Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
That’s the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination right now. With less than a year to go until Election Day, no one cares — least of all Democratic voters.
Joseph R. Biden, who served as The Chosen One’s vice president, has left Democrats yawning. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who for years thought she was an American Indian (oops, turned out she’s 99.9% white), has bobbed up to the surface, but voters know the free-everything-for-everybody candidate would never win in November 2020. And Sen. Bernard “Heart Attack” Sanders, another socialist, just turned 127, so he’s going nowhere fast, too.
The race is flatlining so badly that former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — who, get this, is just a year younger than Sanders — is dipping his big billionaire toe in the race. He filed as a Democratic presidential candidate in Alabama last Friday, just under the deadline, and barely squeaked in under the wire in Arkansas, too.
And man, he jazzed the Democratic throng like no one else. To show how bored Democrats are with their field, within days, Bloomberg topped President Trump by 6 points in a hypothetical 2020 match-up, according to a Morning Consult/Politico survey released last week.
“Forty-three percent of voters nationwide said they would support Bloomberg in a hypothetical election, while 37% said they’d vote for the incumbent Republican, a 6-point advantage that matches Warren’s margin over Trump,” Morning Consult wrote.
That ecstasy lasted two days.
“The Michael Bloomberg bubble lasted all of 48 hours,” Vanity Fair wrote Monday.
“Filing papers in Alabama was a ‘trial balloon to gauge interest,’ sources told [Axios]. That the balloon seems to have popped may lead him to stay on the sidelines, as he’d initially said he’d do. His prospects are subject to change, of course; the two moderates and two progressives at the top of the field are continuing to duke it out, and Democratic voters, still battered from a stunning loss in 2016, have continued to second-guess themselves in search of the right candidate to put up against Trump.”
So far, they’ve got bupkis. No candidate is pulling away, and, in fact, Democrats are getting antsy. In a recent Fox News poll, more than 1 in 3 — 38% — Democratic voters said they wish they had more choices.
Voters can be finicky.
“Just when they start to fall in love, they find something that gets them a little nervous,” Rahm Emanuel told The New York Times on Sunday. “They’re still searching for the horse that can win.”
Or at least a horse that doesn’t have to be shot after the last leg of the race.
How bad is it? Ms. Warren played last week to a nearly empty hall in New Hampshire, where the residents live and breath politics. Fewer than 100 turned out to hear her speak. That’s bad.
Then there’s the two-time loser who never went away. Hillary Clinton, who got crushed in the Electoral College vote 304-227 last time around, is still teasing that she’ll jump into the race.
“As I say, never, never, never say ‘never,’ ” Clinton told BBC Radio on Monday when asked whether she might run. “I will certainly tell you, I’m under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it.”
Then Clinton said what all politicians say just before they jump into the race: “As of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you, that is absolutely not in my plans.”
Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats. Just 66% of the party faithful say they’re enthusiastic about the upcoming election. For the Republicans, the number is 65%.
“This differs from the typical pattern Gallup has seen over the years, whereby those who identify with the political party of the incumbent president have been less enthusiastic about voting than members of the opposing party,” Gallup wrote.
Here’s what that means: Voters in the party not currently in the White House are usually far more enthusiastic than the incumbent’s supporters. In 2000, after eight years of Bill Clinton, Republicans enjoyed a 51% to 39% enthusiasm edge. In 2008, after two George W. Bush terms, Democrats were up 14 percentage points — 73% to 59%. And in 2016, after two Barack Obama terms, the GOP led by 8 percentage points — 51% to 43%.
“History would suggest that Democrats would be more keyed up to vote than Republicans, but that isn’t the case,” Gallup said.
Biden. Warren. Sanders. Bloomberg. Clinton. That’s who the Democrats have this time around. The collective age of that pathetic lineup is 366 years old, an average of more than 73. Not exactly the “new blood” the party has been talking about for years.
But it is exactly the reason Democrats are less enthusiastic than ever about the presidential election.
*Joseph Curl ran the Drudge Report from 2010 to 2014 and covered the White House for a dozen years. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter at @JosephCurl. A version of this article ran previously in The Washington Times.

Michelle Obama Campaigns With Hillary Clinton In North Carolina

CURL: Dullest Race Ever Bores Democrats Silly As Hillary Poised For Her Encore Call

Bernie Sanders

Elizabeth Warren

Hillary Clinton

Joe Biden

Michael Bloomberg

On Monday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” the Daily Wire editor-in-chief talks about a New York Times column claiming that “multibillion-dollar fortunes” are “anti-democratic.” Video and partial transcript below: 
The Bernie Sanders attack on billionaires, and the Elizabeth Warren attack on billionaires, is cynical and just disgusting. &#8230;
Elizabeth Warren is worth $12 million, and there she is [paraphrasing]: “These rich people, these rich people, they must be stopped.” And you got Bernie Sanders, who&#8217;s basically a giant welfare queen living off the government for the last 30 years — what is he now, he&#8217;s 78-years-old — living off the government for 50 years of his life. He&#8217;s like [paraphrasing]: “Oh, well, you know, we can&#8217;t let any of these people who actually earned their wealth run anything. They shouldn&#8217;t run for office. Only I should! I&#8217;ve been useless my entire life, so useless I was kicked off a commune.” 
So you got Bernie ripping into billionaires, and then [you’ve] got Michael Tomasky over at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/opinion/billionaires-warren-wealth-tax.html">The New York Times</a> saying, “Bill Gates, I implore you to connect some dots.”
“The billionaire class has begun unloading on Elizabeth Warren.” 
You see, it&#8217;s a class now. Now, just to recognize a fact: Bill Gates is basically a lifelong Democrat. Warren Buffett is a lifelong Democrat. A lot of these, quote unquote “billionaire class members” are lifelong Democrats, people who&#8217;ve given tons of money to left-leaning causes. But they’re a class now, you see. 
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z6oi-dHemkc?start=1584" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
This is pure Marxist speak where you are judged by the basis of your income — on the basis of your wealth — not by what you think, or what you do, or how you vote, or any of that sort of stuff. George Soros is a billionaire, [and he] gives a lot of money to exactly the kinds of people that Jamie Dimon doesn&#8217;t like, so treating everybody as a class based on their income is really stupid, in any case. This dumb columnist for The New York Times says: “A few days ago, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase — at just $1.6 billion in net worth, a comparative piker — said Senator Warren &#8216;vilifies successful people.&#8217;” 
[This] is true. 
“Then Bill Gates ($107 billion), in an onstage interview with The Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin, mused about what his tax bill might be in a Warren presidency and left the door open to voting for Trump should Democrats nominate Ms. Warren.”
Which makes sense, because her wealth tax proposal is baloney. 
“And then Michael Bloomberg ($52 billion), who had previously criticized Ms. Warren as anti-corporate, signaled his intention to jump into the race, obviously out of concern at her rise.”
“I&#8217;m not expert enough to judge the wisdom of Senator Warren&#8217;s proposed wealth tax.” 
Well then, what are you writing about? Like this entire thing is about her wealth tax. 
“I know, there are questions about its constitutionality and that several European nations tried a similar approach and found it unworkable (though four countries still have it). I don&#8217;t get why the candidates aren&#8217;t simply proposing to increase marginal income tax rates on dollars earned above some very high figure. That seems a lot more straightforward to me.”
The reason — the stunning ignorance of The New York Times columnist. The reason, not to justify Elizabeth Warren, [but] the reason she&#8217;s proposing a wealth tax is there isn&#8217;t enough money at the upper end of the income bracket, in terms of income earned every year, to pay for her proposals. The wealth tax is a confiscatory, nasty tax designed to pay for her garbage proposals that amount to $52 trillion dollars in spending over the next 10 years. That&#8217;s why she&#8217;s going for the wealth tax. You can increase the marginal tax rate, [but] it ain’t going to pay for this stuff. It isn&#8217;t. But this guy says:
“So this column is not a brief for Ms. Warren&#8217;s wealth tax and for her candidacy — I don&#8217;t have a preferred candidate. Instead, I want to make a simple plea to the country&#8217;s billionaires: Multibillion-dollar fortunes are often called excessive and decadent. But here&#8217;s something they’re rarely called but ought to be: Anti-democratic. These fortunes will destroy our democracy.”
Let me get this straight. You earn a billion dollars because you have a bunch of consensual economic transactions of people, and that&#8217;s anti-democratic? What is democratic is for the government to come and seize the results of those voluntary transactions? Jeff Bezos has not seized wealth from anyone, but you want the government to do that — who&#8217;s more anti-democratic? Bill Gates has not seized wealth from anyone. In fact, he&#8217;s provided jobs to hundreds of thousands of people and indirectly, probably millions of people. You want to seize the wealth he has earned on the basis of those voluntary economic transactions — who&#8217;s more anti-democratic?
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ben-shapiro-show/id1047335260">Listen to full episodes of “The Ben Shapiro Show” on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show">Watch “The Ben Shapiro Show” on-demand!</a>

