Endorsements For Bernie's Campaign Have Finally Started Rolling In From Progressive Political Leaders

This evening Bernie Sanders will be speaking at the DeMeester Performance Center, an outdoor amphitheater that holds 7,000 people, in Tucson's Reid Park. He'll be introduced by the local congressman, Raúl Grijalva, chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group that Bernie founded in 1991. Wednesday, Grijalva became the first member of Congress to endorse Bernie's campaign. Friday he plans to make the case for how, in his words, "Bernie is the right leader to fight income inequality, protect our safety net and ensure every American has a stake in the future of our country."

Yesterday Grijalva told us that "This endorsement is a matter of conscience for me. I cannot sit on the sidelines when our country faces so many challenges, and there is one candidate who I believe will fight for the bold changes we need. Bernie Sanders is fighting for a populist economic agenda to reign in economic inequality, ensure the richest among us contribute their fair share, and ensure the government works for every single American. One of the hardest things to do in politics is to stay consistent. Bernie Sanders has been consistently fighting for these issues-- not just for years, but for decades. Priorities like a $15 minimum wage and expanding opportunities are clear examples of the bold changes a President Sanders would bring, and they are examples of exactly what the American people need."

Grijalva is the first incumbent to have endorsed Bernie but several progressive candidates for Congress have already decided to bite the bullet and do the right thing. (Many want to but are too fearful of the well-known bullying tactics of the Clinton Machine. I spoke to one this week who told me the Clinton people call and badger her constantly.) Anyway, as we wrote in the past, the first candidate to endorse Bernie was South Jersey reformer Alex Law, who's running against the corrupt, conservative Machine candidate, Donald Norcross. Back in August he told us that he was the only congressional candidate in New Jersey who had endorsed Bernie, explaining that "Bernie's thoughts on student loan reform, campaign finance reform, income inequality, raising the minimum wage, diplomacy over war, tax reform, and drug reform resonate deeply with me. His influence is apparent in my policy ideas." He reiterated last night, telling us that:

I am the only Democrat in New Jersey running for office that has endorsed Bernie because I share his progressive values. I share his conviction to address income inequality and to fight corruption in politics. Bernie Sanders is the only Democrat truly committed to addressing campaign finance reform not only in words but in action as he has not accepted Super-PAC support. Whether it's LGBTQ rights, student loan reform, Wall Street reform, drug/prison reform or other issues, Bernie has a vision I agree with. Bernie Sanders is the people's candidate, and I am proud to say I endorse him for President of the United States of America.

The second of Hillary's 3 home state-- Arkansas-- was the scene of the next Bernie endorsement and it came from Robbie Wilson, the congressional candidate in the Fayetteville area. "I take great satisfaction in the fact that I align with Senator Sanders on every issue," he told us. "Most importantly, I agree with the Senator on the subject of overturning Citizens United. There is no greater threat to the survival of the middle class, and no darker bruise on our political structure. Furthermore, this issue goes hand-in-hand with the likelihood that we will need to appoint Supreme Court Justices over the next two presidential terms, and the idea that a Republican President and Congress would steer those appointments is almost too much to bear. Senator Sanders and I also share the same stance on the issues of women’s rights, foreign policy and economics, among others. But in a broader sense, we both believe that our government was intended to benefit all Americans, not to hold down the many in order to appease a few. This is a fundamental theme that is woven throughout the fabric of my platform, and I’m proud to say Senator Sanders reflects these same values."

And the 4th candidate to endorse Bernie-- and this was also Wednesday-- was Tom Guild, running for the Oklahoma City seat. "Bernie Sanders and I are in agreement on the vast majority of the major issues facing America," he said. "He has raised millions of dollars from grassroots activists in small amounts. He is drawing huge and sometimes unprecedented crowds wherever he goes. There are other good and able presidential candidates running in 2016. Bernie is the best of the best. He is the best hope to turn around our country and to fix the broken campaign finance system, address income inequality, reduce mounting college student debt, increase Social Security benefits, protect Medicare, repair our nation’s tattered infrastructure, support public education, raise the wages for American workers, and effectively deal with other pressing matters. America feels the Bern! I support and endorse Bernie Sanders for President of the United States."



