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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

No Bernie, no one is Lying About Your Record on Guns

Bernie has clearly being going negative in the last few days.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/bernie-sanders-i-got-there-first.html

This has alienated even some supporters of his. Why he is going here is obvious: HRC is soaring. So Bernie 'drawing contrasts' has gotten much sharper edged. He's now attacking her by name.

One explanation he's come up with for why this is: he claims she started it.

"Mr. Sanders wanted to fight back against what he saw as the first negative attack of the campaign, when Mrs. Clinton twisted his remark about people “shouting” in support of tougher gun laws. (Mrs. Clinton has called for new gun control legislation; Mr. Sanders has endorsed background checks for gun buyers but also cited the difficulty of passing major new legislation.)"

"At the Democratic Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa on Saturday, Mrs. Clinton alluded to women being accused of shouting when they actually aren’t — an indirect suggestion that Mr. Sanders was guilty of sexism, which his campaign denounced as unfair. Mrs. Clinton has also singled out some of his congressional votes on gun control to suggest that he is not as reliable on the issue as she would be."

"Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders, warned of more to come if Mrs. Clinton’s campaign “keeps taking Senator Sanders’s words and positions out of context.”

“If they start going further down that negative road, I think we’re going to start looking at whether or not she can really tell the big banks to reform when so much of her money comes from Wall Street,” Mr. Devine said. “That would be Step 1. Step 2 would be: You go to Goldman Sachs and give a speech for an hour and get $200,000 — and you are going to be able to stand up to the banks?”

Mr. Devine said there was a line “between drawing sharp contrasts and going negative, and voters give you a lot of leeway when you are drawing contrasts on issues that they care about, like breaking up the big banks.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/us/politics/bernie-sanders-walking-the-line-between-personal-attacks-and-political-critiques.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Let's be clear here. Bernie spoke prior to HRC Saturday night, and he went negative all but calling her a liar regarding her explanation of Bill Clinton signing DOMA in the late 90s.

But HRC hasn't taken Bernie's words out of context. Ok, the whole women shouting vs. Bernie who's always shouting is a bit of fun.

I don't think the real issue here is sexism but gun control. Bernie thinks it's ok to shout about Glass-Steagall but not over 300,000 dead to gun violence since 2004. Though I don''t think Hill-as Amy Schumer called her at her birthday party-was wrong to talk about sexism here.

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/27/hillary_baits_bernie_beautifully_shouting_sexism_and_the_simple_sorry_that_would_make_sanders_look_less_jerky/

But the substantive point is that Bernie uses the 'Let's stop the shouting' line whenever the conversation turns to gun control.

I think it's a little tiresome for Bernie to try running against the Iraq war again in 2015. While the Iraq war was wrong-Hillary admits she was wrong about that vote-it ought to be kept in mind that the number of Americans we have lost in Iraq is dwarfed to what we've lost in domestic gun violence since 2004.

With that in view, I don't know how your answer is 'Let's just stop the shouting.'

P.S. On the sexist issue Bernie didn't mean it to be sexist but his answer on family leave was rather disquieting. He said it's because women with young kids need to be at home.

It's also a fact that only she mentioned the attack on Planned Parenthood in the first debate. Bernie may not support it but didn't highlight it.

He only really likes talking about his pet issues. Keystone, TPP, Glass-Steagall. She has a much more broad progressive message.

P.S. Another issue Bernie doesn't ever shout about is immigration reform.

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