Endearingly disheveled hero of the American left, Senator Bernie Sanders, made his way through Michigan today, pumping up crowds on behalf of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the run up to next month’s presidential election. Our job, he told the crowd that gathered to hear him speak at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Art, is first to elect Secretary Clinton, and then, on November 9, organize to push a progressive agenda that returns our Democracy to the hands of the American people. While, over the course of his speech, Sanders hit on everything from prison reform to the steps that he and Clinton would like to see taken to lessen the burden of student debt, there were a few things that I wanted to call out specifically. Here are a few direct quotes from Sanders, followed by video of the entire speech.
WE’RE GOING TO HAVE FREE PUBLIC COLLEGE, AND WE’RE GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN BY FORCING TRUMP AND HIS ILK PAY THEIR TAXES
“A lot of children out there, in the third grade, in the fifth grade, they know in their hearts that they’re never going to make it into the middle class. Why are they going to study (when they know that) they’re never going to make it to college? Their families don’t have the money. What I want is for every parent in America, every teacher in America, every child in America to know that, regardless of the income of your family, if you study hard, if you do well in school, yes, you are going to get a college education, and you are going to make it into the middle class. Now, there are people out there, they ask Secretary Clinton, they ask Bernie Sanders, they say, ‘Hey it’s a great idea, you want to make public colleges and universities tuition free, you want to reduce student debt, (but) that’s an expensive proposition. How are you going to pay for it?’ Well Donald Trump told us last week exactly how we’re going to pay for it! Donald Trump told us, that we’re going to demand the billionaires in this country start paying their fair share of taxes! So I want to thank The Donald. I really do. I want to thank him. I’ve been running all over this country, talking about a rigged economy, and, in one day, he did more than I did in a year in exposing the corruption of our political system and our tax system.”
CLINTON GAVE ME HER WORD THAT SHE WOULD OVERTURN ‘CITIZENS UNITED’ WITHIN HER FIRST 100 DAYS IN OFFICE, LESSENING THE INFLUENCE OF CORPORATE MONEY OVER OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS
“I worry very much that this country is moving toward an oligarchic form of society. You know what I mean by that? In Michigan, and in Vermont, and all over this country, incredibly brave men and women have put their lives on the line to defend American democracy. And Democracy, by the way, is a fairly new historical concept. It’s fairly new in world history. And what Democracy is about… It says that you have a vote, and you’ve got a vote, and you’ve got a vote… One person, one vote. Democracy does not mean the billionaires should be able to buy elections. And that is precisely what we are seeing today. It is a disgrace and an insult to those people who have fought and died for American Democracy. All over this country, you have multi-billionaires, like the Koch brothers, like Sheldon Adelson, who are spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the United States Congress and the White House. Hilary Clinton, and I just spoke with Hillary last week, and she said that I should tell you that, within the first hundred days, if she is elected President, she will bring forth a Constitutional amendment to overturn this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision!
WE CANNOT ELECT A PRESIDENT THAT DOES NOT RESPECT SCIENCE AND BELIEVES THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS A ‘HOAX’
I am a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment, and I’m on the Energy Committee as well. And, in that capacity, I have talked with scientists all over our country, and all over the world. And what the scientists are telling us, in virtually a unanimous voice, is climate change is real, climate change is caused by human activity, (and) climate change is already causing devastating problems in this country and around the world. And what the scientists are telling us is, if we do not get our act together, and transfer our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, a dangerous situation will only get worse. More flooding. More drought. More extreme weather disturbances. More rising sea levels. More acidification of the oceans. And, by the way, more international conflict as people fight over limited natural resources like water and land to grow their crops. That’s what the scientists are telling us. Hillary Clinton is listening to science! Now, while Hillary is listening to the scientists, Donald Trump is telling America that climate change is a ‘hoax’ created in China of all countries… We cannot elect a President that does not respect science!”
TRUMP SAYS HE WANTS TO BRING AMERICAN JOBS BACK TO AMERICA, BUT HE’S STILL OUTSOURCING JOBS TO BANGLADESH, MEXICO, TURKEY AND CHINA
“Trump has been going around the country… he’s been coming to Michigan… saying he’s ‘opposed to all of these trade agreements.’ Yet, at the same time, Trump has built manufacturing plants in Bangladesh, where workers are paid 30-cents an hour. Trump manufactures his ties in China. He makes his clothing lines in Mexico. And his furniture in Turkey. So I say to Mr. Trump, it’s easy to give good speeches. It is harder to take bold action. Create jobs here in America! Not in Bangladesh. Don’t tell us how concerned you are about outsourcing when, at the same time, you are outsourcing American jobs!
