Vetting Sanders

When I find myself in times of trouble

Bernie staffers come to me

Speaking words of wisdom:

Oh yes, the job was never posted so that outsiders could apply. At the time, a local paper noted that Sanders had never provided evidence as to her qualifications for the position, other than who she was.

In 1988, after the couple was married, Jane received a huge pay increase. One newspaper reported the resulting outrage over the move. “Political sparks flew at Burlington’s annual city meeting Monday night as Democratic alderman raised a series of questions concerning a hefty pay raise for Mayor Bernie Sanders’ new wife and whether she should continue to hold her job as director of the Mayor’s Youth Office.”

Good to know that Sanders got an early start sucking off the teat of the taxpayers.

In 1990, Crazy Bernie was elected to Congress, and stunningly Jane Sanders became a member of his staff, serving in various positions such as chief of staff, press secretary and political analyst. After nearly ten years in Congress, Jane Sanders set up a company that operated under three different names to provide income tied to Sanders’ political career.

On Sept. 27, 2000, the Sanders clan formed Sanders & Driscoll LLC, a for-profit consulting company run by Jane, her daughter Carina and son David. Quite the cozy little family arrangement. The business operated under two trade names: Leadership Strategies and Progressive Media Strategies. But hey, those Bernie Bros willingly give up all their nickels, dimes, and quarters to this charlatan. Sanders was certain to make sure that the above entity was formed just a few weeks before the 2000 election.

The Sanders’s ran the above entities out of their home on Killarney Drive in Burlington. These companies served to feed cash to the Sanders family. It is unknown exactly how much the Sanders clan had funneled to them because Sanders’ financial disclosure forms, required to be disclosed since he is a member of Congress, only listed “more than $1,000” as the amount of income earned from these consulting firms. Schweizer said that he found some campaign money flowed through the LLC’s.

While Sanders was running for reelection in the early 2000s, critics said that “Sanders doled out more than $150,000 to his wife and stepdaughter for campaign-related work between 2000 and 2004.”

During one such campaign, Jane served as a “media buyer” for his reelection. According to Schweizer, media buying is a “murky but potentially highly lucrative stream of income for those involved in political campaigns.” Modern American political campaigns dump tons of money into television advertising and other forms of media. The media buyer handles the purchase of airtime and secures contracts with media outlets.

The financial windfall comes because a typical media buyer receives a commission of about 15 percent of the cost for a media campaign. It is fairly easy to figure the math. If a campaign were to spend, say $1,000,000 on television ads, the media buyer would, based on that commission figure, reap a commission of $150,000. What makes this arrangement even more suspicious and maddening is the fact that the media buyer’s commission is not subject to disclosure.

In the example cited above, the FEC report will show only the $1 million dollar media buy. The fact that Jane Sanders is the spouse of a politician, in this case Sanders, she is only required to disclose that she made “more than $1,000” from her businesses. What was Jane Sanders’ background in media buying? Great question…she had none. However, in Bernie Sanders’ 2006 campaign, she worked with two media buyers by the name of Barbara Abar Bougie and Shelli Hutton-Hartig. These two would become significant names when Sanders political ambitions went national.

From  Humanity Films’ exposé “Bernie Sanders Finances Revealed”

The Bernie Sanders Story

I was going to title this post something that more adequately expresses my rage, like “Bernie Sanders is a Grifting Fuck and a Garbage Human,” but then I decided to be classy and paraphrase a quote from Evita instead.  But I’m also petty so consider the subtitle of this rant to be “A Grifting Fuck and a Garbage Human.”

I was going to wait to post this until the primaries are over because if by some unholy hell miracle Sanders wins the nomination, obviously we all have to unite behind even the shittiest, most doomed to fail candidate, but fuck it.  Vote blue no matter who, that goes without being said, but Sanders is the worst possible choice and was even when there were a dozen plus horses in this race, and now y’all are going to hear all the reasons why.

