OCTOBER
1, 2019
NEWS
AND VIEWS
Bernie Sanders’ Fund-Raising Haul:
$25.3 Million in Third Quarter
The
large total for his 2020 presidential bid reflected the senator’s continued
strength with small-dollar donors.
By Sydney Ember
Oct. 1, 2019 Updated 11:51 a.m. ET
Image
Senator Bernie Sanders’s success with
donors from July to September will almost certainly place him in the top tier
of candidates for fund-raising results.CreditCreditHilary Swift for The New
York Times
Senator Bernie
Sanders raised $25.3 million in the past three months, his campaign
said on Tuesday, a total that continues to demonstrate his strength with small
donors as he fights to maintain support in key early-voting states.
The financial haul, among the first that
a candidate has announced for the third quarter, will place Mr. Sanders in the
top tier of the field for fund-raising.
It is also a much-needed boost for his
campaign, as it looks to move past a summer slump that coincided with
staff shake-ups
in New Hampshire and Iowa and a slip in some polls in
early-voting states. And it will perhaps help quell the narrative that his
campaign is in decline.
Mr. Sanders received 1.4 million
donations in the third quarter, his campaign said.
His third-quarter dollar total exceeds
the $18
million he raised in the second quarter, which was roughly the same
amount he collected during the first six weeks of his campaign at the beginning
of the year. His campaign did not say how much cash it had on hand.
Mr. Sanders announced his total for the
quarter just minutes after Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., said
he had raised $19.1 million in the same period.
The fund-raising announcement comes as
Mr. Sanders’s campaign begins a crucial phase of his presidential bid. He and
his advisers had tried for months to portray the race as a battle between Mr.
Sanders and Joseph
R. Biden Jr., but the surge of Ms. Warren, his chief ideological rival, has
scrambled that strategy. The top tier of candidates in the field has narrowed
faster than his advisers expected, complicating matters: Rather than competing
for the nomination with a half dozen candidates, he is essentially battling
just two right now — Mr. Biden and Ms. Warren.
Seeking to alter the course of the race,
Mr. Sanders has shifted his message in recent weeks to focus more on
electability. During a recent tour of eastern Iowa and campaign stops
elsewhere, he has tried to make the case to voters that of all the Democratic
hopefuls, he is the candidate most likely to prevail against President Trump.
He has also introduced a series of audacious policy proposals, including
establishing a national rent control standard, eliminating existing medical
debt and instituting
a wealth tax that goes farther than Ms. Warren’s plan.
Yet perhaps more than ever, Mr. Sanders
is betting on the grass-roots appeal that propelled his 2016 campaign, a factor
that his campaign says polls often fail to capture.
Rather than relying on high-dollar
fund-raisers — events he categorically rejects — he instead hopes to energize
enthusiastic supporters who can donate to him again and again. In a show of
force last month, his campaign said it had logged contributions from more than
one million individual donors. His campaign said the average donation for the
quarter was $18.07.
His strategy means he does not have to
worry about donors maxing out; his campaign said more than 99.9 percent can
give again. But it also poses challenges: Though he has a loyal army of
supporters and volunteers, many of them do not donate large amounts of money,
meaning he must appeal to a huge pool of donors in order to keep pace with
rivals like Mr.
Buttigieg, who is willing to collect large sums of money on the traditional
big donor fund-raising circuit.
Sydney Ember is a political reporter
based in New York. She was previously a business reporter covering print and
digital media. @melbournecoal
Bernie
Sanders
The
independent senator from Vermont is reprising his 2016 campaign, championing
economic equality.
By Sydney EmberUpdated Oct.
01, 2019
NATIONAL POLLING AVERAGE
16%
INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS
$36.2m
NEWS COVERAGE RANKING
#3
INTERACTIVE
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all the Democratic candidates »
Who
is Bernie Sanders?
