SANDERS IS BACK IN THE NEWS
Compiled by Lucy Maness Warner
September 18, 2016

“That's according to a recent poll by Rasmussen, which found 48 percent of likely Democratic voters backed the Vermont senator to step into the role in the event the former secretary of state were forced to drop out.”

I don’t want to see Hillary “forced” to step down, but it could really happen. I wonder if the DNC is thinking about this. I’m delighted to see that 48% of Democratic voters want Sanders to be picked for the role. He’s really a bright, forceful, and yet cooperative and level-headed man who can handle the job. I was impressed with his conducting an eight-and-a-half-hour filibuster in 2010.

He can negotiate with Putin if necessary, I’m sure. I also think he has the respect of the rest of the world, which Trump doesn’t. A recent poll was taken in Britain to ban Trump from setting foot on British soil. That’s really not a good sign. I really am afraid of the likelihood that the Drumpf may actually win the election, and I do believe that Sanders can “beat him, and beat him badly!” Why is the DNC sticking with a misguided decision?



http://www.aol.com/article/2016/09/16/poll-democrats-want-sanders-if-clinton-drops-out-of-race/21473759/

Poll: Democrats want Sanders if Clinton drops out of race
By: Nathan Giannini
Sep 16th 2016 6:41PM

61 PHOTOS

If Hillary Clinton were to leave the presidential race, Democrats would prefer Bernie Sanders take over the party's nomination.

That's according to a recent poll by Rasmussen, which found 48 percent of likely Democratic voters backed the Vermont senator to step into the role in the event the former secretary of state were forced to drop out.

Vice President Joe Biden, who flirted with running last year before ultimately declining to do so, came in second with 22 percent.

Clinton's running mate, Tim Kaine, came in third with 14 percent.

Donald Trump and other GOP figures have raised questions about Clinton's health over the past few months. Those rumors rose to prominence after the former first lady was forced to leave a 9/11 memorial event on Sunday.

Her campaign later revealed the nominee was suffering from a mild case of pneumonia, but adamantly maintains it was a minor incident and that Clinton is healthy enough for the presidency.

Clinton returned to the campaign trail on Thursday after several days of rest.



AOL Info on Sanders

http://www.aol.com/2016-election/bernie-sanders/

CANDIDATE
Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders is a current U.S. Senator from Vermont. He was born in Brooklyn, NY and initially attended Brooklyn College before earning his B.A. at the University of Chicago. Sanders is America's longest-serving independent politician in Congress. He gained national attention in 2010 for his eight-hour-long filibuster against the extension of the Bush era tax cuts. The Vermont senator considers himself to be a democratic socialist, a label that has resulted in attacks from many of his rivals. Sanders’ support has translated into massive crowds across the nation, as well as a campaign mostly founded by small donations. In January alone Sanders raised $20 million with a $27 donation average. If elected, he would be 75 years old on the day he’s inaugurated.

BERNIE SANDERS, OCTOBER 2015

Brothers and sisters, our job is to end that rigged economy and create an economy that works for working people.

About the Candidate:

BIRTH September 8, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York.

AGE ON INAUGURATION DAY 75 years old

RELIGION Raised Jewish, non practicing

EDUCATION University of Chicago

FAMILY Sanders married Deborah Shiling in 1964, but the couple divorced in 1966 and had no children together. His son Levi was born in 1969 to Susan Campbell Mott. Mott and Sanders never married. In 1988, Sanders married Jane O'Meara who had three children from a previous relationship.

NET WORTH $330,506

POLITICAL CAREER Sanders is America's longest-serving Independent politician in Congress. He served as a representative from the state of Vermont from 1991-2007 before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006. He was re-elected to the Senate in 2012.

TOP 5 DONOR INDUSTRIES Retired, Education, Democratic/Liberal, Lawyers/Law Firms, Health Professionals

Bernie Sanders on Abortion
Strongly pro-choice, touts his "lifetime" commitment to the issue.

“The current attempt to discredit Planned Parenthood is part of a long-term smear campaign by people who want to deny women in this country the right to control their own bodies."


GO TO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLNKNq9soLE

Senator Bernie Sanders Filibuster (Full 8 1/2 hours)
Dennis Molema
View 8 minute video.



http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/bernie-sanders-coming-save-hillary-clinton

Bernie Sanders Is Coming Off the Bench to Save the Democrats
It's crunch time.