The Early Years: Sanders the Deadbeat

Sanders graduated from the university of Chicago in 1964 with a BA in Political Science and chose not to work until he was elected mayor of Burlington in 1981

I say “chose not to work” because he was fully capable but preferred being a bum.  He had no student debt, he had no health conditions that prevented him from working, and the 1960s were characterized by rapid growth of the workforce, with three out of four college graduates holding high level positions by 1970

Sanders occasionally did some freelance writing and carpentry during these years, according to his resume, probably so he could claim he was trying to work in order to collect unemployment.  Let’s take a look at some of his writings:

At age 28, he wrote an article for alternative newspaper The Vermont Freeman entitled “Cancer, Disease, and Society.”  In the article, he argues that sexual repression can cause cancer, and women who are virgins, have fewer orgasms than their peers, or simply don’t enjoy sex are more likely to develop cancer.  The article includes statements such as “the manner in which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well determine whether or not she will develop breast cancer, among other things” and “How much guilt, nervousness have you imbued in your daughter with regard to sex?  If she is 16, 3 years beyond puberty and the time which nature set forth for child-bearing, and spent a night out with her boyfriend, what is your reaction? Do you take her to a psychiatrist because she is “maladjusted” or a “prostitute,” or are you happy that she has found someone with whom she can share love?”  He also argues that the education system contributes to cancer, as does having “an old bitch of a teacher (and there are many of them).”  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

In 1969, in another article for The Vermont Freeman, he wrote, “In Vermont, at a state beach, a mother is reprimanded by Authority for allowing her 6 month old daughter to go about without her diapers on. Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business, not to mention the large segment of the general economy which makes its money by playing on peoples sexual frustrations.”  https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-freeman-sexual-freedom-fluoride/

His resume, incidentally, also lists him as a freelance youth counselor during his period of unemployment, which is just great.  The man who thinks thirteen year olds should be getting pregnant and children should touch each other’s genitals, counseling your kids.  Fantastic.

In the 1970s, Sanders stole electricity from his neighbors rather than paying his own bill.  https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927

He stole food from the refrigerator of The Vermont Freeman’s publishers https://newrepublic.com/article/122005/he-was-presidential-candidate-bernie-sanders-was-radical

 He was asked to leave a hippie commune in 1971 due to sitting around engaging in “endless political discussion” rather than working.  Let me repeat, he was too lazy for a hippie commune. https://freebeacon.com/politics/bernie-sanders-asked-leave-hippie-commune/

Now, all of this apart from the theft is arguably okay.  It’s his own life, and if he wants to squander it publishing poorly written essays and doing jack shit, whatever.  Except it wasn’t just his life, because he had a son, Levi.  And he was a deadbeat, paying no child support and causing Levi’s mother, Susan Mott, to rely on welfare, which made her face discrimination when trying to find housing.  https://twitter.com/m_mendozaferrer/status/1093295853907922946

Bernie Sanders is a deadbeat dad.  No respect.

Failing Upwards: Sanders the Politician

In 1971, Sanders joined the Vermont Liberty Union Party, a socialist political group.  From 1971 to 1977, Sanders was the party chief and habitually ran for office, failing every time.  He left the group in 1977, stating that they did not do enough to fight banks and corporations during non-election years.  This is just one example of Sanders decrying everyone else as too impure for him.

In 2016, the Vermont Liberty Union Party voted to brand Sanders as a war criminal.  Their general secretary, Peter Diamondstone, said of Sanders, “ He never was a socialist!"  https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnjby3/the-vermont-political-party-bernie-sanders-founded-isnt-into-him-anymore  This is just one example in the long list of Sanders alienating his allies.

