Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Bernie Sanders. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Bernie Sanders. Sort by date Show all posts

Feb 19, 2019

Bernie Sanders for President 2020

Since the early 1960s, Bennie Sanders has worked for
social justice, human rights and civil rights, a commitment
for which Sanders was ridiculed and defamed by Hillary
Clinton hacks who proceeded to give us Donald Trump.

"Not me. Us," says Sanders campaign


Madison, Wisconsin — Bernie Sanders announced this morning he is running for president.

Twenty-five months into the Trump administration gifted to America by the  Democratic Party establishment, Bernie Sanders begins with a huge institutional advantage over other candidates.

That institution is the American people, of whom, by whom and for whom we have a country that has chosen liberal democracy — in painful steps, leaving people behind, on the ground and in chains.

But progress comes from the people. Today, the people agree with Bernie Sanders on the issues and demand change.

The people through Bernie Sanders have set the agenda on the issues for other candidates as they try to out-do each other by adopting the people's stands on policy. Good.

People are who Bernie Sanders understands and fights for: A truly Democratic movement has as its foundation —  the people.

A March for Bernie Sanders in Waupaca, Wisconsin on
the weekend before the April 5, 2016 presidential primary
election in Wisconsin, (Facebook)
The people are not objects, over which one candidate cackled in recalling how she schemed to imprison parents.

Liberty, freedom and not the state incarcerating our fellows is the way forward.

Bernie Sanders would never laugh at struggling parents and muse about putting them in jail.

To the contrary.

Social progress has overcome the death, torture and enslavement of millions, and since Bernie Sanders' college days, Bernie has been on the right side of history, fighting for civil rights, jobs and social justice.

Everything is at risk as the white supremacist Republican Party and Donald Trump threaten the American people as no Party or domestic movement has ever before threatened us.

I am supporting Bernie Sanders for president in 2020 because Bernie does not want to be a leader. He wants a democracy.

Because Bernie believes as I do that private prisons, mass incarceration and imprisoning poor parents are outrages to the democratic project.

Bernie Sanders wants to be on my team and help transform America as the unique promise for which we must forever fight.
Bernie Sanders is us.

In April 2016, in my state, Wisconsin, the people voted overwhelmingly for Bernie. The Democratic Party super-delegates vetoed the people and chose Hillary Clinton, to catastrophic consequence.

Bernie Sanders is back. So are we.

Feb 22, 2019

Shalala, Death Squad Supporters and Dems Target Bernie Sanders' Foreign Policy

Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Miami) hits Bernie Sanders
for foreign policy stand focusing on democracy,
human rights, diplomacy and peace. (Twitter)
No surprise to read Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Miami) is extolling the virtues of United States intervention in South America and Central America, and trying to blast Bernie Sanders in light of Sanders' expressed hesitation to invade Venezuela and his lifelong work for peace and human rights.

Shalala is hyping the newest invade-now-everyone-wants-to piece in Slate Magazine.

Shalala was never an opponent of death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Chile.

Shalala is close to the Queen of Chaos, Hillary Clinton, who ran against Bernie Sanders' foreign policy too, with Clinton championing Henry Kissinger.

We all lost the subsequent 2016 general election in which Trump actually endorsed peace over Clinton and her policy of invading, bombing and intervening in other countries.

Now, Shalala is promoting an attempted Sanders hit job in Slate Magazine, (always hot for an invasion and a war), in which Shalala tweets:
The piece Shalala promotes is written by León Krauze.

Krauze's thesis is: If a presidential candidate does not want to invade, bomb and destabilize another country today, then the candidate, Bernie Sanders, per force, has a "soft spot" for "three dictators" and all of the social defects of three respective countries—still recovering from decades of American intervention, intervention that is long opposed by Bernie Sanders and most of the American population.

Krauze has discovered that Bernie Sanders said, "I think the United States has to work with the international community to make sure that there is a free and fair election in Venezuela."

Get him. Stop Bernie Sanders! Bernie wants our country to be like Venezuelan socialism.

And, notes Krauze, Donald Trump has already spoken against socialism, so again we must stop Bernie Sanders.

Writes Krauze:

'Socialism has so completely ravaged this great country [Venezuela] that even the world’s largest reserves of oil are no longer enough to keep the lights on. This will never happen to us,' Trump said, continuing a theme he had broached during his State of the Union address. 

With decades of illegal intervention and human rights atrocities defining American foreign policy since post-World War II, Shalala, Clinton and Trump all assure us we need to intervene now.

And domestically: Stop the campaign of Bernie Sanders because somehow, someway Sanders is just like those socialist dictators, and Donald Trump, whom Hillary and the hawks bequeathed to America, is going to say the same things and Trump never makes a political miscalculation.

Concludes Krauze:

If he wins the nomination, Sanders’ old (and not so old) videos praising failed socialist experiments and tiptoeing around recent cruelties in Latin America will surely resurface, playing on a loop while Trump warns about the long-dreaded socialist takeover of the United States of America. This may be fearmongering, but Democrats dismiss its effectiveness at their own peril.

I'll let the reader unpack that (above) one because Krauze's piece, as hit jobs go, isn't that good.

It is just 17 years ago that former-Slate editor, Jacob Weisberg, dismissed another anti-interventionist, international-law-supporting peace movement socialist, Noam Chomsky, as a "malnourished left-wing straggler," suffering from "clinical symptoms that have been obvious to everyone else for years" in a better-written hit job.

