Sanders warned Colorado voters that ‘if we do not get our act together, this country is going to slide into oligarchy’
By Lauren McCauley
Common Dreams
Oct 17, 2016 – Sen. Bernie Sanders campaigns for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Denver, where supporters dropped a banner calling for rejection of the Dakota Access pipeline. (Photo: Bruce Finley/ The Denver Post)
Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) appeared side-by-side in Denver on Sunday evening to once again make the case to progressive voters that a vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is still a vote for "political revolution."
"To every person who ‘felt the Bern’ during during the primary, America and the Democratic Party know the power and energy of the progressive movement," Warren told the 1,700 who packed the Auraria Campus student union. Sanders won the March caucus in the pivotal battleground state, where Clinton is now polling an average of nine points ahead of Republican rival Donald Trump.
"It goes without saying," Sanders said, "that all of us together have got to do everything we can to elect Hillary Clinton president. But what is equally important is that on November 9th, the day after Hillary is elected president, we continue our efforts because we know what real change is about, what real politics is about, is transforming this country."
Both progressive firebrands touted "the most progressive party platform in the history of the United States of America," which they credited to the millions of voters who supported Sanders during the primary campaign. However, they said that the reforms called for the in the platform which will require defending.
Sanders said that if voters think that Wall Street, as well as the insurance, fossil fuel, and pharmaceutical industries, are going to "go peacefully into the night, you are mistaken."
He laid out the "two-fold struggle" for progressive voters. First, he said, Clinton needs to win by "landslide proportions so there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that this country is going to reject that sexism, that racism, the xenophobia of the Trump campaign." (Continued)
Continue reading Sanders and Warren: First Vanquish Trump, Then Mobilize for ‘Political Revolution’ →
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One tactic is making the lines slow down with spurious challenges
The state’s unique rules make it vulnerable to Election Day mischief. In a tight race, that could help Donald Trump.
By Erick Trickey
Politico.com
In 2004, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students waited for hours to vote in the presidential election. The local Democratic Party, alarmed at the bottleneck, handed out pizza and water to encourage the students to stay. Pittsburgh Steelers Hall-of-Famer Franco Harris worked the line, armed with a giant bag of Dunkin Donuts, and Liz Berlin of the Pittsburgh band Rusted Root performed on guitar.
The stalled line wasn’t because of the high turnout. It was what was happening at the check-in desk.
“The attorneys for the Republican Party were challenging the credentials of pretty much every young voter who showed up,” recalls Pat Clark, a Pittsburgh activist and registered Democrat who was working for an election-protection group that day.
The GOP attorneys were acting as poll watchers. A common practice in many states, partisan poll watching helps parties get out the vote and keep an eye out for irregularities. But in Pennsylvania, laws governing how observers can challenge voters are unusually broad, and that makes them susceptible to abuse.
On that day in 2004, students who were challenged by the GOP lawyers were told they needed to find a friend who could sign an affidavit proving their identity and residence. Other battleground states, concerned that their voter-challenge laws could be misused, have limited or even abolished them in the past decade. But Pennsylvania hasn’t modified its rules. That worries election experts, who fear Donald Trump’s persistent calls for supporters to monitor the polls to prevent cheating could create conflicts and chaos inside and outside of precincts across the state.
“I hope you people can … not just vote on the 8th, [but] go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it’s 100-percent fine,” Trump said at an August 12 rally in Altoona, in rural central Pennsylvania. “We’re going to watch Pennsylvania—go down to certain areas and watch and study—[and] make sure other people don’t come in and vote five times. … The only way we can lose, in my opinion—and I really mean this, Pennsylvania—is if cheating goes on.”
In a speech 10 days later in Ohio, Trump dropped an ominous hint that he had more in mind than just witnessing democracy in action: “You’ve got to get everybody to go out and watch, and go out and vote,” Trump said. “And when [I] say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about, right?”
Trump’s claim that widespread voting fraud could swing the presidential election has been widely debunked; a national study discovered only 10 cases of fraud by misrepresentation from 2000 to 2012—1 in every 15 million eligible voters. But Trump’s remedy could have a very real and much larger impact. In a state that has been described as a “blue wall,” crucial to Clinton’s election chances, and where polls show her lead in the 3 percent range (down from 9 percent a month ago), blocking likely Democratic voters in Pennsylvania’s major cities could help Trump tighten the results on November 8.
