Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Hillary Clinton took their increasingly contentious battle for the Democratic nomination to a predominantly black church in Las Vegas on Sunday morning.
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Mr. Sanders emphasized his desire to reform and demilitarize police departments, ensuring that officers who broke the law were held accountable and that the departments looked like the communities they served.
As both candidates courted black voters in Nevada, the Rev. Robert E. Fowler Sr. welcomed them by telling members of the church, “I’m excited that they are here, and I am encouraged that they are willing to sit at the same church, at the same service, at the same time.”
Mr. Sanders spoke for about 10 minutes, saying that there were competing philosophies in the world and that he wanted to create a government focused on helping all Americans.
“Some of us believe that what God teaches us and what this world is about is that we do not turn our backs on our brothers and our sisters, that essentially we are in this together,” Mr. Sanders said. “I have four beautiful kids and seven grandchildren. I want you to worry about my kids, and I have got to worry about your children and your grandchildren. That’s what this church is about, and that’s what our existence is about. But there are people out there today who say what the world is about is me. ‘I got to make as much money as I can. I’ve got to become a billionaire.’”
"If we can win here in Nevada, we send a profound message to the entire country, and that message is that the people of this country will no longer accept establishment politics," Sanders said to about 2,100 roaring spectators packed into the gym at Bonanza High School.
"This campaign is not about me and not about you," Sanders said. "It's about us working together."
Sanders' stump speech reiterated themes of his campaign: that there is income inequality that favors a privileged class of billionaires and that middle-class Americans need to prosper. Sanders backs paid family and medical leave, free tuition at public colleges and universities, and boosting the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
"Together what we are going to say to Wall Street and to corporate America and to corporate media and to the big campaign donors is that this country doesn't belong to them," Sanders said. "It belongs to all of us."
In a nod to Nevada's plight during the Great Recession, Sanders said, "No state in the country has suffered more from the greed and illegal behavior of Wall Street."
Sanders dismissed the notion that his ideas are too big or costly.
"Well, the war in Iraq was pretty damn expensive," Sanders said.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders hopes President Obama nominates a replacement “as soon as possible” for U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in Texas Saturday.
“President Obama, in my view, should make that nomination,” Sanders said on ABC's “This Week.” “I hope he does it as soon as possible and I hope that the Senate confirms and begins deliberations as soon as possible.”
The unexpected death of the conservative justice sparked a charged political debate in Washington about who should nominate his successor.
“I don't think that Mitch McConnell has it right on this issue,” Sanders told "This Week." “The Constitution is pretty clear and that it is the job of the president of the United States to appoint [and] nominate members to the Supreme Court and the Senate confirms.”
The Vermont senator warned the public would not look kindly on “Republican actions to try to thwart” President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination.
“When there is a vacancy, the president makes a nomination and the Senate deliberates and then votes up or down,” Sanders said. "I hope that happens."
On Valentine's Day 2016, Bernie Sanders supporters unleashed a Twitter bomb of love. In the latest display of hashtag activism, #BerninLove was created and deployed on Sunday to spread the word about Bernie Sanders and his unifying message.
A twitter bomb is essentially like a flash mob for social media. Thousands of people come together and post Tweets with the same hashtag in an effort to start a trending topic. The more people who participate, the wider their reach is.
Today, #BerninLove started trending on Twitter, thanks to thousands and thousands of reposts. Kathleen Graves, founder of the Babes for Bernie Instagram account, had this to say about the grassroots Valentine's Day campaign:
"Bernie Sanders is spreading the message of love and inclusion in a YUUUUGE way. He's leading by example and that is what's so powerful. That is why he is connecting with millions of us but also connecting millions of us with each other. He is reaching out across lines of race, age and sex and showing us what is really possible when you able to put your differences aside come together for the common good. Look at what we have already accomplished. This is only the beginning."
Last week, Babes for Bernie hosted its "Bernin' Love" grassroots fundraiser in New York City. "Over 100 people swung by Elvis Guesthouse for a dance, drink or conversation, equally dispersed between genders. We registered people to vote, signed up volunteers, and sold a bit of swag," said Lauren Irwin, Babes for Bernie organizer.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took a swipe at rival Hillary Clinton for ramping up her ad spending against him in South Carolina, saying she’s getting antsy.
Sanders fired the shot after The Washington Post reported that Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC supporting Clinton, will launch a radio campaign in South Carolina and a $4.5 million effort to drive early turnout of black, Latino and female voters in states with March primaries.
“You can get a sense of the nervousness within the Clinton campaign by seeing that they are now using their super PAC money, funded largely by Wall Street, against me,” Sanders told CBS “Face the Nation.” “So I think they understand that in this campaign we have the momentum.”
Sanders’ remarks were later blasted out by his campaign via an email, which said Priorities USA Action reported receiving $15 million in donations from “financial industry interests.”
The email also excerpts Clinton’s statements last fall that she wants anyone supporting her, including super PACs, to go after Republicans and not fellow Dems.
Bernie Sanders said Sunday he thinks he can cut into his rival Hillary Clinton's lead among super delegates in the race for the Democratic nomination - a lead that allowed Clinton to salvage her substantial loss in New Hampshire's Democratic primary last week.
"If we continue to do well around the country and if super delegates - whose main interest in life is to make sure that we do not have a Republican in the White House - if they understand that I am the candidate and I believe that I am who is best suited to defeat the Republican nominee I think they will start coming over to us," the Vermont senator said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."
He's already started the process of wooing those delegates: Sanders said he "just met with a couple last night."
