Welcome to the Bernie News Roundup. The BNR is a voluntary, non-campaign associated roundup of news, media, & other information related to Bernie Sanders run for President. Visit the group page for past editions or send a message to be added.
Sign Up, Donate, Volunteer @ Bernie's official page.
Bernie Talks to 4500 In Louisiana:
Racial divisiveness, income inequality and the ills of Wall Street were familiar touchstones for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders Sunday (July 25) as he whipped up a thunderous crowd of 4,500 at a rally in Kenner.
It was an unusual sight: A liberal White House hopeful stumping in red state Louisiana so early in a race. The first state primaries are in February; Louisiana's, in March.
But similar to what the U.S. senator from Vermont has been seeing in other early primary states, the massive crowd that showed up to the Pontchartrain Center was primed to cheer his populist message about universal health care, expanded rights for workers and closing the income gap between the rich and the poor.
The rarity of his visit was not lost on Sanders. He opened with a volley aimed at the Democratic Party, arguing its leadership had not focused enough on states it had ceded to Republicans.
"I think my colleagues in the Democratic Party have made a very, very serious mistake and that is they've kind of written off half of America, including Louisiana," Sanders said. "I'm here to tell you that the time is now for us to fight in 50 states."
He also took aim at Louisiana's high poverty rate and the 750,000 residents who are uninsured, saying, "When people have no work, when kids have no food, when people have no health insurance, that's where we should be."
Fired Up:
Vermont Sen. and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders roused the Democratic faithful tonight in a rally at Pontchartrain Center in Kenner.
A button vendor outside Pontchartrain Center was wearing a "Feel the Bern" T-shirt and vending Sanders campaign buttons — one for $5, three for $10.
Before the rally, Sanders made an appearance at the home of Dr. Gilda Reed, a University of New Orleans professor and former candidate for Louisiana's 1st Congressional District. Addressing about 40 people in Reed's living room, Sanders asked what Louisiana voters were concerned about — the answers included a raise in the minimum wage, universal health care, a ban on fracking and GMOs. Sanders said Vermont labels genetically modified foods, expressed his view that "corporate media" deflects attention from important issues and asked whether the people in the room thought Louisiana would support a raise in the minimum wage to $15 per hour. (The answer: yes.)
At the recent Netroots Nation conference, Sanders and other presidential candidates were interrupted by representatives under the umbrella Black Lives Matter, and Sanders spent some days afterward explaining his position on institutional racism.
Sanders was introduced by local entrepreneur Angela Henderson, who spoke for less than two minutes, saying she'd just met Sanders the night before, and he had pulled her in for a hug.
..
One of the biggest ovations of the speech came with Sanders' suggestion that all public colleges and universities be tuition-free. Broaching the topic of fossil fuels, he joked, "I know I'm in Louisiana, but ... In terms of climate change, the debate is over." He also reiterates he endorsed "a Medicare-style single-payer for all" health insurance system for those who wanted it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!:
The rally was something of a foray into enemy territory for Sanders. Statewide, Louisiana is solidly in the GOP’s column. The venue chosen for the rally, the Pontchartrain Center in conservative Jefferson Parish, hosted Gov. Bobby Jindal last month when he announced his own campaign for the presidency.
Sanders packed a larger room at the center for his speech, with supporters filling bleachers and crowding into a standing-room section of the venue. Estimates by organizers suggested the crowd was about four times as large as the roughly 1,000 people who came out to see Jindal’s speech.
More:
The rally was something of a foray into enemy territory for Sanders. Statewide, Louisiana is solidly in the GOP’s column. The venue chosen for the rally, the Pontchartrain Center in conservative Jefferson Parish, hosted Gov. Bobby Jindal last month when he announced his own campaign for the presidency.
Sanders packed a larger room at the center for his speech, with supporters filling bleachers and crowding into a standing-room section of the venue. Estimates by organizers suggested the crowd was about four times as large as the roughly 1,000 people who came out to see Jindal’s speech.
Sanders’ message focused on the economic issues that have been the basis of his campaign, railing against growing inequality in the country and arguing that a “political revolution” is needed.
“This great country of ours, our government, belongs to all of us and not just a handful of billionaires,” he said.
Throughout his speech, Sanders rattled off statistics on income inequality, arguing that the country has a higher level of inequality today than any other major nation and the highest level of any time since 1928, and that the problem continues to get worse.
“This grotesque level of income and wealth inequality is immoral, it is bad economics, it is un-American, and together we’re going to change that,” Sanders said.
Supporters were already lined up to get spots at the rally by 5 p.m., two hours before Sanders began speaking.
ABC (video in link):
Sunday night, democrat presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, brought his campaign to the Pontchartrain Center.
Doors opened more than an hour before Sanders began speaking to allow the crowd of thousands to arrive and settle in.
Sanders told the crowd he was happy to see the big turnout because he’d been told that Louisiana is a conservative state.
