Tag: Bernie Sanders

He Should Not Apologize

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Lately, Bernie Sanders has been criticized for his opposition to the Vietnam War, the invasion or Iraq, and a potential invasion of Iran.

He has refused to apologize, and he should continue to refuse, because he was, and is, right, and his critics are, and were, wrong:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took aim at calls for him to “apologize” for his refusal to support U.S. armed conflicts in the Middle East, saying Friday that he was “right” about past U.S. wars and would continue to advocate against war with Iran.

In a tweet, Sanders wrote that he will “apologize to no one” for supporting peaceful diplomatic efforts over armed conflict with Iran, citing U.S. wars in Iraq and Vietnam as examples of past U.S. armed responses that resulted in long-running and exhausting wars.

“I was right about Vietnam. I was right about Iraq. I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran. I apologize to no one,” the senator tweeted, along with a video explaining his stance against war with the country.

I was right about Vietnam.

I was right about Iraq.

I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran.

I apologize to no one. pic.twitter.com/Lna3oBZMKB

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 24, 2019

In the topsy-turvy world inside the Beltway, being right is somehow indicates that he is not “serious” about foreign policy.

Needless to say, this is complete bullsh%$.

Yet Again, Bernie is Right

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Sanders is calling on a ban for for-profit charter schools and a halt to further charter school expansion.

I wholeheartedly approve.

Charters are unaccountable, and frequently corrupt, as well as being the darlings of Wall Street money:

As president, Bernie Sanders would support a ban on for-profit charter schools and a blanket moratorium on public funding for all new charters, the candidate announced in a speech on Saturday, throwing down a new gauntlet on the left in the Democratic debate over education reform.

The Vermont senator laid out a broad education agenda that seeks to address racial disparities on the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Sanders’s plan is quite ambitious, thought it lacks some important details.

He wants to triple federal Title I funding for schools that serve a large number of low-income students, set a national salary floor for teachers of $60,000, and provide universal school meals: breakfast, lunch, and snacks for every student year-round.

But his proposed prohibition on for-profit charter schools and temporary ban on government spending on new nonprofit charters is a foray into the most divisive piece of the education reform debate. Charter schools have been a source of debate for years between mainstream liberals who see charters as a promising alternative to the traditional public schools and the labor left that considers them an attack on teachers unions because charters are typically unorganized.

………

For existing charter schools, Sanders would propose that they be subject to the same oversight requirements as regular schools, that half of a charter school’s board members be parents and teachers, and that charters be required to disclose certain student and funding data.

Charter schools do not in the whole outperform public schools, and we have seen repeated examples of corruption and self-dealing, so ending for-profit chains, and placing a hold on expansion until appropriate oversight can be implemented is just basic good governance.

I would prefer to see them shut down completely, I think that they are primarily an attempt to loot, with a side order of union busting, but this is a good start.

Walking the Walk

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Thousands of workers from the University of California waged a one-day strike Thursday and found some unexpected allies out on their picket lines.

In an unusual move for a presidential candidate, the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent out targeted text messages and emails to its supporters in California a day ahead of the strike, urging them to join workers as they rallied against the university system in a labor dispute.

“Tens of thousands of workers in the University of California system are standing up this Thursday to stop the outsourcing and privatization of union jobs,” the email said. “We are hoping you can join these workers tomorrow.”

The note included an RSVP link and an address for a local picket.

The move apparently worked, according to John de los Angeles, a spokesperson for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, one of the unions involved in the strike.

“I deployed a press team across the state and was in contact with them,” de los Angeles said. “They were sending me pictures of random supporters out on the line because they had received an email or text from the Bernie campaign. That happened all over the place.”

If you wonder why people are, to quote Steve Rogers, willing, “To make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you,” for Bernie Sanders, it is because he has been laying down on the wire for us for decades.

Yes, I do realize that juxtaposing Captain America and Steve Rogers is a bit bizarre, but I’m a bit bizarre.

Sometimes a Single Phrase Clarifies Everything

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In a New York Times has an article about how the wealthy donor class of the Democratic Party is colluding with the party leaders to take down Bernie Sanders.