78 years old
Born in Brooklyn; lives in Burlington,
Vt., and Washington
Former mayor of Burlington; elected to
the House of Representatives in 1990; elected to the Senate in 2006
Runner-up to Hillary Clinton in the 2016
Democratic presidential primary
Sanders’s signature issues
With an anti-establishment style that
has changed little over five decades, Mr. Sanders has attracted a loyal cadre
of fans. He often boasts, correctly, that some of his agenda items once
considered radical — Medicare
for all, a $15 minimum wage, tuition-free public college — have now been
embraced by many Democrats. Running for president a second time, he is one of
the most-well known candidates in the race. But he remains something of an
outsider: A self-described democratic socialist, he has never joined the party
he hopes to lead.
Three questions about Bernie Sanders
1. Sanders calls himself a democratic
socialist. What does that mean?
Democratic socialism has
become a powerful force in American political life, but its definition is
up for debate. Generally, it falls somewhere between communism and social
democracy, which is common in Europe.
Strictly speaking, democratic socialists
do not support capitalism, meaning they want workers to control the means of
production. Unlike communists, democratic socialists also believe that
socialism should be achieved democratically.
2. What is Sanders’s plan for student
loan debt?
Mr. Sanders has long called for
eliminating tuition at public colleges and universities. And in June, two
months after one of his rivals, Senator Elizabeth Warren, proposed
canceling most
student loan debt, Mr. Sanders went even further, helping to introduce
legislation to eliminate all of the country’s student
debt.
Mr. Sanders earned plaudits for his plan
from his supporters, as well as from some in the education field. But other
analysts were skeptical about its feasibility.
3. He seems to really dislike
millionaires. But how much does he make?
According to 10 years of tax returns
that he released
in April, Mr. Sanders and his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, reported income
that topped $1 million in 2016 and 2017, in part from proceeds from his books.
His income puts him within the top 1
percent of taxpayers, creating some political awkwardness for the senator, who
often speaks against “millionaires and billionaires.”
“The only way we will win this election
and create a government and economy that work for all is with a grassroots
movement — the likes of which has never been seen in American history.”
LATEST COVERAGE
OCTOBER
1, 2019
OCTOBER
1, 2019
SEPTEMBER
30, 2019
SEPTEMBER
26, 2019
Bernie
Sanders releases ‘income inequality’ tax plan
2020 hopeful Bernie Sanders hosted an
event promoting ‘Medicare For All’ and released his ‘Income Inequality’ tax
plan which impacts companies with CEO’s making a lot more money than their
workers. NBC News’ Shaquille Brewster reports.
Sept. 30, 2019
********************************
OCTOBER
2 AND 3, 2019
NEWS
AND VIEWS
THE
SANDERS CAMPAIGN IS ANNOUNCING THAT HE DOES EXPECT TO ATTEND THE OCTOBER
DEMOCRATIC DEBATE AS PLANNED. THE DATE FOR THAT WILL BE OCTOBER 15, 2019,
ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA. I ASSUME THAT IF HE HAD HAD MORE THAN ONE BLOCKED
ARTERY THE DOCTORS WOULD HAVE REPAIRED THE OTHERS ALSO. ONE OF MY UNCLES HAD A
BYPASS AND SAID THAT HE DIDN'T FEEL JUST A LITTLE BIT BETTER, BUT A HUNDRED
PERCENT BETTER AFTER THE PROCEDURE. I EXPECT SANDERS TO BE EQUALLY IMPROVED
AFTER THIS, SO THAT HIS HEALTH MAY NOT BE AN IMPEDIMENT.
Bernie
Sanders to take part in next debate and plans to leave hospital in coming days,
campaign says
Updated
3:09 PM ET, Thu October 3, 2019
PHOTOGRAPH -- Democratic presidential
contender U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, from Vermont, addresses a crowd at Winthrop
University as part of his college campus tour, Friday, September 20, 2019, in
Rock Hill, South Carolina.
