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Sanders Seeks Labor Support:
Organized labor’s divided loyalties between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders coursed through the Luxor hotel and casino here this week, where both Democratic presidential contenders courted voters at a statewide convention of the Nevada AFL-CIO.
Clinton, who addressed the gathering late Tuesday, has deep connections to labor. She received significant endorsements during her unsuccessful run against Barack Obama in 2008. But her equivocations on issues such as the looming Trans-Pacific Partnership and whether to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 have given some union members pause this time around.
Sanders, a senator from Vermont, has drawn huge crowds with sizable union representation and his poll numbers have risen in recent weeks as he touts many of the same positions that labor champions. But even boosters question whether a self-described democratic socialist can win a national election
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During a private meeting with his union, Buffenbarger said Clinton explained that she, like most Americans, hadn’t seen the deal and “can’t come out as clearly on TPP as some people might want her to.” He said that struck him as a reasonable position.
Rand Wilson, a Sanders supporter who is helping lead a group called Labor for Bernie, predicted several unions will slow their endorsement process, given the popularity of Sanders among their rank-and-file members. More than 6,500 people have signed a letter on the group’s Web site endorsing Sanders.
“They’re not used to seeing this kind of enthusiasm from the grass roots,” Wilson said of labor leaders. “It’s given them a reason to take some time to get in touch.”
Robert Gilmore, secretary-treasurer of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades district council in Iowa, said Sanders’s electability in a general election is not an issue for him.
Bernie Is Right:
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders positions himself as the champion of the little guy.
In his stump speeches, he's fond of saying: "The average American is working longer hours for lower wages."
He's tapping into the deep unease that still exists about the American economy. Despite the country's low unemployment rate (5.3%), too many people aren't getting ahead. The typical U.S. household takes home about $52,000 a year -- almost exactly what they made in 1995.
But are people really working more than their parents and grandparents did?
At first blush, Sanders seems wrong. Americans have worked about the same number of hours a week -- 39 hours -- since World War II, according to government data. It's why we have so many songs and jokes about the "40 hour work week for a livin'."
But dig a little deeper, and Sanders' claim isn't so outlandish.
It turns out, Americans are logging more weeks of work a year now that they did in the past, according to research from the Labor Department.
Bernie In Reno:
Democratic Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is not pulling any punches. He came out swinging in his address to more than a thousand supporters at the University of Nevada, Reno tonight.
Supporters lined up hours before he was scheduled to speak. People like Tony and Linda Wight braved the hot sun. Tony said, "The candidates from the Republicans to Democrats don't seem to be that different." His wife also said, "Bernie is the only candidate I've really seen who speaks one thing and does the same thing."
By the time Sanders took center stage in front of the University library, the crowd had grown and completely surrounded the stage. Sanders spoke with such passion at times he sounded like he was losing his voice. He tackled a wide range of topics including income inequality. Sanders said, "The United States today has more income wealth inequality than any major country on Earth." He called that inequality grotesque and immoral. Sanders said, "This campaign is sending a message to the billionaire class and that message is you cannot have it all."
He told the crowd the U.S. has the highest child poverty rate of any developed country. He also said the U.S. is also the only industrial nation that does not provide health care. Sanders said the middle class is disappearing. He calls for changes in the workplace including paid medical and family leave, paid two week vacations as well as increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Sanders said, "It is not a radical idea to say that if you work 40 hours a week in this country, you should not be living in poverty."
More:
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders told an enthusiastic crowd at the University of Nevada Tuesday night his call for political revolution is gaining momentum, but he'll need their help to overcome his opponents' huge fundraising advantages.
More than 4,000 people waved placards and chanted "Bernie, Bernie" outside the student union on the Reno campus, including more than 100 perched throughout an adjacent five-story parking garage.
"This campaign is on the move. This campaign is going to end up in victory," Sanders said.
"The momentum from one end of this country to the other has been extraordinary," said the senator from Vermont, noting, "this is the first crowd we've had where people were in a parking facility."
Sanders Has Great Opening Acts:
Just four months into his first term, Chicago’s youngest alderman was asked to give the opening remarks for the man who hopes to overturn America’s political foundation.
Bernie Sanders’ campaign called 26-year-old old Carlos Ramirez-Rosa Monday morning hours before the presidential aspirant’s first stop in Chicago as a national candidate.
Sanders wanted him to give the opening remarks at a fundraising rally along with fellow first term alderman Susan Sadlowski Garza and former mayoral candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
“I found out earlier today. It’s exciting,” Ramirez-Rosa said before the event. “I’m ‘feeling the Bern’ and I think thousands of Chicagoans across the city are ‘feeling the Bern.'”
Ramirez-Rosa, a first-time politician, is one of the youngest Chicagoans ever elected alderman and the first openly gay Latino to be elected to the City Council.
His huge margin of victory was considered a major upset during the February elections.
“I think I ran a grassroots campaign; Bernie is running a grassroots campaign,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “He’s authentic. He’s true to his message and he’s going to prioritize working and middle class families as our president.”
The campaign staff continues to grow:
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president is bulking up its digital operation.
The campaign has hired Zack Exley and two other operatives to join its digital team, Sanders aides confirmed Tuesday.
Exley is the former chief revenue officer of the Wikimedia Foundation and previously served as MoveOn.org’s organizing director during the peak of its anti-Iraq war advocacy efforts. He was also an adviser for former Vermont governor Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. Exley will be a senior adviser on the digital team.
“He’ll be working on converting the enthusiasm we’ve seen around the senator’s message into real votes by organizing with grassroots volunteers around the country,” Sanders digital director Kenneth Pennington said in an email.
Bernie & Drugs:
Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has called America’s “War on Drugs” a failure and has promised to transform America’s drug policy if elected to the White House.
So what would that look like?
Sanders has said he plans to end the program that has spent more than $51 billion annually and more than $1 trillion since 1980, according to a report by the Drug Policy Alliance.
The independent Senator from Vermont says its time to stop spending money and resources punishing and imprisoning non-violent offenders. He’s proposed treating the underlying mental health issues that cause drug addiction and legalizing marijuana use.
“Millions of lives have been destroyed because people are in jail for nonviolent crimes,” Sanders’ campaign website reads. “For decades, we have been engaged in a failed ‘War on Drugs’ with racially-biased mandatory minimums that punish people of color unfairly. It is an obscenity that we stigmatize so many young Americans with a criminal record for smoking marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy.”
O'Malley Reaches Out To Sanders:
Martin O’Malley’s campaign has reached out privately to Bernie Sanders about arranging debates outside the six contests allowed by the Democratic National Committee, risking the ire of the Democratic party in a bid to gain traction for his candidacy.
Dave Hamrick, the manager of O’Malley’s campaign, called Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, an O’Malley spokeswoman confirmed. The top managers for the two Democratic candidates discussed the DNC’s authority to determine the number of debates.
The DNC has sanctioned six debates before the Iowa caucus next year, the same number as in previous election cycles, but mandated that the candidates do not participate in any outside debates.
O’Malley and Sanders have both protested the limited number of debates this cycle.