SHAPIRO: The Left Plans To Eat The Rich

Democratic Socialism

Leftism

Progressivism

Socialism

Former Vice President Joe Biden&#8217;s once-solid double-digit lead over the rest of the field of 2020 Democratic Party presidential nominees shrunk, over the past couple of months, before generally re-expanding over the past few weeks. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">Biden currently stands 6.0% above second-place Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)</a> in the average of recent national polling. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) round out the top five in most recent national polling. Increasingly, the field appears to be shaping up as a three-horse race among Biden, Warren, and Sanders, although Buttigieg has recently been surging in Iowa.
Biden&#8217;s once-formidable lead has narrowed since its high watermark in May, although it has since grown back substantially from a recent nadir of less than 1%. Warren has generally emerged over the past few months as a frontrunner, although her national polling has taken a bit of a drop over the past few weeks. Warren and Sanders seem to be competing for a very similar voting demographic, and it is interesting to ponder the possibility of how one candidate would likely be substantially elevated were the other to drop out and endorse the other. Some polling data suggests that Sanders hypothetically dropping out would help Warren more than it would help Biden. But Sanders may be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/16/bernie-sanders-isnt-going-anywhere-anytime-soon/">in this for the long haul</a>, after all.
Electoral prediction market website <a href="https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3633/Who-will-win-the-2020-Democratic-presidential-nomination">PredictIt</a> still pegs Warren as the favorite to win the presidential nomination over Biden — with Buttigieg, Sanders, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang following. But while PredictIt showed Warren with a huge lead recently, her lead has over Biden has substantially narrowed, of late. It is likely that many of these bettors are skittish about Biden&#8217;s age and perceived substantive centrism — with the latter especially worrisome among a Democratic Party base that is increasingly brazen and unabashed in its promotion of ardent, full-spectrum leftism. But to the extent Warren is any frontrunner at all, she remains an extraordinarily weak frontrunner who only seems to be getting weaker still.
The <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">RealClearPolitics</a> polling average for 10/8/19 – 11/05/19 shows Biden with an average national polling lead of 6.0%.
A recent <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/cseozthmrp/econTabReport.pdf">Economist/YouGov</a> national poll conducted from 11/03/19 – 11/05/19 showed Biden, at 26%, with a one-point lead over Warren. Warren was up 11 points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_US_110619/">Monmouth</a> national poll conducted from 10/30/19 – 11/03/19 showed Biden and Warren tied at 23%. They were each up three points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/469490-poll-biden-support-hits-record-low-of-26-percent">Hill/HarrisX</a> national poll conducted from 11/01/19 – 11/02/19 showed Biden, at 26%, with an 11-point lead over Warren. Warren was up one point on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2020-democratic-primary-2-2/">Politico/Morning Consult</a> national poll conducted from 10/28/19 – 11/03/19 showed Biden, at 32%, with a 12-point lead over both Warren and Sanders. No one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/HHP_October19_Topline_RegisteredVoters.pdf">Harvard-Harris</a> national poll conducted from 10/29/19 – 10/31/19 showed Biden, at 33%, with a 15-point lead over Sanders. Sanders was up three points on Warren and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6538104-19433-NBCWSJ-Late-October-Poll.html">NBC News/Wall Street Journal</a> national poll conducted from 10/27/19 – 10/30/19 showed Biden, at 27%, with a four-point lead over Warren. Warren was up four points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1208a32020Democrats.pdf">ABC News/Washington Post</a> national poll conducted from 10/27/19 – 10/30/19 showed Biden, at 28%, with a five-point lead over Warren. Warren was up six points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-biden-leads-nomination-race-tops-trump-by-12-points-in-matchup">Fox News</a> national poll conducted from 10/27/19 – 10/30/19 showed Biden, at 31%, with a ten-point lead over Warren. Warren was up two points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://www.investors.com/news/joe-biden-leads-elizabeth-warren-both-beat-trump-2020-election-ibd-tipp/">IBD/TIPP</a> national poll conducted from 10/24/19 – 10/31/19 showed Biden, at 29%, with a six-point lead over Warren. Warren was up ten points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
Will Warren and Biden remain the two frontrunners? Will Buttigieg or Yang catch more traction? Stay tuned.
Latest Aggregate Early State-By-State Polling Data
Iowa: Warren 21.8%, Buttigieg 17.5%, Sanders 15.8%, Biden 15.5%, Klobuchar 4.0%
New Hampshire: Warren 19.7%, Biden 19.7%, Sanders 19.0%, Buttigieg 11.3%, Gabbard 4.0%
Nevada: Biden 26.0%, Warren 19.5%, Sanders 18.5%, Buttigieg 4.8%, Harris 4.3%
South Carolina: Biden 35.0%, Warren 15.5%, Sanders 12.8%, Harris 7.0%, Steyer 4.5%
This article has been updated to reflect the most recent survey data.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate In Detroit Over Two Nights

Who Will Win The Democratic Primary? The Latest On 2020 Presidential Primary Polling.

2020 Election

Democratic Party

Pete Buttigieg

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took a page out of her presidential predecessor, Hillary Clinton over the weekend, accusing critics who say she&#8217;s &#8220;condescending&#8221; and &#8220;divisive&#8217; and that her &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; plan is poorly thought-out, of being sexist.
Both former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg &#8212; two of Warren&#8217;s rivals for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination &#8212; accused Warren of being hard to relate to in public forums last week.
Biden accused Warren of having an “angry unyielding viewpoint,” and of being &#8220;representative of an elitism that working and middle class people do not share: ‘We know best; you know nothing,'&#8221; after Warren criticized him for not embracing her unworkable, expensive &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; health plan.
Buttigieg echoed Biden&#8217;s assessment of Warren on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week,&#8221; adding that Warren has a “my way or the highway” approach to improving Americans&#8217; access to health care that lacked &#8220;humility.&#8221;
Warren&#8217;s supporters were the first to call the attacks &#8220;sexist,&#8221; <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2019/11/09/angry-and-own-elizabeth-warren-ignores-biden-implies-sexism-fundraising-note/pGGy9bf0opSKECgYtKGlkN/story.html">telling the Boston Globe</a> that Warren&#8217;s male rivals just can&#8217;t handle a woman with strong ideas.
“I think that’s just very sexist,” Peggy Mormann, a Warren supporter, told Warren&#8217;s home paper. “They realize she’s a huge threat to them.
“That happens when women lead. Men are afraid of strong women,&#8221; said another.
Warren, who has mostly avoided openly attacking her rivals for the presidential nomination, implied sexism herself in a fundraising email released last week.
“I’m angry and I own it,&#8221; Warren wrote to supporters, according to the women&#8217;s site, <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/11/8752565/elizabeth-warren-angry-joe-biden-email-response">Refinery 29</a>.
&#8220;Over and over, we are told that women are not allowed to be angry,” Warren went on. “It makes us unattractive to powerful men who want us to be quiet.” But, Warren added, she can&#8217;t help not being angry in the face of a student loan debt crisis and an unworkable health care system.
&#8220;When we see these injustices in the wealthiest country in the history of the world,” the email contined, “we should be angry.”
She coyly reiterated her claims of sexism in an interview with the New York Times Saturday. When she was asked whether she thought Biden&#8217;s &#8220;angry&#8221; comments were misogynistic.
“Why don’t you ask him that?” she quipped.
Biden, of course, contends that he&#8217;s not attacking Warren, he&#8217;s attacking her Medicare for All plan, which seems to have no basis in reality. Warren&#8217;s plan to pay for the massive government-run healthcare program still makes no sense, days later.
&#8220;I&#8217;m responding to her attack, her comments,&#8221; Biden told CNN.
Warren, like Clinton (and even Warren&#8217;s 2020 rival, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA)), clearly sees some value in charges of sexism, and it&#8217;s certainly working with her female supporters, but it may not be working with Democratic primary voters &#8212; or, at least, it may not be enough to make up for Warren&#8217;s recent polling troubles.
According to a New York Times poll last week, a more moderate, populist message is resonating for Democrats in key &#8220;battleground&#8221; states. Biden is currently the only Democratic front-runner giving President Donald Trump a run for his money in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, which Trump needs to hold on to to win re-election. Warren and Sanders are falling behind the President, and the New York Times analysts believe that it&#8217;s because Rust Belt and &#8220;battleground&#8221; state voters simply aren&#8217;t responding to their progressive agendas.
Hillary Clinton piled on Warren&#8217;s claims over the weekend, too, not to be outdone by her 2020 successors. She told a crowd in London that &#8220;social media abuse&#8221; and modern sexism are still to blame for her own loss, and could jeopardize the careers of other female politicians, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-usa-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-abuse-of-female-politicians-on-social-media-is-viral-idUSKBN1XK0NY">according to Reuters</a>.

Elizabeth Warren Echoes Hillary Clinton, Implies That Critics Are &#8216;Sexist&#8217;

Sexism

`On Friday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” the Daily Wire editor-in-chief talks about Elizabeth Warren’s new endorsement, which comes from an intersectional group with an unpronounceable name. Video and partial transcript below: 
[Elizabeth Warren] was endorsed yesterday by “Black Womxn For.” Black womex? Wimix? I don&#8217;t even know how — wimixin, which is a group that — it’s “womxn” because they don&#8217;t want to say “men,” because “men” is a very bad word. Really, they spelled women “w-o-m-x-n,” which makes it utterly unpronounceable.
It&#8217;s like [inaudible] right there, the crazed monster, the science-fiction monster from from fiction literature. Wimixin. Thank you, black wimixin — that&#8217;s how you pronounce it. Elizabeth Warren got their endorsement [and tweeted]:
“Black, trans and cis women, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I don’t take this endorsement lightly. I&#8217;m committed to fighting alongside you for the big structural change our country needs.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Thank you, <a href="https://twitter.com/BlackWomxnFor?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BlackWomxnFor</a>! Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I don’t take this endorsement lightly. I&#8217;m committed to fighting alongside you for the big, structural change our country needs. <a href="https://t.co/KqWsVoRYMb">https://t.co/KqWsVoRYMb</a>
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1192526820559785986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
Black, trans and cis women, gender nonconforming and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy? If by that, she just means like all Americans are the backbone of our democracy — sure, why not? Like you&#8217;re an American, welcome, you’re the backbone of our democracy. If she specifically means that the key to our democracy are gender nonconforming, nonbinary people, and black trans and cis women, I&#8217;m going to need her to show her work on that one. 
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5rxaf29VoHM?start=749" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Like really, if they&#8217;re more significant than — if she wants to say they’re just as significant as everybody else, yes, agree. If you&#8217;re saying that they are more— like they&#8217;re the backbone of our democracy? I&#8217;m going to need her to show me some math because I&#8217;m not not seeing how that works. But this is Elizabeth Warren’s shtick. 
Now, the problem for Elizabeth Warren, again, is that she is completely out of touch with reality. She happens to be completely inauthentic, so again, [former New York City Mayor Michael] Bloomberg jumping into the race &#8230; helps her against [former Vice President Joe] Biden, but Elizabeth Warren is not doing herself any favors.
Demonstrating once again her inauthenticity, she said yesterday at an event that if she had to choose between going out on the town and “Netflix and Chill,” she favors “Netflix and Chill.” I don&#8217;t think she knows what that means. Here’s Elizabeth Warren saying the thing: 
<blockquote>MODERATOR: Okay, Netflix and Chill, or Broadway and dinner? 
WARREN: Oh, Netflix and Chill!</blockquote>
Pretty sure she doesn&#8217;t know what that means. It doesn&#8217;t mean you only watch Netflix. Over the last several years, that term has morphed fairly significantly. But she&#8217;s with the people! Okay, Boomer. 
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ben-shapiro-show/id1047335260">Listen to full episodes of “The Ben Shapiro Show” on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show">Watch “The Ben Shapiro Show” on-demand!</a>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-anti-gun-extremist-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-preps-to-enter-2020-race-report-says">Anti-Gun Extremist Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, Preps To Enter 2020 Race, Report Says</a>

Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren Holds A Town Hall In South Carolina

SHAPIRO: Apparently, The ‘Backbone’ Of American ‘Democracy’ Just Endorsed Elizabeth Warren.

