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Sanders Joined The GOP Debates On Twitter:
A lot of analysts have weighed in on the Thursday night primetime GOP debates, but even candidates have taken on the pundit role. Speaking through his Twitter account, Bernie Sanders joined the GOP debate and even gave his opponents a chance to #DebateWithBernie. As right-wing candidates traded cutting barbs, Sanders comfortably watched the whole thing from home and marked his opinions online.
The Democratic candidate can relax until Oct. 13, when CNN will host the first Democratic debate. A lack of left-wing candidates will ensure he makes the primetime show, unlike the 17 Republicans who had to battle in the polls for face time on Fox News.
For now, he sat in an armchair with a clipboard on his lap, ready to tear down every inconsistency, thoughtless statement, and insult. He tweeted at Republicans' accounts, arguing with the claims they made during the debate. With a serious tone, he plowed through the platitudes and falsehoods for his audience of 226,000 followers.
Sanders Made The Best Of The GOP Debate:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for the Democratic nomination for president, live-tweeted the first GOP primary debate on Thursday night using the hashtag #DebateWithBernie.
Sanders posted an image of himself on a couch with a clipboard ahead of the debate, inviting people to watch along with him.
He took a jab at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), tying him to his brother, former President George W. Bush:
More here, and even more
here:
had intended to write a post this evening on the big first-string GOP debate. I figured I’d have some jokes about Donald “The Donald” Trump’s spray tan of a complexion, a few screenshots of Scott Walker with the Devil in his eyes, and (less likely) some hard-hitting analysis of Jeb Bush’s platform.
Alas, after watching OVER AN HOUR of Fox News earlier today during the second-string debate, I was exhausted, and barely made it through Donald Trump calling Rosie O’Donnell a fat pig (I didn’t hallucinate that, right?) before promptly falling asleep on my laptop and having a lovely dream about Rand Paul being licked to death by a pack of feral Labradoodles. I would feel ashamed for my poor journalistic ethics, but I think my body was shutting down to protect my brain.
Luckily for us, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders did not fall asleep, and even managed to live-tweet what I’m sure was a very entertaining — if terrifying — event. I’ll let Bernie do the reporting for me.
Miles Mogulescu @ Huff Post admits he was wrong about Bernie:
I was critical of Bernie Sanders because I feared his campaign would be ineffective. Barney Frank and his fellow Clintonistas are critical of Sanders because his campaign is being too effective. We’re both wrong.
In my initial disappointment at Elizabeth Warren’s refusal to challenge Hillary Clinton’s coronation as the nominee in the Democratic primary, I was too quick, writing in these pages, to dismiss Sanders’ campaign as marginal. I was mistaken.
So let’s forget about Donald Trump and the Republican debate clown show for a minute and focus on the Democrats.
Bernie Sanders has garnered crowds of 10,000 supporters plus, raised over $15 million in small donor contributions, attracted over 100,000 people to organizing house parties, and is polling within 10 points of Hillary Clinton in the key early battleground states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
It’s enough to put a good scare into the Clinton campaign and Democratic insiders like Barney Frank who think Hillary should get a free pass to the nomination.
And whether or not Bernie ultimately wins the Democratic nomination, he is accomplishing two important goals.
First, he is putting some key progressive policies front and center in the debate in contrast to the “moderate” policies of mainstream Democrats, the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton.
• Medicare-For-All vs. the weak tea of the Affordable Care Act.
• Increasing Social Security, and paying for it by lifting the regressive cap on income which is currently subject to Social Security tax vs. cutting a grand bargain with Republicans to cut Social Security and Medicare
• Free higher education at a public university for everyone who’s academically qualified paid for by a tax on Wall Street, not just lower interest rates on student loans.
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The Presidential primaries are exactly the place to openly debate these issues. Barney Frank is wrong to try to shut down the debate. If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, I'll reluctantly vote for her over any conceivable Republican nominee. But the choice to support the "lesser of two evils" is for the general election, not the primaries.
I admit I was wrong to dismiss Bernie Sanders' candidacy. Barney Frank should admit he was wrong, too. Run, Bernie, Run.
Bernie & The Baptists:
The eyes of the political world are focused on Thursday night’s premiere of the reality show known as the first Republican presidential debate, where a pack of contenders — 10 in the main event and at least a half dozen relegated to an undercard — will each try to set themselves apart.
