Say what you will about Bernie Sanders

[_Kevin Graham]

But the man has been consistent with the same message for decades. And the hair is genius.

Unlike some folks who tend to "evolve" with the political winds...

[_ajax18]

“If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive waged down even lower than they are now,” Sanders said in a television interview in June 2007.

If an ordinary working man were to admit such common sense out loud in public he would surely be labeled a racist or white supremacist and likely lose his job.

Sanders has “pitted immigrants as an obstacle to tackling unemployment on a number of occasions,” said Alida Garcia, director of coalitions and policy at the pro-immigrant group FWD.us. “He’s evolved on this issue since his campaign launched, but where his prior statements have been troublesome is within his economic framework of welcoming new immigrants to our country.”

“It does not make a lot of sense to me to bring hundreds of thousands of those workers into this country to work for minimum wage and compete with Americans kids,” Sanders said in 2013.

http://time.com/4170591/bernie-sanders- ... ervatives/

[_Kevin Graham]

He's talking about guest workers he isn't attacking immigrants. I corrected you on this point before but you seem unwilling to learn.

And his 2013 statement sounds just like his 2007 remark so how he evolved?

[_honorentheos]

From Thursday nights debate -

SANDERS: Back in 1988, I ran for the United States Congress one seat in the state of Vermont. I probably lost that election, which I lost by three points, because I was the only candidate running who said, you know what? We should ban assault weapons, not seen them sold or distributed in the United States of America.

I've got a D-minus voting record from the NRA.

(APPLAUSE)

And, in fact, because I come from a state which has virtually no gun control, I believe that I am the best qualified candidate to bring back together that consensus that is desperately needed in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Thank you, Senator. Thank you.

(CHEERING)

BLITZER: Secretary Clinton, I want you to respond to that, but why did you put out that statement blaming Vermont and its gun policy for some of the death of -- by guns in New York?

CLINTON: Well, the facts are that most of the guns that end up committing crimes in New York come from out of state. They come from the states that don't have kind of serious efforts to control guns that we do in New York.

But let me say this -- in 1988, as we've heard on every debate occasion, Senator Sanders did run for the Congress and he lost. He came back in 1990 and he won, and during that campaign he made a commitment to the NRA that he would be against waiting periods.

And, in fact, in his own book, he talks about his 1990 campaign, and here's what he said. He clearly was helped by the NRA, because they ran ads against his opponent. So, then he went to the Congress, where he has been a largely very reliable supporter of the NRA. Voting -- he kept his word to the NRA, he voted against the Brady Bill five times because it had waiting periods in it.


(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Senator, I want you to respond, but I also want you to respond to this. You recently said you do not think crime victims should be able to sue gun makers for damages. The daughter of the Sandy Hook Elementary School who was killed back in the 2012 mass shooting, says you owe her and families an apology. Do you?

SANDERS: What we need to do is to do everything that we can to make certain that guns do not fall into the hands of people who do not have them.

Now, I voted against this gun liability law because I was concerned that in rural areas all over this country, if a gun shop owner sells a weapon legally to somebody, and that person then goes out and kills somebody, I don't believe it is appropriate that that gun shop owner who just sold a legal weapon to be held accountable and be sued.

But, what I do believe is when gun shop owners and others knowingly are selling weapons to people who should not have them -- somebody walks in.

SANDERS: They want thousands of rounds of ammunition, or they want a whole lot of guns, yes, that gun shop owner or that gun manufacturer should be held liable.

Not to bag on Senator Sanders (there is just too much at stake when one looks at the two republican front-runners) but I don't think the narrative that he is consistent is a primary reason for either supporting him or differentiating him from the alternative. I know it feeds into the Republican-created narrative about Clinton's trustworthiness. But it's just that. It's a marketing narrative.

What's really interesting to me is how both Clinton and Sanders are essentially in step in pointing to Dodd-Frank and it's full implemention to accomplish the central pillars of Sander's campaign related to addressing wealth migration to smaller and smaller proportions of Americans at the very top of the wealth spectrum. What, then, matters most in implementing it if not the ability to put legs under an existing law? Seriously, what's the big sell here that suggests Sanders is the better of the two?