And this:
The rally capped a weekend of events that also saw the Vermont senator, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, address the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Baton Rouge — a chance to emphasize his history of civil rights work after he was heckled last month by demonstrators protesting police brutality and the treatment of black people by law enforcement.
He also discussed gun control in Louisiana, saying Americans must reach a consensus on “common sense” gun control.
Sunday night’s speech in Kenner dealt mostly with economic issues. Among Sanders’ remedies for an economy that he says benefits billionaires at the expense of the middle class were a $15 minimum wage, mandatory family leave for new parents and a massive program providing jobs by upgrading national infrastructure.
Near the end, he addressed the case of Sandra Bland, a black woman who died in a Texas jail in what authorities said was a suicide, after she was arrested by a white police officer during a traffic stop.
“When an African-American woman gets yanked out of her car,” he said, interrupted by shouts and cheers from the crowd in support of his remarks, “when we all know that would not have happened to a middle-class white woman, we know we need some serious change in criminal justice in this country.”
Bernie is liked:
Out of 17 declared Republican and five declared Democratic candidates for president, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt), beat out Hillary Clinton to become the only candidate that voters viewed favorably, according to two NBC/Marist polls, The International Business Times (IBT) reports.
The poll results, released on Sunday, show that in these two states, all of the other candidates ranging from Jim Webb, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton, had overall negative favorability ratings. The term "negative favorability" seems like an oxymoron, but what it really means is that there's more voters with negative opinions than there are voters with positive opinions about every single candidate, except Sanders.
Politicus reports that Sanders is the only candidate who has a positive approval rating in both states.
John Wagner @
The Washington Post:
Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders made his first major outreach to the African American community this weekend in Louisiana, courting civil rights leaders, sitting in the front row at a black church and invoking the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Though the senator from Vermont was warmly received by black voters as he decried income inequality and lingering racism in the United States, the visit also underscored one of the challenges Sanders faces in his bid for the Democratic nomination: His biggest event of the weekend, a raucous 4,500-person rally, drew a predominantly white crowd in a state that is more than one-third black.
Sanders, who represents a state that is 95 percent white, has never needed to court black voters to win an election. But his involvement in the civil rights movement dates to the 1960s, when he attended the March on Washington and was arrested while protesting school segregation. Those were among the points he emphasized in Baton Rouge on Saturday night as he wooed leaders of one of the country’s oldest civil rights organizations.
Sanders also lamented the high rate of unemployment among young African Americans and the money spent by the U.S. government on a prison population that is disproportionately black.
“To my mind, it makes eminently more sense to invest in jobs and education, rather than jails and incarceration,” the self-described democratic socialist told leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “That is an issue that we have in common, do we not?”
He was met with responses of “Yes” and “That’s right.”
Sanders And Sandra:
Bernie Sanders is working to the set the record straight over his position on African American rights. After Sanders was forced off stage by Black Lives Matter protesters at a Netroots Nation gathering in Phoenix, he’s been under pressure to express his support of African Americans.
During a visit on Saturday in Louisiana’s Southern Christian Leadership’s 57th annual conference, Sanders spoke on Sandra Bland, an African American woman who was arrested over a minor traffic violation, spoke out against police brutality, and supposedly committed suicide in a jail cell three days later, reports MSNBC.
“A person who commits a minor traffic violation — I think she forgot to put on her turn signal — should not be yanked out her car, assaulted, handcuffed, put in jail and die three days later. It’s not what should happen you commit a minor violation. We must reform our criminal justice system. Black lives do matter and we must value black lives.”
“Anybody who saw the recent Sandra Bland tape understands that tragically, racism is alive and well in America. I don’t think anybody believes that a middle-class white woman would have been yanked out of her car, thrown on the ground, assaulted and then ended up jail because she made a minor traffic violation.”
As Sanders spoke in front of black leaders in Louisiana — knowing he needs to court black voters to win the Democratic nomination — he returned to the key issues of his campaign, jobs and affordable education.
“To my mind, it makes eminently more sense to invest in jobs and education, rather than jails and incarceration. That is an issue that we have in common, do we not?”
Souther Christian Leadership Council President Charles Steele expressed enthusiasm about Sanders and his civil rights record.
“
Even though I like him so much, we do not endorse candidates. Most importantly, he understands the Civil Rights movement. He was involved back in the 60s.”
Sanders on Meet The Press:
Bernie Sanders did his best to try to downplay the notion that he's not on the same side as the Black Lives Matter protesters that interrupted the forum at Netroots Nation last week on this Sunday's Meet the Press.
TODD: I want to play a clip where you had sort of a reaction last week at Netroots Nation and a confrontation with the Black Lives Matter protest.
SANDERS: I didn't have a confrontation. What I had was, I was there to speak about immigration reform and some people started disrupting the meeting, and the issue that they raised was in fact a very important issue about Black Lives Matter, about Sandra Bland, about black people getting yanked out of, in this case with Sandra Bland, getting yanked out of an automobile, thrown to the ground and ending up dead three days later because of a minor traffic violation.
