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Bernie … Bernie … Bernie …

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« on: May 26, 2016, 09:08:17 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Bernie Sanders easily wins the policy debate

By JEFFREY D. SACHS | 7:22PM EDT - Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont) speaks to a crowd in Baltimore on April 23rd. — Photograph: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post.
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (Inedependent-Vermont) speaks to a crowd in Baltimore on April 23rd.
 — Photograph: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post.


MAINSTREAM U.S. economists have criticized Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders's proposals as unworkable, but these economists betray the status quo bias of their economic models and professional experience. It's been decades since the United States had a progressive economic strategy, and mainstream economists have forgotten what one can deliver. In fact, Sanders's recipes are supported by overwhelming evidence — notably from countries that already follow the policies he advocates. On health care, growth and income inequality, Sanders wins the policy debate hands down.

On health care, Sanders's proposal for a single-payer system has been roundly attacked as too expensive. His campaign (for which I briefly served as a foreign policy adviser) is told that his plan will raise taxes and burst the budget. But this attack misses the whole point of his health proposals. While health spending by the government would go up in the Sanders health plan, private insurance payments would disappear, generating huge net savings for the American people.

Countries such as Canada, Germany, Sweden and Britain all follow something like a single-payer approach and pay much less for health care than the United States does. While the United States spent 16.4 percent of gross domestic product on health care in 2013, Canada paid only 10.2 percent; Germany, 11 percent; Sweden, 11 percent; and Britain, 8.5 percent. U.S. overspending is about 5 percent of GDP, or nearly $1 trillion as of 2016, mainly because of the excessive market power of private health insurers and big drug companies. An authoritative study by the U.S. Institute of Medicine confirms this extent of excess costs, finding losses of about 5 percent of GDP in 2009. Critics of Sanders's health plan have failed to recognize or acknowledge the huge savings and cost reductions that would accompany a single-payer system.

On economic growth, Sanders also easily wins the debate. While President Obama opted for a short-term stimulus that peaked after two years and disappeared by the end of his first term, and Hillary Clinton has proposed a modest infrastructure program over five years, Sanders calls for a much bolder public investment program directed at the skills of young people (through free college tuition) and at modernizing and upgrading America's infrastructure, with a focus on renewable energy, high-speed rail, safe drinking water and urban public transport. Sanders's growth strategy would get back to fundamentals: a long-overdue increase in productive investments to underpin good jobs and rising worker productivity.

Sanders's mainstream critics are mostly Keynesians. Their focus is on total spending, whether it's consumption or investment. Sanders, instead, focuses on investment because long-term growth depends on more rapid capital accumulation (including in skills and technology). America's slow growth is no mystery. The U.S. net investment rate has declined to about 5 percent of GDP, down from about 10 percent of GDP during the 1960s and 1970s. Sanders's plan would restore a high-investment economy and, with it, a higher growth rate.

On income distribution, Sanders accurately argues that U.S. income inequality is uniquely high among the rich countries. Only the United States has deep poverty alongside soaring wealth. Only the United States tolerates a hedge-fund industry in which poorly performing money managers (not to mention quite a few crooks) take home billions of dollars in pay, backed by unconscionable tax breaks pushed by Democratic and Republican senators who live off of the largesse of Wall Street.

Consider the most basic measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient. This measures the inequality of income among households, with zero signifying complete equality and 1 complete inequality. For high-income countries, a Gini coefficient below 0.3 reflects a low degree of income inequality; between 0.3 and 0.4, a moderate degree; and at 0.4 or above, a high degree. According to the most recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. Gini coefficient stood at 0.40, with Canada at 0.32; Germany, 0.29; Sweden, 0.27; and Britain, 0.35.

What accounts for this striking difference? Most important, U.S. inequality has soared in the past 35 years, since the start of the Reagan era. The U.S. Gini coefficient stood at 0.31 in 1980. All countries have faced market pressures pushing toward more inequality — especially increased trade with low-wage countries such as China and automation that has claimed the jobs and wages of workers with only high school educations. Yet only in the United States have these pressures turned into massive inequality of income.

The reasons are clear. The United States unleashed the power of CEOs to enrich themselves with mega-salaries, weakened trade unions and gave massive tax breaks to the super-rich. Sanders's policies would go after all of these unconscionable moves, bringing the United States back into line with the rest of the high-income world. He would, in short, end the age of impunity in which the rich and the powerful get their way, while the rest suffer. Sanders's policies include higher taxes on the rich, strengthening unions, raising the minimum wage, supporting families, providing free tuition at public universities and cracking down on financial crimes.

There is nothing magical or utopian about Sanders's recommendations. He is advocating policies of decency long ago adopted by other prosperous high-income countries. Our own neighbor, Canada, is a case in point. Canada has lower-cost health care, a life expectancy two years higher than in the United States, much lower college tuition, far lower poverty rates and, not surprisingly, more happiness (ranking sixth in the world in life satisfaction, behind Scandinavia and well ahead of the United States, which is 12th).

Mainstream economists long ago lost the melody line. Their models are oriented to the status quo and underemphasize the benefits of public investment. They take America's bloated health-care costs as a given, not as the result of the influence of the U.S. private health lobby. They treat low growth as natural (“secular stagnation”) rather than as the result of chronic underinvestment. They have come to accept cruelly rising income inequality and rampant impunity for financial crimes. Sanders knows better, based on worldwide experience, an abiding sense of decency and a strong and accurate vision for a brighter economic future.


• Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute and a professor at Columbia University.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jeffrey-sachs-bernie-sanders-easily-wins-the-policy-debate/2016/05/25/224209a0-21ac-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2016, 01:12:15 am »


This is why America desperately needs Bernie....



from the Los Angeles Times....

Imbalance of power: Huge financial sector warps U.S. economy

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Thursday, May 26, 2016



I HAVE this friend who is always gleeful when she catches me saying something pompous or dumb. As soon as I arrived for a visit with her in San Francisco last Saturday, she began giving me grief about something I wrote in a column last week. Getting a ride from Uber, I had declared, “would make me feel morally compromised.”

Well, OK, I admit the phrase was overly dramatic, (not to mention that I easily allowed myself to be “compromised” when my friend's husband called up Uber and we all jumped into the hired car for a ride across town). My point was not that Uber is more exploitative than many other sectors of our economy, but that Uber is symbolic of how American capitalism has evolved in the last few decades — thanks to technological change, globalization, lax regulation, political stupidity and good old greed — to give ever-expanding power to people with vast amounts of money while throwing the majority of us into a frantic pool of cheaper and cheaper labor.