He finally won the mayoral election for Burlington in 1981, by only ten votes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Burlington_mayoral_election

Sanders was only elected to the US House of Representatives in 1990 because he had the support of the National Rifle Association.  The incumbent Congressman, Republican Peter Smith, advocated for an assault weapons ban, so the NRA flooded Sanders with money.  https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/stickin-to-his-guns-the-nra-helped-elect-bernie-sanders-to-congress-now-hes-telling-a-different-story/Content?oid=27816693

In 2006, 2012, and 2018, when running for the Senate, Sanders ran as a Democrat in the state primaries, then declined the Democratic nomination, and ran as an independent in the general.  This made it basically impossible for any Democrat to run against him.  https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/21/bernie-sanders-democrat-independent-vermont-601844

After a landslide loss to Secretary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, Sanders demanded changes to the DNC primary structure that would make the process easier for him to win with just a plurality of delegates instead of a majority.  These rule changes were the reason the 2020 Iowa caucus was such a clusterfuck. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-iowa-caucus-winner-trump-democrats-a9317761.html

Despite all his talk of getting out the youth vote and inspiring disenfranchised voters, Sanders planned all along to squeak by with only thirty percent of the delegates in the 2020 primary by provoking infighting among other candidates to split the moderate vote.  The supposed movement he claimed to lead is a sham. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/04/bernie-sanders-thinking-he-will-win-it-all-2020/587326/

“I Never Saw Him”: Sanders and Civil Rights

Sanders touts his participation in the March on Washington in 1963 as proof of his devotion to civil rights activism.  He loves to remind people that he marched with MLK, as seen during the She the People 2019 forum where he repeated that old chestnut for the millionth time and was booed by the attendees. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-met-with-boos-after-name-dropping-martin-luther-king-at-she-the-people-summit

In actuality, Sanders was one of 250,000 people at the march, along with Mitch McConnell, who is clearly no champion for civil rights. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/7-things-know-about-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-part-flna6C10621413

Representative John Lewis, an actual civil rights hero who worked with Dr. King and whose skull was fractured by police on Bloody Sunday, said that he “never saw [Bernie Sanders].  I never met him,” during the movement. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2016/02/11/john-lewis-never-saw-bernie-sanders-during-civil-rights-era/80263450/

Sanders was charged with resisting arrest during a segregation protest in Chicago in 1963, and was charged $25.  He later white flighted to Vermont, one of the whitest states in the country. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago/

Sanders never bothered to vote during the Civil Rights movement, only putting forth the effort when he himself was running. https://imgur.com/gallery/mmS40Gq#460q6bS

During his speech in Jacksonville on the 50th anniversary of MLK’s death, Sanders rewrote history and tried to claim that King’s real focus was economic justice and not civil rights.  "All of us know where he was when he was assassinated 50 years ago today.  He was in Memphis to stand with low-income sanitation workers who were being exploited ruthlessly, whose wages were abysmally low, and who were trying to create a union. That’s where he was. Because as the mayor just indicated, what he believed — and where he was a real threat to the establishment — is that of course we need civil rights in this country, but we also need economic justice.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can

In thirty years in Congress, Sanders has not sponsored any bills pertaining to civil rights: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on

Sanders voted for the 1994 crime bill https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-has-dodged-criticism-crime-bill-vote-while-others-n1020726

In 1994, he praised the bill and stated that the US needed more jails.  https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1221468426855755776

He touted his vote for the crime bill on his website at least until 2006, as proof he was “tough on crime” and “strong on the cops” https://web.archive.org/web/20061018180921/http:/www.bernie.org/truth/crime.html

In 2015, during a meeting with police reform activist group Campaign Zero, Sanders responded to being asked why he thought a disproportionate amount of people of color were incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses with “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African-American?”  Those present at the meeting stated, “Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can 

In 2018, fifteen racial and social justice leaders in Vermont, including multiple NAACP branch presidents, ACLU organizers, and BLM activists, sent an open letter to Sanders and the Sanders Institute to complain that they were “excluded” from the “national progressive movement that Senator Bernie Sanders is trying to foster.”  The letter asks “how could Senator Sanders host what is supposed to be an intersectional, progressive event without inviting the very people whom he serves?”  http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/vpr/files/201812/sanders-letter-2018.pdf