It won’t be easy, in part because all of them are Christian conservatives who are not shy about proclaiming their faith as a selling point for their candidacies, and all tend to agree on issues related to their beliefs: opposition to abortion and gay marriage, for example, and promoting religious freedom and battling radical Islam.
But a more intriguing, if not entertaining (really, who can compete with Donald Trump?) interplay between faith and politics has been announced for next month, when Sen. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist and secular Jew — and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination — speaks at Liberty University.
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So why did Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, accept Falwell’s invitation to address upwards of 12,000 students and faculty on Sept. 14?
“It goes without saying that my views on many issues — women’s rights, gay rights, education and many other issues — are very different from the opinions of some in the Liberty University community,” Sanders said in a statement.
I think it is important, however, to see if we can reach consensus regarding the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in our country, about the collapse of the middle class, about the high level of childhood poverty, about climate change and other issues.”
“It is very easy for a candidate to speak to people who hold the same views. It’s harder but important to reach out to others who look at the world differently. I look forward to meeting with the students and faculty of Liberty University.”
Electing Bernie is no longer Mission Impossible:
Hillary Clinton might actually be starting to feel the Bern. That’s because Bernie Sanders is right behind her in recent polls.
The Hill this week noted, “The fact that Sanders beats (Scott) Walker by six to seven points, depending on whether all voters or likely voters are counted — a near-landslide margin in a general election — makes it clear that the Sanders surge is more than a surge against Donald Trump, but a move that makes him competitive with all Republican candidates.”
That means he is competitive with Hillary.
“Polls once extolling Hillary Clinton’s enormous lead over Sanders are now dwindling,” The Hill wrote. “Americans have had enough of dynasties, scandals, wars and Wall Street corruption — or so says Bernie in every stump speech.”
As for data indicating Bernie can win the Democratic nomination, the Huffington Post explains how quickly he’s narrowed the lead in New Hampshire: “In a WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll released Tuesday, the Vermont senator is in a statistical tie with the Democratic presidential frontrunner, trailing her by six percentage points, which is just within the poll’s margin of error. Sanders and Clinton are virtually tied in terms of net electability, polling at 30 percent and 32 percent, respectively.”
That’s a surge in Iowa, a surge in New Hampshire, so what else?
“In several matchups in Iowa and Colorado … (Sanders) runs as well as or better than Clinton against (Marco) Rubio, (Jeb) Bush and Walker,” according to a Quinnipac swing state poll.
So much for the phrase “He can’t win.”
The Guardian has Democratic debate news:
On the eve of the first of at least nine Republican presidential debates, featuring 17 candidates, the Democratic National Committee has set its debate schedule for the 2016 presidential primary, with Hillary Clinton’s first in-person test against her decidedly smaller pool of rivals officially two months away.
Those rivals on the left were already calling the process tantamount to a “coronation”.
The Guardian has learned that the first Democratic debates will be held on 13 October in Nevada and televised on CNN.
Three more debates will take place prior to the beginning of the primary season:
14 November in Des Moines, Iowa, with CBS, the Des Moines Register and local television station KCCI as media partners;
19 December in Manchester, New Hampshire, with ABC and WMUR as media partners;
7 January in Charleston, South Carolina, co-sponsored by NBC and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.
In a statement, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said: “These six debates will not only give caucus-goers and primary voters ample opportunity to hear from our candidates about their vision for our country’s future, they will highlight the clear contrast between the values of the Democratic Party which is focused on strengthening the middle class versus Republicans who want to pursue out of touch and out of date policies.”
The debate process among Democrats has caused significant controversy. Some within the party have long griped that the DNC’s debate schedule, which only allows for six debates, gives an inherent advantage to Clinton in an attempt to avoid a contentious primary.
Sarah Silverman continues to show support:
Sarah Silverman went the distance to advocate for Barack Obama in 2012, but it doesn’t look like she’ll be doing the same for Hillary Clinton.
The outspoken left-leaning comedian was spotted wearing a t-shirt that read, “BERNIE SANDERS 2016.”
Silverman has said she likes the “underdog” because Sanders “says what he means & he means what he says & he’s not for sale.”
