Welcome all to the newest edition of the Bernie News Roundup. For the story mentioned in the title you will have to scroll below the famous orange scribble.
This diary is 100% eco-friendly as it is brought to you on recycled copies of the 125 page transcript of Bernie's Filibuster against the Obama extension of the Bush tax cuts. For refreshers sake... a quote:
Right now, we are looking at a situation where over one-quarter of all credit cardholders in this country are now paying interest rates above 20 percent and in some cases as high as 79 percent. In my view, when credit card companies charge over 20 percent interest, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available to their customers; they are involved in extortion and loan-sharking--nothing essentially different than gangsters who charge outrageously high prices for their loans and who break kneecaps when their victims can't afford to pay them. So that is where we are right now.
The Christian Post has '6 Interesting Facts About Bernie:
Perhaps no candidate is currently attracting crowds as large as Bernie Sanders in the race for the presidency. Sanders, 73, is drawing thousands at single stops in Iowa as he bewails corporate influence in politics and income inequality. A self-described socialist from Vermont, Sanders is known for his Jewish background and as a champion for a secular worldview.
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5. Bernie Sanders used religion to denounce usury in a historic eight hour filibuster against corporate greed in 2010.
"If you read the religious tenets of the major religions throughout history," declared Sanders, "whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and others, what you find is almost universal objection and disgust and a feeling of immorality in terms of usury."
Slate examines Bernies
'Straw Poll Surprise':
The poll surveyed roughly a third of the nearly 1,600 party delegates, alternates, and registered guests who attended the event. Neither Sanders nor Clinton made the trip out to the Badger State for the convention, and it would be unwise to make too much of the unscientific survey—especially since Sanders’ recent surge has had only a marginal impact on Clinton’s larger polling dominance among Democratic voters. Clinton remains the overwhelming favorite to earn her party’s nomination next year, and it will take more than a straw poll to change that.
Still, the results were undeniably good news for Sanders and his efforts to convince voters—and the media—that he can pose a legitimate challenge to Clinton. He’s offering a message that clearly appeals to many in the Democratic Party
Observer.com discusses why Bernie Sanders & Democrats will
win the debates.
When the Democratic candidates for president gather for their first debate and discuss how to reduce income inequality and create an economic tide that lifts all American boats, and the pollsters ask registered Democrats who was the big winner, the winners will probably be:
Bernie Sanders, and the Democrats.
When the Republican candidates gather for their first debate and the mob scene of GOP contestants, which will be larger than the starting lineup of the New York Yankees, battles to determine which liberals they hate the most and what new wars they want to fight, the big winner will be:
The Democrats.
The Huffington Post tries to
Introduce Bernie Properly This Time:
This is an open letter to the American people.
In the race to decide the next President of your arguably great nation, there is one candidate who has been drawing the largest crowds of any candidate visiting the key primary state of Iowa (including the Republican primary candidates, who probably estimate about 1 percent of the American population at this point). A candidate who out-fundraised Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul in any of their first 24 hours as candidates. A candidate whose policies align with the majority of Americans on everything from income inequality to money's role in politics to the minimum wage to federally financed political campaigning to abortion to overturning Citizens United to global warming and government taking action to combat it to the affordability of a college degree to gun control to government surveillance to passing a law legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states.
A candidate who was one of the thousands of Americans who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in his historic March on Washington in 1963. A candidate who has served as a mayor (being one of the earliest proponents of a lot of the policies that are nowadays commonplace in municipal government), a congressman and a senator, with deep knowledge of the American political system and equally deep, authentic convictions that he has held onto for his entire political career.
NPR discusses
long shots:
So at this point it is accurate to call him a "long-shot." But listener Green is also correct. As the Columbia Journalism Review article laid out in detail, candidates from Jimmy Carter to the current president have overcome "long-shot" status to win the White House.
I asked NPR's Washington editor Beth Donovan to talk about the "long shot" label being applied to many candidates. She called it "neither unfair nor inaccurate." The stories, she wrote, "were largely about candidates entering the race for president, not the horse race itself. And in that context some reference to where a new candidate stands relative to others is appropriate at this point in the campaign."
But she said she understands why some listeners might take issue. "One problem may be that the 'long shot' references often occurred in headlines and host introductions," she said, which could give a wrong impression about the story to follow.
