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A Big Turnout Expected In Boston:
US Senator Bernie Sanders is bringing his surging White House campaign to Massachusetts this weekend, where he could host the largest rally for a presidential primary candidate in recent state history.
Sanders, who is from Vermont and running as a Democrat, is scheduled to attend two events in the Bay State on Saturday. More than 1,000 people have said they will attend Sanders’ rally at Springfield’s MassMutual Center at 2 p.m, according to his campaign’s Facebook page.
Later that day, Sanders will address a rally at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center at 6 p.m. Also according to Facebook, more than 15,000 people have said they will attend.
The anticipated crowd count rivals the region’s recent primary record set by Barack Obama in 2007, when then-Governor Deval Patrick endorsed him on the Boston Common in front of a crowd of 10,000
I.S.A. Feels The Bern:
Over the years, there have been more than a few odd pairings of presidential candidates and popular songs—from Mitt Romney's choice of "Born Free" by Kid Rock (“You can knock me down and watch me bleed / But you can't keep no chains on me”) to Ross Perot's sampling of "Crazy" by Patsy Cline (“I knew you'd love me as long as you wanted / And then someday you'd leave me for somebody new”). But could a Democratic socialist from Vermont join forces with a dirty south rapper? "Why not?" said LaVarry's manager, Wade Lovelace, who goes by the name Moneybag Martucci. He got LaVarry on Twitter recently, "at long last."
It’s reasonable to assume LaVarry and Lovelace are trying to take advantage of the current political moment, in which another man named Bernie is imploring people to keep moving forward. Get LaVarry talking about "my man, Bern," though—as he calls Sanders—and you may begin to feel otherwise. "I first heard about him last year," LaVarry said. "I was trying to pull up one of my music videos and his name popped up instead. I was like, What? Who is this really old white dude with the weird hair?” he continued. “But I started reading about him and watching him speak. I think he has a lot of good views. Making women's pay equal: about time! Expanding social security and making college free: that's wonderful! Free healthcare, raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars: that's remarkable! I've never heard any candidate talk that way for the people. It proves you can't judge a book by its cover."
LaVarry's original record deal wasn't a good one for him. ("The message wasn't promoted like it should have been," he said. "I didn't make much money.") But he recently became an independent artist again and he wants to make a mark on his country with his next album. "I'd work with Bern," he said, "if he'd let me. I'm thinking about a new promo song for him right now. My team is trying hard to reach out to his people and see if working with him is a possibility. That'd be lovely!" He paused, before heading back into the studio. "I appreciate all the fans for not giving up on me. They won't be disappointed. They're gonna feel the real 'Bernie Fever' this time."
Robert Reich Corrects A MSM Outlet.. Again:
The Washington Post just ran an attack on Bernie Sanders that distorts not only what he’s saying and seeking but also the basic choices that lie before the nation. Sanders, writes the Post’s David Fahrenthold, “is not just a big-spending liberal. And his agenda is not just about money. It’s also about control.”
Fahrenthold claims Sanders’s plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean “colleges would run by government rules.”
Apparently Fahrenthold is unaware that three-quarters of college students today attend public universities financed largely by state governments. And even those who attend elite private universities benefit from federal tax subsidies flowing to wealthy donors. (Meg Whitman’s recent $30 million donation to Princeton, for example, is really $20 million from her plus an estimated $10 million she deducted from her taxable income.) Notwithstanding all this government largesse, colleges aren’t “run by government rules.”
The real problem is too many young people still can’t afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and was extended in the 1960s by leading public universities was reversed starting in the 1980s because of shrinking state budgets. Tuition has skyrocketed in recent years as states slashed education spending. It’s time to resurrect that earlier goal.
Besides, the biggest threats to academic freedom these days aren’t coming from government. They’re coming as conditions attached to funding from billionaires and big corporations that’s increasing as public funding drops.
