Source: USA Today

Bernie Sanders continued to hammer Hillary Clinton on trade while campaigning in Pittsburgh Thursday, pledging to fundamentally rewrite “disastrous” trade deals -- including the North American Free Trade Agreement.... The independent senator from Vermont also said he would reject the massive 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, an Obama administration priority that requires congressional approval. Sanders noted that Clinton backed the TPP while serving as secretary of state -- calling it the “gold standard” of trade deals -- and spoke favorably about it "some 45 times" before coming out against it in October.... “Now she says she has reservations about it and when a whole lot of people put pressure on her she decided to oppose it,” Sanders said at a news conference,flanked by union members. “I will not renegotiate the TPP, I will reject it.”

Sanders said he would not send trade agreements to Congress that would make it easier for corporations to move abroad, increase the price of prescription drugs or deregulate Wall Street.

“We have to lift up the standard of living of workers in this country and throughout the world,” he said. “Trade is a good thing. But it has got to be based on fair principles, not unfettered free trade.”

Sanders has made a point of distinguishing himself from Clinton on trade, which helped him pull off a 1.5-point upset victory in Michigan's March 8 primary. The issue is likely to resonate with workers in Pennsylvania who have lost manufacturing jobs. ... “It is directly due to free trade agreements that many of the products we build in Erie are now being built out of the country,” said Scott Slawson, president of the United Electrical Workers Local 506, the bargaining agent at Erie G.E. “... Sanders says he led the opposition to NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China, which he says have cost millions of U.S. jobs and led to “a race to the bottom” for workers. He says Clinton over the years has strongly supported those deals.... He also criticized deals that lead corporations to move to countries such as China where there are “virtually no environmental standards” compared to the U.S.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/03/31/bernie-sanders-pledges-rewrite-disastrous-trade-deals/82473012/

Ben & Jerry's founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield love fellow native Brooklynite and Vermont transplant Bernie Sanders so much, they made him his own ice cream, a mint chocolate chip flavor where "all the chips have somehow floated to the top." And lucky fans of ice cream and single-payer healthcare alike can get a taste of "Bernie's Yearning" today—both Ben and Jerry'll be in Union Square handing out free sundaes starting at 5 p.m. today! ... The duo have been campaigning hard for their state's longtime Senator. Earlier this month, Cohen told NPR, "We've never campaigned for another presidential candidate before because there's never been a presidential candidate worth campaigning for before," with Greenfield adding, "Bernie is unique. He is a politician who comes along once in a generation. Obviously, Hillary Clinton was much better known, but I think what we're seeing is that when more people learn about Bernie—his history in the civil rights struggle, how involved he's been in worker issues—they're getting incredibly excited."

Anyway, "Bernie's Yearning" comes topped with a huge chocolate disk that you have to chop up into a million little pieces with your spoon and then swirl around to distribute all the chips equally. One wonders if that's some sort of metaphor for something.

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinal

Madison— For the second day in a row, a new poll shows Bernie Sanders leading Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz with the narrowest of edges over Donald Trump in the fiercely contested Wisconsin presidential primaries.

The new survey by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, is similar in many respects to results released Wednesday by the Marquette University Law School poll.

The Public Policy poll shows Sanders, the Vermont senator, leading Clinton, the former secretary of state, 49% to 43% with 8% of voters undecided. That compares to Wednesday's Marquette poll that showed Sanders leading 49% to 45%.
...
Former President Bill Clinton will be in Appleton on Friday and both Hillary Clinton and Sanders will be in Milwaukee on Saturday. Sanders is campaigning in Sheboygan and Green Bay on Friday, Eau Claire on Saturday and Madison on Sunday.

Read more: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/second-poll-shows-bernie-sanders-ted-cruz-with-primary-leads-b99697882z1-374144971.html

It is disheartening but not the least bit surprising that the Hillary campaign is attacking Susan Sarandon by claiming that Sarandon said she supported Trump, which Sarandon never said nor implied.

Sarandon said "I`m going to see what happens" in the unfortunate possibility that the race would come down to Hillary vs. Trump. Contrary to expressing support for Trump, Sarandon (quite accurately) indicated that Trump would be so bad for America that some people feel a Trump presidency would cause the government to explode.

