Bernie Update (January 14, 2016)

* This is a post of recent headlines in the media, meant to amend (or update) my previous posts:

• Chelsea Clinton says Mom supports Free College Tuition
• Hillary Clinton's Attack on Bernie Sanders fails Truth-Meter
• Vice President Joe Biden Endorses Senator Bernie Sanders
• Bernie polls better than Hillary against GOP

Huffington Post: Hillary Clinton's Shadowy History With Shadow Banking: She was against it, before she was for it. With Bernie Sanders showing renewed strength in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton has spent much of January attempting to make inroads with progressive voters enamored with her rival's Wall Street policies. Sure, Sanders talks tough on big banks, Clinton and her allies have alleged, but he's soft on "shadow banking". Like the Clinton campaign's recent broadside against Sanders' Medicare-for-all health care plan, the attack is misleading and dishonest. It also sidesteps her complicated record on shadow banking as a senator, which includes a vote in favor of a bill that eventually fueled shadow banking in the mortgage market and exacerbated the financial crisis. Clinton's team, moreover, continues to criticize legislation supported by both Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would ameliorate the problems created by that bill.

The Guardian: Nationally, Bernie Sanders is beating Hillary Clinton by 2-1 with voters younger than 45 — and by 20 points with female voters younger than 35. Clinton has sounded more like the Republican candidates with her conventional "forever war" posture, her defense of the disastrous Libya intervention, and her calls for an escalation of the war in Syria. Apparently she’s not concerned that she’s running for the nomination from a party who rejected her in 2008 partly because of her support for the Iraq war. Although, Clinton has a massive advantage in “super delegates” who make up a large percentage of the establishment delegates who will actually decide the nomination at the Democratic convention. But given that most voters don’t even start paying attention until after the Iowa caucus, Democrats would do themselves well by putting the Clinton coronation on hold for now.

Counter Punch: Bernie also does better with Independents — and more people identify themselves as Independents rather than Democrats or Republicans. More Independents think Sanders shares their values compared to Clinton by 47-33%; more Independents think Sanders authentically ‘cares about the needs and problems of people like’ them, compared to Clinton, by 59-40%; and vastly (38%) more Independents, 64% to 26% — and even a further corroborating margin of Republicans, 39% to 7% — think Sanders ‘is honest and trustworthy,’ compared to Clinton.

* I'm guessing the establishment Democrats will do what the establishment Republicans also do: Vote against the will of the people. The Democrats will choose Hillary over Bernie and the Republicans will choose Cruz (or Rubio) over Trump. That is how our corrupt system of a political duopoly works to keep the establishment politicians in power.

Des Moines Register: Here’s why the Clintons have started throwing the kitchen sink: Hillary leads Bernie Sanders by just two points in a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll out this morning. Clinton has the support of 42 percent of likely caucus-goers, compared with Sanders’s 40 percent. Hillary is down seven points from last month while Bernie is up 1 point. The gap closed because Clinton’s support has decreased and the number of undecided voters has increased from 8 to 14 percent. Maybe it's because, voters who once had assumed Clinton would be the nominee, now believe they have another viable choice in Bernie Sanders. The new Iowa Poll shows that 89 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers view Sanders favorably, and 86 percent of them view Clinton favorably. And this can also explain the Clinton's false accusations against Bernie...they are feeling desperate.

Washington Post: The former secretary of state and her team have stepped up their criticism of Sanders on a variety of fronts in recent days as polls have begun to show him edging even with her in Iowa — and, for the first time, looking competitive in a national poll. But the Clinton strategy may be backfiring in some ways. Hillary’s intensifying attacks on Bernie helped him raise $1.4 million over a one-day stretch from 47,000 contributors. “I am not nervous at all,” Clinton said in an interview Wednesday on NBC’s Today show. But her actions and those of her surrogates speak otherwise.

Washington Post: Last night on MSNBC, Bernie defended his Medicare for all plan, saying the average family would actually save about $5,000 a year because they would no longer be paying private insurance premiums, deductibles or co-payments -- more than offsetting the cost of the tax increase. “If you want to demagogue the issue, you can say, ‘Oh, he’s raising taxes,’ but then you’ve got to make it clear that we’re saving people substantial sums of money.” Sanders also acknowledged that, given the current political realities in Washington [a Congress dominated by Republicans], he would not likely have the votes to push a single-payer system through Congress as his first order of business as president. [And any plan Hillary proposes would face the same opposition, the same way Obamacare currently does...and Hillary knows this.]

Hillary's new campaign ad says "she stood up to China" after her husband gave PNTR to China. Since then, the U.S. lost over 3 million jobs to China since then. (Here's my related post: Bernie vs. Hillary on H-1B guestworker visas. And Bernie was always steadfastly against PNTR for China.)

Boston Globe: Hillary is aggressively courting the coveted "Warren nod” -- Warren’s endorsement for Hillary Clinton would be a boon to her 2016 presidential candidacy. The two have "a very good relationship" Clinton said this week. But as she slips in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire to Sanders, the political world is asking: Is there enough of a bond for Warren to join every other female Senate Democrat in endorsing Clinton? Warren is one of the few national figures who carry real sway with Democratic base voters. She’s repeatedly said that she will endorse somebody in the Democratic primary. Clinton has been publicly noncommittal about what role Warren would play in her administration if she became president. “I would certainly look forward to partnering with her when I was in the White House and she continued to be a national leader on all of these issues,” Clinton told the Globe editorial board. What about a Cabinet position? “I think it’s bad luck to speculate on any vice presidential nominees, Cabinet positions, or any of that — I’m not counting any chickens before anything hatches,” Clinton said. “But she can do anything. I would support her for anything.” ---> But Bernie Sanders says he and Warren are very good friends and they've known each other for a lot longer.

The Nation: Today "The Nation", America’s oldest weekly magazine, just endorsed Bernie Sanders. The Nation only endorsed twice before: Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Obama in 2008. "We believe [Bernie's] revolution is not only possible, but necessary — and that’s why we’re endorsing Bernie Sanders for president. This magazine rarely makes endorsements in the Democratic primary (we’ve done so only twice: for Jesse Jackson in 1988, and for Barack Obama in 2008). We do so now impelled by the awareness that our rigged system works for the few and not for the many. Americans are waking up to this reality, and they are demanding change."

Bernie Sanders' campaign is calling Hillary Clinton a hypocrite for attacking him on his health care plan, pointing out that it's the exact same tactic she used when she attacked Obama during the 2008 Democratic primary. Sanders also said on MSNBC on Wednesday that the Clinton campaign is "factually incorrect" in asserting that Republican governors could turn down a Medicare-for-all program. So now the progressive group Netroots has a new petition (January 13, 2016) Tell Hillary Clinton to Stop Lying About Single-Payer