Slamming the Koch brothers and decrying America's slide into "oligarchy," the Democratic presidential candidate energized an eager crowd in Las Vegas with his colorful language and a trademark salvo against the influence of mega donors.
Sanders challenged the audience, "People are going to say, 'Why did you go to this rally? Some guy no one has ever heard of? Why were you here?' And I want you to tell them, if anyone tells you politics is bulls---, and you shouldn't get involved, ask them why it is that the Koch brothers and other billionaires are spending 900 million bucks on this election?"
He continued, "They think it's pretty important, and if they think it's pretty important, then your friends should think it's pretty important."
The Vermont senator put the Koch brothers in sharp focus throughout his speech, spotlighting the conservative billionaire donors and their 2016 fundraising pledges as a symbol of a corrupt political process.
xBernie Sanders: I'll go further than Obama on immigration orders https://t.co/RHYSJWg4Bu | Getty pic.twitter.com/mPgQ3pih0T
— POLITICO (@politico) November 10, 2015x YouTube Video
The Campaign Is Rolling Out Its New Hamsphire Team A Bernie Sanders spokesperson tells ABC News that the campaign expects to roll out a New Hampshire steering committee this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday. It will feature “well-known activists, labor leaders, community activists, and some sitting state legislators,” according to the spokesperson.
While the campaign wouldn’t reveal the names of current lawmakers, the spokesperson did confirm a major member of the team: Dudley Dudley, a prominent activist, former state representative, and former candidate for U.S. Congress. (Her slogan was “Dudley Dudley: Congress Congress.”)
This announcement will come in addition to what the Sanders camp touts as a strong network of volunteers, a large New Hampshire staff -- Sanders has more paid staff in the state than Clinton -- and support from local labor groups.
In October, as Clinton was landing endorsements from mega-groups like the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the National Education Association (NEA), the Sanders team was announcing support from local chapters like SEIU 560 and IBEW 490. Sanders Communications Director Michael Briggs told ABC News that many “local labor organizations are going in a back-and-forth with their national organizations,” with many rank-and-file members arguing for Sanders.
Carol Backus might be one example. A former spokesman for the NEA in New Hampshire, she is an ardent Bernie supporter – and believes the senator is winning the volunteer race, even while losing the endorsement game.
xOur organizers in Manchester are working hard to build the political revolution this country needs. #nhpoliticspic.twitter.com/NSgSUo50PX
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 10, 2015x YouTube Video
Bernie Has A Troll Martin Shkreli, also known as "Pharma Bro," Tinder's "Most Hated Man in America," and the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, may need to add a new title to his growing list of credentials: ultimate Bernie Sanders troll.
On Monday, Shkreli tweeted to the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate, claiming to have applied for an internship.
"I filled out an internship application for @BernieSanders. If you can't beat em…," Shkreli wrote.
Sanders staffers responded quickly to the drug company executive. "You must complete all sections of the application in order to be considered for the position," Sanders' team tweeted.
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Sanders called Shkreli the "poster boy for drug company greed" shortly after the "Pharma Bro" jacked up the price on a lifesaving drug used to treat HIV patients, raising it from $13.50 per pill to an outlandish $750 per pill.
xEnjoyed meeting talented & passionate #StudentsForBernie& @WashoeDems supporting @BernieSanders in Reno on Friday! pic.twitter.com/6v3PZtMFXs
— Rep. Raúl Grijalva (@standwithraul) November 9, 2015x YouTube Video
Bernie Expands On His Immigration Ideas Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Monday that as president, he would stop deporting undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years — a group that makes up 88 percent of the more than 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country.
The Vermont senator made the announcement during a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada, saying that he would go further than nearly every other presidential candidate and further than President Obama has with his executive actions. In addition to granting deportation relief to immigrants who have lived in the country for more than five years, he said he’d provide administrative relief to the parents and of DREAMers, citizens and legal permanent residents.
“As president, passing a legislative solution to our broken immigration system will be a top priority,” Sanders said at the event co-hosted by the Fair Immigration Reform Network and The Nation. “But, let me be clear. I will not wait around for Congress to act. Instead, beginning in the first 100 days of my administration, I will work to take extensive executive action to accomplish what Congress has failed to do and to build upon President Obama’s executive orders.”
Sanders’ proposal includes the measures from the 2013 Senate immigration reform legislation that failed in the Republican-controlled House. But instead of just pushing for legislation, he said he would take executive action to grant deportation of relief to the millions of undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States long-term or who have children who have qualified for deportation relief.
xThank you to everyone who helped our campaign in Iowa this weekend. When we stand up and fight, we win. #FeelTheBernpic.twitter.com/cx52gL58X3
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 9, 2015x YouTube VideoMore On Immigration Sanders also said he would expand on Obama's deferred actions programs for undocumented young people and parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. That might be difficult -- although the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, is currently operating, the 2014 executive actions by Obama are blocked in the courts, continuing to put eligible parents at risk of deportation despite the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program, or DAPA.
Sanders said if he were president, DACA and DAPA would be supplemented by deportation relief for parents of DACA recipients, along with other family members and anyone who would have been eligible for legal status under the 2013 immigration reform bill that passed the Senate but never got a vote in the House.
Victims of domestic violence and unaccompanied minors who came to the U.S. from Central America would be considered a distinct group for purposes of asylum, Sanders said, a policy that could make it easier for them to remain in the U.S.
