Tag Archives: bernie sanders

The New York Daily News Just Hit Bernie Sanders Where It Hurts

by CaridadHaydon Posted on April 6, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Continuing our coverage of the New York Daily News‘ coverage of the 2016 presidential election, here is the tabloid’s cover today:

Bernie Sanders’ poor track record on guns has become a point of much consternation. The Clinton campaign thinks the issue is a big winner against the Vermont senator and has worked hard to keep it front and center in advance of New York’s April 19th primary.

Read original article:  

The New York Daily News Just Hit Bernie Sanders Where It Hurts

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The New York Daily News Just Hit Bernie Sanders Where It Hurts

How Bernie Learned to Love the Polls

by TrudyQ67ugzq Posted on April 2, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Bernie Sanders’ campaign used to dismiss poll numbers. The insurgent candidate has long trailed Hillary Clinton in national surveys, and his numbers have tended to only rise state by state as the campaign turns to each new contest.

But now that he’s gained more national attention, Sanders has started to sound downright Trumpian and in love of touting the latest stats on his campaign. While stumping at a high school gym in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on Friday afternoon, Sanders kicked off his normal speech by adding a bit of bragging about a host of favorable numbers.

“When we began this campaign, we were 3 percent in the polls. Three percent. We were about 60, 65 points behind Secretary Clinton. I think it’s fair to say we made up some ground in the interval. A national poll had us a point ahead last week.”

A lonely poll showing a statistically insignificant lead isn’t usually great news for a campaign. And in fact, polling averages suggest Sanders trails Clinton by about 9 percent in surveys of Democrats across the country. But that outlier, from a poll conducted by Bloomberg Politics, was enough to draw loud applause from the Sanders fans packed high into the gym’s rafters.

No 2016 candidate has boasted about polls quite as much as Donald Trump, who has deployed positive numbers to underscore his booming appeal. But Sanders is now using Trump as his foil to brag about his own numbers, arguing that he’d be a better bet for Democrats than Clinton in a general election contest against the Republican front-runner. “What more and more people, I think, are understanding is that our campaign would be by far the strongest campaign against Donald Trump,” Sanders boasted. “This is true.”

Sanders pointed to a CNN poll from last month that showed him beating Trump by 20 percent nationally: “And that’s before he really began to expose what a nutcase he really is.” While Sanders’ citation of the single Bloomberg pool is a thin reed to argue he’s favored by more Democratic voters, the numbers are so far clearly on his side in hypothetical general election matchups with Trump. According to the averages compiled by RealClearPolitics, Clinton would beat Trump by 10 percent, while Sanders leads The Donald by a heftier 15 points.

Sanders closed off the poll-focused section of his Friday speech by turning his attention to Wisconsin. “It’s not only national polls which have us defeating Mr. Trump by a large number,” Sanders said. “A recent Marquette University poll, right here in Wisconsin, had Secretary Clinton beating Trump by 10 points. That’s not bad. We were beating him here in Wisconsin by 19 points.”

Source: 

How Bernie Learned to Love the Polls

Posted in Anchor, Bragg, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Bernie Learned to Love the Polls

Donald Trump Surrogate Says Bernie Sanders Needs to "Meet Jesus"

by LeviGroce1 Posted on March 14, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A Donald Trump surrogate said during a campaign event Monday morning that Bernie Sanders needs to find Jesus. Sanders, of course, is Jewish. Many of his Polish relatives on his father’s side were killed during the Holocaust.

The comment came at a rally in Hickory, North Carolina, on Monday morning, as Pastor Mark Burns warmed up the crowd for Trump—who was running late because of a plane delay. Burns, who has spoken at previous Trump events, told the audience that in order to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate, Sanders needs to accept Christianity.

“Bernie Sanders, who doesn’t believe in God,” Burns said. “How in the world are we going to let Bernie—I mean really? Listen, Bernie gotta get saved, he gotta meet Jesus. I don’t know, he gotta have a coming to Jesus meeting.”

Watch Burns’ comments in the video below, starting around the 5:26 mark.

