https://twitter.com/OurRevEssexNJ/status/974443311376355328

By
Gabriella Paiella
@GMPaiella

Excerpt:

Students from all over the country took to the streets to protest gun violence for National School Walkout Day, which also marks the one-month anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting. Vermont senator and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders unexpectedly addressed the ones who took the protest to Capitol Hill — and the teens went wild for the 76-year-old politician’s surprise appearance.

Video of him arriving to the scene shows teens swarming him, pulling out their phones for photos, and yelling his name.

“I am proud that you are here today,” he told the crowd. “What you are doing is of national significance, you’re leading the country in the right direction.” (It should also be noted that he appears to have gotten a different parka than the one he usually wears everywhere, including the inauguration.)

The “Bernie Bernie Bernie” chants continued throughout this speech, while deafening screams and shouts of “we love you so much” continued afterward.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/teens-cheer-on-bernie-sanders-during-national-walkout-day.html

A lesson about corporate greed and the power of ownership was instilled when the Senator’s beloved team moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

By Dave ZirinTwitter TODAY 4:54 PM


Excerpt:

The 1957 move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles devastated a generation of young Brooklyn fans. They learned a bitter post-war lesson from team owner Walter O’Malley about the financial promise of the West Coast and the limits of their community affections to sway a man against the allure of riches. The seemingly impossible—the Dodgers leaving town—was all of a sudden a brutal reality. The team of Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider was westward bound, and only two seasons after the team had finally brought a title home to Brooklyn.

The move west also had a radicalizing effect on one particular Brooklyn kid, teaching him that giving corporations free reign to pursue profits at the expense of towns and cities was little more than legalized theft. That teen from Brooklyn was Bernie Sanders. Over the weekend, Sanders—still a devout baseball fan—stopped by the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spring training, gave some hitting tips to outfielder Yasiel Puig and chatted with manager Dave Roberts. He also said the following to LA Times reporter Andy McCullough about the team’s exodus from Brooklyn five decades ago:

It was a disaster. Walter O’Malley, his name remains in infamy. It really was a very deep thing. Because when you’re a kid and the name of the team is called the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Brooklyn Dodgers, you assume that it belongs to the people of Los Angeles or Brooklyn. The idea that it was a private company who somebody could pick up and move away and break the hearts of millions of people was literally something we did not understand. So it was really a devastating moment. I remember it with great sadness.

The move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles was the first instance of a trend that continues to this day. Pro sports owners still hold up communities for stadium money. Billionaires still threaten to leave communities that have supported them for decades, more than willing to break the hearts of fans if they don’t get their share of the public till. Just last season, the San Diego Chargers became the LA Chargers, the St. Louis Rams made the playoffs as the LA Rams and the Oakland Raiders announced their move to Las Vegas. In the first two cases, it was a ruthless move, punishing cities for not ponying up stadium cash. In Oakland, the city will be paying costs for the stadium for years after the team leaves. And the great city of Seattle still awaits an NBA team.

It’s ugly as sin and Brooklyn was the blueprint. A better way—one I can imagine Sanders supporting—would be for pro sports teams to be fan-owned in the style of the Green Bay Packers. Or, if public money goes into building stadiums, then the teams themselves would also in fact be publicly owned. That way any money spent on sports directly benefits communities and fans become not passive participant but stakeholders. This has worked with some European soccer clubs—like FC St. Pauli—and it could work here. But one can imagine, to use the Sanders lexicon, it would take a revolution.

https://www.thenation.com/article/what-losing-the-brooklyn-dodgers-taught-bernie-sanders/

By ANDY MCCULLOUGH
MAR 11, 2018 | 2:00 PM
| PHOENIX

Excerpt:

Bernie Sanders tugged at his Brooklyn Dodgers cap. He had already met with manager Dave Roberts, posed for pictures with outfielder Yasiel Puig and watched closer Kenley Jansen throw a bullpen session. Now the senator from Vermont and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination explained why he paid a visit to Camelback Ranch on Sunday.

"My memories of the Dodgers go back a little bit before L.A.," Sanders said. "We were in Brooklyn. The Dodgers were more than a team. They were a way of life. The team meant the world to the kids of Brooklyn. I'm sure that's the case now."

The arrival of Sanders, in town for a rally in Phoenix, broke the tedium of an otherwise sleepy morning. Sanders signed autographs for Dodgers fans as members of the team streamed past. He traipsed behind the batting cages to introduce himself to players like outfielder Andrew Toles and utility man Enrique Hernandez.

Sanders waxed poetic about his affinity for the Dodgers of his childhood. He said he learned how to do math by calculating "the batting averages of Gil Hodges and Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson, and the pitching records of Don Newcombe." He attended high school about 20 minutes from Ebbets Field. Sanders described that group as "a sociological phenomenon" and "just an intrinsic part of my life."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers-bernie-sanders-20180311-story.html

https://twitter.com/AriRabinHavt/status/972916236689403904

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/972891160577327104

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/972890661115457537

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/972888990972981248

By Matt Dotray / A-J Media
Posted Mar 10, 2018 at 7:44 PM

Excerpt:

Progressives on the Panhandle/South Plains hadn’t had a politically rally like what took place Saturday afternoon at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center in a long time, if ever. It was a rally for local Democrats seeking election in 2018, and Our Revolution, a grassroots organization built on continuing the policy messages of U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Our Revolution must truly be taking this message everywhere, because 66 percent of Lubbock County voted for President Donald Trump in 2016. And 66 percent for a Republican candidate in West Texas is on the low side in recent years.

Sanders, a Vermont Independent, was in Lubbock to host the rally that drew a crowd well over the 1,000 person seating capacity. People weren’t turned away, but instead began lining the walls around the Civic Center’s banquet hall.

“I’m not here to tell you that I’m an expert on Texas, or Texas politics, because I am not,” Sanders said after praising the work Our Revolution Texas. “This I do know — when you have 4.5 million people in this great state who have no health insurance at all, and you’ve got a state government that does not want to expand Medicaid, when you have Senators who voted to end the Affordable Care Act, people in this state should not be voting Republican.”

“I have believed for a long time that the Democratic Party has not stood up as strong as it should for the working people of this country — we’re trying to change that,” Sanders said. “Our job is to do two things. Our job is to come up with an agenda, a progressive agenda, that speaks to the needs of working families. Our second task is to take that agenda to our friends and our neighborhoods and our family who have given up on the political process.”

http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/20180310/us-sen-sanders-rallies-in-lubbock-of-all-places

https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/972547749211238402

https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/972546419935543296

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/972569407057727490

https://twitter.com/AriRabinHavt/status/972569902379921408

https://twitter.com/AriRabinHavt/status/972577540698230784