Chomsky's illness? Chomsky warned about the consequences to civilians from the invasion of Afghanistan, and cautioned death and destruction, including catastrophe to the invader, were likely to follow.

As of October 2018, conservative estimates put the civilian death toll in excess of 200,000, over 2,400 U.S. deaths, 10,000s wounded, and Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster.

In 2002, I wrote Chomsky about Weisberg's hit piece against the peace movement, echoed today in the liberal-corporatist-Democratic Party campaign against Bernie Sanders, who keeps criticizing armed insurrections and illegal American interventions.

Wrote back Chomsky to me in 2002:

(L)iberal intellectuals have lined up in support of the war machine in the familiar style—discussed, for example, by Randolph Bourne in classic essays—and since they know they do not have the intellectual competence to deal with those who refuse to go along, resort to what comes natural to the educated classes: hysterical tantrums, lies, and abuse. Why become involved? There are more important things to do—such as continue to falsify their increasingly desperate claim that everyone is following them in their depraved subordination to power.

Today's propaganda offensives against Sanders evokes the campaign against the peace movement 17 years ago,

As Shalala says: "I’ll make it clear, @SenSanders does not reflect the majority of the Democratic Party ... ."

Actually, Shalala, Clinton, Trump, Krauze, and the whole bunch of liberal war hawks are wrong again.

Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky and the majority of the American people are correct. As Bernie put it on Feb. 20:
I'm going with Bernie Sanders.

If the United States is ever to reclaim a moral center in international relations, then we need to stop trying to overthrow elected foreign leaders, make human rights the basis for our foreign policy, and the Democratic Party must stop demonizing domestic human rights workers such as Noam Chomsky and Bernie Sanders.

Apr 11, 2020

Keep Your Bernie Sanders Signs

Madison, Wisconsin — Bernie Sanders' announcement this week that he is suspending his campaign raised more questions than answers.

For over a year the electorate has been treated to the parade of lies, smears and tantrums from CNN-MSNBC-NYT-Washington Post who deplore Sanders more than Trump.

But even the character-assassination class knows anything can happen this year, and they know about Joe Biden.

Sanders runs hard, is brilliant, disciplined and is not in this to change the Party platform at the Convention.

Joe Biden is a candidate under attack for his alleged harassment of numerous women.

Joe Biden is under attack for his perceived abdication of the public for special interests that dominate the Democratic Party.

Donald Trump, Trump!, can credibly portray Biden as narcissistic, cognitively challenged and ethically bankrupt in a general election.

Yet, we need not be subject to another term of Trump, a predictable consequence of installing Biden at the likely brokered Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee this Summer.

The overwhelming number of young and casual voters needed to pull off a victory in November support Sen. Bernie Sanders. And they hate Joe Biden and the Democrats. I don't think the national political press gets this.

So, Party elites and the national media outlets are promoting Biden despise the gentle man, Sanders, originally from Brooklyn.

What Sanders understands is some 100-million people who did not vote in 2016 will not support what they view as an establishment favorite in Biden who does not care about their lives, and our future.

Sanders also understands the election is about us, not him, as his campaign slogan sums up.

But consider him — Bernie Sanders.

In 1989, I was invited to, and attended a private fundraising event for Bernie Sanders after his first election to Congress.

By then, Sanders has already worked some 30 years as a civil rights activist.

"Thought you would like to meet him," said the host of the gathering in the village of Shorewood HIlls, next to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

No congressional member ever had a friendlier room.

But Bernie Sanders was not there to meet folks, drink beer, make friends, or to glad-hand.

He was there to say, 'this is where I stand, this is what is achievable, and let's get to work.'

Sanders gave a roughly one-hour talk devoid of humor, just raw, gravelly commitment to the principle that public office should serve the public, not special interests.

A friend asked me later what I thought of Sanders. The G-rated response is, 'Geez, the guy was not there to screw around. But I love him.'

Bernie Sanders loves people. His commitment is to act, and to persuade with reason and caring.

I don't believe establishment politics today is capable of appreciating this type of commitment.

But the American people do understand, and will reward this faith with a resounding Bernie Sanders victory in November, if he is the Party nominee.

The Democratic Party presidential primary campaign to this point has seen most major candidates emulating Sanders on stated policy goals, and in rhetoric.

But this parroting is not the same as the real thing. The Party establishment knows this and so will the American electorate.

But Bernie Sanders did not work 60 years to change the Party platform at the Convention.

Bernie Sanders' candidacy is alive and well and he will appear on the ballots for the remaining 30 primaries and caucuses.

The Democratic Party garbage with eyes on the White House should be warned.
--
Michael Leon is a writer and public relations consultant based in Madison, Wisconsin. His writing has appeared in The Progressive Magazine, In These Times, CounterPunch and other journals. He produces and writes the news website, Mal Contends.

Jan 29, 2020

Democrat Attack on Bernie Sanders Tells Voters: 'Stay away from Party'

The Democratic Party establishment wants Hillary Clinton as the nominee in 2020, but without Hillary Clinton.

Make no mistake, the Democratic presidential primary campaign of 2020 is not about America or the American people.

The Primary campaign is about protecting elite power in the swamp, and preventing the perceived usurpers from gaining a foothold on our country through the Bernie Sanders campaign.

