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The Christian Case For Sanders:
On September 14, Bernie Sanders gave a speech at Liberty University, the largest Evangelical Christian institution of higher education in the world.
I tried to come up with a metaphor that would adequately express the abnormality of Sanders's visit. Saying that Bernie Sanders -- unfalteringly pro gay marriage, pro women's right to choose, and an outspoken socialist -- was going "behind enemy lines" or "into the belly of beast" seemed insufficient in expressing the unusualness of his visit. From the moment his near half-hour address began, Sanders acknowledged the strangeness of his being at Liberty, conceding, "...the views that many here at Liberty University have and I, on a number of important issues, are very, very different."
The issues he's referring to are the "social" or "family" issues I previously mentioned, which have been the swing vote, get-to-the-ballot-box issues for many Christians in the last couple of elections: mainly abortion and gay marriage.
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A candidate like Bernie Sanders -- who persuasively uses Scripture to deconstruct the ills of capitalism and income inequality in the United States -- messes up the all-too-persistent narrative that Republican = Christian candidate. I find it refreshing, and a dialogue worth having.
De Blasio To Host A Presidential Forum:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office is planning a national forum on inequality with presidential candidates at a college in Iowa before the end of November, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Representatives for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Martin O’Malley, former governor of Maryland, both candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, said they hoped to participate.
A representative for Hillary Clinton didn’t have an immediate comment.
Mr. de Blasio wants to shape the agenda of the presidential-election year with his progressive agenda that focuses on stemming income inequality and includes pushes on universal prekindergarten, a higher minimum wage and closing a loophole that lets hedge-fund executives pay income taxes at a lower rate.
The revolution arrives at ISU:
Shouts of “We are the 99 percent!” and “Revolution! Bernie Sanders!” could be heard from the pedestrian bridge at 1 p.m. Monday as Redbirds for Bernie held the event Operation Bridge.
The new RSO distributed flyers and buttons advocating support for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Other members lined up single file down the bridge and held signs explaining each one of Sanders’s stances on issues like women’s rights, racial equality and income and wealth inequality.
Senior theatre major Ashley Pruitt’s voice could be heard loud and clear, leading the group in many of their rallying chants. “Politics aren’t just about making the rich happy, or keeping those in power, in power. To me, [Sanders] wants to abolish the hegemonic agenda that is in the United States and that really excites me,” Pruitt said.
Redbirds for Bernie was organized in late July by its president Mark Adams and other Redbirds like Pruitt who support Sanders’s campaign. They are working to politically empower and educate students. This event was one of its first demonstrations on campus apart from its table at Festival ISU in August.
Bernie Talks To David Axelrod:
If Bernie Sanders were president, he wouldn’t be as naive about compromise as President Barack Obama.
At least that’s what the Vermont senator told David Axelrod on the former Obama adviser’s first episode of his podcast “The Axe Files with David Axelrod.”
Sanders said that after a “brilliant campaign,” Obama made a mistake by expecting that he could easily negotiate with the other party.
“He thought he could walk into Capitol Hill and the Oval Office and sit down with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and the Republicans and say, ‘I can’t get it all. You can’t get it all. Let’s work out something that’s reasonable,’ because he’s a reasonable guy. He’s a pretty rational guy,” Sanders said. “These guys never had any intention of doing [serious] negotiating and compromising. … I think it took the president too long to fully appreciate that.”
Prison Stocks And Sanders:
On the same day that Sanders announced his plan, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded its family-detention program to a subsidiary of the GEO Group. Immigration is a major lobbying point for these companies, and between 2008 and 2010, CCA and GEO spent $11 million lobbying on immigration issues.
While the private-prison industry has an incentive to keep immigrants behind bars, it also benefits from return prisoners and crowded cells. This, to Sanders and other supporters of public prisons, is exactly why the government should be in charge of the incarceration system; helping prisoners reform and providing social welfare is better for society as a whole by hopefully reducing crime and eventually lowering the burden of the government to take care of criminals.
It makes sense that private-prisons would be big business in the US, as America has more prisoners than any other nation in the world. As one could assume, GEO and CCA won't go down without a fight and are sure to lobby against Sanders' plan.
Regardless, investors should be weary of prison stocks as justice-system reform becomes an increasingly hot issue. Other candidates have also put this reform on their platforms, including Republican Senator Rand Paul, whose REDEEM Act would reduce the number of nonviolent drug offenders behind bars. Simply put, less prisoners means less money for the private-prison industry, and these prison stocks could slide even further.
