DECEMBER 3,
2019
NEWS AND VIEWS
“… THE
MANUFACTURE OF CONSENT BY A MEDIA APPARATUS INVESTED IN SELLING A CANDIDATE
THAT WILL NOT DISRUPT THE ECONOMIC STATUS QUO.” PAKMAN
WELCOME TO THE
PARTY, PBS. YOU WANT TO ROLL IN IT, TOO? THE MUD IS FINE TODAY.
I HAPPENED TO
NOTICE RECENTLY THAT THE SPONSORSHIP OF ONE OF THEIR IMPECCABLY LOVELY SHOWS
WAS BY THE DAVID S KOCH FOUNDATION. SO SAD.
Published on
Tuesday,
December 03, 2019
byCommon Dreams
'He's
Just...Erased': PBS 2020 Segment Finds Time for Klobuchar, Sestak, and
Bullock—But Completely Ignores Bernie Sanders
It was like
watching "manufacturing consent in action,' said Current Affairs editor
Nathan Robinson.
byJake Johnson,
staff writer
PHOTOGRAPH -- Democratic
presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders during the PBS NewsHour Democratic
presidential candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on February 11,
2016 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
A Monday
night PBS NewsHour segment on the state of the 2020 Democratic presidential
primary highlighted Sen. Amy Klobuchar's new ad
campaign in Iowa, the departure of marginal candidates Steve Bullock and Joe
Sestak, a tender campaign moment with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden's
"No Malarkey" bus tour—but did not once even mention Sen. Bernie
Sanders despite recent key endorsements and a surge in the polls.
Sanders'
presidential campaign has repeatedly accused the corporate media of ignoring
the senator from Vermont, a phenomenon Sanders supporters have dubbed the
"Bernie blackout."
The PBS
segment, led by NewsHour correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, offered "a real taste of what Bernie is talking about," Current
Affairs editor Nathan Robinson wrote Tuesday.
"Remember
that Sanders has been #1 in two out of three recent New Hampshire polls, and is
currently second in Iowa, ahead of 'frontrunner' Joe Biden," Robinson
noted. "Alcindor found time to talk about Joe Sestak and Steve Bullock,
plus plenty of candidates struggling to get out of single-digit poll numbers.
And yet: not even a photo of Bernie Sanders. Incredible. He's just... erased.
He's gone. Bernie who?"
Watch:
PBS NEWSHOUR
DECEMBER 2, 2019
FOR PAKMAN’S CHARTED
PATH OF FAVOR BY CANDIDATE, GO TO https://twitter.com/dpakman/status/1201520346484137992
Robinson
described the NewsHour segment as an example of "manufacturing consent in
action":
Political
commentator David Pakman recently asked, looking at Pete Buttigieg's rising
poll numbers, 'What do you think is behind Pete's rise?' My own answer to that
is simple: the manufacture
of consent by a media apparatus invested in selling a candidate that will not
disrupt the economic status quo.
So much of
our understanding of the world and what matters is filtered through the
media, because that's how we get access to things that are not in our
direct experience. If nobody talks about Bernie Sanders' campaign, how are
you supposed to learn about it unless Bernie people come and knock on your
door?
The
NewsHour segment came just weeks after a detailed analysis of MSNBC's coverage
of Sanders by In These Times found that the Vermont senator received both the
least frequent and most negative coverage of the top 2020 Democratic
presidential contenders.
"The
corporate media's war against Bernie Sanders is very real," Jacobin's
Luke Savage wrote last month.
"MSNBC,
of course, is hardly the only culprit," Savage noted. "As Katie
Halper documented a few months ago, the New York Times reporter assigned to
cover his campaign 'consistently paints a negative picture of Sanders'
temperament, history, policies, and political prospects.' The Washington
Post once famously ran sixteen negative stories about Sanders in the
same number of hours."
Sanders'
lack of corporate media coverage compared to his 2020 rivals does not appear to
have dampened his campaign's momentum. Last week, Sanders regained the number
two spot behind Biden in RealClearPolitics' national polling average and came
out on top in an Emerson New Hampshire poll.
As Common
Dreams reported, Sanders on Monday netted the endorsement of the Iowa
Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) Action Fund, the largest
progressive organization in the key early voting state.
"Some
2020 presidential candidates have been embracing or acknowledging movement
politics. But only one of them has been doing it for decades," the
group said in a statement. "That's why Iowa CCI Action is endorsing Bernie
Sanders. We're standing with Bernie because Bernie stands with us."
Our work
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel
free to republish and share widely.
