1. I’m trusting upstate New York has all their ventilators and supplies safely hidden away by now.

   6

2. https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2020/04/04/shunned-slate-notes-that-new-york-city-hasnt-received-an-outpouring-of-national-love-like-after-9-11/

   RME & ROFL

   2

   1. Ouch… but deserved

      1

3. How many NY National Guardsmen are from NYC, I wonder?

   And how many are going to like (or even really try) to confiscate ventilators and other critical medical supplies from small towns like the ones they grew up in?

   They might do it, but I don’t see this as a good way to build morale.

   1

4. The most populous county in upstate is Erie, where Buffalo and it’s burbs are located. The county executive is a Democrat and an asshole but he has claimed that Erie county won’t be relinquishing any ventilators. Should be interesting to see how that pans out.

   Regarding that subway photo – pretty sure many people in NYC not only don’t own cars but don’t even have a driver license or have ever driven a car at all. It’s bizarre to imagine willingly surrendering your freedom of movement to public transit.

   1

5. So you’re saying you shouldn’t elect people who will take the extreme measures that are sometimes needed to safeguard their constituents?

   What’s funny is that Cuomo is actually a huge monster, very worthy of criticism in regards to healthcare in this crisis. But not because he wants to seize unused ventilators and put them to work where they’re needed:

   https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-ny-hospital-medicaid/

   https://www.huffpost.com/entry/governor-andrew-cuomo-new-york-budget-cuts-medicaid-coronavirus-pandemic_n_5e86b371c5b6a9491833f612

   https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/cuomo-panel-recommends-400m-in-hospital-cuts-as-coronavirus-pandemic-rages/

   And on the subject of ventilators, the Trump Administrations seems to be basically leaving the states to fend for themselves:

   https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/3/21206170/us-emergency-stockpile-jared-kushner-almost-empty-coronavirus-medical-supplies-ventilators

   @HP

   “It’s bizarre to imagine willingly surrendering your freedom of movement to public transit.”

   From their perspective they aren’t surrendering anything. All their needs are met by public transport, so they forgo the poverty trap that is an automobile.

   One of the signs of a place being civilized is that it has robust public transport. No, I’m not saying NYC is impressive; its public transport is actually a complete joke in comparison to places like Tokyo, Moscow, or London. But it still adequately serves millions of people every day.

   3

   1. Read your first four lines again….slowly this time.

      1

      1. New Troll?

         1. Yes. But it is fun letting him run around for a while.

            1

   2. So places without “robust public transport” aren’t civilized?

      I won’t press you on this question, only because the fact that you cited The Nation, The Huffington Post, and Vox regarding the former subject tells me about all I need to know about where your head is at.

      2

6. NYC had money for ventilators and related gear.

   They spent it on solar panels.

   So, no, one should not elect people who will take extreme measures to protect them from the consequences of their own bad decisions (e.g. electing people who choose to buy solar panels (in a cloudy northeast climate) rather than critical medical equipment), by punishing those who made better ones. (Or who weren’t given the choice to make. How much money did the rest of the state get for emergency medical gear?)

   2

7. The most obvious solution to this problem would be to just do away with Medicaid entirely and replace it with universal, single-payer Medicare for All, where the Federal government functions as everyone’s insurance company and foots all of the bill.

   Gee… this is something new! Nobody has done it before but I am sure it will work. I mean, the same government that cannot do basic highway & bridge maintenance will be entrusted with your health.
   Maybe we can ask Cuba or Venezuela how do they have such a great Healthcare system….

   Benji, bubba… your Bernie Bro T shirt is showing

   3

   1. Meh, try to ignore him – he’s one of those “no true scotsman” folks.

      2

8. “the World Health Organization ranks it number 12 in the world).”

   Is this the same WHO that praised China and its research on the Wuhan Virus?

   “Venezuela literally isn’t a socialist country. One of the many failings of the Bolivarian Revolution (aside from rampant corruption) is that they never purged the economy of its extensive capitalist ownership, despite the fact that the country’s rich elite won’t stop launching coup attempts.”

   You have gone from troll to officially Stalinist stupid. The only reason Venezuela is not fully the Somalia of the Caribbean is the last Capitalist enterprise in the Country: Empresas Polar. They are about the only manufacturing enterprise that can process and produce food for the country. Every other private company taken over by the government has failed spectacularly to produce enough to even feed the employees, much less the nation.

   PURGE? Fuck you, you need to be shot in the ass for that remark and sent to Hospital Perez De Leon in Caracas to get healed…maybe.