View this article – 

Donald Trump Surrogate Says Bernie Sanders Needs to "Meet Jesus"

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Donald Trump Surrogate Says Bernie Sanders Needs to "Meet Jesus"

Hillary Clinton Was Just Asked if Donald Trump Is a Racist. Here’s Her Answer.

by OlaWDHLsrir Posted on March 10, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

At Thursday’s Democratic debate, moderator Karen Tumulty asked Hillary Clinton, “Is Donald Trump a racist?” Here’s how Clinton answered:

Bernie Sanders didn’t answer the question directly, either, but he attacked Trump for cheerleading the birther movement during the 2012 election. “I know a little bit about the immigrant experience,” said Sanders, whose father was an immigrant. “Nobody has ever asked me for my birth certificate. Maybe it has something to do with the color of my skin.”

Source: 

Hillary Clinton Was Just Asked if Donald Trump Is a Racist. Here’s Her Answer.

Posted in Anchor, Bragg, Casio, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hillary Clinton Was Just Asked if Donald Trump Is a Racist. Here’s Her Answer.

Sanders is destroying Clinton in coal country, despite backing climate action

by TVUDerrick Posted on February 25, 2016

Sanders is destroying Clinton in coal country, despite backing climate action

By on 25 Feb 2016commentsShare

In theory, Hillary Clinton should have no trouble appealing to primary voters in coal country. Last year, she put forward what amounts to a stimulus package for revitalizing Appalachia, proposing a $30 billion investment in job training, education, and health programs for hard-hit coal miners. She earned an early endorsement from pro-coal West Virginia Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin last fall. Recently, in a February presidential debate, Clinton made overtures to coal-sympathetic blue-collar voters by pointing back to her plan: “You know, coal miners and their families who helped turn on the lights and power our factories for generations are now wondering, has our country forgotten us?”

And yet, Clinton can’t catch a break in West Virginia. She’s losing to an opponent who says things like, “To hell with the fossil fuel industry” — and she’s losing by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.

A MetroNews West Virginia poll conducted before the Nevada caucus and released this week shows Bernie Sanders leading Clinton, 57 percent to 29 percent among primary voters. Sanders performs strongest among young voters, 18-34, but he still leads Clinton 43 percent to 36 percent among senior-age voters.

Advertisement

That’s quite a change from the last time Clinton ran for president. In 2008, Clinton won 67 percent of votes in West Virginia’s primary, compared to Barack Obama’s 28 percent.

West Virginia’s primary is late in the election season — in May — but Sanders’ rise may offer some interesting lessons nonetheless about whether a strong climate platform is a big deterrence. His strong endorsement of climate change policies like a carbon tax and interest in banning fossil fuel production would seem to be a turn-off for West Virginia. And his sympathy for coal miners sounds no different from Clinton’s. “What we have to say is, ‘Look, through no fault of your own, you’re working in an industry which is helping to cause climate change and in fact having a negative impact on the country and world,’” Sanders told The Washington Post last year. “What the government does have is an obligation to say: ‘We’ll protect you financially as we transition away from fossil fuel.”

Then why are pro-coal voters overlooking Sanders’ aggressive support for climate action?

One theory is that Clinton’s ties to Obama (who only had 24 percent support in West Virginia) and his plan to regulate carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants make her particularly unpopular there. The only problem with that theory is Sanders too backs regulating coal plants, and wants to go even further.

Another theory is that Sanders’ populist, anti-corporate message is resonating with young and blue-collar voters. Remember, this is a state that just fined and jailed Freedom Industries executives for a 2014 chemical spill. Sanders has used working-class economic concerns to appeal to West Virginia, saying in the fall, “We have millions of working-class people who are voting for Republican candidates whose views are diametrically opposite to what voters want. How many think it’s a great idea that we have trade policies that lead to plants in West Virginia being shut down? How many think there should be massive cuts in Pell grants or in Social Security? In my opinion, not too many people.”

A second, important, factor is that coal represents a shrinking portion of Appalachia’s economy. It means both pandering to coal miners and claims of a “war on coal” to stop climate change may resonate less today than they did a decade ago. A statewide survey in 2014 after the Freedom Industries’ spill showed that environmental issues like clean water are key priorities for West Virginians, as well. David Weigel also offers the theory that Clinton’s landslide in 2008 had more to do with white voters’ backlash to Obama than Clinton’s popularity.