Blue America is thrilled that the support from progressives has started coming in and we started a special Act Blue page just for Members of Congress and candidates for Congress endorsing Bernie. Most Democrats love Bernie's platform and his ideas for making America a more equitable place to love. Even if he's elected, he's going to need supporters in Congress on the same page. We know Grijalva and the whole Progressive Caucus will be there for him but Bernie is going to have Republicans, Blue Dogs and the Wall Street-owned New Dems to contend with, which is why it is so crucial to elect progressives like Alex Law, Robbie Wilson and Tom Guild. Please contribute what you can to these candidates. And this week, Blue America is going to give away an extremely rare RIAA-certified platinum award for the Friends soundtrack. This was the first-even TV series to win a platinum record (for a million sales) and it included songs by The Rembrandts, REM, Joni Mitchell, the Barenaked Ladies, Lou Reed, kd lang, Paul Westerberg, the Pretenders and the other musicians that contributed songs to the show. As a way of thanking contributors, we'll randomly select on lucky "winner." There is no minimum-- anyone can win this by contributing on this page. In fact if you want the platinum award but find yourself strapped for cash, just send us a post card (pronto)-- Blue America, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027-- and let us know you want to win too and that you'll contribute some other time if you can. Meanwhile, kick back and listen to a very Friends-friendly version of "I'll Be There For You," the show's theme song.




UPDATE: Raúl's Statement Today

"I’m endorsing Bernie Sanders for president today. This is a matter of conscience for me. I cannot sit on the sidelines when our country faces so many challenges, and there is one candidate who I believe will fight for the bold changes we need. Bernie Sanders is fighting for a populist economic agenda to reign in economic inequality, ensure the richest among us contribute their fair share, and ensure the government works for every single American.

"

One of the hardest things to do in politics is to stay consistent. Bernie Sanders has been consistently fighting for these issues-- not just for years, but for decades. Priorities like a $15 minimum wage and expanding opportunities are clear examples of the bold changes a President Sanders would bring, and they are examples of exactly what the American people need."

Your Facebook friends aren't, er, friendly enough? Consider renting friends -- especially if you've got "Jersey Boys" tickets to offer them

Some of the things it turns out you can rent these days are outlandish but understandable. And then there are things . . .

by Ken

Luckily, it's probably not necessary for me to restate my position on Facebook: that I don't get it any which way. Awhile back I actually tried to inform myself a little about it, and only came away more stupefied by declarations from seemingly reasonable fellow humans that they're "addicted." How? To what? It doesn't seem to me physically or mentally possible.

But then, there are people who watch Benny Hill. Or 24.

So no, I really don't mean to go there again just now. Actually, I raise the subject for the purpose of giving the Facebook faithful credit: for understanding that the basic building block of the enterprise, those so-called "friends," aren't friends in any previously known understanding of the word. Oh sure, I believe there was cynical intent in giving the name "friends" to Facebook remote-blips. Even users who understand that these people aren't really friends (let's face it, beyond your actual friends -- who, being your actual friends, don't have any need to be your Facebook friends, do they? -- most of those "friends" are barely even acquaintances), and by that I mean the broad category of minimally sane people, nevertheless can't suppress a certain residual frisson at the mention of friends. Subliminally, at least, some residue sticks.

Nevertheless, my point is that most Facebookers can be assumed to understand without prodding that their "friends" aren't actually "friends"; it's just the name given to those remote-blips. Maybe I'm touchy because friendship seems to me one of the truly worthy human institutions, but this latest challenge to the concept -- that is, the one I'm about to share with you . . . well, I don't know what to make of it. Perhaps somebody can explain it to me.

I have to preface this by saying that I hardly ever read Patricia Marx's "On and Off the Avenue" column in The New Yorker. It's not that I don't shop, but that the kind of shopping Ms. Marx writes about, whether on or off the avenue, seems never to have anything to do with my life. And I'm not sure that I would have looked at her outing this week if I hadn't pretty well exhausted the issue with days yet to go before the next one arrives. Usually the new issue piles in before I've gotten as much as halfway through the last one.

Then again, I might have looked at this column, which is called "The Borrowers," with the subhead "Why buy when you can rent?" (Only a précis is available free online. For once I can't imagine Net-surfing freeloaders feeling deprived. I guess in the course of thumbing through the magazine to find my way to other pieces I did intend to read I must have had my eyes light on some kind of peculiar items it appears you can rent, and I confess I did have a certain curiosity to see just what Ms. Marx had found for us to "borrow."