[_Kevin Graham]

Yes, this always seems to be the ONE issue anyone can come up with to prove Bernie is just as bad as all the other politicians.

Anyway, Hillary is full of crap. A "very reliable supporter of the NRA"?

Politifact ran through all his votes on legislation relating to guns and determined this claim is mostly false. Voting a certain way may be interpreted as a "pro-gun" position but it doesn't necessarily mean you're in the pocket of the NRA. For instance, his refusal to hold manufacturers liable for murders may sound like it is pro-gun, but in reality it is pro-common sense.

If Sanders were in the pocket of the NRA then he'd have been pro-gun through and through, and wouldn't have, for example, voted to ban semi-automatic weapons in 1994, or vote for a 3-day waiting period for gun show purchases in 1999, or vote to ban high capacity mags in 2013, etc. Does that sound like someone in the NRA's pocket? Someone who was given nien different report card grades from the NRA and averaged a D?

[_honorentheos]

You missed the point there, Kevin. Getting past the republican saw horse of Clinton's trustworthiness, the question is about the ability to govern. If both Clinton and Sanders agree that an existing law is the mechanism for putting the brakes on the increasing wealth gap in the US, what really makes Bernie the better candidate? How would he be better able to give Dodd Frank the political motor to actually run?

[_The CCC]

If we are unable to evolve politically, we go extinct literally.

[_Kevin Graham]

If we are unable to evolve politically, we go extinct literally.

But there is a difference between legitimately evolving on political issues and allowing your views to be shaped by corporate donations. The latter seems to always be the case with politicians like Hillary, who've flipped on more issues than I can count, and a smoking gun found in a lobbyist's hand.

For example, I think Obama really did evolve on the issue of gay marriage. He came out in support of it after he had already won his second term so he really had nothing to gain, politically or financially, by doing so. On the other hand, Hillary used to support a single payer health care system back when her husband first became President. But then after two decades of receiving money from the healthcare/insurance lobby, she changed her mind and now attacks Bernie Sanders for supporting it. She wants to "build" on Obamacare only because it keeps the Insurance companies in control.

But Bernie Sanders has not been bought by the NRA as Hillary keeps suggesting, and her attempts to make him accountable for the murder of children is nothing short of despicable.

[_honorentheos]

Obama came out in support of marriage equality in May 2012 when the republican field was trying hard to out crazy one another over civil liberty issues. Just making sure we keep the facts in front of us.

Again, this sounds a lot like the conservative narrative against the Clinton's going back decades. It's a meme away from being something your mom would have posted on her Facebook during the Benghazi hearings.

Why not some point or other as to how you think Bernie will actually enact Dodd Frank better than Hillary would be able to? I'm not bagging on Bernie. If he wins the nomination he has my vote without question right now. But I don't see what makes him the preferred candidate when it comes down to doing what's in the job description. Sometimes it may as well be people saying outright they like a person's smile or would prefer to drink a beer with one candidate over any other.

The Dodd Frank question seems simple as well as meaningful. So...?

[_EAllusion]

There's almost no chance Obama actually changed his mind on the subject of gay marriage. For one, he was is an ivy-league educated professor who held office for Democrats in one of the more liberal districts in the country. He'd be an extreme demographic anomaly to not support gay marriage by 2008. However, the position he did hold coincidentally matched the safest one for popular opinion and was right in line with the national Democratic party position. For two, and more importantly, when asked about the subject prior to coming out and supporting gay marriage he'd say his position was "evolving" which about as obvious of code for saying, "I support it, but don't want to risk political backlash for saying so. I'll wait til popular opinion is more favorable," as can possibly be.

Obama came out in favor of same sex marriage before the 2012 election:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/09/politics/ ... -marriage/

He did so at a time when popular opinion had shifted enough that it became a wedge issue that favors Democrats. Right before a major US election.