If Sanders’ rise in coal territory shows one thing, it’s that candidates can embrace strong action on climate change and still manage to earn support in Appalachian counties.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.Climate on the Mind

A Grist Special Series

Get Grist in your inbox

Source: 

Sanders is destroying Clinton in coal country, despite backing climate action

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sanders is destroying Clinton in coal country, despite backing climate action

The Clinton-Sanders Ad War Shows How Black Lives Matter Reshaped the Race

by SamualGrimstone Posted on February 23, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, competing for African American voters in South Carolina, released a new radio ad featuring film director and actor Spike Lee enthusiastically talking up the record of “my brother Bernie Sanders” in fighting racism.

“When Bernie gets in the White House, he will do the right thing!” Lee says in the spot, a nod to the movie that made him famous. “How can we be sure?” he continues. “Bernie was at the March on Washington with Dr. King. He was arrested in Chicago for protesting segregation in public schools. He fought for wealth and education and inequality throughout his whole career. No flipping, no flopping. Enough talk. Time for action.”

The high-energy Spike Lee ad is one of many in the ongoing ad war between Sanders and front-runner Hillary Clinton. Last week, Republican candidates blanketed the Palmetto State with ads that amounted to a million-dollar circular firing squad. The ad blitzes from Sanders and Clinton—primarily targeting hip-hop, gospel, and R&B radio stations—zero in on serious topics: police violence, mass incarceration, and inequality.

The ads in South Carolina, where more than half the Democratic electorate is black, were always going to be a little different than the ads in uber-white New Hampshire. But listen to an hour or two of drive-time radio, and it becomes clear how different the battle lines in South Carolina are from those in the three states that voted before it—and how the work of civil rights activists over the last few years has changed the dynamics of the 2016 race.

“I was one of the leaders in the House to take charge and say the Confederate flag has to come down now,” says Rep. Justin Bamberg, an African American Democrat in a Sanders ad, explaining why he switched from Clinton to the Vermont senator. “He has stood for civil rights his entire life. He marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King. Bernie Sanders will be the advocate to address the problems in the criminal justice system.”

Another Sanders spot features four African American activists from South Carolina, of varying ages, outlining why they back the self-described democratic socialist. “Bernie Sanders realizes that mass incarceration, especially among young people, is a rising epidemic,” says Hamilton Grant. Gloria Bomell Tinubu remarks, “We know that prison is big business; it’s been privatized. And Bryanta-Booker Maxwell says of Sanders, “He is the best champion for criminal justice reform.”

In another radio ad, Sanders, touting his plan to fight “institutional racism,” makes a direct pitch for himself: “Millions of lives are being wrecked, families are being torn apart, we’re spending huge sums of taxpayer money locking people up. It makes a lot more sense for us to be investing in education, in jobs, rather than jails and incarceration.”

Pro-Clinton ads hit similar points, but with three big additions: Obama, Obama, Obama. That is, as these ads depict Clinton as a pursuer of justice and equality, they hammer home her connection to the president.

“We all worked hard to elect President Barack Obama eight years ago,” a woman narrator says at the beginning of a heavily played ad aired by Priorities USA, a Clinton-backing super-PAC. “Republicans have tried to tear him down every step of the way. We can’t let them hold us back. We need a president who will build on all that President Obama has done. President Obama trusted Hillary Clinton to be America’s secretary of state.” And the ad turns toward racism at its end: “She’ll fight to remove the stains of unfairness and prejudice from our criminal justice system, so that justice is just.”

Another spot from the super-PAC cites Clinton’s “bold” plan to curb police brutality. And in an ad paid for directly by the Clinton campaign, former Attorney General Eric Holder, emphasizing his and Clinton’s ties to Obama, hails her efforts to protect civil rights and voting rights and her support for tougher gun laws and police accountability:

The most direct reference to the Black Lives Matter movement comes in an ad in which Clinton herself says, “African Americans are more likely to be arrested by police and sentenced to longer prison terms for doing the same thing that whites do. Too many encounters with law enforcement end tragically for African Americans.” A narrator cites a young Hillary’s work “standing up for African American teenagers locked up with adults in South Carolina jails.” Then Clinton adds, “We have to face up to the hard truth of injustice and systemic racism.”

