Over 30 years in DC, flaunting his purity and being an "outsider" and building a movement, yet the Congressional Progressive Caucus is the same size it was when he was first elected. Meanwhile, he has twice acted as if he was owed the nomination of a party he refuses to join, both times losing an election among the left half of the electorate.
His supporters claim he would have won the general election.
You know it's bad when Bernie steps in front of a mic, because he only speaks out to offer safe platitudes for the left after each loss, never doing anything to prevent those losses in the first place.
I can't stand him. His life long record will be a blank page.
People look at me like I am crazy when I say how much Bernie irritates me…and then some time passes and I soften a bit, and he pulls something like this again and I am right back where I started and I don’t care what anyone says. He has let the perfect be the enemy of the good so many times it has had real consequences for our country.
You're actually wrong. AOC, Bernie, and every other very liberal representative have been highly reliable votes for Democratic bills in the Senate and the House. How do you think that D's were able to pass bills and confirm appointees when their margin was so slim? How did Nancy Pelosi's House pass bill after bill with a 3-vote majority? In both houses, the very liberal D's voted with the rest of the party to pass bills that they weren't entirely supportive of because they recognized that the perfect could be the enemy of the good.
It's specifically because Sanders has such a long record of supporting Democratic legislation and a clear record of understanding the value of the good over the perfect that I think there's a good chance he's right about what he's doing.
The D's who were unreliable were the centrist D's, who spent a lot of time preening about their centrism (and worrying about re-election) and less time doing the right thing. How do you think that Emil Bove became a federal judge? It started when the highly qualified Biden nominee for what is now Bove's seat was opposed by three centrist D's who found moronic reasons to oppose Biden's nominee. Oh, I forgot. Biden's nominee, Adeel Mangi, is Muslim. We can't have one of those people on the federal bench. Thanks Senators Rosen, Cortez-Masto, and Manchin.
Never cared for Bernie. He is such an all or nothing guy. But then again who thinks Trump’s Administration would follow through with the legislation? They ignore the law all the time.
The stupidity with left wing nuts. As mentioned before, it is the stupidity of left wing nuts that became the face of dems that scared many folks to voting repub, even when the moderate dem perspective is really for the middle class. Eg. the Blue Dogs.
Blue Dog Democrats represented the middle class by advocating for fiscal responsibility, deficit reduction, and policies that supported working families and mainstream American values, focusing on commonsense, bipartisan solutions rather than extreme ideologies...
Unless I am missing something, isn’t it the case that at least 50 other senators voted against the bill? Why is Bernie being singled out as the deciding vote who killed it? Is it just because we are holding him to a different standard than the Republicans who voted against it?
I think it’s very easy to look at this emotionally and act appalled that Bernie would vote against saving children’s lives in pursuit of some imagined perfection, but that’s exactly the kind of superficial optics that define so much of our failed policy. Assuming this bill passed as-is, ask yourself what the tangible benefit be? Say what you will about Bernie, but there is never any doubt that he acts with integrity and moral clarity, even if you don’t like his conclusions. It seems to me that he is trying to seize the opportunity to use what little leverage he has to force more concessions that will allow the research and clinical trials to benefit as many kids as possible. Nothing about this legislation leaves me feeling confident that kids would receive better care or have better outcomes simply by being enrolled in more clinical trials (which will take years and fail the majority of the time), especially if their parents cant ultimately access treatment. Moreover, Republicans can’t be led to believe that caving to pressure from Trump’s billionaire goon squad will go unchallenged.
I realize this must be devastating to the families but I don’t think this very narrowly applied piece of legislation will have the impact they are hoping for by itself. The only impact it will have is to give senators something to campaign on during the midterms.
The real problem is why is special, targeted legislation required in order to address development of treatments for pediatric cancer? Does this bill do something amazing like specify that ALL kids with cancer benefit from treatment no matter their insurance status? I have to learn more but it sounds like the legislation just pushes Big Pharma to study drug therapies.
And are you friggin' kidding me that once a year kids with cancer have to make the rounds to lobby Congress to just maybe prioritize some funding to help these kids get treatments for their cancer? This is so disturbing and it is just reported as if it is some industry hacks looking for their targeted tax break.
I'm not thrilled that Sanders killed the bill. But if it passed then Trump and Congress would be aacting all accomplished and proud at how they have really taken a big step in the war on pediatric cancer. And let us not forget the joy many of these same politicians have taken in gutting the NIH and ongoing research into all sorts of conditions, cancer included.
Frankly I see this as yet another indictment of how dysfunctional and cruel our healthcare system is and how disgusting it is that politicians have been jerking around for decades unwilling and unable to actually address a problem that so many other countries did solve, perhaps not perfectly, decades ago..
I do not understand, why does bill need a unanimous vote? Bernie is just one vote. This article makes no sense to me. Don't you need just 60 votes or simple majority to pass the bill?