Curtiss Reed, Executive Director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, stated that the exclusion of Vermont POC from the Sanders Institute’s event was “a catastrophic failure of his sort of tone deafness to marginalized communities in the state of Vermont” and added “I’m tempted to say this is no longer a question of benign neglect on the part of the senator, but willful ignorance on his part not to include marginalized voices in this national conversation on the progressive movement.”   https://www.vpr.org/post/we-find-ourselves-excluded-racial-justice-leaders-ask-bernie-sanders-get-program#stream/0 

Vermont Black leaders stated they were “invisible” to Sanders, and that the senator “was just really dismissive of anything that had to do with race and racism, saying that they didn’t have anything to do with the issues of income inequality.  He just always kept coming back to income inequality as a response, as if talking about income inequality would somehow make issues of racism go away.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/vermonts-black-leaders-we-were-invisible-to-bernie-sanders

In his 1998 autobiography, Sanders repeatedly and needlessly used the n-word. He chose to keep the word in the text when republishing the book in 2015.  https://www.inquisitr.com/5620596/bernie-sanders-under-fire-for-use-of-n-word-in-2015-book-clip-from-audiobook-version-goes-viral-friday/ 

“I Will Not Make It a Major Priority”: Sanders the Ally

During an interview as mayor of Burlington, Sanders said LGBTQ rights were not a “major priority” for him and he would “probably not” support a bill to protect gays from job discrimination.  https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/10/bernie-sanders-on-marriage-equality-hes-no-longtime-champion.html

Also during his time as mayor, Sanders signed a resolution affirming that marriage is between “husband and wife.” https://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/02/06/clinton-surrogates-pounce-on-sanders-over-82-marriage-resolution/

Sanders and his wife stated in 1996 that they opposed the Defense of Marriage Act simply because it would weaken states’ rights.  Only later did he claim his opposition was due to support for same-sex marriage. https://time.com/4089946/bernie-sanders-gay-marriage/

Sanders argued same-sex marriage was a states’ rights issue in 2006. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&v=kej9QAsS3uI&feature=emb_logo

In that same year, after same-sex civil unions had been legal in Vermont since 2000, he responded to a reporter asking if same-sex marriage should be legalized in Vermont with “Not right now,” after the “very divisive debate” preceding the civil union legislation. https://web.archive.org/web/20160407064606/http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060607/NEWS/606070302/1003/NEWS02

In thirty years in Congress, Sanders has not sponsored any bills pertaining to LGBTQ rights: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on  

Sanders the Warmonger

Sanders loves to tout his opposition to the Iraq War as proof of his moral superiority.  But in 1998, he voted for the Iraq Liberation Act, which states that “it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”  He also supported Clinton’s airstrike on Iraq.  https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1998/h482

In 1999, Sanders had anti-war protesters at his office arrested. https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/27/bernie-sanders-savior-or-seducer-of-the-anti-war-left/

The Iraq War Bill that Sanders voted against required Bush to first try diplomatic efforts and abide by UN rules of military conduct.  It also required transparency and progress reports.  https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-joint-resolution/114/text

The Authorization for Use of Military Force Act (AUMF), which Sanders did vote for, required none of that and is the reason the Afghanistan War was so much of a clusterfuck.  Bush would have used the AUMF to invade Iraq even if Congress had voted down the Iraq Liberation Act.  The only person to vote against the AUMF was Representative Barbara Lee.  Sanders voted in favor of it.  https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/sjres23/text

Sanders claims to oppose the defense industry.  But he brought Lockheed Martin and their 1.2 trillion dollar, over budget, outdated stealth fighters to Vermont. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-loves-this-dollar1-trillion-war-machine

During his tenure as mayor of Burlington, he fired the assistant city treasurer when she was jailed for an anti-war protest. https://academic.oup.com/publius/article-abstract/21/2/131/1917641?redirectedFrom=PDF 