(CNN)Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to return home to Vermont in the
coming days before taking part in the next Democratic primary debate, his
campaign said on Thursday, as he recovers in a Las Vegas hospital following a
heart procedure.
Jane
Sanders, his wife, said in a statement Thursday afternoon that her
husband is "up and about" and has not undergone any "additional
procedures" after having two stents inserted after doctors discovered a
blockage in one artery.
"We expect Bernie will be
discharged and on a plane back to Burlington before the end of the
weekend," she said. "He'll
take a few days to rest, but he's ready to get back out there and is looking
forward to the October debate."
There is no word yet on when Sanders
will return to his busy 2020 stump schedule, but campaign surrogates will fan out across the country this coming
weekend, headlining events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Inside
Sanders headquarters in Washington, the vibe is "business as usual"
after a nerve-wracking 36 hours, an aide told CNN. His wife is with the senator
in Las Vegas, along with campaign manager Faiz Shakir. Both flew out to join
him in Nevada on Wednesday.
News of Sanders' health scare broke
early that morning, with many staffers learning of the situation from senior
adviser Jeff Weaver, who read them the same statement that the campaign
subsequently released to the press.
The release only revealed that Sanders
had, on Tuesday night, "experienced some chest discomfort"
that doctors diagnosed as a blockage in one artery and treated by inserting two
stents.
"We are canceling his events and
appearances until further notice, and we
will continue to provide appropriate updates," Weaver said. At around the
same time, the campaign confirmed that it had "postponed" its first
ad buy, scheduled to begin on Thursday and run two weeks in Iowa. There is
no public timetable yet for when the campaign might launch its first television
ad of the campaign.
Despite
his age, Sanders has kept up one of the most active schedules of any 2020
Democratic primary candidate, often holding four or even five rallies and town
halls in a single day.
He
was scheduled to headline three events on Wednesday and planned another four in
California beginning on Thursday. Friday's itinerary had him slated for three
more, including a union forum.
Before
traveling west, Sanders held three Sunday events in New Hampshire and another
pair on Monday. A campaign aide told CNN that Sanders arrived in Las Vegas on
Tuesday at around 5:30 p.m. local time. He then visited the Las Vegas Community
Healing Garden to pay tribute on the second anniversary of the October 1, 2017,
mass shooting there.
He
began to show signs of unusual fatigue during a grassroots fundraiser later in
the evening, asking a top aide to bring him a chair while he was speaking to
supporters. He then left the event before taking part, as planned, in a
"selfie line" with attendees.
BERNIE
SANDERS HAS HAD TWO STENTS PLACED IN A HEART ARTERY, AFTER AN EVENT AT
YESTERDAY'S SPEECH IN PHILADELPHIA WHEN HE SUFFERED "CHEST
DISCOMFORT." SEVERAL MONTHS AGO SANDERS DID REVEAL TO AN INTERVIEWER THAT
HIS DIET INCLUDES A PREDOMINANCE OF MEAT. MEAT IS THE DIET ATHLETES EAT FOR
ENERGY, AND HEAVEN KNOWS HE HAS ENERGY, BUT I HOPE HE WILL SLOW DOWN AND HAVE
MORE QUIET INTERVIEWS INSTEAD OF LONG AND ARDUOUS SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, SEVEN
EVENTS IN SEVEN DAYS, OR AT LEAST GET MORE SLEEP. OF COURSE, IF THE STENT DOES
ITS' JOB HE SHOULD BE IN CONSIDERABLY BETTER CONDITION, ACCORDING TO WHAT ONE
OF THESE ARTICLES SAID. HE ALSO SAID IN ONE VIDEO THAT HE NORMALLY GETS ABOUT 5
HOURS OF SLEEP A NIGHT. HE MIGHT ALSO TRY A DAILY HORIZONTAL REST PERIOD IF NOT
A NAP IN THE AFTERNOON, LIKE SO MANY OF US AGING PEOPLE DO. I PERSONALLY DO
BETTER WITH JUST THE REST, BECAUSE GOING TO SLEEP FOR VERY LONG WILL PUT ME
BACK INTO THE LOWER GEAR THAT I EXPERIENCE IN THE MORNINGS BEFORE I'VE HAD MY COFFEE.
