Nevada Dodged A Bullet

Filed in National by on November 19, 2010

Nevadans didn’t have the most exciting choices for Senate this year. It was either jello-spined Harry Reid or crazy-as-a-loon Sharron Angle. A new article shows that Angle is even crazier than we thought.

—-Late in the campaign, during a private meet and greet, Angle was asked about Social Security privatization. She had previously used Chile’s Augusto Pinochet’s experiment as an example, but had not used it since her staff shut her down. But that day, with no media there, saying her staff had warned her not to use it, she raised the Chile example again and added, “Sometimes dictators have good ideas.” Her staff fretted the line would get out. It did not. Until now.

—-Team Angle put campaign volunteers through a three-hour indoctrination. Included was an instruction of what to do if anyone came into the office who looked like a Democrat, a Reid supporter or a member of the media — they all look alike! — and that order was to dial a certain extension in front of the interloper and say, “It’s time to water the plants.” Sounds like Don Adams might have been on the other end of the line. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Dictators have good ideas!?!?! Every Nevadan that voted for Sharron Angle should be cringing in embarrassment. I wonder, is Sharron Angle Nevada’s Christine O’Donnell? I wonder if she’ll take on the wounded John Ensign in the Republican 2012 primary. That would be fun!

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (44)

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  1. Joe Cass says:

    “It’s time to water the plants.”
    Ironic that Nevada has the worst water rights record in the country.
    Boycott Vegas! Let the desert reclaim it.

  2. Republican David says:

    Does any serious person deny that Pinochet transformed Chile from a poor backwater dominated by one dictator after another into a prosperous stable democracy? The man overthrew a murderous marxist who was destroying the counry. He purged the country of radical foreign influences. He also looked out for himself more than he should have for his 16 years and was no angle, but he wasn’t a devil either. It is no doubt that he would have won elections and in fact did. He had a lot of good ideas. The problem with him was that he was to set on hanging on to power over the moral imperative to let the people rule.

    That hardly invalidates his economic and social security program.

    That is what Sharon met to say.

  3. Polemical says:

    Compared to Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle is Condolezza Rice!

  4. liberalgeek says:

    Shorter David: Hitler made the trains run on time… Sure some of the trains dropped off freight trains full of Jews in Auschwitz, but they were never late!

  5. Dr. Strangevote says:

    Dear Delusional David, please tell us what she “meant” to say when she implied autism was a made up disability created for insurance purposes, or when she told Latino students that they looked Asian to her?

    No, wait, on second thought, don’t… you are nothing but an apologist for evil. You have no credibility.

    Go back to the “Island of Misfit Bloggers” and carry on joking about cruising Georgetown with guns looking for Hispanics and secession and all the other batshit crazy things you all discuss on a daily basis over there.

  6. Joe Cass says:

    Thank you David! We’ve all known that you & yours endorse fascism. You’ve succeeded in strengthening the cause for democracy.

  7. Aoine says:

    @delusional David- you stated – “Does any serious person deny that Pinochet transformed Chile from a poor backwater dominated by one dictator after another into a prosperous stable democracy?”

    yep- – and so did Hitler transform Germany and Mussoini transform Italy, and Stalin Russia – you obviousy don’t know Pinochet’s history – he overthrew, with US, support a Democratically elected leader…and murdered and “disappeared” thousands of Chileanos and indigenious peoples – with a reign of terror

    Once again proving you ARE INDEED the village idiot…………..

  8. Repbulican David says:

    There was an insurgency in Chile which killed many people and the leader that you like so much was busy killing people destroying industry and setting up Marxist dictatorship. Why do you not call the communist insurgents murders and say that Pinochet is one shows your marxist bias.

    The man set up Democratic institutions in a land given to one dictatorship after another and voluntarily handed over power after an election.

    Stalin killed millions and impoverished huge areas of his country. So did Hitler who left millions dead and his country in ruins after an ill coceived war and a Holocaust. Comparing Pinochet to them is idiotic. He was a hard nosed dictator fighting an insurgecy that predated him. He was controversial and at times brutal to his left wing adversaries who likewise were as you still see in Columbia. I shouldn’t need to repeat myself that he was no angel and out for himself, but objectively his policies did more for the country than the previous 100 years to bring prosperity and eventually a stable democracy to the country.

    No serious person can deny that. That is why you name call.