It’s been a theme of the far left. Incremental change is not part of the equation, instead it is litmus tested. It was the place where questioning if drag queen happy hour is appropriate for children was seen as disloyalty and made you a person that hated all gay people. This carried in numerous topics that all had the same litmus test, the idea of any transgression and not being a 100 percent in agreement was a reason to be cancelled. And it is a good part of how we ended up with Trump. Bernie should have taken the win for children and come back another day for the fight.
Why does this remind me of the way I've seen a lot of leftists talk about Barack Obama - with seething disappointment or even hatred? "He failed people on health care (no public option). He's a war criminal. He didn't transfer enough wealth to those of lesser means. And (usually most of all), he deported people!"
Maybe there's some things to discuss there (OK, drones, I can see that there might be an issue, and yes I would have liked prosecutions of finance firms for accountability reasons). But because he was slightly less than leftist perfect, he's a total failure.
Seems of a feather with Sanders' actions this week.
If Sen. Sanders' action turns out to be an effective step at achieving more positive results than this Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act would have accomplished, then he's a genius.
If a year from now we're still at the same standstill, how many kids will have suffered or even died (as Mikaela did)? ...and in this congress, what odds do you really see for progress?
I think he should've taken the win even though it wasn't all he wished
I find this so confusing because I’ve never experienced a patient dying specifically because of this. We use combination therapies in kids, and even better, we are using stem cell transplants and immunotherapies. But still, I find that for many many years, the end outcome for some diagnoses in kids hasn’t changed, and won’t likely change with current pharmaceuticals, combined or not. Yes, there are drugs and combinations of drugs not yet approved in kids, but I personally have never had a patient so directly impacted. Kids need preventative care, like labs and imagining, that are designed to also catch diseases in earlier stages. Kids need healthcare, housing, nutrition, a safe planet, with less inflammation and far less microplastics. And kids need new medicine, not more poison combined together to give them a few more days, maybe. We’re at the limit of what chemotherapy drugs alone can offer. Kids will either get better with them, or they won’t, and I truly believe that we’re at a place in medicine where in almost every case, the availability of a specific combination isn’t what impacts their survival.
This confused me too. My understanding was that early detection is the most effective method of improving the odds of survival in adults. I didn’t understand why it would be different in children. It’s worth studying, but I can’t imagine this doing much more than delaying the inevitable.
Over 30 years in DC, flaunting his purity and being an "outsider" and building a movement, yet the Congressional Progressive Caucus is the same size it was when he was first elected. Meanwhile, he has twice acted as if he was owed the nomination of a party he refuses to join, both times losing an election among the left half of the electorate.
His supporters claim he would have won the general election.
You know it's bad when Bernie steps in front of a mic, because he only speaks out to offer safe platitudes for the left after each loss, never doing anything to prevent those losses in the first place.
I can't stand him. His life long record will be a blank page.
People look at me like I am crazy when I say how much Bernie irritates me…and then some time passes and I soften a bit, and he pulls something like this again and I am right back where I started and I don’t care what anyone says. He has let the perfect be the enemy of the good so many times it has had real consequences for our country.
This is why I don't have much love lost for the AOC Bernie wing of the party. They care about being right than being in power.
You're actually wrong. AOC, Bernie, and every other very liberal representative have been highly reliable votes for Democratic bills in the Senate and the House. How do you think that D's were able to pass bills and confirm appointees when their margin was so slim? How did Nancy Pelosi's House pass bill after bill with a 3-vote majority? In both houses, the very liberal D's voted with the rest of the party to pass bills that they weren't entirely supportive of because they recognized that the perfect could be the enemy of the good.
It's specifically because Sanders has such a long record of supporting Democratic legislation and a clear record of understanding the value of the good over the perfect that I think there's a good chance he's right about what he's doing.
The D's who were unreliable were the centrist D's, who spent a lot of time preening about their centrism (and worrying about re-election) and less time doing the right thing. How do you think that Emil Bove became a federal judge? It started when the highly qualified Biden nominee for what is now Bove's seat was opposed by three centrist D's who found moronic reasons to oppose Biden's nominee. Oh, I forgot. Biden's nominee, Adeel Mangi, is Muslim. We can't have one of those people on the federal bench. Thanks Senators Rosen, Cortez-Masto, and Manchin.
Never cared for Bernie. He is such an all or nothing guy. But then again who thinks Trump’s Administration would follow through with the legislation? They ignore the law all the time.
The stupidity with left wing nuts. As mentioned before, it is the stupidity of left wing nuts that became the face of dems that scared many folks to voting repub, even when the moderate dem perspective is really for the middle class. Eg. the Blue Dogs.
Blue Dog Democrats represented the middle class by advocating for fiscal responsibility, deficit reduction, and policies that supported working families and mainstream American values, focusing on commonsense, bipartisan solutions rather than extreme ideologies...
What part of English do folks not get???
Unless I am missing something, isn’t it the case that at least 50 other senators voted against the bill? Why is Bernie being singled out as the deciding vote who killed it? Is it just because we are holding him to a different standard than the Republicans who voted against it?