“Instead of seeing orderly poll watching,” says Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, “we might see a lot of individuals trying to take on the role of election officials or law enforcement, and crossing the line into intimidation, discrimination and polling place disruption.”
***
Pennsylvania knows it has a problem on its hands, or at least the potential for one. That’s why the Pennsylvania Department of State issued guidelines in 2012 to help election workers cope with the state’s broad law.
The guidelines, which are nonbinding, call on election workers to prevent watchers from challenging voters “routinely, frivolously or without a stated good faith basis.” Wanda Murren, press secretary for the Department of State, explains that using challenges “to intimidate or harass certain voters” could “rise to the level of criminal behavior.”
Continue reading How Hostile Poll-Watchers Could Hand Pennsylvania to Trump →
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By J.D. Prose
Beaver County Times
July 13, 2016 – As a member of the Progressive Democrats of America, New Brighton resident Randy Shannon was one of those who wanted self-described democratic socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders to run for president.
With Sanders, of Vermont, conceding Tuesday that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic presidential nominee, the dream of a Sanders presidency is over, but Shannon, who was elected a Sanders delegate from the 12th Congressional District, was not too upset.
“I’m pretty satisfied with the progress that’s been made,” he said, pointing to issues such as expanding Medicare and Medicaid, protecting Social Security and replacing free trade deals with fair trade that he said would have gone ignored if not for Sanders.
Sanders, Shannon said, also forced the Democratic Party back to representing interests of regular Americans. “That’s what Sanders was running against,” he said, “the corporate takeover of the Democratic Party.”
Beaver Falls resident Linwood Alford stood behind Sanders with other supporters during an address on labor issues before a Pittsburgh rally in March during the primary and ran unsuccessfully to be a Sanders delegate.
Alford was happy about the endorsement. “We don’t want Trump in there so you know that was going to happen,” he said.
Sanders spotlighted issues that “have to be dealt with,” such as mass incarceration and raising the minimum wage, Alford said. “They’re part of the problem that’s going on in America,” he said.
Coleman Leggett, a 22-year-old Florida native now working as an organizer in Allegheny County for the Clinton campaign, was initially a Sanders supporter up until a few months ago.
Leggett said the supposed political divide between Clinton and Sanders has been greatly exaggerated. “More or less, Sen. Sanders and Hillary Clinton have more in common than people give them credit for,” he said.
Diehard Sanders supporters, some of whom have pledged never to vote for Clinton, should take solace in a Democratic campaign much more in touch with their views than presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, Leggett said.
“This is the most progressive platform and the most progressive campaign the Democrats have seen in recent years,” Leggett said.
Continue reading Bernie Sanders Supporters Say He Changed the Campaign, Prepare to Back Clinton →
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By Robert Borosage
Campaign for America’s Future
March 7, 2016 – Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders won three of four state contests over the weekend. On the Republican side, Ted Cruz emerged as the leading challenger to Donald Trump in what is quickly becoming a two-man race. And the seventh Democratic debate, in Flint, Mich., highlighted the differences between the parties as much as the differences between the two contenders.
Democrats: Sanders Still Rising
Sanders took the caucuses in Nebraska, Kansas and Maine, while losing the Louisiana primary, as Clinton continued her sweep of the red states of the South. While the mainstream media – egged on by the Clinton campaign – edges towards calling the race over, Sanders keeps on rising. His expanding army of small donors continues to fuel his campaign. And he can look forward to growing support – particularly in the contests after mid-March, as he introduces himself to more and more voters.
For Clinton, the victory in Louisiana showed her “firewall” of African-American voters continues to hold. The two candidates ended dividing the delegates won over the weekend, showing the tough challenge Sanders faces. But Clinton’s losses in the caucuses should raise concern. Unlike 2008, she is organized and intent on competing in the caucus states. But she clearly has trouble rousing the passions of the activist voters who tend to dominate caucuses.
Republicans: The Donald Is The Moderate
The Republican race is rapidly turning into a two-man faceoff between Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Trump won the Louisiana primary and the Kentucky caucus over the weekend. Cruz won the caucuses in Kansas and Maine. Marco Rubio and Governor John Kasich trailed badly in all four. Rubio did pick up the Puerto Rican primary on Sunday.
