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Mission: Possible:
When it comes to national political orthodoxy, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – the irascible, septuagenarian socialist chasing Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination – is as unorthodox as it gets.
That's especially true when it comes to courting deep-pocketed donors for the seven-figure war chest the pros say he'll need to run for, and win, the White House. Sanders, who is to unfettered spending in politics what Nancy Reagan was to the war on drugs, just says no.
No glad-handing limousine liberals at $10,000-a-plate Manhattan fundraisers. No photo ops with Hollywood A-listers toting leatherbound checkbooks. No hooking up with a well-financed super PAC, which nowadays is almost as essential to a White House run as a polished, well-groomed candidate. Sanders – rumpled and toothy, with a Brooklyn accent thick enough to spread on a bagel – stands on principle, and he shall not be moved.
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Michael Malbin of the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonprofit government watchdog organization, says the importance of money is overrated at this early stage of the campaign. Malbin doesn't think a campaign needs $1 billion to win, and says Sanders has a big tactical advantage against Clinton right now.
"You do not have to be at the top of the fundraising pack to win. The front-runner better have a lot of money, but the front runner is vulnerable," he says. A poorly-timed stumble – a big gaffe, say, or underperforming in a primary or two – could cause serious fundraising issues.
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"If he catches on, he'll have to broaden the [donor] base," Malbin says. "In 'broadening the base,' for most candidates, that means small donors."
Ultimately, "It's a lot easier to raise money from someone who can write you a seven-figure check. But there are some candidates for whom that is not plausible," he says. Sanders has an opportunity "to show that those candidates have a chance. I don't think it will rewrite the Citizens United playbook, but I think it will show an alternative path."
Sanders @ The National Urban League:
“It is too late for establishment policies,” Sanders said. “It is too late for establishment politics. It is too late for establishment economics.”
He added: “We need some new thinking.”
Income inequality and the influence of billionaires are threatening democracy as well as the economy, said the independent Vermont senator who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
Potential solutions include jobs programs, new infrastructure programs, an increase in the minimum wage, “tuition free” college, child care for working mothers and universal pre-school, said Sanders, who addressed the Urban League’s presidential forum shortly after Hillary Clinton did.
Sanders, who is inching up on Clinton in public opinions polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, told the largely African-American audience that too many minorities are mistreated by the criminal justice system.
“We must value black lives,” Sanders said. “Force should be the last resort, not the first resort.”
He also said the federal government needs to crack down on “the illegal activities of hate groups.”
More:
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders brought his message about fighting income inequality to the National Urban League conference in Fort Lauderdale today.
Here are some highlights:
RECORD HIGH INCOME INEQUALITY: “The United States of America today is the wealthiest country in the history of the world but most people don’t know that because much of that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. Today in America we have more wealth and income inequality than any other major country on earth and it is worse today than at any other time since 1928.”
THE 1 PERCENTERS: “To me it is not acceptable that top 1/10th of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%.”
WALMART OWNERS: “It’s not acceptable that one family, the family that owns Walmart, owns more wealth than the bottom 40% of the American people.”
KOCH BROTHERS: “You tell me what it means when one family, the Koch brothers family, will spend more money on this election cycle than either the Democratic party or the Republican party. spend almost a billion dollars to make the rich richer and everyone else poorer.”
AFRICAN-AMERICAN UNEMPLOYMENT: “If you are a white kid between 17-20 who graduates high school you have a 33% unemployment rate. If you are a Hispanic kid you have a 36% unemployment rate. If you are an African-American kid, age 17-20, a high school graduate you have a 51% unemployment rate. That is unacceptable.” (See PolitiFact’s analysis of a similar claim by Sanders.)
Bernie's Improbable Rise:
Sanders’ sudden popularity has surprised pundits trapped inside the Beltway, but not Vermonters closely acquainted with his political biography. They’ve watched his evolution from a fringe candidate of the far-left Liberty Union Party in the 1972 governor’s race, to mayor of the state’s largest city nine years later, to his current status as one of Vermont’s most popular politicians. Sanders won reelection to his U.S. Senate seat in 2012 with 71 percent of the vote.