Bernie
Sanders hospitalized, campaign events canceled l ABC News
Bernie Sanders’ Heart Blockage One Of
Most Common Afflictions In Men His Age
VIDEO -- PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Democratic
presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders is recovering after a heart
procedure. He’s hospitalized in Las
Vegas after experiencing chest discomfort at a campaign event on Tuesday.
Sanders had a blockage in his heart.
It’s one of the most common afflictions in men his age and the procedure the 78-year-old senator underwent is one of the most
routine performed by cardiologists.
Tune
in to @cbsphilly later
today for an interview with Einstein Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Sahil
Banka, discussing presidential candidate @berniesanders having two stents inserted in a blocked
artery.
The
Sanders campaign says the 78-year-old senator from Vermont is conversing and
in good spirits after a blockage in an artery required two stents.
“That’s
when a small wire is threaded past the blockage in the blood vessel which is
causing the problem and the blood flow can be improved by using a balloon to
expand the blockage. Then a stent is placed in the blood vessel to improve the
blood flow more permanently,” Dr. Sahil Banka, of Einstein Cardiology Associates, said.
Banka,
an interventional cardiologist at Einstein, was not involved in Sanders’ care.
The
view of the heart comes with an angiogram which is usually done when
patients like Sanders complain of chest plain. A thin wire is threaded through
either the groin or wrist to access the heart.
“Sometimes
getting two stents is necessary because of the length of the blockage or the
size of the blockage,” Banka said.
Symptoms of coronary artery disease include chest pain, shortness of breath, weakness and nausea.
Following
a stent, patients are usually put on medications that don’t cause any serious
side effects.
“Most
of our patients go right back to doing what they usually do,” Banka said. “That’s
the goal of treating a blockage or doing coronary
intervention, is getting people back to full activity level.”
The
Sanders campaign says the senator will be resting up over the next few days.
The campaign hasn’t released any
other information about Sanders’ health situation. In 2016, his doctor released a letter during the campaign showing he
had history of elevated cholesterol but no indication of heart disease at
the time.
Cholesterol is a primary cause of heart
blockages.
STEPHANIE STAHL
YESTERDAY'S
ARTICLES ON SANDERS' CONDITION HAD LITTLE INFORMATION, THOUGH THEY WERE
GENERALLY COMFORTING IN TONE. THIS ONE BY SLATE IS A BIT MORE SCARY, AS IT
TELLS IT FROM THE VIEW OF A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL. THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE,
JEREMY SAMUEL FAUST, MD MS MA, IS AN EMERGENCY HEART DOCTOR AND BLOGGER. SEE: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/author/jfaust.
I
HAVE NEVER SEEN A DESCRIPTION LIKE THIS OF WHAT A HEART ATTACK ACTUALLY IS. IT'S
A VERY INTERESTING STORY. SLATE IS GENERALLY A GOOD NEWS SOURCE, IN MY
VIEW, THOUGH A FEW TIMES THEY HAVE SPOKEN NEGATIVELY OF SANDERS. OH, WELL. I
FORGIVE THEM. THEY HAVE ALSO PRAISED HIM.
Did Bernie Sanders Have a Heart
Attack?
The
only other likely scenario, based on what his campaign has said so far, isn’t
much better.
OCT
02, 20198:41 PM
PHOTOGRAPH -- Bernie Sanders at a
campaign event at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire, on
Sunday.
Scott Eisen/Getty Images
A 78-year-old man with a medical history
of gout and diverticulitis comes to the emergency department after developing
chest discomfort while at a work function.
