I’m afraid that it’s too late to do so proactively.
7 amendments as a Rep and 6 amendments as a Senator, according to your link. I don’t consider that as much of a success as you do.
Hey, he’s only been in Congress a quarter of a century, give him some time. Uh yeah, one amendment every two years, for things like giving grants to colleges that cooperated to reduce costs through joint purchases of goods and services, is something to be proud of?
But he did also get three sponsored bills passed! Two post offices now have names that they did not have before. Woo hoo! He da man!
I do give him props for his good work on the VA bill. But seriously that is a lot of years of service with with fairly little to show for it.
Yep, that from a man who couldn’t even answer the simplest detail questions about the centerpiece of his policy. If Hillary’s not qualified, Bernie shouldn’t even be running.
How is Bernie supposed to get his supporters on board to support Hillary after saying she is not qualified? FFS.
Yes, that was surprisingly weak. So surprising that I pulled out my 2004 edition of The Almanac of American Politics. For those who don’t know the Almanac gives profiles of all members of Congress for the edification of lobbyists who trend neurotypical center-right, but need to work with everyone.
Sander defeated Peter Smith in 1990 on the basis of that Republican’s support for the assault weapons ban, which played poorly in rural Vermont. So they elected the radically socialist and effective Mayor of Burlington after some prodding by the NRA, who would later turn against him. In 2002 (!), Sanders penned a think-piece for the People’s Weekly World, the newspaper of the Communist Party USA. Key quote: “A handful of corporations control the flow of information in the United States.” He helped found the Progressive Caucus which put out an annual plan advocating single payer insurance, a 50% smaller military over 5 years and support for family farms.
All that said, Sanders plays well with others and often reached out to Republican members in order to target corporate welfare. We would jaw jaw against Big Pharma and press to allow drug imports from Canada. In Feb 2001 he proposed a $300 per person income tax credit which after initial Republican opposition and some sausage processing was adopted by George Bush and became law.
Anyway, contrary to some readings of the Alternet article, Sanders wasn’t a complete doorknob.
Bernie uses a somewhat broader definition of “qualified” than I’m used to. I see what he’s saying, but by my definition, he doesn’t think she’s “unqualified” to be President — just that he thinks she’d be a bad President.
(And was this said before or after Hillary supposedly decided to “go negative”?)
It’s kinda confusing, he was saying Hillary is unqualified as a response to her saying he was unqualified, except Clinton never said as much.
His line of attack is really making him look like the bad guy. He said Clinton is going to go negative then raced out in front to beat her to it.
No kidding!
He’s not racing out in front: it’s where he’s been for a while now.
Her first “negative” was to capitalize on his NYDN flub in which his basic answers for details on his plans could have been given by Trump. Her big foray into negative was to say that he has not done his homework and that she can better deliver on doiing the job.
Yes, given the bait to say he was unqualified she declined.
Sanders? Bait? He don’t need no stinking bait.
But again, the same song he’s been singing for a while now. And no response to the actual thing said.
And the fact that he lied again? (His claim that she said he was “not qualified” is in fact NOT what she said but what she was asked to say and refused to.) Has unfortunately become par for his course.
Okay, let’s be generous here. Maybe not a “lie” per se, any more than GW Bush’s statement about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was necessarily a lie. An “untruth.” Could be that a staff told him that is what she said and he uncritically ran with it as it fit the narrative he wants to hear.
The portrayal of him as someone who is “principled” seems to be a complete work of fiction.
I think the “quote unquote” part really makes it a a slimy lie. (And oh how I hate when people put both the “quote” and the “unquote” in front of whatever verbiage they are quoting, even though I recognize that this has become the idiom. It’s stupid and doesn’t make any sense, so it sounds uncouth, kind of like “I could care less”.)
Well the “quote … unquote” does eliminate any possibility that he was paraphrasing what he believes she meant or was implying by what she was saying. It made it a clear claim of a quote of a statement that was never made, in order to justify his ugly behaviors.
If the primaries were on this board that would be a warning for altering the contents of the quote box. 
It is a very scuzzy thing to do and on the heels of his “three Pinocchios” lies about oil and gas industry contributions it is a pattern of dishonesty that I find very disgusting.
She did no such thing. She just weasel-worded it with her “let me put it this way.” There’s no doubt that it was basically a negative answer to the question.
That said, I’m not very pleased with Bernie’s attack, either.
No offense but … bullshit.
She, explicitly asked to call him “unqualified” refused to do so. There is a huge order of difference between what she did say and saying that. Saying that he has not done his homework and that, well, the voters need “to decide who of us can do the job that the country needs” is a far far far cry from saying he is “unqualified.” She merely says she is much better qualified.
His comment OTOH was both a straight up baldfaced … “untruth”, and a statement that she is not qualified to be president (not that he is better qualified). That is hard to come back from to full throated embrace … it fits in fine with the ugliness of the GOP side though.
The general election serious damage phase is accelerating and his lack of ethics and of decency is on full display. He does not seem to give a fuck about sinking the boat if he cannot control the rudder. Shit.
Oh I’m scared. He put it in size 4 and bold. That really puts me in my place!
If you weren’t suffering from Bernie Derangement Syndrome, you could see the other side of Hil’s weaseling: when asked straight up the simple question of whether Sanders is qualified, she refuses to admit it.
Uh… Biffy, Scarborough asked her TWO questions at once. Clinton answered the second one. She didn’t tough the first one (she didn’t take the bait). To claim that weasel-worded it is stretching to the extreme.
Yeah, I read it as a response to both questions, but I can see your view. Never mind.
It wasn’t just the interview on Morning Joe. This was media driven:
What a silly summary. Here are some selected sponsorships by Sanders from VoteSmart.org. Contrast these with Ted Cruz’s priorities.
Click on some of Sanders’ sole sponsorships. For example, his Amendment to the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act got a 53-45 affirmative vote … which wasn’t enough due to GOP filibuster. When he was in the House, he was sole sponsor of a successful revocation of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act (though that section wasn’t actually revoked — what happened?).
In contrast, Paul Rand has had ZERO of his sole-sponsored bills enacted according to www.govtrack.us. The same site shows that Newt Gingrich, in Congress for 20 years, had ONE sole-sponsored bill enacted: “H.R. 4354 (105th): To establish the United States Capitol Police Memorial Fund on behalf of the families of Detective John Michael Gibson and Private First Class Jacob Joseph Chestnut of the United States Capitol Police.”
I’m not claiming Rand and Gingrich were ineffective Congressmen — I’m claiming DSeid’s criterion shows ignorance of how Congress functions.