Sanders the Healthcare Crusader

Sanders was chairman of the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee during a 2014 scandal when dozens of veterans died while waiting for medical care.  During his tenure, Sanders only held seven hearings on VA Oversight, as opposed to the House committee’s forty-two hearings.  Veterans argue that Sanders was too invested in the idea of the VA as a shining example of government healthcare to address its failings.  Despite the scandal and tragedy, Sanders as recently as 2017 bragged that  he was involved with “the most comprehensive VA health care bill in this country.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-veterans-scandal-on-bernie-sanderss-watch

He voted against the Clinton plan for universal healthcare in 1993.  https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/14/1501210/-Where-Was-Sanders-on-Health-Care-in-93-and-94-Against-the-Clintons

Sanders also voted against CHIP, the children’s health insurance program that AOC relied on to see a doctor in her youth: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1997/h345

Despite campaigning on Medicare for All since 2015, Sanders was unable to explain how much the program would cost during a 2020 60 Minutes interview.  https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/politics/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-2020/index.html

When Senator Warren did the math for him and released her detailed M4A plan, Sanders attacked her, calling his plan “more progressive” and saying hers would “have a very negative impact on creating jobs.” https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/03/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-health-care-plan/index.html

Sanders claims that his healthcare plan is standard in other countries.  But his M4A plan would ban private insurance, which is not done in any country but Canada.  In the Scandinavian countries Sanders loves to hold up as an example of government healthcare, the market for private insurance is growing.  https://aapsonline.org/no-bernie-other-countries-do-not-ban-private-care/

“Too Brassy, Too Bitchy”: Sanders the Feminist

In his autobiography, Sanders quoted an article calling his 1996 primary opponent Susan Sweetser “too brassy, too bitchy.” https://books.google.com/books?id=_2YjBm2_JGUC&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173&dq=sanders+too+brassy+too+bitchy&source=bl&ots=SWrIR5Xa8m&sig=ACfU3U2-Hj1-UXIOM0Zz274h6_Nu8juoBg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHhtObq6LmAhWvUt8KHc8mDVUQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=sanders%20too%20brassy%20too%20bitchy&f=false

 In his Vermont Freeman article “Cancer, Disease, and Society,” Sanders called teachers “old bitch[es]” and blamed them for men developing cancer.  He also said women developed cancer due to sexual repression.  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

Referring to their 1986 governor race, his opponent Madeleine Kuhn stated, “When Sanders was my opponent he focused like a laser beam on “class analysis,” in which “women’s issues” were essentially a distraction from more important issues. He urged voters not to vote for me just because I was a woman. That would be a “sexist position,” he declared.”  https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/02/04/when-bernie-sanders-ran-against-vermont/kNP6xUupbQ3Qbg9UUelvVM/story.html

Sanders called Planned Parenthood “a part of the establishment” because they endorsed Secretary Clinton for president.  https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/planned-parenthood-bernie-sanders-218026

Sanders called Hillary Rodham Clinton, former law firm partner, former First Lady, former Senator, and former Secretary of State, unqualified to be president. https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/06/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-qualified/index.html

In January 2020, leaked phone banking scripts from the Sanders campaign called Warren a candidate of the affluent who wouldn’t bring any new voters to the Democratic base.  https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/11/bernie-quietly-goes-negative-on-warren-097594

In response, members of Warren’s campaign leaked information that, at a dinner in 2018, Sanders had told Warren he did not think a woman could win the presidency.  Sanders and his supporters decried this as a lie, even though reporters knew of the dinner and had been asking Warren if Sanders had discussed women’s electability there for over a year.  https://twitter.com/mlcalderone/status/1104477933886935040?s=19

Sanders supporters then flooded Elizabeth Warren and her supporters’ Twitter mentions with snake emojis.