The attacks launched against Sanders today — incoherent and splatter-shot though they are — mimic the assault of January 2016 in which Democratic hysteria and corruption gave us Donald Trump.

Today's attacks are character assassination against the Sanders campaign. I won't review them here.

As Bernie Sanders' campaign challenges the pro-war, pro-special interests racket that the Democrats have become, the establishment is longer pretending to care about the people.

The blob is simply looking for allies to stop Sanders.

And in Trumpian fashion, campaign rules are for Bernie Sanders, and not for Joe Biden and other Democrats.

Consider this dispatch from Iowa, which the AP quickly changed to reflect poorly on Sanders from refelcting poorly on Joe Biden.
The Associated Press reported the story yesterday with the headline, "Biden won't commit to backing Sanders if he's the nominee."

Today, the same AP piece headline reads: "Biden won’t say whether Sanders could unify Dems as nominee."

The new formulation in the headline changes the meaning from Joe Biden committing a 'unity' foul to Bernie Sanders generating doubt.

The lead also has been changed from "Former Vice President Joe Biden stopped short Tuesday of saying he’d support Bernie Sanders if the progressive Vermont senator wins the Democratic presidential nomination," to "Former Vice President Joe Biden wouldn’t say Tuesday whether he thinks Bernie Sanders could effectively unify the Democrats if the Vermont senator wins the party’s presidential nomination."

Democrats and the corporate media are a scam.

--
For analysis of the broader war of elites against Bernie Sanders, see:

From Krystal Ball at Rising.

Aug 26, 2019

Bernie Sanders Sits Atop Field in Polls as Corporate Media Shuts out Inconvenient Facts

Nate Silver is whoring out his site for throw-them-in
-prison Joe Biden today, but has to concede in a graphic
Bernie Sanders leads the field in average favorability
of Democratic party candidates.
If the corporatist talking heads on CNN, MSNBC and the Democratic Party establishment held a presidential Primary Election, they would anoint Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris or Joe Biden as nominee. 

But not Bernie Sanders who in a piece by Nate Silver at 538 sits atop the field in favorability ratings.

But Sanders is not what Silver is writing about.

Silver is whoring out his site for throw-them-in-prison Joe Biden today, but has to concede in a graphic Bernie Sanders leads the field in average favorability of Democratic party candidates.

The total of Strongly Favorable and Somewhat Favorable ratings show Bernie Sanders at 75 percent and Joe Biden at 73 percent.

Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic field in anything, Bernie Sanders trouncing Donald Trump in General Election match-ups, Bernie Sanders raising the most contributions by far — these are stories that must not be repeated by the corporate media.

One may think that after CNN, MSNBC and the Democratic Party establishment rigged the 2016 nomination for Hillary Clinton that the corporatists might be gun-shy in giving out pronouncements and advertisements against Bernie Sanders this time around.

Going into November 2016, Clinton was 12 points underwater with a whopping 54 percent unfavorability rating, RealClearPolitics data show. No red flags there.

Clinton campaign staffers populate the national political coverage on cable news like mosquitoes in the north woods.

Haven't these people who gave us Donald Trump, Donald Trump!, done enough damage for a few life times?

May 21, 2018

National Democratic Party Looks to Sabotage Blue Wave — Targets Progressives, Sanders and New Voters

Democratic Party opposition to Bernie Sanders is
bizarre, and like Hillary Clinton is a disease from
which there is no cure.
Madison, Wisconsin — Lessons learned for the Democratic Party's 2016 elections for 2018 appear to include 'engineer Hillary Clinton clones, and attack Bernie Sanders and progressives.'

This is not a winning strategy.

In Texas, national Democrats are backing an anti-worker Republican, Joseph Kopser, against a popular ex-math teacher and grassroots activist, Mary Wilson, in the May 22 primary election, (Jilani, The Intercept).

If it seems crazy for national Democrats to be backing Republicans in a Democratic primaries, we should consider it's not much crazier than rigging the 2016 Democratic Primary for Hillary Clinton who promptly lost to the lunatic now in the White House.

Hillary Clinton trumpeted her amassed superdelegates in August 2015, telling Democratic Primary voters the race is over, (Halperin, Epstein, Aug. 28, 2015; (BloombergPolitics)), months before the Iowa Caucuses and 11 months before the July 2016 Democratic Party Presidential Convention.

In New York, Hillary Clinton this weekend has endorsed the odious Andrew Cuomo against Cynthia Nixon, endorsed by Our Revolution, in the Sept 13 primary election.

National Democrats are pushing a message progressives must be stopped at the party primary level.

Yesterday, NBC's Meet the Press featured a long interview with Bernie Sanders, reported on by Cameron Cawthorne in the Washington Free Beacon.

Sanders was interviewed by Chuck Dodd who ask about the progressive-Democratic Party divide:

'What do you say to national Democrats who say be careful of this nominating folks who are too progressive.'

'I think that they are wrong, and I think they are misreading where the American people are at,' Sanders said. 'You know, Chuck, many of the issues that I campaigned on two years ago—issues like Medicare for All, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, taking on the pharmaceutical industry, making public colleges and universities tuition free, legalizing marijuana—a few years ago those were seen as radical, fringy ideas.'

Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate, claimed that a majority of the American people now support those ideas, including an 'overwhelming percentage of Democrats.'