THIS POLITICO.COM
STORY IS ABOUT A MORE TRICKY PROBLEM FOR BERNIE, THE ISRAELI/PALESTINIAN ENDLESS
WAR. BOTH WARREN AND SANDERS TAKE A BRAVE WHACK AT IT, THOUGH. IT’S FILLED WITH
INFORMATION THAT I HAVEN’T USUALLY SEEN IN DAILY NEWS.
Bernie splits
from Warren with embrace of far-left foreign leaders
Sanders is
trying to establish himself as the most progressive presidential candidate on
not just economic issues — but foreign policy, too.
By ALEX
THOMPSON and HOLLY OTTERBEIN
12/03/2019
05:04 AM EST
PHOTOGRAPH
-- Sen. Bernie Sanders. | Mary Schwalm/AP Photo
Bernie
Sanders' revolution has gone global.
As the
Vermont senator battles Elizabeth Warren for the left wing of the Democratic
Party, he's increasingly tried to find an edge on foreign policy. Sanders
has portrayed his candidacy as one part of a worldwide worker-led movement,
praised controversial leftist leaders across the globe, and tried to articulate
a foreign policy further afield of the establishment than Warren's.
Sanders’
foreign policy views are a clear mark of distinction from Warren in a race in
which their domestic agendas are viewed as very similar. Left-wing leaders
around the world see an ally in Sanders — Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
recently thanked him for his “solidarity” and Bolivia's ousted Evo Morales
called him “hermano Bernie Sanders” — but have not publicly embraced Warren
in the same way.
“Bernie is
the only candidate who has a comprehensive foreign policy vision to stand up to
the growing movement of anti-democratic authoritarianism worldwide and find
solidarity with working people around the world who, in many cases, share
common needs,” said Josh Orton, Sanders' national policy director. Another
Sanders aide referred to his approach to international affairs as a “global
struggle.”
Sanders
has made clear during his campaign that he shares many of the left wing's
long-held critiques of American imperialism — from opposition to clandestine
interference across the world, but particularly in Latin America and the Middle
East, to disapproval of the American military's global footprint. It's safe to
say that a Sanders presidency would mark a dramatic departure from the last
several decades of American foreign policy.
Elizabeth
Warren
Sen.
Elizabeth Warren. | Scott Olson/Getty Images
In recent
weeks, he has been alone among Democratic presidential contenders in speaking
positively about far-left leaders abroad. He said
Bolivia's former president Morales “did a very good job in alleviating poverty
and giving the indigenous people ... a voice.” Sanders argued that Brazil's
Lula “has done more than anyone to lower poverty in [the country] and to stand
up for workers." And the senator has drawn lofty parallels between his own
campaign and recent mass protests in Chile, Lebanon and Iraq. In a high-profile
speech in 2017, he criticized America's past actions in Iran, Chile, Vietnam,
Latin America and Iraq as "just a few examples of American foreign policy
and interventionism which proved to be counterproductive."
Warren, by
contrast, has been more cautious on foreign affairs, straddling the line between
the left and the Democratic foreign policy establishment. She has not been as definitive about the situation in Bolivia, where
Morales was forced to resign under pressure by the military after allegations
of election fraud in what Sanders deemed a "coup." Nor has she gone
out of her way to praise and cultivate relationships with leftist figures
around the world.
And while
Warren has also cast her campaign as a movement, she has not drawn
international parallels. She acknowledges mistakes of U.S. foreign policy
but is less critical of American global leadership.
“There’s a
story we tell as Americans, about how we built an international
order — one based on democracy, human rights, and improving economic standards
of living for everyone,” Warren said in a highly billed speech last year ahead
of her presidential run. “It wasn’t perfect — we weren’t perfect — but our
foreign policy benefited a lot of people around the world.”
Warren has
been more hawkish than Sanders on China and more resistant to having talks
with an Assad-led Syria and North Korea, positions that are more in the
foreign policy mainstream. While Sanders considers Israel's Netanyahu
government part of a growing "authoritarian axis," Warren will
preface criticism of Israel by noting that it is a "strong and
important ally."
Warren
joined much of the Western world in expressing support for more
aggressive action against Nicolás Maduro's government in Venezuela and
recognizing Juan Guaidó as an interim president in 2019. Sanders declined
to recognize Guaidó and urged the U.S. to "learn the lessons of the
past and not be in the business of regime change or supporting coups.”
People in
Sanders’ orbit attribute the shift in focus from 2016, when he didn’t talk as
often about foreign policy, to the presence of his top foreign policy
adviser, Matt Duss, a fierce progressive critic of Washington’s foreign policy
establishment. Duss was previously president of the Foundation for Middle East
Peace and has not worked in a presidential administration.
