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One lesson of the past few weeks is that the Medicare-for-all debate has become a minefield for Democrats and its not clear that any candidate has a safe path through it.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has dropped 14 points since October 8, when she briefly led the Democratic field in the RealClearPolitics polling average. Most attribute her decline to her handling of Medicare-for-all the financing plan she released made her the target of attacks from the moderates, and then the transition plan she released, which envisions a robust public option in the first year of her presidency and only moving to Medicare-for-all in year three, left single-payer advocates unnerved about her commitment to the cause.

Then, on Tuesday, Sen. Kamala Harris dropped out of the race. Medicare-for-all had bedeviled Harriss campaign from the start. She was a co-sponsor of Sen. Bernie Sanderss bill and entered the race in January with a surprisingly full-throated endorsement of abolishing private insurance. Under criticism, Harris walked that back, eventually releasing a Medicare expansion plan with a long transition, dodgy financing, and a reimagined role for private insurers. The combination of policy reversals and botched rollout left Harris pinched between the moderates and the leftists, and undermined faith in her ability to govern on the issue Democrats rate as most important.

Id argue that Warren and Harris made the same mistake: they treated a question of symbolic politics like a problem of policy design. In Democratic Party politics, Medicare has become a which-side-are-you-on test. Are you with Sanders and the left, and against insurance companies, squishy moderates, commodified health care, and a politics of preemptive compromise? Or are you afraid that Sanders and the left are going to scare the country into reelecting Donald Trump and set health care reform back for a generation?

This is a fundamentally political question, and splitting the difference through complex acts of technocracy ends up alienating both sides. And I say that as a technocrat who thinks Warrens transition plan makes sense on its own terms and thought Harris ended up with a more interesting plan than she got credit for essentially inverting the debate by proposing a public health insurance system with a private option. But the reaction to both plans makes clear they missed the point.

The ferocity of this debate is at odds with the legislative reality. Even if a Democrat wins, Medicare-for-all will not pass the House and it will not pass the Senate. Im not a big fan of Medicare for All, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. When I interviewed the key Senate Democrats who will write the next health reform bill, none of them supported Medicare-for-all or believed it could pass.

The primary itself has been evidence of Medicare-for-alls long odds: A number of the co-sponsors on Sanderss bill, like Harris and Sen. Cory Booker, have made clear they dont actually support it as written. And a number of other senators the bill would need, like Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet, have come out in direct opposition to the legislation. Medicare-for-all would be a difficult lift even if the Democratic Party was united; its not going to pass with the party divided.

Democrats are setting themselves up for disillusionment, and possibly disaster. Either they will nominate a candidate who cannot deliver on their central policy promise or they will nominate a candidate whose victory will be a betrayal of liberal activists top policy priority.

So whats the way out?

On one level, I think this positions Sanders as perhaps Democrats best hope as a unity candidate. He is more acceptable to more Democrats than the elite conversation admits as political scientists John Sides and Lynn Vavreck show, a plurality of Biden supporters list Sanders as their second choice.

But Sanders also has a unique level of credibility with the partys more ideological left wing. His commitment to Medicare-for-all is sufficiently steadfast that leftists will believe him if and when he has to convince them that the compromised bill Congress is prepared to pass is the best bill theyre going to get. He wrote the damn bill; he might be the only one who can cut the damn deal. And if Sanders was able to get an ambitious Medicare-for-more plan through Congress and make it look like a compromise, itd be a tremendous legislative coup.

On the other hand, Warrens tumble will add to worries that Medicare-for-all makes Sanders an uncertain bet to win the presidency, and potentially boost former Vice President Joe Biden, who already leads among voters worried about electability.

The attacks on Medicare-for-all in the primary are a shadow of what would come in a general election, when the entire Republican Party, the entire health industry, and much of corporate America will devote billions of dollars to a 24/7 campaign of fearmongering and disinformation that dwarfs the genteel debates among the Democrats.