Sanders-watchers say many of the attributes now becoming evident to voters outside Vermont are the same ones that have helped him assemble ever-broader majorities in the Green Mountain State over the last 35 years. A look at the factors behind his first electoral victory — as mayor of Burlington in 1981 — and his subsequent ascent to the national political scene in the 1990 race for Vermont’s sole U.S. House seat helps explain his growing appeal.
Underlying all of Sanders’ electoral successes is his ability to win the support of white working-class voters. Sanders’ friends, former campaign staff and academic analysts who have watched him over the decades agree on the elements that comprise his political repertoire: charisma, authenticity, trustworthiness, and simplicity and consistency of message. Sanders wins respect among moderates and even some conservatives, these sources add, by abstaining from ideology and by taking a pragmatic, but always principled, approach to governing and legislating.
“Bernie doesn’t talk in terminology laden with Marxist lingo,” says Terry Bouricius, a Burlington activist who helped Sanders achieve his upset mayoral breakthrough. “His socialism is more like liberation theology. He speaks about economic injustice as something ‘immoral,’ not as ‘the inevitable product of capitalism.’”
Bernie says the 1% have something wrong with their brains, science proves him right:
The extremely rich have “psychiatric issues” and it affects day-to-day Americans, populist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said recently. Research shows that he’s on to something.
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Last August, Maria Fernandes became the poster child for the new American economy, in which the cost of living has far surpassed the minimum wage and political inaction has let it fester.
Fernandes, a 32-year-old from New Jersey, worked four part-time, low wage jobs to make a living. She died in her car while she was napping between shifts, accidentally inhaling carbon monoxide, according to the New York Daily News.
According to the Pacific Standard, we tend to look at the lifestyles and patterns of average and low-income people with critical detail, even though it’s the elite class that has the most power and incentive to influence government policies that impact our day-to-day lives.
Research cited by the magazine shows ultra-rich people are happier — but only because wealth affords stability and allows them to have more control over their own lives. They’re more likely to say winning respect and appreciation from others and reaching their personal potential is a key to happiness. And while average people are more likely to identify with their own communities, the very rich instead identify with a global elite class.
Interestingly, the research shows wealthy people are less empathetic and tend to think of themselves and others in terms of fixed traits, instead of attributing a person’s emotional state to context and surroundings. And the rich tend to think of income inequality — from which they benefit — as the just result of meritocracy rather than a system rigged in their favor.
Friends of Earth endorse Sanders:
Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, who has built his campaign largely on economic issues, picked up an endorsement Saturday from a national environmental group during a swing through New Hampshire.
The political arm of Friends of the Earth, which bills itself as the world's largest grass-roots environmental network, threw its support behind the senator from Vermont at an event in Concord and then joined him at a town-hall meeting in Manchester.
This was the first formal endorsement by a national group of Sanders's bid for the Democratic nomination, and the organization's rationale mirrors that of other progressives drawn to his candidacy.
Sanders is more solid than Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton on issues the group cares about, said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. And, he added in a phone interview, while former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley -- who recently put forth a comprehensive white paper on climate change -- is an "intriguing" candidate, Friends of the Earth has a long-standing relationship with Sanders.
Pica pointed to the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline as an issue emblematic of the differences his group sees between Sanders and Clinton.
Molly Ball on The Sanders Surprise:
There’s no way this man could be president, right? Just look at him: rumpled and scowling, bald pate topped by an entropic nimbus of white hair. Just listen to him: ranting, in his gravelly Brooklyn accent, about socialism. Socialism!
And yet here we are: In the biggest surprise of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, this thoroughly implausible man, Bernie Sanders, is a sensation.
He is drawing enormous crowds—11,000 in Phoenix, 8,000 in Dallas, 2,500 in Council Bluffs, Iowa—the largest turnout of any candidate from any party in the first-to-vote primary state. He has raised $15 million in mostly small donations, to Hillary Clinton’s $45 million—and unlike her, he did it without holding a single fundraiser.
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Another basic tenet of campaign spin is that consultants must never admit their candidate isn’t totally perfect, but Sanders’s people apparently missed that lesson as well.