First, if Sarandon did support Trump, that would be her own fucking business and would not warrant an attack; and if you want to attack Trump supporters, why not skip those who don't support Trump (like Sarandon) and focus on those who actually do support Trump (such as Kirstie Alley, Scott Baio, Stephen Baldwin, Azealia Banks, Gary Busey, Aaron Carter, Mike Ditka, Lou Ferrigno, Hulk Hogan, Jesse James, Loretta Lynn, Wayne Newton, Terrell Owens, Kid Rock, John Rocker, Dennis Rodman, Tila Tequila, Mike Tyson, and Jon Voight).

Second, Sarandon has said she does not support Trump. Sarandon comment "I`m going to see what happens" is a thousand times more likely to mean that Sarandon would either not vote in the presidential race, or would vote for Jill Stein, or would write in Sanders, or would -- no longer very likely -- come around to the idea of voting for a luke warm Hillary. It is absurd to infer that Sarandon would support Trump from her comment.

Remember, Hillary's campaign is not new to such tactics:



Clinton aides claim Obama photo wasn't intended as a smear

Given how often Hillary and her supporters try to excuse Hillary's own untruthful comments and misjudgments by claiming all criticism grown from a vast right wing conspiracy trying to smear her pristine record and motives, you would think they would tone down the right-wing style attacks.

Link to Washington Post article "The idea that Bernie Sanders has been too negative to debate Hillary Clinton is ridiculous"; excerpt:

Asked about the possibility of a New York debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders before the Empire State primary on April 19, Clinton pollster Joel Benenson said this on CNN Monday:

Senator Sanders doesn't get to decide when we debate, particularly when he's running a negative campaign. Let's see if he goes back to the kind of tone he said he was going to set early on. If he does that, then we'll talk about debates.

Er, okay. Negativity is, to some extent, in the eye of the beholder. But, it's very hard for me to see the campaign that Sanders has run fits the into the "negative" category. ... The closest thing I could find to a traditional negative ad from Sanders was this one that hits Wall Street for its campaign contributions and speaking fees, and, by association, Clinton.

This one, in which Sanders lays out "two visions" for dealing with the economic inequality, is also kind-of, sort-of negative. But not really.

Ads aside, Sanders has totally avoided talking about Clinton's private email server and the FBI and State Department investigations into it — insisting that "no one cares about your damn emails" even while polling suggests lots of people do.

In a genuinely negative or nasty campaign, Sanders would have spent most days this year slamming Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy for her initial decision to set up the private email and for her subsequent insistence that the server never needed to be turned over to a third party investigator. He could be saying that Clinton represents too big a risk for Democrats to nominate because of the investigations looming over her.

Sanders has done none of that. But, he doesn't tell people not to boo Clinton at his events! THE HORROR! WHY SO NEGATIVE!!!

I'm so weary of posts lumping extraordinary diverse groups of people with different values and various cultures into one bucket based on the pigmentation of their skin.

If you are tempted to post an analysis that depicts any racial group of people as a homogeneous pack who votes the same as other people who have the same skin pigmentation, please first read NPR's #BernieMadeMeWhite: No, Bernie Sanders Isn't Just Winning With White People. Here is an excerpt:

On Sunday, after Bernie Sanders' commanding wins in the Alaska, Hawaii and Washington state Democratic presidential caucuses, Leslie Lee III, an American freelance writer living in Japan, tweeted, "I knew it. I knew if Bernie won Hawaii it would magically become a white state."

And then he tweeted again: "Ever since I voted for Bernie, I've been bingewatching Friends. #BernieMadeMeWhite."... Lee said he wrote that to contradict a narrative he sees playing out in the race for the Democratic nomination.

"There's always been these articles about how Bernie supporters are basically only white people," Lee told NPR.

He continued, "Me, myself, and many other POC, people of color, who support Bernie Sanders, feel like we don't get to be a part of the conversation. We get ignored. We get erased. It's assumed that the black vote, the Hispanic vote, and everyone is all behind Hillary Clinton and none of us really get Bernie Sanders or like Bernie Sanders."

