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Small Donations Make A Big Difference:
As a measure of democracy, one of the more encouraging statistics of the 2016 presidential race is the fact that the average contribution to the long-shot campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders is $31.30. It would be hard to buy any politician for $31.30. That is exactly the message Mr. Sanders intends, in renouncing fat-cat, super PAC campaigning that is turning American politics into an exercise in plutocracy.
Americans of ordinary means have made 400,000 donations — about 80 percent of them were $200 or less — to Mr. Sanders. Contrast that with the appalling fact that fewer than 400 of the nation’s most affluent families, writing six- and seven-figure checks, account for almost half the money raised so far by both parties in the campaign, according to an analysis by The Times.
The Sanders campaign, whatever its fate, has at least established that small-beer donors are alive and well and enthusiastic in America. What they and democracy need as a quid pro quo is a revival of the public financing system that protected politics after the corruption of the Watergate scandals.
As things stand now, the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision has grossly boosted the buying power of corporate and special interest donors and made a casino frenzy of the race. The Koch brothers have proudly organized more than 400 of their wealthy allies to create a super war chest of $889 million for Republican candidates. The Jeb Bush campaign, pretending to remain at arm’s length from its supposedly independent super PACs, raised over $100 million so far in big-check donations. Hillary Rodham Clinton, aiming to stay competitive, has raised more than $20 million in super PAC money, much of it from millionaires, even as she pursues small-dollar donations and vows to do something about campaign reform.
The small donors carrying the Sanders campaign are a refreshing break from the egregious money bundlers.
Sanders To Talk To The Establishment:
Bernie Sanders will take his anti-establishment rhetoric to the most establishment Democratic meeting in the country on Friday.
According to an aide, the Vermont senator will argue during his speech at the Democratic National Committee summer meeting in Minneapolis that "if Democrats want to keep the White House and recapture Congress and make gains in statehouses, then establishment politics won't do it."
Sanders will call on the DNC to take on the establishment -- namely Wall Street, big banks and corporations -- not be beholden to them.
The same aide said Sanders will also do a little boasting that "few would deny he is generating excitement and that's what the party needs."
The audience on Friday will be markedly different than what Sanders is used to. Instead of counter-culture Democrats and people who don't identify with a party, Sanders will stand before a group of people he really hasn't identified with for much of his career.
A message from DKOS Member HappyInNM:
C-Span is broadcasting the whole event in two sessions---morning and afternoon. Morning session will have speeches by Chafee and Clinton and afternoon session will have speeches by O'Malley, Sanders, and Webb. You can watch it on C-Span on the tee vee or online at c-span dot org. The morning session begins at 11:00 EDT, and the afternoon session begins at 2:00 EDT. If you can't watch it live, you can watch it whenever you want after the events, as it will become part of C-Span's video library.
The Phoenix Office Opens:
Nestled within the heart of the Grand Avenue Arts District, a small association of politically-motivated activists work long and hard hours within the small confines of {9} The Gallery, an art-gallery-turned-campaign-office, advocating for the presidency of Democratic presidential nominee Bernie Sanders.
Although the bright, vivacious area does not seem like the ideal campaign location for the 73-year-old senator, supporters working at the "We Want Bernie" office believe there is more than enough time to encourage voters of all ages not only to vote, but to vote for Sanders in the 400-plus days before the election.
The "We Want Bernie" campaign office, which officially opened last Saturday, has already seen an influx of support for Sanders, welcoming unconventional methods of recognition such as the Vermont independent depicted in a graffiti painting.
We know this line well, but still love it:
At a rally, Wednesday in New Hampshire Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders discussed Republican “family values.”
“Many of my Republican colleagues who come through New Hampshire and Iowa and so forth,” said Sanders, “they often talk about family values.”
“They just loooove families,” he joked. “But all of you know what they mean by family values. And what they mean by family values is that the women of this country should not have the right to control their own bodies. I disagree.”
“What they mean by family values is that women are not smart enough to be able to purchase the contraceptives they need,” he continued. “I disagree.”
“And furthermore, what they mean by family values is that our gay brothers and sisters should not be able to get married or enjoy the other benefits of the American legal system. I disagree,” said Sanders to a roar of applause.
..
So while the GOP is attacking women based on lies and deceptive information, Sanders is actually fighting for family values by demanding health care of all and a living wage so that no one working 40 hours a week is living in poverty. -
Ed Klein making up stuff about you must be a sign of success:
Bernie Sanders keeps getting asked, and keeps saying no. No, he will not run as an independent candidate for president.
“I made the promise that I would not, and I will keep that promise,” Sanders said in his most widely shared version of the answer. “The reason for that is I do not want to be responsible for electing some right-wing Republican to be president of the United States.”