Clearly, the much ballyhooed plan of the “Republican establishment” to rally around Marco Rubio has collapsed. Rubio’s schoolyard taunts at Donald Trump haven’t helped him. If Rubio doesn’t win Florida on March 15 – and he trails badly in the most recent polls – he is gone. If Kasich doesn’t win Ohio, the race may be virtually over.
Now Republicans must look on their works in horror. Trump – the xenophobic, racist, misogynistic blowhard – is the moderate in the race. Cruz, the most hated Republican in the Senate, is a right-wing zealot. He criticizes Trump not for being extreme, but for being squishy – on abortion, on immigration, on judges, on government. Moderate Republicans may now try to rally around John Kasich, if he wins Ohio. Good luck with that.
Their choice is winnowing down to the disruptor against the zealot. The politics of resentment and racial division have blown up in their faces.
The Democratic Contrast: We Do Substance
The most notable contrast during the seventh Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan was not between Clinton and Sanders, but between the Democrats and the Republicans. As Andrea Bernstein, editor at WNYC, tweeted: “Democratic debate so far: guns, schools, health care, trade, infrastructure, transportation, welfare, racism. GOP debate last week: hand size.”
The Democratic exchange was feistier than normal. Clinton is perfecting the technique of interrupting Sanders, hoping to set off a testy explosion. The campaign and the press tried to make much of Sanders telling her “Excuse me, I’m talking.” But after the Republican melee, this is pretty hard case to make. Sanders remains the courtliest of contenders.
Continue reading Sanders Still Rising; Republican Nightmare Worsens →
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By Dave Johnson
Campaign for America’s Future
“Investing in infrastructure makes our economy more productive and competitive across the board.”
– Hillary Clinton
Dec 1, 2015 – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has announced a plan for infrastructure investment. How does her plan stack up against that of her chief competitor, Bernie Sanders?
Also, how will Clinton and Sanders pay for their plans? On that question, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) recently came up with a set of principles we can use to judge this.
Clinton’s Infrastructure Plan
Clinton on Monday announced a plan for investing in infrastructure improvements. Meteor Blades laid out the need for infrastructure investment at Daily Kos in “Clinton proposes $275 billion spending for infrastructure“:
… 11 percent of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient and a fourth of them are functionally obsolete. Similar deficiencies can be found in schools, dams, levees, railroads, the electrical grid, and wastewater facilities. In its 2013 quadrennial report card on U.S. infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers said the nation would need to invest an additional $1.6 trillion by 2020 to put its infrastructure into good repair. And that doesn’t include innovative infrastructure like universal broadband.
Clinton’s infrastructure plan is detailed at her website in “Hillary Clinton’s Infrastructure Plan: Building Tomorrow’s Economy Today.” Here is a distillation:
● $250 billion dollars in infrastructure investment, spread out over five years as additional spending of $50 billion each year.
● An additional one-time $25 billion to seed a national infrastructure bank. The bank will support up to an additional $225 billion in direct loans, loan guarantees, and other forms of credit enhancement. These are loans to states and cities which will require tolls, fees, etc. to pay off.
● Spending priorities include “smart investments in ports, airports, roads, and waterways”; “giving all American households access to world-class broadband and creating connected ‘smart cities’”; “building airports and air traffic control systems”; “a smart, resilient electrical grid”; “safe and reliable sources of water”; “a national freight investment program”; “upgrade our dams and levees to improve safety and generate clean energy”; safe, smart roads and highways that are ready for the connected cars of tomorrow” and “the new energy sources that will power them.”
● A promise of “a faster, safer, and higher capacity passenger rail system.” But the plan does not mention high-speed rail. (Note that a single high-speed rail system from Los Angeles to San Francisco is expected to cost up to $60 billion, which alone is almost one-fourth of Clinton’s entire five-year infrastructure investment for all infrastructure needs.)
Sanders’ Infrastructure Plan
Clinton’s $275 billion infrastructure plan offers modest spending and contains few specifics. Contrast that with candidate Bernie Sanders, who has proposed a highly detailed, $1 trillion plan.
Continue reading Public Works: How The Clinton and Sanders Infrastructure Plans Measure Up →
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Bernie on the picket line in Iowa
By Vaughn Hillyard
Beaver County Blue via NBC News
DES MOINES, Iowa, Sept 7, 2015 — A picketing president? Bernie Sanders said it could be him.