Economic columnist Rana Foroohar does a much better job describing the demerits and perils of our new economy in the current issue of Time magazine. Foroohar's cover story may be the most enlightening article I have read this election year, and I recommend it to everyone, in particular all the candidates running for high office who generally spout ideas about the economy that seem stuck in 1980, if not 1955.

Foroohar's thesis is that the decline of the American middle class, the sluggish labor market and anemic business development can largely be attributed to an extreme imbalance in global economics that favors the financial sector over all else.

According to Foroohar, “America’s economic illness has a name: financialization. It’s an academic term for the trend by which Wall Street and its methods have come to reign supreme in America, permeating not just the financial industry but also much of American business. It includes everything from the growth in size and scope of finance and financial activity in the economy; to the rise of debt-fueled speculation over productive lending; to the ascendancy of shareholder value as the sole model for corporate governance; to the proliferation of risky, selfish thinking in both the private and public sectors; to the increasing political power of financiers and the CEOs they enrich; to the way in which a ‘markets know best’ ideology remains the status quo.”

In the new American economy, banks would rather put money into high-yield, risky financial schemes than loan money to small businesses. Short-term gains for stockholders and CEOs are invariably given priority over the well-being of employees and the long-term viability of companies. Dangerously, debt has become the prime economic driver, whether one is talking about consumers, banks or businesses.

Foroohar points out that the financial sector gobbles up a quarter of corporate profits while creating just 4% of American jobs. This has the effect of sucking all the economic air out of the room, she says, quoting a former Goldman Sachs banker who described the economy as “a zero-sum game between financial wealth holders and the rest of America.”

On a gut level, this should be no surprise to most Americans. Economic unease is inspiring much of the rebelliousness among voters in the current campaign season. Yet few people diagnose the problem especially well. Instead, there is a lot of useless noise about the Chinese and the Mexicans, about immigrants and bureaucrats, about poor people mooching off hardworking folks and billionaires squirreling away their money in offshore bank accounts.

Bernie Sanders is the only presidential candidate who has reached beyond platitudes and tired cliches to talk about what is really happening in our economy, but it would be misleading to look at this as a left/right issue, or a cleft that separates Republicans and Democrats. Financialization is bad for everyone, both business and labor, for the poor, the middle class and, yes, even for the rich because it is unsustainable. It will bring on another financial collapse or a social upheaval — perhaps both. Capitalism is imperiled by this distortion of the capitalist system.

For now, we can save a few bucks riding Uber — or make a few bucks by driving. We can push prices down on all sorts of things, hoping that will keep pace with the dive in incomes, but, at the bottom of that spiral is not the United States we have known. It is a place more like Venezuela.

Forget what I said about feeling morally compromised. It's time to feel morally outraged.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-financial-sector-warp-20160524-snap-story.html
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« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2016, 05:59:41 am »

welcome to lala land



This is why America desperately doesn't need Bernie

America needs smaller government with less control and corruption

if you put crackpot sanders in power and he decides to take more government control over everything  there's a giant sucking sound even worse than it is now,he's old then he dies
and some other arsehole will be left with the new  powers sanders took but he won't give a rats arse about sanders lets give everybody a fair share if they deserve it or not policies.


« Last Edit: May 27, 2016, 07:46:41 am by Im2Sexy4MyPants » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2016, 12:14:48 pm »


So I take it from that load of bullshit that if you get seriously ill, you will decline treatment in one of NZ's goverment-provided healthcare facilities (public hospitals, subsidised GP-staffed medical centres, pharmac-subsidised medicines, etc.) and instead pay for your treatment out of your own pocket at one of the country's private hospitals because you are paranoid about being controlled by the government?

Yeah, right.....and a flock of pigs just flew past my window too!   










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« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2016, 12:34:55 pm »



Sanders supporters are stupid braindead zombies

if you like to be totally controlled by government maybe you should naff off to China and get a real job driving the freshly harvested organs from murdered falun gong followers to the airport.

communism is an insane idea for the insane likes of dumbarses like you.





« Last Edit: May 27, 2016, 03:38:37 pm by Im2Sexy4MyPants » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2016, 01:41:31 pm »


I laughed when Trump asked how much Bernie would pay him when Bernie challenged him to debate.

By the way

Trump accepted the challenge -  I was watching Fox News Channel on Sky overnight !


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« Reply #6 on: May 27, 2016, 02:08:50 pm »


I notice you evaded the question about whether or not you would make use of government-provided and subsidised medical facilities if you are ill.

Just like Donald Trump, you spout all of this retoric, but there is no SUBSTANCE to any of it.

It's called “running on BULLSHIT!”

When you dig beneath the surface it is patently BULLSHIT.

Just look at all of Trump's BULLSHIT he is now changing his stance on.

Kinda says it all about white-trash boofheads, eh?
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« Reply #7 on: May 27, 2016, 03:47:49 pm »

you're just going on about one thing free healthcare we already have this in nz i never had a problem with this
it's a safety net but it's not free someone always has to pay for it

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« Reply #8 on: May 27, 2016, 04:01:34 pm »

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« Reply #9 on: May 28, 2016, 08:01:38 pm »


Hahaha....after saying he would WELCOME a televised debate with Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump has now said he WON'T debate with Bernie Sanders, after Bernie called his bluff and agreed to a debate; no doubt the reason for Trump's sudden flip-flop is because he KNOWS Bernie would wipe the floor with Trump once a debate started getting into meaty, indepth issues, instead of the fluff & bullshit in Donald's delusional world.
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« Reply #10 on: May 28, 2016, 11:40:59 pm »

if i was him i wouldn't bother with bernie
sanders is nothing but bum fluff

ill send trump my nickname for him

Bum Fluff Bernie lol






« Last Edit: May 30, 2016, 06:56:14 pm by Im2Sexy4MyPants » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #11 on: May 31, 2016, 06:10:58 am »



because Obama sucked
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« Reply #12 on: May 31, 2016, 11:21:09 pm »


from The Washington Post....

A graying generation founded on peace and
love finds its champion: Bernie Sanders


By STEPHANIE McCRUMMEN | 2:30PM EDT - Monday, May 30, 2016

Lewis Elbinger in Mount Shasta, California, on May 2nd. The 68-year-old supports Bernie Sanders and believes he can win the Democratic nomination. — Photograph: Carlos Javier Ortiz/The Wasington Post.
Lewis Elbinger in Mount Shasta, California, on May 2nd. The 68-year-old supports Bernie Sanders and believes he can win
the Democratic nomination. — Photograph: Carlos Javier Ortiz/The Wasington Post.