Big Boi Endorses Bernie:
n the course of his campaign, Bernie Sanders has unsurprisingly been receiving approval from a number of figures on the Left, including Noam Chomsky and newly minted British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Last Friday, however, he received an endorsement few, if any, saw coming—Outkast’s Big Boi.
Appearing on the Rap Radar Podcast last Friday, the Georgia-born rapper told hosts Elliott Wilson and Brian “B.Dot” Miller that he was behind the Independent from Vermont based on his stance against the unjust U.S. prison system.
“I’m for Bernie Sanders because he’s with prison reform and things like that,” he said. “I’m for anything that’s helping the good of people and helping people get out of poverty and getting people sentenced to these long unjust prison sentences out of jail and the legalization of marijuana, I’m for that.”
The surprise endorsement came after Big Boi was questioned about his earlier admission to the Huffington Post that he was a libertarian, and that he had voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson in the 2012 presidential election. At the time, he had couched his stance in similar views, explaining that he was for “anything that benefits the public and not just big banking”; the rapper now eschews the libertarian label and says he’s a “humanitarian.”
Bernie Speaks For Students Not To Them:
We’re attending college to better ourselves, yet instead of a bright future, all we can see is a murky horizon clouded by debt from our student loans. The job market should be our lighthouse of refuge, but instead the bulb has burned out, leaving us to crash into a shore of uncertainty. No jobs, insurmountable debt in comparison to our age and income, where the hell is our lifeboat?
Cue Bernie Sanders. A man who resembles a New England version of Woody Allen more than an actual presidential candidate. Unlike his Hollywood doppelganger, Sanders isn’t awkward with his ambitions. The man has a plan and is a serious political threat to the current state of our nation’s capital for all the right reasons. He speaks his mind and he speaks it freely. It is an endearing quality, and one rarely found in politicians.
Perhaps it is his Brooklyn roots and Jewish charm that strike a chord with millennial voters. The demographic the 76-year old Democratic presidential nominee is connecting with most is millennial voters across. But how the heck can a guy who has been in politics longer than most of us have been alive connect with us all so well?
For starters, the guy has guts. He has the guts to not only appease young voters’ concerns, but to actually stand by them.
Clinton Endorsement Divides Teachers:
Top brass of the 3 million-strong National Education Association, the country's largest union, are recommending an endorsement of Hillary Clinton, according to an email obtained by POLITICO -- a move that has many state leaders and rank-and-file members planning to protest the early endorsement.
The email, sent from the union's campaign office, states that the NEA PAC, the union’s political arm, is planning to hold an upcoming vote “recommending Hillary Clinton for the presidential primary.”
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But the reaction is following a pattern that has played out in many major unions that have gone through the endorsement process this year -- anger and opposition from rank-and-file members who support Sanders and want their unions to hold off on any endorsement in the primary. Many teachers protested vigorously after the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Clinton in July.
Some NEA members supporting Sanders said they simply do not trust Clinton to fight for their interests -- and plan to fight back against any union endorsement. “Even if she says things that today sound supportive, she’s not going to be a steadfast friend of organized labor,” said Jamie Rinaldi, a teacher from Newton, Mass., and a union activist. “We don’t know she’s going to be the ally that’s going to stand with our legislative agenda.”
Other state leaders have expressed concern that an early endorsement does not allow members to be participants in a real debate around the issues that is still unfolding.
Good article but awful headline:
As the 2016 campaign comes into focus, the candidacy of Bernie Sanders looks less and less far-fetched. On the other side of the aisle, the top Republican candidates are losing badly to a brash populist who is campaigning to get money out of politics. The presumptive Democratic nominee is struggling to connect beyond her base, facing self-inflicted wounds over her private email server, and racking up 53 percent unfavorable ratings in a late-summer poll. Sanders may loathe reporters, he may be a curmudgeon to work for, and he may not have many friends, but this populist who doesn’t care for people may turn out to be voters’ best hope for palpable change.
If Sanders has a chance in this race, it’ll be because of people like Judy and Paul Wuerker, who came to Oyster River High School in Durham, New Hampshire, in late June to hear Sanders plead for “millions of people standing up” against the billionaires.
“I’m in,” Judy Wuerker told me. “A political revolution is only common sense.”
I ask Paul, a large, quiet guy with a gap in his smile, for his take on Sanders. “I like what he has to say and how he says it,” he tells me. “Even if you don’t agree, he’s straightforward and believes what he says.”
But how can you support a candidate who calls himself a Democratic socialist?
“I believe that we can have a small government that works for everyone,” Paul says. “Call me a Republican socialist.”
That may sound like a contradiction in terms, but, of course, so is Bernie Sanders.