Theres a belief on the left that Medicare-for-all is extremely politically popular, and full-throated support for it is a political winner despite all the attacks that Republicans and industry will throw at it. The primary has been a soft test of that question. Warren and Sanders are the national advocates complete with large bases of support and the ability to command media coverage the policy never had in the past. The criticisms, meanwhile, are coming from other Democrats who at least claim to support Medicare-for-all as a goal, even if they favor a more incremental path on both substantive and political grounds.

The result is that net approval of Medicare-for-all has fallen 24 points among Democrats, and is underwater with both independents and Republicans. Part of the reason, surely, is that the health industry is running ads against the idea in early primary states. But that just underscores the point: Its hard to look at the polling of both Medicare-for-all and its advocates and be confident public support would hold under the kind of assault in the offing.

Adding to the trouble, a recent analysis by political scientist Alan Abramowitz found that Medicare-for-all was a liability for House Democrats who supported it in 2018. Even controlling for factors like the partisan lean of the district, political spending, and incumbency, candidates that backed Medicare-for-all performed significantly worse than those that didnt. Its hard pinning down causality when youre dealing with events as messy as House races, but Abramowitzs work will worry vulnerable congressional Democrats even as a big portion of the liberal base is making Medicare-for-all into the key litmus test.

Where does this leave Democrats? Im not honestly sure. The primary is riven by a deep, substantive disagreement over both the politics and the policy of health care. And theres good evidence that bitter primaries really do hurt parties in the general election. But the candidates whove tried to bridge the divide have suffered for their efforts. The party is likely to have to choose one path or the other, and the choice is going to hurt.

But itd be an awful legacy for the 2020 field if the fight between Medicare-for-all and Medicare-for-more ended up empowering the Republican agenda of Obamacare for none and Medicaid for fewer.

Read more:
Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and the 2020 Democrats Medicare mess - Vox.com

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Liberals are overreaching with impeachment, just like they did in my recall. It could cost them the 2020 election.

On Nov. 2, 2010, I won the first of three elections for governor in Wisconsin. That same day, someone registered the domain name RecallScottWalker.com. They were out to get me from day one. This is one of many striking similarities between the current impeachment process in Washington and the recall election in Wisconsin.

Since Donald J. Trump was elected president on Nov. 6, 2016, liberals have been preparing to impeach him. I remember running into protesters in Washington, D.C., the day after the inauguration. They had a massive march less than 24 hours after he took office.

In Wisconsin, I took office on Jan. 3, 2011. More than 100,000 protesters eventually occupied our state Capitol.

U.S. Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, is now pushing for impeachment for this fourth time. He started in 2017. Earlier this year, he said, Im concerned that if we dont impeach this president, he will get reelected. Hours after being sworn into Congress, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib said, Were gonna impeach the motherf

The night when President Trump gave his first address to a joint session of Congress, I was on television with host Neil Cavuto. He mentioned that several members of Congress were going to boycott the speech and asked if I had ever heard of such a thing. I said, yes! He laughed. I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Shortly after the protests started, 14 Senate Democrats left the state to block a vote on our reforms. They fled to the neighboring state of Illinois (where they must have felt welcome as left-wing politicians who were afraid to make decisions to balance the budget and improve the economy). When I gave my budget address to the members of the state Legislature, all the Senate Democrats were gone.

[My favorite bumper sticker after we won said: 1 Walker Beats 14 Runners.]

After months of saying that an impeachment process must be bipartisan to move forward, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry on the day President Trump spoke to the United Nations in New York City. She had not even seen the transcript of the call with the president of Ukraine yet she was announcing an inquiry.

During the protests in Wisconsin leading up to my recall election, numerous voices on the left suggested that the effort might backfire. They urged Democratic leaders to wait for the 2014 reelection and use the energy of the protests to elect a Democratic governor.

Like Mrs. Pelosis switch, liberal extremists took over the movement. They wanted blood and they wanted it right away.

Many of these activists lived in liberal enclaves like Madison, Wisconsin. Years ago, then-Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus called the capital city, 30 square miles surrounded by reality. The only thing that had changed since then was the size of the city.