MOUNT SHASTA, CALIFORNIA — It is a glorious day in Northern California, and Lewis Elbinger, a 68-year-old Bernie Sanders supporter, is feeling great — or, as he puts it, “high vibe”. In the five decades since he first painted a white peace sign on his forehead, protested the Vietnam War and hitchhiked to India to become a monk, in fact, he has never felt more optimistic about the country than at this very moment.

“A consciousness is rising,” he says.

A case could be made that this is not exactly so in the sense that Elbinger means it.

Donald Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Hillary Clinton, according to everyone who is not a Sanders supporter, will be his Democratic opponent, meaning that Sanders is about to become the latest in a long line of progressive candidates to lose.

But that is not how things appear in Mount Shasta, where the light seems brighter, the air cleaner, the sky bluer, and where Elbinger is about to get into his car with two fellow Berners and drive 130 miles south. The destination is Chico, where he will try to become a Sanders delegate representing California at this summer's Democratic National Convention. Put another way, he will be the older, white-haired Jewish guy with steadfast 1960s values trying to win an election against all odds.

He is certain that Sanders can not only win the nomination but also ride the wave of rising consciousness all the way to the White House, ushering in the era of peace, love and prosperity that his generation has long imagined.

“We've been waiting for this our entire lives,” says Elbinger, who retired after a 28-year State Department career that included a stint as a political adviser to General David H. Petraeus at the U.S. Central Command in Florida. “I know this is going to catch fire.”

He is dressed for the occasion like the Foreign Service officer he was and the unapologetic hippie he remains: gray blazer, forest-green oxford shirt, knotted tie, a large crystal draped around his neck, a “Feel the Bern” button on his lapel.

“Wow, you look spiffy!” says Christine Herbster, 59, as Elbinger arrives to pick up her and her friend Marcia Rey, 65, for the drive south.

“I saw a poll that said California is 61.5 percent for Bernie,” says Rey.

“Let's work for 70 percent!” says Elbinger.

“I'm going for 90!” says Herbster. “We have an endless pool of hope.”

“We are not giving up,” says Rey. “The vibe is different here — we are progressing.”

“We have sunshine!” says Herbster.

“And a lot of water!” says Rey.

“We have this glorious mountain here,” says Elbinger. “Just look at it. I can see it right now.”

The clouds have blown off Mount Shasta, which is still tipped with snow, and Elbinger draws in a long breath of fresh air. His mind is clear. His chakras are balanced. He likes to say he has a good filter to sift out negative thoughts before he might utter them and thus give them life in the world.

“All right!” says Elbinger. “We're off to Chico!”

“Right on!” says Herbster, and off they go.




AS THE 2016 presidential election heads toward its last big primary, in California on June 7th, Bernie Sanders has achieved far more than anyone predicted, winning 20 primaries and caucuses and nearly 10 million votes. In recent weeks, more and more of those voters have become ever more strident and angry, believing that the primary process is rigged against Sanders. They have cursed and shouted down party officials and turned the slogan “Feel the Bern” into “Bern It Down” as a feeling spreads that Sanders should stay in the race no matter what. Such is the evolving devotion to a man who is called by some of his supporters “the candidate we've been waiting for.”

Of these, few have been waiting longer than Lewis Elbinger, a proud member of the Woodstock generation that forms the solid, ever-hopeful core of the Sanders coalition. These are the true believers who have always sought out some version of him, whether that was Dennis Kucinich in 2004 or Ralph Nader in 2000 or Jerry Brown in 1992, and who include the trio now hurtling toward Chico in a station wagon, a pouch of feathers dangling from the rearview mirror.

“Us old hippies,” says Rey.

“This is just the beginning,” says Elbinger, who cast his first presidential vote for the anti-Vietnam War Democrat Eugene McCarthy in 1968, the year that Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, cities were rioting, and Elbinger was sure that his country had “gone crazy”.

He was 20, and trying to make sense of such a world. He headed to Vietnam as a photojournalist, then hitchhiked to India, where he was living on pot and bread and setting up an ashram when something happened that changed the course of his life. A copy of Life magazine drifted into his hands, a whole issue devoted to Woodstock — page after page of half a million muddy hippies reveling in music, peace, love and drugs for three days on a farm in Upstate New York, which made him think something had shifted for the better.

He returned home to Detroit, met his wife, had a daughter and joined the State Department, which turned into a long career of postings in Kenya, Pakistan, India and other places. All of it led Elbinger to his fundamental belief in the oneness of humanity, and finally to Mount Shasta, where he opened a place in town called the Silk Road Chai Shop.

When he is not there, he is working on an opera based on the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. He lives in an apartment overlooking the mountain and meditates in a chair facing his chakra chart. He takes long walks in the forest and says prayers for a better world in a particular spot at a particular time when beams of sun hit his forehead just so. He sets a cellphone alarm for 12:12 p.m. each day, and when it rings, he asks himself, “Are you doing what you're supposed to be doing?”

He loves this life in a town that can at times feel like an actual Shangri-La, a place where shops sell kama sutra oil, crystals and books about dissolving your ego, and it's normal to overhear “I used to buy that incense by the box” or “Where do you keep your Buddha?”

Which is not to say that Elbinger is cut off from reality as most people know it; he toggles easily between worlds and was watching a debate last year when he became enthralled with Bernie Sanders, or as he sometimes calls him, Mahatma.

“The ‘maha’ means great, the ‘atma’ means soul — Great Soul,” he says, and in the car, his passengers could not agree more.

They zip along the highway, past blurs of green fields and sprays of orange poppies and a full and glittering Lake Shasta, winding down toward the Central Valley that Elbinger calls “the real world.”

“Imagine a painting, a Norman Rockwell painting that looks so idealistic,” says Rey, a retired graphic designer, looking out the window. “Living in a place like this, you're in the painting…. It's just a different way of being, and that's what Bernie stands for. A quality of life for everybody.”

“No matter how poor your parents were,” says Herbster, a retired Air Force mechanic.

“People don't know it but those rights are actually enshrined in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights,” says Elbinger, who likes to say that if this life is a dream, as the Buddhists say, then “let's make it like a Walt Disney musical — why make it like a nightmare?”