Sanders said of Secretary Clinton, “It is not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!” https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/21/13699956/sanders-clinton-democratic-party

Bending the Knee: Sanders the Dictatorship Fanboy

During a 2020 60 Minutes interview, Sanders inexplicably decided it would be a good idea to start praising Fidel Castro’s genocidal regime, stating, “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but, you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. When Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program.  Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?” https://www.vox.com/2020/2/24/21147388/bernie-sanders-cuba-60-minutes-nicaragua

He doubled down on this praise at the next debate, whining, “Really?  Really?” when the crowd booed him.  https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article240627047.html

In 2014, Sanders visited Cuban prisoner Alan Gross, who lost over 100 pounds and five teeth during his captivity.  During the meeting, Gross recalls Sanders telling him, “I don't know what's so wrong with this country.”  https://www.npr.org/2020/03/04/811729200/former-prisoner-recalls-sanders-saying-i-don-t-know-what-s-so-wrong-with-cuba

In 1985, Sanders praised bread lines and food rationing.  “American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food.  That's a good thing. In other countries people don't line up for food. The rich get the food, and the poor starve to death." https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/21/1920767/-Time-to-switch-out-from-Bernie-he-praised-nations-with-bread-lines-that-s-a-good-thing-Danger

Sanders hung a USSR flag in his office as mayor of Burlington.  https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/24/bernie-sanders-reveals-his-radical-inclinations-ov/

He honeymooned in the USSR, and praised the state of the Soviet Union. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-bernie-sanderss-1988-10-day-honeymoon-in-the-soviet-union/2019/05/02/db543e18-6a9c-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html

In the 1980s, Sanders attended a Sandinista rally in Nicaragua where the attendees chanted, “Here, there, everywhere, the Yankee will die.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/bernie-sanders-pro-sandinista-past-problem.html

Sanders recently praised China, saying that it has made "more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization." https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/458976-sanders-china-had-done-more-to-address-extreme-poverty-than-any-country-in-the

“They Can’t Stop Us”: Sanders the Conspiracy Theorist

Despite conceding the 2016 primary and stating that “Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination and I congratulate her for that” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders/index.html), he later made the Trump-esque statement “Some people say that if maybe that system was not rigged against me, I would have won the nomination and defeated Donald Trump.” https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-defeat-donald-trump-2016-rigged-primary-dnc-nbc-kasie-hunt-1446116

 On February 21, Sanders tweeted, “I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us.” https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1231021453270769664

After Super Tuesday, Sanders stated that Buttigieg and Klobuchar were pressed to drop out as part of an establishment plot to defeat him. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/486503-sanders-klobuchar-and-buttigieg-ended-campaigns-under-great-deal

Sanders has repeatedly attacked the press as “paid by the corporations and billionaires who own the media.”  He’s promoted the conspiracy theory that Jeff Bezos makes The Washington Post write negative articles about him. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/27/bernie-sanders-attacks-media-press-fair-or-trump-2020-democrats

During the Nicaraguan conflict, Sanders accused American reporters of ignoring the truth and told a CBS reporter, “you are worms.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/bernie-sanders-pro-sandinista-past-problem.html

Sanders accused The Washington Post of trying to harm him in the Nevada caucus by reporting on Russia’s attempts to boost his campaign. https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-takes-a-shot-at-washington-post-good-friends-when-asked-about-timing-of-russia-report/

“We Support Them”: Sanders the Spoiler

Robert Mueller’s investigation found that Russian interference sought to boost both Sanders and Trump’s 2016 campaigns, stating “we support them.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/17/indictment-russians-also-tried-help-bernie-sanders-jill-stein-presidential-campaigns/348051002/

Sanders was well aware of the Russian efforts, stating “What we knew is–well, of course we knew that.  And of course we knew that they were trying to cause divisiveness within the Democratic party.  Uh, that’s no great secret.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDYbHult0Do

