At an event in Concord, NH today, local and statewide labor leaders endorsed Bernie Sanders for president.

Sen. Sanders was introduced by Dennis Beaudoin, president of the IBEW Local 490, Janice Kelble of the American Postal Workers Union in New Hampshire and Chris Peck, vice president of the Service Employees International Union Local 560 in Hanover. The New Hampshire postal workers and two local trade unions endorsed Sen. Sanders.

Sanders expressed his pride in the support of the unions:



Over the summer, Gallup found that approval of labor unions has jumped to a five-year high. President Obama has taken executive actions to raise overtime wages for millions of workers, but there is so much more to be done. One of the most beneficial elements of having Bernie Sanders as a candidate for the Democratic nomination is that he is a candidate who discusses labor issues regularly on the campaign trail. One of the complaints of the labor movement is that they feel like Democrats ignore them until they need their votes.


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http://www.politicususa.com/2015/10/31/labor-backs-bernie-sanders-president-event-hampshire.html

This video is worth a listen.......Bernie is connecting.




MANCHESTER, N.H. — Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will host two Granite State town halls today after trying to make up a large polling gap with Hillary Clinton among New Hampshire seniors, calling yesterday afternoon for expanding Social Security and cutting the cost of prescription drugs.

“I think as the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, it is our job to make sure that every senior in this country can live in security and dignity,” Sanders said at a senior center. “We should not have seniors going to charity in order to deal with their basic needs.”

Sanders will hold a press conference in Concord this morning, then host town halls in Warner and Lebanon. Yesterday, Sanders called for lifting the cap on Social Security — requiring the wealthy to be taxed on more of their annual income to fund the program — and tried to draw a line between himself and Clinton on his proposal.



He also held a town hall in Derry last night. Sanders must make inroads with seniors. Last week’s Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll showed Sanders leading Clinton in New Hampshire, 48-38 percent. But among Granite Staters 65 years and older, Clinton holds a commanding lead over Sanders, 57-34 percent. Sanders easily out-polls Clinton among younger voters — leading 81-15 percent in the 18 to 24 years old and 62-21 percent among those ages 25 to 34.


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http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/2015/10/sanders_attempts_to_erode_clinton_hold_on_nh_seniors

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Erika Andiola, the most well-known immigration activist in the country, is joining the Bernie Sanders campaign, according to three sources with knowledge of the hire. It’s a big splash in the immigration movement, as Andiola is respected up and down the loosely connected advocacy apparatus that includes groups close to the Democratic establishment, groups far to the left, and undocumented immigrants in local communities, where Andiola has worked across the country. Andiola joins her boyfriend Cesar Vargas, himself a high-profile DREAMer activist, who was hired by Sanders last week and will also focus on Latino outreach in the southwest states, with Nevada and its early caucus, a focal point. Andiola declined to comment for the story.

But behind the scenes, she has been involved in the Democratic primary process for months, as each major campaign has reached out to her for suggestions and advice on immigration policy. Before Hillary Clinton even announced that she was running for president, her National Political Director Amanda Renteria was talking to Andiola on the phone, and after Clinton’s major spring event in May they exchanged emails for the campaign to connect with policy experts. The campaign would go on to hire another advocate, Lorella Praeli, from advocacy organization United We Dream, to lead Latino outreach.

Martin O’Malley’s campaign and Director of Public Engagement Gabriela Domenzain also used Andiola, along with other activists, as a sounding board as they crafted their immigration policy. Andiola has long explained that her objective during the cycle was to push Clinton, the presumed favorite for the Democratic nomination, to the left on immigration. Now she joins Sanders, who has now hired a string of activists long-involved in immigration battles. In addition to Andiola and Vargas, the Sanders campaign recently hired Arturo Carmona of Presente to lead Latino outreach, and named Javier Gonzalez formerly of SEIU the campaign’s Nevada field director.




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http://www.buzzfeed.com/adriancarrasquillo/bernie-sanders-just-hired-the-best-known-immigration-activis#.vvKxYd9XB

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http://www.bustle.com/articles/120778-hillary-clinton-email-shows-she-was-eyeing-a-second-presidential-run-from-day-one-at-the

Establishment Democrats seem upset that Bernie has turned out to be more than just a nuisance vanity candidate, quite a lot more. His popularity and rising poll numbers have certainly been forcing their candidate to take stands on issues she would have rather not talked about-- from Keystone XL Pipeline to the disastrous trade agreement she was complicit in negotiating, the TPP, and which she has now been forced to disown. Progressives are holding her to a higher standard because of Bernie and she finds herself coming out for progressive policy she's never been particularly comfortable with. She did dig her heals in on Glass-Steagall, but she's been doing a lot of tap-dancing around her relationship to Wall Street and the policies progressives are demanding, another reason why it may have been unhelpful for Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee, to endorse her so early.


