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Bernie In Madison:
From CNN (video in the article):
Bernie Sanders Draws 10,000:
Bernie Sanders has been running for president for two months, but Wednesday night in Madison, Wisconsin, his long-shot campaign got real.
When Sanders walked on stage at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, he was greeted by a raucous, howling crowd of 9,600 people, according to Sanders' campaign aides and arena staff.
A clearly energized Sanders, who late last year was speaking to crowds of 50 people in Iowa classrooms, appeared taken aback by the reception he received.
"Whoa," he said. "In case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of people here."
Sanders' campaign has been organizing the event for weeks, but just recently started telling reporters that 9,000 people signed up to attend.
"Tonight we have made a little bit of history," he said. "You may know that some 25 candidates are running for president of the United States, but tonight we have more people at a meeting for a candidate for president of the United States than any other candidate has."
Sanders
Blasts Greece's Creditors:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) attacked the International Monetary Fund and European authorities on Wednesday for imposing what he called excessive austerity measures on Greece in negotiations over the country’s debt payments.
“It is unacceptable that the International Monetary Fund and European policymakers have refused to work with the Greek government on a sensible plan to improve its economy and pay back its debt,” Sanders said in an exclusive statement to The Huffington Post. “At a time of grotesque wealth inequality, the pensions of the people in Greece should not be cut even further to pay back some of the largest banks and wealthiest financiers in the world.”
Sanders, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and veteran progressive lawmaker, called the loans-for-austerity policies that the IMF and eurozone nations have imposed on Greece an “abysmal failure,” and demanded that the United States and other world powers grant Greece new debt-repayment terms that would allow its economy to recover from the damage it has sustained since 2008.
Allen McDuffee asks Can Sanders Save Socialism?:
The optics are usually bad: a rumpled suit, an untamable white mane, a thick Brooklyn accent and a campaign that lacks the sheen of the backing of billionaires.
Which is, of course, the point. Bernie Sanders, the independent senator for Vermont and self-described socialist, is running an outsiders’ campaign within the Democratic Party, intended to shake up a system he says is stacked against most Americans. Pundits have compared him to another older, crotchety, white candidate — Ron Paul, the libertarian who ran for the White House as a Republican in 2008 and 2012. They’re on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, and few expect him to take the Democratic Party’s nomination (never mind the White House), but some speculate Sanders is driving the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, to the left. Or that he might weaken her, just like Paul did to “more serious” Republican contenders.
But the better question might be this: Can Bernie Sanders do for socialism what Ron Paul did for libertarianism — which is to say, take it from the fringes and turn it into a politically viable stance
For a great article with a great photograph visit Bloomberg's
People For Bernie:
Joseph Beuerlein, a 33-year-old bartender and actor, was looking through the list of groups registered to march in New York City's Gay Pride Parade when he noticed that Hillary for America would be there, but no Bernie Sanders surrogates. He registered and reached out to People for Bernie, a grassroots group aimed at helping people organize for the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate, to get some people together.
“They said, ‘How about you organize it?’” Beuerlein said.
About 70 supporters showed up to march in Sunday’s parade, decked out in Bernie shirts, Bernie buttons, and neon-colored workout gear (a play on the “feel the Bern”/“feel the burn” pun the group claims to have popularized), carrying handmade signs with more puns and messages about Sanders’s LGBT support.
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By design, that's how People for Bernie operates. The group's goal is to help people who are new to politics, people who support Sanders but don't know how to help the campaign, and put them in a place where they can lead.
“We call ourselves a permission machine,” said founder Charles Lenchner. “Usually in politics someone says, ‘Oh, we should do this,’ and then they look for someone to say that that’s a good idea. ... People come to us with ideas and our approach is almost always, ‘Yes, how can we help?’”
While Lenchner says he is in contact with the Sanders campaign—they provided buttons and posters for the event, and have asked the group to promote events like the candidate's Wednesday night rally in Madison, Wisconsin—People for Bernie sees itself as resource for activists the campaign might not have the bandwidth to work with.
“They don't have staff, they're not going to set up operations in all 50 states, they're going to run a smaller, less well funded campaign than say Hillary Clinton,” he said. “So what are we going to do to make it easier for people to jump in?”
Brent Budowsky at Observer Opinion with:
Bernie Sanders, Forever Young
As America approaches the 4th of July with new warnings of terror attacks and news of another round of church bombings from those who still hold dear the flag of the confederacy, let’s consider instead the story of a college student who stood in Washington in August 1963 and cheered when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told the world he had a dream.
You won’t hear this on Morning Joe, read about it in the New York Times, or watch panels of pundits discuss this when they meet the press or face the nation on Sunday morning, but the name of that college student who witnessed one of the greatest men who ever lived give one of the most important speeches in the history of freedom was:
Bernie Sanders!
It is usually said, often incorrectly, that when men and women are young they have great dreams for themselves and their country but when they get older they shed those dreams and become conservative defenders of the status quo they once deplored.
