanders.
Arizona was not considered a &#8220;battleground&#8221; state in 2016, but Democrats have focused efforts on the state, which they believe could become solidly blue in 2020. The state, NBC says, &#8220;plays host to one of this year’s most important Senate races, as Democrats hope to unseat Republican Sen. Martha McSally in their quest to win a majority in the chamber. Democrat Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, leads the incumbent by a 48% to 45% margin, according to the NBC/Marist poll.&#8221;
In Florida, Biden is dominating Sanders, but both fall victim to Trump, who is well ahead of both Democrats in tracking polls.
In Illinois, where Democrats will face a head-to-head matchup (no Republicans regularly compete for the state&#8217;s electoral votes, even in a general election), Biden leads Sanders by a whopping 30 points, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-our-forecast-says-about-the-race-in-illinois-and-ohio/">according to FiveThirtyEight</a>. The former Veep leads the Vermont socialist in every Congressional distict in the state, in some cases by a 60-point margin.
Of the four states expected to vote tomorrow, only Ohio is considering extending in-person voting. &#8220;Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday afternoon that he is requesting a delay to in-person voting from Tuesday until June 2,&#8221; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/16/march-17-primary-what-arizona-illinois-florida-ohio-doing-amid-coronavirus/5047458002/">according to USA Today</a>, though the request may have come too little too late for Ohio&#8217;s Democratic party and for the state&#8217;s voter apparatus. In the three other states, officials are increasing sanitary measures for in-person voters.
In a joint statement, vote officials from all four states stressed the importance of voting even in a time of crisis.
&#8220;Americans have participated in elections during challenging times in the past, and based on the best information we have from public health officials, we are confident that voters in our states can safely and securely cast their ballots in this election, and that otherwise healthy poll workers can and should carry out their patriotic duties on Tuesday,&#8221; the four states noted.

Biden Detroit

The Polls Must Go On! Biden Looks To Extend Lead Over Sanders As Illinois, Florida, Ohio Vote In Tuesday Primaries

<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-bernie-sanders-campaign-rallies_n_5e6ade51c5b6bd8156f44356?6ukb">HuffPost reports</a> that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the head of the &#8220;Democratic socialist&#8221; movement in Congress and once a star surrogate for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has &#8220;backed away&#8221; from the Sanders campaign and is refusing to stump for the Senator amid a disagreement over podcast host Joe Rogan.
Ocasio-Cortez hit the trail for Sanders in Iowa, stumping for Sanders in college towns where Democratic socialism is a major draw and, some experts contend, could have been responsible for Sanders&#8217; narrow Iowa win. But after Sanders&#8217; team touted a clip from Rogan&#8217;s show, in which the controversial host said he&#8217;d likely cast his Democratic primary vote for Sanders, things got frosty.
&#8220;After the Iowa caucuses, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir asked Ocasio-Cortez to stump for Sanders in New Hampshire, according to the sources,&#8221; per HuffPo. &#8220;The campaign prepared a model schedule to highlight the kind of popular support she would expect if she attended, one of the people familiar with the talks said.&#8221;
The campaign was ultimately able to drag Ocasio-Cortez out to New Hampshire for an apperance alongside the rock band, The Strokes, but a person familiar with the negotiations told HuffPo that it was like &#8220;pulling teeth&#8221; to get the New York Democrat to agree to the trip.
After New Hampshire, Ocasio-Cortez took a three-week vacation from the Sanders campaign, reappearing only last week at a Sanders rally at the University of Michigan.
&#8220;The absence of the popular progressive lawmaker on the trail in the weeks that followed was even more notable. In nearly a month that passed from Feb. 11  until March 8 ― two days before the Michigan primary ― Ocasio-Cortez declined multiple invitations from Sanders’ campaign to speak on his behalf in Nevada, South Carolina and the 14 states that voted on Super Tuesday,&#8221; Huffpo said.
She appeared on cable news the day after the Michigan primary to help deflect blame from Sanders over his loss,<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/aoc-voter-suppression-bernie-sanders-michigan-primary"> suggesting to Fox News</a> that young voters had been &#8220;suppressed&#8221; because they were forced to wait in line, even though many of them waited until the day of the primary to register to vote.
Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s chief complaint seems to be that Sanders&#8217; team won&#8217;t disavow Rogan, whom she claims is hostile towards LGBT causes and is &#8220;transphobic.&#8221; She, along with other progressives, felt that the Sanders campaign&#8217;s attempt to welcome supporters into a &#8220;big tent&#8221; was misguided and that Democrats should narrow their focus, pressing progressive bona fides as a way of determining Sanders&#8217; true supporters.
All was not well from Sanders&#8217; side of the equation, though. Although Ocasio-Cortez was a powerful surrogate for the Vermont socialist, the Sanders&#8217; campaign was reportedly concerned she was focused on raising her own profile and not Bernie&#8217;s.
&#8220;Shakir apparently communicated to Ocasio-Cortez his dissatisfaction over her remarks about alerting the presence of immigration authorities,&#8221; HuffPo reported. &#8220;While Sanders has sought to scrap and restructure the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in its current form, his campaign has been trying to avoid the impression that it was encouraging noncooperation with federal law as it exists, according to one source.&#8221;
They were also concerned that, at one Iowa rally, she never actually mentioned Sanders by name.
The Sanders campaign denied that they were ill-at-ease with Ocasio-Cortez, however, and that Shakir ever spoke to Ocasio-Cortez about changing her approach.

sanders ocasio-cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has ‘Backed Away’ From Sanders Campaign, Won’t Stump For Bernie Until He Disavows Joe Rogan