WE CANNOT REWARD DONALD TRUMP’S RACE-BAITING AND MISOGYNY BY MAKING HIM OUR PRESIDENT
“We cannot elect a President who insults women every single day. You know, in a Democratic society, people have different points of view, and we should be proud of that. But there’s got to be at least a minimal threshold of dignity. And that minimal threshold says you don’t make fun of people because they have a disability. You don’t talk about people who are overweight. My God, that this is an issue in a presidential campaign is beyond comprehension. And I want all of you to remember what is not often talked about. Donald Trump was one of the leaders in the so-called ‘birther’ movement. And please understand what that effort was about. People have a right to disagree with Barack Obama any day of the week. I disagree with Obama on certain issues. But what Trump attempted to do was delegitimize the first African American President in our history. And, that, no candidate for President should be able to get away with!”
As I said above, there was a lot more. If you have the time you should just watch the whole thing, if only to hear Sanders yell, “Your greed is destroying our country!” [That wasn’t directed as us, by the way. He was talking to Trump and his ilk.] Seriously, there’s lots of good stuff about police violence against African Americans, equal work for equal pay, the importance of raising the minimum wage, the history of the labor movement, and any number of other things. His thoughts are a bit scattered, as I imaging mine would be if I was stopping every few hours to give what’s essentially the same speech, but it was all good, powerful stuff, and, judging from the conversations that were taking place around me, I think it really energized people for the work ahead.
19 Comments
Sanders would have won if not for those meddling bastards at the DNC.
Clinton and her cronies conspired to take the nomination from Sanders, even going to far as to disappear potential voters South America style, stuff ballot boxes with fake ballots and paying off those little old ladies who work the polling stations.
Because the bought and paid for Democrats were scared. The US has never seen a conspiracy this big. Ever.
“Hillary Clinton is an unabashed warmonger, a woman who has demonstrated time and again her willingness to bomb, invade, and destroy nations all over the globe. From championing her husband’s criminal bombing of Serbia, to supporting George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, to being the principal cheerleader for bombing and destroying Libya and Syria, Hillary’s devotion to the military-industrial complex and the mentality of the Cold War is beyond dispute.
While running for Senate in 2000, Clinton explicated her foreign policy outlook when, according the New York Times, “She cited American involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo as examples of foreign engagements she favored on moral and strategic grounds.” And, according to Hillary biographer Gail Sheehy, Clinton proudly proclaimed “I urged [Bill Clinton] to bomb [Serbia].” One could be forgiven for thinking these are the smug, egomaniacal claims of a sociopath; they are, but they’re also the words of America’s likely next president.”
From CounterPunch.
“To: The Democratic National Committee
Re: 2016 GOP presidential candidates
Date: May 26, 2015
Below, please find a suggested strategy for positioning and public messaging around the 2016 Republican presidential field. Ultimately, we need to
Our Goals& Strategy
Our goals in the coming months will be to frame the Republican field and the eventual nominee early and to provide a contrast between the GOP field and HRC. Over the long-term, these efforts will be aimed at getting us the best match-up in the general election, and weakening the eventual nominee through the course of the primary. We have outlined three strategies to obtain our goal:
1) Highlight when GOP candidates are outside of the mainstream on key issues, ideally driving the rest of the field to follow with positions that will hurt them in a general election;
2) Damage Republican presidential candidates’ credibility with voters by looking for targeted opportunities to undermine their specific messaging;
3) Use specific hits to muddy the waters around ethics, transparency and campaign finance attacks on HRC
Operationalizing the Strategy
Highlighting Extreme or Unpopular Positions
There are two ways to approach the strategies mentioned above. The first is to use the field as a whole to inflict damage on itself similar to what happened to Mitt Romney in 2012. The variety and volume of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more “Pied Piper” candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party. In these issues, we would elevate statements and policies from any candidate—including second and third-tier candidates—on issues that will make them seem too far to the right on social issues and too far from the priorities of everyday Americans on economic issues.
Undermining Their Message& Credibility, Based on our General Election Priorities
In addition to pinning down the field on key issues, we will work to undermine the Republican candidate’s specific messaging, while keeping in mind which candidates and which messages we believe are most powerful. These messages and the responses to them will change given new campaign positioning and new learnings from polling and research, but on these issues, we will keep the focus on the most likely candidates to allow some possibility for growth with the weaker candidates.
Jeb Bush
What to undermine: the notion he is a “moderate” or concerned about regular Americans; perceived inroads with the Latino population.
Marco Rubio
What to undermine: the idea he has “fresh” ideas; his perceived appeal to Latinos and younger voters
Scott Walker
What to undermine: his Wisconsin record, particularly on jobs; the idea he can rally working- and middle class Americans.
Rand Paul
What to undermine: the idea he is a “different” kind of Republican; his stance on the military and his appeal to millennials and communities of color.
Chris Christie
What to undermine: his success as governor, his hypocrisy in telling it like it is vs. his ethical issues and acts of a typical politician.
Muddying the Waters
As we all know, the right wing attack machine has been building its opposition research on Hillary Clinton for decades. HRC’s critics have been telegraphing they are ready to attack and do so with reckless abandon. While reporters have much less of an appetite for ethics stories about GOP candidates, we will utilize the research to place highly targeted hits—for example, GOP candidates taking positions supported by their major super PAC donors.
