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Sanders On Colbert:
Bernie Sanders brought a "Feel the Bern" coffee cup for Stephen Colbert along with his message of lifting the middle class, and in return received a rock star's welcome from the studio audience as a guest on CBS' "The Late Show" Friday.
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The Vermont senator and Democratic presidential hopeful also brought along statistics to support his cause.
"It is a moral outrage that the top one-tenth of 1 percent today owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent; that 58 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent," he said.
To that, as with nearly everyone he said, the audience cheered.
The Celebrity Endorsement List Grows:
Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders rolled out a long list of celebrity endorsers Friday, another sign that his presidential campaign is stepping up its game as polls continue to show him surging in early primary states against national frontrunner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In a release, the campaign touted a sampling of the 128 celebrities who signed a letter stating, “We endorse Bernie Sanders to become the 2016 Democratic Nominee for President of the United States.”
“A small sampling of the names includes actors Will Ferrell and Mark Ruffalo, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, actor and musician Michael ‘Killer Mike’ Render, Margaret Cho, and co-founder of Apple Computer, Steve Wozniak, just to name a few,” reads the release.
The celebrities quoted in the release include Adam McKay, Will Ferrell’s writing partner and the director of a couple of films starring Ferrell, guitarist Wayne Kramer and hip-hop artist Lil B.
Bernie Takes Manhattan:
Bernie Sanders came home Friday.
"You all know I was born in another world called Brooklyn," he said to an excited crowd at a fundraiser blocks from the Times Square Q train.
It's been a busy week for Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont. On Monday, he addressed a different type of crowd at Liberty University, the Christian college in Virginia not often known as a stopping point for Democratic presidential candidates. Mid-week, he live-tweeted the second Republican presidential debate. On Friday, he was in Manhattan, where everyone was on the same page.
"We love you," a supporter yelled toward the end.
"I love you, too," Sanders said, and grinned.
It was a moment for him to double down with the fervor of an angry, righteous professor, about the world outside the "parallel universe" of Wednesday's debate, and he did it with the comfort of the home-town hero returned: addressing the missing topics of income inequality, institutional racism, campaign finance, criminal justice reform and free public tuition.
A Nurse Will Represent Sanders @ Massachusetts Convention:
Karen Higgins, co-president of National Nurses United and former president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, will represent Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, at the Massachusetts Democratic Party Convention Saturday in Springfield.
Higgins, a critical care nurse at Boston Medical Center, has appeared with Sanders at several other events, including at a rally in Washington in July marking the 50th anniversary of the enactment of Medicare.
"It is Bernie Sanders who shares our values of caring, compassion and community to heal America," Higgins said in a released statement.
Sanders Shreds Trump:
Bernie Sanders called Donald Trump and his birtherism a disgrace during an interview on CBS This Morning. Sanders strongly condemned the birther mythology and ugliness surrounding President Obama.
CBS This Morning released a clip of Sen. Sanders discussing during a commercial break Trump’s encouragement of lies about Obama.
Sen. Sanders said, “I think it’s a disgrace. To again question whether or not the President Of The United States was born in this country. Whether he’s a Christian. I thought we were beyond that. It’s an outrage.”
Sanders added, “To continue this mythology and the ugliness that suggests that the President Of The United States and we all remember Trump was one of the leaders of this effort a year ago. I thought maybe he had learned something from that. This is not what American politics should be about. Let’s debate real issues.”
Bernies Prison Bill Does More Than Just Break Up For Profit Prisons:
On Thursday, the independent senator from Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, introduced a bill (co-sponsored by three progressive congressmen) designed to crack down on private contractors in public prisons. The bill's biggest-ticket item is a prohibition on federal funding for private prisons altogether. (Currently about 1.6 million federal inmates nationally are at private facilities.)
But the bill—read it here—also takes on video and phone contractors. Specifically, it would put an unspecified cap on the per-minute cost of video and phone conferencing with inmates; it would prohibit or restrict correctional facilities from taking a cut of the revenue from phone and video conferencing fees (which can create an incentive to jack up rates, and cut back on things like in-person visitation); and it would require corrections departments to open up their facilities to multiple phone and video contractors, giving inmates and their families choices over which providers to use.
A Little More On Bernie In Manhattan:
Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders fired up a capacity crowd of small-dollar donors at a midtown Manhattan theater Friday as he ridiculed the Republican candidate field and called for sweeping progressive change.
Free public universities, a nationwide $15 minimum wage and higher taxes for the rich were parts of the platform advanced by Brooklyn-raised Sanders, a Vermont U.S. senator. The fundraiser inside the 1,500-seat Town Hall on West 43rd Street was the first for Sanders' campaign in New York City, where front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains her headquarters.
"Welcome to the revolution!" Sanders shouted to cheers, adding: "I beg of you -- think big, not small."
Bernies Populist Support:
Outside of the Town Hall theater on West 43rd Street in Manhattan, a crowd of smiling and optimistic people Friday overflowed into the one-way street. Delivery trucks and yellow taxi cabs creeped by, their engines engaged in a shouting match with Bennet Weiss, a man who bore a fleeting resemblance to the Democratic presidential candidate they were all there to support.
"We don't have billions of dollars! All we have are people wearing Bernie pins," Weiss yelled, a large black umbrella covered in Bernie Sanders campaign pins at his feet, catching drops of sweat from his brow. The Occupy Wall Street protester-turned-Sanders supporter urged the crowd to wear the pins at all times with no exception -- even in the shower -- and gave them away freely to anyone who said they didn't have enough cash to afford to pay the suggested donation.
That's the kind of populist support Sanders' campaign has steadily been attracting since the U.S. senator from Vermont formally announced his candidacy in late April. Friday was no exception, with passion-filled people who think Sanders has proved himself the worthy champion of causes they care about the most, such as income inequality, climate change, Wall Street reform and further healthcare reforms. But, perhaps most importantly, they also think he can win the White House.
"Absolutely" he can win, said Joe Trinolone, 30, a former finance industry worker from Long Island, New York, who is studying mathematics at St. Joseph's University. "I mean, he's winning right now."
The Guardian has a piece on Bernie/Colbert:
As usual, scores of people were lined up to see the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in New York City on Friday afternoon. What was unusual, though, was the crowd of 150 people who were gathered across the street to show their support for his guest: Bernie Sanders.
Sanders fans chanted, waved signs, and enthusiastically approached members of the public outside the Ed Sullivan theater in midtown Manhattan, in a public show of support that followed the Democratic candidate’s earlier rally in the city.
“We’re here to welcome people and we’re here to register some voters,” said Patrizia Pelgrift, who organised the rally as an opportunity to sign up new supporters. “And I’m a big fan of Stephen Colbert.”
Pelgrift, 44, is an Italian citizen and not actually eligible to vote in the US. “But I can promote,” she said. “We average half a vote,” her American husband, Robert, chipped in.