On Sunday, former Vice President Joe Biden and democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) faced off in their first one-on-one primary debate — a debate held with no audience in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus. While the rather surreal audience-less debate went over better than many of its more chaotic predecessors, and the left-leaning media celebrated it as &#8220;substantive,&#8221; the man that one of the two candidates on the stage Sunday will be going toe to toe with in November had a far different reaction.
In a tweet Sunday night, Trump offered his summary of the CNN-hosted event followed by a series of retweets highlighting moments he wants to make sure his 74 million followers don&#8217;t miss.
&#8220;I must say, that was a VERY boring debate,&#8221; Trump tweeted Sunday. &#8220;Biden lied when he said I want to cut Social Security and Medicare. That’s what they ALL said 4 years ago, and nothing happened, in fact, I saved Social Security and Medicare. I will not be cutting, but they will. Be careful!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I must say, that was a VERY boring debate. Biden lied when he said I want to cut Social Security and Medicare. That’s what they ALL said 4 years ago, and nothing happened, in fact, I saved Social Security and Medicare. I will not be cutting, but they will. Be careful!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1239383648018804739?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Trump followed up his single original post on the debate with a series of retweets of unflattering clips and factoids on Biden promoted by the Trump campaign.
&#8220;Sleepy Joe is SO CONFUSED,&#8221; tweeted Trump campaign national press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, along with video from the debate. &#8220;Joe has&#8230; &#8211; Called the coronavirus &#8216;SARS&#8217; &#8211; Called the coronavirus the &#8216;swine flu&#8217; &#8211; Called the H1N1 virus the &#8216;N1H1&#8217; &#8211; Forgot the name of the Ebola virus, describing it as &#8216;what happened in Africa'[.] Joe is SO LOST!&#8221;
&#8220;Joe Biden would set an extreme and dangerous course on illegal immigration,&#8221; wrote Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh in another post retweeted by Trump. &#8220;Wouldn’t deport anyone except convicted felons. Says local police should not cooperate with ICE. In Biden’s America, EVERY city is a sanctuary city.&#8221;
&#8220;Joe Biden is a train wreck on illegal immigration and would harm national security,&#8221; tweeted Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale along with more footage from the debate. &#8220;He’d have ZERO deportations for the first 100 days INCLUDING CRIMINALS and after that deport only felons. Trashes the rule of law and makes us less safe. Insanity!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Sleepy Joe is SO CONFUSED. Joe has&#8230;
&#8211; Called the coronavirus “SARS”
&#8211; Called the coronavirus the “swine flu”
&#8211; Called the H1N1 virus the &quot;N1H1&quot;
&#8211; Forgot the name of the Ebola virus, describing it as “what happened in Africa”
Joe is SO LOST!<a href="https://t.co/nDKvztN6yf">pic.twitter.com/nDKvztN6yf</a>
&mdash; Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) <a href="https://twitter.com/kayleighmcenany/status/1239350932606988292?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Joe Biden would set an extreme and dangerous course on illegal immigration.
Wouldn’t deport anyone except convicted felons.
Says local police should not cooperate with ICE.
In Biden’s America, EVERY city is a sanctuary city.
&mdash; Tim Murtaugh &#8211; Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TimMurtaugh) <a href="https://twitter.com/TimMurtaugh/status/1239361642191818755?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Joe Biden is a train wreck on illegal immigration and would harm national security.
He’d have ZERO deportations for the first 100 days INCLUDING CRIMINALS and after that deport only felons.
Trashes the rule of law and makes us less safe.
Insanity! <a href="https://t.co/MCUSAt83Wo">pic.twitter.com/MCUSAt83Wo</a>
&mdash; Brad Parscale &#8211; Text TRUMP to 88022 (@parscale) <a href="https://twitter.com/parscale/status/1239377885623959555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Among the left-leaning outlets that have praised the audience-free CNN debate is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/elections/no-audience-cnn-democratic-debate.html">The New York Times</a>, which described the event as somewhat of a relief after all the disjointed and disruptive previous debates in which the candidates repeatedly talked over each other, ignored time restraints, and spent more time playing to the crowd than giving substantive answers.
&#8220;With no live audience on hand because of coronavirus concerns, there were no jeers or cheers disrupting the proceedings, no playing to the crowd by the two men onstage,&#8221; the Times&#8217; Michael M. Grynbaum wrote. &#8220;The candidates, typically armed with punch lines and YouTube-able zingers to make the most of limited speaking time, had ample room to dwell on substance. Moderators had the grace and good sense to stay silent when the candidates questioned each other directly.&#8221;
Grynbaum also couldn&#8217;t help but point out the glaring fact that is haunting the party of &#8220;Intersectionality&#8221;: After what at one point being the most diverse collection of Democratic presidential candidates ever, onstage Sunday &#8220;were a pair of white men.&#8221;
&#8220;Add a sepia Instagram filter to the broadcast and viewers might have mistaken it for a snippet from the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960, the last time that presidential candidates sparred inside a closed TV studio. (The similarities, it should be said, included the fact that the contenders onstage were a pair of white men, even if, 60 years later, two of the three moderators were women.)&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-sanders-dodges-when-asked-about-italys-overwhelmed-health-care-system-under-coronavirus">WATCH: Sanders Dodges When Asked About Italy’s Overwhelmed Health Care System Under Coronavirus</a>

Joe Biden Bernie Sanders

Trump Sums Up Biden-Bernie Debate In One Tweet, Posts Brutal Biden Highlights

Donald Trump

Illegal Immigration

Medicare

Social Security

During Sunday evening’s Democratic debate in Washington, D.C., between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Amy Langenfeld, a law professor from Chandler, Arizona, asked the candidates a question pertaining to women’s issues.
“Women are the canaries in the coal mine of the conservative agenda. Our access to health care is at risk from the Federalist Society’s remaking of the courts,” Langenfeld said. “Our lives are threatened by abusive partners’ access to guns. Women are disproportionately affected by bail requirements, Social Security cuts, and cuts to public education. How will your cabinet ensure the best advice on issues that affect women’s physical and financial health?”
Sanders replied first, claiming that his “cabinet” and his “administration will look like America,” meaning that women would be largely represented. The senator then contrasted his policies with those of rival Joe Biden, boasting that he has “a 100% lifetime voting record from groups like NARAL,” the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.
Sanders also promoted free childcare, and complained that women shouldn’t be “earning 80 cents on the dollar compared to men,” a long-debunked and misleading statistic.
When it came to Joe Biden, the former vice president announced that he would not only appoint a black woman to the courts if he were president, but that he would choose a female vice presidential candidate.
“I committed that if I’m elected president [and] have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, I’ll appoint the first black woman to the courts. It’s required that they have representation now. It’s long overdue,” Biden stated. “Secondly, if I am elected president, my cabinet, my administration will look like the country, and I commit that I will, in fact, pick a woman to be vice president. There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be my vice president.”
Biden went on to discuss his previous involvement in “domestic violence law.”
CNN moderator Dana Bash then asked Biden: “Just to be clear, you just committed here tonight that your running mate, if you get the nomination, will be a woman?”
“Yes,” Biden replied.
Bash then asked Sanders if he would “make that same commitment.”
Sanders didn’t answer, instead asking Joe Biden about his previous support for the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from directly paying for abortion.
“Joe, you have in the past on more than one occasion voted for the Hyde Amendment, which says that a low-income woman cannot use Medicaid funding for an abortion,” Sanders said. “Is that still your view, or have you modified it?”
Biden responded, saying that it is not his view, and that “everybody who has been in the Congress voted for the Hyde Amendment at one point or another because it was locked in other bills.”
Biden added that he would “send immediately to the desk of the United States Congress &#8230; if I’m elected president, a codification of Roe v Wade amended by Casey because I think it is a woman’s right to choose, I think it’s a woman’s opportunity to be able to make that decision, and in fact, I’ve gotten a 100% rating from NARAL as well.”
Sanders pressed Biden on the NARAL rating, and Biden said that his high rating was “of late.”
When Sanders finally answered the female running mate question, he stated in part: “In all likelihood, I will. For me, it&#8217;s not just nominating a woman, it is making sure that we have a progressive woman, and there are progressive women out there. So, my very strong tendency is to move in that direction.”
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WATCH: Biden Claims He Will Choose Female VP, Appoint ‘First Black Woman To The Courts’