Tactics
Working with the DNC and allied groups, we will use several different methods to land these attacks, including:
Reporter Outreach: Working through the DNC and others, we should use background briefings, prep with reporters for interviews with GOP candidates, off-the-record conversations and oppo pitches to help pitch stories with no fingerprints and utilize reporters to drive a message.
Releases and Social Media: Where appropriate these attacks can be leveraged for more public release, particularly the attacks around specific issues where a public release can point out that Republicans are outside of the mainstream.
Bracketing Events: Both the DNC and outside groups are looking to do events and press surrounding Republican events to insert our messaging into their press and to force them to answer questions around key issues.
We look forward to discussing this strategy further. Our goal is to use this conversation to answer the questions who do we want to run against and how best to leverage other candidates to maneuver them into the right place.”
Proof of the conspiracy. No doubt, Sanders family members have been threatened and secret checks have been deposited in an offshore account.
Note that the Clinton’s routinely murder their political enemies:
Mary Mahoney was a Clinton White House Intern who was executed brutally at a Starbucks she was managing in 1997. As a lesbian, she became close friends with all of the interns of the early Clinton administration, and they would seek her advice after Bill’s sexual advancements. She would have been a star witness during the Clinton impeachment trials.
And don’t forget Clinton White House Council Vince Foster, who was found dead in Ft. Marcy Park in Washington, D.C. He supposedly killed himself with a shotgun, and was found a few days later with a suitcase that contained a shredded suicide note.
Foster knew the Clintons from his time at Rose Law Firm in Arkansas, and had intimate details of the Clinton’s financial situation. Apparently, he made a phone call to Hillary Clinton just hours before his death. The person who found him never saw a gun.
Read more: http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/another-clinton-associate-found-dead-bill-hillarys-body-count-increases/#ixzz4MNMLC8bj
Make America great and safe again!
Nothing is free, not FAPE, not volunteer work, nothing….
TANSTAAFL. there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch..still,having someone try to drop college costs would be a start.
VAPEing is NOT free!!!!
The only thing standing between us and tyranny is Donald Trump. He will do this by shutting down all major newspapers.
“‘Hey it’s a great idea, you want to make public colleges and universities tuition free, you want to reduce student debt, (but) that’s an expensive proposition. How are you going to pay for it?’ Well Donald Trump told us last week exactly how we’re going to pay for it! Donald Trump told us, that we’re going to demand the billionaires in this country start paying their fair share of taxes! ”
This is STILL stupid. What AREN’T we going to pay for when we raise taxes on the wealthy? It seems like we’ve already spent whatever money might go into public coffers from a modest increase in tax rates on the upper brackets. Who hasn’t staked a claim on it?
The problem with Universities is not exclusively that people don’t have the means to pay for it, or that States (Yes, our educational system is mostly State based) aren’t funding it well enough, one giant problem is rapidly rising costs at the University level, a problem for which Mr. Sanders has no answers at all.
You’d think he’d come up with something smarter than simple pitchforks and populism, but the man is truly a one-trick pony.
I respect him as a Senator, but he should stay out of Presidential campaigns.
Sad!
Are you alright, Dr. Larson? Should we be worried?
I was there. It was good. I don’t know why they didn’t have it outside, as it was a beautiful day. As it was, they had to turn people away. Thankfully, Sanders also made time to talk with everyone outside the art museum who wasn’t able to make it in. It was encouraging to see so many undergrads and high school students in the audience.
Thanks for the rehash of the lies people like to tell about Clinton, Dirt Bag.
The thing is that in my mind, even if all of those things were true (and they are not), she would still be a better candidate than Trump. *That* is how bad he is.
bernie…bless his heart.
you can’t tell me HRC won’t make America great/safe again. priorities!
https://regated.com/2016/10/marijuana-hillary-clinton-harder/#
My hope is that she will either change her mind about marijuana OR better yet, people will demand that their Congressional reps change the dang laws.
Maybe it’s some kind of art project but the spamming of copypasta is pretty unseemly.
Pete is a supporter of Clinton’s. If I had to guess, I’d say that he’s making fun of EOS by posting all of this nonsense.
Make American great and safe again, particularly for gropers.
I’m annoyed at how much energy that old guy has, while I’m unlikely to live to 50.
Washington Post: “Sanders is prepared to be a liberal thorn in Clinton’s side”
Read more:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-is-prepared-to-be-a-liberal-thorn-in-clintons-side/2016/10/24/aaf6dd88-97eb-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html
I wish both of them would just go away.
2 Trackbacks
[…] hands tied by a Republican Congress, but I decided that it was too abstract. Instead, I mentioned something that Bernie Sanders had said a few weeks ago when he came through Ann Arbor. He said, I told her, that our first job has to be keeping Donald Trump our of the White House, and […]
[…] to lay all of this at the feet of Sanders, who I can still remember coming to Ann Arbor in 2016 and campaigning on behalf of Hillary Clinton. I suspect, if he were to lose this time, he’d likely do the same thing, as he knows the […]