Black Americans — all Americans — need a leader with a record that speaks for itself. And to me, it’s clear. Of all the presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders is our strongest ally.
When protesters challenged Sanders last summer, that relationship was tested. They publicly questioned whether the most progressive candidate in the field viewed racial justice as a nonnegotiable demand. The optics were messy, but he heard us. He prioritized a racial justice platform. He spoke out, in speeches and debates, about Sandra Bland and declared that black lives do matter. He heard us, and I believe he’ll continue to listen.
We aren’t the first generation of black Americans to rise up and demand our human right to life, and we won’t be the last. But I know a better world is possible. I know that once we come together, we are powerful beyond imagination. Sen. Sanders knows this too. He’s learning from us, working with us and respecting the power of we, the people, over the established political machine.
I remember another candidate who dared me to believe in hope and change. His opponents said he wasn’t ready for leadership. They said he couldn’t win. He said, “Yes, we can.” And we did.
I still believe we can. That’s why I endorse Bernie Sanders for president.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont met with campaign volunteers on Friday to energize the people who will spend their weekend knocking on doors and begging residents to caucus for him on Monday.
At a campaign field office in Muscatine and at a cafe in Washington, Iowa, Mr. Sanders said once again that he believes he will win in Iowa if there is a large turnout. He told volunteers that he believed that the race with Hillary Clinton was “a literal tie.” And, he especially stressed the need to turn out the vote during his visit to Muscatine.
“So my request to you, in the next three days, is beg, borrow, kidnap, do whatever you have to do,” Mr. Sanders said, as many in the crowd laughed. “Kidnapping illegal here in Iowa? Just temporary kidnapping. Just for a few hours. Grab them. Bring them in. Then, get them home safely. If the people who support our ideas come out to vote, we win. If we win here, we are off and running. We have a real path to victory.”
Mr. Sanders also said that people were questioning his reliance on motivating working class and young people to vote for him.
“What the establishment thinks is that no, we can’t really increase the voter turnout,” Mr. Sanders said. “We really can’t get working people involved in the political process. We can’t get young people involved in the political process. We will continue to have a political process dominated by ‘super PACs’, by Wall Street and corporate America. That is really the issue.”
Six months ago, I was a Bernie Sanders skeptic. In July, I wrote about how Sanders had bungled his outreach to the black base. Though he spent a lot of time talking about economic inequality, his message seemed aimed at the thousands of white liberals who attended his rallies. A month later, I accused his white online supporters of condescending to black people who weren’t sold on his civil rights record.
..
But now, I’m beginning to rethink my position. That’s thanks, largely, to Sanders’s black women supporters. Over the last week, I’ve spoken with people like Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, Trayvon Martin family lawyer Natalie Jackson and several black female Sanders staffers, like Tezlyn Figaro. No one shaped my thinking more than Erica Garner. She’s the daughter of Eric Garner, an unarmed African American who died after being put in a choke hold by an NYPD officer in 2014.
During our conversation, she argued that Sanders’s push for economic equality is just as important for black people as fighting abusive policing. Listening to Garner explain how she feels Sanders will help ease her financial hardships struck a chord. Women make, on average, just 79 cents for every dollar a man makes. Black women earn just 60 cents on the dollar; Latinas make 55 cents on the dollar. For Garner, it doesn’t matter how many cops are thrown behind bars for killing black people if she can’t afford to pay her rent or afford child care for her 6-year-old daughter Alyssa.
..
Of course, some believe that Sanders’s policies are unrealistic….
I understand these concerns. But they are a typical response to someone who is aiming for revolutionary change, something Clinton isn’t calling for and black people need. I think that is why so many people feel more comfortable with Clinton; she won’t rock the boat too much. That reminds me of the same arguments made against voting for Obama. Yet we elected him and the country hasn’t fallen apart. And many people don’t think it’s realistic to expect an end to police brutality against black people. So, why is marching in hope for better policing realistic, but believing in Sanders’ economic policies isn’t?
That’s why I feel black people should give Sanders a closer look.
Bernie Sanders still doesn't want to talk about Hillary Clinton's emails.
Sanders says in a Friday statement that there is a "legal process in place which should proceed and not be politicized," regarding questions about Clinton's use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
The Associated Press reported earlier that the State Department is withholding the release of more than 20 emails from Clinton's correspondence because they contain information deemed "top secret."
Clinton's campaign has questioned the secrecy of the messages and called for their release. She's insisted she never sent or received information on her personal email account that was classified at the time.
During the first Democratic debate last year, Sanders famously dismissed the issue by saying "the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!"
It was better late than never for Bernie Sanders on Friday night in Dubuque.
While the Democratic presidential candidate was about an hour late for his campaign event at Grand River Center, an enthusiastic crowd of 1,300 people greeted him when he arrived.
"It sounds like Dubuque is ready for a political revolution," the senator from Vermont said to the crowd that had chanted his name while waiting for him to arrive.
Sanders' stop in Dubuque came hours after his main Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, hosted a campaign event at Five Flags Center. Clinton's event drew about 460 people. Polls show the two as the clear front-runners among the Democratic presidential candidates. The Iowa caucuses will be held Monday.
On another busy day on the campaign trail, Sanders discussed a wide range of issues, including his plan to make public colleges and universities tuition-free, the need to grow and strengthen America's middle class by taking on Wall Street and raising the minimum wage and the importance of participation in the democratic process.
The only political sign visible Wednesday along the street where a Bernie Sanders volunteer was knocking on doors was a blazing red one, supporting Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz.