  9. Repbulican David says:

    It is obivious that I do not endorse him, but his economic policies are still being followed and are a model in that continent. Let’s not pretend otherwise or act like we are too good to learn from a Latin country.

  10. Repbulican David says:

    Since you like links. http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108383

    Why is it, I wonder, that those queuing up to accuse Senator Pinochet of every grotesque abuse imaginable don’t mention the positive legacy of his rule in Chile?

    What about the fact that Chile was turned from chaotic collectivism into the model economy of Latin America?

    What about the fact that more people were housed, that medical care was improved, that infant mortality plummeted, that life expectancy rose, that highly effective programmes against poverty were launched?

    Above all, why don’t they tell the world that it was Senator Pinochet who established a constitution for the return to democracy? That he held a referendum to decide whether or not he should remain in power? That he lost the vote (though gaining 44 per cent support)? And that he respected the result, and handed over to an elected successor?

    But, of course, we know why none of these achievements is talked about. It’s because the Left don’t want them to be talked about – or even (if they can help it) known about.

  11. Jason330 says:

    Holy shit. I just read David and I just threw up on behalf of my Chilean friend who had to escape as a child into Argentina while his uncles were being rounded up and killed.

    Crack a fucking book dumbass. Short of that, talk to oneperson who lived through the Pinochet years and report back.

  12. Repbulican David says:

    Oh, how about talking to someone not a commie. Already have and did. You just don’t like any since of balance or objective discussion. Do you realize the man was never convicted of anything despite the international left hounding him to his grave? His regime was responsible for 3400 deaths.

    That is obviously not acceptable. Now let’s get back to the goon he replaced who started killing people and setting up a Marxist dictatorship. He stole property, natonalized everything, and brought the country to starvation which was far more dangerous. The Marxists like Hitler came to power with 37% of the vote. The majority of the people did not want their lives ruined and their country destroyed. Instead of going away they eventually launched a campaign of bombings and terrorism. Yet, there is no comdemnation of them. I do condemn them. They were far worse than Pinochet who at least did some good including the Democratic constitution the country is governed under today.

    Perfect and wonderful–No most of the world isn’t. That is why we encourage nations to move to respecting freedom and human rights. Chile has. It wouldn’t have under Marxist thug Allende and his murderous cohorts. Pinochet was a thug as well, but he had this real desire to leave his country better and he did. He was a complicated figure. A little intellectual honesty would allow for that.

  13. Repbulican David says:

    On the actual subject Chile’s pension system was broke.

    Back to pensions. Between that November 4 meeting and the May 1 launch of the pension program, Piñera delivered a series of TV talks for which he used his mother’s egg-timer so as to limit each to three minutes. In those talks, he explained that the old system was, in fact, broke, but that the good news was that he was offering something better. As it turned out, it was far better.

    Those workers who chose could enroll in the new system. The same 10 percent would be deducted from their salary, but instead of being paid into a general fund “pot,” it would go into a private investment account that each worker would own, outright. The accounts would be administered by private companies — so as to keep government out of it. And each worker could choose when he wanted to retire, whether at age 50 or 80. Obviously, the longer he stays in — and pays in — the bigger his nest egg will be. If he dies, the proceeds of the account go to his survivors. Along the way, the worker is free to change from one fund to another, and if he gets queasy about the stock market, from stocks to bonds.

    The Chilean system was the first in the world that made individual workers owners of their own pensions. No one had to sign on to this revolutionary program. Those who opted for the old plan were free to remain in it.

    Piñera and his associates had estimated that perhaps as few as 25 percent of those eligible would join the new scheme, and anything over 51 percent would be a great success. Actually, 95 percent of eligible Chileans signed up for it. Those that did are thankful that they did. In these 29 years, those pension funds have averaged a compounded growth rate of 10 percent per year, above inflation and free of taxes. (Taxes are payable only when a person withdraws his funds.) The people in Chile’s public plan are earning far less.

    Furthermore, since the government no longer had to pay out more than a pittance to the five percent who remained in the system, the federal treasury was spared a calamity. If the old system had remained in place, estimates then were that by the year 2000, the deficit would have reached four billion dollars — an impossible amount for the Chilean economy to finance.