'I think what candidates all over the country are now beginning to understand is that it is more important to reach out to the people in your community, working people, the middle class, lower-income people, rather than just worry about what wealthy campaign contributors want you to say,' Sanders said.

'I think that's not only good public policy; I think that's good politics, and I think many of those candidates will win, because you are going to see voter turnout go up and a level of excitement that conservative Democrats don't raise,' Sanders added.

The DCCC has come under scrutiny from progressives and even more centrist Democrats during the 2018 election cycle for meddling in Democratic primaries across the country and choosing establishment Democrats for their 'Red to Blue' program. The organization has also come under fire for pressuring progressive candidates to drop out of highly contested races.

In particular, the DCCC targeted Texas Democratic congressional candidate Laura Moser by publishing opposition research against her on its website. While the DCCC received backlash from members of the media and Democratic activists, including former Obama administration staffers, the group stood by its strategy. That strategy backfired in March when Moser qualified for a May 22 primary runoff.
No messages from national Democrats saying, 'you know what? Bernie Sanders is right and we should listen.'

From Meet the Press:
See the video of Bernie Sanders at Meet the Press here.

Transcript of Bernie Sanders May 20, 208 appearance on Meet the Press here.

May 31, 2016

Support Bernie Sanders over Dem. Party and Corporate Funders

Next week Bernie Sanders will win California and several other states, and the corporate media will then repeat its line that super-delegates put Hillary Clinton over to the top for the Democratic Party's nomination for the expediency.

"MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has revealed that the major television networks plan to call the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton during the day on June 7th — hours prior to the close of polls in California — on the grounds that Clinton has 'clinched' the nomination as soon as she crosses the 2,383-delegate threshold via both pledged delegates (who are already committed to her) and super-delegates (who cannot, by Democratic Party rules, commit themselves to her or be tallied until July 25th)," (CommonDreams).

It is time to unite against Hillary Clinton, and for Bernie Sanders.

All legal means should be employed to stop Hillary Clinton. Write a letter to your local paper explaining why you will never support a super-delegate who works for Hillary Clinton.

Whatever the corporate media tells you, the nomination will not be decided until the week of July 25 at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Michael Moore has the story explaining why supporting Bernie Sanders is imperative.

By Michael Moore

My Dear Friends,

When I was a child, they said there was no way this majority-Protestant country of ours would ever elect a Catholic as president. And then John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected president.

The next decade, they said America would not elect a president from the Deep South. The last person to do that on his own (not as a v-p) was Zachary Taylor in 1849. And then we elected President Jimmy Carter.

In 1980, they said voters would never elect a president who had been divorced and remarried. Way too religious of a country for that, they said. Welcome, President Ronald Reagan, 1981-89.

They said you could not get elected president if you had not served in the military. No one could remember when someone who hadn’t served had been elected Commander-in-Chief. Or who had confessed to trying (but not inhaling!) Illegal drugs. President Bill Clinton, 1993-2001.

And then finally “they” said that there’s NO WAY the Democrats were going to win if they nominated a BLACK man for president — a black man whose middle name was Hussein! America was still too racist for that. “Don’t do it!”, people quietly warned each other.

BOOM!

Do you ever wonder why the pundits, the political class, are always so sure that Americans “just aren’t ready” for something — and then they’re always just so wrong? They says these things because they want to protect the status quo. They don’t want the boat rocked. They try to scare the average person into voting against their better judgment.

And now, this year “they” are claiming that there’s no way a “democratic socialist” can get elected President of the United States. That is the main talking point coming now from the Hillary Clinton campaign office.

But all the polls show Bernie Sanders actually BEATING Donald Trump by twice as many votes than if Hillary Clinton was the candidate.

Although the polls nationally show Hillary beating Bernie among DEMOCRATS, when the pollster includes all INDEPENDENTS, then Sanders beats Trump two to one over what Clinton would do.

The way the Clinton campaign has been red-baiting Sanders is unfortunate — and tone deaf. According to NBC, 43% of Iowa Dems identify themselves more closely with socialism (sharing, helping) than with capitalism (greed, inequality). Most polls now show young adults (18-35) across America prefer socialism (fairness) to capitalism (selfishness).

So, what is democratic socialism? It’s having a true democracy where everyone has a seat at the table, where everyone has a voice, not just the rich.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary recently announced the most looked-up word in their online dictionary in 2015 was “socialism.” If you’re under 49 (the largest voting block), the days of the Cold War and Commie Pinkos and the Red Scare look as stupid as  “Reefer Madness.”

If Hillary’s biggest selling point as to why you should vote for her is, “Bernie’s a socialist!” or “A socialist can’t win!”, then she’s lost.

The New York Times, which admitted it made up stories of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and pushed us to invade that country, has now endorsed Hillary Clinton, the candidate who voted for the Iraq War. I thought the Times had apologized and reformed itself. What Is going on here?

Well, the Times likes its candidates to be realistic and pragmatic. And to them, that means Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t want to break up the banks, doesn’t want to bring back Glass-Steagall, doesn’t want to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr., doesn’t want Denmark’s free health care system. Just not realistic, I guess.

Of course, there was a time when the media said it wasn’t “realistic” to pass a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote. They said it would never pass because only all-male legislators would be voting on it in the Congress and the State Legislatures. And that, obviously, meant it would never pass. They were wrong.