democratic debate

Joe Biden retreated from an attack on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during CNN&#8217;s Democratic presidential debate on Sunday night after Sanders challenged Biden on accusations that Biden was making against him.
During an intense back and forth on attack ads and super PACs, Biden asked Sanders, &#8220;You get rid of the nine super PACs you have?&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t have any super PACs,&#8221; Sanders responded.
&#8220;You have nine, you want me to list ‘me?&#8221; Biden fired back.
&#8220;Yeah, you go ahead and list them,&#8221; Sanders responded.
Biden deflected, saying, &#8220;Come on, give me a break.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Biden: &quot;You get rid of the 9 super PACs you have?&quot;
Bernie: &quot;I don&#39;t have any super PACs&quot;
Biden: &quot;You have 9, you want me to list&#39;em?&quot;
Bernie: &quot;Yeah, you go ahead and list them&quot;
Biden: &quot;Come&#39;on, give me a break&quot; <a href="https://t.co/mi1YMxYPLx">pic.twitter.com/mi1YMxYPLx</a>
&mdash; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1239357845323173888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;It was unclear which groups Biden was referring to, though a number of issue-based organizations and their related super PACs have endorsed Sanders, including the immigration reform-supporting Dream Defenders Fight PAC and the environmental activism group Sunrise Movement PAC,&#8221; The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/487718-biden-when-sanders-challenges-him-on-super-pacs-give-me-a-break">reported</a>. &#8220;Our Revolution, a nonprofit that was founded by Sanders campaign surrogates after his failed 2016 White House bid, has actively supported the senator and candidates adjacent to his views, though the group is not registered as a super PAC and is instead a 501(c)(4).&#8221;

US-POLITICS-VOTE-DEMOCRATS-DEBATE

WATCH: Biden Retreats In Attack On Sanders After Getting Called Out

During Sunday evening’s Democratic debate in Washington, D.C., between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the coronavirus was a hot topic.
Near the beginning of the debate, moderator Jake Tapper of CNN asked Sanders about how the United States might avoid ending up in the same situation as Italy, where stories have emerged of a massively overburdened health care system.
“If you were president, right now, what would you do to make sure every sick American is able to get treatment so the U.S. does not suffer the same fate as Italy, where doctors have to decide right now who gets life-saving treatment and who does not?” asked Tapper.
Sanders replied, but steered clear of the portion of Tapper’s question pertaining the Italian health care system:
<blockquote>Jake, lets be honest, and understand that this coronavirus pandemic exposes the incredible weakness and disfunctionality of our current health care system. Now, we are spending twice as much per person on health care as the people of any other country. How in god’s name does it happen that we end up with 87 million people who are uninsured or underinsured – and there are people who are watching this program tonight who’re saying, “I’m not feeling well. Should I go to the doctor? But I can’t afford to go to the doctor! What happens if I am sick? It’s going to cost thousands of dollars for treatment! Who’s going to feed my kids?”
We are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people. We’re spending so much money, and yet we are not even prepared for this pandemic. How come we don’t have enough doctors? How come hospitals in rural areas are shutting down? How come people can’t afford to get the prescription drugs they need? Because we have a bunch of crooks who are running the pharmaceutical industry ripping us off every single day. And I’ll tell you something right now. In the midst of this epidemic, you’ve got people in the pharmaceutical industry who are saying, “Oh wow, what an opportunity to make a fortune.”
So the word has got to go out – I certainly would do this as President – you don’t worry, people of America, do not worry about the cost of prescription drugs, do not worry about the cost of the health care that you’re going to get because we are a nation, a civilized democratic society, everybody, rich and poor, middle class, will get the care they need. The drug companies will not rip us off.</blockquote>
When former Vice President Biden took the next question, he used it as an opportunity to jab Sanders over his previous answer.
“With all due respect to Medicare for All, you have a single-payer system in Italy. It doesn’t work there,” Biden said. “It has nothing to do with Medicare for All. That would not solve the problem at all.”
The former vice president then laid out his plan for those who need testing and treatment for the coronavirus. “It is not working in Italy right now, and they have a single-payer system,” Biden reiterated.
Sanders rebutted, saying that with the United States’ health care spending per capita, the country should be prepared:
<blockquote>One might expect that we are preparing effectively for a pandemic, that we were ready with the ventilators, with the ICUs, with the test kits that we need&#8230;
In terms of Medicare for All, despite what the vice president is saying, what the experts tell us is that one of the reasons that we are unprepared, and have been unprepared, is we don’t have a system. We’ve got thousands of private insurance plans – that is not a system that is prepared to provide health care to all people.</blockquote>
Biden hit back, saying, “That has nothing to do when you’re in a national crisis. A national crisis says, we’re responding. It’s all free. You don’t have to pay for a thing. That has nothing to do with whether or not you have an insurance policy. This is a crisis.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Bernie: &#8220;We don&#8217;t have a system&#8230; we have thousands of private insurance plans&#8230;that is not a system prepared to provide healthcare for all people.&#8221;
Biden: &#8220;That has nothing to do with a crisis. We are at war with a virus. This has nothing to do with copays or anything.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/qtuwpi3uXN">pic.twitter.com/qtuwpi3uXN</a>
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1239349422414336001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
The coronavirus, which originated in China’s Hubei province, has infected more than 158,000 worldwide and left over 6,000 dead, according to NBC News, which cites its own reports, as well as “as well as the “World Health Organization, state government leaders, and health officials.”
There have been 3,510 confirmed cases in the United States, and 67 deaths.