TIM MURPHY
SEP. 16, 2016 5:16 PM

Photograph -- Scott Audette/Reuters via ZUMA Pres


For a few minutes Friday afternoon in New Paltz, New York, it felt like old times for Bernie Sanders. Looking out over a sea of college students in Bernie t-shirts and Bernie buttons and a very uncomfortable looking Bernie onesie, the Vermont senator ran through the issues that had fueled his strong showing upstate during New York's March primary: fracking, oligarchy, inequality.

But this time, Sanders was on a different mission—to elect Zephyr Teachout to Congress in the state's 19th district. National Democrats consider the swing district held by the retiring GOP Rep. Chris Gibson one of their most important pickup opportunities, critical to their hopes of retaking the House, and Sanders was effusive in his praise of law professor and campaign finance crusader he has described as a leading light of his "political revolution." Of the 435 members of the House, he said, Teachout was poised to be "the most outstanding" of the bunch—"a leader at a time when we need leaders." When the crowd started into one last chant of "Ber-nie!" the senator interrupted, determined to pass the torch. "Thank you," he said, "but that 'Ber-NIE'! has now got to be directed to 'Ze-PHYR!'"

Sanders has been mostly quiet since the chaotic Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when hundreds of his supporters walked out of the arena after he ceded the nomination to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. But the Vermont independent had pledged to "vigorously" campaign for Clinton and downballot Democrats this fall and launched his own political non-profit to further the goals of his "revolution." Now, with less than two months to go until election day, Sanders is getting off the bench—and Democrats could really use the help.

After campaigning with Teachout, Sanders boarded a plane to Pittsburgh, where he was set to stump for Katie McGinty, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania. (Joining Sanders in Steel City: Braddock, Pennsylvania, mayor John Fetterman, a Sanders backer who lost to McGinty in the primary.) Then he has a busy weekend of rallies and organizing events planned for Ohio, where he and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are crisscrossing the state to campaign for Clinton, hitting the cities and college campuses where Sanders performed best in the March primary. After trailing for months, Trump has led the last three polls in Ohio and now leads in the Real Clear Politics average in the state.

Sanders' campaign tour comes at a time when a significant portion of his supporters are still unsure who to vote for. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday, 36 percent of voters under the age of 30 are supporting third-party candidates. Ten percent of those voters are backing Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who has made a show of appealing to disaffected Sanders supporters and has earned the backing of a handful of Democratic National Convention delegates. In July, Stein even offered to give Sanders a spot on the Green Party ticket if he would drop out of the Democratic race to join the third-party.

The 44-year-old Teachout, a Fordham University Law School professor and former Howard Dean staffer who has written a book about political corruption, was one of a handful of House candidates who Sanders endorsed during the primaries. Two years ago she ran for governor in the Democratic primary against the incumbent Andrew Cuomo and won 32 of 62 counties despite minimal funding and zero establishment support. Her unlikely success, and her unabashedly progressive platform, foreshadowed Sanders' long-shot campaign this spring.

Although Clinton should win New York's electoral votes easily, Teachout's Hudson Valley district—infused with a Vermont-ish mix of family farmers, college students, and old-school hippies—is emblematic of the kind of place in swing districts and purple states where Sanders' word carries the most weight. A local string band called Yard Sale, which described itself as "local and organic," performed on a stage fashioned from a shipping container for the crowd compromised largely of students from the nearby State University of New York at New Paltz. "We're gonna reach out/ for Teachout/ everybody/ join along," a band member sang.

Sanders couched his support in personal terms, citing a meeting he and Teachout had attended years ago opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement and calling Teachout's House race the clearest battle on the map between the "oligarchy" and the progressive left. (Teachout has challenged the billionaire hedge-funder Paul Singer, a backer of her Republican opponent John Faso—a former fracking pipeline lobbyist—to a debate.) When it was Teachout's turn, she addressed the audience, many of whom were hearing her speak for the first time, in a language that sounded familiar. She railed against the "hedge fund billionaires," such as Singer, funding a super-PAC in support of her opponent, and asked her supporters if they knew what her average donation was—a staple of Sanders stump speeches. "Nineteen dollars!" came the response.

But there were plenty of reminders of the challenges facing Sanders as he tries to herd his coalition into the Democratic tent. Perhaps wary of resurrecting old wounds (the Vermont senator was jeered when he called for party unity at a delegate meeting in Philly) neither candidate mentioned the name at the top of the Democratic ticket, and Sanders alluded to Trump only in passing.