I think it’s very easy to look at this emotionally and act appalled that Bernie would vote against saving children’s lives in pursuit of some imagined perfection, but that’s exactly the kind of superficial optics that define so much of our failed policy. Assuming this bill passed as-is, ask yourself what the tangible benefit be? Say what you will about Bernie, but there is never any doubt that he acts with integrity and moral clarity, even if you don’t like his conclusions. It seems to me that he is trying to seize the opportunity to use what little leverage he has to force more concessions that will allow the research and clinical trials to benefit as many kids as possible. Nothing about this legislation leaves me feeling confident that kids would receive better care or have better outcomes simply by being enrolled in more clinical trials (which will take years and fail the majority of the time), especially if their parents cant ultimately access treatment. Moreover, Republicans can’t be led to believe that caving to pressure from Trump’s billionaire goon squad will go unchallenged.
I realize this must be devastating to the families but I don’t think this very narrowly applied piece of legislation will have the impact they are hoping for by itself. The only impact it will have is to give senators something to campaign on during the midterms.
Fuck this asshole. When will he go the fuck away and never come back? How many times has he done this?
This is so disappointing from Bernie.
Another add to Bernie’s terrible and nonexistent legislative record.
The real problem is why is special, targeted legislation required in order to address development of treatments for pediatric cancer? Does this bill do something amazing like specify that ALL kids with cancer benefit from treatment no matter their insurance status? I have to learn more but it sounds like the legislation just pushes Big Pharma to study drug therapies.
And are you friggin' kidding me that once a year kids with cancer have to make the rounds to lobby Congress to just maybe prioritize some funding to help these kids get treatments for their cancer? This is so disturbing and it is just reported as if it is some industry hacks looking for their targeted tax break.
I'm not thrilled that Sanders killed the bill. But if it passed then Trump and Congress would be aacting all accomplished and proud at how they have really taken a big step in the war on pediatric cancer. And let us not forget the joy many of these same politicians have taken in gutting the NIH and ongoing research into all sorts of conditions, cancer included.
Frankly I see this as yet another indictment of how dysfunctional and cruel our healthcare system is and how disgusting it is that politicians have been jerking around for decades unwilling and unable to actually address a problem that so many other countries did solve, perhaps not perfectly, decades ago..
Always blame the left????
I do not understand, why does bill need a unanimous vote? Bernie is just one vote. This article makes no sense to me. Don't you need just 60 votes or simple majority to pass the bill?
So tragic. I truly loathe Sanders. WTF is wrong with him?
He prefers the rhetorical high ground to actually delivering. Look at his pathetic record.
“Perfect is the enemy of good”
It’s been a theme of the far left. Incremental change is not part of the equation, instead it is litmus tested. It was the place where questioning if drag queen happy hour is appropriate for children was seen as disloyalty and made you a person that hated all gay people. This carried in numerous topics that all had the same litmus test, the idea of any transgression and not being a 100 percent in agreement was a reason to be cancelled. And it is a good part of how we ended up with Trump. Bernie should have taken the win for children and come back another day for the fight.
I don’t think this analogy is apt.
Why does this remind me of the way I've seen a lot of leftists talk about Barack Obama - with seething disappointment or even hatred? "He failed people on health care (no public option). He's a war criminal. He didn't transfer enough wealth to those of lesser means. And (usually most of all), he deported people!"
Maybe there's some things to discuss there (OK, drones, I can see that there might be an issue, and yes I would have liked prosecutions of finance firms for accountability reasons). But because he was slightly less than leftist perfect, he's a total failure.
Seems of a feather with Sanders' actions this week.
If Sen. Sanders' action turns out to be an effective step at achieving more positive results than this Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act would have accomplished, then he's a genius.
If a year from now we're still at the same standstill, how many kids will have suffered or even died (as Mikaela did)? ...and in this congress, what odds do you really see for progress?
I think he should've taken the win even though it wasn't all he wished
Nothing would change in a year. This kind of research takes time, even under fast track designation.
I find this so confusing because I’ve never experienced a patient dying specifically because of this. We use combination therapies in kids, and even better, we are using stem cell transplants and immunotherapies. But still, I find that for many many years, the end outcome for some diagnoses in kids hasn’t changed, and won’t likely change with current pharmaceuticals, combined or not. Yes, there are drugs and combinations of drugs not yet approved in kids, but I personally have never had a patient so directly impacted. Kids need preventative care, like labs and imagining, that are designed to also catch diseases in earlier stages. Kids need healthcare, housing, nutrition, a safe planet, with less inflammation and far less microplastics. And kids need new medicine, not more poison combined together to give them a few more days, maybe. We’re at the limit of what chemotherapy drugs alone can offer. Kids will either get better with them, or they won’t, and I truly believe that we’re at a place in medicine where in almost every case, the availability of a specific combination isn’t what impacts their survival.
This confused me too. My understanding was that early detection is the most effective method of improving the odds of survival in adults. I didn’t understand why it would be different in children. It’s worth studying, but I can’t imagine this doing much more than delaying the inevitable.