“I give him advice—not always advice that he follows,” says Tad Devine, the veteran Democratic consultant, a former adviser to Al Gore and John Kerry, who is Sanders’s top strategist. “He is not interested in the niceties of appearance and hairdo.”
Sanders’s communications director, Michael Briggs, adds: “He goes on for an hour—long, eat-your-spinach kind of speeches. And people are clapping for it!”
As long as people keep writing about the livestream event, I'll keep posting about it:
I just got back from an organizing meeting. Over 100 degrees, Chico Grange Hall, no air conditioning, just 200 or so excited Chicoans. Young, old all excited about one person and his ideas, Bernie Sanders.
If there was a common thread, it was that enough is enough. We have suffered long enough under a government that is controlled by the rich and powerful. We have had enough of U.S. corporations avoiding taxes and hiding all their wealth overseas. We have had enough of the lion’s share of the profits going to a tiny percentage of wealthy Americans. And we have had enough of our representatives in Washington being bought and paid for by wealthy, controlling interests.
Sanders is the only candidate looking out for the average guy’s best interest. Sanders is the only guy talking about the all the important issues facing U.S. citizens today. He has plans to control and lower health care costs, he has plans for jobs for all Americans and he has plans to even the playing field and bring back opportunity for all young people by making higher education affordable for all who want to go to college.
Why Liberals Have To Be Radicals:
Just about nothing being proposed in mainstream politics is radical enough to fix what ails the economy. Consider everything that is destroying the life chances of ordinary people:
Young adults are staggered by $1.3 trillion in student debt. Yet even those with college degrees are losing ground in terms of incomes.
The economy of regular payroll jobs and career paths has given way to a gig economy of short-term employment that will soon hit four workers in 10.
The income distribution has become so extreme, with the one percent capturing such a large share of the pie, that even a $15/hour national minimum wage would not be sufficient to restore anything like the more equal economy of three decades ago. Even the mainstream press acknowledges these gaps.
The New York Times's Noam Scheiber, using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, calculated that raising the minimum wage to $15 for the period 2009 to 2014 would have increased the total income for the 44 million Americans who earn less than $15 an hour by a total of $300 billion to $400 billion. But during the same period, Scheiber reported, the top 10 percent increased its income by almost twice that amount.
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But the reforms needed to restore that degree of shared prosperity are somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders.
This is one of those moments when there is broad popular frustration, a moment when liberal goals require measures that seem radical by today's standards. If progressives don't articulate those frustrations and propose real solutions, rightwing populists will propose crackpot ones. Muddle-through and token gestures won't fool anybody.
Bernie spoke in Exeter yesterday:
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders electrified a crowd that filled the historic Exeter Town Hall to capacity and beyond on Saturday with his populist message and call for “a political revolution.”
If Sanders’ remarks had one overarching theme, it was that “family values” do not belong to Republicans, and liberals need to reclaim the term and fight for working wages, paid family leave and universal health care. When Republicans talk about family values, Sanders said, they are talking about taking away a woman’s right to choose and not allowing same-sex couples to marry.
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Near the close of the event, Sanders answered a question from a resident about the possibility of his running as an independent, should he lose the nomination to Hillary Clinton, promising that he wouldn’t. “I promise that I will not run as an independent” he said, calling the Republican agenda one of tax breaks for the wealthy, cuts to education and the Environmental Protection Agency and Social Security. “I do not want to be a part of electing some right-wing Republican as president.”
Peter Francese, of Exeter, expressed his concern about the Fox News “propaganda machine” going after Sanders, and asked him how he intended to counter right-wing media. “Fox News, to its credit, is an arm of the Republican Party, and it’s unabashed about it,” he said. “… It’s not just Fox though: 95 percent of talk radio is extreme right-wing.” He added that in his estimation, most of the national media is not only owned by corporations, but only interested in the presidential campaign in terms of gossip and attacks. He plans to counter both elements of the media with time, money and effort, as well as with his campaign’s extensive social media outreach.