WATCH: Sanders Dodges When Asked About Italy’s Overwhelmed Health Care System Under Coronavirus

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden struggled early during the CNN presidential debate on Sunday night, suggesting that he did not want to argue on policy differences with Sanders, and struggled to accurately remember past epidemics.
While debating on the coronavirus, Biden said, &#8220;This is a national crisis, I don&#8217;t want to get this into a back and forth in terms of our politics.&#8221;
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&quot;I don&#39;t want to get this into a back and forth in terms of our politics.&quot; -Joe Biden <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DemDebate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DemDebate</a> <a href="https://t.co/x7124dC27B">pic.twitter.com/x7124dC27B</a>
&mdash; Francis Brennan (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@FrancisBrennan) <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancisBrennan/status/1239345762028457985?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Biden also forgot the name of the Swine Flu, calling it the &#8220;coronavirus,&#8221; and calling the Ebola crisis &#8220;what happened in Africa.&#8221;
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In the span of 10 seconds, Joe Biden:
&#8211; Mixes up the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/coronavirus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#coronavirus</a> with the swine flu 
&#8211; Mistakenly calls the H1N1 virus (swine flu) the &quot;N1H1&quot;
&#8211; Forgets the name of the Ebola virus, calling it &quot;what happened in Africa&quot;<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DemDebate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DemDebate</a> <a href="https://t.co/O5cKNBPZSH">pic.twitter.com/O5cKNBPZSH</a>
&mdash; Trump War Room &#8211; Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1239345448223113216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/where-does-joe-biden-stand-issues-heres-everything-josh-hammer">highlighted</a> Biden&#8217;s leftist policy views in a profile piece last week:
<blockquote>Economy: Biden is best described as a Keynesian who believes in the purported economic benefits of large-scale government investments and deficit spending. Along with then-President Obama, Biden shepherded through a massive fiscal stimulus package in the duo’s first year in office, oversaw the passing of the regulation-heavy Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, dramatically expanded the national debt, and hiked income taxes on the wealthy. Biden has long been supportive of a greater federal role in infrastructure spending. On the issue of trade, Biden voted for NAFTA in 1993. Biden has opposed the privatization of Social Security.
Health Care: Along with Obama, Biden helped oversee the 2010 passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare. Obamacare radically reshaped the individual market for health insurance, infamously included a tax/mandate to purchase health insurance, and generally dramatically expanded the role of government in the regulation and provision of health care. There is likely no Obama/Biden agenda item that conservatives have more consistently opposed than Obamacare. Biden has never indicated any willingness to structurally reform fiscally ruinous health care-related entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. As part of his 2020 presidential nomination platform, Biden has claimed opposition to “Medicare for All.”
Immigration: Biden voted for the George W. Bush-era Secure Fence Act of 2006, but has also consistently supported amnesty policies throughout his career — including the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 and the failed “Gang of Eight” immigration bill in 2013. Biden served as vice president when Obama issued two major unilateral executive amnesties, DACA in 2012 and DAPA in 2014 — each of which has been fiercely opposed by conservatives and has been challenged in high-profile lawsuits.
Foreign Policy: Biden has cultivated a largely dovish foreign policy profile, although he did vote in favor of authorizing the Iraq War in 2003. As vice president, Biden was a leading proponent for and cheerleader of President Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran — a deal which flushed the terror-supporting mullahs’ coffers with cash and did not place any restrictions whatsoever on Iran’s non-nuclear ballistic missile program. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Biden pushed hard for a solution to the Iraqi quagmire that divided the troubled nation into discrete Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish semi-autonomous sections. Although a self-described friend of Israel, Biden has often been harshly critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian-Arabs and <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/menachem-begin-to-joe-biden-i-am-not-a-jew-with-trembling-knees/2015/04/03/">allegedly once threatened</a> to cut off U.S. aid to Israel. Along with Obama, Biden as vice president took steps to loosen the U.S.’s longstanding embargo on Cuba, although the U.S. received no tangible concessions from Cuba’s communist dictatorship before doing so.
Abortion: Biden described himself as “personally pro-life” while nonetheless believing that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided and that women have a constitutional right to abortion. For decades, Biden supported the Hyde Amendment — which prohibits federal funding of abortion — but <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48137/watch-biden-flips-using-taxpayer-money-fund-james-barrett">flipped his position</a> in 2019 to appease the hard-left Democratic activists who now comprise the base of the party.
Guns: Biden was a leading proponent and sponsor of the federal “assault weapons” ban, a subset of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Throughout his career, he has generally been supportive of curtailing Second Amendment rights. Biden has also supported mandating five-day waiting periods for gun purchases, as well as closing the alleged “gun show loophole.” Biden supports a ban on the undefinable sub-class of firearms referred to as so-called “assault weapons” — a line of thought that, if taken to its logical conclusion, could <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42837/hammer-kamala-harriss-flirtation-banning-all-semi-josh-hammer">lead to the banning of all semi-automatic firearms in America</a>.</blockquote>
This is a developing news story, refresh the page for updates.

Biden While Debating: ‘I Don’t Want To Get This Into A Back And Forth In Terms Of Our Politics’