They once said that it wasn’t “realistic” to pass a Civil Rights Act AND a Voting Rights Act back to back. America just wasn’t “ready for it.” Both passed, in 1964 and 1965.

Ten years ago we were told gay marriage would never be the law of the land. Good thing we didn’t listen to those who told us to be “pragmatic.”

Hillary says Bernie’s plans just aren’t “realistic” or “pragmatic.” This week she said “single payer health care will NEVER, EVER, happen.” Never? Ever? Wow. Why not just give up?

Hillary also says it’s not practical to offer free college for everyone. You can’t get more practical than the Germans – and they’re able to do it. As do many other countries.

Clinton does find ways to pay for war and tax breaks for the rich. Hillary Clinton was FOR the war in Iraq, AGAINST gay marriage, FOR the Patriot Act, FOR NAFTA, and wants to put Ed Snowden in prison. THAT’S a lot to wrap one’s head around, especially when you have Bernie Sanders as an alternative. He will be the opposite of all that.

There are many good things about Hillary. But it’s clear she’s to the right of Obama and will move us backwards, not forward. This would be sad. Very sad.

81% of the electorate is either female, people of color or young (18-35). And the Republicans have lost the VAST majority of 81% of the country. Whoever the Democrat is on the ballot come November will win. No one should vote out of fear. You should vote for whom you think best represents what you believe in. They want to scare you into thinking we’ll lose with Sanders. The facts, the polls, scream just the opposite: We have a BETTER chance with Bernie!

Trump is loud and scary — and liberals scare easy. But liberals also like facts. Here’s one: less than 19% of the USA is white guys over 35. So calm down!

Finally, Check out this chart — it says it all: (Note: Hillary has now changed her position and is against TPP)
I first endorsed Bernie Sanders for public office in 1990 when he, as mayor of Burlington, VT, asked me to come up there and hold a rally for him in his run to become Vermont’s congressman. I guess not many were willing to go stump for an avowed democratic socialist at the time. Probably someone in his hippie-filled campaign office said, “I’ll bet Michael Moore will do it!” They were right. I trucked up into the middle of nowhere and did my best to explain why we needed Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Congress. He won, I’ve been a supporter of his ever since, and he’s never given me reason to not continue that support. I honestly thought I’d never see the day come where I would write to you and get to say these words: “Please vote for Senator Bernie Sanders to be our next President of the United States of America.”

I wouldn’t ask this of you if I didn’t think we really, truly needed him. And we do. More than we probably know.

Sincerely Yours,
Michael Moore

Jun 8, 2016

Bernie Sanders Vows to Fight, Clinton Toes Corporate Line

Bernie Sanders fights on, having denied Hillary Clinton
the requisite pledged delegates to clinch the
pre-convention nomination
The life-long social justice worker, Bernie Sanders and millions of Americans stopped the corporate media and the Democratic Party from installing Hillary Clinton as the presidential nominee before the Democratic Convention.

That Clinton was halted from winning the requisite number of pledged delegates to clinch the nomination, (including the total from D.C. next week Clinton will have won less than 2,300 of the needed 2,382 pledged delegates), is a fact the corporate media avoids reporting.

That would be all of the corporate media and don't believe what you read, or hear on The Rachel Meadow Show, for example

Bernie Sanders and Clinton will vow for the votes of superdelegates at the Democratic National Convention the week of July 25. This is another fact you won't read or hear from the corporate media.

Some seven weeks is a long time in American politics, hence the desperate Clinton effort to be anointed as the presumptive nominee, while the FBI is investigating Clinton's Scott Walker-esque secret computer server, router and computers on which Clinton conducted official business while serving as Secretary of State, (2009-2013). A negative law enforcement report is difficult after the media confers presumptive nominee status.

The corporate media decided that although superdelegates are unpledged and can only cast their preference at the Convention, superdelegates will be polled and counted by the corporate media in anonymous journalistic conventions through secret contacts.

The corporate media is now the authority of establishing the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, not the Democratic National Committee, a practice this goes unchallenged and unquestioned in the corporate media.

"The nomination is consecrated by a media organization, on a day when nobody voted, based on secret discussions with anonymous establishment insiders and donors whose identities the media organization – incredibly – conceals. The decisive edifice of superdelegates is itself anti-democratic and inherently corrupt: designed to prevent actual voters from making choices that the party establishment dislikes," notes Glenn Greenwald reporting facts that will also not be repeated by the corporate media, (The Intercept).

Sanders has vowed to fight on, as he should. "[W]e are going to take the fight for social, economic and racial justice to Philadelphia. We will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate," Sanders told 1,000s in Santa Monica last night.

Clinton, the Democratic Party's corporate establishment and the corporate media don't get it.

For Hillary Clinton, her lust for the nomination has been animated by a quest for power and ego which drove Clinton to support the segregationist Barry Goldwater, among other unsavory pursuits.

For Sanders, the nomination is simply a means to achieve the promise of social justice.

From the Sanders campaign:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – To chants of “Bernie or Bust,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders told a roaring crowd of supporters on Tuesday that he will carry his White House campaign and their fight for a political revolution to this summer’s Democratic National Convention.

“The struggle continues,” he declared to the loudest cheers of the night in the climax of the speech.