On Saturday, billionaire Mark Cuban slammed Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren for her proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy, of which <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardgleckman/2019/11/07/warrens-plan-to-double-tax-wealth-is-unrealistic/#239da85f4aaf">Forbes</a> noted, “Add them up and many of the very wealthiest could pay a marginal effective tax rate on their investments that exceeds 100 percent.”
Cuban tweeted, “The reality for <a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren">@ewarren</a> is that this is as much to divert attention from her income and net worth as anything else. Other than steyer she is the wealthiest of all the Dem Candidates. By far.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The reality for <a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ewarren</a> is that this is as much to divert attention from her income and net worth as anything else. Other than steyer she is the wealthiest of all the Dem Candidates. By far. <a href="https://t.co/IuW5pVo6Sd">https://t.co/IuW5pVo6Sd</a>
&mdash; Mark Cuban (@mcuban) <a href="https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1193241536932261889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
Cuban noted, “According to her filings she made 900k last year which means her family earns more than 2x the amount needed to be a 1 percenter. She paid 25.5% of that in taxes which is less than the % I paid in taxes (29.85%)”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
According to her filings she made 900k last year which means her family earns more than 2x the amount needed to be a 1 percenter. She paid 25.5% of that in taxes which is less than the % I paid in taxes (29.85%)
&mdash; Mark Cuban (@mcuban) <a href="https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1193241537888555009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/business/economy/warren-billionaires-wealth-tax.html">The New York Times</a> noted disapprovingly on Sunday, “Some magnates, like Mr. Buffett and Mr. Gates, have pledged to <a style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;" href="https://givingpledge.org/">give at least half of their wealth to charity</a> during their lifetimes, which still leaves them — and not the government — in control of how those vast sums will be spent.
The Times noted of Warren’s plan, “So in some cases and some years, multibillionaires could owe the government more than they made in profits. That’s because these taxpayers would be taxed at a 6 percent rate even if their portfolios held, say, Treasury bonds that paid just 2.5 percent.”
In September 2017, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/22/elizabeth-warren-confronted-over-one-percenter-sta/">The Washington Times</a> reported that Warren met WRKO radio host Jeff Kuhner and nodded when Kuhner commented, “Question: You often say, and I agree with you, that the 99 percent are getting shafted by the one percent. You live in Cambridge, you’ve got a $2 million mansion.”
Kuhner continued, “Plus you’re a multimillionaire yourself. How can you rail against the one percent, when in a sense, you are and live like the one percent?”
<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/29/schultz-warren-tax-plan-2020-1133228">Politico</a> reported in January 2019 that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz slammed Warren’s “ultramillionaire” tax, “which would create a 2 percent wealth tax on those with a net worth above $50 million and impose an additional 1 percent on net worth above $1 billion.” Schultz asserted, “However, when I see Elizabeth Warren come out with a ridiculous plan of taxing wealthy people a surtax of 2 percent because it makes a good headline or sends out a tweet when she knows for a fact that&#8217;s not something that’s ever gonna be passed, this is what&#8217;s wrong. You can’t just attack these things in a punitive way by punishing people.”
In response, Warren <a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1090252713156403200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1090252713156403200&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politifact.com%2Ftruth-o-meter%2Fstatements%2F2019%2Fjan%2F31%2Felizabeth-warren%2Fwarren-top">tweeted</a> another attack on the 1%, writing, “What&#8217;s ‘ridiculous’ is billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else. The top 0.1 percent, who&#8217;d pay my #UltraMillionaireTax, own about the same wealth as 90 percent of America.&#8221;
Cuban concluded, “Forbes says her net worth is north of $12m. That&#8217;s being rich. Filthy rich. I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s richer than she ever imagined she would be. Good for her. She earned it. It puts her millions above the threshold for being part of the richest 1 percent by net worth in our country.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Forbes says her networth is north of $12m . That&#39;s being rich. Filthy rich. I&#39;m sure it&#39;s richer than she ever imagined she would be. Good for her. She earned it. It puts her millions above the threshold for being part of the richest 1 percent by networth in our country
&mdash; Mark Cuban (@mcuban) <a href="https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1193241538987536384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Mark Cuban owner of the Dallas Mavericks watches his team from the bench during the first half against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on November 03, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Mark Cuban Slams Warren: Her Tax Plan Is To ‘Divert Attention From Her Income And Net Worth’

Mark Cuban

As the 2020 election looms closer, health care has choked out virtually every other issue to stand alone as the primary focus of several top-tier candidates in the Democratic primary race.
While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have each put forward a “Medicare for All” plan, candidates like South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden have taken a softer position, proffering smaller ideas that would reportedly cost much less.
On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to speak with health care policy expert and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Scholar Joe Antos about “Medicare for All.”
In part one of this interview, which you can read <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-health-care-policy-expert-joe-antos-breaks-down-the-dangers-of-medicare-for-all">here</a>, Antos breaks down the complexity of the current Medicare system, and discusses the damage that a “Medicare for All” system could cause, such as rationing of care, the raising of taxes on the middle class, provider flight, and innovation drain.
In part two below, Antos talks about a more “free market” approach to health care, understanding “universal” coverage, the way in which conservatives and Republican lawmakers should approach health care legislation, and the ultimate damage that a “Medicare for All” system could do.
<blockquote>DW: Is it realistic to think that someone could keep their doctor if we were to move to a “Medicare for All” system? A friend of mine from another country claims that she can see whatever doctor she wants under their plan, which is essentially a state-run plan.
ANTOS: That may be the case, as long as your doctor remains in practice. There’s a generational issue that may explain your friend’s comment. Young, healthy people typically do not have a doctor that they see regularly. In that sense, you could see any doctor you like, but you would not much care who it is. Older people or those with chronic conditions become attached to their doctors, so being able to keep their doctor is a more serious concern. One other point: older, more established doctors may be more likely to leave the active practice of medicine under a plan that sharply cuts their payments. In such a case, their patients would have no choice but to establish a relationship with a new doctor.
DW: Some people claim that the United States is a free market healthcare system, but that&#8217;s obviously not quite true. What are the differences between what we have and what a truly free market system would look like?
ANTOS: It is not very clear what people mean when they say “free market healthcare.” Our system is a mix of public and private coverage, with nearly everyone receiving a government subsidy. Private health insurance is subject to state and federal regulations, and providers are subject to licensure and other government regulations that are supposed to protect patients from unqualified providers – but also protect providers from competition. As a practical matter, government would have a role in a “free market” system, but it would be sharply reduced from what we see today.
One vision of a free market system would emphasize the role of consumers making their own decisions about their health care and bearing the full financial consequences of those decisions. Insurance would still play a financing role, with high-deductible plans accompanied by health savings accounts becoming even more common than we see today. To be workable, consumers and their physicians need information about treatment alternatives, provider performance, and cost. Both consumers and their doctors need strong financial incentives to select cost-effective care from efficient providers.
We’ve been edging our way toward a consumer-driven system for some time.
The latest Kaiser Family Foundation-HRET survey found that employer-sponsored coverage has shifted away from unmanaged fee-for-service plans. Between 2014 and 2019, enrollment in high-deductible plans with health savings accounts grew from 20% to 30% of the market. HMOs grew from 13% to 19% of total enrollment. Preferred provider organizations, which are fee-for-service plans with provider networks, shrank from 58% to 44% of total enrollment. That is a direct response by employers and employees to the high cost of unmanaged care.
However, we are sending consumers into the battle completely unarmed. It&#8217;s very hard to know what anything costs. It&#8217;s very hard to know what your insurance will pay for until after you have received the medical service. It&#8217;s very hard to judge how effective a treatment may be and whether there are alternatives that might be better. Patients depend on their physicians for good advice, and physicians often do not know whether a specialist is in your insurer’s network or what your plan will cover.
Lower back pain is a good example of the challenges we face as consumers, and how large employers are beginning to address them. In most cases, back surgery is the treatment of last resort. Patients with lower back pain need physical therapy, which in many cases will resolve the problem as long as the patient consistently follows the exercise regimen at home. Unnecessary spine surgeries are expensive, debilitate the patient for extended periods of time, and may not be effective.
Several large corporations, including Wal-Mart and Boeing, have contracted with well-known medical centers to evaluate their employees with lower back pain. Instead of an incentive to do more surgeries that is seen in unmanaged fee-for-service plans, these contracts reward appropriate care. The patients are assured that their care is being managed by high-quality providers, and the savings comes from reducing unnecessary use of high-cost treatment.
This example also highlights the critical role of the physician in guiding the patient’s decisions about the course of treatment. Health care is complex. To be successful, consumers need the guidance of their physicians, whose financial incentives should promote cost-effective care.
DW: Proponents of universal healthcare systems say that their primary goal is to get everyone covered because everyone should have good health care. What is the more optimal, free market-based plan, and how do we get there?
ANTOS: One of the things that advocates often get wrong is that health insurance does not guarantee appropriate care. The political focus for the last decade has been on expanding insurance coverage, with far less attention paid to what that coverage actually buys.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) relied on a mandate and penalties to force people to buy health insurance. Although the mandate was not effective, the idea was that the threat of a penalty would make younger, healthier people buy coverage that they would not otherwise purchase. Because premiums in the health insurance exchanges were high, coverage options were not attractive, and the financial penalty was small, exchange coverage attracted an older, sicker population.
A better approach would change the culture of health insurance. Instead of the ACA’s approach, which mandates consumers to buy expensive coverage, we could adopt automatic enrollment. Under that method, everyone would be automatically enrolled in a high-deductible health plan financed by restructuring existing federal health insurance subsidies. Consumers would not be charged a premium for this basic plan, but they could buy better coverage if they wished to. Anyone not wishing coverage could drop out, but few would take the time to do so. This approach makes insurance coverage the default without imposing unaffordable costs on consumers.
Under automatic enrollment, everyone would be eligible for a basic subsidy tied to their income level. Catastrophic expenses would be covered, but the benefit could be expanded to allow free or low-cost primary care. Covered California, which operates the ACA exchange in that state, requires all plans to offer such basic services, which has helped promote enrollment.
Implementing automatic enrollment would not be as difficult as skeptics think, but enrollment would take time to expand. Uninsured people who should be automatically enrolled can be identified through normal interactions with state and local government agencies. Enrolling a child in school, getting a driver’s license, voting, and other activities can be used to enroll the uninsured in this default system. Similarly, public health clinics and hospital emergency rooms can help enroll people who otherwise do not have coverage.
Automatic enrollment is not an instant solution, but it is also not disruptive. The measure of success is not how many people are newly covered by the default plan in any one year. Instead, the goal is to set up a process that will eventually cover everyone without locking them into unaffordable plans.
DW: Do you think Conservatives need to be more aggressive in offering their own solutions, instead of just pointing out the flaws in “Medicare for All” style systems?
ANTOS: Conservatives should offer their own proposals, but to be useful, the proposals need to be developed carefully. All too often, proposals focus on broad themes without the detailed specifications to implement those themes through legislation. It is important to work through the implications of one’s proposal to avoid overlooking problems that could make it technically and politically unworkable. The flight of Democrats from Elizabeth Warren’s plan demonstrates the importance of thinking through the details, and not ignoring the potential for a negative response from the public.
Republicans have too often reacted to Democratic initiatives rather than taking positive actions of their own. I think that partly explains the 2017 collapse of repeal and replace efforts in Congress. Well-developed conservative proposals can fill the policy void, but they must be realistic about how much any single piece of legislation can change the system. Realistic proposals should build on the best of what already exists, rather than pretending that we can start with a clean slate.
It&#8217;s very important to move away from simply reacting, and embrace a positive political approach. In my opinion, that means supporting the goal of making affordable coverage available to everyone. Affordability is not measured solely by the subsidies that help people pay for insurance, although subsidies targeted on those most in need are an essential part of any reform. We also have to improve the efficiency of the system to slow the growth of health spending, without rationing care and driving out innovation.
This takes hard work. The emphasis by liberals on expanding coverage is the easier message. Improving system performance is much more complicated, and that is what conservative proposals should focus on.
DW: What damage, aside from fiscally, could a “Medicare for All” system cause to patients, to doctors, etc?
ANTOS: I see a large waiting room filled with millions of people as doctors decide that another line of work makes more sense. Seriously, we will have growing access problems. The promise of free health care means that patients will have no financial reason to question whether a service is necessary. The reality of reduced provider payment rates means that physicians will have a strong incentive to try to make up their income losses by providing more services, especially those services that Medicare overpays. We could see increases in the volume of services that are not very effective, not very harmful to the patient, and more highly remunerative than more necessary care.
The broader effects on the economy could be very damaging. Warren has admitted that thousands of people now employed in the health industry would lose their jobs, but she claims that they will just shift to good jobs in other industries. That’s not so simple if you don’t have the skills needed for that next good job. If it exists. That’s the rub. Warren’s proposals to tax companies, individuals with high incomes, and wealth would create a serious drag on the economy. What she overlooks is that those taxes will take vast sums out of more productive sectors and pump it into the notoriously inefficient health sector. By and large, the wealth of this country goes into productive investments that create jobs, largely outside the health sector.
Access to care will become more difficult once it becomes “free.” The fiscal drag from “Medicare for All” will result in lost jobs and lower productivity, economy-wide. Business investments that would have been made in the U.S. will move to other countries with more favorable tax codes. It is not unreasonable to expect a recession that we might not recover from unless we come to our senses about our health system. Nearly one-fifth of our economy is in the health sector. That provides plenty of leverage for bad health policy to do serious damage.</blockquote>
I’d like to thank Joe Antos for speaking with me about such a critical issue. For more information, check out Antos’ profile on the American Enterprise Institute’s website <a href="https://www.aei.org/profile/joseph-antos/">here</a>, and follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/joeantos?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter.</a>