This isn’t exactly secret, but this quote pretty much explains the whole scene in a remarkably vivid way:

From canapé-filled fund-raisers on the coasts to the cloakrooms of Washington, mainstream Democrats are increasingly worried that their effort to defeat President Trump in 2020 could be complicated by Mr. Sanders, in a political scenario all too reminiscent of how Mr. Trump himself seized the Republican nomination in 2016.

The whole  “Ancien Régime” vibe is vivid, and it is appaling.

Bernie in the Lions’ Den

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Bernie Sanders kicked serious ass at the Fox News town hall.

He was on point, answered the questions, and was a forceful advocate of his policies.

The hostile hosts were owned.

Favorite bit: Fox drone host asks audience who has insurance through their employer. (Lots of hands go up)

Drone host then asks who among them wants Medicare for all. (ALL the hands stay up, and they begin to cheer)

It’s probably the best thing that has been on Fox News in years.

People Are Stunned that Sanders States the Obvious

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It appears that it is news that Bernie Sanders has called out the Center for American Progress’s jihad against progressives, and the delicate flowers in the commentariat are having the vapors over this:

Senator Bernie Sanders, in a rare and forceful rebuke by a presidential candidate of an influential party ally, has accused a liberal think tank of undermining Democrats’ chances of taking back the White House in 2020 by “using its resources to smear” him and other contenders pushing progressive policies.

Mr. Sanders’s criticism of the Center for American Progress, delivered on Saturday in a letter obtained by The New York Times, reflects a simmering ideological battle within the Democratic Party and threatens to reopen wounds from the 2016 primary between him and Hillary Clinton’s allies. The letter airs criticisms shared among his supporters: that the think tank, which has close ties to Mrs. Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment, is beholden to corporate donors and has worked to quash a leftward shift in the party led partly by Mr. Sanders.

“This counterproductive negative campaigning needs to stop,” Mr. Sanders wrote to the boards of the Center for American Progress and its sister group, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “The Democratic primary must be a campaign of ideas, not of bad-faith smears. Please help play a constructive role in the effort to defeat Donald Trump.”

Mr. Sanders sent the letter days after a website run by the action fund, ThinkProgress, suggested that his attacks on income inequality were hypocritical in light of his growing personal wealth. The letter is tantamount to a warning shot to the Democratic establishment that Mr. Sanders — who continues to criticize party insiders on the campaign trail — will not countenance a repeat of the 2016 primary, when he and his supporters believe party leaders and allies worked to deny him the Democratic nomination.

CAP, and its president, Neera Tanden, have been a cancer of American politics since its founding by uber-lobbyist  (and poster child for poor IT security) John Podesta.

It’s goal has always been the promotion of neoliberal DLC type politics and the sabotage of progressives.

They are funded by the owners of Walmart and various Persian Gulf potentiates.

They are claiming that Sanders’ letter, “threatens to undo a delicate rapprochement, and could presage another bitter primary battle.”

That is complete bullsh%$.  CAP has been targeting progressive Democrats since its founding.

CAP is not, as the headline asserts, a “Liberal Think Tank,” it’s a full-employment scan for former Clinton, and now Obama, administration toadies.

As to Tanden, she’s just a horror show:

Since Mr. Trump’s victory, Ms. Tanden has recast herself and her organization as leaders of the anti-Trump “resistance,” and has sought to harness the energy of liberal activists who backed Mr. Sanders in 2016, even as she has continued complaining about his supporters.

Ms. Tanden, in an email Sunday morning, deferred comment to the editor in chief of ThinkProgress, which she said is “editorially independent” of CAP and its action fund.

Neera Tanden is lying about ThinkProgress being editorially independent.

We actually have evidence (from Wikileaks) of CAP, and Neera Tanden meddling in ThinkProgress.

Also, this is not just about Bernie.  They are going after anyone who they have deemed “unworthy” in the most scorched-earth manner possible:

Mr. Sanders also accused ThinkProgress of “personal attacks” on two other Democratic presidential candidates who have espoused progressive policies, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. He cited a February post on the website accusing Mr. Booker of undermining a bill he wrote with Mr. Sanders that would allow the importation of medications from Canada and other countries. Mr. Sanders further accused ThinkProgress of playing into President Trump’s hands by publishing op-eds criticizing Ms. Warren for claiming Native American heritage.

So, this appears to be a a “Liberal Think Tank” thet embraced Trump’s “Pocahontas” comments about Warren.