When asked by Priscilla Jones, of Amesbury, Mass., how he planned to pay for his many proposals aimed at solving the issue of income inequality and implementing a universal, single-payer health care system, Sanders acknowledged that it was “an expensive proposition,” but that through closing tax loopholes, imposing new taxes on Wall Street speculation and “making sure the wealthy pay their fair share,” it could be done.
And In Manchester (Video In Link):
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D, Vermont) drew a big crowd Saturday in the Granite State.
The Vermont senator spoke at a town hall meeting in Manchester at Southern New Hampshire University.
In his speech, Sanders railed against extreme income inequality and proposed solutions to issues facing the working middle class.
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Sanders will hold three more town hall meetings in New Hampshire Sunday. The first is scheduled at the American Legion Post in Rollinsford.
There is a video story on Sanders 2 day swing through NH
Sanders on Climate Change:
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders was endorsed by Friends of the Earth, a progressive political action committee fighting climate change, during a campaign stop in New Hampshire today.“Climate change is the greatest threat facing the planet,” Sanders said.
He added that “the debate is over.”
“The scientific community is virtually unanimous, climate change is real,” Sanders said. “Climate change is caused by human activity.”
He said he is opposed to a so-called “all of the above” energy strategy, and the nation must transition to use only renewable sources of energy.
“We need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into sustainable energy,” Sanders said.
He said that climate change is not just an environmental issue, but an economic and national security one as well.
“Our task is clear,” Sanders said. “We must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
I dont recall if I posted this story on Unions already:
Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders this week fought for support at a private union meeting that may prove critical to their campaigns.
“We spoke at length with each candidate about the Raising Wages agenda and were encouraged by our discussions,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. “We will continue to make the case for Raising Wages, and look forward to ongoing discussions with the candidates and the further unfolding of the presidential campaign.”
The AFL-CIO hosted meeting between July 29-30 in Maryland as part of an ongoing effort by unions to determine what candidate to endorse. Though Sanders and Hillary are the likely choices, a few other candidates attended the meeting as well to make their case.
“We spoke with each of them for an hour, and had a genuine exchange of views on a wide variety of critical subjects,” Trumka continued. “The issues America faces are daunting, eclipsed only by our resolve to address them and put our country on a new path of shared prosperity.
The private meeting was important for several reasons. Unions wield considerable political influence and contribute significantly to those candidates they support. Though they usually support Democrats, lingering issues like trade have made them hesitant to endorse party frontrunner Clinton.
“That path is embodied in our Raising Wages agenda, which would rewrite our economic rules to put working people first,” Trumka added. “And keep them there.”
From rallies to extensive media campaigns, unions have helped make the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) an important campaign issue. The reluctance of Hillary to take a firm stance against the deal has opened the door to those like Sanders, a self-described socialist, to win union support.
Indian-American ignites Sanders campaign:
Manisha Sharma had never organized a political event when she signed up to host a house party for the Bernie Sanders campaign this week. She and her husband Miguel Herrera began with a guest list of five people for a sit-down dinner in their small one-bedroom apartment in Washington DC. It quickly expanded to 10, then to 15, then to 25, as more and more people asked to join in, forcing them to co-opt a neighbor who has a larger apartment.
Then the Sanders campaign decided the Democratic candidate would visit them personally to reach out to his ever growing following that is starting to pose a very real threat to the shoo-in Hillary Clinton was expecting for the party nomination. By the time Sanders and his team, trailed by the media, arrived on Wednesday evening, Manisha and Miguel had organized drinks and food (samosas, chole, mutter panneer, and guacamole), and rigged a make-shift lectern where he'd deliver remarks that were eventually streamed out to more than 3500 similar house parties across the country, watched by more than 100,000 people.
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Manisha, 34, who comes from a political family in India (her grandfather Durga Das Sharma was a freedom fighter), is among them. A banking attorney specializing in financial regulation and consumer compliance, she says she was drawn to Sanders after she watched him confront then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, despite the latter's demi-god status, on financial and regulatory issues.