Wednesday, during a campaign stop in Bernie Country, she was questioned by a New Hampshire AARP volunteer spokesperson about what she means by "enhancing Social Security," rather than using the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders term of expanding Social Security. she began her response be assuring the audience (Democrats) that she will "defend Social Security from the continuing efforts by some to privatize it... we are not going to privatize Social Security." She went on to talk about those recipients "who are most vulnerable in terms of what their monthly payout is... primarily divorced, widowed, single women who either never worked themselves or worked only a little" and the need to "get the monthly payment for the poorest Social Security recipients up." She also said "I want to look at raising the cap, I think that’s something we should look at how we do it, because I don’t want it to be an extra burden on middle class families and in some parts of the country, you know, there’s a different level of income that defines middle class. So what do we skip and what level do we start at?" OK, fine... but here's the tricky part:




Progressives were immediately alarmed by the non-definitiveness of her statement. CREDO sent out a note to its members: "Democratic primary voters deserve to know exactly where Secretary Clinton stands on Social Security... Sec. Clinton needs to draw a line in the sand and make it clear that she will veto any bill that cuts Social Security benefits or raises the retirement age." This is non-negotiable for progressives-- and she knows it very well, which is why she's treading so softly. Without explicitly stating that she is against all cuts, her targeted "enhancements: might well be just one half of the discredited Bowles-Simpson plan (discredited by progressives but still beloved by the conservatives and New Dems she's surrounded herself with). Sanders is 100% clear and unambiguous about where he stands: expansion, a position he shares with 43 Democratic senators and 116 of the Democratic House Members.


Writing at HuffPo yesterday, Sam Stein made the point that the centrists and right-leaning folks in the Democratic Party-- the Establishment, the Clinton wing, the Republican wing, the New Dems, the Blue Dogs... however you want to phrase it-- are still spooked by the level of grassroots support for Bernie. "On Wednesday morning," he wrote, "the think tank Third Way held a briefing in which it warned candidates that they risked personal and broadly shared electoral harm if they echoed Sanders' populist message." Third Way is as far right as you can go without crossing over to the GOP. They're not in favor of the candidates on the Blue America page who have already endorsed Bernie and are running on a generally similar platform. Outside of most social issues, the careerists and shills at Third Way have far more in common with Republicans than they do with progressives.



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http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com

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Hillary Clinton told the activists “I have some issues and proposals to discuss if my friends will let me speak.” Black Lives Matter activists interrupted Hillary Clinton's Friday afternoon campaign event, throwing a wrench into her attempt to show solidarity with the black community. Protestors chanting "Black lives matter" disrupted Clinton's Atlanta rally kicking off African Americans for Hillary, with Clinton backers responding with chants of "Hillary, Hillary" and “Let her talk” to drown them out.



But the protestors persisted, as Clinton tried to talk over them. "I have some issues and proposals to discuss if my friends will let me speak," Clinton said, before Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights hero, attempted to calm the protestors by approaching them directly. The mostly black crowd cheered as the protestors were led out of the room. The disruption was the first time Black Lives Matter protestors have interrupted a Clinton event since she jumped into the race, though they’ve protested other Democrats’ campaign events. And it didn’t come at the best moment for her, as the event was meant to showcase Clinton’s strength with black voters.

The former secretary of state was in Atlanta on Friday to unveil new criminal justice reform policies — and show she stands with the black community. Before the rally at Clark University where she was interrupted, she’d spoken at a Rainbow PUSH luncheon hosted by Rev. Jesse Jackson. Clinton is banking on strong support with black voters to help her close out the threat from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders after the early-voting states, when a number of heavily black southern states will vote.


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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/black-lives-matter-activists-disrupt-hillary-clinton-rally-article-1.2418128

I’ve been in leadership positions for two labor unions for over 40 years, the last 30 years leading a local urban union of almost 2000 members. And given the state of the labor movement, it galls me to read a supposedly progressive site where the leadership of the site, and about half of the posters, claim that Hillary Clinton is a progressive leader. I have no problem with people supporting Hillary because they agree with her record. But please, please, don’t try to fool anyone, including yourself, in claiming the progressive label. I have hard time calling anyone “progressive” who thru their actions, not their pre-election rhetoric:




While Hillary has taken some consistent liberal positions on equal pay, abortion rights andpaid sick leave (all popular issues),(I can find no core values that she has, except that she is a classic corporate democrat. At what point do some of you question her core values and her judgement? Support her if you must, but I will do what I can to expose people who have served a lifetime of shilling for big money and when elections roll around, change their positions for 12 months. Just like I know what I’m getting with Hillary Clinton, so too I know what I’m getting with Bernie Sanders.


Yes, I will encourage my members, to vote for Hillary, if she is the nominee, but I will do so in an honest way; not like the sycophants carrying her water on this site. I know her campaign makes sure she is painted with a progressive brush on this site, but it really is unseemly. Isn’t there a Third Way website you can go to? By the way, everything about Hillary’s time at Walmart is documented, so please let’s not try revisionist history. Thanks.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/29/1442488/-Please-don-t-call-Hillary-A-Progressive