CAP, and ThinkProgress, are a cancer on American Politics, and they need to be called out

Walking the Walk, Bernie Sanders Again

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Sanders campaign staff is going to join a union:

Employees on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign are joining a labor union, officials announced Friday, a historic move that comes amid a Democratic primary featuring intense competition for working-class voters.

All campaign employees below the rank of deputy director will be represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400, the union said, adding that it will start negotiating a collective bargaining agreement as soon as possible.

“We expect this will mean pay parity and transparency on the campaign, with no gender bias or harassment, and equal treatment for every worker, whether they’re in Washington, D.C., Iowa, New Hampshire or anywhere else,” UFCW Local 400 President Mark Federici said in a statement.

Sanders (I-Vt.) has faced questions about the way his 2016 campaign handled allegations of sexual misconduct. Asked if the effort to unionize was a response to that, Jonathan Williams, the communications director for UFCW Local 400, said it was not. A Sanders spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that question.

The Sanders campaign applauded the move to unionize its members.

“We’re honored that his campaign will be the first to have a unionized workforce,” said Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir in a statement. The campaign said it helped pave the way for its workers to organize and did not require an election.

Bernie is walking the walk, unlike, for example, the sexual harassment in the Gillibrand Senate office, and the abusive environment in Klobuchar’s Senate office.

I think that a lot of the Democratic Presidential candidates are trying very hard to fake authenticity, and it shows.

Clearly, Bernie Sanders Cannot Appeal to Black Voters

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Cornel West has just endorsed Bernie Sanders:

In an interview with The Intercept published Thursday, philosopher Cornel West endorsed Bernie Sanders’ bid for the White House.

West, who endorsed Sanders in 2016 and campaigned for him, explained that the Vermont senator fulfils “Martin Luther King-like” criteria when it comes to issues of race, war, materialism, and poverty.

“And this is the first time I’ve had a chance to publicly endorse him again, but yes, indeed. I’ll be in his corner that we’re going to win this time,” he said, adding, “my dear brother Bernie stands shoulders above any of the other candidates running in the Democratic primary when it comes to that Martin Luther King-like standards or criteria.”

Bernie Sanders is often accused by his opponents — despite his activist past and lifelong dedication to civil rights — of having a “problem” with black voters. But according to Cornel West that will be a non-issue in 2020.

In 2016 Sanders was facing two major issues: The “Clinton machine” and lack of name recognition. Since then, African Americans have “had the chance to discover” who Bernie Sanders really is, according to the philosopher, and this is now reflected in the polls.

I find the endorsement a big over the top (“Martin Luther King-like standards”), but considering the alternatives, his endorsement is not surprising.

Tweet of the Day

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#BernieInChicago chastizes the crowd for the second day in a row for chanting his name, exclaiming "Nope, no no no, its not about me!"

The crowd then naturally erupts into a #NotMeUs chant with a huge grin on Bernie's face "That's more like it!"#Bernie2020

— Winkle the BernieBro 🌹 (@the_bernie_bro) March 4, 2019

It’s not a surprise that you would hear this from Bernie, but you would never hear this from Hillary, along with running an incompetent and lazy campaign, is why she lost.

Populism, whether real (Bernie) of fake (Donald) derives its power from this.

Bernie Sanders Walking the Walk

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Bernie Sanders is all over the strike at Wabtec in Erie, PA.

GE sold the plant to Wabtec a few days ago, and Wabtec has attempted to invalidate the union agreement: (Full disclosure, I worked there from 1994-1996)

When 1,700 members of United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America Locals 506 and 618 struck at the sprawling Wabtec locomotive plant in Erie, Pennsylvania, Tuesday morning, they got an immediate show of solidarity from one of the most prominent political figures in the United States.

“Americans are sick and tired of corporate America and their wealthy CEOs ripping off working families,” announced Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, in a tweet dispatched shortly after the picket line was established. “I’m proud to stand with the locomotive manufacturing workers of @ueunion Local 506 and 618 in their fight against GE/Wabtec to maintain decent wages and working conditions.”

That’s the right response from a contender for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Democrats have to stand in outspoken solidarity with workers, especially when their unions are struggling to preserve manufacturing jobs and maintain fair wages in historic urban and industrial centers such as Erie.