"Issue after issue that I researched on Sanders showed me he has been ahead of his times, courageous and consistent in his ideas and actions. He is honest and unafraid to tackle issues that other politicians are afraid to touch," she told The Times of India in an interview. "Since he does not have name recognition, but has conscience recognition, my husband and I decided to throw a small sit down dinner for his livecast event and let people see, hear, and connect with Sanders' conscience for themselves, just as we did."
The Gandhi poster idea came to her when she realized that like the Mahatma, Sanders was also initially ignored and then mocked by the establishment. "Now they will fight him because he is truly a threat to the establishment. That's why I gave the poster to him, and said, 'I predict you will win."' she said.
The Northwest Will be feeling the Bern:
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, whose rallies around the country have drawn as many as 11,000 people, will speak next Saturday, August 8, at a “Social Security Works” rally in Seattle’s Westlake Park.
Although not officially an event in his bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Sanders’ speech will be the first time in the 2016 campaign cycle that a major party candidate visiting Seattle has NOT limited his or her appearance to a pricey fundraiser at a millionaire’s digs in Seattle or Medina.
Sanders will later have a campaign rally, from 6 to 8 p.m., in the Alaska Airlines Arena of Hec Edmundson Pavilion at the University of Washington. President Obama spoke there five years ago, drawing such a crowd that Husky Stadium was needed for overflow.
At Westlake, Sanders will be joined on the podium by U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, longtime Seattle folksinger Jim Page, and Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant. Sawant is part of the Trotskyist Socialist Alternative Party.
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Two of the most successful social programs in the history of the world — Social Security and Medicare — have important birthdays this year. Social Security is turning 80, and it has been 50 years since President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law with ex-President Harry Truman looking on.
The announcement of Sanders’ speech came from the Washington Consumer Action Network, a labor-affiliated group best known for non-stop protests and harassment of Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna during the 2012 election.
Such presidential candidates as Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Gerald Ford used to hold big public rallies using such venues as Westlake Park, the Pike Place Market, the Seattle Waterfront and the Seattle Center.
Portland:
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been attracting large crowds to his presidential campaign appearances around the country, has scheduled a Sunday, Aug. 9 rally at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland.
The Sanders rally at Memorial Coliseum -- which has a capacity of more than 12,000 -- is set to begin at 7 p.m., with the doors opening at 6 p.m., according to an announcement posted Friday on the Sanders campaign website.
There is no charge listed for the event, which says he will discuss issues ranging from climate change to dealing "with obscene wealth and income inequality."
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The senator will appear in Portland just four days after Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race, is set to hold a $2,700-per-person fundraiser at a home in the exclusive Dunthorpe neighborhood on the Portland border.
Please let there be a Sanders vs Trump debate:
Polls may vary, but there is little question that Sanders would win in a landslide in any general election matchup against Trump and, I predict, in any head-to-head debate with Trump, Sanders would win a blockbuster victory.
What is involved is far more than polling numbers. Sanders is a voice of inspiration for most Democrats, whether they support him or not. Trump is an embarrassment to virtually all Republicans except the small plurality of GOP voters who make Trump a slight front-runner in a race with 15 GOP contenders (or is it 16 or 17 today)? Sanders is running slightly ahead or slightly behind all of the GOP candidates — including former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) — while Trump would lose in a landslide against any Democratic opponent in all polling that has been taken so far.
The seeds exist for a major progressive wave and transformation for America in 2016. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is leading that wave in the Senate and Sanders is leading that wave in the presidential campaign, with Hillary Clinton still trying to decide if she should ultimately lead the wave, follow the wave or try to maneuver around the wave.
Trump, by contrast, is so disliked by so many Republicans and so many general election voters that he could not be nominated or elected. Sanders is destined to be a pacesetter; Trump is destined to become a footnote. Sanders could become a leading figure in history if more Democrats follow his path of principled progressivism, regardless of who is nominated. Trump, by contrast, will ultimately return to real estate deals and reality television freak shows and will ultimately go down in history alongside 2012 presidential contender Herman Cain.
Sanders is a leader; Trump is a showman, which is why Sanders's crowds are larger than Trump's, Sanders's polls are stronger than Trump's, and Sanders will leave large footprints while Trump will leave a legacy as politically profound as "The Apprentice."