Welcome to the Bernie News Roundup. The BNR is a voluntary, non-campaign associated roundup of news, media, & other information related to Bernie Sanders run for President. Visit the group page to join or find past editions.
Visit The Bernie News Roundup Website!
Sign Up, Donate, Volunteer @ Bernie's official page.
More information about Bernie & The Issues @ feelthebern.org
Bernie Praises Biden:
Senator Bernie Sanders was quick to offer praise for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday, portraying himself as a grateful ally of the vice president’s and perhaps an appealing alternative to Democratic voters who might have been drawn to a Biden candidacy.
Addressing reporters outside Penn Station in Manhattan, Mr. Sanders said it was “hard to say” how Mr. Biden’s decision would affect the presidential race.
He was more interested in paying tribute to the vice president, describing him as “a man who has devoted his entire life to public service and to the well being of working families and the middle class.”
In particular, Mr. Sanders said he wanted to thank Mr. Biden and President Obama for their work to improve the economy. “Obviously, we have a long way to go,” the senator said. “But because of Joe Biden, because of President Obama, we have seen significant progress in the last seven years.”
He also portrayed Mr. Biden as a like-minded partner in confronting some of the issues that he has focused on in his campaign, including combating income inequality and the influence of wealth on elections. “I look forward to working with Joe Biden, who I know will remain active in these struggles,” Mr. Sanders said.
On European Socialism:
On the fall of 1991, a Democratic presidential candidate I was covering as he campaigned across New Hampshire had a line in his speeches that surprised me. He commended to his listeners something called the “Swedish active labor market” — a program, established by Sweden’s Social Democrats as part of their full-employment policy, that trained unemployed workers at the government’s expense and linked them up with available jobs.
That candidate was Bill Clinton.
At the debate last week between Democratic presidential candidates, I was forcefully reminded of the then-Arkansas governor’s unanticipated endorsement of Scandinavian democratic socialist policy by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s takedown of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vermont) invocation of Denmark as a model for progressive change in the United States.
My point isn’t that Bill Clinton was a socialist in liberal garb; his support for increasing the size and clout of the financial sector is proof positive that he wasn’t. It’s that the relationship between the European social democracy that Sanders extols and the American progressivism that Hillary Clinton champions is complicated and at times symbiotic, with clear areas of overlap and difference.
Sanders On Jimmy Kimmel Live:
Bernie Sanders stormed late night television Wednesday night and explained why he is not simply a novelty presidential contender.
“If you look at polls out there, it turns out that in many of the polls I am doing better than Hillary is against Donald Trump,” the Vermont senator said on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Sanders leads Trump in a general election match-up by an average of 5.2 percentage points, compared to an average lead for Hillary over Trump of 2.5 percentage points.
Kimmel’s show is being shot before a live audience in Brooklyn this week and Sanders earned roughly a dozen loud ovations during his seven minute appearance.
People Are Still Writing About The Debates:
It was a long night that seemed to go by in an instant. Two hours of debate on hard issues, with each candidate, forced to confront the skeletons in their closet from the beginning. In the end, though, after the closing statements, while every viewer had more-than-likely formed an opinion on the debate, the one question on everyone’s mind was, who won?
Currently, who wins a debate is a very objective, and contested concept. There is not a scorecard, and it is largely a matter of opinion. Analysts will look at each candidate individually and make decisions based on decorum, their ability to provide detailed answers within the time limit, and among a plethora of other criteria.
..
Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialist senator from Vermont, has based his entire campaign on income inequality and closing the gap between the 1% and the rest of the working class in America. For big companies, this means fewer tax breaks, higher wages, and giving all full-time employees benefits. It can be argued that big corporations like Fox, CNN, or the New York Times, would rather not see Sanders become president because it threatens the lifestyle of their company executives. Therefore, it is in their best financial interest for Sanders not to win the nomination.
Because of a potential ploy to skew media coverage and ongoing dismissal of Sanders’ success even though he is a hugely under-rated candidate, it is now more critical than ever for registered voters to do what it takes to stay informed about the political affairs in America. Some major news outlets have demonstrated their willingness to report bald-faced lies in an effort to manipulate the election. Allow no one tell you otherwise, in spite of what the media wants the American people to believe, Bernie Sanders, the unlikely socialist from Vermont, is the Democratic frontrunner after the first Democratic debate.
Bernie And Doc Brown:
Is Bernie Sanders president in the future? Hillary, Donald and the other would-be-contenders might want to start panicking, because the Democratic candidate and Larry David lookalike seems to have just lined up the most valuable endorsement of all: Doc Brown.
“Tell me, future boy, who’s President of the United States in 2017?” reads the caption on Sanders’ mind-blowing Instagram pic, perfectly posted on “Back to the Future Day” when Doc traveled to 2015.
Imagining Marty McFly breaking the news, the candidate writes the time-traveling doctor’s incredulous response: “Bernie Sanders?! From Vermont?”
..
As it turns out, Sanders was a guest on the Wednesday (Oct. 21) episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and Kimmel also had a special appearance by Nike-wearing Michael J. Fox and Lloyd — who just happened to be hanging around backstage available for selfies.