Tampa Bay Supporters:
It was a muggy Wednesday evening in St. Pete’s Warehouse Arts District.
Cars rolled into a vacant lot bordered by a junkyard, dog and all, and other industrial scenery. Bumper stickers touted WMNF, Sierra Club and Bernie Sanders, the man of the hour.
Activists had rented the Venture Compound, the experimental music venue, to serve as one of thousands of sites across the country to stream a speech by the Democratic presidential hopeful.
The Independent U.S. Senator from Vermont has been turning heads and attracting massive crowds despite relatively little media attention, energizing progressives underwhelmed by the Democratic establishment’s choice, Hillary Clinton.
To supporters, Sanders is a rare honest politician not afraid to use the word “socialism” in a positive light. He passionately supports a $15 minimum wage, single-payer health care, a gentler foreign policy and paid family leave for all. Last week he filed a bill in the Senate that would grant free tuition for students attending any public college or university, not that the proposal has much traction.
Compared to Clinton’s centrist — some would consider right-leaning — platform, many people, especially younger ones, find Sanders refreshing.
“I’ve been a fan of Bernie Sanders ever since I found out he was one of a few senators on Capitol Hill that actually stands for the people and is not beholden to corporations,” said Tampa activist Asher Edelson, 21, in a phone interview. “And that’s rare.”
Also rare was Sanders’ early embrace of civil rights causes, supporters say.
The Portland Rally got moved:
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is expecting a big crowd for his rally in Sunday — so big that his campaign announced on Facebook that the event is being moved from Veterans Memorial Coliseum to the much larger Moda Center.
Depending on its configuration, the Moda Center can handle more than 19,000 occupants, compared to just under 13,000 for the Memorial Coliseum. Doors to the event open at 6 p.m. and Sanders will begin speaking at 7 p.m.
Sanders, an independent who aligns with the Democratic Party in the Senate, has been running second to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary race.
At this point, the Portland event could well be the largest of the Sanders campaign, which has been regularly outdrawing the candidates of both parties. His largest event so far has been in Phoenix, where more than 11,000 showed up for a July 18 rally.
Josh Eidelson @ Bloomberg has Bernies Takes On 'Welfare':
In an phone interview Thursday with Bloomberg, the Democratic presidential candidate said that history will not look kindly on the 1996 overhaul of the New Deal anti-poverty program, which then-President Bill Clinton enacted over the objections of many liberal Democrats, including Sanders, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives at the time. Sanders’ chief rival for the Democratic nomination, front-runner Hillary Clinton, wrote in her 2003 book, Living History, that she supported the bill, despite some concerns, because she “felt, on balance, that this was a historic opportunity to change a system oriented toward dependence to one that encouraged independence.”
Asked about that position in May, a Clinton campaign spokesperson told Bloomberg she “has a long record fighting for everyday Americans and their families, and she is running to make sure all families are not only able to get ahead, but stay ahead.”
Clinton wrote that she “worked hard to round up votes” for the her husband’s legislation, which imposed time limits on welfare benefits and work requirements on beneficiaries.
In his own book in 1997, Sanders called the bill “the grand slam of scapegoating legislation…” Now a U.S. senator from Vermont, he doubled down on that assessment in his interview with Bloomberg. “I think that history will suggest that that legislation has not worked terribly well,” he said, arguing that too many politicians would rather target the poor than poverty.
“I mean, that’s what Ronald Reagan’s ‘welfare queen’ was all about,” he said, referring to the former Republican president. “It was the illusion that we’re spending huge sums of money on people who are cheating, who are taking of the welfare system and so forth,” he said.
“And what I said then is what I believe to be the case right now,” Sanders added. “We need to figure out why people are in poverty. We need to get people out of poverty… Instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, we should make sure that every person in this country lives in dignity.
Walker Bragman @ THe Huffingtonpost makes The Case For Sanders:
Bernie Sanders can win--not just the primary, but the general. Democrats should back him, and ignore the arguments made by Barney Frank and others, who say giving Hillary the nod early is the only hope for victory in 2016. This timidity, a relic of the Democratic Party's weakened state following the Reagan realignment, is astounding in the face of the most favorable political environment in nearly 50 years.
1) The GOP is a mess.