Sanders
hits Biden on Iraq War vote and trade agreements
SharePlay
Video
Warren’s
top foreign policy aide Sasha Baker, Sanders allies point out, is a more
traditional choice, having served as deputy chief of staff to Barack Obama’s
Defense secretary Ash Carter.
Warren's
worldview is most distinct when she ties it back to her message of the
political and economic system being rigged. “Washington’s focus shifted from
policies that benefit everyone to policies that benefit a handful of elites,
both here at home and around the world,” she said in her speech last year.
Warren
spokesperson Alexis Krieg told POLITICO that "Elizabeth believes that by
pursuing international economic policies that benefit American workers
instead of an elite few, and using diplomacy to amplify strong yet pragmatic
security policies, we can achieve a foreign policy for all."
Sanders’
top aides and surrogates argue that his international, worker-focused vision
makes him best equipped to take on the so-called “Blob," a term of
derision for what is seen as bipartisan Washington group-think on foreign
policy. Sanders has railed against establishment U.S. foreign policy
since his time as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in the 1980s — cultivating
relationships with Nicaragua, Cuba and the Soviet Union — and his team believes
only radical new leadership will avoid repeating past mistakes.
Critics
say that despite Sanders’ talk about worker-led democracy and ending wars,
many of the leftist leaders he has praised — such as Morales and, in the 1980s,
Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua — are essentially authoritarians. (He has since
criticized Ortega’s government as “anti-democratic.”)
“What we
have in Latin America is not democratic socialism at all,” said Eduardo
Gamarra, a professor of politics and international relations at Florida
International University. “Sanders’ notion of democratic socialism which he
says is that of Northern Europe is very different than that of the leaders he
embraces.”
But such
criticism has not fazed the Sanders team or his allies. “This isn’t about
Bernie endorsing one particular leader’s ideology or political program,
though some would like to present it that way,” said a Sanders aide.
In a video
released by his campaign, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of his most well-known
endorsers, said Sanders is “the only candidate that wants to make sure that we
end our endless wars.” Sanders himself has touted on the debate stage that
he hasn’t voted to authorize any of President Donald Trump’s defense budgets, a
subtle jab at Warren, who did authorize one.
Sanders
campaign co-chair Nina Turner pushed the contrast further last month, saying on
Twitter that Sanders “is the only candidate who ... spoke truth on what’s
happening on Bolivia."
Nina
Turner
✔
@ninaturner
Let's
draw distinctions on foreign policy:
.@BernieSanders
is the only candidate who:
-Spoke
truth on what's happening in Bolivia - it's a coup!
- Recognizes
the dignity of our Palestinian brothers and sisters.
- Led in
the Congress to end the war in Yemen#DemDebates
9,714
10:33 PM -
Nov 20, 2019
Twitter
Ads info and privacy
2,699
people are talking about this
The
rhetoric appeared to be an attempt to differentiate from Warren. She has been
more equivocal on Bolivia in recent weeks after Morales' ouster. Warren
initially drew scorn from some on the left with a safe statement calling for
new elections. Pressed a few days later by The Intercept for a "Young
Turks" video on whether it was a “coup,” she said it “sure looks like
that.”
Their
differences over foreign policy have also surfaced in the Senate.
In 2013,
Sanders was one of the few liberal senators to vote against John Brennan to
head the CIA — citing his concerns about drone warfare and civil liberties —
while Warren voted for him. Sanders was also one of only two “no” votes, along
with Republican Rand Paul, on a 2017 sanctions bill aimed at Iran, Russia and
North Korea. Sanders said he was worried about endangering the Iran nuclear
agreement.
Some
progressives argue that Sanders' efforts have pushed Warren and other
candidates leftward on foreign policy — and they hope he continues to do so. Warren
has pledged on the trail to make a peace process with Palestinians a condition
for continuing to provide aid to Israel.
“If
Israel’s government continues with steps to formally annex the West Bank, the U.S. should make clear that none of our aid should be used to
support annexation,” she said in October. Pete Buttigieg also said that month
that the “aid needs to be compatible with U.S. objectives.”
“Just look
at how Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg and other candidates have changed
their tune on this issue,” said Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of the left-wing
group IfNotNow. “Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who has said that he
will have the Israeli government face consequences for the ongoing human
rights violations of the occupation. I would like to see more candidates
support that position because it’s the only morally sound position.”