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Sanders and Clinton’s fight for the airwaves is this: For all their heated exchanges on the debate stage, not a single spot goes negative.

See the original article here:

The Clinton-Sanders Ad War Shows How Black Lives Matter Reshaped the Race

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Clinton-Sanders Ad War Shows How Black Lives Matter Reshaped the Race

Clinton’s Surrogates Are Banking on the Gun Issue to Win Over Black Voters

by PalmaShupe Posted on February 10, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

After her sound defeat in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, former Sen. Hillary Clinton is looking ahead to the primary in South Carolina, where she hopes her record and rhetoric on gun control will impress black voters and propel her to victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

In a conference call Wednesday, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries joined Hazel Dukes—the former NAACP president and current president of the civil rights group’s New York State Conference—and South Carolina state minority leader J. Todd Rutherford to promote Clinton and to cite the inexperience of her rival. The three criticized Sanders as a newcomer to issues important to black voters, and condemned what they called his inferior record on gun control and criminal-justice reform.

“I’ve watched Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail and seen how he only really started talking about issues concerning African Americans in the past 40 days,” Rutherford said. “Secretary Clinton has talked about these same issues, and advocated for us, for the last 40 years.”

They also slammed Sanders for only recently moving over to the Democratic party, for voting in favor of the infamous 1994 Violent Crimes Bill, and for voting for an amendment that Jeffries claimed would have allowed Charleston shooter Dylann Roof to obtain a handgun before the completion of a background check.

“We know that Hillary Clinton has consistently stood up against the gun lobby, and spoken out against the epidemic of gun violence in the African American community and beyond. The record of Bernie Sanders is very different,” Jeffries said. “He’s twice voted to shield gun manufacturers, who I often refer to as ‘merchants of death;’ he voted to overturn a ban on guns on Amtrak trains; he voted to make it harder to crack down on gun dealers who break the law; he even voted for an amendment that would have allowed, or which allowed, of course, the Charleston shooter to get a gun before his background check is completed.” If you compare Clinton and Sanders on the issue of gun violence and how it affects the black community, Jeffries added, “it’s not even a close call.”

Jeffries, Rutherford, and Dukes answered reporters’ questions about Clinton’s own, arguably dubious, track record on issues that affect black communities—including her “superpredator” comments—with praise of her political experience and her platform for economic justice. But the overarching theme of the call was that Clinton, unlike Sanders—who represents a predominantly white state—has always been a visible presence in the black community.

“It’s good to have new friends, but I would rather have true friends,” Jeffries said.

See more here: 

Clinton’s Surrogates Are Banking on the Gun Issue to Win Over Black Voters

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Clinton’s Surrogates Are Banking on the Gun Issue to Win Over Black Voters

Two Prominent Black Intellectuals Just Delivered More Bad News for Clinton

by GabrielaN24 Posted on February 10, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

After a crushing loss in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton may be having an even worse morning. As her campaign turns to South Carolina, where she hopes to win the primary with the support of African American voters on February 27, two prominent black intellectuals issued forceful statements Wednesday morning that could boost her rival, Bernie Sanders.

“I will be voting for Sen. Sanders,” Ta-Nehisi Coates, a correspondent for The Atlantic and the author of the 2015 National Book Award winner Between the World and Me, said Wednesday in an interview on Democracy Now! Coates has written critically of Sanders recently for not embracing reparations for African Americans as part of his economic and social justice platform.

A much stronger rebuke of Clinton came from Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, who blasted the former secretary of state in an essay published Wednesday on the website of The Nation titled “Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote.” In it, Alexander argued that the economic and criminal justice policies of the Bill Clinton administration, from the 1994 crime bill to welfare reform in 1996, were devastating to African Americans—and that Hillary Clinton was a force in that administration whose role should be scrutinized and whose current positions on criminal justice and racial equality are not strong enough.