That’s clear enough, so why does Sanders keep getting asked? The latest attempt to stoke a Sanders-for-spoiler story comes from Ed Klein, the author whose incredibly fake-sounding transcripts of what Bill and Hillary Clinton say to each other have propelled a series of Obama-era books to the bestseller list.
...
As soon as [Hillary] starts piling up delegates with the help of Wall Street money and her formidable ground operation, Bernie’s going to pull out and announce an independent run,” said (or “said”) the source (or “source”). "Bernie’s polling has shown that he has a tidal wave of support among people across the country who have never or seldom voted. They’ll come out for him and pull the Independent Party lever.”
Even leaving aside the strange locutions – “pull the Independent Party lever?” – there’s no chance that a Sanders campaign insider said this. That's because there is no such thing as “Bernie’s polling.”
“We do not have a pollster,” said Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs. “We have not done polling. Bernie has said over and over that he will not be a spoiler, that he will not run as a third party candidate.”
NPR On Sanders Socialism:
"I think the media is giving Bernie a pass right now. I very rarely read in any coverage of Bernie that he is a socialist," McCaskill said. "I think he would like to see Medicare for all."
Guilty as charged, says Sanders. When pressed, he calls himself a Democratic socialist. And he does support universal health care through a single payer system like Medicare for all. And the news media ignoring Sanders' socialist label? The description is in pretty much every profile of Sanders.
But it is not a word Sanders often uses on the campaign trail to define himself. Here's how Sanders reacted when VPR's Bob Kinzel asked him recently about that "avowed socialist" tagline.
"You have known me for a few years. Do I go around saying, 'Hey Bob, I am the self-avowed socialist?' You know, it's what media does," Sanders said.
Webster's dictionary defines socialism as a form of society in which government owns or controls major industries. Marxist theory says socialism is the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.
Neither one of these definitions is what Sanders is talking about.
"What am I trying to do in this campaign is to tell Americans what many of them don't know: that the benefits for working people are a lot, lot stronger in many other countries around the world," he has said.
Sanders & Real Reform:
The hundreds of thousands of people who have become involved in Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and gone to his rallies are responding to the reality that American democracy has become corrupted by the vast tidal waves of Wall Street and corporate cash. Banks, oil companies, corporate lobbyists, law firms, venture capitalists and defense contractors have the ears (and other parts) of our elected officials. But children in poverty, the mother who works three jobs, the college student with $100,000 of debt do not. Sen. Sanders’ supporters instinctively understand that presidential candidates that have received millions of dollars in corporate contributions are not going to bite the hands that feed them. Sanders’ supporters are saying, “Enough is enough.”
The Bernie Sanders campaign is not about Bernie himself; it is about demonstrating to the country that candidates that truly speak for the people can run and win, and about building a movement of federal, state and local candidates not beholden to corporate sponsorship. We want to show that left-wing candidates can win without the blessing of the establishment media who, for the most part, dismiss low-cash campaigns as quixotic and unworthy of attention. The Sanders campaign wants to show that free social media and good old-fashioned people power can overcome the dynamics that, according to a recent well-known Princeton study, have already turned our democracy into an oligarchy.
Establishment Washington, naturally, is skeptical of the Sanders campaign, believing, as it always has, in “incremental change,” “working within the system” and in “not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
As a result, Democratic as well as Republican elected officials continually make concessions to a small cadre of the ultra-wealthy and corporate donors who have set the parameters of acceptable debate. Many Democrats continue to support job-killing trade deals and the fossil fuel economy long past the time when their deleterious effects have been conclusively demonstrated. “Pragmatism” has co-opted both our passion and our compassion. And as a result, we edge ever closer to a future where the middle class of the United States has been eviscerated, where a few oligarchs own everything and the rest us are left to homelessness, squalor, disease, starvation and environmental catastrophe. In so many countries around the world, this is already the reality. This is the vision to which the American oligarchy aspires.
It is time for all of us to stand up and say, with Sen. Sanders, “Enough is Enough!”
Athens Residents Are Ready For Sanders:
As the national presidential race heats up, more and more Athens residents are beginning to “Feel the Bern.”
About 70 students and Athens residents convened in the Athens Community Center, 701 E. State St., Thursday night to express their support for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
At the third Athens for Bernie Sanders meeting since the group was founded this summer, local Bernie Sanders supporters gathered to hear about campaign plans, meet with local activists and discuss policies and ideas.
“It’s important that we come together and concentrate our efforts on a variety of issues,” Nate Wallace, a recent OU Ph.D. graduate who founded the group, said at the meeting. “It’s important to go out into the country and rural areas to get people to know who Bernie Sanders is and what his policies are.”