So he decided to have fun with it. "Hey, if you're gonna ignore me as a black person, I might as well embrace my whiteness," Lee said. "I might as well start watching Friends, or enjoying pumpkin spice latte, or whatever. I just wanted to have a bit of fun with it while highlighting the serious issue."

Even lumping all "Hispanics" into one group is a fool's task. Cuban-Americans and Mexican-Americans and every other subgroup that falls within this over-inclusive "Hispanic" label ignores huge cultural differences that separate one subgroup from another (for example, the language that is primarily spoken within the household is a more meaningful voting-pattern distinction than any categorization that fails to recognize Cuban-Americans tend to vote based on issues which hold less significance for other voters within the broad Hispanic label). This is not a group that is consistently supporting either Hillary or Sanders.

Source: Salon

“I think the super delegates are going to have make a very difficult decision and that is, if a candidate wins in a state by 40 or 50 points, who are you going to give your vote to?” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders asked over the weekend after winning three Western states by upwards of 40 to 70 points.... On Saturday, a most unlikely Sanders supporter appeared to agree with that sentiment, pledging his superdelegate vote in favor of Sanders as his home state of Minnesota had recently done. Rep. Collin Peterson told Forum News Service that his superdelegate vote will reflect the will of voters in his state who voted for Sanders 62 percent to 38 percent for Clinton.

“I’m voting my district,” Peterson said. “I’m going to vote for Bernie.”

While the founding member of Democrat’s Blue Dog Coalition, formed to promote fiscal conservatism, rarely attends the DNC, he said that if his superdelegate vote would make a difference, he would make the trip to Philadelphia to cast a vote for the Democratic Socialist despite their obvious differences on tax policy. “He’s got something going,” Peterson said of Sanders’s support with young voters. “He’s tapped into something.”

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2016/03/28/bernies_blue_dog_backer_sanders_gains_the_support_of_an_unlikely_superdelegate/

---

That was unexpected.

Cheers to Rep. Collin Peterson for honoring his constituents.

Link to This Is How Bernie Sanders Will Win the Nomination; excerpt:

After sweeping victories in three contests over the weekend, Bernie Sanders' campaign has a message for Hillary Clinton: "Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated."

Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver made that statement on a conference call with reporters on Monday, during which top aides argued that Sanders can still overcome Clinton's delegate lead in the Democratic primary contest. ... "We are certainly in this to win it," said Weaver, "and there is a path to do so."... Going forward, the Sanders campaign said it would compete in all upcoming contests, including Wisconsin on April 5, New York on April 19, California on June 7, and even in Washington, DC, the final Democratic contest on June 14. The campaign was optimistic that it would overtake Clinton's pledged delegate lead—she is currently ahead 1,243 to 975, with 2,383 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination...

and the DoJ will refuse to act on the FBI's recommendation and this will haunt Hillary without her ever going to court to clear up the matter.

Ultimately, those who like Hillary (like me) will continue to like her and those who distrust and dislike Hillary will have another log to toss onto their bonfire of hate and mistrust, and this is a problem because Hillary cannot win a general election without moving the many, many voters who currently dislike and distrust her (and if you think people dislike her on DU, buckle up before entering the real world where loyalty to the Democratic Party counts for nothing):









I believe Hillary deliberately tried to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act -- just like Bush-Cheney, Gov. Christie, Gov. Perry, Gov. Jeb!, and many other Republicans.

I believe this is bad, but not impeachable.

I believe Hillary will NOT be indicted nor SHOULD she be indicted.

BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO EXPECT OR WANT HILLARY TO BE INDICTED TO SEE THIS IS GENERAL ELECTION POISON!

In Alaska, Sanders is up by 79% to Hillary's 21% with over 38% of the vote in, and CNN has called it for Sanders.

In Washington, Sanders is up by 74% to 26% for Hillary with over 14% of the vote in and CNN has not yet called it for Sanders.

Yet ANOTHER win for SANDERS following wins in New Hampshire, Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Vermont, Nebraska, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Utah, and Idaho.

WASHINGTON will be NEXT and then HAWAII.