Sanders discusses foreign policy and the need for Middle East countries to
step up:
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernard Sanders said Wednesday that the United States should not take a leading role in the war against the terrorist army known as Islamic State.
He said Middle East countries should “step up” and lead the fight to turn back the advancing Islamist terrorists in Iraq.
“At the end of the day … I do not believe the United States can or should lead the effort in that part of the world. What is taking place now is a war for the soul of Islam,” Mr. Sanders said on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show.
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But here is my nightmare, and I see it moving forward every day,” he said. “You have a lot of Republicans who apparently did not learn anything from the never-ending war in Afghanistan, learned nothing from what happened in Iraq and want us in perpetual warfare in the Middle East. I’m strongly opposed to that.”
New Republic has a history of Bernie that is unlike most anything else to have been published so far. Give
this a read:
Bernie Sanders Was Just Another Hippie Rummaging Through My Mom’s Fridge
When I was a nine-year-old girl, I saw Sanders as just another one of the mop-haired, rangy hippies crowding my house. However, unlike all those other Freeman writers, Sanders was a radical who never left the political scene. While my parents left the Freeman to pursue other ventures—my dad became a lawyer and my mom did public relations for non-profits—Sanders didn’t abandon his politics. Instead, he made a career out of them, running unsuccessfully for Vermont governor and U.S. Senate multiple times as a Liberty Union candidate before being elected as an independent to the House of Representatives in 1991 and to the Senate in 2007. (Sanders has always caucused with the Democrats.)
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As Sanders’ trademark truculent tone hasn’t changed, so too has his political position remained notably consistent. The 1972 senatorial candidate who somewhat hazily pledged to “abolish all laws dealing with abortion, drugs, sexual behavior” in his letter to the Freeman became a U.S. representative who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, and just as he opposed the Vietnam War as a candidate, he voted against the use of force in Iraq in 1991, 2001, and 2003.
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“Bernie really is not much different now than he was then,” my dad says. “His ties and suits are way better—of course, he had no ties or suits, but he has been boringly consistent for 44 years.”
From the WSJ,
De Blasio to Skip Clinton Rally, Praises Rival Sanders:
One of Hillary Clinton’s rivals for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination received an informal boost Wednesday from a curious source: Mrs. Clinton’s former campaign manager, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Mr. de Blasio, who managed Mrs. Clinton’s winning 2000 campaign for Senate and supported her 2008 presidential bid, said at an unrelated news conference that “I’ve always liked what I heard from Bernie Sanders,” the independent Vermont senator who is running for the Democratic 2016 nomination.
“I think Bernie Sanders is a great senator, is a great voice for a fair society and a fair economy,” he said.
In April, Mr. de Blasio said in an interview on NBC that he wouldn’t endorse her “until I see an actual vision of where they want to go.”
“She’s a tremendous public servant,” he told NBC. “I think she is one of the most qualified people to ever run for this office. And by the way, thoroughly vetted, we can say that. But we need to see the substance.”
4:54 AM PT: When conservatives hear Sanders, they are afraid.
I’ve never feared for my safety quite like I did yesterday. I have been beaten, kidnapped, and shot at before. I’ve had my gun pointed at a man’s chest when police showed up. I’ve live streamed a riot where drunken lunatics flipped cars and screamed “Fuck the press!”. I’ve been involved in some pretty precarious situations, but none were ever quite so frightening as watching 73 year old Bernie Sanders whip hundreds of radical leftists into a frenzy yesterday in Keene, New Hampshire. That might sound a bit hyperbolic, but I’m dead serious.
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I’ve never paid much attention to Sanders. In a handful of television appearances, he just seemed like a cagey, quirky guy with some really bad economic ideas. That wasn’t who showed up to the recreation center on Washington Street in Keene yesterday though.
Sanders is actually one of the best orators I’ve ever been in the presence of. He speaks with passion, conviction, and skill. His timing, his change of speed and intonation, and his use of humor, allow him to connect with an audience like very few people can. He’s very personable. Most people don’t call him Senator or Mr. Sanders, they call him Bernie. He approaches everyone with a smile and a humble friendly demeanor, at least, until they challenge him. He’s so good at all of this, that he even manages to charm a considerable number of libertarians who, despite their disagreement with his radical economic agenda, are convinced he at least means well.