Bernie Sanders Love Fest Open Thread
Posted: December 10, 2010 Filed under: open thread, Populism | Tags: Bernie Sanders 41 CommentsIf you didn’t catch the ‘Filabernie’ today, here’s some more! Enjoy!! Billionaires on the Warpath with greed that has no end!!!
Sen. Bernie Sanders became a sensation on cable television and new media outposts like Twitter with his filibuster Friday of a proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts to all Americans.
Twitter lit up with highlights from Sanders’ (an Independent from Vermont) prolonged and sometimes angry speech, decrying an agreement between President Obama and Republicans to allow the breaks even for millionaires, while he said many of his constituents are going hungry.
The filibuster, from a Dutch word meaning “pirate,” has a long and not so proud history in the U.S. Senate. Those in the majority have tried for more than two centuries to make it go away. They have failed.
Vice President Aaron Burr paved the way for the filibuster with a seemingly innocuous move in 1805 to simplify the Senate’s rules. He argued that the Senate debate guidelines were too complex and that one rule, allowing “previous question” motions, should be stricken.
The previous question rule had allowed lawmakers to end debate and call for a vote. But the Senate went along with Burr and dumped the rule. It wasn’t until more than three decades later, in 1837, that a filibuster stalled Senate action for the first time.
Bernie on Tavis Smiley: The President “is not going to sell this to me’. The costs of caving-in to Republicans will become higher in the future. They’ll come back and ask for more.
From Politico: Bernie Sanders Last Stand
The left’s been looking for a new hero. Tonight they latched onto one: Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The Vermont independent took progressive fury over President Obama’s tax-cut deal with Republicans to the floor of the Senate Friday, bringing the chamber to a standstill for eight hours with a filibuster-style speech that set the liberal Twitterverse ablaze.
“Let me conclude,” said Sanders. “It has been a long day. Let me simply say that I believe a proposal that was developed by the president and the Republicans are nowhere as good as we can achieve.”
Open Thread and Open Celebration for Truth Spoken to Power!!!
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Oh, I love me some Bernie!
And I emailed and called his office to tell him so. Read that 95% of the calls & emails are thanking him.
I can believe that!! I just felt inspired by his speeches all day long and I was so proud my Senator Mary Landrieu joined in!!!
I was supposed to study, write a long letter after doing research and all I got done was straightening out the meds…Ah, but I loved listening to Bernie! I just got done with some of todays work… 😆
Several times we literally stopped and sat still as if we were listening to inspired angels. Senator Bernie Sanders really connected with the people and told it as it is, yea, we know the continuation of BUSH II’s policies when we see them. Go Bernie GO!
I streamed cspan 2 all day. He hit every one of my concernsl
Is Mary up for reelection this next cycle in 2012 DK? I was completely surprised to see her championing any of this since she voted nay on importing cheaper drugs from Canada and I think also wasn’t too gung ho on the public option. I figured that was to keep her Blue Dog cred. I’ve got a couple of things bookmarked for when she comes around with her rice bowl at election time. She’s going to have a hard time in a state-wide race anyway now in LA, but I want her squirm a bit. 😉
Yes. She will be up in 2012.
Don’t get me wrong. I know Mary has done a lot of good for the state and SELA but those two votes really chapped me. However, that no vote on the importation of medicines from Canada just really got to me. That was one of the best/easiest things that could have been done to help average working folks.
Yup, I love me some Bernie too, he is a FIGHTER for the working people!
Go Bernie Go!
I even ‘following’ Bernie on Twitter! WOW, NOW that is what a REAL Democrat looks like! Go Bernie GO!
Tavis Smiley was just added sugar for me (Tavis ROCKS!).
For once I heard real truth on the senate floor. It was a good thing. From here on forward it will be theater and the bill will pass. Obama will be a one term president.
Poll: Obama’s losing support; Romney would beat him now
Well, Obamacare=RomneyCare=Dolecare … quelle difference?
15 year old Tells Establishment to Stick-it. (a young Brit future Bernie…awesome teen)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U_gHUiL4P8&feature=youtu.be
Wow. Just Wow.
I’d be a proud mother if he were my son.
That’s the way many European students are. My non- political son is muttering around about conspiracies all over the place…
I was a student in Britain in the late 80s and early 90s. I helped with a few protests, nothing at school though. Got beat up by some upper class twits over fox hunting though! Took 20 more years and the government finally banned it.
Is that the reason behind your avatar?
Kinda. Actually the avatar is my dog, who looks like a fox. She’s a Finnish Spitz, great breed for farm dogs. But I picked the breed because they look like foxes, and I’ve always had a ‘thing’ for foxes :).
Emailed both my Senators to tell them to support Bernie. Don’t suppose they will, but they know what I feel now.