“Do you have anything better to do than to try to make it better?” says Rey.

“That's why we're here,” says Elbinger, who has a remarkable ability to fold information he deems negative into his unified theory of ever-rising human consciousness.

For instance, the rise of Donald Trump: “He's needed — we are detoxifying, purging our system of the racism that occurred in the past.”

Hillary Clinton: “She's representing the dying forces of the 20th century.”

Pundits who say it's over for Sanders: “No, it's just beginning,” Elbinger says, explaining his view that the system is rigged against Sanders and if it weren't, the true extent of his popularity would be unleashed.

What's happening is an evolution, he says, which reminds him that he wishes Sanders would stop using the word “revolution”.

“I think he should drop the ‘r’,” he says. “The word ‘revolution’ scares people. It literally means to go in circles. Evolution means to spiral upwards, and that's what we're doing.”

At least this is how it feels at this very moment, winding through miles of walnut groves.

“There's nothing more I would love than for California to be the one that really stepped up for Bernie,” says Rey.

“It's going to be,” says Elbinger.

“I feel like I haven’t had someone feel and think the way I do in a long time,” says Herbster, and soon they are arriving in Chico, pulling up to an old wooden Grange Hall for the election.

“Oh,” says Elbinger. “Look at all the cars.”


A FEW hundred people are lining up at the doors. Some of them are young, but many more are of Elbinger's generation, men and women with graying beards and ponytails who have come from all over California's 1st Congressional District, which is mostly Republican, and which gives the gathering the slightly awkward air of a coming-out party.

“Nice button,” a young man says to an older woman wearing a Feel the Bern button.

“Isn't this wonderful?” an older woman says to another.

“So, you're a candidate? Bless your heart,” a young nurse says to Elbinger.

“I am — Lewis Elbinger,” he says, shaking her hand, then turning to the man behind him.

“Hi, I'm Lewis Elbinger — I'm going to be on the ballot,” he says, his confidence in all of this rising as the line moves into the auditorium.

“Kimberly Butcher?” an official calls out as the candidates begin making their pitches.

A nervous young woman comes to the stage.

“I'm a fairly new Democrat who's always felt apathetic to the process,” she begins, her voice shaking.

“Don't worry! You're among friends!” an older voice booms back, and one after another, the candidates stand on stage to declare their passion for Sanders.

“I have personally seen the cost of poverty, of these children being disenfranchised from the economic system,” begins a young mental-health worker named Randall.

“I'm Native American, and Bernie's the only one who's ever cared about us,” says a young man named Erik.

“Bernie's our only hope you guys,” says a mother of four named Karissa, her voice rising as she explains that she is overwhelmed with bills and is about to lose her house and that she is shouting because she is terrified. “I will stand with him for hours! I will stand with him for days! I will stand with him until my feet are bleeding, my knees are buckling! I will stand with him until I'm exhausted and fall down, and then I'll grab one of you guys to stand me up to stand with him some more!”

A 67-year old woman recalls hearing Martin Luther King speak at the March on Washington in 1963. A man in his 70s recalls attending the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. A Legal Aid lawyer recalls marching against the Vietnam War.

“Many of you remember those times,” he says.

In the audience, Elbinger is nodding, because of course he does. He remembers everything about those times, and that is the reason why he is here, walking up to the stage, a white-haired, 68-year-old Jewish man still clinging to all the ideas that first inspired him.

“All right, Lewis!” Rey calls out.

“Yeah!” Herbster yells.

“Wow! Look at this crowd!” he begins. “My name is Lewis Elbinger, and I'm a retired Foreign Service officer. I've traveled all around the world, and I'm telling you that people all around the world are hoping for Sanders!”

His voice is rising.

“God knows we need him here, but the whole world is looking at us!”

He is gesturing.

“This is about voting our conscience! Getting trust and values back into the government again!”

He is on a roll.

“So the only question is, will this delegate switch over to Hillary Clinton at the contested convention?” he shouts. “And the answer in my case is no!”

The crowd is clapping and cheering him on, and he is looking out at their faces. It is not exactly a half-million muddy hippies at Woodstock, but to Elbinger the moment feels similar to what he felt all those decades ago, like something is shifting for the better in America.

“I'm expecting Bernie to win!” he yells. “Why? We are California guys! We can do this!”

People clap and cheer as Elbinger steps off the stage and sits back down, and when the speeches are over, Rey and Herbster tell him how great he was.

They cast their ballots, and soon they are back in the car, winding their way through the walnut groves, past green fields and swaths of orange poppies and on into the mountains.

“What an experience,” Elbinger says, pulling onto the highway.

“It was awesome,” says Rey.

They talk about how good it felt to be around so many people “who listen with their heart,” and their shared belief that this election and in fact all of existence comes down to a choice between love and fear, and how sure they are not only that love will win, but that the movement to elect Sanders will win, too.

“It's ever growing,” says Elbinger, and as they round a curve they can see their home in the distance.

“There's Mount Shasta!” Elbinger says.

“Yeah,” sighs Herbster.

“As beautiful as all this is, that's the place I want to be right there,” he says.

And soon, that is where they are.

Elbinger drops off his friends at the Silk Road Chai Shop.

“Mission accomplished!” says Herbster.

“Thank you, Lewis!” says Rey.

He drives through the town he loves, where people shop for little Buddhas and incense and a tourist holds a crystal in his palm while a man asks: “Can you feel it? The vibrations are really strong.”

And now he is back home, sitting in his meditation chair and facing the chakra chart. He looks out of the window — a view of blooming flowers and the mountain beyond. It is sunny. It is glorious. Eventually it is 12:12 and his alarm goes off.

“Are you doing what you are supposed to be doing?” he asks himself then, and at this point in a life he sees as spiraling ever-upward, he is certain. The answer is yes.


• Stephanie McCrummen is a national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post. Previously, she was the paper's East Africa bureau chief. She has also reported from Egypt, Iraq and Mexico, among other places.

__________________________________________________________________________

More on this topic:

 • Bernie Sanders did something special for this California farm town. He showed up.

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Highlights from Bernie Sanders’s campaign, in pictures


https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-graying-generation-founded-on-peace-of-love-finds-its-champion-bernie-sanders/2016/05/30/219b6c34-1e0b-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html
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« Reply #13 on: June 01, 2016, 12:20:09 pm »


from the Los Angeles Times....