………

The strike in Erie pits a union with deep roots in Western Pennsylvania and American manufacturing against a powerful multinational corporation—Webtec (Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation)—that, after taking charge this week of a former GE Transportation manufacturing facility, has refused to maintain existing protections for workers. “We are extremely disappointed that the company could not see its way to agree to continue the terms and conditions that we have worked under for decades. Their refusal leaves us with no choice but to go out on strike to protect our members’ and our children’s future,” says UE Local 506 president Scott Slawson.

According to UE: “Wabtec’s terms and conditions, which they imposed when they took over the plant on Monday, include the introduction of mandatory overtime and arbitrary schedules, wage reductions of up to 38 percent for recalled and newly-hired workers, and the right to use temporary workers for up to 20 percent of the work in the plant.”

………

Sanders has been in the thick of this fight. Last week, he wrote Wabtec CEO Raymond Betler a letter that called out the new boss for trying to squeeze concessions out of workers. “Let’s be clear,” noted Sanders. “Wabtec is not a poor company. It is not going broke. Through the first three quarters of last year, Wabtec made a $256 million profit and had enough money to give you a $3.5 million compensation package.”

“Corporate executives must not use the merger between GE and Wabtec to hurt workers,” wrote the senator, who argued that “the Wabtec/GE merger should not be used to take away the hard-fought gains UE has achieved over the past several decades.”

Sanders promised to “provide my full support and solidarity to the workers at this plant to ensure that they achieve a fair and equitable collective bargaining agreement.” And he has done just that, using his considerable social-media presence and public appearances (including a CNN Town Hall event Monday night) to focus attention on what he has described as a struggle that has meaning for “working Americans everywhere.”

From the rest of the voluminous Democratic Presidential field?  **Crickets**

To a large degree, my experience at GE Transportation Systems (GETS) (now Wabtec) is responsible for my political move left in my middle age.

It was a contentious labor environment, and management, primarily the big bosses at the Connecticut headquarters loathed the union, and the workers.

I wholeheartedly support the strikers.

Bernie is in the House

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You had me at, “I”

Bernie Sanders has made it official, he is running for President again:

Sen. Bernie Sanders has confirmed to VPR that he is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

His official announcement video was posted online Tuesday morning.

“I wanted to let the people of the state of Vermont know about this first,” Sanders told VPR’s Bob Kinzel. “And what I promise to do is, as I go around the country, is to take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of — a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings — that’s what I’m going to carry all over this country.”

Sanders said he is running to oppose President Donald Trump, and to enact many of the progressive ideas — including universal health care coverage, a $15 minimum wage and reducing student debt — that he championed in 2016.

“I think the current occupant of the White House is an embarrassment to our country,” Sanders said. “I think he is a pathological liar… I also think he is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, somebody who is gaining cheap political points by trying to pick on minorities, often undocumented immigrants.”

Sanders said his campaign hopes to enlist one million people in a “grassroots movement of people prepared to stand up and fight.”

He’s already done pretty good on the whole, “Grassroots Movement,” thing, as is indicated in his blowing past Kamala Harris’ first day total in only 4 hours. (Harris’ fund raising had the pundits in paroxysms of amazement)

Also, this time around, it looks like his campaign staff will be a lot more professionally savvy:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has tapped Faiz Shakir to serve as his campaign manager for his second run at the White House, The Daily Beast has learned.

In hiring Shakir, Sanders brings into the fold one of the Democratic Party’s better-traveled operatives—an official with limited campaign experience but with ties to the party’s think tank infrastructure, its Hill operations, and the larger progressive universe.

Shakir joins the Sanders operation from the American Civil Liberties Union where he served as national political director since early 2017. Before joining the ACLU, he was a senior adviser to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and before that he worked with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). He first made a name for himself as an editor at the website ThinkProgress, the news arm associated with, though editorially independent of, the powerhouse Democratic think-tank Center for American Progress.

Hopefully, Shakir will let Bernie be Bernie.

The Term is Mensch

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Bernie Sanders, who, when asked about Representative Omar’s tweets about AIPAC, offered her his unqualified support:

SCOOP: HEARD LAST NIGHT — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on a conference call hosted by Jim Zogby, Co-Chair of the DNC’s Ethnic Council, when asked about the controversy over Rep. Ilhan Omar’s tweets about AIPAC:“I talked to Ilhan last night to give her my personal support. We will stand by our Muslim brothers and sisters.”