FILED
UNDER: ELIZABETH WARREN, ELIZABETH WARREN 2020, LATIN AMERICA
RELATED
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launch impeachment rebuttal ahead of Judiciary hearing
THIS IS ABOUT BASEBALL,
THE SERIOUS SIDE OF WHICH IS JOBS AND HEALTHY TOWNS AND CITIES WITH ACTIVITIES
FOR THE PEOPLE. I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT OF “THE ARTS” AS BEING IMPORTANT, BUT SO
ARE ENTERTAINMENTS. IN JACKSONVILLE, FL WE HAVE A FOOTBALL TEAM THAT RARELY
MAKES IT TO THE TOP, BUT THE CROWDS WHO GO TO THE GAMES ARE TREMENDOUS. IT IS
CLEARLY VERY IMPORTANT TO SOME PEOPLE. THIS PROPOSAL TO ELIMINATE 42 LOCAL
TEAMS WILL PRODUCE A GAP IN THE ESPRIT D’CORPS OF 42 TOWN AND CITIES
AROUND THE NATION, AND THAT REALLY ISN’T A SMALL MATTER.
Manfred meets
with Bernie Sanders over minor league proposal
Today – DECEMBER
2, 2019
VIDEO -- Baseball
commissioner Rob Manfred speaks to the media at the owners meeting in
Arlington, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
NEW YORK
(AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders met Monday with baseball
Commissioner Rob Manfred to discuss MLB’s proposal to that would drop 42
minor league teams from their leagues after the 2020 season.
MLB is
negotiating a new agreement with the National Association of Professional
Baseball Leagues, the governing body of the minors. The initial proposal
primarily would impact lower-level teams in short-season leagues.
Sanders, a
senator from Vermont, sent Manfred a letter on Nov. 25 calling the plan “an
absolute disaster for baseball fans, workers and communities throughout the
country.”
MLB issued
a statement Monday saying it “understands that we have an obligation to local
communities to ensure that public money spent on minor league stadiums is done
so prudently and for the benefit of all citizens.
“MLB also
must ensure that minor league players have safe playing facilities suitable for
the development of professional baseball players, are not subjected to
unreasonable travel demands, are provided with compensation and working
conditions appropriate for elite athletes, and have a realistic opportunity of
making it to the major leagues.”
It added
that it “is committed to negotiating with minor league baseball to find
solutions that balance the competing interests of local communities, MLB clubs,
minor league owners and the young players who pursue their dream of becoming
professional baseball players.”
Sanders
issued a statement saying Manfred asserted “he is committed to a good faith
negotiation” and “is open to solutions that would maintain professional baseball
in the 42 communities while addressing concerns about facilities, working
conditions and wages for minor league players.”
Sanders
said he “and other members of Congress will be carefully monitoring the
progress of negotiations on behalf of fans.”
SINCE I
KNOW SO LITTLE ABOUT LINDA SARSOUR BEYOND HER NAME, I HAVE GONE TO WIKIPEDIA.
SHE IS A POLITICAL ACTIVIST, ESPECIALLY ON WOMEN’S ISSUES. AND PRESIDENT OF AN ARAB-AMERICAN ORGANIZATION.
GO TO THIS ARTICLE FOR MORE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Sarsour
HER VIEW
ON ISRAEL AND PALESTINE ISN’T REALLY EVEN CLOSE TO BERNIE’S BUT SHE IS backing him
for other reasons.
https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Linda-Sarsour-backs-Bernie-Sanders-but-not-his-support-for-Israel-609677
Linda Sarsour
backs Bernie Sanders, but not his support for Israel
A few weeks
later Linda Sarsour, a prominent Arab-American activist and an official Sanders
campaign surrogate, said that support for Israel as a state is unacceptable in the
progressive movement.
By JTA DECEMBER 3, 2019 02:52
PHOTOGRAPH
-- Activist Linda Sarsour speaks while people participate a protest called
March for Racial Justice in New York City
(photo
credit: STEPHANIE KEITH/REUTERS)
Last
month, Bernie Sanders wrote about his support for Israel, calling the nation an
“enormous achievement” and “a democratic homeland for the Jewish people.”
A few
weeks later Linda Sarsour, a prominent Arab-American activist and an official
Sanders campaign surrogate, said that support for Israel as a state is
unacceptable in the progressive movement.
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The
contrast is sharp and, one would think, irreconcilable.
Neither
Sarsour nor the Sanders campaign has answered the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s
request for comment.
Let’s
review some recent statements on Israel by Sanders and Sarsour.
Sept. 6: The Sanders campaign posts a video of Sarsour speaking at a rally in
Brooklyn and identifies her as a “2020 Bernie surrogate.”