    There was one other major boon to the economy: the monies flooding into the 20 companies administering the pension funds — AFPs, for the Spanish Pension Fund Administrators — pushed Chile’s domestic savings rate up to 26 percent of gross national product, a key factor in the strong growth of Chile’s economy under the military government and beyond. (Chile’s gross domestic product was number one in Latin America for four years of the 10-year period 1990-2000, and never dropped below fifth place. During the past five years, with a Socialist government in power, Chile has been among the Latin economies with the lowest growth rates.) Still, the strong underpinning for the economy is there: the AFPs now have $120 billion in liquid assets, 80 percent of the country’s current GDP.

    http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/history/world/186-chiles-social-security-success

  14. Jason330 says:

    I had thought that to reveal a republican to be a fascist you needed to scratch the veneer. Turns out you don’t even need to do that. You are vile David. If I ever see you, I will have a hard time not punching you in your stupid racist face.

  15. Jason330 says:

    FTR. If you teach in a university, David thinks you should be killed on the grounds thT you are probably. A commie. When he, or anybody defends Pinochet- that is what thY are defending.

    Very American of you shit head. Also very Christian and “pro life”

  16. Sorry, can’t get past the whole killed a bunch of his own countrymen thing.

  17. Aoine says:

    Holy Cow – David is off the deep end!!

    he can how discern AND dessiminate “That is what Sharon met to say”

    so GOD spoke to O’Donnell

    and ANGLE speakes to Delusional David – any one got meds for this dude??

    andput him and us out of misery?

    WHat’s wrong David – your own blog so empty you gotta come over here?

  18. Repbulican David says:

    I know people like Thatcher and Reagan’s administration are just so radical. I refuse to let the left rewrite history. Take the good and the bad then you can understand what really happened. To do that is not an endorsement.

    The commie libs were a far greater danger than the self serving dictator ever was. That is what you will not admit. In the last two hundred years, Chile has had a number of military rulers who were not great on rights but had some successful domestic policies. Pinochet was in that mode.

    I wonder what we would do with a group that tried to assassinate our President, set off a string of bombings, and were caught smuggling 80 tons of weapons into the country. I bet we would cheer a President who rounded them up, tortured a few of them to get info and made them disappear as enemy combatants. We would pass new Patriotic laws and search people for weapons in government buildings and spy on them. Only difference is that we would not hold secret trials and execute some of them.

    Drop the holier than thou act over our souhern brothern.

  19. Aoine says:

    Delusional David – you posted – “What about the fact that more people were housed, that medical care was improved, that infant mortality plummeted, that life expectancy rose, that highly effective programmes against poverty were launched?”

    really? can’t you NOT cut and past from British sites? not an original idea in your head

    everybody – see how he spelled “programmes” that is a British syntax/spelling – so he cannot even blog out of his own brain – he copies and pastes…. interesting

    also David – those PROGRAMMES you mention- ummmm don’t the haters on your site consider them “socialist programs” and you are defending them over here? good enought for Chileanos but not the Americans?

    Like Cassandra said earlier – you are out of your league in here

  20. Aoine says:

    Typical right-wing nut asshole – pendejo

    yeah – I got some chilean friends missing their family as well

    on top of that – we got the Iron Maiden, Maggie Thatcher – who unleashed a reign of terror on the Irish during the Troubles

    God Ahead Uncle David – keep defending those regimes – and I’ll send you a confederate flag and a white pointy hood and convince you that the south will rise again and they will make you feel”right at home”

    what an “Amadthan”

  21. David, so sorry you’ve been battered about here, maybe we can get together to fix this mess up? If you’d post once more without offending folks I’ll post a link. We can stifle this,friend. Seriously, I’d like to help you out.

  22. MJ says:

    It appears that since COD and Urkel lost, Delusional David has been huffing on his crack pipe 24/7. It has totally fucked up his mind. Any cognitive ability has been destroyed.

    He is a prime example of how drugs ruin a person’s mind.

  23. Joe Cass says:

    Is this guy “Old Lantern Jaw”?
    Mr.Anderson, your promoting your cause so well.Please expound on the slaughter of innocents makes a country healthy, wealthy and demised?