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Sanders said he has also started to close the gap in support among African American voters, but "we still have a long way" to go there. In South Carolina, 73 percent of black voters supported Clinton in the poll while just 26 percent supported Sanders.
He pointed to his surrogates, including former NAACP CEO Ben Jealous and Nina Turner, a black former state senator from Ohio and top Democratic Party official there. She switched her support from Clinton to Sanders in November.
"We have just great surrogates out there, we are going to be speaking in African American communities in the next week and I think you're going to see a lot of momentum for us," Sanders said.
Pro-Sanders threads on Reddit have been burning up with calls for action, with some supporters even reaching out to superdelegates (who are typically Democratic governors, members of Congress, and top state and national party leaders) to lobby them on the Vermont senator’s behalf. Progressive groups are also taking a stand: There are currently two petition campaigns designed to urge superdelegates to reflect the popular vote, rather than the sentiment of party elites.
In one of them, MoveOn.org activists are targeting undecided and committed Hillary Clinton superdelegates with a clear message: wait until all the votes are counted before throwing support behind a candidate.
The effort, which will begin this week after MoveOn.org polls its supporters to pick which superdelegates to petition first, comes amid growing criticism from Sanders supporters who complain that the game is rigged in the former secretary of state's favor. As of Sunday, the petition had 112,107 signatures with a goal of 125,000 signatures.
"The next big thing will be this wave of petitions targeting individual superdelegates," said MoveOn Washington Director Ben Wikler. "Asking individual members of Congress and governors and other superdelegates to individually make a pledge to support the will of the voters when it comes time to count their votes."
A second petition by three progressive groups asks superdelegates to "announce that in the event of a close race, you’ll align yourself with regular voters - not party elites." That petition, which grew by 10,000 signatures between Friday and Sunday, had 171,010 signatures Sunday, with a stated goal of 175,000.
ATTN: spoke to Sanders supporters and skeptics in attendance [at the NOC Black America Forum] and heard range of opinions. Here's what they had to say:
Marcus Harcus, Minneapolis resident
"I'm here to support him. I'm here to hear him talk about issues that specifically or disproportionately impact the black community. I think [his racial justice platform] is alright. I think it's better than the others. It seems like he generally wants to emphasize economic issues and I get that's more politically feasible with the general electorate. I'd like to see him propose some more specific racial equity policies. I support him though. Ninety-nine percent!"
Michaela Day, local activist with Justice4Jamar and Black Lives Matter
"His stance on racial justice, and justice for marginalized groups in the past, before he was campaigning, that's what actually does speak to me. I don't feel like he's just feeding us a line of complete B.S., because he hasn’t flip-flopped the way Hillary has. If you look at his stance 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago it's pretty much the same as today. [It's] as radical then as it is now, but it's sad that this is what they consider radical."
Sen. Bernard Sanders has outflanked Hillary Clinton on yet another key liberal issue, inking a deal to offset his campaign’s carbon emissions as a show of commitment to combating climate change, The Washington Times has learned.
Mrs. Clinton, by contrast, appears to be breaking her own pledge to go carbon-neutral.
Despite assuring reporters last summer, after being caught flying in a private jet, that she would pay to offset greenhouse gases from her campaign travels, Mrs. Clinton has yet to make any such payments, according to a Washington Times analysis. Carbon offset providers said they have even tried to connect with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign to help her, but have heard silence.
“Talk is cheap, but offsets are expensive,” said Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research. “It’s easy to say things if you don’t have to pay for them.”
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Mr. Sanders, a fierce advocate for fighting climate change, has put his campaign’s money behind his commitment. He signed a contract with Native Energy, a Vermont-based company that has been a favorite of political operations. Indeed, it was the company Mrs. Clinton used in 2008.
Native Energy said the Sanders campaign will buy into one of its “Help Build” campaigns, which goes beyond offsets and pays for construction of green projects. Mr. Sanders’s payments will cover the installation of gravity-fed biosand water filters, which are meant to replace the practice in many developing-world communities of boiling water to make it safe for use. The filters help with sanitation and prevent the need for communities to gather wood in an unsustainable fashion, the company says.
Yann Damon was never passionate about politics until he left his native France last year to spend the fall semester on an exchange program at a university in California. At the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, students were buzzing about a politician who argued passionately for social change and spoke to citizens in a straightforward way, someone who wasn’t concerned with corporate interests and wanted to protect social services. That politician was Bernie Sanders, and Damon, 21, was hooked.
“He’s the only real politician who has the goal of actually changing things,” said Damon, a dual French-American citizen who grew up in Paris. Upon his return to Paris a few weeks ago, he joined an organizing group called “Paris 4 Bernie” and began attending meetings with fellow Sanders supporters. “His ideas shock the French people much less than the Americans because it’s similar to the French ‘socialist’ system,” he explained.
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The self-proclaimed socialist's fiery speeches and no-nonsense attitude have resonated with young U.S. voters, also capturing the attention of many young French people who see him as a refreshing alternative to establishment candidates in both countries. As France looks toward its own presidential election in 2017 amid a loss of faith in its ruling leadership, Sanders has become a symbol of progressive ideals for many young Parisians who increasingly "feel the Bern."
“We’re seeing the same trend in Paris that Bernie sees nationwide,” said Penny Schantz, 57, one of the lead organizers of “Paris 4 Bernie,” noting the people attending meetings were increasingly coming from a younger age bracket, often in their 20s and 30s. France has long had socialized medicine and a host of state-run social programs, and Sanders' ideas have struck many French residents as obvious reforms, Schantz said. “Ensuring the minimum standards of human dignity for a population: These are not radical ideas in Western Europe.”
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