Bernie Sanders' sober social activism wins him fans in California

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Tuesday, May 31, 2016



WHEN Lyndon Baines Johnson was Bernie Sanders' age, he'd been dead 10 years. Unlike LBJ, Bernie is still very much alive, leading a campaign caravan through California and aiming to take his left-wing children's crusade all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia the last week of July.

I caught up with Sanders at two rallies — one at a high school football stadium in Pomona on Thursday, the other on Saturday evening at the county fairgrounds in Bakersfield, the city represented by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican whose politics are far to the right of Sanders.

The crowds at both events were largely young, heavily Latino and predominantly working class. In both places, Sanders delivered the same speech — the same one he has given in every corner of America — with no need for a teleprompter. It is the consistent content of that message and the way he delivers it that has made him a completely unanticipated force in this campaign.


Bernie Sanders speaks to a crowd at the Kern County fairgrounds in Bakersfield. — Photograph: David Horsey.
Bernie Sanders speaks to a crowd at the Kern County fairgrounds in Bakersfield. — Photograph: David Horsey.

A year ago, only a few dreamy progressives would have predicted that the septuagenarian democratic socialist senator from out-of-the-way Vermont would become the leader of a youth movement that would seriously disrupt Hillary Clinton's smooth path to the Democratic nomination. Sanders' rise to the top tier in the 2016 campaign is, arguably, even more of a surprise than Donald Trump's success. Trump already had huge notoriety, billions of dollars, easy media access and a fractured field of competitors. Bernie Sanders had nothing but ideas.

I spoke with a college-age woman waiting in line at the Bakersfield fairgrounds. She wore a reversed baseball cap over her long, magenta-tinted hair, jeans ripped at the knees and a black muscle shirt touting “Bernie for President”. Her name was Cela Ayres. I asked her why this rumpled old guy with unruly white hair had become such a political phenomenon among millennials. Ayres said that other candidates — Hillary Clinton in particular — try to connect with young voters by awkwardly “relating” and using gimmicks like Snapchat.

“Bernie just says what relates to us,” Ayres told me. “He doesn't try to relate to us, he gets us.”


A crowd of supporters listen to Bernie Sanders speak at a rally in Bakersfield. — Photograph: David Horsey.
A crowd of supporters listen to Bernie Sanders speak at a rally in Bakersfield. — Photograph: David Horsey.

I heard similar sentiments from many in the Sanders crowds. They like his ideas and, even more, they like that he has been pushing the same core ideas since he was a college kid in the 1960s. He may not have charisma, but Bernie has something that seems far more effective this year, especially with young people and older voters who have been disillusioned by too many obsequious, perfectly groomed, cookie cutter candidates (think John Edwards in 2008). Sanders is unquestionably authentic.

If the most dispiriting aspect of the presidential campaign has been the success Trump has achieved with his narcissistic, bullying, dumbed-down rants, a hopeful, positive development is that so many people still have the attention span to sit through Sanders' very sober, policy-driven lectures. He ticks off his positions like an organizer in a union hall. He very rarely smiles or wastes time with a joke. He doesn't try to “humanize” himself with soft personal stories. Most important, he doesn't talk down to his crowd. And they respond with cheers.


Some of the many young people who came to hear Bernie Sanders speak in Bakersfield. — Photograph: David Horsey.
Some of the many young people who came to hear Bernie Sanders speak in Bakersfield. — Photograph: David Horsey.

Before the mass rally in Bakersfield, I was at a more intimate gathering inside a hall on the fairgrounds where Sanders met with activists, leaders and average citizens from the local Latino community. He was there mostly to listen and gather information. One middle-aged man broke down in tears describing how his father had toiled “forever” as a farm worker, inspiring him to strive higher. Another man talked about getting paid $1.25 to pick a box of strawberries that sells for $40 on the market. Several people complained about the undrinkable tap water in their homes — water contaminated by agricultural chemicals and oil fracking operations. Many others described serious illnesses caused by pesticides sprayed across the fields where their families work.

When Sanders had arrived, he looked sunburned and weary, but the people's stories roused him. He responded with sympathy and offered remedies that veered a bit too predictably toward his anti-corporate talking points. “If someone came in here and hit someone with a baseball bat, they'd be arrested,” Sanders said. “If somebody is poisoning the children [with pesticides], that person should be indicted, as well.”


Bernie Sanders began a long campaign day in Santa Barbara and ended with a sunset speech in Bakersfield. — Photograph: David Horsey.
Bernie Sanders began a long campaign day in Santa Barbara and ended with a sunset speech in Bakersfield.
 — Photograph: David Horsey.


I have to fault Sanders for one gratuitous media-bashing comment. While condemning big corporations for the pollution of drinking water in the Central Valley, he scolded the “corporate media” for not telling that story. The Los Angeles Times, in fact, has done in-depth reporting on the subject over several years. But Bernie is a creature of the progressive movement that clings to a wildly simplistic “corporate media” meme. At 74, he probably will not change.

Many of the people who run for president act as if they've been planning their campaigns since high school (think Ted Cruz and Martin O'Malley). They tailor their message around what will make them most electable (think Marco Rubio and Scott Walker). They struggle to project an image that researchers tell them will be appealing to voters (think Hillary Clinton and a host of others). Bernie is definitely different. He is as much community organizer as politician. Certainly, he is not a man without ambitions, but he came to the idea of running for president very late. He appears to be doing it as simply the latest avenue of his social activism.

That difference is what has won him an unexpectedly big and passionate following. It is also the thing Democratic leaders who wish he would quit before he gets to Philadelphia simply do not understand. For Bernie, this isn't politics, this is revolution.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-bernie-activism-20160531-snap-story.html
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« Reply #14 on: June 01, 2016, 01:02:10 pm »

sanders is a geriatric  old and washed out hippy fart who thinks he can give everyone a pay rise
he might have rainbows coming out of his arse but what a dumb arse tool

and the other guy under that story is a fundy serial tree hugger and fairy worshiper  Grin
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« Reply #15 on: June 01, 2016, 02:06:02 pm »


Donald Trump is missing one major thing....a properly-functioning brain.

Donald Trump doesn't speak....he FARTS.
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« Reply #16 on: June 01, 2016, 10:50:00 pm »

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« Reply #17 on: July 26, 2016, 04:33:52 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Democratic National Convention: Calls for unity met with
boos and jeers from Sanders supporters as event opens


By ABBY PHILIP and SEAN SULLIVAN | 7:51PM EDT - Monday, July 25, 2016

Bernie Sanders supporters chant during the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Monday, July 25th, 2016. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.
Bernie Sanders supporters chant during the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Monday, July 25th, 2016.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


PHILADELPHIA — The still-raw wounds from the Democratic Party's primary were on full display on the opening night of their convention as supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders made their displeasure with the party’s nominee known on the convention floor.