The Democratic presidential primary has consolidated into a showdown between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). One of the key issues on which the Democratic candidates are running is health care.
While the progressive gold standard seems to be a single-payer system, there’s a break within the party, with some preferring a more “moderate” approach to reform. Both Biden and Sanders have presented health care plans that would greatly expand the role of the federal government, and increase government spending by billions to trillions of dollars over a decade.
The “Medicare for All” plan put forth by Sanders is estimated to cost more than $32 trillion over a decade, while Biden’s plan is estimated to cost approximately $750 billion.
The Daily Wire recently spoke with health care policy expert Avik Roy about Medicare for All and the Biden plan, as well as what more conservative, free market solutions would look like. Roy is the co-founder and president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), which “conducts original research on expanding economic opportunity to those who least have it,” according to the organization’s <a href="https://freopp.org/our-mission-3b16e8e8c656">official website</a>.
In parts one and two of this interview, which you can read <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-health-care-policy-expert-talks-medicare-for-all-the-so-called-moderate-alternative-and-free-market-solutions">here</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-ii-health-care-policy-expert-talks-about-what-free-market-reform-actually-looks-like">here</a>, Roy discussed what “Medicare for All” really means, the flaws of such a system, the dangers of the “moderate” counterpoint, and what a conservative solution could look like.
In part three of this interview, Roy discusses hospital monopolization, the real progress conservatives have made on health care legislation, the pressure faced by elected officials to retain the status quo, and more.
<blockquote>DW: Is there a reason that hospitals have been able to consolidate in the way that they have, and how can we break those up?
ROY: The short answer is that both at the state level and at the federal level, the people who have the authority to regulate, to block mergers that create regional monopolies, haven’t been able to do so, for one reason or another. That&#8217;s been the first-order problem. The second-order problem is even in the occasional situation where the Federal Trade Commission or related state entities have brought lawsuits, a lot of times the courts have sided with the hospital. They said, &#8220;Oh well, you&#8217;re a nonprofit hospital, therefore you must be doing the right thing. Nonprofits can do no wrong. You’re not like the greedy for-profit people.&#8221; And that&#8217;s completely wrong. Just because you are tax-exempt does not mean you can&#8217;t be greedy.
“Nonprofit” in that sense is a bit of a misnomer. So-called nonprofit hospitals are among the most rapacious practitioners of monopoly power in the hospital sector. These are huge problems. Every year that these regional monopolies gain more power, they become harder to reign in because the more power they have, the more ability they have to influence their local politicians to do whatever they want. This has become an increasing threat to the living standards of America, the fact that hospitals are charging 8% more for the same stuff that they were doing last year simply because they have the power to do so. They’re just charging more every year. At a certain point, it becomes unsustainable. In fact, it already is.
If you actually look at the share of Americans&#8217; income that they send to the IRS, and the share of Americans&#8217; income that they send to the hospital industry, they send more of their income to the hospital industry than they do to the IRS on average. That is catastrophic. So, that can&#8217;t continue. We&#8217;re starting to see, on both the Left and the Right, constructive proposals to try to reign in hospital monopolies.
DW: What are the most prominent roadblocks to the implementation of your plan?
ROY: Well, first let&#8217;s talk about the progress. There’s actually been enormous progress in terms of developing legislation that reflects these principles. Last year, Bruce Westerman, a congressman from Arkansas, introduced the Fair Care Act of 2019, which is health reform bill that&#8217;s based on all of the principles I just described. A new version of that bill is forthcoming in the next several weeks or months that will build on the Fair Care Act of 2019, and potentially attract broader support. So, there&#8217;s real progress. There’s actually a bill now that&#8217;s online, that people can look at and critique and read and think about and add ideas to. That process has led to this second version of the bill that will be coming out in the next couple of months.
That&#8217;s the good news. The good news is that there&#8217;s a lot progress being made in turning these ideas into actual legislation that members of Congress can support and advance. As you would expect, the monopolies and crony capitalists who benefit from the current system are going to fight hard at any attempt to curtail their revenue streams. And of course people on the progressive Left are going to oppose plans like this because they strengthen and expand the role of private sector innovation in solving the problems of affordability and access to care and coverage. Those would be the two groups that you could expect to not like this approach – but there&#8217;s a lot about this approach that otherwise is pretty attractive.
It&#8217;s going to be appealing to a broad segment of the public. In order to pass health reform, it&#8217;s really important to remember, we can all throw up on a blackboard our dream system of what we think the health care system should look like, but at the end of the day, if you want to pass reform in Congress, you have to get 60 votes in the Senate. To get 60 votes in the Senate, it&#8217;s not going to be an ideological fantasy of what the health care system should look like. You have to have a reform that has enough public support that it can attract 60 votes in the Senate, and that means attracting some Democrats. Not all, but some.
The approach that we&#8217;ve designed is meant to do that. It&#8217;s meant to say, &#8220;This represents a gradual evolution of the system. It does deploy the private sector to do it, but it also achieves goals that moderate Democrats should appreciate, which is more people will be able to afford their health insurance, and there will be fewer people who will be uninsured.&#8221;
DW: Republicans don&#8217;t seem to be unifying around and really heavily promoting an alternative to what&#8217;s being offered by the other side. Why do you think that is? Is it pressure from monopolistic organizations?
ROY: There’s obviously partisan pressure to do partisan things, particularly if you&#8217;re running for president in the Democratic primary, or running for Congress in the Democratic primary. You&#8217;re going to want to do things that enable you to win that primary, so that&#8217;s going to be a more partisan ideological approach. The same is often true, obviously, in Republican primaries. The other piece of it, as you suggested, is that if you want to get elected, it&#8217;s easier to get elected if you don&#8217;t offend the powerful industry interests that otherwise could run a lot of ads claiming you&#8217;re a bad guy or bad gal.
So, don&#8217;t make waves, don&#8217;t really disrupt the status quo in terms of the crony capitalists, and that increases your chances of winning. The formula is to talk big, but not really actually do a lot to tackle hospital monopolies or other monopolies of crony capitalists, because if you really mean it, then you&#8217;re going to have those industry components and sectors against you. That&#8217;s what happened with Bernie. If Bernie had been the nominee, he would have elicited a lot of opposition from the industries that make a lot more money under the status quo than they would under Bernie&#8217;s plan, in theory.
That’s kind of the dynamic right now, but after the election, we&#8217;ll see. If Trump wins, then there are going to be more Democrats willing to come to the table and say, &#8220;Okay, we didn&#8217;t succeed in getting a Democratic president, but I still want to do work on health reforms. Let&#8217;s work together.&#8221; If Biden or some Democrat wins, and they&#8217;re approach fails to get through Congress, that could also elicit more interest in a bipartisan approach. So, the more partisan approaches have to fail for people to be willing to come to the table. That&#8217;s kind of what&#8217;s happened with Republicans.
Repeal and Replace failed, so there&#8217;s much more interest in what I&#8217;m describing in terms of a more gradual evolution to a better system. Similarly, I think the Medicare for All and public option type approaches have to fail for there to be more interest in a bipartisan approach.
DW: Is there anything that we haven&#8217;t touched on in this interview that you would want our readership to know about this particular issue?
ROY: Yeah, I would say that we haven&#8217;t really talked about what the Trump administration has already done, and what Republicans in the Senate are already trying to do to address some of these issues.
We talked about the Fair Care Act of Bruce Westerman, which is, I think, the most wide-ranging and ambitious and important attempt to achieve free market health reform, but it&#8217;s also worth nothing that there are things on a more incremental level that both the White House and the Senate are trying to do that would be helpful. The Trump administration has been trying to do a lot of work on price transparency. That could do a lot to benefit patients and businesses that are trying to keep their healthcare costs down.
The Senate Finance Committee has been doing some important work in trying to reduce Medicare spending on drugs in ways that I think are really constructive. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee – the Senate health committee led by Senator Lamar Alexander – is trying to do some good work to combat anti-competitive practices by hospital monopolies and others.
So, those are not the total solution, they wouldn&#8217;t on their own achieve free market health care, but they&#8217;re important reforms that your readers should be aware of and, in my view, get behind.</blockquote>
I’d like to thank Avik Roy for taking the time to speak about such an important issue. For more information, you can follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/Avik?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a> or visit the FREOPP website <a href="https://freopp.org/the-freopp-founders-avik-roy-53719dfcaf05">here</a>.