He said he would campaign in next Tuesday’s final primary in Washington, D.C., the last contest in the nationwide series of primaries and caucuses that began last winter in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“Then we are going to take the fight for social, economic and racial justice to Philadelphia,” he told the 3,300 people packed inside an airplane hangar. “We will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate.”

The late-night crowd was dominated by young people who have been a major key to the success of Sanders’ campaign. “I am enormously optimistic about the future of our country when so many young people have come on board and understand that our vision of social justice, economic justice, racial justice and environmental justice must be the future of America,” the senator from Vermont told the rally.

He spoke about the upcoming general election and defeating Donald Trump. “Our campaign from day one has understand that we will not allow right-wing Republicans to control our government. And that is especially true with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate,” Sanders said. “The American people in my view will never support a candidate whose major theme is bigotry who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims and women and African Americans. We will not allow Donald Trump to become president of the United States.”

But he said the grassroots campaign that gave him victories in 22 states has another goal.

“Our mission is more than just defeating Trump it is transforming our country,” Sanders said. That mission includes ending wealth and income inequality and junking the corrupt campaign finance system that props up a rigged economy. “Democracy is not about billionaires buying elections.” He said it includes reforming the criminal justice system, breaking up big bans, providing health care as a right to all citizens, reforming our broken immigration system and making the billionaires and profitable corporations pay their fair share in taxes.

“What this is about is millions of people from coast to coast knowing that we can do much, much better as a nation,” Sanders said. “Our fight is to transform this country and to understand that we are in this together, understand that all of what we believe is what the majority of American people believe and to understand that the struggle continues.”

Apr 28, 2019

Bringing the Stupid — From Trump to Clintonite Zerlina Maxwell, Campaign Is Unhinged and Unschooled

Above: Bernie Sanders is arrested at civil rights demonstration
in Chicago in 1961. Sanders is drawing boos for his work
for civil rights from unhinged Democratic and Republican
Party regulars who boo the work that used to be sacred.

"Only fucking Democrats do this"


Madison, Wisconsin — Reacting to an uptick in character assassination against Bernie Sanders, campaign adviser Nina Turner blasted hecklers who booed Sanders for bringing up his civil rights activism last week.

"In what world do people boo [civil rights]?" asked an insulted Turner,(Mediaite).

The world is the Democratic Party presidential campaign and a desperate attempt by trolling  Clintonites to smear the 60-year veteran of the modern Civil Rights movement.

Nina Turner was loudly booed for her follow-up infraction defending civil rights at an appearance in Forth Worth.

Marched with King? Boooo.

It's a good thing Sanders did not mention his student work against segregation and racial hatred at his appearance at the She the People forum on women of color.

You desegregationist, you, Bernie Sanders.

Clintonite Zerlina Maxwell appeared on the Real Time with Bill Maher Show a couple nights later and continued her months-long banter against Sanders for daring to speak his personal history marching with King, Jackson and fighting for civil rights. It's a hit job.

Bill Maher did not hid his contempt for the attacks against Sanders. "Only fucking Democrats do this," said Maher.
---
The next night in Green Bay, the lunatic Trump appeared before 1,000s of white people. So, lies and idiocy from Trump of course.

At this early stage of the 2019-20 Democratic Party campaign for the presidential nomination, the Trump administration and Clintonites are both working against Bernie Sanders; and civil rights is now getting a bad name from Democratic and Republican Party regulars like Maxwell.

Below is a video from Nina Turner at a Bernie Sanders rally in Forth Worth last week.

Jan 29, 2020

AP Changes Story on Joe Biden Refusal to Back Nominee

Updated - The Associated Press reported a story by Bill Barrow in Iowa yesterday with the headline, "Biden won't commit to backing Sanders if he's the nominee."

Today, the same AP piece's headline reads: "Biden won’t say whether Sanders could unify Dems as nominee."

The new formulation in the headline changes the meaning from Joe Biden committing a 'unity' foul to Bernie Sanders generating disunity.

The lead graf also has been changed from "Former Vice President Joe Biden stopped short Tuesday of saying he’d support Bernie Sanders if the progressive Vermont senator wins the Democratic presidential nomination," to "Former Vice President Joe Biden wouldn’t say Tuesday whether he thinks Bernie Sanders could effectively unify the Democrats if the Vermont senator wins the party’s presidential nomination."

The AP explains: "This story has been corrected to show that Biden was questioned on whether Sanders could unite the party as the nominee, not whether Biden would support Sanders if he’s the nominee."

Biden said,  "I just think that it depends upon how we treat one another between now and the time we have a nominee." It is Biden's support.

"The Biden campaign said [later] Tuesday afternoon that the former vice president would support the eventual nominee," reported the AP.

Who needs the Biden campaign to clean up Joe's mess when they have corporate press?

This AP fronting for the Democratic Party establishment exemplifies the desperation to stop the Bernie Sanders campaign.
The corporate media and Democrats live in a small world. As Glenn Greenwald laughs off the latest round of ridiculousness:

Apr 4, 2016

Bernie Sanders Is a Wisconsin Progressive

A March for Bernie Sanders in Waupaca, Wisconsin on
the weekend before the April 5 presidential primary election.
(Facebook)
There is one clear choice for the Democratic Party nominee for the presidency—Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The stakes have never been higher.

What we have is a life-long civil rights activist and economic justice worker, Bernie Sanders, against a corporatist whose campaign is a gargantuan funnel for special interests.

