SEATTLE: #BlackLivesMatter Activists Shut Down Bernie Sanders Speech

The Seattle Times reports:

A Seattle speech by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was pre-empted in a chaotic confrontation Saturday afternoon with a pair of Black Lives Matter protesters, who took the stage and refused to let him speak. The Vermont senator, who has drawn huge crowds around the country, was to be the star attraction and final speaker for a rally at Westlake Park to celebrate the 80th birthday of Social Security and the success of other anti-poverty programs. But his afternoon plans were scuttled by protesters determined to turn attention instead to Sunday’s anniversary of the shooting by a white police officer of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo. Later in the evening, Sanders received the reception he’d expected from the Seattle area as the progressive alternative to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. An estimated 15,000 supporters packed Hec Edmundson Pavilion and an overflow area as Sanders took the stage to thunderous applause and delivered an hourlong populist stemwinder about his plans to wrest the country from the control of billionaires.

Sanders To Speak At Liberty University

Sanders has issued a statement:

“Liberty University was kind enough to invite me to address a convocation and I decided to accept. It goes without saying that my views on many issues — women’s rights, gay rights, education and many other issues — are very different from the opinions of some in the Liberty University community. I think it is important, however, to see if we can reach consensus regarding the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in our country, about the collapse of the middle class, about the high level of childhood poverty, about climate change and other issues. It is very easy for a candidate to speak to people who hold the same views. It’s harder but important to reach out to others who look at the world differently. I look forward to meeting with the students and faculty of Liberty University.”

Yeah, so this will be interesting.

Barney Frank: Ditch Bernie Sanders

"Decades ago, Sanders made a principled choice to play a valuable part in our politics — the outsider within the system. He defied the uniquely American aversion to the word 'socialism.' We are, after all, the only Western democracy in which no self-identified socialist party has ever played a significant governmental role. While voting with the Democrats to organize first the House and then the Senate, he made clear he did so as a regrettable necessity, not a preference, and cited his nonmembership in the party as an indication of his political integrity. Substantively, he has consistently, forcefully and cogently made the case for a larger federal government role in improving both the fairness and the quality of life in our country, refusing to soft-pedal in the face of declining support for this view in public opinion. His very unwillingness to be confined by existing voter attitudes, as part of a long-term strategy to change them, is both a very valuable contribution to the democratic dialogue and an obvious bar to winning support from the majority of these very voters in the near term." - Barney Frank, in a lengthy Politico piece titled Why Progressives Shouldn't Support Bernie Sanders.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Clinton And Bernie Sanders Effectively Tied In New CNN Poll

Via the New York Times:

The next time Hillary Rodham Clinton visits New Hampshire, she need not look over her shoulder to find Bernie Sanders; the Vermont Senator is running right alongside her in a statistical dead heat for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, according to a CNN/WMUR poll released on Thursday. The poll shows Mrs. Clinton drawing 43 percent of likely Democratic primary voters compared to 35 percent for Mr. Sanders, but with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points, the race is a statistical tie. While Mrs. Clinton has been enormously popular in New Hampshire, her favorable ratings have dropped almost 20 points since February, while Mr. Sanders’s have been climbing. And his negatives are lower than hers. So their net favorability ratings (favorable minus unfavorable) are now equal, at 55 percent. The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, interviewed 1,010 voters from June 18 to 24. The margin of sampling error for the entire poll was plus or minus three percentage points, but for the 360 likely Democratic primary voters who were interviewed, it was plus or minus five percentage points.

WaPo 2016 Net Favorability Poll

Of all the declared and potential 2016 candidates in the Washington Post's net favorability poll, only Sen. Bernie Sanders is (barely) in positive territory.

The real-world surveys show that the overwhelming majority of presidential candidates are running negative favorability scores. Quinnipiac has Bernie Sanders at +1 overall, although that's partly because 62 percent of Americans say they haven't heard enough about him to form an opinion. The closest Republican is Marco Rubio — the same number of Americans say they view him positively as those who view him negatively, meaning his score nets out to exactly zero. Clinton and Obama are tied at -4. And it's all downhill from there, all the way down to Donald Trump. Only 15 percent of Americans view him favorably, compared to 71 percent who have a negative opinion. That gives him a net favorability of -56, more than twice as bad as the next-lowest candidate, Chris Christie, with his -26 score.

(Tipped by JMG reader Daddy Ray)

Sen. Bernie Sanders Enters 2016 Race

Via USA Today:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pulled out all the stops Tuesday at his presidential campaign launch in Burlington, as he outlined his role in "a political revolution to transform the country — economically, politically, economically and environmentally." "Brothers and sisters, now is not the time for thinking small," he told a large crowd at Waterfront Park. "Now is not the time for the same old same old. Now is the time for millions of working families to revitalize American democracy." With the backdrop of Lake Champlain and its procession of boats large and small, Sanders vowed to steer the the country away from an economy defined increasingly by income inequality. Not only is the model "profoundly wrong," he said, "it is immoral, bad economics and unsustainable." To the nation's billionaires, Sanders added, "You can't have it all."

Sanders' full speech is below.

Hillary Welcomes Sanders To 2016 Race

Sen. Bernie Sanders To Enter 2016 Race

Via the Associated Press:

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will announce his plans to seek the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday, presenting a liberal challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sanders, an independent who describes himself as a "democratic socialist," will follow a formal statement with a major campaign kickoff in his home state in several weeks. Two people familiar with his announcement spoke to The Associated Press under condition of anonymity to describe internal planning. Sanders will become the second major Democrat in the race, joining Clinton. He has urged the former secretary of state to speak out strongly about issues related to income inequality and climate change. The former first lady and New York senator is viewed as a heavy favorite in the Democratic primary and formally entered the race earlier this month.

Oh this will be interesting.

Quote Of The Day - Sen. Bernie Sanders

"Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the time and opportunity to vote. While this would not be a cure-all, it would indicate a national commitment to create a more vibrant democracy. We should not be satisfied with a ‘democracy’ in which more than 60 percent of our people don't vote and some 80 percent of young people and low-income Americans fail to vote. We can and must do better than that." - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who plans to introduce such a bill next week.

RELATED: A similar Senate bill sponsored by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry failed in 2005. That bill also would have allowed the nation's estimated 4.7M felons to vote. In April of last year, Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) re-introduced the Weekend Voting Act, which would move election day to the first Saturday in November. That bill died in the GOP-dominated Committee On House Administration. Some others countries have weekend voting and dozens technically have compulsory voting although most do not enforce that rule.

Crazy Eyes Vs Sen. Bernie Sanders

Clip recap:

It was the type of shout-fest debate that would not have been out of place in the original Crossfire. But instead of taking place on the reboot of that show, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) went head-to-head on CNN's The Situation Room Monday afternoon. Once they got going, all host Wolf Blitzer had to do was get out of the way as these two ideologically-opposed lawmakers went at each other's throats for nearly fifteen minutes straight.

It really is something to watch. Blitzer to Sanders: "More taxes on the wealthy?" Sanders: "Yeeeeessss! My goodness!" Crazy Eyes: "Well. I happen to be a former tax litigation attorney...blah blah blah."

Sen. Bernie Sanders On Syria