Coding The Bern:
Volunteer grass-roots campaigning in 2016 is going beyond knocking doors. For the Bernie Sanders campaign, it means late-night coding sessions.
Coders for Sanders is a group of about 200 programmers, developers and designers that are collaborating on the chat application Slack to develop apps for the Bernie Sanders campaign. Many in the group first met in the subreddit Sanders for President and identified problems that their tech talents could solve.
Entering the thousands of handwritten email addresses collected at rallies into a database takes precious staff time. Zach Schneider built an app with a simple contact form for rally attendees to fill out. The app works on Google Chromebooks, laptops that retail for about $300.
t the South Carolina rally in August, the campaign tested the app with five Chromebooks to record the estimated 2,800 attendees. Bernie Sanders campaign Digital Director Kenneth Pennington says the campaign will be using 15 at Mr. Sanders’s event in Boston on Oct. 3. If it works again, they will buy more. “They are building real tools that are going to have a big impact on how we win votes as a campaign,” said Mr. Pennington, adding that the coders are currently developing 10 different apps for the campaign.
Bernies New Hire:
Democrat Bernie Sanders, who still faces a long road for recognition and support in the Latino community, has hired a Latino Outreach director for the campaign.
Sanders, a Vermont senator, hired Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente.org, a Latino advocacy group based in Los Angeles. Carmona also will serve as Southwest political director. The group, which is largely an online group, is considered more left than other more established Latino organizations.
As an activist on civil rights, Carmona, 37, said he never saw himself joining a political campaign, but "when I saw the political campaign and Sen. Sanders calling for a political revolution and people from all walks of life joining this movement, I said 'Hey, this is something I've seen that can make a difference.' I decided to join because I see a great need," he said.
In a recently released NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 30 percent of Latinos surveyed had a positive view of Sanders versus 12 percent who held a negative view. But 35 percent didn't recognize his name or weren't sure how they felt about him, compared to 2 percent for Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination.
"Bernie Sanders is not well known and I see that as a great opportunity and advantage because we have a fresh opportunity to present a remarkable candidate," Carmona said.
It Seems Sanders Expects Really High Turnouts In Colorado When He Comes:
The University of Colorado almost saw its first visit from Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.
University officials say members of the Sanders campaign reached out to them earlier this week to talk about hosting a large-scale event on the Boulder campus Oct. 10.
But the university only had outdoor venues available that could accommodate 8,000 to 10,000 people and the campaign staff eventually declined the opportunity, said campus spokesman Ryan Huff.
Huff said Folsom Field was already booked that day with a band camp.
"Norlin Quad and other places, we can hold about 8,000 to 10,000 and he wanted a larger venue," Huff said.
A Tucson Trip Is Confirmed:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will be visiting Tucson on Friday, Oct. 9.
According to a press release, Sen. Sanders will hold a rally on Friday at 7 p.m. at Reid Park DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center, located 920 South Concert Pl. Gates will open at 6 p.m.
The rally is free and open to the public.
Not Everyone On Wall Street Hates Bernie Sanders:
The socialist presidential candidate, who wants to break up the big banks and place a tax on every Wall Street trade, has received campaign contributions from at least two financial industry executives, who have contributed $3,700 to Sanders, FOX Business Network has learned.
The money is still a fraction of the $25 million Sanders has raised through the first three quarters of the year, and far less than the Wall Street support going to his democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. But, it is surprising that anyone in financial services would openly support a self-described socialist, who has called for “revolution” against Corporate America through higher taxes and more regulation. Clients of big Wall Street firms would be among the hardest hit by Sanders' economic policies of tax increases he has proposed to pay for a vast expansion of government if he became president.
"Wall Street is no different than the rest of New York — lots of Democrats and even a few Bernie Sanders supporters,” says Arthur Schwartz, co-founder of Axium Advisors, a strategic communications and crisis management firm that specializes in the financial services industry.
“But going on record in your capacity as a brokerage employee, and supporting a guy that is openly hostile to the financial services industry is probably not a great idea.”