One of the few supporters I had on the staff of the University of Wisconsin Madison told of how depressed he was on campus and around town. Everywhere he looked there were Recall Walker signs. His attitude changed when he and his wife took a drive to a town miles away. Once they crossed the county line, they began to notice We Stand with Walker signs everywhere along their journey. It was then that they realized we had a fighting chance.

In many ways, the same is true today. Support or disdain for the president generally matches the geography of the Election Night map in 2016. Protesters from liberal enclaves like New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco believe that everyone hates the president. All of their friends and co-workers share that sentiment (or are afraid to say otherwise) and the same is true with their friends and followers on social media.

During the protests and the recall election campaign, we saw incredibly favorable coverage for the opposition. President Trump has to deal with elements of fake news each day. And it goes beyond traditional media outlets. Increasingly, people on social media tend to pick the news that associates with their point of view.

In the end, the protests and, ultimately, the recall energized our base. Surprisingly, it also turned off a majority of independent voters. They believed that the process was not fair. We won the recall election with more votes than in the original election.

I believe that the same thing can happen with President Trump. Recent polls in Wisconsin and other battleground states suggest that Democrats have overplayed their hands. The public is growing increasingly frustrated with the Do Nothing Democrats.

As we did during the recall campaign, the president should continue to show how he is fighting for the American people and winning. Not only will that energize Republicans, but it will also remind independents about what really is at stake in the 2020 elections.

Scott Walker was the 45th governor of Wisconsin. You can contact him at [emailprotected] or follow him @ScottWalker.

Continue reading here:
Democrats' Trump impeachment could cost them the 2020 election - Washington Times

Each week, a new episode of Star Wars spin-off show The Mandalorian airs. And each week, inevitably, 2019's It Boy, Baby Yoda, does something that must immediately be turned into new memes. This is the way it is and the way it will continue to be until the current season ends and we are left to marvel at the sheer number of online love letters left in the aliens tiny green wake.

And so, just as the sun rises each morning and sets at night, that bit in the latest episode in which Baby Yoda fiddles with the Mandalorians spaceship controls has become the subject of the latest online deluge. Though the competition between these few seconds and Bodasipping a beverage in his burlap sackhas been hard fought, the possibilities inherent to the worlds foremost baby puppet jamming his stubby little fingers at what looks like a car deck has won out as this weeks top Baby Yoda craze.

Look at a few of the best examples for yourself and understand the potency of this format.

In each of these cases, the Mandalorian is taking his role as surrogate dad seriously, understanding that child aliens must be stopped from hearing age-inappropriate lyrics and given a classic rap education that begins with a stronger foundation than House Of Pain.

Really, though, the genre doesnt matter. The clips work with pretty much every song choice imaginable, allowing people to create endless variations to suit their taste. The result is that viewers can imagine Baby Yoda filled with emotions, some painful and some joyous, that he simply must work out through the power of all types of music.

Its astonishing, now that we must look forward to the new images and GIFs approaching like a storm cloud with this Fridays episode, that Baby Yodas appeal has remained undiminished even after the non-stop attention hes generated for almost a month now. Each week, we wait to see if the cuteness has souredif weve finally had too much of a good thingand each week the little bastard continues to be impossibly charming. We have to expect that this will continue to be the case for at least a few more weeks and, as such, must resign ourselves as subjects of a minuscule, pointy-eared puppet king. Unlike the Mandalorian himself, we will no longer resist Baby Yodas whims.

[via Screen Rant]

Send Great Job, Internet tips to gji@theonion.com

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Baby Yoda, not content just to control all media, would like to commandeer the stereo, too - The A.V. Club

The companys strategy, role in society and governance are open questions

YEAH, OK, WHY not? Ill just give it a try. With those words Sergey Brin abandoned academia and poured his energy into Google, a new firm he had dreamed up with a friend, Larry Page. Incorporated in 1998, it developed PageRank, a way of cataloguing the burgeoning world wide web. Some 21 years on, Messrs Brin and Page are retiring from a giant that dominates the search business. Alphabet, as their firm is now known, is the worlds fourth-most-valuable listed company (see article), worth $910bn. In spite of its conspicuous success, they leave it facing three uncomfortable questionsabout its strategy, its role in society and who is really in control.