“At a time
of a startling rise in white nationalism and anti-Semitism, I would be so proud
to win, but also to make history and elect the first Jewish-American president
this country has ever seen and for his name to be Bernard Sanders,” said
Sarsour, who also had campaigned for Sanders in his 2016 presidential run.
Sarsour
also says that Sanders “sees Palestinians as human beings deserving of human
rights and self-determination.” Her Twitter icon is a photo of her and Sanders
together and smiling.
Latest
articles from Jpost
Nov. 11: Sanders writes about anti-Semitism for the left-wing Jewish publication Jewish
Currents in what also is his most expansive expression of Jewish
identification.
Sanders
says some accusations of anti-Semitism against progressives are a “cynical
political weapon,” but adds: “I think it is very important for everyone, but
particularly for progressives, to acknowledge the enormous achievement of
establishing a democratic homeland for the Jewish people after centuries of
displacement and persecution.”
He notes
the time he spent in Israel as a young man and says “It is true that some
criticism of Israel can cross the line into anti-Semitism, especially when it
denies the right of self-determination to Jews, or when it plays into
conspiracy theories about outsized Jewish power. I will always call out
antisemitism when I see it.”
Nov. 29: Sarsour appears at the annual conference of American Muslims for
Palestine, and says in a speech at the Chicago event that Zionists, not
pro-Palestinian advocates, should be on the defensive. In particular, she calls
out progressive Zionists, suggesting they have no place in the larger
progressive movement. (The blog Israelly Cool first reported the Facebook posting with the video of
Sarsour’s remarks.)
“Ask those
who call themselves progressive Zionists to explain to you how they can be
against the separation of children on the U.S.-Mexican border, how can they be
against building a wall between us and Mexico, how can they be against agencies
like ICE … but then you tell me ‘Oh, you can’t push me out of the movement
because I’m also against white supremacy,’” Sarsour said at the conference.
“Ask them this, how can you be against white supremacy in America and the idea
of being in a state based on race and class, but then you support a state like
Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are
supreme to everyone else.”
This
appears to be confirmation that Sarsour unequivocally rejects Zionism in any
form. In 2017, she told The Nation that “It just doesn’t make any sense for
someone to say, ‘Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and
do not criticize it in the movement?’ There can’t be in feminism.”
Sarsour’s
defenders seized on the clause “and do not criticize it” to insist that Sarsour
was not excluding Zionists who are critical of Israel. Sarsour declined to
further clarify her remarks.
Is there
wiggle room to reconcile Sarsour’s rejection of a “state like Israel that is
based on [Jewish] supremacy” and Sanders’ label for those who deny “the right
of self-determination to Jews” as anti-Semites?
It’d be
good to hear from Sanders and Sarsour themselves.
Tags
Bernie Sanders Linda Sarsour antisemitism
YOU MAY NOT
LIKE SOCIALISTS, BUT BERNIE IS FUNNY WHEN HE WANTS TO BE. ON THESE VIDEOS, HE
WANTS TO BE.
WORLD EVENTS TO
MUSIC
THE RABBI
That Time
Bernie Sanders Played a Rabbi in a Low-Budget '90s Movie
And he sounded
exactly like Larry David.
BY JOHN
HENDRICKSON
JAN 30, 2016
Okay,
let's just get this out of the way: We will never be able to see Bernie Sanders
without thinking of Larry David. Particularly if Bernie Sanders is knowingly
playing up any Jewish stereotypes, as he does in the above clip that recently
surfaced on Reddit. The scene is from a low-budget '90s movie, My
X-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception, and Sanders plays a rabbi at said wedding
reception. Here's the one-sentence summary from IMDB: The bride's ex-boyfriend
is a member of the band, a collection of musical misfits, at an Italian-Jewish
wedding. Bernie goes off on an extremely Larry David-like tangent about the
Brooklyn Dodgers, the the perils of free agency in Major League Baseball, and
he more or less forgets he's supposed to be talking about the bride and groom.
It could literally be a scene from Seinfeld or Curb. Feel the Bern.
JOHN
HENDRICKSON Deputy Editor
John
Hendrickson is the Deputy Editor of Esquire.com, where he oversees the site's
24/7 news operation as well as all politics coverage.
WHAT THE BRITS
THINK OF OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
AND NOW FOR DESSERT
– A RACING CAMEL HOSPITAL
Inside Dubai's
$10 million camel hospital populations. Source: CNN
Dubai Camel
Hospital is the world's foremost camel treatment and research facility. It
caters for the UAE's booming racing, beauty and dairy camel
DURATION 3:21
**** ****
****
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