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

INTERVIEW (Part II): Health Care Policy Expert Joe Antos On The Harsh Realities And Dangers Of ‘Medicare For All’

Health Care

Medicare for All

As the 2020 election looms closer, health care has choked out virtually every other issue to stand alone as the primary focus of several top-tier candidates in the Democratic primary race.
While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have each put forward a “Medicare for All” plan, candidates like South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden have taken a softer position, proffering smaller ideas that would reportedly cost much less.
On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to speak with health care policy expert and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Scholar Joe Antos about “Medicare for All.”
In part one of this two-part interview, Antos breaks down the complexity of the current Medicare system, and discusses the damage that a “Medicare for All” system could cause, such as rationing of care, the raising of taxes on the middle class, provider flight, an innovation drain, and more.
<blockquote>DW: “Medicare for All” is said by many people, especially on the Left, to be popular among Americans. Is this true, and if so, why do you think that is?
ANTOS: Well, if it is popular, it&#8217;s because people don&#8217;t actually understand what the consequences would be for them personally. Opinion polls conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and other organizations ask for respondents’ reactions to “Medicare for All” without explaining what that could mean in terms of access to care or higher taxes. The public at this point is responding to a phrase that sounds good but might not be. Would “Medicare for All” actually be something that people would welcome? I think the answer is no – based on what we already know about Medicare.
The traditional Medicare program is a not a great insurance program. Medicare’s structure is extremely complex, unlike any other health insurance available today. Its benefits are not up to the level most middle-class people receive through their employer plans. The program is hard to navigate, and most beneficiaries rely on supplemental coverage to fill in Medicare’s gaps.
To give you a few examples. Most private insurance requires a single annual deductible – perhaps $1,000 or $2,000 for a family plan. Medicare has multiple deductibles. If you are admitted to a hospital, you pay a deductible, which is $1,364 this year. If you are admitted again more than 60 days later, you pay another $1,364 deductible. You are also liable for coinsurance starting at $341 a day if you are in the hospital for more than 60 days. There’s another deductible of $185 for physician and other services under Part B, and 20% coinsurance after you’ve satisfied the deductible.
That’s a sharp contrast with typical private coverage. If you were used to paying $20 for a visit to the doctor under your private insurance before you turned 65, Medicare’s high cost and arcane rules would come as a shock. Your out-of-pocket costs under Medicare are both expensive and unpredictable. There are arbitrary limits on what Medicare will cover and how long that coverage lasts, and those limitations vary by the type of medical service. It’s a very confusing program.
This is one of the reasons why Medicare Advantage (MA) has grown rapidly, especially over the last decade. About 35% of Medicare beneficiaries are in MA plans, which are all structured similarly to the kind of coverage you had when you were working. MA generally offers better benefits than traditional Medicare, and it&#8217;s in one easy-to-understand package. Traditional Medicare, by contrast, requires seniors to work their way through a maze of rules that frankly baffles experts, not just the average person.
Warren and Sanders only want parts of Medicare in “Medicare for All.” They would dispense with the success of private plans in containing program costs, and extend Medicare price controls to the entire health sector. They would add benefits and eliminate premiums and cost-sharing, opening the door to a massive increase in the use of services. Even most contenders for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination know that won’t work.
The Kaiser Family Foundation polls demonstrate another important point about the public’s views. If asked how they feel about a “public option” or an “optional federal plan,” responses are much more favorable than for “Medicare for All.” The public likes the idea that there might be an alternative that might be better, but they don&#8217;t want to be forced into it because it might not be better. That says to me that the average person is leery about taking government promises at face value.
Anyone who has employer coverage knows what to expect. You may not be totally thrilled by it, but you know what it is. To be told that you will lose that coverage and be enrolled in a new, uncertain government plan is a disruption that many people would not welcome. Despite the enthusiasm from some on the Left, that&#8217;s not a positive political message.
DW: Sen. Elizabeth Warren&#8217;s plan is said to cost an additional $20.5 trillion over the first decade, and it would require major legislation to be passed, such as immigration reform. Sanders&#8217; plan would cost roughly $32 trillion, and he says middle class taxes would go up. Can you talk about that?
ANTOS: The Warren and Sanders plans are basically the same. Everyone would be enrolled in the government plan, and benefits would be expanded well beyond Medicare’s benefits to include dental, hearing, vision, and long-term care services. As a result, the bottom line cost would be about the same – about $32 trillion over the next decade. That’s the additional amount the federal government would have to pay to finance “Medicare for All” over the next decade.
Warren’s $20.5 trillion is lower only because it assumes some questionable sources of savings that total about $12 trillion. Her plan assumes that the federal government would receive the full amount state and local governments now pay for Medicaid and insurance for employees. Some spending would be reduced due to lower administrative costs. Health care providers would be paid substantially lower rates than they now receive from private insurers.
Warren’s plan would pay physicians and most other providers Medicare rates, which are about 40% below commercial rates. Recognizing that hospitals are a more potent political force, her plan offers hospitals 10% more than Medicare rates. That would have a devastating effect on many small and rural hospitals, many of which likely would be forced to close without additional subsidies. This proposal would directly challenge two of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington. That probably isn&#8217;t going to work out too well.
The remaining $20.5 trillion would be financed by a raft of new taxes. Nearly $9 trillion would be collected from employers to capture the amount they contribute to their employee’s health plans. The proposal also increases taxes on wealth, large corporations, financial transactions, and assumes increased tax revenue as a result of higher wages paid to workers who no longer have employer coverage. It is clear that the middle class will foot much of the bill for Warren’s proposal.
DW: If somehow the “Medicare for All” plans are paid for, is there a fear that talented surgeons, doctors, and even prospective surgeons and doctors who are planning to enter into medical school, might choose a different career path because those jobs won&#8217;t pay as much anymore?
ANTOS: That’s a legitimate concern, and we see this happening already. There is high demand for highly-trained physicians in roles that do not involve the direct delivery of care to patients. The hours are better, and the pay is good. That shift would certainly increase.
Delivering health care is not an easy job. It&#8217;s very time-consuming. There&#8217;s administrative hassle, which would not decrease under “Medicare for All.” At the end of the day, you&#8217;ve got to keep your business going, and now they&#8217;re going to cut your rates. For many providers, that would not make sense.
Young people would be less likely to go to medical school under such circumstances. Just as important, the health sector would be less attractive to investors who finance research that can lead to the next innovation in health care. This is a concern raised about pharmaceutical research, but it spans all of heath care. New diagnostic methods and new treatment approaches can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our health system. Those advances will be less forthcoming under “Medicare for All.”
DW: If there&#8217;s a type of doctor, say a therapist, that doesn&#8217;t accept insurance currently because they don&#8217;t make enough money from it, and they just accept check or cash payments, how would they be affected under a “Medicare for All” system? Would they be able to keep their practice going, or would they have to accept insurance?
ANTOS: That&#8217;s a difficult question to answer. Sanders is clearer about this than Warren. He flat out says that private health insurance would be banned by law. The only services that could be offered by private providers would be ones not covered by “Medicare for All.” That would restrict private health care to a narrow range of services, such as elective cosmetic surgery, which is generally not covered by insurance now. The market for such limited services is very small.
The bread and butter of health care would be delivered under the government plan, without a private sector alternative. It might be possible for some providers to establish concierge practices that accept only cash customers, but few people would be able to afford this. It seems likely that proponents of “Medicare for All” would try to outlaw such work-arounds, arguing that everyone should access health services on the same terms with no exceptions.
DW: What the proponents of “Medicare for All” systems continuously say is, &#8220;Yes, you may pay more in taxes, but the overall cost will go down.&#8221; What do you say to that?
ANTOS: Some people will gain financially, some will lose. Where you come out depends on many factors, including your income, the generosity of your previous coverage, and your health status. Warren says she will tax the rich without increasing taxes on the middle class. That doesn&#8217;t mean the middle class won&#8217;t pay more in taxes. They certainly will. There just isn&#8217;t enough money from taxes on high-income people and wealth to finance the kind of expansions they&#8217;re talking about.
For the middle class, it is a close call. If you are likely to use expensive medical services and your previous coverage required significant out-of-pocket payments, you are more likely to save money looking narrowly at health costs. However, even in that case, you could end up with higher total costs when taxes are taken into account. The amount you currently contribute to your employer premium would become taxable income, and the employer tax is actually a tax on part of your total compensation – so you pay that as well.
A major goal of both proposals is income redistribution through the health system. Low-income people who are not eligible for Medicaid would have their medical bills paid. High-income people would see their taxes increase. But everyone would face longer waiting lines to access medical services. We can look to Canada to see that.
We&#8217;re also going to lose access to services that simply won&#8217;t be there because we will not have put the investment in, and nobody on the private side will take the risk.
DW: I was talking to a friend of mine from Canada who said that her mother had a ligament injury in her knee, and she had to wait six months to get an MRI. Despite the injury being terribly painful, it wasn&#8217;t life threatening, so they pushed her down the waiting list. On the other side of that, I have friends from Italy, from Canada, from the U.K. who have told me that they love their medical systems.
ANTOS: People&#8217;s attitudes about their health system depend on their expectations and, for many, whether they had a good experience the last time they needed care. Americans have high expectations. The British may be less demanding, partly because Britain is a less wealthy country and people may be more willing to wait for services. Opinions in other countries have no bearing on how a government health system would be viewed here.
The example of a torn ligament is revealing. If you are in pain and are told to wait for treatment, you won’t be happy regardless of your nationality.
Sally Pipes, the president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute in California, is Canadian. She has pointed out that a dog would have more rapid access to an MRI than a human Canadian. The reason is that veterinary care is not part of the Canadian health system, and the private market responds to consumer demand. Moreover, since veterinary care is not subsidized by the government and insurance is not involved, prices are lower – reflecting what pet owners are willing to pay. Fido does not wait in line even though his owner does.</blockquote>
In part two of this interview, which will be released on Sunday, Antos talks about a more “free market” approach to health care, understanding “universal” coverage, the way in which conservatives and Republican lawmakers should approach health care legislation, the ultimate damage that a “Medicare for All” system could do, and more.

