Bernie joins Hillary in signing joint fundraising pact with DNC

Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign has signed a joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee, the DNC confirmed to POLITICO.

The move, which comes more than two months after Hillary Clinton's campaign signed such an agreement in August, will allow Sanders' team to raise up to $33,400 for the committee as well as $2,700 for the campaign from individual donors at events.

The candidate rarely headlines fundraising events, and is not close with many big-money Democratic donors, but he has been working to prove his proximity to the party in recent months as he competes with Clinton.

The Vermont senator, who is an Independent but caucuses with Senate Democrats, also recently lent his name to a fundraising letter for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to a campaign adviser, in another indication of his slowly growing ties to the party's infrastructure.



http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/bernie-sanders-2016-fundraising-dnc-215559#ixzz3qhSlAGHk

Sanders: I would lose if election decided by black voters

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says in a new interview that if African-American voters decided who becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, he would lose.

"If the elections were held today, just among the African-American vote, we would lose," Sanders told NPR in interview excerpts released Thursday.
Sanders went on to say he believes there is a "real path to winning the support of the African-American community."

White House hopeful Sanders has struggled to gain traction on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, among several key demographics, including black voters.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/259224-sanders-i-would-lose-if-election-decided-by-black-voters

Sanders's staff perfectly illustrated why it's so hard to have a sane discussion about gender bias

The Sanders campaign started preparing for battle at the suggestion that Clinton might be accusing their candidate of sexism.

"If they’re going to have a campaign that attacks Bernie on gun safety and implies he engages in sexism, that’s unacceptable," chief strategist Tad Devine told Politico. "If they’re going to engage in this kind of attack, they need to understand we’re not going to stand there and take it." Devine also told Bloomberg that Clinton's remark basically forced Sanders to "fire a shot across their bow."

In that same Bloomberg interview, Sanders's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, made some remarks about Clinton that came off as incredibly patronizing. "Look, she'd make a great vice president," Weaver said, later adding, "We'll even interview her."

Reporter John Heilemann said Weaver was "at least half-joking" when he said that, but a lot of people didn't find it funny. The comment reeked of head-patting condescension, the kind that highly qualified women often endure from men who don't take them seriously. Weaver insisted that his comments were "edgy or snarky but nothing more," and also doubled down on the idea that Clinton had launched a "vicious attack" on the Sanders campaign with her "accusations of sexism."

The media also went nuts over "accusations of sexism" and overamplified women's concerns about it until they sounded like "shouting" (literally, in the case of one Politico headline). When Emily's List president Stephanie Schriock criticized Weaver's remarks on Twitter as a "condescending insult by a team who knows better," a New York Times headline blew up her tweet into, "Emily's List Official Accuses Bernie Sanders Team of Sexism." At Slate, William Saletan said that Clinton was "smearing" Sanders as "a sexist" and "manipulating women and abusing feminist anger for her own advantage."


http://www.vox.com/identities/2015/11/5/9671830/bernie-sanders-sexism

Michael Moore Challenges Bernie Sanders on Guns

Probably for the first time in his life, director Michael Moore was hesitant to discuss politics. I asked the always opinionated Michael Moore whom would he be voting for in the next presidential election during the question and answer period after the screening of his new film, Where to Invade Next at the Philadelphia Film Festival. At first, the lefty filmmaker tried to deflect but then he answered.

"Obviously, Bernie Sanders politics are pretty closely aligned with mine," said Moore. "I was surprised that he had voted against gun control as many times as he had. I did not know that. That is an issue that is really important to me. I am still kind of wrapping my head around it. The night he said that I was so... all I could tweet out on Twitter was "Deer in Vermont, discuss."

Moore's reaction to Sander's pro-gun stance is understandable considering he is the Academy Award-winning director of Bowling for Columbine, which takes on the NRA (National Rifle Association) and gun manufacturer. During the film, he asks actor Charlton Heston, who was president of the NRA, if he would apologize for leading NRA rallies in Flint, Michigan after the shooting death of a six-year-old girl. Heston refused to answer and walked out of the interview.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-goldman/michael-moore-challenges-_b_8481816.html

Salon: Hillary’s right on gun control — urban vs. rural really means black vs. white.

If you’re familiar with this history and rhetoric, it’s not hard to hear the racial implications of suggesting that “rural” folks are responsible, safe gun users — while “urban” folks are not. On the contrary, it’s hard not to hear that. Sanders may mean well, but his constituents who insist that they are just wholesome gun owners, unlike some people, probably do not mean well.

Is Clinton using this fact to garner support? Absolutely. But the bigger picture is this. Racism fuels much of the opposition to gun control. We live in a country where black men (or boys) have been shot for holding toy guns or even just a toy sword in one case. “I thought he had a gun,” is the excuse we expect after police shoot unarmed black men.

But when a white man was openly walking around the streets of Colorado Springs shooting people dead over the weekend, one witness said her call to 911 was blown off initially because open carry is legal in the state.