Sanders supporters booed loudly at virtually every mention of Hillary Clinton's name and at other times, defiantly led chants of “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!”

Behind the scenes, the Sanders and Clinton campaigns rushed to quell the anger within the Sanders ranks that had been reignited with the release of hacked emails of Democratic National Committee officials in the past week.

In an emailed message to his delegates, Sanders urged them not to sabotage the movement they had spent months building.

“Our credibility as a movement will be damaged by booing, turning of backs, walking out or other similar displays,” Sanders said in the note.

After being heavily criticized by Sanders and other prominent party leaders, ousted DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz faced the prospect of boos from Sanders supporters and instead of gaveling in the convention, she remained off stage. She was replaced by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake who opened the convention at 4:15 p.m.

But Wasserman Schultz's absence did not appease Sanders supporters.

They objected nearly every time a motion was brought up for a voice vote, calling instead for a roll call; they chanted against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal; they waved signs and banners.

The Monday night programming was supposed to highlight a party unified around a platform of economic policies for working families. Scheduled to speak are first lady Michelle Obama, Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat-Massachusetts) and Sanders.

As the night progressed, speakers turned more fully toward making the case for Clinton and against Trump.

Between speakers, an old clip of a Trump interview played through the convention hall.

“I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist, but when I come home, and dinner is not ready, I go through the roof,” he said in the clip.

Later, Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta declared: “He is too erratic dangerous and divisive to entrust with the White House.”

But the ongoing fallout from the release of troves of embarrassing DNC emails threatened to distract from a lineup of high-profile speeches.

The leak of emails that showed DNC staff apparently scheming to help Clinton win the Democratic primary looms over the four-day convention. Wasserman Schultz resigned her post effective the end of the event. The FBI said it was investigating the breach.

Sanders was cheered by supporters at a rally Monday afternoon when he smiled and told the crowd that the Florida congresswoman's departure would “open the door” for new leaders to take the reins.

“Her resignation opens up the possibility of new leadership at the top of the Democratic Party that will stand with working people,” Sanders said.

Minutes later, when Sanders encouraged Democrats to elect Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, the crowd started booing loudly.

Sanders tried to talk them back, arguing that Republican nominee Donald Trump “must be defeated.”

Sensing a raw mood among his supporters, the Sanders team reached out to the Clinton team on Monday afternoon to voice worries that its supporters may cause a stir during Monday night, even after Wasserman Schultz resigned, according to a Democrat familiar with the talks.

Clinton aide Marlon Marshall and Sanders deputy campaign manager Rich Pelletier huddled in the afternoon to develop a joint plan to try to avoid excessive disruptions, the official said. This person spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Sanders sent out a signed text message to some supporters that reads: “I ask you as a personal courtesy to me to not engage in any kind of protest on the floor. Its of utmost importance you explain this to your delegations — Bernie,” the official said.

The Clinton and Sanders camps have also proactively merged their floor whip teams, and Sanders surrogates — including former NAACP President Ben Jealous — will be urging Sanders supporters to not cause a ruckus on the floor.

On the convention stage, one of Sanders's most ardent backers, Maine state Rep. Diane Russell, urged his supporters to celebrate a real victory: the “unity commission” that would recommend cutting back the number of superdelegates that were not bound to vote for a nominee based on the results of the primaries or caucuses.

“We did not win this by selling out,” Russell said. “We won this by standing up.

“We won this by standing together,” she added.

But moments later, when Clinton supporter and Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings rose to speak about his experience and the legacy of the civil-rights movement, hecklers rose to chant “No TPP! … No TPP!”

As the party prepared to transition to a new party chair, there were already signs that fresh efforts were underway to extend an olive branch to Sanders.

Top DNC officials released a new statement offering a “sincere apology” to Sanders for the “inexcusable remarks” expressed in the leaked emails.

Longtime Democratic strategist and a vice chair of the convention, Donna Brazile, was named interim chair of the party effective on Friday, upon the resignation of Wasserman Schultz.

On Monday afternoon, Brazile acknowledged the rowdy convention atmosphere but said she was confident that the party would get through it.

“It takes time to heal, time to come together,” Brazile said. “I'm confident that we can find common ground, which is what's most important.”

She added that she has been apologizing to Sanders and his campaign officials.

“We're bigger as a party than this,” she added. “I've told them that we will make sure our system gets better, make sure our practices get better and make sure our email gets more secure. I've been in this party for 40 years, we love this party, and we're going to do what needs to be done.”

Meanwhile, Sanders pledged to push for greater unity in his remarks later in the night, regardless of the strong feelings that remain among his supporters.

And Clinton officials said they expect that there will be a roll-call vote of all 50 states and that Sanders will have his name placed in nomination.

“We anticipate there will be a roll-call vote tomorrow night and that every vote will be counted, that we'll go through all 50 states,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. “We're happy to have it.”


Dan Balz, Robert Costa, David Weigel, Anne Gearan, Philip Rucker and Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.

• Sean Sullivan has covered national politics for The Washington Post since 2012.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Opening day of the Democratic National Convention

 • Complete live coverage of the Democratic National Convention

 • Here are the latest, most damaging things in the DNC's leaked emails

 • Why Debbie Wasserman Schultz failed

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: What the scene in Philadelphia looks like as it readies for the DNC


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-national-convention-warren-sanders-to-speak-tonight-as-party-tries-to-move-past-disarray/2016/07/25/93d4faba-5211-11e6-bbf5-957ad17b4385_story.html
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« Reply #18 on: July 26, 2016, 04:47:14 pm »


from the Los Angeles Times....

Convention sketch: the gantlet of Bernie buddies

By DAVID HORSEY | 6:15PM PDT - Monday, July 25, 2016



TODAY, as delegates emerged from the subway at the Wells Fargo Center where the Democratic National Convention is being held, they were met by hundreds of rowdy protesters pressing against a wire mesh fence, chanting, “Hey, ho, DNC! We won't vote for Hillary!”

It was a reminder, both to the delegates planning to vote for Hillary Clinton and to the Bernie Sanders delegates, that there are some folks on the left who will never vote for the party's nominee if it turns out to be you-know-who.