Healthcare.

INTERVIEW (Part III): Health Care Policy Expert Talks About Free Market Options, Cronyism, Monopolies, And Progress Already Being Made

Avik Roy

Health Care

Medicare for All

Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; (I-VT) hardcore supporters say that, despite assurances from the Democratic National Committee that left-leaning voters will fall in line behind the likely Democratic presidential nominee, they&#8217;re ready to &#8220;resist&#8221; casting a ballot for former Vice President Joe Biden, &#8220;even if that means handing [President Donald] Trump a second term,&#8221; <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/03/14/bernie-bros-warn-of-massive-exodus-if-democrats-nominate-joe-biden/">according to the New York Post</a>.
Biden pulled well ahead of Sanders in the delegate count last week after inking convincing victories in the South Carolina primary, several major Super Tuesday states, and in the all-important battleground state of Michigan, where he beat the Vermont socialist by a respectable 14 points.
But although Biden is now considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, many Sanders&#8217; supporters believe the former Veep&#8217;s remarkable comeback from near complete obscurity was orchestrated by Democratic powers-that-be and that powerful &#8220;moderates&#8221; are pressing Sanders out of competition for the nod.
They&#8217;re planning to fight back.
“We will never – NEVER boost or support Joe Biden or defend his abysmal record and terrible policy positions,” one progressive activist told the New York Post. “We will tell people, as we always have, to vote their conscience and to make decisions based on the interests of all the world’s oppressed people … I do expect a massive exodus from the Democratic Party.”
“I don’t know if I could vote for Biden,” one &#8220;high-profile local Democratic Socialist&#8221; added. “Biden is just an old white guy who inspires nobody. I sincerely think he will lose the electoral and popular vote and I know I won’t be voting for him in New York.”
The &#8220;Bernie Bros,&#8221; as Sanders&#8217; die-hard supporters are called, are notoriously aggressive, attacking Sanders&#8217; detractors on social media and, more recently, taking their opposition to the Democratic &#8220;establishment&#8221; into real life, allegedly threatening Democratic party officials and even, in one case, causing a near-riot at a Democratic party event in Nevada. Several had to be forcibly removed from the Nevada Democratic Party&#8217;s annual convention at a Las Vegas casino after throwing objects and reportedly threatening speakers who had disqualified several Sanders delegates.
In 2016, after Sanders lost the party&#8217;s presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton &#8212; a loss the &#8220;Bernie Bros&#8221; blamed on the DNC and &#8220;superdelegates&#8221; who declared their affiliation to Clinton before the primaries began &#8212; &#8220;[a] whopping 12% of them voted for Trump in 2016, according to an analysis by Cooperative Congressional Election Study. That added up to roughly 216,000 voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, exit polls showed. Trump’s combined margin of victory in those states was 77,744.&#8221;
That doesn&#8217;t change their calculus, though, the &#8220;Bernie Bros&#8221; say.
Sanders himself is staying in the race, even though it&#8217;s unlikely he&#8217;ll make up the difference in delegates between now and July. The Sanders campaign announced Wednesday that the Vermont socialist plans on attending Sunday night&#8217;s presidential debate, now moved to Washington, D.C. from Phoenix, Arizona, over coronavirus concerns, and will compete in Tuesday&#8217;s primaries (most of which are still on despite &#8220;social distancing&#8221; policies). Sanders has the money and support to remain competitive for some time, and his supporters hope that his continued presence boosts progressive influence within the party &#8212; even if Sanders&#8217; base seems smaller in 2020 than it was in 2016.
“I think staying in the race is the responsible thing to do,” one notable progresssive added. “He needs to challenge Biden on certain aspects of his rhetoric. He needs to accumulate clout and delegates to shape the Democratic platform and pressure the Biden campaign into adopting a more popular economic platform.”

Bernie Bros Warn Of A ‘Mass Exodus’ If Joe Biden Gets The Democratic Presidential Nomination