   And in case you are as ignorant as I think you are, realize the owner of this blog is Venezuelan. Take a fucking guess who knows more about the country.

   PS: Benji is from the People’s Republic of Portland. We have out little Antifa toddler!

   2

9. Numbers do lie.

   Not everyone swallows those lies and begs for more just because he wants to believe.

   You know what? Leave the states, come to Europe. We have quite a few dumb socialists like you here. Couldn’t hurt to get a few more so I can hear their sweet whining when they complain that everything is soooo unfair because in praxis it’s different than in theory.

   Oh and btw good job of proving my “no true scotsman”-point with your post. You have a way of mixing facts with bullshit. I wouldn’t say unique because that’s exactly like every other socialist drone “argues”.

   Change the subject to a topic that lends itself to it, quote a few numbers that on the surface prove your point and then use this as a basis to change the subject again and just throw in some idelogical hogwash.

   Half of the times you can’t even get the facts right (like in your Nazi-post).

   So yeah…you don’t ride the high horse.

   2

10. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much liberal/leftist hubris and ignorance in one post. That’s remarkable.

    1

11. “But it has been done before. That’s how Canada’s system works. And it’s excellent (the World Health Organization ranks it number 12 in the world).”

    Dear Benjamin: yep, Canadian “single payer” is, indeed, flawless. Nooooo problems!

    Uh, you shouldn’t attempt to bullshit a bullshitter. I am an RN, worked 20 some years across the river from (Large Canadian City). Lotsa my nursing colleagues were Canadian. Why, you may ask?

    Because (a) the pay for RNs was far better in the states. (B) they could not find jobs in Canada.

    And, after WHO shilling for the CCP, along with swallowing CCP’s Wuhan Virus stats whole, why on earth would you listen to WHO, about anything?

    Along with the stories I personally heard from every third nurse, about Canadian s coming to the US for procedures.

    Which sounds very much as if Canadian healthcare is not so very “excellent”, WHO assessments notwithstanding.

    2

12. @Miguel.GFZ

    Ah, now I understand. You’re a fellow traveler of the Venezuelan democracy haters. I get it. How’s your fake president Guido doing? Oh, that’s right. The US has dumped him and is now trying to pressure the Venezuelan government to ‘power-share’ with a five member junta.

    Sad day when the US can’t even engineer a coup properly. We used to pretty good at that.

    ‘Purge’ by the way meant seizing their assets and depriving them of their unequal economic power. It in fact did not mean killing them. But I’m not surprised you quickly resort to the rhetoric of violence.

    And actually I’m from just outside Portland. Portland is a perfect example of the difference between Liberals and the Left. It has all the feel good Liberal stuff: bike routes, socially progressive, etc. But it also has a massive homeless problem, because unlike the Left, Liberals will pull their own teeth out rather than actually do economically progressive policies like just giving people housing.

    And antifa are tiresome edgelords (the ones that aren’t just outright undercover cops, which I suspect is many of them).

    @tiredweasel

    Numbers you don’t like lie, you mean.

    No, I will not be moving to Europe. Because I want to actually help the people on my country and better their material conditions. That means I’ll remain here and continue to agitate for these policies. And I guess I’ll be fighting people like you every step of the way.

    What’s really funny actually is that even now, after decades of austerity and neoliberalism (no, I don’t much expect you to know what this term means), many European countries still have a substantial residual socialist predilections. You’re right, Europe does have plenty of socialists. And you know what they’re doing right now? They aren’t whining. Instead they’re saving your economies:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/denmark-freezing-its-economy-should-us/608533/

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/20/government-pay-wages-jobs-coronavirus-rishi-sunak (and this under a Tory government no less. That’s how far the political spectrum has shifted in the US)

    https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/coronavirus-unemployment-payment-to-rise-to-350-per-week-and-government-to-pay-70pc-of-retained-workers-salaries-39071888.html

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/conte-calls-on-ecb-to-do-whatever-it-takes-against-coronavirus

    Jobs are being lost everywhere, but Europe isn’t seeing an equivalent of our (at latest count) nearly 10 million unemployment claims because their governments are actually stepping in to protect workers.

    I’ll also throw in Australia, where the current conservative Liberal (this is the actual, correct, use of the term that the rest of the world outside the US uses) government has gone begging to the Labor party for help:

    https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/6689290/former-union-boss-gets-virus-workforce-gig/?cs=7576

    @Reltney McFee

    I see your anecdote by proxy and raise you the opinions of an actual Canadian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3ngNDoeFw

    Yes, if you’re rich enough you can go to the US and pay your way to the front of the line for the very best care. That’s what being rich buys you. But most people, in fact, are not rich. Canadian healthcare is in fact excellent, despite your protests, and guaranteed to all its citizens. That’s nice that if you’re rich enough you can go somewhere else and get even better care, but the majority of a population can’t do that.