Safiyyah Alston, a sophomore at SUNY-Ulster with a Three Bernie Moon t-shirt and flowers in her hair, told me she still just wanted to see Sanders on the ballot. "I support him now!" she said. "If he jumped in the race I'd support him." But she was still trying to get to yes with Clinton. Lorraine Vigoriti, another Bernie backer in a t-shirt that read "#ForeverBernie" with a drawing of a forlorn looking senator walking into the distance, told me it was "Jill or nobody." Why nobody? She was worried that if she so much as cast a vote it would be "stolen" by Clinton supporters at the polling location and converted into a Hillary vote; better to just stay home.

As organizers took apart the stage and wrangled attendees for volunteering shifts toward Teachout's goal of 70,000 door-knocks, I found 21-year-old Oscar Salazar in a onesie covered in photos of Bernie's smiling face. He had driven up from Westchester County, determined to travel "wherever Bernie speaks or wherever the Pokemon take me," he said. Salazar had backed Sanders during the primary, of course, and was now leaning toward Stein in the general election. "I'm tired of voting for the lesser of two evils," he said, although this was the first year he'd ever voted. Still, the primary hadn't soured him on Democrats entirely. He liked what he'd heard from Teachout—now he was planning to phone-bank for her.

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TIM MURPHY
Tim Murphy is a senior reporter at Mother Jones. Reach him at tmurphy@motherjones.com.

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“According to a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday, 36 percent of voters under the age of 30 are supporting third-party candidates.” This is a dangerously large number of people who refuse to “hold their nose” and vote for Hillary, with the Alt-right opposing her and shockingly powerful. I am truly concerned; elections do have a way of diverging from the predicted path, though, so I am waiting to see what will happen. I have an impression of our national character that we are not, mostly anyway, villains.



http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/296285-the-irony-of-bernie-sanders-superdelegate-argument

September 17, 2016, 02:01 pm
The irony of Bernie Sanders' superdelegate argument
By Dennis R. Bullock, contributor

Following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary, Bernie Sanders and his supporters wanted the Democratic Party to abandon the superdelegate system. They believed fundamentally that it is undemocratic. Indeed, their contention was that Hillary Clinton’s electoral advantage was only preserved by the inherent predominance conferred by possessing so many pre-committed superdelegates.

In the wake of his defeat, Sanders sought out a delegate system within the Democratic Party that reflects the will of the voters more faithfully. He argued that nothing like what just happened in this Democratic Primary should ever happen again — to anyone.

Sanders and his supporters may very well have a point as to why his campaign was unable to surmount Hillary Clinton’s oft-mentioned “inevitability,” despite his immense popularity. But it is a point that is particularly ironic for this election cycle when juxtaposed with what has occurred on the Republican side.

Why?

The Republican system is, in its present form, more reflective of what Bernie Sanders desires: it is much more purely democratic. The Republicans’ nominating system does not have superdelegates, and is mostly winner-take-all from state to state (the Democratic Party’s system of voter-assigned delegates is mostly proportional in each state).

Voters, most of whom self-identify as Republicans, overwhelmingly selected Donald Trump as their party’s presidential nominee, undeterred — and indeed often encouraged — by his nonsensical platitudes and meandering, often incoherent, policies.

This “movement,” as Trump is wont to call it, was completely unmitigated by a Republican nominating system that has no “top down” delegate feature. The Republican Party’s own leadership could not stop Trump’s ascendance, even though, as the process played out, they more and more desperately wanted to.

The paradox of Sanders’ argument is that it is quite context specific. What would have worked positively for him in this cycle is precisely what has worked against the “establishment” of the Republican Party. So, while Bernie Sanders laments what he sees as a system that gives the Democratic Party “establishment” a significant say over the presidential nomination, railing against it as a tool to suppress voters when their will does not align with the party’s, many Republicans, in retrospect, probably wish they’d had such a mechanism to temper the popular passions that selected Trump.

The frightening reality for the GOP is that the freight train that is Donald Trump was fueled by a large faction of self-identifying Republican voters that like Trump not only for his ideas, but for his advertised ability to somehow just make them all happen — ostensibly by fiat.

It is worth asking, at least rhetorically: If the Republicans had a robust superdelegate system and a largely proportional awarding of delegates, like the Democrats, would Donald Trump be the Republicans’ nominee at this juncture of the election cycle? Would the fate of someone like Ted Cruz or John Kasich, or perhaps even Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush have been different?