The election prognosticators at the FiveThirtyEight website estimate that former Vice President Joe Biden is ahead in the Democratic delegate race by about 150 votes — 935 to 785 for Sen. Bernie Sanders. Doesn&#8217;t that suggest a close race and a long road ahead? They say no.
Bernie is now behind 15% to 20% in the national polls, and &#8220;Sanders tends to lose more ground every time a new set of states votes.&#8221; Democrats, who treat the prospect of President Donald Trump&#8217;s reelection as a &#8220;moral 9/11,&#8221; much like his first election, want to avoid any long-running Biden-bashing feud. If the Gaffe Machine is going to win, they will rally around him. All the empty chatter about a contested convention is turning out to be ridiculous once again.
The morning after the latest primaries, on &#8220;CBS This Morning,&#8221; Hillary Clinton&#8217;s 2016 campaign manager, Robby Mook, suggested there&#8217;s no need to pressure Sanders to get out. &#8220;There&#8217;s some time,&#8221; he said. Terry Sullivan, who ran Sen. Marco Rubio&#8217;s 2016 campaign, cracked: &#8220;When Robby says, &#8216;Oh, there&#8217;s time. There&#8217;s no need to force him out,&#8217; that means he&#8217;s a zombie candidate. It&#8217;s over for him functionally.&#8221;
A big part of all of this pressure to knock candidates out of the race comes from the press. If the pack of pundits guesses you have no chance to get the nomination, it proclaims you a &#8220;zombie.&#8221; In the current design, the media elites still have more power than the voters to decide who wins. In many states, voters don&#8217;t get to cast a ballot for their favorite candidate because the press has already pushed the candidate off the track.
Growing up in Wisconsin, we cheeseheads of all stripes resented having a traditional primary in April. States with later primaries were denied the up-close drama of candidates coming through their towns and asking for their votes. Even if the candidates were from the Other Party, the drama was exciting.
The last few presidential election cycles have seemed a bit absurd. Regardless of party, 12 or 24 &#8220;contenders&#8221; get in the race for all the press attention and unwieldy debate, and an indecent fraction drops out before the first primary or caucus. Most of the remainder is gone after the first one or two primary states. It&#8217;s easy to suspect that many of these candidates threw their hat in the ring to increase their speaking fees or build their name ID and gravitas with the pundit class.
In this cycle, even here-and-gone Democrats like Reps. Eric Swalwell and Seth Moulton were awarded the mandatory CNN town hall television time. CNN would rather drop dead than give Republican candidates (or Republican voters) that kind of exposure. Then again, CNN town halls reliably limped in far behind the other cable-news shows.
Even winning early can mean nothing within days. In 2012, Republican Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses so narrowly that he was a &#8220;zombie&#8221; before they actually decided he was the winner. A similar thing happened to former Mayor Pete Buttigieg this time around — a &#8220;winner&#8221; one day and pushed off the stage soon after.
There&#8217;s no reason to mourn a Bernie Sanders failure. It&#8217;s a very encouraging sign for conservatives that enough Americans are still suspicious of those going for utopian socialist power grabs with their dishonest shtick of flashing the word &#8220;free.&#8221;
But for people who claim to defend &#8220;democracy&#8221; from dying, journalists have no reservations about rushing past the voters to quickly anoint a winner. The game is declared over before halftime. Now there are no &#8220;smoke-filled rooms&#8221; where elites pick a nominee. Today the winnowing of candidates happens live on your TV screen.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

BOZELL & GRAHAM: The Punditocracy Pushes Bernie Out

Media

Sen. Bernie Sanders said: &#8220;I believe that health care is a right of all people.&#8221; He&#8217;s not alone in that contention. That claim comes from Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives. It is not just a health care right that people claim. There are &#8220;rights&#8221; to decent housing, decent food, a decent job and prescription drugs. In a free and moral society, do people have these rights? Let&#8217;s begin by asking ourselves: What is a right?
In the standard usage of the term, a &#8220;right&#8221; is something that exists simultaneously among people. In the case of our U.S. Constitutional decree, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness imposes no obligation upon another other than the duty of noninterference.
As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess simultaneously. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.
Sanders&#8217; claim that health care is a right does impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy who gives resources to government to pay for medical services. Moreover, the money does not come from congressmen and state legislators reaching into their own pockets to pay for the service. That means that in order for government to provide medical services to someone who cannot afford it, it must use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the earnings of another American to provide that service.
Let&#8217;s apply this bogus concept of rights to my right to speak and travel freely. In the case of my right to free speech, it might impose obligations on others to supply me with an auditorium, microphone and audience. It may require newspapers or television stations to allow me to use their property to express my views. My right to travel freely might require that others provide me with resources to purchase airplane tickets and hotel accommodations. What if I were to demand that others make sacrifices so that I can exercise my free speech and travel rights, I suspect that most Americans would say, &#8220;Williams, you have rights to free speech and you have a right to travel freely, but I&#8217;m not obligated to pay for them!&#8221;
A moral vision of rights does not mean that we should not help our fellow man in need. It means that helping with health care needs to be voluntary (i.e., free market decisions or voluntary donations to charities that provide health care.) The government&#8217;s role in health care is to protect this individual right to choose. As Senator Rand Paul was brave enough to say, &#8220;The basic assumption that you have a right to get something from somebody else means you have to endorse the concept of theft.&#8221;
Statists go further to claim that people have a &#8220;right&#8221; to housing, to a job, to an education, to an affordable wage. These so-called rights impose burdens on others in the form of involuntary servitude. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, it means that another person does not have a right to something he did earn.
The provision by the U.S. Congress of a so-called right to health care should offend any sense of moral decency. If you&#8217;re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of another. When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment — &#8220;Thou shalt not steal&#8221; — I am sure that He did not mean, &#8220;Thou shalt not steal — unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress.&#8221;
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Medicare for All sign