Also, there’s this: Sanders is wrong. The assumption that “rural” people who own guns are responsible and that it’s just those urban people who are screwing it up for the rest of us is not borne out by the evidence.

Research compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center shows that there’s a strong correlation between homicide rates and gun ownership, both on a state and household level. While some cities do have a criminal gang problem that leads to high murder rates in neighborhoods that have a gang problem, there is a lot of gun violence beyond that, much at the hands of those “law-abiding” citizens we hear so much about. In addition, the suicide rate is strongly correlated to the gun ownership rate, because having access to a gun makes someone in the throes of a depressive episode that much more likely to both try and succeed at suicide. Look past the racially tinged stereotypes of responsible-rural people and lawless-urban people and a much more complex picture emerges.

There’s no use in denying that race is an issue in how people think about gun control and the threat of gun violence. If Clinton scores a political point on this, well, good. Maybe Sanders will rethink that horrible talking point about rural people. Whether he intends to or not, he is perpetuating ugly stereotypes about who is and isn’t responsible.


http://www.salon.com/2015/11/04/bernie_sanders_latest_racial_blind_spot_hillarys_right_on_gun_control_urban_vs_rural_really_means_black_vs_white/

Hillary Is Winning: The Media and Sanders' Campaign Are Freaking Out

As Hillary appears to be increasing her lead in the Democratic primary, some of the media are looking for another way to go after her. One column is headlined Clinton goes on the offense and questions why. Other columns accuse her of doing a smear campaign against Sanders when in reality she is simply calling him and his staff to account for what they said and running a smart campaign. She is defining the differences in how they see the world and their positions on the issues.

As of this week it is clear both the media and Bernie Sanders are realizing Clinton is leading and leading big. Sanders has done what he promised he wouldn't, attacking Clinton's character rather than sticking to the issues. He is becoming what he claimed he isn't -- just another politician.

Clinton has struck a chord with the electorate by going after the NRA, an area in which she clearly differs with Sanders. Fighting the NRA isn't new for Clinton, who fought them for years while Sanders voted against the Brady bill and against allowing people to sue gun manufacturers. That is fair campaigning just as it is fair for Sanders to point out the differences in their positions on the minimum wage, he being for a federal $15 minimum wage and Clinton being for a $12 one allowing states and localities to decide if they want to go higher depending on their individual economies. Or pointing out the differences in their positions on how to deal with the big banks and allowing voters to decide which they like best.

The media will now need to invent new stories about Clinton to keep up an interest in the Democratic primary and guaranteeing TV ratings and newspaper sales. First it was Benghazi and emails, then Sanders surging, then hyping Joe Biden hoping he would run. Since all that has failed to keep people from supporting Hillary, we must assume they will try to find something to fill the void. My prediction is neither the media nor the Sanders' campaign will be able to find a way to stop Hillary because the majority of people really want her to succeed.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-d-rosenstein/hillary-is-winning-the-me_b_8484506.html

Bernie zeros in on Hillary's 'butt'

CONCORD, N.H. — As he filed Thursday to run in New Hampshire’s Democratic contest for president, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) fielded a colorful question from someone crammed into the secretary of state’s office here: “You ready to kick some Republican butt, Bernie?”

“There’s some earlier butt we have to deal with,” the Vermont senator replied, in a less-than-graceful reference to the Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The remark, which prompted some nervous laughter in a room packed with reporters and supporters, comes as Clinton’s camp has already suggested that Sanders and his team are treating her in a sexist fashion — a notion Sanders has vigorously denied. Thursday’s comment seemed likely to provide additional fodder.

There had been controversy of another sort prior to Sanders’s filing Thursday, with some questioning whether the longest-serving independent in Congress would be eligible to run as a Democrat in the nation’s first primary state.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/05/sanders-says-theres-earlier-butt-to-kick-before-the-gops/

Bernie wants more of this. (VIDEO)

Bernie just encouraged more Republican witch hunts against Hillary

Aren't you just proud?

Democrat Hogsett cruises to victory with impressive win in Indy mayor's race

Democrat Joe Hogsett cruised to victory Tuesday night, crushing Republican Chuck Brewer in the race for mayor of Indianapolis.

Hogsett won with about 63 percent of the vote, while political newcomer Brewer tallied 37 percent, in a municipal election likely to have the lowest voter turnout since at least 1991. The Republican conceded defeat just two hours after the polls closed.

Hogsett's victory and other election results give Democrats control of all major citywide and countywide elected offices, as well as a majority on the City-County Council, for the first time since Unigov was instituted in 1970. Democrats won 13 seats on the 25-member council, for a one-seat majority.

A Democratic council, theoretically, would make it easier for Hogsett to push through his agenda. But Hogsett will need to keep all Democrats on board or persuade Republicans to cross the aisle to get his way.


http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2015/11/03/hogsett-has-early-lead/74814458/