After a relatively quiet day on Sunday when many activists were avoiding the heat, the protesters were out in force as the first day of the convention began. The heat and humidity were hitting record highs, but the crowd outside the fence was energized. They yelled at delegates as they passed by, urging them to change their minds and vote for Sanders.

In a couple of hours, Sanders himself will address the convention. Unless he throws a curveball at the Clinton campaign, he is expected to call for a united front behind Hillary. Even Bernie, though, will not be able to change the minds of his many supporters out in the streets who see no difference between Clinton and Donald Trump.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-bernie-gantlet-20160725-snap-story.html
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« Reply #19 on: July 26, 2016, 05:46:18 pm »



looks like bernie sanders and trump were 100% right about the system being totally rigged dems implode


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« Reply #20 on: July 27, 2016, 01:25:31 am »

It was very sad to see the democrats being anti democratic.

Please, anybody but Hillary, she reminds me of the nodding dog puppet in the rear car window.
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« Reply #21 on: July 27, 2016, 04:16:03 am »

haha the washington post was blaming putin for the leak
lol the left love acting like victims,better that instead of admitting the party screwed bernie

bernie supporters booed when asked to support hillary

but dont worry dems have the memory of a goldfish lmao



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« Reply #22 on: July 27, 2016, 01:06:09 pm »


from the Los Angeles Times....

Disappointed Bernie fans resist Sanders' hopeful view of Hillary Clinton

By DAVID HORSEY | 12:30PM PDT - Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Bernie Sanders tries to convince his fervent supporters that Hillary Clinton is not evil incarnate. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.
Bernie Sanders tries to convince his fervent supporters that Hillary Clinton is not evil incarnate. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.

ON Monday evening, Bernie Sanders stood on the stage at the Democratic National Convention as the most influential loser in a presidential primary race since Ronald Reagan in 1976. Except for the hard reality that he is not the party's nominee, Bernie's prime time address was truly a victory speech.

Leveraging the power of his remarkable campaign and his 1,846 pledged convention delegates, Sanders not only became the driving force behind adoption of what he called “the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party,” but he shifted his opponent's policy proposals significantly toward his own. So dramatically has he influenced the philosophical direction of Hillary Clinton and her party that he had no problem adapting the famously consistent themes of his campaign speech into Monday night's endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president.

And it was not a tepid endorsement of the kind Donald Trump has gotten from so many Republican leaders. Early on in his speech, Sanders declared that any objective observer would conclude “Hillary Clinton must become the next president of the United States.” Because of her ideas and her leadership skills, he said, “the choice is not even close.” He resisted taking the nostalgic, self-pitying approach that Senator Edward Kennedy took when conceding to President Jimmy Carter at the 1980 Democratic convention. There was no “the dream never dies” conclusion to Sanders' speech, no sentimentality, only a reiteration of his complete support for Clinton.

Sanders certainly would rather be the nominee himself, but he has been an activist and office holder for half a century. His long political career has taught him that partial victories eventually add up to revolutions. He spoke of that in his address, saying, “Together, my friends, we have begun a political revolution to transform America, and that revolution — our revolution — continues. Election days come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1% — a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice — that struggle continues.”

Many of his supporters on the convention floor were far less hopeful. Some were tearful and sobbing as he spoke. Others sent up a chorus of boos whenever Clinton's name was mentioned and even when Sanders endorsed her. In interviews on NBC following Sanders' speech, his delegates displayed a level of idealism that spilled into naiveté. They said they still cannot imagine voting for Clinton, a woman they see as the loathsome personification of corporate influence in politics. Sanders' forceful arguments in Clinton's favor did not appear to have shifted their thinking at all.

The Vermont senator had pointed out that he and Clinton reached significant agreements on plans to grant free tuition at state universities for 85% of aspiring students, to raise the minimum wage, to provide a public option for healthcare and to allow citizens at age 55 to opt into Medicare. He also noted that Clinton believes scientific evidence that global warming is dangerously real, while Trump and the Republicans insist climate change is a hoax. And he pointed out what a radical difference there would be between the Supreme Court justices Clinton would appoint and those a President Trump would nominate.

It is mystifying that people can be so passionate in their support of a candidate, yet not give credence to his sage advice when it comes to Hillary Clinton. Those who are young have the excuse of tender age and inexperience. The older Bernie enthusiasts are simply too ideologically absolutist to recognize what Sanders, in his wisdom, sees: Hillary Clinton, like other establishment Democrats before her — Lyndon Johnson comes to mind — can respond to both political pressure and a heightened vision of justice to become an agent of progressive change.

Bernie Sanders is a realist. He knows there are many elections in a lifetime and a revolution that lasts is not won in a single shot.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-bernie-fans-20160726-snap-story.html
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« Reply #23 on: October 25, 2016, 01:01:28 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Sanders is prepared to be a liberal thorn in Clinton's side

Hillary Clinton's onetime primary rival wants to work with her if she is elected, but he will
oppose appointments and legislation that don't pass muster with the left wing of her party.


By JOHN WAGNER | 2:03PM EDT - Monday, October 24, 2016

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton campaigns with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont last month in Durham, New Hampshire. — Photograph: Melina Mara/The Washington Post.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton campaigns with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont last month
in Durham, New Hampshire. — Photograph: Melina Mara/The Washington Post.


BURLINGTON, VERMONT — Senator Bernie Sanders, a loyal soldier for Hillary Clinton since he conceded the Democratic presidential nomination in July, plans to push liberal legislation with like-minded senators with or without Clinton's support if she is elected — and to aggressively oppose appointments that do not pass muster with the party's left wing.

In an interview, Sanders said he and other senators have started plotting legislation that would achieve many of the proposals that fueled his insurgent run for president, including a $15 federal minimum wage, tuition-free public college, an end to “mass incarceration” and aggressive steps to fight climate change.

The senators, Sanders said, also plan to push for the breakup of “too big to fail” banks and to pressure Clinton to appoint liberals to key Cabinet positions, including treasury secretary. Sanders said he would not stay silent if Clinton nominated the “same old, same old Wall Street guys” to regulatory positions that are important in enacting and overseeing the financial policies he supports.

“I will be vigorously in opposition, and I will make that very clear,” Sanders said.

Sanders's comments signal that, if she wins the presidency on November 8th, Clinton may have to contend not only with Republicans who oppose her agenda but also with liberals in her party who were not excited by her campaign and have long feared that she plans to govern as a centrist.