  24. Aoine says:

    you all wantthe truth about Delusional David and Russ Murphy and Don Ayotte and Frank Knotts, Alex Garcia the 9/12 patriots and posters like “rick” drunken failed law clerk for Judge Bork and the wing-nuts we may see in Sussex and on DP – that we “laugh” at….THEN

    watch this video – David’s above comments leave NO DOUBT that this his agenda and objective for America

    and his “conservative Christian” nut bags with him

    http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/11/01/sovereign-citizen-movement-growing-new-splc-video-promotes-law-enforcement-safety/?ondntsrc=MBQ101170NWQ&newsletter=newsgen-20101118

    watch and weep David – this is what you are advocating by promoting Pinochet et al

    we know what you are – and it is more than BONE UGLY

  25. Dirty Girl says:

    It is so sad to see people that think they know the truth be up-ended by the real truth

    just watched that video and it sounds like the Sussex County Community Regiment from a while back, that grew their own food and thought Obama was putting us all in concentration camps.

    These people are here and close and really exist and think they can hide in plain sight and carry out what they want to do.

    Too bad Sussex County is a hot bed for this type of behavior and David Anderson allows them a voice along with Bill Colley.
    Wonder if either of them contribute to fallen officers funds for those that made the ultimate sacrifice ? or hide behind a keyboard and a mike.

    yep – real American heros

  26. - says:

    “and was no angle”
    ha.

  27. anon says:

    I am not so sure Nevada dodged a bullet. Having Harry Reid as Majority Leader is like having four or five extra Republicans in the Senate.

    If Angle had won, the Senate would still be Dem 52-48, and Harry Reid would no longer be Majority Leader. At least then there would be a chance that somebody new might put up a fight for a Democratic agenda.

    A Senator Angle saying these crazy things would be a continual discredit to the GOP. She would become a national joke like Christine O’Donnell, except she would be a Republican Senator.

  28. delacrat says:

    A reason the Democratic party is so feckless is because it takes its leaders from Republican states like Nevada.

  29. Republican David says:

    Of course, I know I posted a quote from Maggie Thatcher, that is what the link is for and the blockquote designation. History is not about original thoughts or it wouldn’t be history. One other is a quote as well. The link and blockquote are a clue there as well.

    Yes, the others are orignial thoughts based upon history. One person demands links to commonly known references that can be googled in a second and another critcizes being provided with more obscure information that directly impacts upon the discussion. Yet they all avoid engaging the issues. The only problem the left really has Pinochet is that he pushed out Marxists. No complaints about Daniel Ortega or an entire list of people who did worse. This man actually built his country instead of impovershing it but you cannot talk objectively about what worked and where he failed. Why not? We do about everyone else except maybe Hitler in recent years.

    Children around 8 years old are developing a sense of people in terms of good people and bad people. By 12 most understand that people do good and bad. Even a bad person may do some good things and a good person may do some bad things. Try a little harder to reach beyond an 8 year old’s emotional level then you can have a serious discussion on this subject.

  30. cassandra_m says:

    And Pinochet’s history is about killing and torturing thousands of his countrymen. And *this* is what you want to defend here?

    Make no mistake that the conservative affection for dictators while screaming to circumscribe the rights of your own fellow citizens is well marked. Trying to normalize brutality just because this is a guy you approve is is typical for you morons. Then you want to act all victimized because the rest of the world isn’t interested in your hero’s *accomplishments*.

    People here are pretty well versed in what is going on in the world. If you want to be here defending the unspeakable, then it is *you* who needs to do the googling to support your immoral argument. Yet here you are childishly trying to deflect your own claims about Pinochet by pointing out that no one has anything to say about Daniel Ortega. Sorry to point out to you that NO ONE HERE IS DEFENDING ORTEGA. This is just one more stupid attempt at sheer bloody dishonesty on your part.

    And the dishonesty is massive. You get called on it all of the time, and you still come back peddling the same dishonest bullshit, childishly pretending that everyone forgot the last time you were here making shit up and trying to defend the indefensible.

    One more time — the only people you can even begin to sell this weak shit to are over on your own blog. Where brain cells go to die, apparently.

  31. Republican David says:

    No, the issue is not the harsh and overzealous purge of a few thousand communists who were destroying Chile like a cancer. No one disagrees that he was a thug.

    The question is will you seriously look at an economic strategy that helped millions of people and rescued the elderly from a life of poverty on its merits. The people of Chile have. The fact that you wish to only talk about the purge and leave the policies out shows why you guys are not capable of governing or even serious thought.

  32. anonone says:

    ++ cassandra_m

    David would be the first in line to volunteer to run Christianists death camps in this country.

