Tag Archives: Bernie Sanders

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Bernie Sanders Statement On Trump

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BURLINGTON, Vt., Nov. 9 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement Wednesday after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States:

“Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids – all while the very rich become much richer.

“To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”

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Bernie Sanders, Politics, Sanders Presidential Bid

Trump And Sanders Blowing The Beltway’s Political Circuits

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Interesting exchange on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this morning, a program I generally do not watch because so many of its participants are suffering from “Beltway Fever”  but am now watching occasionally as the presidential campaign moves forward.

I was encouraged and surprised by an admission from one among the group of inside-the-beltway pundits, that they have been wrong,  and that it is no longer an impossibility that Donald Trump could actually turn out to be the Republican nominee.   Still improbable?  Yes?  Impossible?  No.

Wow.  Always nice to see DC pundits admit that there’s a country out there beyond the Beltway, and that they may be out of touch with it.  But there’s another problem with their punditry.     Hahahaha.   Hohoho.  Guffaws, all around.

Within minutes of admitting their mistake about Donald Trump, they then turned on a  political penny and raised the question of whether Joe Biden’s trip to meet with Elizabeth Warren is an indicator that Biden is getting serious about getting in the race against Hillary Clinton.   Oh really?  So you were wrong about Trump and now you continue to ignore Bernie Sanders?

Hopefully, within a few weeks they’ll be scratching their heads about the growing support for Sanders among younger Americans, and admitting they were wrong about him as well.  This is what happens to pundits when their thread of common wisdom based upon politics as usual can no longer be depended upon.

Why is there absolutely no concern expressed about Trump’s tactic of using the politics of hate and fear to whip up his base?    How would he deport 11-million Latinos?   Would he follow Hitler’s example and load them onto boxcars, breaking up families in the process?   What about Latinos who are politically connected?   What about rioting in the streets?  How would he repeal the 14th Amendment?   By non-existent presidential decree?  It’s insane.

And you might at least try and understand the groundswell of support for Sanders among young people facing crushing student loan debt as they are forced to live with their parents because the corporatocracy which has purchased the federal government has shipped millions of jobs overseas gutting middle America.   Nothing much to discuss here, other than the abject failure of American Capitalism to support a majority of Americans.

If you want a younger audience for your programs, then try and speak to the issues that concern them, instead of ignoring the truth and carrying on with your ridiculous business as usual nonsense.

Are there still more than 400 days to the election?   Yes.   Will Trump probably not be the Republican nominee but nothing’s impossible?  Yes.  Should pundits and newscasters be allowing Bernie Sanders the same credibility they are now affording Trump?  Yes.  Will they,  until they are forced to because they are making themselves look stupid?  No.   And not because they don’t want to.   The problem is that they are beltway insiders, and Trump and Sanders are political outsiders challenging DC’s business as usual insider machine and the usual  gang of suspects on the network shows don’t know how to handle it.

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On The Road In America

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Had an epiphany this morning.    Well, more of an affirmation really, that things are every bit as bad as I thought they were.   As bad as I’ve read and heard they are from those who are supposed to know about issues like real unemployment after millions of jobs have been off-shored never to return,  as the gap between the rich and the rest grows from being just wide to historically chasmatic.

My sisters just drove from one coast to the other taking a lot of side-roads to get a really good look at America, a feel for reality rather than just zipping by on the interstates,  pulling over only for gas and a sandwich before rushing on.  It was a kind of remake of the old “Route 66” tv show with Martin Milner and George Maharis, except that this time it was my sisters and Lucy the Bernese Mountain Dog in a Volvo crossover instead of two guys in a Corvette convertible.   Almost the same thing.

I hadn’t heard from them since their last stop in Morgantown, West Virginia, until this morning, when one of them emailed, saying they had completed their journey and that, “People can’t afford to fix their cars or paint their houses all the way across this country. ”

And there it was.

This wasn’t coming from someone speculating about the real world impact of the Wall Street crash and the off-shoring of jobs.   This was a first-hand account of someone who just crossed the country by car, actually taking a look around the heartland, as opposed to crunching numbers in a cubicle and then sending them  out in a news release to the media in New York and L.A.

While Baltimore burned, down in Washington, Mr. Obama and the Prime Minister of Japan met with reporters in the Rose Garden, trumpeting the advantages of their new “Trans Pacific Partnership” deal, the “TPP,” just as others from earlier administrations told us how  much we’d benefit from NAFTA, CAFTA and the WTO.

We’ve heard it all before, fellas.

And Bernie Sanders is running.  I hope people take him seriously.   I hope he can raise enough money to take on the Clintons and the other millionaires and billionaires who have a lock on the system.   If Americans can’t afford to paint their houses or fix their cars,  it only follows that there is so much more they can’t afford, like dental care and decent food.  Or a way out of the projects in a city like Baltimore, where economic disparity and social injustice stand side by side, blocking the American dream.