Also emailed Bernie to tell him how grateful I am for what he did. He made me proud to be a liberal/socialist again.
Ohh Rep. Jay Inslee says none of the changes made so far to the tax cut bill will make him vote for it. I’m hoping speaks for more in the caucus than himself.
Bernie’s right in that clip from Tavis Smiley, if Democrats cave on this it’ll be nothing more than a springboard for Republicans to bully through cutting social programs. They won’t push to cut a dime from defense, the hundreds of billions we’re spending pointlessly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and every other program that pruist sanctimonious Democratic principles built over the past half century.
And listening to Obama’s defenders is just infuriating. Even Bill Clinton. Suggesting there was no choice but to go along with this outrageous “compromise.” When we have Senators like Sanders, Landrieu, Sherrod Brown, and others who’ve spoken out, like Chuck Schumer, expressing similar outrage — such different people from different regions who often don’t agree about a lot — and Obama didn’t even bother to consult with them much less coalesce like-minded Democrats to come up with a proposal and battle plan, we have a Democratic President who didn’t even try to use the leverage he has at his disposal. So it’s one of two things: either Obama got what he wanted (which I believe is true) or he is a complete failure at brokering Democratic compromise with Republicans.
I had so much I had to do yesterday but to justify watching the Senator from Vermont I kept doing other things I kinda sorta need to do that let me watch. Because there’s a TV in the kitchen I cleaned the stove and the refrigerator (not sure but it’s possible MythBusters might be interested in some of the mysteries I discovered back there), and I kept getting so drawn in I’d find myself sitting at the kitchen table just staring at what an American hero looks like.
We’re in big trouble in our United States, no question about that. We have a Democratic President who brazenly works with Republicans to forward their agenda while ridiculing those who fight for Democratic principles. And a lot of Americans who are opposed to the Republican agenda go along with it, defending Obama. We’re definitely in trouble. But yesterday, and maybe today and tomorrow, we still have possibility (I refuse to use the H word). As long as an old New Englander will get up in the Senate chamber and speak truth to power for 8 hours straight, we still have possibility.
I’m so excited to see that despite a dozen years of setbacks we haven’t lost our spirit, our commitment to our guiding principles, or our faith in one another. Bernie Sanders, and the response to his resistance, says that at the very least we’re still breathing, still standing, still in the game.
Yeah zaladonis, much as i love Bill, he’s wrong about this payroll tax thing. I’d love to know Hillary’s take on it. She’s smarter than Bill.
I don’t know if Hillary’s smarter than Bill but Bill’s addicted to adoring attention in a way Hillary isn’t. It’s a specific way he’s weak and she’s strong that I’ve believed would’ve made her a better President. Maybe it’s because he developed a hunger for it growing up, and also she never got the particular kind of approval and adoration that a charming good looking boyman like Bill draws his whole life, who knows?
I think he jumped in yesterday to be in the spotlight. Oh, I’m sure he worked it out in his mind that he was supporting the Democratic President, and being big for doing so, but watching him with reporters it just looked like he was enjoying the attention standing at the White House lecturn.
President Clinton has my admiration and respect for a lot of things but yesterday was another of those moments I just cringed and thought, “Oh Bill please go home and be quiet.” I’ve a feeling Hillary’s had that same thought about her husband now and then.
If Bill looked bad, Obama looked worse. What really annoys me is that the media and the Obama worshippers (but I repeat myself) aren’t making a huge deal about how weak Obama appeared having to turn to Bill for help. Imagine if Hillary was President and she had to have Bill come to help her out like this? The shrieks from the media would be deafening.
Obama looked like hell. Watching the two of them enter and then each of them speak yesterday at the White House reveals volumes about both of them. It was hard for Obama to not only be told he needed Bill Clinton to do that (guaranteed Obama fought it) but that in the event Bill Clinton outshined him by about a million kilowatts in the room.
It’d be fun to, frame by frame, break it down, but regarding Bill’s true feelings about the tax cut proposal notice Bill literally bites his lip when he says “the President made a good decision.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/bill-clinton-obama-made-good-decision-12368766&tab=9482931§ion=2808950&playlist=2808979
I kind of agree with you Zal, about Bill Clinton liking the spotlight … but I don’t really mind when it’s him. 😉
But do watch Obama’s (lack of) facial expression while B.C. speaks! He blinks a lot – is he fighting to keep awake? Or dreading the scolding he’s anticipating from his spouse for being late? – but apart from that, looks kind of frozen. Only a couple of times does he raise his chin in the air … and then falls back into the same mold that he holds all through Clinton’s speech.
Wouldn’t you expect of him, now that he has gone to the lenghth of bringing in a former president to defend his actions, that he would at least nod a couple of times while listening? Or … is he actually listening? Does he even understand – or care about – what Clinton is talking about?