When arguing over “how democratic” the parties’ nominating processes are, and should be, it is always instructive to remember that the Framers feared direct democracy every bit as much as they did monarchical tyranny. They feared concentrations of power that would lead to “quick” or “easy” answers to complex and contested issues, whether bottom up or top down. They feared the power of majorities and demagogues every bit as much as they feared kings.

This is one of the most fundamental reasons why they constructed a federal republic, what we call today a representative democracy, with built-in insurance policies against concentrations of power in both the electoral process (the Electoral College, the original structure of senatorial elections and the Supreme Court appointment process, to name some), as well as the governing process (the Separation of Powers, Federalism, and Checks and Balances).

Political parties were unanticipated by the Framers. What Washington warned would have baleful effects on our Republic has turned out to be an essential phenomenon of democratic governance. In reality, the very enshrinement of the rights to assembly, to petition government over grievances and free speech make party development inevitable. Parties are private organizations, inextricably intertwined with the political process.

The Democrats and Republicans develop their nominating processes internally, independent of one another — and independent of any governmental guidance outside of the Constitution itself. America's party primary systems vary from state to state in intricate ways, but basically adhere to an overall unified party philosophy. Both parties’ processes over time, though, have evolved to become less top down than they once were.

How much democracy is appropriate for the parties’ internal nominating structures? Bernie Sanders has sought greater bottom up democracy in the Democratic Party’s primary system because he feels the superdelegate structure should never override the will of primary voters. The Republicans, meanwhile, already rely almost solely upon their voters’ collective will for their primary results.

Given what has happened in the Republican Primary, it may be instructive for both parties to not just look in the mirror, but also toward each other when they consider making permanent and profound changes to their primary processes.

For, while Bernie Sanders’ plight in the face of the Democratic Party’s superdelegate system has become somewhat of a cause célèbre, the Republicans’ plight in the face of their voters’ preference for a man like Donald Trump is certainly a cautionary tale.

Dennis R. Bullock recently ran for the California State Assembly 43rd District Seat. He continues to teach AP US Government & Politics and AP Macroeconomics at Providence High School in Burbank.



EXCERPT -- “Given what has happened in the Republican Primary, it may be instructive for both parties to not just look in the mirror, but also toward each other when they consider making permanent and profound changes to their primary processes.”

This is one of the most interesting and thoughtful arguments on how we should govern ourselves that I have ever read. The nature of the problem for both parties is clear, and when this all blew up approaching the Democratic candidate selection I was really furious. I do think that the way the Superdelegates are allowed to cast their ballots by a wink a nod is very shameful for a party like ours. I think the elected delegates are quite sufficient in number to provide a variety of opinions, and that process if it were truly followed would be open to the fresh air which we failed to have this time.

It’s the same old smoke-filled rooms again, like 1968. If the parties need a Senate-like function to prevent this highly feared domination by "the masses," let it be specified in a carefully conceived and written Constitutional amendment applying to both parties in the same way and operating in a balanced fashion.

The Democrats have been doing all of their decision-making in a covert fashion, from which the Primary voters were excluded; and no matter how personally fond we are of Hillary Clinton, the real key fact came down to, in the words of Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, “he isn’t even a Democrat.”

Another unfortunate thing which I believe to be true is that in 2008 Hillary was forced to bend the knee so that the party could bring forth their first Black president, and I suspect she was PROMISED her place as the first female president this year, with the result being that Bernie Sanders’ right to be the candidate was abrogated. Tough turkey, Bernie!

I also fear the interference into the matter by Rightist Koch money under the table. It’s the “dark money” corruption that is present in both of our large parties, which is why we are being called an oligarchy by many people nowadays. That’s too much raw power in too few hands.

I would like to see the parties broken up into at least two on each side, so that a range of platform choices would be possible for the electorate. The Primary votes -- which select the Presidential candidates -- are the key element in a Democratic process, which I like to think we have in this country. What the Dems have been doing is basically shoving their choice down the throats of the citizenry. Only an obscenity can describe what I think of that.

We can’t be sure that our favorite candidate will actually be elected, but if we can have a true choice in which something close to our own personal interests will be honored, it seems more like a real vote. In this case with the Dems it seemed to me to be pretty much a charade – a staged and scripted play rather than an election, and I really hate that. That’s what we used to say about the Soviet Union.

There are too many really serious national and world issues involved for this “our guys vs your guys” stuff to be acceptable to me. It doesn’t solve our problems, and it is to me simply disgusting. It was especially so, since Sanders is the first serious Progressive we have had in the party for the last fifteen years. I do miss Ted Kennedy.