Bernie Sanders &#038; Elizabeth Warren.

INTERVIEW (Part I): Health Care Policy Expert Joe Antos Breaks Down The Dangers Of ‘Medicare For All’

To say there&#8217;s a lack of enthusiasm for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates would be a grand understatement.
And in South Carolina, apparently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not so popular.
The Massachusetts Democrat hawking the $52 trillion Medicare-for-all program spoke Friday evening at an &#8220;Environmental Justice&#8221; forum in the state. From photos of the event, it looks like dozens came, maybe 100 tops. Shots from the back of the auditorium show a sea of empty seats.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
ORANGEBURG — Elizabeth Warren takes the stage at an Environmental Justice forum in South Carolina before a sparse audience. Tom Steyer spoke before her; numerous rivals skipped it. <a href="https://t.co/CJnoCuNheF">pic.twitter.com/CJnoCuNheF</a>
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 9, 2019</blockquote>
Voters didn&#8217;t pack in for Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), either. From pictures, it looks like only three rows at the front were filled, with smatterings of attendees in higher rows.
&#8220;Cory Booker is up, opening with a joke about how 2020 isn’t the year of the election, it’s the number of people running in the Democratic primary,&#8221; wrote Kapur, national political reporter for Bloomberg News.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Cory Booker is up, opening with a joke about how 2020 isn’t the year of the election, it’s the number of people running in the Democratic primary. <a href="https://t.co/bfwZBeJZI7">pic.twitter.com/bfwZBeJZI7</a>
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 9, 2019</blockquote>
Four other also-rans attended the forum: former members of Congress John Delaney and Joe Sestak; the billionaire Tom Steyer; and author/debate star Marianne Williamson.
Warren has been rising in the polls, catching and then passing former Vice President Joe Biden, who had been expected to walk away with the nomination. But there is concern within the Democratic Party that she is too liberal to beat Donald Trump in November 2020.
Recently, she&#8217;s scrapped with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who said he could well vote for Trump if Warren is the  nominee. Warren is pushing an &#8220;ultra millionaire tax&#8221; that would apply a 2% annual tax on households with a net worth between $50 million and $1 billion.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve paid over $10 billion in taxes,&#8221; the multi-billionaire said Wednesday. &#8220;I&#8217;ve paid more than anyone in taxes. If I had to pay $20 billion, it&#8217;s fine,&#8221; Gates said.
But Gates, who Forbes magazine places second on the world&#8217;s wealthiest list at $97 billion, said &#8220;when you say I should pay $100 billion, then I&#8217;m starting to do a little math over what I have left over.&#8221;
And the billionaire also said he&#8217;s &#8220;not sure how open-minded she is, or that she’d even be willing to sit down with somebody, you know, who has large amounts of money.&#8221;
Warren not only wants to spend hundreds of billions to offer free college to all Americans, she also wants to spend trillions on climate change and that $52 trillion on nationalized health care.
Under the plan, no one would have &#8220;to pay for premiums or copays or any of the other ways health insurance companies stick you with the bill,&#8221; Warren says on her website. &#8220;Medicare for All doesn’t raise middle-class taxes by one penny.&#8221;
Questions emerged immediately on how to pay for the program. Said Warren: &#8220;The $11 trillion in household insurance and out-of-pocket expenses projected under our current system goes right back into the pockets of America’s working people,&#8221; Warren writes. &#8220;And we make up the difference with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and by cracking down on tax evasion and fraud. Not one penny in middle-class tax increases.&#8221;
&#8220;How is it all paid for? Well, if you’re not in the top 1%, Wall Street, or a big corporation—congratulations, you don’t pay a penny more and you’re fully covered by #MedicareForAll,&#8221; Warren wrote on Twitter.

Democratic Candidates Attend Presidential Forum On Environmental Justice In South Carolina

Warren Plays To Nearly Empty Hall As Enthusiasm Wanes For Democratic Candidates

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren made remarks about illegal immigration during a town hall in North Carolina on Friday that are likely to turn off voters across the political spectrum.
During the first exchange, a Hispanic woman who spoke through a translator asked Warren if she would deport illegal aliens who had criminal records.
Transcript of the first set of Warren&#8217;s remarks that are likely to be problematic for her:
<blockquote>Translator: I have two questions. If you become president, will you pass a moratorium on deportations? And, if the answer is yes, will you be willing to include people like my husband with criminal records as part of that moratorium?
Warren: I am so sorry for the troubles that you and your five children face. So, I am open to suspending deportations particularly as a way to push Congress for comprehensive immigration reform. I believe that what we&#8217;re doing right now with ICE focusing on people who do not pose a threat &#8230; that they do not make this country safer.</blockquote>
The woman, through her translator, stated that her husband has a criminal record and Warren responded by saying that she was open to not deporting people with criminal records and suggested that targeting people like that for deportation does &#8220;not make this country safer.&#8221;
A Harvard/Harris from June 2019 found that the majority of Americans support mass deportations of all illegal aliens, not just those who have criminal records.
While there were no easily accessible polls asking voters whether they supported deporting criminal illegal aliens, a Gallup poll from a few years ago asked Americans:
<blockquote>Would you favor or oppose each of the following as part of legislation to address the issue of illegal immigration? How about &#8212; Allowing illegal immigrants already in the country the opportunity to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements over a period of time, including paying taxes and a penalty, passing a criminal background check and learning English?</blockquote>
Gallup received the following results from the question:
<ul>
<li>National adults- Favor: 88%. Oppose: 12%.</li>
<li>Non-Hispanic Whites- Favor: 87%. Oppose: 13%.</li>
<li>Blacks- Favor: 89%. Oppose: 10%.</li>
<li>Hispanics- Favor 92%. Oppose 8%.</li>
</ul>
The fact that nearly 9 out of 10 of all Americans support illegal aliens needing to pass a criminal background check to become a U.S. Citizen likely means that there is a high possibility that a very high percentage of Americans would also oppose allowing criminal illegal aliens to remain in the United States.
Transcript of the second set of Warren&#8217;s remarks that are likely to be problematic for her:
<blockquote>Warren: We need ICE and Customs and Border Patrol just focused on real threats from terrorism, threats container shipping that comes into the United States, contraband that we need to worry about, fentanyl that we need to be focused on. there are places that we should focus for our safety.
&#8230;
The Trump administration&#8217;s notion of anyone who has violated any law means that they can&#8217;t even be considered to stay is wrong. I don&#8217;t know the particular circumstances in your case, but I do know because I&#8217;ve met people who are now held because they had a traffic violation and that&#8217;s how they got picked up and then once they got swept into the system ICE is trying to deport them or has deported people. That&#8217;s fundamentally wrong. People who have been treated as criminals simply for having crossed the border, this is part of why I have supported decriminalizing border crossings.</blockquote>
Warren&#8217;s claim that &#8220;we need ICE&#8221; is supported by the majority of Americans, but is not supported by the majority of Democrats. In fact, &#8220;a plurality of Democratic voters do support abolishing ICE,&#8221; according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/11/immigration-ice-abolish-poll-708703">poll</a>.
Warren&#8217;s support for decriminalizing border crossings is overwhelmingly opposed by the majority of Americans, according to a NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll.
The poll found that 66% of Americans said that it was a bad and the <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/854249/even-most-democrats-dont-support-decriminalizing-border-crossings-poll-finds">majority</a> of Republicans and Democrats said that they were opposed to the idea.
In a separate interaction during the townhall, Warren answered a question from a man who asked about providing health care to illegal aliens.
Transcript of the third set of Warrens&#8217; remarks that are likely to be problematic for her:
<blockquote>Questioner: I need to ask you a question today about healthcare access. restrictions to ADA and Medicare meant that in 2017 approximately 6.3 million non-citizen immigrant women of reproductive age were far more likely to be uninsured than naturalized immigrants or citizen women. we know that you have included undocumented people in your plans to provide Medicare for all. so, my question is, why did you decide to include people regardless of immigration status and would this include obtaining subsidies like the Affordable Care Act&#8217;s affordability subsidies? and second, would you also support access to the children&#8217;s health insurance program without regard to immigration status?
Warren: Okay, good. so, let&#8217;s start, I know I&#8217;m really glad you asked this, on Medicare for all, as I put this together, covers everyone regardless of immigration status and that&#8217;s it.</blockquote>
Warren&#8217;s support for giving illegal aliens is overwhelming <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/854249/even-most-democrats-dont-support-decriminalizing-border-crossings-poll-finds">opposed</a> by the majority of Americans, 62%, who say that it is a bad idea. The only demographic that was in favor of the idea was Democratic voters, although moderate Democrats did not support the idea.