So this is a very important issue, and issue of concern that I strongly share.
TODD: Well I guess, there were some people who felt you were being too dismissive of the protesters...
SANDERS: No, I was not dismissive. I've been involved in the Civil Rights movement all of my life and I believe that we have to deal with this issue of institutional racism and this is what I also believe, in speaking to the SCLC last night, this is what I quoted. Martin Luther King, when he died, when he was assassinated, understood and was working on a poor people's march. We have to end institutional racism, but we have to deal with the reality that fifty percent of young black kids are unemployed, that we have massive poverty in America, in our country and we have an unsustainable level of income and wealth inequality.
Chicago supporters unite:
‘The Bernie Group’ of the Chicago Southland for Bernie Sanders for President will meet on Tuesday, July 28 from6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Flossmoor Station Restaurant, 1035 Sterling Avenue, Flossmoor. The event is open to the public.
This will be the 2nd meeting of ‘The Bernie Group’ and there will be a number of issues on the agenda for discussion including, but not limited to:
Strategies and ideas for getting Bernie and his platform more well-known (yes, there are still those who have never heard of him);
Future event planning;
Fund raising; and
Other issues.
Since Flossmoor Station has requested a head count for the event, please RSVP Now!
And New York:
Upstate NY for Bernie Sanders has scheduled a local event for Wednesday, July 29.
A contingent of workers from the Howard Dean and Democracy Now campaigns have come together to explore becoming involved in Sanders’s 2016 run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Organizers have been holding meetings this summer to see if having Sanders come to a rally in the Plattsburgh area in late summer could become a reality.
Simultaneously, the Bernie Sanders 2016 national campaign headquarters put out a call for live feed video events to be held nationwide on Wednesday.
A session is scheduled to be held at the Unitarian-Universalist Church at 4 Palmer St., Plattsburgh. Doors will open at 6:45 p.m., with the band Lucid performing.
People will be asked if they want to register to be part of a local database and for Sanders’s headquarters.
The program begins at 7:15 p.m., with Sanders scheduled to address the crowd through the video feed around 7:30 p.m.
After his speech, those attending will discuss the next steps to work for his campaign. Voter registration information and forms will be available.
ABC has a 'Bernie in 60 Seconds' style introduction:
Name: Bernard “Bernie” Sanders
Party: Independent, but has described himself as a “Democratic socialist,” and is running for president in the Democratic primary.
What he does now: Served as Vermont’s junior senator since 2006. Together with his 16 years of service in the U.S. House of Representatives (1990-2006), Sanders is the longest-serving independent in American Congressional history.
What he used to do: Before coming to Washington, Sanders served as the mayor of Burlington, Vermont for eight years. He also spent time working as a carpenter and filmmaker. In 1979 he made a 26-minute audio documentary on American socialist icon Eugene Debs.
Declared as a candidate: On April 30, 2015 Sanders told ABC's Jonathan Karl "I am running for president. I intend to stand up and fight for working families all over the country." He formally kicked off his campaign with a rally in Vermont on May 26, 2015.
Early political experience: As a student at the University of Chicago, Sanders became politically active in the Civil Rights Movement. Later, he lived on a kibbutz, an Israeli collective farm, for six months. Before winning his first election for Burlington mayor by just ten votes, he unsuccessfully sought higher office in Vermont as a candidate of the leftist Liberty Union Party. But his earliest encounter with politics may have come in high school, when he lost a bid for student body president, but saw his proposal to raise scholarship money for Korean orphans adopted by the winner.
Where he comes from: Born in Brooklyn in 1941 to immigrant parents, he attended James Madison High School, also the alma mater of New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He graduated from the University of Chicago.
What he believes in: Taking Wall Street to task and addressing income inequality. Sanders has called himself the only candidate "prepared to take on the billionaire class" in an appearance on ABC's This Week. He also wants to make college free and supports a $1 trillion program to rebuild the nation’s roadways and bridges.
More On Sandra Bland (video in link):
Sanders expanded on his typical stump speech, even as he defended his view of race largely through an economic lens. He touched on many issues of concern to the civil rights group, from voting rights to police brutality to for-profit prisons to the “failure” of the drug war. “Black lives do matter, and we must value black lives,” he said.
“Anybody who saw the recent Sandra Bland tape understands that tragically, racism is alive and well in America,” he told the group’s leaders in a small reception of the black woman who was recently found dead in a Texas jail cell. “I don’t think anybody believes that a middle-class white woman would have been yanked out of her car, thrown on the ground, assaulted and then ended up jail because she made a minor traffic violation.”
Ahead of the speech, many activists with the storied civil rights organization said they did not know much about Sanders, but had an open mind and praised him for being the only major candidate to attend their conference. “We’ve known some of the candidates over a period of time. But they’re not here, and he is,” Steele told msnbc.
“I don’t know a lot about Bernie Sanders,” said Dr. Paul Miller of Albany, New York. “If he stands on the right issues, I think he’d have a chance” of winning new fans in the crowd.