WILLIAMS: Rights Versus Wishes

Free Speech

human rights

On Thursday, democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) violated her personal ban on Fox News and appeared on &#8220;Special Report with Bret Baier&#8221; in order to push her policy agenda in response to the coronavirus pandemic but ended up spending more time trying to explain why Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; socialist &#8220;revolution&#8221; was running out of steam.
&#8220;Hey all, wanted to drop a [post] for accountability,&#8221; the freshman representative tweeted Thursday ahead of the interview. &#8220;I usually don’t go on FOX on principle, but misinformation about coronavirus has made me concerned about risk. As a result I decided to go on [Bret Baier] to discuss coronavirus response [and] make the case for paid leave, Medicaid, etc.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Hey all, wanted to drop a📝 for accountability.
I usually don’t go on FOX on principle, but misinformation about coronavirus has made me concerned about risk.
As a result I decided to go on <a href="https://twitter.com/BretBaier?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BretBaier</a> to discuss coronavirus response + make the case for paid leave, Medicaid, etc
&mdash; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1238234456588201985?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In the interview, Ocasio-Cortez pushed for Democratic policies, including federally mandated paid sick leave and expanded Medicaid, which, Republicans have pointed out, are among the left-wing party&#8217;s larger agenda items rather than being specifically geared toward response to the COVID-19 crisis.
She also took a few shots at the U.S., saying it&#8217;s &#8220;debatable&#8221; whether America has the world&#8217;s best health care system, as noted by <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-coronavirus-fox-news-095849874.html">HuffPost</a>. Faulting the U.S. for not providing more access to COVID-19 testing, the radical rep said, &#8220;It almost seems the more wealthy and powerful you are, the more able you are to access a test.&#8221; (Full interview below.)
Following the interview, she highlighted that quote and again pushed for the expansion of coronavirus testing: &#8220;We need to dramatically expand <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" role="link" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID%E3%83%BC19?src=hashtag_click" data-focusable="true">#COVIDー19</a> testing and *processing* capacity. It’s imperative to our public health that everyone who needs a test can get it easily and for free as quickly as possible &#8211; no matter whether you’re a sports star or a single parent.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez followed that post up with a retweet of a Brian Stelter post slamming Fox News hosts: &#8220;Anonymous Fox producer: As the virus spreads, &#8216;the attempt to deflect and blame the media and Democrats from Trish Regan, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Jesse Watters, and Greg Gutfeld&#8230; is really irresponsible and hazardous to our viewers,'&#8221; wrote Stelter in the retweeted post.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
We need to dramatically expand <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID%E3%83%BC19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVIDー19</a> testing and *processing* capacity.
It’s imperative to our public health that everyone who needs a test can get it easily and for free as quickly as possible &#8211; no matter whether you’re a sports star or a single parent. <a href="https://t.co/CbEibvr8r9">https://t.co/CbEibvr8r9</a>
&mdash; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1238271978668089344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Anonymous Fox producer: As the virus spreads, &quot;the attempt to deflect and blame the media and Democrats from Trish Regan, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Jesse Watters, and Greg Gutfeld&#8230; is really irresponsible and hazardous to our viewers&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Cl1QPoMc2s">https://t.co/Cl1QPoMc2s</a>
&mdash; Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1238427822819028993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
While Ocasio-Cortez chose to make her first appearance on Fox News in order to promote her policy agenda, as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aoc-suggests-bernie-lost-michigan-by-260000-votes-because-of-democrat-voter-suppression">The Daily Wire</a> reported, she ended up finding herself explaining why the candidate for whom she&#8217;s been, as Baier put it, the &#8220;most prominent surrogate&#8221; is increasingly getting trounced by former Vice President Joe Biden in the primary.
One of the reasons Sanders is losing, Ocasio-Cortez claimed, is voter suppression in Democratic Party-run primaries.
&#8220;You did a campaign event at the University of Michigan, 10,000 people, it was rock star status, but those kids did not show up at least if you look at the numbers, just overall this race. So, how can you say the progressive position is still prevailing nationwide when Joe Biden is winning so much?&#8221; Baier asked.
&#8220;Well, I think one thing that isn’t being talked about is that rampant voter suppression in this country,&#8221; said Ocasio-Cortez. &#8220;Right there in Ann Arbor where we had that rally, those kids were waiting three hours in line to vote in Michigan. And so, when we talk about who’s turning out and who’s not turning out, we absolutely —&#8221;
&#8220;So, just to be clear, you’re saying you think voters didn’t get to vote who wanted to vote in Michigan?&#8221; asked Baier.
&#8220;Absolutely,&#8221; she replied. &#8220;Obviously, there’s more that we need to do in terms of turning out youth voters, it’s, we need to make sure we are inspiring young people to turn out, but when you do turn out, you should not be waiting three, four, seven hours in order to vote and that causes people to leave.&#8221;
Watch AOC&#8217;s interview with Baier below via Fox News:
<iframe title="Exclusive: AOC blames Bernie&#039;s lackluster performance on voter suppression" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AoESX5CpAtM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ocasio-Cortez Breaks Her Ban On Fox News To Push Coronavirus Policies, Promotes Tweet Slamming Fox Afterward

Bret Baier

Fox News

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) suggested on Thursday night that socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) lost the Michigan Democratic primary because the Democrats used &#8220;voter suppression.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez, who made the remarks during her first interview with Fox News, made the suggestion when asked by anchor Bret Baier about why she keeps saying that the far-left has a winning message when it is getting blown out all over the country.
&#8220;You did a campaign event at the University of Michigan, 10,000 people, it was rock star status, but those kids did not show up at least if you look at the numbers, just overall this race,&#8221; Baier said. &#8220;So, how can you say the progressive position is still prevailing nationwide when Joe Biden is winning so much?&#8221;
&#8220;Well, I think one thing that isn’t being talked about is that rampant voter suppression in this country,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez continued. &#8220;Right there in Ann Arbor where we had that rally, those kids were waiting three hours in line to vote in Michigan. And so, when we talk about who’s turning out and who’s not turning out, we absolutely —&#8221;
&#8220;So, just to be clear, you’re saying you think voters didn’t get to vote who wanted to vote in Michigan?&#8221; Baier pressed.
&#8220;Absolutely,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez claimed. &#8220;Obviously, there’s more that we need to do in terms of turning out youth voters, it’s, uh, we need to make sure we are inspiring young people to turn out, but when you do turn out, you should not be waiting three, four, seven hours in order to vote and that causes people to leave.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s suggestion that Sanders lost in Michigan and performed poorly in Ann Arbor because of &#8220;voter suppression&#8221; is a direct attack on the Democrat-controlled state and local goverment.
Michigan&#8217;s state government is controlled by Democrats and elections are overseen by Democrat Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, whose <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-1640_9105---,00.html">job</a> is &#8220;ensuring elections are secure and accessible.&#8221;
Ann Arbor is <a href="https://annarborobserver.com/cg/t0014.html#.XmrQI6hKiUl">also</a> controlled by Democrats.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> blames “rampant voter suppression” for Biden beating Sanders by 250,000 votes in Michigan <a href="https://t.co/idqDyjBdGv">pic.twitter.com/idqDyjBdGv</a>
&mdash; Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1238239309142073344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Earlier in the interview, Baier asked Ocasio-Cortez, &#8220;You are Bernie Sanders most prominent surrogate, was it difficult to witness his kind of swift fault from front runner status. He is almost a protest candidate now, your thoughts on that?&#8221;
&#8220;Well, I think one of the things that we saw with Bernie Sanders’s leadership, even today is how transformative it is for the American people. Just today he laid out a very strong plan in response to the Coronavirus for everyday people, for main street, not just Wall Street,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez said. &#8220;He’s talking about, how do we make sure that everyone with access to Medicare could get it and that that Medicare is improved and expanded.  How do we make sure people aren’t booted out of their homes whether it’s not being able to afford their mortgage payment this month or not being able to afford their rent payments?&#8221;
&#8220;But it does seem like Joe Biden is on his way to the nomination, are you worried he’s not going to be saying those things?&#8221; Baier pressed.
Ocasio-Cortez responded, &#8220;Well, you know, I think this part of our process is to make sure we come together, I think there’s going to be a real vigorous debate I believe on Sunday night if I’m not mistaken and part of that process means I think we will come together and I think Bernie Sanders has done a great job and is continuing to do a great job of pushing to make sure we have a party agenda that fights for working people.&#8221;

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