Eventually she gets around to the kind of stuff you might expect, or at least wouldn't be totally astonished to find, like designer purses (including "a $42,000 vintage Herm`s crocodile that rents for $4,800 a month," assuming you survive the "evaluations" and "credit histories" involved) and dresses (which turn out to come, for first-time renters, with a kit that promotes personal hygiene and rented-garment maintenance.

This stuff is of no earthly interest to me, but you can understand the impulse to have access to such fanciful treats at prices that may seem insane to the rest of us but that are "reasonable" compared with the cost of purchasing. And then there's stuff like textbooks, and textbooks and assorted stuff for kids that either they're apt to outgrow or they're apt to lose interest in. All fair enough. But Ms. Marx has the journalistic wit to give us the blockbusters up front.

For this one I don't have any word but weird:

You can hire a family. The Tokyo agency Haemashi-tai, meaning "We Want to Cheer You Up," is one of about ten outfits in Japan that supply clients with adult actors willing to impersonate any blood relation you require -- a loving dad to pick up your kids from school; reputable parents to vouch for you at a matchmaking party; noncomplaining, huggable grandchildren to spend the day with you; a trial husband who leaves towels on your bathroom floor to help you practice for your upcoming marriage (telephone 09048388162; no English spoken).

Unfortunately I've already used up weird, and I don't begin to have a word for what follows:

Another Japanese company, Office Agents, provides wedding guests, at about $250 per head -- a little extra if you want your rented chum to give a toast or sing and dance. Scott Rosenbaum, a thirty-one-year-old former Internet marketer who lives in New Jersey, read a newspaper article about this phenomenon and founded Rent-a-Friend, in October, 2009. The company has a database of more than three hundred thousand members around the world who can be employed, by paying subscribers, for platonic companionship (rentafriend.com; membership, $24.95 per month).

I'm going to pause here, even though we're still in the same paragraph. I need to collect my wits, because this thing is about to enter the Twilight Zone. Okay, let's do it.

"The friends make up their own pricing, anywhere from ten to fifty dollars an hour," Rosenbaum told me over the phone, "but we find we have a lot of friends who are willing to waive their fee depending on the activity, like if the other person has tickets to 'Jersey Boys.'" Agreeable strangers, the Web site states, are commonly contracted to go to the movies or out to dinner, give personal advice, go hot-air ballooning, attend a dance class, do pottery, teach manners, hang out, or go see "Jersey Boys." Occasionally, Rosenbaum said, the client's request is more unorthodox. When a college student was caught drinking on campus, he hired surrogate parents from Rent-a-Friend to accompany him to the disciplinary meeting with a dean. A friend in need is a friend in deed, indeed.

Actually, this last, supposedly "more unorthodox" example at least makes sense, provided you can get away with it. However, the reference to specifically "platonic companionship" reminds me that rental of non-Platonic friends is, well, one of the world's oldest institutions.

I wonder what Plato would have made of this breakthrough in "platonic companionship."

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Facebook fact of the day: Make sure you really like those people you agree to be friends with

Would you give one of these here guys a
kidney? You may not have any choice!

Since it's getting harder and harder to keep track of the finer points of etiquette, not to mention the ins and outs of the terms of service, of social-networking websites like MySpace and Facebook and Twitter, as a public service we try to keep DWT readers up to date on some of these subtleties.

Not many Facebook users know that when you agree to become someone's friend, you can be legally compelled to give him or her a kidney if needed. States vary as to the exact standard of proof of "need," but in most states a note from the patient's doctor saying, "Please give ______ a kidney on account of he/she [circle one] needs it for medical reasons," is sufficient, although some states require that the note be written on the doctor's prescription pad (marked "fill as written" and "nonrefillable," of course) and some states insist that the note be notarized. Most states specify that the doctor has to be a licensed M.D., but owing to the powerful lobbying presence of chiropractic practitioners in Delaware and Alaska, in those states pretty much anything goes.

While current law is clear on the enforceability of this provision, some legal experts are watching a case working its way through the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. It is considered at least possible that the Supreme Court is prepared to consider the case on appeal, since both Chief Justice John "Honk If You Like Big Ones" Roberts and Justice Sammy "The Worm" Alito have been heard saying while drunk that they believe the clear intent of the Founders was that only big corporations or really rich and powerful individuals -- like, say, a Supreme Court justice? -- could "reasonably" expect a friend to hand over a kidney on demand.

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