New Warren Remarks On Illegal Immigration Likely To Turn Off Both Sides

Immigration

On Thursday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” Knowles talks about Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) endorsing Elizabeth Warren for president. Video and partial transcript below: 
Big endorsement for Elizabeth Warren. You saw a few weeks ago, AOC and Ilhan Omar, and who&#8217;s the other one? Whatever, the other member of the &#8220;Squad&#8221; — Rashida Tlaib &#8230; they were coming out for Bernie Sanders, but one member of the &#8220;Squad&#8221; was not coming out for Bernie. That was Ayanna Pressley, the Ringo of the squad, and she is coming out now for Elizabeth Warren. Here she is: 
<blockquote>PRESSLEY: The American people deserve to be represented by elected officials who see them, who listen to them, and who fight for them. I have seen Elizabeth in small church basements and in packed gymnasiums, and she is consistent: She never loses sight of the people. You&#8217;ve all heard about the senator&#8217;s plans, but here&#8217;s the thing, the plans are about power. Who has it, who refuses to let it go, and who deserves more of it. 
For Elizabeth and for me, power belongs in the hands of people. That&#8217;s why she&#8217;s fighting for fundamental change that restores power to those who&#8217;ve been left behind and centers those who&#8217;ve never had access to it in the first place. This election is a fight for the very soul of our nation. Elizabeth knows how to fight, and she knows how to win. 
I&#8217;m proud to call her my senator; I can&#8217;t wait to call her our president. I&#8217;m Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and I represent the Massachusetts 7th Congressional District, and I&#8217;m proud to endorse Elizabeth Warren for president.</blockquote>
Okay, so this is a good pickup for Elizabeth Warren; however, it&#8217;s not the same as AOC and Ilhan Omar endorsing Bernie Sanders. Why not? Because Ayanna Pressley sort of had to endorse Elizabeth Warren, because Ayanna Pressley is a congressman from Massachusetts and Elizabeth Warren is a senator from Massachusetts. So it’s just, these are people who&#8217;ve worked together, they share a constituency, it just looks much better for her to back the person from her own state. Also, Elizabeth Warren has momentum now, so she&#8217;s finally willing to get on board. 
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zx6wAbhGQqw?start=1323" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
I suspect if Ayanna Pressley were not from Massachusetts, she might withhold an endorsement — maybe she would have gone to Bernie Sanders. It&#8217;s a much bigger deal when you get the endorsement on the basis of ideology, and not really just on geography or opportunism, and that&#8217;s what happened when AOC backed Bernie and when Ilhan Omar backed Bernie Sanders. 
Still a good win for Elizabeth Warren, and she&#8217;s trotting this out now because the race is starting to heat up, and you&#8217;re starting to see people snipe at one another, and because, as we said a couple of days ago on the show, Elizabeth Warren has made her decision. She was debating — is she going to try to fight off Joe Biden, or is she going to try to fight off Bernie Sanders? Is she going to steal Biden&#8217;s moderate voters or is she gonna steal Bernie&#8217;s socialist voters? She&#8217;s made her choice. 
She&#8217;s running as a leftist, and she&#8217;s going to let Pete Buttigieg try to fight it out to win the moderate lane. She&#8217;s going to the Left, she&#8217;s now advocating a $52 trillion health care program. She is trotting out endorsements from socialists, she&#8217;s going all the way left. You know, it&#8217;s a bold strategy, Cotton, we&#8217;ll see how it turns out for her. 
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-michael-knowles-show/id1266577963?mt=2">Listen to full episodes of “The Michael Knowles Show” on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show">Watch “The Michael Knowles Show” on-demand!</a>

Elizabeth Warren Campaigns With Rep. Ayanna Pressley In North Carolina

KNOWLES: The Ringo Of ‘The Squad’ Endorses Warren. This Isn’t Surprising.

Ayanna Pressley

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) suggested on Thursday that he is not opposed to asking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to be his running mate in the event that he secures the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2020.
&#8220;You said Elizabeth Warren is a friend of yours, you say you have a similar approach on &#8216;Medicare for All,'&#8221; host Mehdi Hasan asked Sanders during an appearance on his &#8220;Deconstructed&#8221; podcast. &#8220;Would a presidential candidate Bernie Sanders be open to Elizabeth Warren as his running mate?&#8221;
&#8220;Elizabeth Warren is somebody that I have worked with for many, many years. I had worked with her before she was a United States senator,&#8221; Sanders replied. &#8220;So obviously if I am fortunate enough to become the Democratic nominee and president of the United States, I would look absolutely to Elizabeth Warren as somebody who would play a very, very important role in everything that we&#8217;re doing.&#8221;
Hasan pressed Sanders further on whether, in a time when Democrats have been heavily focused on identity politics, he would be OK with an all-white or all-male presidential ticket.
&#8220;It is too early to talk about it, but I do believe — let me just repeat what I have said many times — my administration and my Cabinet will look like America. It will be the most diverse administration and the most diverse Cabinet this country has ever seen. We are proud of our diversity. I am the proud son of an immigrant and I think when people look at our Cabinet and our administration, they will say, &#8216;Hey, that&#8217;s what America looks like.'&#8221;
Both Sanders and Warren have notably been shying away from attacking each other while they compete in the progressive lane for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. They have also been repeatedly asked to explain what sets their far-left campaigns apart from each other, but have consistently dodged providing an answer.
Sanders&#8217; remarks coincidentally come on the same day that Warren was also questioned about the diversity of her potential presidential administration. While speaking at North Carolina A&amp;T University, the Massachusetts senator revealed that she might tap some of her Democratic primary rivals.
&#8220;One of the values of this country should be diversity, so when you think about the makeup of your Cabinet, what three African-Americans do you feel like you have to have in your Cabinet?&#8221; CNN&#8217;s Angela Rye asked Warren.
Warren immediately responded that she wanted to refrain from naming people because she is currently running against some of them in the primaries. After Rye again asked for her to name three potential nominees, Warren put forth former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and some of the presidents of historically black colleges and universities.
&#8220;I&#8217;m trying to think, because I&#8217;m trying to stay outside the current Washington part,&#8221; Warren said. Where is the best place to go for Cabinet members? You know it&#8217;s to have people who are in the fight.&#8221;
&#8220;People like Melody Barnes, my friend of more than 20 years who has been in this fight from the beginning, who under President [Barack] Obama was a domestic policy adviser,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;Someone like Melody, who may not be as well known to this crowd, but who is out there fighting every day for money for higher education, money for public schools. So that&#8217;d be somebody I&#8217;d love to have in a Cabinet.&#8221;

Celebrity Sightings In New York City &#8211; October 19, 2019

Bernie Sanders Isn&#8217;t Ruling Out A Sanders-Warren 2020 Ticket

Hillary Clinton is full of advice for the field of candidates competing for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but it&#8217;s not always (okay, it&#8217;s rarely) useful or realistic, and usually centers mostly on avoiding the influence of Russia on campaigns, social media, third party candidates, the White House, and maybe even the supply of toilet paper in her Chappaqua home.
But Wednesday, Hillary Clinton, appearing at the New York Times&#8217; DealBook conference, had some decent words of wisdom for her 2020 successors: let go of progressive politics, especially &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; and economy-crippling wealth taxes, before they tank your presidential chances.
&#8220;I think the debate within the Democratic Party is a very healthy debate to try to figure out how to achieve the goal of covering everybody with quality, affordable health care,&#8221; Clinton offered, after being asked what she felt about Sen. Elizabeth Warren&#8217;s (D-MA) Medicare for All plan.
&#8220;My view on this, having been working on it for many years now, is that the Affordable Care Act took us to 90 percent of coverage, the highest we have ever gotten in our country after many, many efforts &#8230; we have a 10-percent gap to fill and we have a lot of learning to do about the best way not only to fill the gap but then to drive down costs as much as it&#8217;s possible to do so without undermining quality advancements,&#8221; she continued.
She&#8217;s right, but perhaps not in the way she thinks. The Affordable Care Act brought coverage up to 90% by instituting a penalty for not purchasing health insurance. The penalty was intrusive and, ultimately, forced those who did not want insurance to purchase plans that became increasingly expensive as more people joined the insurance pool. For those consumers who did not qualify for subsidies, plans could cost upwards of $10,000 per year, some with deductibles of nearly $15,000.
But that doesn&#8217;t change that her advice is shockingly prescient.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe we should be in the midst of a big disruption while we are trying to get to 100-percent coverage and deal with costs and face some tough issues about competitiveness and other kinds of innovation in health care,&#8221; she continued, still railing at Warren&#8217;s plan.
Then she went after Warren&#8217;s wealth tax, which could alienate Democratic donors who are concerned about its effects on the economy, and could prove rather difficult to enforce.
&#8220;I just don&#8217;t understand how that could work,&#8221; she added. &#8220;And I don&#8217;t see other examples anywhere else in the world where it has actually worked over a long period of time. I would be all in favor of reinstating the estate tax because that is much more measurable. It is not as disruptive.&#8221;
&#8220;If you were going to do a wealth tax and it was on assets &#8230; how you would value it is, I think, complicated to start with,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;But, assuming you can get some system of evaluation, people would literally have to sell assets to pay the tax on the assets that they owned before the wealth tax was levied. That would be incredibly disruptive, so I think there are other ways to raise the revenues.&#8221;
Warren&#8217;s supporters are likely to be non-plussed by Clinton&#8217;s criticism &#8212; after all, they probably believe she is part of the &#8220;establishment Democrat&#8221; problem, rather than the progressive solution. Warren might be advised to take Clinton&#8217;s advice. A recent New York Times poll showed Warren trailing President Donald Trump in so-called &#8220;battleground&#8221; states, where her economic message isn&#8217;t resonating with more moderate voters.

Hillary Clinton To Democratic Presidential Candidates: Cool It On &#8216;Medicare For All&#8217;

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) broke with the other members of her so-called &#8220;Squad&#8221; on Wednesday after she publicly announced her official endorsement of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for president in 2020.
&#8220;The American people deserve to be represented by elected officials who see them, who listen to them, and who fight for them,&#8221; Pressley said in a one-minute video posted to social media. &#8220;I have seen Elizabeth in small church basements and in packed gymnasiums, and she is consistent. She never loses sight of the people.&#8221;
&#8220;You have all heard about the senator&#8217;s plans, but here is the thing, the plans are about power &#8212; who has it, who refuses to let it go, and who deserves more of it,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;For Elizabeth and for me, power belongs in the hands of the people, that is why she&#8217;s fighting for fundamental change that restores power to those who have been left behind and centers those who have never had access to it in the first place.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Big structural change can’t wait. <a href="https://t.co/8Sanof9COD">pic.twitter.com/8Sanof9COD</a>
&mdash; Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) <a href="https://twitter.com/AyannaPressley/status/1192132941335449601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 6, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The endorsement comes after the fellow members of her &#8220;Squad&#8221; of freshman Democrats, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), all threw their support behind Warren&#8217;s progressive 2020 presidential nominee counterpart, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Both Sanders and Warren have been competing for the far-left lane in order to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
As Pressley remained the only member of the quartet not to publicly back Sanders, speculation mounted over who would ultimately receive her support. She revealed to the Associated Press on Monday that she was being courted by multiple 2020 Democratic candidates — including Warren, Sanders, and even former Vice President Joe Biden — in an attempt to gain her endorsement.
However, after she was pressed on her impending endorsement, a spokesperson for the congresswoman released a statement saying that while she &#8220;has tremendous respect for her sisters-in-service &#8230; ultimately, these political decisions are made as individuals.&#8221;
Pressley is slated to join Warren on the campaign trail later in the week, when the presidential hopeful holds a town hall meeting at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
As Warren continues to struggle to appeal with African-American voters, Pressley&#8217;s endorsement could potentially be instrumental in gaining traction among black Americans. Pressley is considered a rising star within the Democratic Party and is the first black woman to represent Massachusetts in the United States Congress.
Pressley won a stunning upset victory during the 2018 midterm election cycle, when she edged out 10-term incumbent Rep. Mike Capuano (D-MA) in the Democratic primary. Warren notably refrained from endorsing either candidate in the election despite most of the Massachusetts congressional delegation backing Capuano.
&#8220;This election is a fight for the very soul of our nation,&#8221; Pressley said, in what some consider to be a slight at Biden. &#8220;Elizabeth knows how to fight and she knows how to win. I am proud to call her my senator and I can&#8217;t wait to call her our president.&#8221;
&#8220;Big, structural change can&#8217;t wait,&#8221; she added. &#8220;Let&#8217;s get to work.&#8221;