As I wrote last time, the United States is in the midst of another realignment, this time away from the GOP. The Occupy Movement brought wealth inequality and systemic corruption due to the influence of money in politics, to the forefront of the national discussion. These issues galvanized the electorate against the Republicans in 2012, and they'll do it again in 2016 and probably 2020.
The answer as to why that is? The GOP does not address these problems because it does not accept them as problems. History has shown that any time there is a major national issue like slavery or civil rights, or in this case what I mentioned above, and one or both parties do not address it, there is a realignment of the electorate.
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That said, all things considered, to fight to give Hillary the nod over Bernie places the game of politics over the substance of it, without any real support for such a position. Bernie Sanders should be the nominee for president. Let the cards fall as they may.
Sanders will be at Loras College:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will visit Dubuque later this month.
The independent U.S. senator from Vermont will hold a town meeting from 6 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16, at the Fieldhouse at Loras College.
Sanders will “speak about taking on the billionaire class and standing up for working families,” according to an invite from his campaign. He will also discuss combating climate change making college education affordable, according to an event page.
Joel Connelly with:
Bernie Sanders: Power of billionaires over American politics is ‘horrendous,’ a ‘national disgrace’
Sen. Bernie Sanders, in an interview with Northwest media, said Thursday that billionaires have “more influence over campaigns than the candidates” and that the superrich have acquired a “horrendous” influence, particularly over selection of the Republicans’ 2016 presidential nominee.
“This is not democracy, this is oligarchy: This is a national disgrace,” said Sanders, expected to draw big crowds this weekend as he brings his campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination to evening rallies in Seattle and Portland. The campaign has already received more than 15,000 RSVP’s for the Sunday event in Portland.
Hillary Clinton has not taken a Northwest reporter’s question since 2008. Sanders used queries on Thursday to outline his differences with the former secretary of state and Democratic front-runner.
“I oppose the Keystone XL pipeline,” said Sanders. “Secretary Clinton has not been clear in her views on this subject.” Clinton recently fumbled a question about the pipeline. It would carry oil from the Mordor-like Alberta tar stands through the American Midwest to the Gulf Coast, where it would be exported.
Sanders singled out pay for the working poor. “I believe we need to raise the (federal) minimum wage to $15 an hour as Seattle and Los Angeles have done,” he said. “Secretary Clinton does not hold that view.”
Seattle Will Be Big:
Ellen O’Shea, an organic farmer from Chimacum, Jefferson County, had planned to share a car and ferry ride with a couple friends to see Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Saturday in Seattle.
But so many Olympic Peninsula neighbors were fired up to see the independent Vermont senator, they chartered what they’re dubbing the “Freedom Bus” for as many as 60 to get into the city.
With a socialist City Council member, $15 minimum wage and a statue of Lenin, Seattle is friendly territory for a candidate like Sanders — and organizers expect thousands from across the state will pack two events: a 1 p.m. Social Security event at Westlake Park and a 6 p.m. campaign rally at Edmundson Pavilion.
As the first 2016 contender to publicly campaign in Washington, Sanders’ visit contrasts with recent secretive stopovers by other candidates.
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush each slipped into the Seattle area this year to mingle at penthouses and mansions with donors who paid thousands of dollars to attend. Sanders’ only scheduled fundraiser is a small, $200-a-person meet-and-greet at Capitol Hill’s Comet Tavern.
Sanders, King mark 50 years of Voting Rights Act but say poor minorities still disenfranchised
Martin Luther King III and Sen. Bernard Sanders think voters’ rights in America still need to improve, and they expressed their concerns at the MLK Memorial in Washington on Thursday, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
Mr. King and Mr. Sanders acknowledged how far the country has come in safeguarding disenfranchised voters since the act became law under pressure from the civil rights movement led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
But they also criticized the Supreme Court for striking down the law’s Section 4(b), which applied a “coverage formula” that determines which state and local jurisdictions with histories of voter discrimination to “pre-clear” with the Justice Department any changes to their voting laws.
The court ruled that the section was based on outdated data and, because Congress hasn’t passed a formula to replace it, the pre-clearance requirement is effectively a dead letter.
Mr. King said the court’s 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision opened a floodgate for states to adopt legislation that ultimately would harm voters’ rights, but cited hope in a decision Wednesday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.