Americans Are Optimistic About Sanders:
An unprecedented number of major party candidates are running for president. Yet, Americans remain pessimistic about the entire presidential field going into 2016.
An NBC/WSJ poll asked Americans about individual candidates and whether they were optimistic/satisfied or uncertain/pessimistic about the ability of each individual candidate to do a good job as president.
With every candidate, more voters were uncertain or pessimistic than optimistic or satisfied, but of the announced candidates, voters were less pessimistic about Bernie Sanders than any of the other candidates. 43 percent of American voters expressed optimism about a Sanders’ presidency, compared to 50 percent who did not. His net (-7) optimism to pessimism score was better than Hillary Clinton’s (-13) or any of the Republican candidates.
While conservatives are doing their best to scare Americans away from electing a “democratic socialist” named Bernie Sanders, voters are apparently less nervous about Sanders than they are about the other candidates running for president. America’s optimism for Sanders is decidedly cautious. However, voters are far less pessimistic about Sanders’ ability to run the country than they are about Donald Trump or Jeb Bush’s ability to lead the nation.
Bernies Campaign Is Thriving:
As he seeks the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has an ally in Choctaw, Okla. Bill Haivala is an 82-year-old retired electronics technician.
“I like to find people that basically support, if you call it, a progressive or socialist agenda,” Haivala told Seven Days. “Bernie Sanders is talking about how America should look like Scandinavian countries. That rings a bell with me.”
In July, Haivala found Sanders’ campaign website and made a donation: $250. That’s chickenfeed in a political contest. But democratic socialist Sanders is getting enough of it — from letter carriers, artists, accountants, librarians — to make a towering pile.
Sanders’ latest filing, released last Thursday, shows that his campaign raised $26.2 million in the three months leading up to September 30. Since he joined the race, roughly 650,000 people have donated to his campaign — and just 270 of them have given the legal limit of $2,700.
Bernie Is Bad For Bankers Not Banks:
So yes, if you’re an executive at one of those huge financial institutions—and according to legislation Sanders introduced in May, there are actually eight such firms: Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo—you aren’t going to like what Sanders is proposing. He wants to break up your company and take a bite into your firm’s bottom line, which most likely means a lower bonus.
But for the financial services industry as a whole, Kelleher thinks this might actually be good. He points to the breakup of Standard Oil in the early 20th century as an example. After the monopoly was broken up, “we ended up with six to eight big regional oil companies,” he notes, which led to increased competition and lower prices. He also points to the breakup of big phone companies, which in turned spurred competition that led to mobile technologies and all the smart phone wonders we have today.
Remember, the financial sector is more than just the 10 biggest banks, and the 10 biggest banks are made up of far more people than just their top executives. So while there is no doubt that Sanders’ plan of putting a cap on the size of any given bank (perhaps tied to a firm’s assets as a percentage of GDP) would be bad for those at the top, it might not spell bad news for the industry as a whole.
Not having such massive banking players at the top could allow smaller, regional banks to compete.
A Little More On The Kimmel Appearance:
The senator from Vermont, who is competing against Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, said he wants to learn from the experiences of Colorado and other states that have legalized recreational pot use.
But, Sanders said: “I am not unfavorably disposed to moving toward the legalization of marijuana.”
“We have more people in jail today than any other country on earth,” Sanders told Kimmel. “We have large numbers of lives that have been destroyed because of this war on drugs, and because people were caught smoking marijuana and so forth. I think we have got to end the war on drugs.”
..
Kimme also asked Sanders, who is Jewish, whether he believes in God.
“I am who I am, and what I believe in and what my spirituality is about is that we’re all in this together,” Sanders said. “We do our best as human beings — we fulfill our lives — when we work together rather than say ‘Hey, I want it all, and I don’t care about the hungry kid down the street.’”
Its The End Of The World As The Right Wing Knows It:
Rick Wiles invited climate change denier and End Times predictor Cliff Harris on his “TruNews” program last week to talk about the climate change debate, which they agreed was a “hoax” being used to grow the size of government.
Wiles warned that leaders like Pope Francis, Al Gore and Bernie Sanders are part of a plan to “use global warming to impose global socialism” during which they will “take control of property, eliminate private property rights take control of natural resources.” Wiles said the pupose of this plan is to impose “a centralized global government controlling the activities of every human being on the planet. That’s what Al Gore and all those socialists are after, and they’re using the climate as the justification.”
Wiles also proposed that this is a sign of the second coming of Christ, “this is evidence of Jesus Christ coming back.” Harris offered that mass support for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is also evidence that the second coming is imminent.
James Adomians Bernie Impressions Are Making News Again:
According to the Internet, Larry David’s surprise impersonation of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on “Saturday Night Live” last weekend was “amazing,” “perfect” and “the greatest thing ever.”
David’s take on Sanders was certainly good (pretty, pretty, pretty good, even) but it was no Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. It’s not even the best Sanders impersonation out there: That honor goes to Los Angeles-based comedian James Adomian
Compared to David, Adomian’s Sanders is truly great. He captures the nuances of Sanders — his voice, his facial tics, his speaking style and his policies — often while improvising. (He’s been posting videos online, playing Sanders live in L.A. and on appearances on various podcasts.)