"Yeah, I might. That’s right. Why not," Sanders said when asked about the possibility after addressing AFSCME union members on Saturday in Altoona, Iowa.
The day before, Sanders picketed outside a Cedar Rapids plant that produces specialized starches alongside union workers engaged in a battle with the plant’s parent company, Ingredion, over new contract negotiations.
And to a crowd of 400 on Thursday in Burlington, Iowa—an old, union town hit hard over the last three decades by shuttered factories—Sanders emphatically stated: "The bottom line is: For millions of American workers, wages in this country are just too damn low."
Since announcing his candidacy, Sanders has zeroed in on blue-collar voters, consistently addressing low wages, unemployment issues and the country’s trade policies in stump speeches—pushing back against the notion that the economic recovery is as strong as often touted.
"I assumed I would be a Hillary supporter—and rightly or wrongly, probably because I feel like in the last twenty years, the greatest time we had between financial stability was during Bill Clinton’s run," said Ron Lowe, 52, of Grinnell, Iowa.
But Lowe said he will caucus for Sanders in February. He drove 45 minutes with his mother-in-law last Thursday to see the Democratic candidate at a rally.
"I feel like he’s not a filthy rich millionaire," Lowe said. "He wants to take on the rich, powerful people that seem to make all these decisions without any regard to the people in the middle to lower class. And it’s so obvious that the rich keep getting richer."
Lowe, a father of four, is unemployed after losing his job three months ago. He worked in Grinnell’s Donaldson plant—since the age of 24—manufacturing mufflers for agricultural equipment. But over the years, the company moved jobs to Mexico and other states, where Lowe said non-union facilities gave the company a cheaper option. Its last employees are expected to be out of work by the end of the year.
At a time when Democrats tout the economic recovery, Sanders harps on the economic data point of real unemployment, a point often used by his Republican counterparts. Despite a decrease in nationwide unemployment to 5.1 percent, the unemployment rate does not account for individuals who are underemployed, have given up looking for work, and others who are working part time but would like to work full time. Including those individuals, the unemployment figure is 10.3 percent.
"It is absolutely imperative that we stop the hemorrhaging of decent paying jobs because of our disastrous trade policies," Sanders said. ‘You are looking at a Senator and former congressman who voted against [North American Free Trade Agreement], against [Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement], against permanent trade relations with China. And you’re looking at a senator who is going to do everything he can to help defeat this disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership."
Sanders provides a contrast to Sec. Hillary Clinton on trade—without naming her directly. Though she hasn’t taken a stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Clinton helped kickstart the negotiations, and Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law.
"To simply blame the Republicans for that would be unfair," Sanders said on Saturday. "Democratic presidents have been involved in that trade policy. It has been bipartisan. It has been wrong."
Matt Richards, 56, of Newtown lost his job in 2007 when the town’s Maytag plant closed, putting more than 2,500 employees out of work. Richards worked at the facility for 23 years as an oiler, doing jobs like greasing conveyer lines.
"It’s a whole different town now. There was a lot of money here when Maytag was here," Richards said. "The crazy part of it is these jobs—for a small town like we are—was awesome pay, good benefits, you had some vacation time…It makes it tough in this small town."
Richards—though not ready to fully commit to a candidate—says Sanders’ message resonates.
"A lot of people like Bernie. He has a lot of good ideas," Richards said. "And what he talks about, getting our wages up there, you got to let a guy make a living wage to take care of a family. You know, nine bucks an hour isn’t going to cut it or ten bucks an hour. You’ve got to let a guy get to where he can make some money."
Last month, Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, called Bernie Sanders "a warrior" at a labor forum hosted in Iowa.
"I want to say thank you for being a warrior for working people—not just lately but for your entire career," Trumka said to Sanders in front of 200 union workers. "All of us are living a little bit better because of that. And we want to say thank you for those efforts. You’ve earned them."
Trumka, however, made it clear on Meet the Press this Sunday that he will not personally endorse a candidate and likes both Clinton and Sanders.
Another former Maytag employee and United Auto Workers union member, Lonnie White, 66, a porcelain sprayer at the time, sat in the back row of Sanders’ event on the Meskwaki Settlement in central Iowa on Thursday.
"I think that he’s what the Democrats used to be," White said. "I think the Democratic Party used to be exactly what he represents. Taking care of each other. I think we’ve gotten away from that and gone to the middle."
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Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 