And … do you think it’s a coincidence that Clinton’s tie exactly matches the colour of the White House seal behind him? 😉
You know, I have developed a new theory. I think Obama really does tune out in these situations. During the campaign, he read everything as written by Axelrod and his speechwriters. He had no idea what promises he was making. That’s why now he doesn’t understand why anyone else listened to those promises.
I know.
Me too. I love the guy.
I agree with bb – I think he’s tuned out.
Sorry to be so repetitive but to understand Obama one has to accept that he’s a psychopath. His responses are not what yours or mine would be, and trying to understand what he’s doing in the context of what our response would mean is like taking the road from Louisville to Phoenix when your destination is New York City.
See, what Bill Clinton is saying doesn’t matter to Obama. Really: he couldn’t care less about what you and I (and the press) are listening to and processing. Ask Obama today what Clinton said and I guarantee he couldn’t tell you a single specific except maybe that Clinton said, “please go” to him as he was leaving. All that matters to Obama, to a psychopath, in that event is that Clinton (whom he loathes and wants disgraced and conquered) came to his rescue and the press loves Clinton. That’s a severe blow to Obama, and so what a psychopath does in that situation is remove himself. He learned how to do that a long time ago when having to endure humiliation. At first Obama does it by shutting down and not listening to Clinton, and eventually he does it literally by leaving the room. (That blinking indicates one is either trying to keep something in -a secret- or keep something out. It’s self-protective, like trying to keep a window shut against a storm.)
Blinking …. that’s a dead giveaway the blinker is uneasy and uncomfortable about something.
Thanks for saying this, Zal. I, too, think Bill Clinton has too big a need to be in the spotlight. The “why” doesn’t interest me, and, IMO, Clinton is losing his political instincts if he thinks that what he did yesterday didn’t make Obama look inept and uncaring. For me, Obama leaving the podium to say he had to attend a Christmas party while Bernie Sanders was reading letters from his constituents who couldn’t afford to pay for gas to attend church once a week was the Obama equivalent of the photo of George Bush in the airplane looking down at the Katrina catastrophe.
I seriously doubt that’s what Bill Clinton thinks.
IMO Clinton didn’t do it to make Obama look good, he did it to look better than Obama.
Brutal, but probably an accurate take.
I’m very disappointed in Bill and I do think at least some of this was just the juice it gives him to be in the political limelight. But I don’t think you can fault his political instincts — even he couldn’t have anticipated that Obama would literally and physically bail out on the most important current political issue to run off to a party!
I’m sure bill is Still sensitive to the rumors that they would like to sabotage Obama and run Hillary.
Obama does a perfectly good job of sabotaging himself.
Yeah, I noticed the lip-bite too. I guess I’ve been watching too much Lie To Me .
Yes, and then there is this miserable look on Bill Clinton’s face as Obama says he and Bill just had a good talk about the tax deal. Wait, Is Clinton Still President? Most Awkward Parts of Obama Press Conference | Gallery | BLTWY
It is the first one of the 10 that MSNBC has pictures for. Check it out.
Reminds me of when he had to dine with fearless leader to get those two young women out of north Korea
This piece mentions the lip-bite too but sees it in a different light. It also makes it sound more as if Clinton made a fool of himself by not leaving, than Obama did for leaving.
OK whatever, but it also mentions that the door to the briefing room was locked. So not only must a former and a previous president go around knocking on doors (who’s running the White House, again?), but when Gibbs hears voices he greats the two presidents with these words:
“What are you guys up to?” !
“You guys”! “Up to”! Can you imagine any other press secretary address a president – let alone two! – in that manner ever before? 🙄
“Former and present president” of course! :more eye rolling:
I believe BC said he didn’t like the bill but that the Republicans forced it on Obama and it was the best that Obama could do. Thats a far cry from supporting the thing. He only said its the best that Obama could do. In other words, “thats what you get you Obama-lovers”.
That’s true. As we all know, Bill Clinton is a master of word choice.
But he did say, “the President made a good choice,” which not only made me gag but, as that clip shows, made him bite his lip.
Frankly I think Bill did it to support Hillary’s position … part of the price they pay
for her being SOS….mopping up for BO….OF COURSE Obama left to run a party…he’s very conscientious fellow in his true sphere! lol! …that of parties and golfing vacations etc… his leaving the presser also lashes Bill even more to the rotting hulk that is the BO administration….if you can’t beat them, embrace and sink them…seems to be the theme.
Love that Bernie
The costs of caving-in to Republicans will become higher in the future. They’ll come back and ask for more.
Dang I have said that for years….they keep coming back until you say no…you cannot give them enough to satisfy them …one can’t …you have to say no at some point to have a hope of stopping them.