Monday, July 27, 2015
The Vermont independent, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, followed up his statement with an email to campaign supporters. In it, he quoted Elizabeth from Ohio as saying, “I could afford to go back to work if minimum wage was $15. It costs my family less for me to stay home than to pay childcare and transportation costs to work for $9.50/hr.”
Those listening to Sanders and reading his email might readily have concluded that Sanders wants American workers to be getting at least $15 an hour now.
Not so. In fact, Sanders himself is paying some of his campaign workers less than $15 an hour. Full- and part-time interns on his campaign are making $10.10 an hour, Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said. Some other staff members also appear to be making less than $15 an hour.
The champion of workers’ rights might be paying better than your average creemee stand, but his campaign staff's starting pay is not a whole lot more than the $10 an hour Walmart pledged to pay its workers starting next year.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , presidential campaign , minimum wage , President Obama , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Does the bill have the legs to make it through the Senate, and would the president sign it into law? That is unclear, but Thursday's vote generated posturing on both sides of the polarized debate.
The House vote was 275-150 for the bill, which is backed by GMO seed manufacturer Monsanto. Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) voted against it.
“If Monsanto is so proud of its product, then why on Earth is it waging an all-out war to hide it from families who simply want to know what’s in their food? The message to consumers in this bill is very clear: It’s none of your business,” Welch said on the House floor Thursday.
Tags: GMO labeling , Congress , Peter Welch , Peter Shumlin , Neil Young , Grocery Manufacturers Association , Monsanto , Image , Web Only
What he’s really dishing up is Bernie Sanders. Basiliere is among hundreds of people who are hosting events around the country Wednesday night to spread the word about the Democratic presidential candidate.
This is taking the Tupperware party technique to politics. Back in 2004, when Howard Dean was running for president, his campaign supporters held meet-ups around the country. Now, the Sanders campaign is encouraging supporters to organize events Wednesday at homes, coffee shops and union halls from Maine to California.
Sanders hopes the events will provide those interested in his campaign ideas for how they can help, said spokesman Michael Briggs. “He’s looking for the grassroots movement that he keeps talking about,” Briggs said.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Howard Dean , 2016 presidential campaign , Image , Web Only
Barnes had planned to go to graduate school until the job with Sanders came through. She will work alongside Sanders’ New Hampshire political director, Kurt Ehrenberg, in Concord, N.H., according to Sanders’ office.
In Vermont, Conor Casey will replace Barnes as executive director of the state party. He spent nearly eight years as legislative coordinator with the Vermont State Employees' Association.
Barnes has presidential-campaign experience in New Hampshire, which will hold the nation’s first presidential primary next February, following the Iowa caucuses.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , presidential campaign , Vermont Democratic Party , Vermont State Employees Association , Conor Casey , Julia Barnes , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
When Tasini interviewed Sanders for the October 2013 edition of Playboy, the senator said it "would be tempting" to bring his platform to the presidential race, despite all the drawbacks. Asked whether he was ruling out a run, Sanders said, "Absolutely? 100 percent? Cross my heart? Is there a stack of Bibles somewhere? Look, maybe it’s only 99 percent."
Back then, that qualified as news.
Now that Sanders is a little more than one percent running for president, Tasini's offering another first: an election-season book about Vermont's two-term senator.
Chelsea Green, the White River Junction publishing house, has ordered up a 50,000-copy print run of the book, called The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America (192 pages; $14). According to Chelsea Green spokesman (and former Seven Days political columnist) Shay Totten, it's scheduled for release September 8.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Jonathan Tasini , Playboy interview , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Monday, July 20, 2015
But Sanders drew the most weekend press coverage for what many perceived as a tone-deaf response to a Black Lives Matter protest earlier Saturday in Phoenix.
The independent candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination had been expected to receive a hero's welcome at Netroots Nation, an annual gathering of progressive activists staged this year at the Phoenix Convention Center. A group of African American activists had other ideas. They burst into the convention hall as Sanders rival Martin O'Malley, the former Democratic governor of Maryland, addressed the conference — and they didn't let up until Sanders left.
According to several media outlets, Sanders didn't handle the episode terribly gracefully.
When Sanders took the stage, according to Time, he "flashed with annoyance."
Despite watching O’Malley fumble, Sander[s] immediately began with his prepared stump speech, criticizing the media and calling for a political revolution, trying to speak over the protesters. “What are we doing here?” he grumbled to Vargas, who was unable to control the crowd. Halfway through his time, Sanders looked at the protesters and finally said “Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system that is out of control.”
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Black Lives Matter , Netroots Nation , Martin O'Malley , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
"I'm just a rock 'n' roller who believes people should know what they're eating," Young said at a backstage pre-show press conference with Gov. Peter Shumlin. Then he upped the ante.
“We would like to see some of the high-rollers in Vermont who believe in this come up and match that, 'cause if you’ve got it, break it out,” Young said. “Remember, this is a big, multinational group of corporations working together to make sure you don’t know what you have on your food table.”
Tags: Senator , Neil Young , Peter Shumlin , GMOs , Vermont , Bernie Sanders , Donald Trump , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised $13.7 million in his first two months as a presidential candidate, according to a 10,047-page report his campaign filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission. In that time, he spent $3.1 million building a national political apparatus.
Earlier this month — and again Wednesday — Sanders' presidential campaign asserted that it raised more than $15 million. But that includes $1.5 million he had previously collected for his Senate reelection campaign and transferred to his presidential account June 30.
Sanders reported having $12.2 million remaining in the bank at the end of June.
More than three-quarters of the new money Sanders raised — roughly $10.5 million — came in donations of $200 or less, according to the FEC report. Sanders' campaign said it received 390,730 donations averaging $35.18.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , fundraising , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
Friday, July 10, 2015
The baseball game, he said, "is who's winning, what are the polls today and how much did somebody raise?" The soap opera, he continued, "is what happened in your life 87 years ago, this, that and the other thing."
What happened in Sanders' life 46 years ago became a hot topic Thursday when three news organizations published accounts of the candidate's lost years in the 1960s and 1970s — a period during which he moved to Vermont, worked odd jobs and dabbled in politics. The grand revelation in each story: that Sanders' son, Levi, was born out of wedlock, years after the senator's first marriage dissolved and years before he remarried.
Though rumors of Sanders' love life have long circulated in Vermont — including during his 1996 reelection campaign — all three news outlets noted that its details had not previously been reported.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
According to the Portland Press Herald, "more than 7,500 people" filled Portland's Cross Insurance Arena to hear the independent candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination:
[A]lthough exact figures weren’t available Monday night, staff at [the venue] estimated that the crowd could have exceeded 8,000 in the roughly 9,000-capacity arena for an event originally planned as more of a town hall-style forum than a rally. Organizers delayed the start of the 7 p.m. event because so many people were still lined up down the block outside the arena.Sanders' Portland appearance follows blockbuster shows last week in Madison, Wis., and Council Bluffs, Iowa, which drew 10,000 and 2,500 fans, respectively.
Those crowds, according to the New York Times, "are setting off worry among advisers and allies of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who believe the Vermont senator could overtake her in Iowa polls by the fall and even defeat her in the nation’s first nominating contest there."
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Maine , Portland , Hillary Clinton , Jennifer Palmieri , Morning Joe , Image , Recommended Reading , Video , Web Only