"This is the just and moral thing to do," he said.
Finally, Sanders said he would ensure that women who come to the U.S. with their husbands would be able to work even if they entered because of their spouse's work visa, something many are not currently allowed to do.
xFIRST time in all of my adult life I've ever donated to a presidential campaign #FeelTheBern@BernieSanders
— TheGypsyIsIn (@GypsyGem927) November 9, 2015x YouTube Video
Its Getting Harder To Write Off Bernie Sanders t’s time Democrats confront the reality that Bernie Sanders COULD win the 2016 general election. In fact, Sanders may well be the Democrats’ best hope for retaining the White House.
Until lately I’ve bought into the conventional wisdom that Sanders is performing a valuable service by raising issues that need to be raised, but that Sanders’ self-proclaimed “social Democrat” tag, his age, and the formidable Clinton machine were insurmountable obstacles to his winning either the primary or general election.
But that “wisdom” is looking very shaky in light of recent polls. The Democrats’ first TV debate in mid-October gave Clinton a surge of positive media. Yet the Quinnipiac poll taken weeks afterward continued to show her losing general election match-ups to Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Chris Christie. The margin of loss to Carson was 10 points, 50-40. What makes this ominous for Clinton is that she’s the best known candidate in either party. There isn’t a lot of elasticity in the Clinton numbers. Voters by and large have made up their minds about her, and the verdict isn’t good. She is viewed even less trustworthy than Donald Trump, the least trusted of any of the Republican candidates.
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Could a Sanders campaign overcome the opposition’s efforts to scare the daylights out of voters with spooky socialist stories? A few years ago, no question that would work. But in 2016, with so many voters looking for economic and political answers from a system they believe has failed them? The political soil seems more fertile than ever for a different crop of ideas. Go to the Sanders campaign web site and here’s what you find as his “radical” proposals:
A fairer, more progressive tax system, a $15 minimum wage, a major infrastructure rebuilding program, revised trade treaties, a youth jobs program, equal pay for women, universal education and health care and a strengthened social security system, guaranteed paid vacations, family and sick leave, more protections to help those who want to organize unions, breaking up the biggest banks, breaking the grasp of big money on politicians, more emphasis on racial equality, immigration reform, and accelerating the push for alternative energy.
Sanders remains a longshot to win the Democratic nomination. But those who want to see the Democrats win next November need to pay more serious attention to what the polls tell us, what Sanders’ million+ financial contributors mean, why Sanders is drawing larger crowds than any other candidate, and how closely the Sanders agenda (and the authenticity of his career) fits the change voters are demanding.
x#BernieMoneyBomb#VeteransDay#BernieSanders#PoliticalRevolution#FeelTheBern#donatepic.twitter.com/H1TxlFeMjg
— Kali N. (@ilakster) November 10, 2015x YouTube Video
Jane Sanders Speaks Presidential candidates spend a lot of time pressing the flesh with potential voters in restaurants. Bernie Sanders' White House bid began with a diner coming up to him.
At a Denny's in south Burlington, Vermont, a teary-eyed constituent came over and thanked the senator for his work on veterans' issues, recalled his wife, Jane. She had been reluctant about her husband joining the presidential fray.
"This veteran came by and sat down, and I said after standing up and saying bye to him, 'I guess I give up -- you have to do it,'" Jane O'Meara Sanders said in an interview with CNN's Gloria Borger.
Sanders' odds at claiming the Democratic presidential nomination were long then, and he remains an underdog against front-runner Hillary Clinton. Sanders, in fact, has never even served in elected office as a Democrat. He's been an independent -- a self-described democratic socialist one at that -- through eight years as Burlington mayor, 16 as Vermont's lone House member and nearly nine in the Senate.
But it's Bernie Sanders' potential crossover appeal that convinced Jane he should get into the 2016 race -- and could win.
"He is very authentic," she told Borger. "He is. I mean, what you see is what you get. He's been consistent on the issues. I know one of the things that people in Vermont feel is that we get support from Republicans in Vermont and they say, 'I disagree with you on many, many things. But I know you're saying what you believe and you'll do what you say.'"
xIf you haven't registered to vote you really should because Bernie Sanders is the future!!
— Katherine Farrell (@kamafarr) November 7, 2015x YouTube Video
No Board Is Better Than A Bad Board One of the senator’s most gutsy acts has gotten little notice: His two-year hold on two of President Obama’s slate of nominees to the postal Board of Governors.
The board doesn’t have high visibility outside the postal world, but it approves high-dollar capital investments, sets mail prices, long-term strategies and legislative policies and signs union contracts. One nominee, James Miller III, advocated to privatize the Postal Service when he led the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration. The other, Mickey Barnett, is a lobbyist for the payday loan industry. The candidates are anathema to the postal unions, which urged Sanders to block them.
Because of the hold, Congress has not voted on Miller, Barnett and three other nominees to fill expiring terms. As of December, the board will be left with one member and no quorum when two of the last remaining members’ terms expire.
Gunnels notes that any senator has a right to block a nominee.
“No board is better than a bad board,” he said. “Senator Sanders doesn’t believe we should have a board that supports dismantling and privatizing the Postal Service.”
xI am prepared to take on powerful special interests which wield enormous power over the economic and political life of this country.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 10, 2015|
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