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And that is why even the most cynical pundits, when they journey to television studios to tell us what we are supposed to think, are forced or inspired to admit that American politics has entered “the summer of Sanders.”
At a time when so many voters feel partisan politics has become an ocean of crap, Bernie Sanders is an island of idealism and hope and principle which is what politics is supposed to be all about.
The Wow Factor of Bernie Sanders by Kerry Sullivan @ The National Monitor:
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is quickly becoming one of the most adored candidates running for the 2016 presidency. Despite being 73 years old, his stances on politically divisive issues deeply resonates with young voters.
“I think that he has a lot of integrity. That’s incredibly important to me,” said 28-year-old Jones after listening to Sanders’ speech at Nashua Community College. “I don’t think that we can run our country without some sort of moral or ethical guidelines. So that’s why I’m going to vote for him.”
Sanders is not your typical candidate. First of all, he openly identifies as a socialist – a term often hurled at President Obama as an insult. Second, he refuses to use super PAC funds to finance his campaign. Third, he never has and promises he never will run a negative campaign ad because he respects his opponents as decent men and women.
“He doesn’t seem to play the political game. He just says what he has to say. And he gets right to the meat of the matter,” said 38-year-old Ann Merritt from New London.
Al Jazeera America presents:
Bernie Sanders campaign rallies drawing enthusiastic progressive crowds
Amberlee Jones was lucky to get a seat. The crowd at Nashua Community College was overflowing into the aisles as they waited to hear Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. When he took the stage, the room grew instantly quiet. When he stepped up to the microphone after a brief introduction, the room exploded in cheers.
“I think that he has a lot of integrity. That’s incredibly important to me,” Jones, a 28-year-old sign-language interpreter from Rochester, New York, said afterward. “I don’t think that we can run our country without some sort of moral or ethical guidelines. So that’s why I’m going to vote for him.”
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Most of these going to see Sanders are there for his left-wing takes on issues concerning equality and the economy. Jennifer Alford-Teaster, 38, a geospatial research project director in Sutton, attended the meeting in Henniker with her husband. She said social mobility and equal pay for women are among her top priorities.
“I grew up poor, on welfare, food stamps, and I had to put myself through college,” she said. “I now work at Dartmouth and have a very prestigious position, and it’s only because I was able to work and put myself through school. So economic and social mobility issues are really important to me.”
Diane Raymond, 58, a technical editor from Nashua, New Hampshire, is most concerned about offshoring jobs and the impact of climate change. Sanders’ stance on both issues moved her to volunteer during his town meeting at Nashua Community College.
“I really like the things that Bernie talks about. They’re the same issues that I’m concerned with. I like the way he doesn’t take corporate money and he doesn’t mince his words. He says it like it is,” she said.
Sanders Is Sending A Wake Up Call:
Tonight in Madison, Wisconsin, 10,000 to 13,000 people turned out to hear Bernie Sanders give his stump speech. So far this is the largest crowd that has turned out for any current presidential candidate. He has been packing them in and his campaign people have been changing venues to largest ones that is available on scheduled stops. They had to broadcast his speech outside of the building to the crowd out side that could not get in.
He has electrified every one who has gone to see him. He reads from notes and sounds much like a truck driver from Brooklyn. His magic is in what he says that resonates with the general population. He hits all the major worries of the population. He hits hard against the uber wealthy and the malfeasance of corporations.
He has raised 9 million so far from small donations and insists he will be able to raise enough to run a grass roots campaign, so far, it is working
Sanders Tax Returns show he is far from a 1%er:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who rails against the “billionaire class” on the presidential campaign trail, reported relatively modest income last year: just more than $200,000 on a tax return filed jointly with his wife.
The vast majority of the couple’s income came from Sanders’s $174,000 Senate salary and Social Security benefits that both he and his wife, Jane, a former college president, receive.
Sanders, who has been rising in the polls in his bid for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Rodham Clinton, voluntarily released the first few pages of his 2014 federal and Vermont tax returns Tuesday at the request of The Washington Post.
Is Bernie Sanders Really To Radical? asks Peter Dreier @ The American Prospect:
Political scientists, pollsters, journalists, and pundits like to identify voters and politicians with labels. But voters care less about labels—conservative, moderate, liberal, progressive, socialist, or others. They are more interested in what politicians want government to do.
So let’s look instead at what Americans actually believe and care about.
Polls show that Americans are upset with widening inequality, the political influence of big business, and declining living standards. Public opinion is generally favorable toward greater government activism to address poverty, inequality, opportunity, and climate change.
Most Americans worry that government has been captured by the powerful and wealthy. They want a government that serves the common good. They also want to reform government to make it more responsive and accountable.
On those matters—both broad principles and specific policy prescriptions—Sanders is in sync with the vast majority of Americans.
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America seems to be holding its breath, trying to decide what kind of country it wants to be. We seem to be at one of those crossroads moments when attitudes are rapidly shifting and significant reform is possible.