But within a few minutes, Bob Marshall of Massachusetts met Vivian Weeks, an avid Sanders supporter who said she “surely would” vote for the U.S. senator from Vermont.
Some residents of the historically black Arthurtown community, off Bluff Road, said they were undecided. Some said they do not always vote. Others seemed disinterested.
Winning over African-American voters will mean the difference between winning and losing South Carolina’s Feb. 27 Democratic presidential primary and many of the more than two dozen contests that follow in March, including eight in the South. More than half of South Carolina’s Democratic primary voters are black, making the state the first true test of the candidates’ popularity among the black voters who will play a big role in deciding the nomination.
anders said he knows attracting African-American voters is “terribly important,” adding, “We have the agenda ... that will bring a significant part of the African-American community into our camp.”
In an attempt to reach that goal, Sanders’ S.C. campaign is running ads on urban radio stations, touting his involvement in the civil rights movement and his commitment to criminal justice reforms. It also has hired more than 100 part-time community organizers, many in black communities.
Tommy Chong loves Bernie Sanders, and he describes that affection for the insurgent candidate in a way only Tommy Chong can.
"Bernie's like a kush, like the best kind of weed you can get, because he's the answer to all our problems," Chong told CNN this week.
To prove it, he's releasing a public service announcement supporting Sanders for president rife with the tongue-in-cheek marijuana jokes that ran throughout the "Cheech and Chong" comedies of the late '70s.
"There is one candidate who stands head and shoulders above them all who has weathered many storms and is totally ready to be the commander in chief, or the commander in kush, as I like to say," Chong said in a copy of the PSA given to CNN.
In the spot, he compares former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley to a green plant not yet ready for harvesting, and Hillary Clinton to a wilted house plant with no energy left. But Sanders, in Chong's PSA, is a glowing rose bush ready to be, ahem, harvested.
The National Board of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the nation’s most experienced liberal advocacy group, announces today that ADA has voted overwhelmingly to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
The debate centered on policies, electability, and ADA’s mission. Perhaps our longtime friend, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, said it best in a recent blog post: “I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, she’s the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have. But Bernie Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have, because he’s leading a political movement for change.”
“Since ADA’s beginnings over 68 years ago, we have fought for the political system that we as a nation should have,” noted ADA National Director Don Kusler. “Bernie, his policies, and the movement forming around them embody the spirit and tradition of ADA’s long struggle for justice and offer our best hope for a progressive future.”
More than half of Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley’s supporters in Iowa pick Bernie Sanders as their second choice, a new poll found.
About 57 percent of O’Malley supporters would go with Sanders, compared with 27
Iowa’s caucus system means the Hawkeye State could hinge on who O’Malley’s supporters move to. The poll found 48 percent support overall for Clinton in Iowa, with Sanders at 40 percent and O’Malley at 7 percent.
“We’ve found Hillary Clinton leading in Iowa by 6-8 points in our last two polls,” said Dean Debnam, president of the polling firm.
“Bernie Sanders will likely make up some ground from Martin O’Malley voters moving toward him. To pull the upset, he will need large numbers of voters who aren’t currently registered Democrats to show up on his behalf Monday night.”
The five organizers of Saturday’s fundraiser for presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders are amateurs. They have never promoted a music event or fundraiser before.
“We did a [pro-Bernie] rally called ‘Enough Is Enough’ at the fountain in front of the Space Center in Balboa Park in November,” says organizer David Humphrey. “We made it clear Bernie wasn’t showing, but we still drew 600 people.”
...
Humphrey and crew felt empowered. “We heard about some ‘Bands for Bernie’ fundraisers in San Francisco and Washington DC, so we said, ‘Why don’t we do one here?’”
The five-band show this Saturday at the WorldBeat Center in Balboa Park makes a rare fundraising promise: 100 percent of the $10 door charge goes straight to Sanders. That’s because the $2800 in venue expenses (hall rental, security) was donated by contributors.
Jessie Gawlik says his blues-rock and soul band Broken Stems is playing for free because he believes Sanders has a chance. “He believes in people. He says, ‘I can’t do this myself; I need your help.’ Never underestimate the power of people when they come together.”
The track and field team during Bernie Sanders's senior year at Madison, in 1959, was so successful that the graduating class of 1960 bragged about it, making repeated mention of Sanders in its yearbook despite his having already graduated.
He started running his freshman year, under team captain Richard Creditor. In 10th grade, Sanders was a "standout," per the yearbook, finishing first in the Flatbush championships (the local area competition within Brooklyn). The next year, when he was named co-captain, he finished first in Flatbush and took third in the city in the indoor one-mile, as he mentioned on CNN.
…
After Creditor went to college, Sanders became co-captain of the team. He began training with new partners who also ran distance, Lou Howort and Danny Jalinsky. With another runner, they ran the distance medley, a relay in which a team of four runners cover a quarter-mile, a half-mile, three-quarters of a mile and a full mile, in series.
"Bernie was a very well-known runner from his freshman year," Howort said about Sanders when we spoke this week. Sanders was "probably the top runner in the city for ninth graders," he said. "He was an elite runner at that point."
Howort came to Madison as a sophomore and was a foot shorter than Sanders. By the time both were juniors in the 1957-1958 school year, Howort was a strong runner, too. "I think he underestimates himself when he says he was just a good runner," he said of Sanders. "Was he a great runner? Maybe not. But he was a very good runner. He was better than just 'good'."
The Bernie News Roundup is a voluntary, non-campaign associated roundup of news, media, & other information related to Bernie Sanders' run for President.
Visit the BNR group page to join or find past editions.
More information about Bernie & The Issues @ feelthebern.org
|