Silicon Valley has always featured entrepreneurs making giant leaps. Even by those standards Google jumped far, fast. From the start its search engine enjoyed a virtuous circlethe more people use it and the more data it collects, the more useful it becomes. The business model, in which advertisers pay to get the attention of users around the world, has printed money. It took Google just eight years to reach $10bn in annual sales. Its peak cumulative losses were $21m. By comparison, Uber has incinerated $15bn and still loses money.

Today Alphabet is in rude health in many respects. Its search engine has billions of users, who find it one of the most useful tools in their lives. One recent study found that the typical user would need to be paid $17,530 to agree to forfeit access to a search engine for a year, compared with $322 for social-media sites, such as Facebook. Alphabet cranks out colossal profits. Many pretenders have tried to mimic the Google approach of having a vast customer base and exploring network effects. Only a few, including Facebook, have succeeded at such a scale.

There are uncertainties, however. Take strategy first. Other tech giants have diversified away from their core businessAmazon began in e-commerce, for example, but is now big in cloud-computing. In China Tencent has shifted from video games to a huge array of services. Alphabet has not stood still: it bought YouTube in 2006 and shifted to mobile by launching Android, an operating system, in 2007. But it still makes 85% of its sales from search-advertising. A big bet on driverless cars has yet to pay off. As the firm matures, it should start paying a dividend.

The second question is how closely the company might end up being regulated. Alphabets monopoly in the search business has led to worries that it may squeeze other firms unfairly. Its huge store of data raises privacy concerns. And because it is a conduit for information and news, its influence over politics has come under ever more scrutiny. All this augurs much tighter regulation. Alphabet has already paid or been subject to $9bn in fines in the EU, and in America politicians on both sides of the aisle support tighter rules or, in some cases, a break-up. If it were to be regulated like a utility, profits could fall sharply.

The last question is who will be in control. Messrs Page and Brin famously sought parental supervision in 2001 and hired an external chief executive. Both founders will now relinquish any executive role, handing the reins to Sundar Pichai, a company stalwart. Yet dual-class shares mean they will still control over 50% of the firms voting rights. This structure is popular in Silicon Valley. But there is little evidence that it ages well. Of todays digital giants, two have so far faced successionMicrosoft and Apple. They have prospered partly because their founders or their families did not retain voting control after they left the scene. Alphabets founders should forfeit their special voting rights and gradually sell their shares. Their firm faces deep questionsbest to give someone else the freedom to answer them.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Who will control Alphabet once Sergey Brin and Larry Page are gone?"

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Who will control Alphabet once Sergey Brin and Larry Page are gone? - The Economist

Nigeria's First Lady Aisha Buhari has come under fire after she said that Nigeria should enforce stricter social media regulations in the same that China does. Her comments come at a time when the Nigerian government is still deliberating on the passing of the controversial "Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulation Bill" which many Nigerians believe will be used to silence them.

According to the BBC, Buhari was speaking at the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs General Assembly and National Executive Council Meeting this past weekend."If China can control over 1.3 billion people on social media, I see no reason why Nigeria cannot attempt controlling only 180 million people," Buhari said confidently. She also added that, "We should either fasten our seat belt, get up and do the needful or we will all regret it very soon."

Since last month, Nigerians have been protesting against the proposed bill under #SayNoToSocialMediaBill on social media. The bill was initially proposed by Senator Muhammadu Sani Musa of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who cited that it would protect the country against the dissemination of hate speech and extremist ideologies online, as had been the case with terrorist groups including Boko Haram. Musa said that, "Individuals and groups influenced by ideologies and deep-seated prejudices in different countries are using internet falsehood to surreptitiously promote their causes, as we have seen in Nigeria with the insurgency of Boko Haram."

Many Nigerians on social media were quick to tell Buhari that if she wanted to compare Nigeria to China in terms of social media regulation, she should also extend her comparisons to broader politics including corruption, human rights violations and unemployment in the country.

More here:
Nigeria's First Lady Calls for Heightened Control of Social Media in the Country - OkayAfrica