Category Archives: Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders’ concession speech – inspiring call for an ongoing movement and Democratic unity

By Roger Straw, April 8, 2020

Today, Bernie Sanders showed himself once again a visionary for the United States of America.  His concession speech was fullsome, personal and a powerful call to the nation, that we might pull together to defeat the most dangerous US president in modern history.  Here is his inspiring speech, in full.
Watch A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM BERNIE (11:45AM ET) from Bernie_Sanders on www.twitch.tv

Bernie Sanders out – Joe Biden presumptive nominee

See also Bernie Sanders’ concession speech – inspiring call for an ongoing movement and Democratic unity

Bernie Sanders drops out of presidential race

Image: Sen. Bernie Sanders arrives for the Polk County Steak Fry in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 21, 2019.
Sen. Bernie Sanders arrives for the Polk County Steak Fry in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 21, 2019. Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
by Jane C. Timm & Allan Smith,

Bernie Sanders is ending his presidential campaign, he announced on Wednesday.

The Vermont independent senator’s 2020 bid started off strong. He narrowly missed first place in Iowa before picking up wins in New Hampshire and Nevada. All the while, his campaign continued to rake in millions in small-dollar donations and pack rallies full of supporters as he ascended to national front-runner status amid a crowded Democratic field.

Running as a progressive insurgent against Hillary Clinton in 2016, Sanders popularized ideas like “Medicare for All.” In 2020, however, a number of candidates backed similar policies, and he faced another prominent progressive in Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who was the first to propose canceling some student debt in April.

Sanders followed with a more far-reaching plan of his own in June. Warren surged above Sanders in the fall, right up until he suffered a heart attack in October. That — along with the high-profile endorsement by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., — revived his national polling numbers, and he remained in second place until Biden’s dismal fourth-place showing in Iowa, which propelled Sanders to front-runner status.

In his 2020 bid, the senator worked to broaden his support with Latino voters, and his coalition grew more diverse because of it. But despite years of outreach to increase his popularity among black voters, Sanders failed to earn their votes in large numbers. He also lost some of his white working-class supporters to Biden, a fracture of his coalition that cost him crucial votes in states like Michigan.

Sanders also stumbled with women voters, facing accusations of sexism in January after tensions between his and Warren’s campaigns spilled out into the open. The two progressives had largely remained allies while campaigning for the nomination, but a series of leaks to the media from aides and supporters of both senators accusing the other camp of dirty tricks and lying culminated in Warren saying in a statement that Sanders once told her he didn’t think a woman could win the presidency.

Sanders denied the claim, but he was hit with further criticism of his supporters — dubbed the “Bernie Bros” — after female union leaders in Nevada who spoke out against his candidacy said they were attacked by his fans.

His campaign officially stalled in South Carolina. Fueled by a crucial endorsement from Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., Biden won the Palmetto State decisively. The moderate wing of the party then consolidated around him — Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg both dropped out of the race and endorsed him — and Biden won 10 of 14 states on Super Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Warren dropped out of the race after Super Tuesday, but declined to endorse any candidate.

A week later, on March 10, Biden dominated in five of the six states that voted, including Michigan, one of Sanders’ biggest 2016 victories, to grow his delegate lead over the Vermont senator. Sanders’ substantial losses in Florida, Illinois and Arizona on March 17 put Biden on an insurmountable path to the Democratic nomination.

A day after those contests, and with the next voting night weeks away, Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir wrote that the candidate was “going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign. In the immediate term, however, he is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.”

In a message to supporters, Shakir was more pointed.

“No sugarcoating it, last night did not go the way we wanted,” he said of the March 17 losses. “And while our campaign has won the battle of ideas, we are losing the battle over electability to Joe Biden.”

Benicia Herald: Misleading letter attacking Bernie Sanders

As published in the Benicia Herald, by Roger Straw, January 5, 2020
Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent

First, please note that I have not been a Bernie Sanders activist or supporter.  I am among the huge number of Democrats who have taken the Indivisible Pledge: to support the eventual Democratic nominee in order to be rid of an incompetent, lawless and immoral first-term president.

But I was shocked at the attack published on the Benicia Herald’s Forum page on January 3.  For some reason, Arcata resident Jake Pickering was featured there, bashing Senator Sanders with four damning and salacious charges.

I had to wonder if this was one of the Russians’ faked attempts at stirring up internal dissention among Trump’s opposition.  But I did a little googling of Mr. Pickering in Arcata, and discovered that he is real, and a supporter of Elizabeth Warren – and highly critical of the current president.

Next I got busy on Snopes, fact-checking Mr. Pickering’s charges against Bernie.

To go through the charges one by one here, in public, would probably only add to the misinformation by repetition.  So I’ll refrain from detailing and debunking each one.

Suffice to say that Senator Sanders describes himself as a Democratic Socialist.  Wikipedia states that Sanders is “an admirer of aspects of social democracy as practiced in the Scandinavian countries. In an address on his political philosophy given at Georgetown University in November 2015, Sanders identified his conception of ‘democratic socialism’ with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal for a Second Bill of Rights, saying that democratic socialism means creating ‘an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy,’ reforming the political system (which Sanders says is ‘grossly unfair’ and ‘in many respects, corrupt’), recognizing health care and education as rights, protecting the environment, and creating a ‘vibrant democracy based on the principle of one person, one vote.’ He explained that democratic socialism is not tied to Marxism or the abolition of capitalism but rather describes a program of extensive social benefits, funded by broad-based taxes.”  [Wikipedia]

The Wikipedia article also states that “Multiple commentators have examined Sanders’ characterization of his political platform and ideology as ‘socialism’ and generally found it to support tax-funded social benefits rather than social ownership of the means of production.”

Mr. Pickering levels ancient charges stemming from Senator Sanders’ life and words back in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.  Snopes confirms that Sanders wrote an unfortunate essay in 1972 which has been characterized as misogynist. But the gist of Sanders’ article was “to attack gender stereotypes of the ’70s”, pointing out that long-held patriarchal gender stereotypes have kept both men and women from full and equal relationships.  Sanders “explains his ideas about gender roles and eventually gets at a sharper point — that traditional gender roles help create troubling dynamics.” [Snopes.com]

It’s a given that electoral campaigns must draw distinctions between candidates, but voters should be wary of overstated attacks of any one supporter on their competition.

Each and every one of the huge field of Democrats running for president would be a great and welcome improvement over the Russian stooge we elected in 2016.

VIDEO: Bernie Sanders / Hillary Clinton on climate change and fossil fuels

By Roger Straw, July 15, 2016, with clips of the July 12 YouTube video by Bloomberg Politics

Bernie endorses Hillary, highlights climate change and need to move away from fossil fuels

This short 1½ min. segment from Bernie Sanders’ endorsement speech shows Sanders’ comments on climate change and fossil fuels, while Clinton nods and applauds in affirmation.  Sanders finishes by slamming Donald Trump’s claim that climate change is a hoax.

Hillary responds on climate change and a clean energy economy

This short 45 sec. segment shows Clinton following Bernie with her own comments on climate change and a clean energy economy while Bernie nods and applauds in affirmation.

The entire exchange…

Here is the 59-minute video of the Sanders and Clinton speeches, covering a broad range of important issues.

For safe and healthy communities…