The patient’s overall clinical scenario
is concerning enough that he is admitted to the hospital, where interventional
cardiologists urgently perform a procedure called a cardiac catheterization.
When the doctors inject dye into the major coronary arteries that supply blood
to the heart, they find that one of them is so severely blocked that they must
immediately place two stents in an effort to restore normal blood flow and
hopefully prevent cardiac tissue around it from dying.
Based on the information his campaign
has released, this scenario seems to be what happened to Bernie Sanders on
Tuesday evening. Without a close look at Sanders’ medical chart, it’s
impossible to make a definitive diagnosis, and I have not reviewed the details
of his case other than what has been reported to the media by his campaign. But
even the scant information
we have—that he had stents inserted overnight following an acute cardiac
episode—is enough to be able to say: This was very likely a heart attack.
I asked the Sanders’ campaign
directly if they could confirm that this was or was not a heart attack. They
declined to comment on the record. On Wednesday
evening, the Wall
Street Journal ran a story that originally stated a spokesperson for
Sanders said the senator “didn’t suffer a heart attack,” but that story was
later updated to remove that assertion. The story now states that the
spokesperson said “more tests would be run to determine that diagnosis.”
A myocardial infarction, the medical
term for a heart attack, is defined as an
acute injury to the muscle of the heart, accompanied
by clinical evidence of inadequate blood supply. This is usually confirmed
with a blood
test called a cardiac troponin that detects evidence of the damage
(this testing takes hours, not days). The threshold that must be reached to
raise a doctor’s suspicion of a heart attack is not high. New chest pain or
pressure certainly suffices. Pain or new shortness of breath, whether with
exertion or at rest, also suffices. But even less obvious symptoms such as
sweating, jaw pain, or sudden arm tingling are enough to spur an immediate
investigation.
When symptoms are obviously related to
the chest, we call them “anginal.” We know that Sanders presented to the
doctors with classic anginal symptoms, and that he underwent cardiac
catheterization urgently, because the campaign told us so. We can therefore
interpolate a great deal about what the emergency doctors and cardiologists
likely discovered. If his bloodwork and his electrocardiogram had both been
normal, there would have been no need to rush him to the cardiac
catheterization suite in such a short time frame (it’s possible some doctors
would rush him for catheterization even if those tests were normal, but that
would only happen if the patient’s symptoms were extremely bad). The fact that the time frame for this was
so accelerated indicates that at least one of those two findings was present,
and thus the senator almost certainly met the clinical definition of a heart
attack.
The suspicion that Sanders was
experiencing a heart attack would have been confirmed in the cardiac catheter
suite when his cardiologists found at least two blockages in one of his coronary
arteries that required and were amenable to stents. We don’t know whether the
fact that he had two stents placed in one artery is evidence of a limited heart
attack or the opposite.
Some commentators have been hedging about
whether Sanders had a heart attack or not. Here’s why that hedging is likely
unnecessary: Other than a heart attack, there are two scenarios that would
require coronary stent placement: unstable angina and stable angina. Stable
angina is defined as chest pain (or similar symptoms) that do not change over
time, and the information the campaign gave about him experiencing chest pain
suddenly, during an event, suggests this is not what Sanders experienced.
That leaves unstable angina as the
only alternative to a heart attack. Unstable angina is an increasingly
controversial topic among experts. In
essence, unstable angina is progressive coronary artery narrowing that causes
worsening symptoms, but is not necessarily accompanied by new EKG findings or
abnormal blood tests. It’s basically an impending heart attack, a
ticking time bomb, in which the cardiac muscle has not yet died—but could
crumple at any minute. Patients can have unstable angina for minutes, days,
weeks, or even longer. While patients with unstable angina who receive stents
often feel better afterward and heart attacks are prevented in a small number of them, the risks of the procedure are
considered so dangerous—including bleeding, and even the possibility of inducing a
heart attack—that only patients with
severe risks and/or severe symptoms should undergo cardiac catheterization.
