Scary Thought: Is Bernie Sanders the New Ralph Nader?

I still like Bernie better than Hillary, but I'll be voting for whichever one gets the nomination.  We can NOT allow the Great Nightmare of 2000 and 2004 to happen again in 2016:

Bernie Sanders: Please DON'T undermine your campaign speeches with too many policy specifics

This column by Gail Collins, Cornering the Anger Market, makes some excellent points.  It's a wake-up call to all Democratic candidates who think they can capture the voters' attention with specific step-by-step plans.  Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have been the most successful at stoking the voters' fear and loathing.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump is shrewd enough to NOT strain his audiences' intelligence by boring them, or going over their heads, with any specific plans or details.  “I'm gonna build a huuuuuge wall and make those dirty Mexicans pay for it!”  “Take that Muslim bitch's overcoat away from her and throw her out in the snowbank!”  The audience goes into an orgasmic frenzy of hatred, and they don't even have to comprehend any big words or listen to any boring details.

Bernie Sanders is just as skilled at dialing into the public's anger, and he doesn't even have to scapegoat poor people, minorities or refugees.  “Congress does not regulate Wall Street … WALL STREET REGULATES CONGRESS!”

“[Wachovia, an American bank later acquired by Wells Fargo] aided Mexican drug cartels by laundering billions of dollars in their cash. Yet the total fine for this offense was less than 2 percent of the bank’s $12.3 billion profit … and no one went to jail. No one went to jail.”

“If you [financial barons] do not end your greed, we will end it for you.”

All right!  But then Bernie takes the wind out of his sails by following up his rhetoric with step-by-step details on how he's going to accomplish this.  NO!!!  Damn it, Bernie, this is America!  Most voters don't give a fuck about (or comprehend) the derivatives market, reinstating Glass-Steagall, yada yada.  Huh???  Do what now?  Oh look, something shiny!

The follow short comedy clip should be a constant reminder for any politician who might forget who his/her audience is, and how to communicate with them:

the Almost Live Lame List

Bernie Sanders Lashes Out at Republican Terrorists

Senator Bernie Sanders gave an excellent speech on the Senate floor today.  Highlights include:

“But one thing is certain, you do not hold the American people hostage by threatening to shut down the government or for the first time in the history of our country not paying our bills and bringing this country and perhaps the entire world into a major financial crisis.  There was an election a year ago on this very issue — one of the major issues in the campaign — and the Republican candidate said, ‘Let’s defund Obamacare.’ He lost the election! Republicans lost seats in the Senate, they lost seats in the House! And that’s what democracy is about…What democracy is not about is a handful of members of the House of Representatives, extreme right-wing Republicans, saying, ‘If we do not get our way, we are prepared to punish tens of millions of Americans. Yeah, we lost the election. Yeah, we lost seats in the House and Senate. But we are prepared to bring this government down. We are prepared to cause, perhaps, a major global financial crisis unless we get our way!’”

And:

“Let us not tell men and women in the United States armed forces, who today are putting their lives on the line to defend us, that they’re not going to get paid. Let us not tell police officers here in Washington and elsewhere, they may not get paid. Let’s not tell working families, who take take their little kids into Head Start so they can then go out to work, that that program may be killed. Let’s not tell senior citizens, who are on the Meals on Wheels program who can’t leave their homes who depend upon a meal, let’s not punish them because you’ve got small number of extreme right wingers who want to get their way at the expense of millions and millions of people.”

Or as Rachel Maddow put it, the GOP thinks the 2012 election was a mis-trial.

Bernie Sanders also pointed out that the GOP’s repeated hijackings and hostage-taking were “making us look like fools throughout the entire world because a handful of right wing extremists are so determined to try to destroy this president.”

President Obama has said he will not negotiate with terrorists.  He needs to follow through with that statement.  Because the Republicans’ constant threats to shut down the government and/or default on our debts if the GOP agenda doesn’t get passed — this is economic terrorism.

And these GOP economic terrorists belong in Gitmo with the rest of their kind.

You Go Bernie Sanders

In case there was ever any doubt, the record gas prices of 2008 were caused by oil speculators. Sorry, rightwads — those America-hating treehuggers had nothing to do with it.

Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent—VT) has leaked this information to the press. By publicizing this information, Sanders has infuriated Wall Street CEOs AND their [wink] “regulators.”

As with the Pentagon Papers and WikiLeaks (and their numerous spin-offs), the Powers That Be are having a mass panty-twist that “private” information has been leaked to the lowly public. For people who are NOT part of that self-contained Inner Party of corporate VIPs and the “legislators” and “regulators” who keep going down on them, the information itself should be infuriating, rather than the fact that the information was leaked to the public.

Bernie Sanders said:

“The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has kept this information hidden from the American public for nearly three years. This is an outrage. The American people have a right to know exactly who caused gas prices to skyrocket in 2008 and who is causing them to spike today.”

You Go Guy.