Democratic Party establishment insiders have largely fallen in line against the progressive Sanders. So what?

Bernie Sanders stands out for his decency, and his fearless work for a nation in which living in a democracy means citizens should be the decision-makers, and not the special interests dominating the Democratic and Republican Party establishments.

The Clinton camp would have voters believe her special-interests campaign would represent a strong top of the Democratic Party ticket. All polls show this to be untrue, as Sanders outperforms Clinton by significant margins as the Democratic Party nominee, (RealClearPolitics), and has for months.

Even as Wisconsin is decimated by a sociopathic governor and a gerrymandered legislature, the progressive state will never give up the fight.

For president, Bernie Sanders.

May 18, 2016

Sanders Is the Clear Choice for President

Citizen cheers Bernie Sanders at Southern California rally
on May 17 2016, (Bernie 2106).
"Well, let me be as clear as I can be. We are in till the last ballot is cast," said Bernie Sanders last night after another victory in Oregon, (Kaplan, NYT).

Millions are with Bernie Sanders.

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is not of them.

Wasserman Schultz rigged the Democratic Primary race for Hillary Clinton, and has called for the elimination of open primaries, (Mal Contends).

Americans casting their votes under the impression that one vote equals one vote are mistaken.

Superdelegates, or Party commissars, decide the nominee, and that's the way Clinton and Wasserman Schultz want it.

Sanders blasted the DNC for its anti-democratic stance last night.

"In the year since he launched a long-shot campaign, Sanders has taken on the Democratic Party establishment and won more than 45 percent of the pledged delegates to this July’s Democratic National Convention."

Speaking to his supporters in Southern California, Sanders had a blunt message for top party officials."

'I say to the leadership of the Democratic Party: Open the doors. Let the people in. The other option for the Democratic Party, a sad and tragic option, is to maintain its status quo structure and be a party with limited participation and limited energy,' said Sanders, (Bernie 2106).

Wisconsin has seen the consequences of option two.

Sanders is much better on the issues. And better on the democratic process, a significant feature of American elections to many. Clinton and Wasserman Schultz are awful.

If Clinton thinks Bernie Sanders supporters will stand with her in the event of a Clinton victory at the July convention, she's as crazy as Wasserman Schultz.

Aug 12, 2017

Corporatist Dems on GOP Wins across Nation: Ahh, Bernie Sanders Did It

Bernie Sanders seeks citizen sponsors for Medicare for
All healthcare bill, (Friends of Bernie Sanders,
Not the Billionaires)
Bernie Sanders has frightened neolib Democrats by advocating the popular Medicare for All healthcare bill.

Only the Democratic Party is so out-of-touch, it could lose a race against Donald Trump and then blame Bernie Sanders.

So now, Daily Kos—which infamously called for all Democratic-voting citizens to rally to behind Hillary Clinton in March 2016—and Hillary bots around the nation are pretending the 2016 election never happened and Hillary did not deliver Donald Trump as president.

It's August 2017 and corproatist Dems are asserting the same young, minority and working-class families whom Sanders brought into the political process are going to be the cause of the 2018 mid-term losses, losses which corporatists are already anticipating. And that's Bernie Sanders' fault too, says Dana Milbank.

Dems will likely make Milbank Communications Director.

In reality-land, Our Revolution notes of the healthcare-for-all idea: 

The U.S. spends more on health care per person, and as a percentage of gross domestic product, than any other advanced nation in the world, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. But all that money has not made Americans healthier than the rest of the world. Quite simply, in our high-priced health care system that leaves millions overlooked, we spend more yet end up with less.

Other industrialized nations are making the morally principled and financially responsible decision to provide universal health care to all of their people—and they do so while saving money by keeping people healthier. Those who say this goal is unachievable are selling the American people short.

Americans need a health care system that works for patients and providers. We need to ensure a strong health care workforce in all communities now and in the future. We need a system where all people can get the care they need to maintain and improve their health when they need it regardless of income, age or socioeconomic status. We need a system that works not just for millionaires and billionaires, but for all of us.

Sounds good.

May 12, 2016

Bernie Sanders Should Stay and Fight

Bernie Sanders for president because our country and
our future are worth fighting for.
The failure of the corporate political press, emphatically MSNBC, to report Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC crafted the Democratic Presidential Primary to coronate Hillary Clinton ought not deter Bernie Sanders' run for the presidency.

Nor should the fact that the DNC has stacked the deck against Sanders at the Democratic National Convention by installing Clinton loyalists in key committees, (US Uncut).

Nor should the fact that the DNC employs Party commissars, aka superdelegates, precisely to halt progressive political campaigns like Bernie Sanders'.

Hillary Clinton has publicly trumpeted her amassed superdelegates since last August, effectively telling Democratic Primary voters the race is over, (Halperin, Epstein, Aug. 28, 2015; (BloombergPolitics)), months before the Iowa Caucuses and 11 months before the July 2016 Democratic Party Presidential Convention.

Bernie Sanders' supporters decided they would cast their preference in this republic anyway, the heck with Clinton's insiders and myriad Party careerists' support. Suckers for democracy are we.

Let's assume the Democratic Party's nominee against the lunatic Donald Trump is a genuine general election, and not prearranged theater like a wrestling match where the bad guy makes a lot of noise and throws the match to the good guy.

If Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC decide large swaths of American voters are neither welcome nor relevant to the Convention, and the evidence is such a decision has already been made, then Bernie Sanders, denied a fair shot at the nomination, should bolt in late July and make an independent or third party run for the presidency.

It's a democratic thing, and a welcome frack-you card to a corrupt and anti-democratic Democratic Party.

Apr 19, 2017

Bernie Sanders Is Head and Shoulders Above Everyone

Madison, Wisconsin — In Wisconsin during the Democratic presidential primary campaign, voices  cautioned repeatedly on social media that a Hillary Clinton nomination imposed by Party commissars ran the risk of giving the state to a Republican in the general election.

So did RealPolitics. So did Bernie Sanders supporters the nation-over.

Democratic super-delegates didn't listen. State parties didn't listen. The Hillary Clinton campaign didn't listen.

So, the nation ended up with the corporatist Clinton as nominee and the rest is sordid history that we live today.

What do 1,000s of activists in northern and western Wisconsin know anyway?

For one thing, Wisconsin activists know a President Sanders is preferable to a President Trump.

This knowledge is spreading across the nation, and Bernie Sanders is now the leading voice for a progressive and effective alternative to the lunatic in the White House.

From Deirdre Fulton in CommonDreams:

As he tours the country hoping to give the Democratic Party an energy boost, yet another poll has shown Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to be extremely popular among the U.S. electorate.

A Harvard-Harris survey found that 57 percent of registered voters view Sanders favorably, according to The Hill, which reported exclusively on the poll this week. In fact, 'Sanders is the only person in a field of 16 Trump administration officials or congressional leaders included in the survey who is viewed favorably by a majority of those polled,' The Hill wrote.

Sanders fared particularly well among voters aged 18-34, who give him a 62 percent approval rating. And, reflecting—or supporting—his influence within the party, 80 percent of registered Democrats said they view the Vermont senator favorably.

On Tuesday night, Sanders reiterated to MSNBC's Chris Hayes that he does not consider himself a Democrat.

Neither do I, Bern. Neither do most Americans.

A new book out, Shattered (Allen, Parnes; (Crown), reveals the world had every reason to fear a Clinton nomination. Writes Michiko Kakutani in the Times review:

After a planned appearance in Green Bay with President Obama was postponed, the authors write, Clinton never set foot in Wisconsin, a key state. In fact, they suggest, the campaign tended to take battleground states like Wisconsin and Michigan (the very states that would help hand the presidency to Trump) for granted until it was too late, and instead looked at expanding the electoral map beyond Democratic-held turf and traditional swing states to places like Arizona.

Clinton was so full of herself she and Party functionaries neglected the potential damage they were willing to inflict on the world.

Bernie has not forgotten.

Mar 18, 2020

Sanders and Trump Admin Call for Cash Payments Amid Biden Silence and Primary Wins

VIX fear-volatility remains near record-high.
Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — Following Joe Biden's sweep of last night's primary elections, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Sen. Bernie Sanders are issuing urgent calls for direct cash payments for Americans.

"We need to provide a direct emergency $2,000 cash payment to every household in America every month for the duration of the crisis to provide them with the assistance they need to pay their bills and take care of their families," Sanders said, (Newsweek).

Mnuchin and Bernie Sanders are singing the same song on a massive federal governmental response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the unofficial U.S. recession, both of which are unpredictable in their severity and duration.

Joe Biden's views on the stimulus are unclear to this point.



Yet, Biden is racking up win after win on the campaign trail.

Personally, I would not trust anything Joe Biden has to say on the global economic crisis anymore than I trusted Biden on the secret weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the moral imperative for mass incarceration and marijuana criminalization, cutting Social Security and the moral primacy of banks over people.

On the campaign front, the presidential race is shaping up as Bernie Sanders and the Trump administration v. Joe Biden and the neo-libs whose 40-year project brought us this outcome.

And on policy, the Trump administration and Bernie Sanders are leading the fight for working families.

Meanwhile, the markets are in for another volatile session today.

So, Biden has been running on parables and lies, not-on-point.

VIX

The VIX index measures fear and expected volatility of investors, offering an educated guess on the next 30-day period of the CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE) and S and P 500 Index.

The VIX functions as a red flag revealing market psychology and pathology.

The higher the VIX, the more the volatility and fear.

The VIX is at trading at $75.91 on March 18, 2020, 10:10 Eastern Time.
 ---
On October 24, 2008, the nightmare of 2008, the VIX reached a day-high record of 89.53.

Mar 10, 2019

Bernie Sanders for President - 2020

Bernie Sanders is arrested at civil rights demonstration in
Chicago in 1961. The character assassination against
Bernie will accelerate this Spring-early Summer on
MSNBC. It will be led by ex-Clintonites, Juanita Tolliver
and Zerlina Maxwell. Tolliver and Maxwell need not
thank Sanders for his life-long work, but they could
stop lying about him.
Madison, Wisconsin — Bernie Sanders has stood head and shoulders above the Clinton dead-enders long before the corporatists instituted mass incarceration, war and Wall Street as defining principles of the Democratic Party.

Decades before the defamations against Sanders by Clintonites, and on hand to lie on MSNBC during Sanders first rally in Brooklyn, Bernie has fought for peace, social justice and civil rights.

Voters should bear this mind when Tolliver and Maxwell emit their character assassinations in the coming months.