This is something I never would have believed if someone had told me. But I read the Bernie Sanders and The Racist Minute Man Militia. And I checked out and there it is in black and white.
I searched google for an explanation from Bernie but could not find one. If anyone else can come up with a quote from him, put it in the comments and I will be glad to add it to the diary.
So follow me over the orange cloud and read the bad news.
Spandan Chakrabarti July 17, 2015
Yesterday, I wrote about Bernie Sanders' embarrassing inability to draw support from people of color even as he fills up stadiums with liberal upper middle class whites. In the comments, many in the community reminded me that a key issue-based reason people of color don't trust the Great White Savior of the Left is his steep and abiding support for gun touting. Others pointed out his 2007 vote against comprehensive immigration reform, with the usual dosage of piety juice regarding how Mexican guest workers were going to bring down wages for white people... I mean, Americans.
-cut-Don't forget that Sanders voted against legislation that would have allowed Americans to sue gun dealers who sell guns without doing the required background check. When those customers then go on to murder a loved one Bernie says "too bad".
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Turns out, though, that it gets worse. Bernie Sanders isn't content to pull out pro-gun statistics from the hat, he is on the record supporting the vigilante and racist border militia group 'The Minuteman Project'.
In 2006, realizing that a Democratic takeover is in the writing on the wall, the then-Republican majority in Congress hobbled together to write into law protections for the anti-immigrant, racist vigilante group. Even though the militia group is involved in unsanctioned, armed activity along the Mexican-American border, the Republicans barred the US government from notifying the Mexican authorities about potential dangers to their citizens living or traveling near the US-Mexico border.
The amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill read such (link to text in Congressional record):
“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide a foreign government information relating to the activities of an organized volunteer civilian action group, operating in the State of California, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, unless required by international treaty.”
-cut-..... The language prohibited notifications of activity only in the states of California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona - all states on the Mexican border. No such prohibition applied, of course, to groups operating in the border states of Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Maine or Sen. Sanders' home state, Vermont. You get three guesses as to the reason why, but it bears mentioning that these latter border states share a border with our white neighbor to the north, Canada, not with our brown southern neighbor, Mexico.
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Any guesses to which way Bernie Sanders, then a member of the US House, voted? That's right, he voted YES to pass this amendment (vote tally from Congressional record).
Now, to be sure, the amendment passed with 293 votes, including those of 69 Democrats. But none of them is claiming the mantle of a progressive savior pushing the party to the Left. Some of those Democrats were too afraid to vote otherwise given Bush's victory in 2004, and others were too conservative. But Bernie Sanders and his supporters tell us that he is a profile in courage and the liberal hope in the race.
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This is the great hope of liberals? This is the man liberals think should be our answer to gun violence's devastating impact on America's communities of color and to the racist right wing militia movement in our country?
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I apologize to anyone I gave a HR in this diary, I didn't know it wasn't "cricket".