He really is a stand-up guy.

Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?

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A coven of witches in New York have cast a hex on Brett Kavanaugh, which is weird, but it appears that some of the flying monkey right wing crowd took it seriously enough that they sent the witches death threats.

No, this is not the Onion:

Melissa Madara was not surprised to receive death threats on Friday as her Brooklyn witchcraft store prepared to host a public hexing of newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh this weekend.

 The planned casting of an anti-Kavanaugh spell, one of the more striking instances of politically disgruntled Americans turning to the supernatural when frustrated by democracy, has drawn backlash from some Christian groups but support from like-minded witch covens.

 “It gives the people who are seeking agency a little bit of chance to have that back,” Madara said. The ritual was scheduled to be livestreamed on Facebook and Instagram at 8 p.m. EDT on Saturday (1200 GMT Sunday).

………

More than 15,000 people who have seen Catland Books promotions on Facebook have expressed interest in attending the event, vastly exceeding the shop’s 60-person capacity.

I honestly have no idea how people who do satire complete with this sh%$.

Feel Good Story of the Day

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“Bernie called me the day after our election here,” Jeremy Corbyn said in an interview published Thursday by the Intercept. “I was half-asleep watching something on television. And Bernie comes on to say, well done on the campaign, and I was interested in your campaigning ideas. Where did you get them from? And I said, well, you, actually.”

Corbyn, who won the leadership of the Labour Party in 2015 and held it after a 2016 challenge, has frequently been cited by Sanders as an example of how left politics can win. This year, a snap election that began with predictions about Corbyn driving Labour into the wilderness ended with a series of surprise gains, and Prime Minister Theresa May clinging to power in a controversial deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party. According to a post-election analysis by Ipsos Mori, over half of eligible British voters under age 30 turned out — double the youth turnout rate in some American elections. That led to surprising Labour gains in cities with large universities, with student turnout overturning large Conservative majorities.

This amuses me no end.

Giving Money as an Insult

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When Bernie Sanders did his tour with Tom Perez in their mutual political tour, he paid his way for his expenses so as not to be beholden to the DNC:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who clashed with the Democratic National Committee during his 2016 presidential campaign and continues to criticize the party, gave $100,000 to the DNC in May to help cover costs from his cross-country spring tour with DNC Chairman Tom Perez.

Sanders and Perez embarked on the nine-state “unity tour” earlier this year after Sanders’ endorsed candidate, Rep. Keith Ellison — who supported Sanders in the 2016 presidential race — lost the race for DNC chairman to Perez. Sanders moved the money from his presidential campaign account to the DNC to help pay for the tour, according to campaign finance records and Sanders spokesman Josh Miller-Lewis.

The rare transfer of money from Sanders to the national Democratic Party comes after the unity tour and addition of Ellison as a “deputy chair” at the DNC, two changes that could signal a thaw in a high-profile, often-icy relationship. Former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile, who led the DNC after Wasserman Schultz resigned, were both Hillary Clinton allies — a fact that roiled Sanders supporters when hacked emails showed DNC staffers discussing Sanders unfavorably during the primary.

The Sanders campaign also filed a lawsuit against the DNC in 2016, alleging the party wrongly revoked his campaign’s access to voter data during that year’s campaign. The lawsuit had marked a particularly low point in relations between Sanders and the party, which pulled Sanders campaign access to certain databases before the first 2016 primaries and caucuses, after discovering that Sanders staffers had improperly accessed data used by Clinton’s rival campaign. Sanders withdrew the lawsuit last year.

But despite the unity tour and the May donation, Sanders is still outwardly critical of the Democratic Party, which he recently said needs “fundamental change” and “fundamental restructuring.” During the 2016 presidential race, Sanders set up a joint fundraising committee with the DNC — but no money ever passed through it.

Claiming that the money transfer, “Signals a thaw in a high-profile, often-icy relationship,” seems to me to be a little bit clueless.

If Bernie Sanders explicitly raised money for the DNC, that might constitute a thaw.

Refusing to let the DNC pay his way on a DNC tour is a way of staking out his independence of the Democratic Party establishment.

This is a f%$# you to the DNC, not a rapprochement.