It’s also true that some patients
bounce back quickly and essentially return to normal.
So, again, taken together, the facts we
know are that Sanders required two stents and that this occurred in an acute
clinical scenario. This means that either it was a heart attack or that it was
unstable angina. Unstable angina
carries just as poor a prognosis as many, though not all, heart attacks.
Recovery from a heart attack varies.
Often people are tired, and most can expect a reduction in their tolerance for
exercise and stress. Some are immobilized and require prolonged rehabilitation.
It’s also true that some patients bounce back quickly and essentially return to
normal. Without more information, we
just don’t know what the scenario is for the senator.
Given that Sanders is running for
president at the age of 78, I’d suggest it is perfectly reasonable to want to
know whether he has just experienced a heart attack and how extensive the
damage was. Patients who have had
heart attacks have lower life expectancies and are far more likely to have
strokes. If he’s going to continue in the race, he certainly should
expect to disclose a bit more information about his health.
The opinions expressed in this
article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views and
opinions of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Support our 2020 coverage
Slate is covering the election issues
that matter to you. Support our work with a Slate Plus membership. You’ll also
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IF
HE DID USE HIS HEART PROCEDURE TO "PLUG MEDICARE FOR ALL," THAT IS
FORGIVABLE IN MY VIEW, AND IT'S A SIGN THAT'S HE'S FEELING PRETTY CHIPPER. IT HAS THAT SLY HINT OF A JOKE TO IT. MOST PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL WOULD AGREE, THAT'S A GOOD THING AND NOT A BAD THING.
Bernie Sanders uses emergency heart
procedure to plug Medicare for All
OCTOBER
02, 2019 09:33 PM, UPDATED 31 MINUTES AGO
VIDEO -- Bernie Sanders hopes that in
2020 his progressive message has sunk in so deeply that the Democratic Party is
ready to make him its new leader. BY ADAM WOLLNER | PATRICK GLEASON
Sen. Bernie Sanders put his Democratic
presidential campaign on hold to undergo an emergency heart procedure this
week.
But even as he recovers, the Independent
senator for Vermont is staying on message.
“None of us know when a medical
emergency might affect us,” Sanders, 78, said in a Facebook post Wednesday. “And no one should
fear going bankrupt if it occurs. Medicare for All!”
Sanders has elevated Medicare For All as
one of his signature issues in the campaign, promising universal coverage to
all Americans and pushing other contenders for the party’s 2020 presidential
nomination to guarantee the same.
Sanders thanked his supporters and
friends for their well wishes after the procedure.
“I’m feeling good,” Sanders said in the
post. “I’m fortunate to have good health care and great doctors and nurses
helping me to recover.”
Sanders was in Las Vegas, Nevada, on
Tuesday when he was hospitalized for chest discomfort and had two stents inserted to
treat a blocked heart artery, Reuters reported.
According to Reuters, “the insertion of
stents to open blocked heart arteries is a relatively common procedure, with as
many as 1 million Americans a year undergoing it. After a balloon-tipped
catheter is used to clear the blockage, stents — tiny, wire-mesh tubes — are
used to prop open the artery.”
Sanders’ recovery could be relatively
quick.
“This is a very common procedure. And
there are different types of stents, of course. Which one will be used depends
on what exactly the patient has,” said Dr. Buddha Dawn, a cardiac expert at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who wasn’t involved in Sanders’
procedure, according to KSNV. “Typically, if the stent installment
goes as predicted, the recovery is very fast.”
Sanders adviser Jeff Weaver said in a
statement Wednesday that the candidate was “conversing and in good spirits,” according to The New
York Times — but Weaver also said Sanders “will be resting up over the next few
days. We are canceling his events and appearances until further notice, and we
will continue to provide appropriate updates.”
Sanders’ campaign has pushed
his single-payer, government-run health plan by noting that “more than
30 million Americans still don’t have health insurance and even more are
underinsured.”
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