    And by the way, if we’re going to talk about people going to other countries to buy healthcare, we should note the vast numbers of Americans who go to Mexico for cheaper medical treatment, especially dentistry. Or even to the other side of the planet; US citizens make up 20% of Thailand’s huge medical tourism industry. It’s literally cheaper for many people to fly to the other side of the planet and back than it is to afford a doctor within the US.

    Oh, and as for the Chinese numbers, I’m dubious of them as well. But here’s the thing: no one, including the CIA, has been able to offer up any ‘more accurate’ death tallies. If there were really vast numbers of deaths not reflected in the official CCP numbers, that would be rather hard to conceal.

    But go ahead, convince yourself the WHO isn’t credible. You’ll find the numbers are very similar regardless of who does the measuring. Here’s one by the Commonwealth Fund, where the US can’t crack the top 10: https://www.internationalinsurance.com/health/systems/

    Here’s another by the Legatum Institute (funded by a conservative member of the House of Lords): https://www.prosperity.com/rankings

    Examine what is said, not who speaks, is supposedly an old Arab proverb., Maybe you guys should practicing it. You you could just keep on shaping your worldviews based on discounting sources beforehand, rather than weighing the validity of evidence. You’re literally describing how you live in an intellectual bubble.

    1. OK, let’s do this:

       Ah, now I understand. You’re a fellow traveler of the Venezuelan democracy haters.
       More like a survivor of the shit the communist pulled down there.

       I get it. How’s your fake president Guido doing? Oh, that’s right. The US has dumped him and is now trying to pressure the Venezuelan government to ‘power-share’ with a five member junta.
       You mean Obama Light? I can tell you are just a troll and not a regualr reader, otherwise you would have known that if Guaido and Maduro end in the same wall facing the same firing squad, I would not give a shit.

       Sad day when the US can’t even engineer a coup properly. We used to pretty good at that.
       Dude, It is the best advertisement ever. “Don’t vote Socialist. Look at Venezuela, you’ll end up eating Fido”

       ‘Purge’ by the way meant seizing their assets and depriving them of their unequal economic power.
       Nononono.. don’t try to bullshit people. You know damn well that purge has the lovely Stalinist connotation of very short vacation in the bowels of Lubyanka.

       It in fact did not mean killing them. But I’m not surprised you quickly resort to the rhetoric of violence.
       You lie again and yes, the proper application of violence is healthy.

       And actually I’m from just outside Portland. Portland is a perfect example of the difference between Liberals and the Left. It has all the feel good Liberal stuff: bike routes, socially progressive, etc. But it also has a massive homeless problem, because unlike the Left, Liberals will pull their own teeth out rather than actually do economically progressive policies like just giving people housing.
       Lemme guess, they are not truly socialist and therefore why they failed? But we need to try just one more time and it will work?

       And antifa are tiresome edgelords (the ones that aren’t just outright undercover cops, which I suspect is many of them).

       They are protected little bitches backed up by the Portland PD. I seem to recall years ago they did not fared well in Miami.

       The problems in Venezuela will begin to subside when the bodies of Chavistas and Maduristans appear every morning piled in the local Bolivar squares.

       1

       1. Leftist excrament from Portland (of course) lecturing a survivor of actual real socialism. That’s rich.

13. The simplest question to ask when you’re told that country X has government-run healthcare: when is the last time there was a meaningful medical innovation created in country X?
    When was the last time that England produced a significant medical innovation? Watson & Crick?

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14. “Cuba in fact has an excellent healthcare system, considering its under permanent economic sanctions by the US.”

    Ho hum. Another leftist moron…

15. The main difference between “actual American Leftists” and mainstream Democrats is that Leftists like Benny Bolshevik here are actually vile enough to openly state the things they want. They don’t hide behind the sallow veneer of “progressivism”, like many closeted Democrats. They openly embrace the godless, genocidal, nihilistic ideology of history’s most murderous regimes and dictators. Leftists are openly insane and proud of it.

16. For some definition of “doctor”. Slave labor sent overseas to make money for the dictatorship is a more accurate description.

17. They call them “doctors” but they barely have basic medical training, less than an EMT. No sane country will allow them to do an equivalence to accept them as part of the medical profession. Hell, not even the Soviets back in the day.

    I do need to stop feeding the troll

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