Sanders Draws Big Crowds at California Rallies. Aiming to speak to more than 200,000 before June 7th
Press Release
Sanders Draws Big Crowds at Southern California Rallies
May 29, 2016
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday crisscrossed Southern California with rallies at Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and here at the Kern County Fairgrounds.
Aiming to speak to more than 200,000 Californians during the month before the June 7 presidential primary election, Sanders already was more than half-way to that goal after he 6,000 supports sprawled across a lawn at the coastline campus of Santa Barbara City College, 7,500 sat in the blazing sun at the Santa Maria High School football field and 4,100 packed the fairgrounds grandstands in Bakersfield at the southern end of California’s Central Valley.
In a tightening California contest with Hillary Clinton, Sanders already has won primaries and caucuses in 20 states. He said a win in the Golden State with its prize of 475 pledged delegates would give his grassroots campaign a big boost heading into this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. “We’re going to go in with momentum and we’re going to come out with the Democratic nomination,” Sanders said.
He also taunted Donald Trump for his on-again, off-again response to Sanders’ challenge to debate in California. Trump had twice agreed to debate Sanders but then backed down.
“You’re a big macho guy,” Sanders said of Trump. “If you have any guts come on down and let’s debate the issues.”
Sanders proposed a televised encounter with the Republican Party presidential nominee after Clinton reneged on her agreement to debate Sanders in California in May.
Before the sunset rally here in Bakersfield, Sanders met with Latino community leaders and residents for a discussion of immigration reform, farmworkers’ rights and other issues.
“It is very clear to me that we have a broken immigration system and we need comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship,” Sanders said at the meeting at the Kern County Fairgrounds. “The goal should be to unite families, not divide families.”
The Vermont senator also fielded questions about dilapidated housing and the health consequences of pesticide exposure and groundwater contamination.
“I don’t believe there is any member of the Congress with a stronger pro-labor voting record. I’ve been on more picket lines than I can recall,” Sanders said.
He also recited his work on behalf of farm workers laboring under “deplorable” circumstances in Immokalee, Florida. Sanders traveled there in 2008 and based on that first-hand experience he later chaired a Senate hearing into how the agricultural industry was taking advantage of workers who were denied decent wages, decent working conditions and decent housing.
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every day in a new venue, packing stadiums all across the country--enthusiasm is not letting up. Go California 
He also held a Q&A before the rally, also live streamed, and the people that spoke about the concerns they hoped to bring to his attention were gobsmacking! Sanders himself looked shocked when he heard of some of the local problems. Polluted water, farm worker's abuse, fracking, etc. Grown men were choking back sobs and tears when they spoke.
I live @ 2 miles from this lovely vista:
http://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-december/one-california-countys-fracked-idea
snip/
Which county in America produces the most oil? If you guessed somewhere in Texas, you’d be wrong. Alaska? Nope. Pennsylvania? Not even close.
It’s Kern County, California with around 42,000 active wells . California is the third largest oil producing state, behind Texas and North Dakota. The epicenter of the state’s oil boom is Kern County, which lies about 100 miles north of Los Angeles in the rural Central Valley. Kern is home to approximately 75 percent of California's oil drilling and 95 percent of the state’s fracking, and regulators hope to keep the black gold flowing.
Last month, the county board of supervisors approved a new ordinance that would purportedly allow oil and gas companies to fast track drilling permits for tens of thousands of new wells in the next two decades with no environmental review and no public notice or participation. On Thursday, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against Kern County on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in coordination with the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and the Center for Biological Diversity. The Earthjustice suit challenges the county’s claim that a single environmental review conducted before the ordinance was passed is sufficient to authorize up to 3,647 new oil and gas wells a year for the next 20 years or longer, for a total of 72,000 new wells.
NRDC found that 14 percent of Californians—5.4 million people—live within one mile of an oil or gas well. Of that group, 69 percent are people of color, most Hispanic or Latino. Low-income communities of color typically face disproportionate financial and health burdens from heavy industry, including oil and gas production. The new wells authorized by the Kern County plan would be built in an area that already has some of the nation’s worst air quality. According to the American Lung Association, Bakersfield, the largest city in Kern County, is the second worst city in the country for air pollution, both short-term and year-round.
Air pollution from oil and gas wells can exacerbate illnesses like asthma and high blood pressure, and fracking, specifically, has been linked to water pollution, which can occur when massive amounts of fracking wastewater laced with chemicals are injected deep underground. Just one barrel of fracked oil produces 10 barrels of contaminated waste water that must be disposed of.
Yeah. We have water pollution problems. Sky-high asthma and birth defect rates. And I saw some here criticizing about why Sanders would come to a red area like this. Tell you what - he's the only politician I've seen that gave a shit about people like us enough to show up and listen to these issues. The GOPers like Romney, Trump and Bush come here. But they don't hold events in the free fairgrounds for the hoi polloi, they have them in fabulously decorated and catered event tents for high dollar patrons. Bernie didn't care about the farm signs around the rodeo arena (where he spoke).
I'll take him. Any day, any time. He doesn't worry about getting cooties from us. He gives a shit.
on edit: Shout out to DUer Donkees for providing the live stream links. TY!
I thank God for this good man, Bernie Sanders.
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