House Oversight And Reform Committee Hears Testimony From Patients On The Impact Of Rising Drug Prices

WATCH: Ayanna Pressley Breaks With Squad And Endorses Elizabeth Warren For President

Former vice president Joe Biden is taking advantage of new revelations, uncovered by a New York Times poll published earlier this week, and attacking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), his closest competitor for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, over her &#8220;elitism.&#8221;
Writing on the crowdsourced content site, Medium, Biden called Warren “condescending,&#8221; and labeled her approach an “angry unyielding viewpoint.&#8221;
“Some call it the ‘my way or the highway’ approach to politics,” Biden wrote. “But it’s worse than that. It’s condescending to the millions of Democrats who have a different view. It’s representative of an elitism that working and middle-class people do not share: ‘We know best; you know nothing.’ ‘If you were only as smart as I am you would agree with me.’ This is no way to get anything done.”
He repeated the comments at a fundraiser Tuesday night in Pittsburgh, adding some off-the-cuff remarks responding to Warren&#8217;s assertion last week that Biden is running in the &#8220;wrong presidential primary,&#8221; because he insists on adopting a more moderate view of things like health care and student loan forgiveness than Warren and the rest of the party&#8217;s progressive wing.
“I have fought for the Democratic Party my whole career,” Mr. Biden wrote on Medium. “I know what we stand for, who we stand with and what we believe. And it’s not just policies or issues. It’s in my bones. That’s not something everyone in this primary can say.”
At the fundraiser on Tuesday, he added, “I’ve been a Democrat my whole life. This person has only fairly recently in the mid-’90s become a Democrat,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/politics/joe-biden-elizabeth-warren.html">according to the New York Times</a>.
The recent, public feud between Warren and Biden, opened up after Warren accused Biden of &#8220;repeating Republican talking points” in reference to her nonsensical &#8220;Medicare-for-All&#8221; plan that could cost trillions of dollars and has little support from Democrats overall &#8212; unless those &#8220;Democrats&#8221; happen to be progressive social media denizens.
Warren has prickled at the &#8220;elitism&#8221; insult before, and her only way of dispelling the criticism seems to be an increased aggression towards the corporate and financial sectors, something that isn&#8217;t winning her much love from big money Democrat donors.
JP Morgan&#8217;s Jamie Dimon weighed in on Warren&#8217;s angry rhetoric toward Wall Street <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/jamie-dimon-says-sen-elizabeth-warren-vilifies-successful-people.html">in an interview with CNBC</a> this week, noting that Warren has a habit of &#8220;vilifying&#8221; successful people. Another report that surfaced this week indicates that Democrats with connections to the financial sector are withholding donations from the Democratic Party writ large, leaving leaders like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) scrambling to distance the party from Warren&#8217;s rhetoric, at least privately.
Biden&#8217;s strategy here, though, may not be just to draw his closest political rival into an open feud in the hopes of winning over potential Democratic primary voters: he&#8217;s also listening to messages being sent by Rust Belt and &#8220;battleground state&#8221; voters.
According to groundbreaking poll from the New York Times, released on Monday, Biden &#8212; not Warren, as conventional wisdom would believe &#8212; is the only Democrat giving President Donald Trump a run for his money in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania &#8212; the same states that handed Trump his victory in 2016.
It may be that Biden&#8217;s messages of economic populism and moderate liberalism are resonating in those states but, more likely, it&#8217;s simply that Warren&#8217;s message, targeted at the left wing of the Democratic Party, just isn&#8217;t. For Biden to gain ground on Warren, he needs to hammer home that he&#8217;s the more likely candidate to defeat Trump, and the only way to do that is to embrace voters that are likely to view Warren as out of touch &#8212; and there&#8217;s no better way to do that than focus heavily on Warren&#8217;s weakenesses.
&nbsp;

Joe Biden Shreds Elizabeth Warren&#8217;s &#8216;Elitism,&#8217; Makes A Play For Red States

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been on a crusade to force social media platforms like Facebook to crack down on political ads, claiming that lenient ad policies, like the one Facebook employs, allow political campaigns to lie about key issues, creating confusion.
But her concerns seem to end at social media political ads she disagrees with. When Twitter announced a crackdown on political ads &#8212; like the one Warren is pushing for Facebook &#8212; Warren lashed out at the social media platform for censoring important content because Twitter&#8217;s definition of &#8220;politics&#8221; includes contentious issues like &#8220;climate change.&#8221;
&#8220;Twitter&#8217;s new ad policy will allow fossil fuel companies to buy ads defending themselves and spreading misleading info—but won&#8217;t allow organizations fighting the climate crisis to buy ads holding those companies accountable. We need accountability,&#8221; the Democratic presidential contender wailed in a tweet.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Twitter&#39;s new ad policy will allow fossil fuel companies to buy ads defending themselves and spreading misleading info—but won&#39;t allow organizations fighting the climate crisis to buy ads holding those companies accountable. We need accountability. <a href="https://t.co/B9RtX7hC5g">https://t.co/B9RtX7hC5g</a>
&mdash; Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1191814840731480064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Just last month, Warren, of course, made the opposite argument against Facebook, buying an intentionally misleading political ad on the social network to demonstrate that Facebook does not adquately police purchased content.
The ad started with a claim that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had endorsed Donald Trump and ended with the Massachusetts Democrat revealing that her ad had been deliberately fabricated to demonstrate what could get by Facebook&#8217;s ad censors.
&#8220;You&#8217;re probably shocked,&#8221; the ad read. &#8220;And you might be thinking, &#8216;how could this possibly be true?&#8217; Well, it&#8217;s not.&#8221;
We intentionally made a Facebook ad with false claims and submitted it to Facebook&#8217;s ad platform to see if it&#8217;d be approved,&#8221; Warren later tweeted. &#8220;It got approved quickly.&#8221;
She then accused Facebook of prioritizing profits over quality and honesty, eventually even moaning that the social network was &#8220;taking money to promote lies.&#8221;
Facebook responded that, &#8220;FCC doesn&#8217;t want broadcast companies censoring candidates&#8217; speech&#8221; and &#8220;[w]e agree it&#8217;s better to let voters &#8212; not companies &#8212; decide.&#8221;
Twitter seems to be taking the opposite view, announcing last week that it would be policing all political content &#8212; including issue-based content &#8212; on its platform in an effort to curb the spread of misinformation.
&#8220;We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,&#8221; Twitter&#8217;s CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted last Wednesday. &#8220;A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.&#8221;
&#8220;Political advertising,&#8221; Jack went on, includes &#8220;issue ads.&#8221;
&#8220;We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we&#8217;re stopping these too.&#8221;
That includes, per Twitter&#8217;s policies:
<blockquote>1/ Ads that refer to an election or a candidate, or
2/ Ads that advocate for or against legislative issues of national importance (such as: climate change, healthcare, immigration, national security, taxes)</blockquote>
Essentially, Dorsey&#8217;s rationale is the same as Warren&#8217;s: social networks should take responsibility for misinformation being spread on their network by actively policing content. The only way to do that is either to allow all political and issue content or to ban all political or issue content. Facebook chose the former and earned Warren&#8217;s ire. Twitter chose the latter and, well, also earned Warren&#8217;s ire.
The only difference with Twitter&#8217;s policy is, of course, that it actively prevents Warren&#8217;s allies from purchasing ads promoting their particular political ideas &#8212; and she certainly doesn&#8217;t like that.
Unfortunately for speech purists, it seems Warren&#8217;s concerns struck a chord with the leftist mob on Twitter and Dorsey was backed into a corner. Responding to Warren, he said that the rules were not yet official and that he and his team were taking their concerns under advisement: “We haven’t announced our new rules yet. They come out 11/15. Taking all this into consideration.&#8221;

Irony: Elizabeth Warren Slams Twitter&#8217;s Political Ad Ban Because It Covers Climate Change

Facebook

Twitter

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) criticized Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren&#8217;s (D-MA) sweeping Medicare for All proposal on Tuesday, warning Americans that it will not end up looking like how she is describing it to be.
&#8220;Elizabeth Warren, this past weekend, came out with her health care plan and it is not surprising that it took so long for her to come out with it because it is dishonest and it is from fantasy land,&#8221; Barrasso told reporters during a press conference at the Capitol.
&#8220;She wants a complete takeover, by government, of American health care and if you are one of the 180 million Americans who gets your health insurance through work, you will lose it,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;And you will be forced on your one-size-fits-all health care government-run plan. And under this plan, two million Americans will lose their jobs.&#8221;
Warren recently outlined her single-payer health insurance plan, which is reported to carry a price tag of $52 trillion over the next decade, including $20 trillion in new spending. The Massachusetts lawmaker has not only claimed that middle class Americans won&#8217;t bear any of the tax increases to fund it, but also stated that it can be covered just by the billionaires in America.
&#8220;When you take a look at the costs and the taxes, they are so astronomical that now the Democrats are pushing the panic button,&#8221; Barrasso said. &#8220;In terms of the costs, it is going to cost more over the next 10 years than we were planning to spend on Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid combined.&#8221;
&#8220;And in terms of the taxes, the taxes she is proposing are on top of the taxes she&#8217;s already proposed to pay for her universal childcare, and for giving back money and forgiving college debt,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;And then on top of this, she wants to unleash the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, to crack down on all American taxpayers.&#8221;
This is not the first time that the Wyoming senator has sounded the alarm on a Medicare for All program — Barrasso <a href="https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=22EC1A5A-7243-41BA-BB07-27B50A8B32C6">took to the Senate floor</a> earlier in October to explain how the proposed universal health insurance &#8220;scheme&#8221; would be detrimental to Americans.
Prior to Warren introducing her own proposal, she was campaigning in support of legislation that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced into the Senate during his 2016 presidential campaign, and that he continues to endorse. Both Sanders and Warren have been competing for the far-left lane in order to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
While Sanders has been relatively open about his impending tax increases, Warren has steered clear of broaching the subject. She finally outlined last week how she would pay for her plan, putting forth a combination of federal and state spending that already exists on Medicare — as well as a host of new taxes on capital gains, financial transactions, employers, large corporations, and elsewhere.
However, a <a href="http://www.crfb.org/papers/choices-financing-medicare-all-preliminary-analysis">study</a> by the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget contended that it would be &#8220;impossible&#8221; to fund Warren&#8217;s Medicare for All plan by simply taxing the wealthy, as she initially claimed.
&#8220;Do not be deceived,&#8221; Barrasso said. &#8220;If you are an American, under the Elizabeth Warren health care plan you will pay more, you will wait longer for worse care.&#8221;

Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren Holds Town Hall In Norfolk, VA

GOP Senator Slams Warren&#8217;s Medicare For All Plan As &#8216;Fantasy Land&#8217;

The following is satirical.
Elizabeth Warren has released details of her health care plan. The plan, entitled “Pay Now, Die Later,” is estimated to cost $56 billion in added expenses, but Warren says that will be paid for with a tax on billionaires as soon as they return from their tax-free retreats in the Cayman Islands.
Warren says not a single penny of the plan will be paid for by the middle class because we’re all in this together and no one will be left behind and it’s time to make a difference and, yeah, the middle class will basically be taxed out of existence paying for the whole thing.
On the positive side, Warren says that, under her plan, instead of being ripped off by private insurance companies who take your money and then fail to pay when catastrophic illness strikes, you’ll be ripped off by the United States Government who’ll take your money and then turn every hospital into a cross between the VA and the DMV so that you wait in line so long you finally beg to die, whereupon they kill you and congratulate themselves on their fast, efficient service. After all, Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself.
What’s more, the Warren plan will increase the efficiency of doctors by bathing them in magic efficiency dust which will cause them to forget they have no reason to be more efficient because the government will pay them the same thing no matter what. Plus, everyone will be healthier because of public service announcements telling them not to eat eggs until we find out eggs are good for you when there will be announcements telling you to eat eggs, but too late, since you’ve already died from too few eggs, thus saving government money and providing a much-needed tax break to the middle class who did I mention will be paying for the whole thing.
When asked what will happen to the millions of people currently employed in the insurance industry, Warren said none of them would suffer, but would instead be put painlessly to sleep like everyone else on government health care.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/klavan-nyt-columnist-calls-collapse-of-american-christianty-overstated-hes-got-a-point">KLAVAN: NYT Columnist Calls ‘Collapse’ Of American Christianity ‘Overstated.’ He’s Got A Point.</a>

Elizabeth Warren Delights Democrats With Hilarious New Health Plan [Satire]

Satire

Wall Street bankers and financial bigwigs are scaling back their donations to the Democratic Party, according to a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/04/wall-street-shuns-chuck-schumer-donation-requests-as-elizabeth-warren-surges.html">new report from CNBC</a>, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is likely to blame.
CNBC reports that Wall Street executives have told Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the primary recipient of their largesse, that they are temporarily restricting their generosity over &#8220;their concerns with Warren becoming a front-runner in the race for the party’s presidential nomination.&#8221;
It&#8217;s a move likely to have direct consequences. Democrats want to retake the Senate and keep the House in the 2020 elections &#8212; in addition to winning back the White House &#8212; and without big money donors, major gains in either house of Congress are unlikely.
More moderate Democrats may be in deep danger, too, if they aren&#8217;t cashing Wall Street checks. Many of the Democrats who count on Wall Street money to finance their campaigns are facing primary challenges from the left, and the lack of cash on hand leaves them vulnerable to Democratic socialist candidates who can run on shoestring budgets with the help of national non-profits.
And that&#8217;s the point, it seems, according to CNBC.
&#8220;The move is intended to put pressure on party leadership and Schumer, who represents New York and has received millions of dollars in donations from Wall Street, to distance themselves from Warren’s economic populism,&#8221; the outlet reports.
The plan is also to force Democrats to shy away from adopting Warrren&#8217;s platform, which includes &#8220;breaking up&#8221; big banks, punishing Wall Street investors, and hiking taxes on both income and capital gains. Even if she doesn&#8217;t happen to be the nominee, its clear Wall Street is concerned her ideas could catch on.
“They feel, rightly or wrongly, attacked. Not just that there will be higher taxes, but that she is running her entire campaign as them being boogeymen,” an anonymous source, familiar with the issue, told CNBC. “They don’t feel safe going to Trump, they feel disillusioned by Biden and they see this as a tactic to slow her down. They see it as a way to put pressure on the party as a whole to move away from Warren.”
Warren probably isn&#8217;t concerned about the lack of cash flow from Wall Street; she&#8217;s made turning down their donations &#8212; and all other corporate donations &#8212; a hallmark of her campaign (even though she&#8217;s created a backdoor system where those same donors can fund Warren-aligned PACs and pressure groups). And she might even be amused &#8212; after all, the move does seem to prove her point about how tied the Democratic Party is to Wall Street cash.
Neither Warren nor Schumer were inclined to comment on the issue, but they may not have much to worry about. According to a New York Times poll released yesterday, Warren, despite being in the lead among Democratic primary voters in some all-important early primary states, clearly isn&#8217;t the best choice for Democrats looking to unseat President Donald Trump next November. Former vice president Joe Biden is the only candidate giving Trump a run for his money in battlgeround states.

Report: Wall Street Cutting Off Donations To Dems Over Warren&#8217;s Rhetoric

Wall Street

On Monday, at an event in Grinnell, Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren, apparently careening more wildly toward the hard-left every day, seemingly agreed with the perspective of a fervent leftist who posited that the United States supported genocide, caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Venezuelans by sanctioning the brutal government of Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro every day, and was the biggest polluter in the world.
The questioner ranted, “But the office of president also has an amazing responsibility to people outside of the United States, given the power of the position. And right now the United States is bombing at least seven countries. We support genocides in Palestine and in Yemen.”
Warren, pacing back and forth, nodded.
The questioner continued, “The U.S. military is actually the biggest polluter of any organization in the world. And we also work in more clandestine ways. Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs reported that between 2017 and 2018, United States&#8217; sanctions on Venezuela caused over 40,000 deaths.”
This is the same Trump-hating Jeffrey Sachs who <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/01/opinions/trumps-insane-trade-war-sachs/index.html">wrote for CNN</a> in June 2018, “Maybe Donald Trump really is the Manchurian Candidate, a stooge of some foreign potentate. Much more likely, Trump is just mentally unstable and narcissistic.”
Additionally, even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/world/americas/venezuela-police-abuses.html">The New York Times</a> reported in July about the nefarious Venezuelan government, &#8220;Venezuelan special forces have carried out thousands of extrajudicial killings in the past 18 months and then manipulated crime scenes to make it look as if the victims had been resisting arrest, the United Nations said on Thursday in a report detailing wide-ranging government abuses targeting political opponents.&#8221;
The questioner went on, “And we also have sanctions on many other countries, like Iran, North Korea, and you can name many more. So I’m wondering, as president, will you stop U.S.-supported murder, whether its through sanctions, arms support …”
Warren replied, “So, I like your frame on this.”
She continued, ‘You know, here’s how I see this. We want to be a great nation, lead the world? Then we need to live our values every single day.”
Warren did not confront the questioner about his claim that Israel was committing genocide; she did not confront his claim that the U.S. was killing tens of thousands of Venezuelans; she did not confront him over his opposition to U.S. sanctions on Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, or North Korea, the site of the world’s most repressive and brutal regime.
Warren has already come forth against Israel; as The Daily Wire’s Josh Hammer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyMOT_2sZ4Q">recently noted, asserting: </a>
<blockquote>Elizabeth Warren is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination in a year in which the Democratic Party has just gone crazy. &#8230; [Warren] hired someone named Max Berger as one of her progressive campaign outreach chairs. Max Berger is a co-founder of a despicable, far-left, self-hating, Jew-hating group, IfNotNow. IfNotNow is so radically left that they <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hellenized-jews-ifnotnow-protesters-disrupt-josh-hammer">protest Shabbat services</a>— for Jews observing Sabbath. They&#8217;ve been known to say Kaddish, the traditional Jewish mourners prayer, for Hamas jihadists who have been fired at or had been killed by IDF rocket fire.</blockquote>
Warren said recently that she supported cutting off aid to Israel under some conditions, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/following-liberal-democrats-warren-has-moved-left-on-israel">saying,</a>&#8220;If Israel’s government continues with steps to formally annex the West Bank, the U.S. should make clear that none of our aid should be used to support annexation.”
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jiJe_PDapBE" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Menu

Elizabeth Warren

Articles tagged with Elizabeth Warren

CURL: Dullest Race Ever Bores Democrats Silly As Hillary Poised For Her Encore Call

SHAPIRO: The Left Plans To Eat The Rich

Who Will Win The Democratic Primary? The Latest On 2020 Presidential Primary Polling.

Elizabeth Warren Echoes Hillary Clinton, Implies That Critics Are ‘Sexist’

SHAPIRO: Apparently, The ‘Backbone’ Of American ‘Democracy’ Just Endorsed Elizabeth Warren.

Mark Cuban Slams Warren: Her Tax Plan Is To ‘Divert Attention From Her Income And Net Worth’

INTERVIEW (Part II): Health Care Policy Expert Joe Antos On The Harsh Realities And Dangers Of ‘Medicare For All’

INTERVIEW (Part I): Health Care Policy Expert Joe Antos Breaks Down The Dangers Of ‘Medicare For All’

Warren Plays To Nearly Empty Hall As Enthusiasm Wanes For Democratic Candidates

New Warren Remarks On Illegal Immigration Likely To Turn Off Both Sides

KNOWLES: The Ringo Of ‘The Squad’ Endorses Warren. This Isn’t Surprising.

Bernie Sanders Isn’t Ruling Out A Sanders-Warren 2020 Ticket

Hillary Clinton To Democratic Presidential Candidates: Cool It On ‘Medicare For All’

WATCH: Ayanna Pressley Breaks With Squad And Endorses Elizabeth Warren For President

Joe Biden Shreds Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Elitism,’ Makes A Play For Red States

Irony: Elizabeth Warren Slams Twitter’s Political Ad Ban Because It Covers Climate Change

GOP Senator Slams Warren’s Medicare For All Plan As ‘Fantasy Land’

Elizabeth Warren Delights Democrats With Hilarious New Health Plan [Satire]

Report: Wall Street Cutting Off Donations To Dems Over Warren’s Rhetoric

WATCH: Questioner Says U.S. Supports Genocide. Warren: ‘I Like Your Frame On This’