Ironically, perhaps, Alexander cites Coates at the end of the essay in also critiquing Sanders.

This is not an endorsement for Bernie Sanders, who after all voted for the 1994 crime bill. I also tend to agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates that the way the Sanders campaign handled the question of reparations is one of many signs that Bernie doesn’t quite get what’s at stake in serious dialogues about racial justice. He was wrong to dismiss reparations as “divisive,” as though centuries of slavery, segregation, discrimination, ghettoization, and stigmatization aren’t worthy of any specific acknowledgement or remedy.

But recognizing that Bernie, like Hillary, has blurred vision when it comes to race is not the same thing as saying their views are equally problematic. Sanders opposed the 1996 welfare-reform law. He also opposed bank deregulation and the Iraq War, both of which Hillary supported, and both of which have proved disastrous. In short, there is such a thing as a lesser evil, and Hillary is not it.

Coates and Alexander are by no means the first black intellectuals to express skepticism of Clinton and endorse Sanders. Princeton University professor Cornel West, for example, has campaigned with Sanders. On Wednesday morning, Sanders traveled to Harlem to have breakfast with the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the most prominent black politician in South Carolina, is considering endorsing Clinton. She still has plenty of backing in the black political establishment. But the comments from Coates and Alexander Wednesday are a sign that the degree of support Clinton is counting on from the black community might be slipping away, and that she may not be able to sew up the black vote in South Carolina, as her supporters have long predicted.

Read original article:  

Two Prominent Black Intellectuals Just Delivered More Bad News for Clinton

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Two Prominent Black Intellectuals Just Delivered More Bad News for Clinton

Bernie Sanders Wins Democratic New Hampshire Primary

by VernMeza4862675 Posted on February 10, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was declared the winner of the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary as soon as polls closed at 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday night. Results are still trickling in at the moment—some polling locations are still open to accommodate people in line at the cutoff time—but it looks like Sanders will likely defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by double digits.

The two have now split the first two states, with Clinton coming out narrowly ahead in Iowa a week ago.

The Clinton campaign was quick to concede, immediately circulating a memo to reporters from campaign manager Robby Mook touting Clinton’s strength in the states voting in March.

See original article here:  

Bernie Sanders Wins Democratic New Hampshire Primary

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Bernie Sanders Wins Democratic New Hampshire Primary

Obama Wants to Raise Your Gas Prices to Pay for Trains

by XLCDevinca Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In his final State of the Union address last month, President Barack Obama promised to “change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet.” A few days later, he followed through on the coal aspect of that pledge, with a plan to overhaul how coal mining leases are awarded on federal land. Now, he seems ready to roll out his plan for oil.

The president’s budget proposal for his last year in office, set to be released next week, will contain a provision to place a new tax on oil, White House aides told reporters. According to Politico:

The president will propose more than $300 billion worth of investments over the next decade in mass transit, high-speed rail, self-driving cars, and other transportation approaches designed to reduce carbon emissions and congestion. To pay for it all, Obama will call for a $10 “fee” on every barrel of oil, a surcharge that would be paid by oil companies but would presumably be passed along to consumers…The fee could add as much as 25 cents a gallon to the cost of gasoline.

The proposal stands virtually no chance of being adopted by Congress. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the renowned climate change denier who also chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement, “I’m unsure why the president bothers to continue to send a budget to Congress. His proposals are not serious, and this is another one which is dead on arrival.”

Still, the idea may be helped a little by the sustained drop in oil prices, driven by a glut of supply from the Middle East and record production in the United States. Gas is already selling for less than $2 per gallon in all but 11 states, the lowest price point since 2009. Raising that cost would also be a boon for electric vehicle sales, which have stagnated because of low gas prices as sales of gas guzzlers have climbed.

Obama’s prospective Democratic successors, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, haven’t weighed in on this proposal yet, although they have both been broadly supportive of his climate change agenda. But the proposal could prove to be awkward for Clinton, who has promised not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.

Original source – 

Obama Wants to Raise Your Gas Prices to Pay for Trains

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama Wants to Raise Your Gas Prices to Pay for Trains