It remains to be seen how much sway Sanders will have in January. He is in line to take over the chairmanship of one of the Senate's major committees if Democrats regain control of the chamber, but aides to some of the senators he said are working with him suggested that less of a coordinated effort is underway.

The proposals Sanders plans to push are contained within the Democratic Party's 51-page platform, a document that he and his allies were instrumental in drafting in the run-up to the party's July convention in Philadelphia. Although in the past the party platform has often been quickly forgotten, Sanders's role in shaping it was key to his decision to support Clinton, and he has long planned to pressure her to follow through with action in the White House.

Progressive groups have questioned whether Clinton will fully embrace such initiatives as president and where they might fall on her priority list, particularly as she potentially faces a divided Congress and makes outreach to Republicans a focus of her campaign. Clinton did not embrace some of the policies contained in the party platform as a candidate in the primary cycle, but she has since signaled her support.

Sanders said he considers it his job “to demand that the Democratic Party implement that platform.”

The iconoclastic senator from Vermont, whose long-shot presidential campaign turned him into a national celebrity, shared his plans on Friday during a candid and lengthy interview in his home town.

In recent weeks, Sanders has stumped for Clinton, traveling the country to rally skeptical progressives and others around her bid to defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump. But during the conversation in his office here, it became clear that Sanders is ready to reassert himself within the Democratic Party.

“The leverage that I think I take into the Senate is taking on the entire Democratic Party establishment, and, you know, taking on a very powerful political organization with the Clinton people,” Sanders said. “We won 22 states and 46 percent of the pledged delegates, 13.4 million votes … and a majority of the younger people, the future of the country…. That gives me a lot of leverage, leverage that I intend to use.”

Sanders said that his office and others have started converting the party platform into draft legislation. He said the lawmakers “informally” working with him include Senators Elizabeth Warren (Democrat-Massachusetts) — who campaigned with Clinton on Monday in New Hampshire — Sherrod Brown (Democrat-Ohio) and Jeff Merkley (Ddemocrat-Oregon).

Aides to those senators said they are certainly inclined to embrace liberal agenda items, many of which they have championed in the past. And Warren, in particular, has a history of speaking out against President Obama's nominees when they are not up to her standards, and she has signaled a willingness to do so under another Democratic president.

Sanders said he has not sought assurances from Clinton or her staff that she would be on board with an effort to enact the platform “piece by piece,” as he intends.

But, he said, “right now, as I see it, that platform is where Clinton is at, where I am at, where the vast majority of Democrats are at, and that is what we've got to implement.”

The Clinton campaign has sought to play down any potential fissures with the left wing of the Democratic Party. On Sunday, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said that Clinton is “proud to have worked with Senator Sanders on drafting the most progressive platform in Democratic Party history.” If she is elected, Fallon said, Clinton “intends to partner with him to advance their shared priorities.”

During a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Sunday, Clinton touted her proposal to make college debt-free — and credited Sanders with working with her on the idea. The two rivals had worked together after the primaries to scale back Sanders's proposal to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for everyone.

But in other ways, Clinton has signaled that her early agenda may be designed to appeal as much to Republicans as Democrats. On Sunday, Fallon told reporters in Raleigh that Republicans should be able to support two of her top priorities, immigration reform and investing in the country's infrastructure.

“We think that we have put forward ideas for the first 100 days that are the ones that Republicans should have every reason to work with us on,” he said.

Sanders said in the interview that he favors a more combative approach.

“It's not good enough for me, or anybody, to say, ‘Well, look, Republicans control the House: From Day One, we're going to have to compromise’,” Sanders said. “The Democratic Party, before they start compromising, has got to rally the American people around our ideas and make it clear that if Republicans do not go along with reasonable ideas to benefit the middle class and the working class, they are going to pay a very heavy political price.”

If the Democrats take over the Senate, Sanders is all but guaranteed to have a bigger voice in the chamber. He is in line to become chairman of the Budget Committee, although he said his preference would be to take the gavel of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which has jurisdiction over the minimum wage, health care and many of the issues he has championed during his quarter-century in Congress.

Sanders said Clinton's appointees to top positions in her administration would provide a strong indication of the direction she intends to take — and he plans to hold her feet to fire to fill her Cabinet with progressives. A top priority, he said, is a treasury secretary who does not come from Wall Street.

Like other progressives, he said he has been troubled by rumors that Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg could be under consideration for that post.

Sandberg, Silicon Valley's best-known female executive and author of a best-selling book on women's empowerment, has a close relationship with former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, who has ties to Wall Street.

“I personally believe that a billionaire corporate executive is frankly not the kind of person that working families want to see as secretary of treasury,” Sanders said. “We need somebody who has a history of standing up to Wall Street and is prepared to take on the financial interests whose greed and illegal behavior has done so much harm.”

Sanders said he also will make known to Clinton his views about who should serve in roles such as U.S. trade representative and attorney general.

“I expect her to appoint people who will head agencies in a way that is consistent with the Democratic Party platform, and if not, I will do my best to oppose those nominees,” he said.

Sanders characterized the platform as more progressive than Clinton's campaign agenda but said she would have an obligation as the party's president to try to enact it, regardless of which party controls the House and the Senate.

“On a number of positions, her views are progressive,” Sanders said, “but I believe that the Democratic platform is more progressive and that the Democratic platform is the most progressive platform in the history of this country.”

Sanders will get another opportunity to promote his agenda next month, when he launches a 17-city tour in support of his new book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. Sanders also has plans for a string of television appearances to tout the book.

The first half of the book, he said, is a recounting of his presidential campaign from a “very personal point of view.” The second half details many of the policy issues he pushed on the campaign trail, but in “much greater detail.”

The book tour, Sanders said, “will be a good place, I think, to begin talking about where we want to go as a country.”

During the course of the interview, Sanders, 75, first hedged when asked whether he would ever run for president again, but then he declared it as “highly, highly, highly unlikely.”


John Wagner also reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.

• John Wagner is a political reporter covering the race for the 2016 presidential election for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • Sanders taps his network to raise nearly $2 million for House, Senate races

 • Bernie Sanders returns to the campaign trail in New Hampshire

 • Sanders's next challenge: Where will he take his revolution?


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-is-prepared-to-be-a-liberal-thorn-in-clintons-side/2016/10/24/aaf6dd88-97eb-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html
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« Reply #24 on: October 25, 2016, 04:59:19 pm »

funny i thought Clinton was supposed to be a liberal.
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Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
Go to
http://www.infowars.com/

AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP

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