  33. cassandra_m says:

    No, the issue *is* a dictator who tortured and killed his own people in the guise of calling them communists. Which most of them where not, but where is your call for an adherence to Thou Shalt Not Kill? And certainly there is nothing *democratic* about just torturing and killing your citizens. There were no courts? No trials? No way for citizens to even put a stop to this?

    And as for your vaunted privatized social security system, even the Chileans have revamped that system so that it is no longer completely private. So even they have admitted that privatization is not the answer and are dismantling the Pinochet system piecemeal. And that privatization scheme did not replace a system that locked like out Social Security and they put themselves in hock until 2050 just to pay for the transition costs.

    Google it your damn self and consider yourself pwned (again) and demonstrated to be still peddling your dishonest and self-serving bullshit again. Go home, fool.

  34. Geezer says:

    Yet again David shows that he is fertile ground for whatever propaganda put forward by right-wing sources. This is why he understands Sharron Angle despite her inability to articulate even simplistic ideas.

    Try learning something about Chile from non-US-rightwing sources, David. It’s not as cut and dried as you and your superiors in the propaganda ministry pretend.

  35. Dirty Girl says:

    @Delusional David – when one quotes another one generally refers to that quote with the proper credits and citations – and quotation marks

    see example below:

    “Of course, I know I posted a quote from Maggie Thatcher” – David

    this is not your nut-job sand box David – if you want to play in here -grow up and understnd the adult rules – not the ignorant, screaming drunken idiots you deal with

  36. Republican David says:

    I did. You just have trouble seeing. A link and a blockquote.

  37. Republican David says:

    I have a varity of sources including several from Chile, Britian, and the U.S. People from that part of the world have a diversity of views. People attacked by commie terrorists are not enamored with them as you.

  38. anon40 says:

    David–Which “part of the world” are you talking about? You named countries on 3 different continents!

  39. Wow, I read this comment

    No, the issue is not the harsh and overzealous purge of a few thousand communists who were destroying Chile like a cancer. No one disagrees that he was a thug.

    as dismissing the genocide in Chile led by Pinochet. What’s with killing a few intellectuals, he privatized retirement!

  40. Geezer says:

    Talking with people, even Chileans, doesn’t do the job, David. If you talk with Americans but they’re all liberals, or all conservatives, you’re going to get a very slanted view.

    You can find South Americans (and Cubans, too) who will rail endlessly against Marxists. They’re almost always coming from the part of society that had something taken away. Just as you can always find American conservatives wailing about taxes.

    You want to believe stories about “Marxist terrorists” because you like to believe in the evils of Marxism, communism — anything that doesn’t comport with your existing biases.

    My point isn’t that Allende was wonderful and Pinochet horrible. It’s that you haven’t a hope of knowing which was better and which worse without a heckuva lot more study of the issues than you typically do.

  41. a.price says:

    David just proves that conservatives in this country are ready and wiling to apologize for and rationalize violent government overthrows where thousands of people die. As long as the new regime is properly Right Wing
    It would be hilarious how refudiationy he is if it wasn’t so disturbing.

  42. Republican David says:

    I of course believe that overthrowing a repressive Marxist regime destroying a country is good. You don’t? America was founded on taking up arms for the Holy cause of Liberty.

  43. Republican David says:

    If you don’t know what part of the world Chile is in, I won’t explain. Geezer at least gets it. The first hand sources in my experiece are from South America. The sources that I used overal are from around the world. You obviously have some left wing sources, so do I, but you obviously have no balance. I am just pointing out there is no concensus. There is a bigger story.

    BTW U. I. you insult the real victims of genocide in the world. Genocide is the mass elimination of a race of people not a few thousand political or military adversaries. That is not good either, but let’s not go crazy with wild accussations which have no merit. Was 9/11 genocide? Bin Laden killed as many Americans in a day as Pinochet’s worse critics claim in his entire rule. Many were enemy combantants from Spain or commie “traitors” trying to overthrow the government by violence. There is a difference.

  44. Geezer says:

    “America was founded on taking up arms for the Holy cause of Liberty.”

    That’s one way of looking at it. Another would be that a minority of English citizens of the American colonies, in refusing to bear the taxes intended to pay for the cost of defending those colonies against French and Indian combatants, bullied loyalists and wrested those colonies away from the mother country, much to the detriment of at least one-third of the inhabitants.

    Very few historians, and very few contemporaries, have ever claimed that there was anything “holy” about it. That’s pure propaganda.