When The Washington Post reported on Russia’s efforts to boost Sanders in 2020, Sanders had already known for weeks and said nothing.  After the report came out, he attacked the Post and accused them of trying to tank his performance in the Nevada caucus, stating “I’ll let you guess, about one day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out?  It was The Washington Post?  Good friends.” https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-takes-a-shot-at-washington-post-good-friends-when-asked-about-timing-of-russia-report/

The Fish Rots from the Head: The Sanders Campaign

The 2016 campaign breached the Clinton campaign’s voter data and harvested and stored voter information https://time.com/4155185/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/

The 2016 campaign received a 645 page letter from the FEC detailing the campaign’s finance violations (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-bernie-sanders-donors-who-are-giving-too-much/482418/) and had to pay a $14.5 K fine to the FEC after receiving donations from non-citizens. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/376373-sanders-campaign-pays-145k-fine-to-settle-fec-complaint

The 2016 Nevada campaign director sought to rig the state’s caucus by urging staffers to buy double-sided coins for tie-breaking coin tosses http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sanderss-nevada-director-floated-two-sided-coins-for-tiebreaks-report/ar-AAhHiAI?getstaticpage=true&automatedTracking=staticview

The 2016 campaign initially decried superdelegates as “undemocratic” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/opinions/superdelegates-democratic-party-kohn/) before attempting to persuade them to go against the primary’s outcome and back Sanders instead of Clinton https://www.npr.org/2016/05/19/478705022/sanders-campaign-now-says-superdelegates-are-key-to-winning-nomination

The 2016 campaign was accused by staffers of sexual harassment, demeaning treatment toward women, and pay disparity by gender https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-sexism.html

Weeks before the 2016 general election, Jane Sanders retweeted a video from an April town hall of her husband telling an attendee to “make these decisions yourself” regarding whether or not to vote third party if Secretary Clinton won the primary https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/26/retweet-bernie-sanders-wife-jane-raises-questions/91140254/

The 2020 Sanders campaign appointed Russian interference denier and Jill Stein 2016 voter Briahna Joy Gray as the campaign’s National Press Secretary https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/888555665865814017?lang=en

Following promises to run a civil campaign, Sanders hired David Sirota, a man who’d spent months attacking other primary contenders online, as a speech writer.  The campaign also confirmed that Sirota had already been serving in an advisory role prior to his official hiring https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray called for the doxing of a Sanders critic on Twitter. If there was any repercussion for this behavior, it has never been made public. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/14/1879124/-Bernie-Sanders-s-Campaign-Doxed-a-Critic-on-Twitter

The 2020 campaign hired and fired YouTuber Matt Orfalea within 24 hours after being alerted of his sexist, racist, homophobic, and ableist content, suggesting he was not vetted before his hiring https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bernie-sanders-matt-orfalea-mlk-youtube-video/

Despite his firing and the campaign decrying his behavior in October 2019, in January 2020 Jane Sanders was still retweeting and praising Orfalea.  https://twitter.com/Rob_Flaherty/status/1236861997398048768

In March 2020, Orfalea posed as a Biden volunteer and made calls to voters claiming that Biden has dementia.  https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgeanp/a-man-fired-from-sanders-campaign-is-calling-biden-voters-and-saying-he-has-dementia

They hired and fired Darius Khalil Gordon after two days after being alerted of his sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and ableist Tweets https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/12/bernie-sanders-new-head-organizer-called-people-fgs-bhes/

The campaign also hired former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate.  The Women’s March cut ties with Sarsour following anti-Semitic statements. https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/womens-march-founder-calls-on-current-leadership-to-step-down/

Sarsour was also condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for the statement that “a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.” https://forward.com/news/national/435964/bernie-sanders-linda-sarsour-jewish-voters/

Sanders National Campaign Co-Chair Nina Turner claimed that Biden’s strong support among Black voters is due to the voters’ “short memories” and “not a true understanding of the history” https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/473161-top-sanders-officials-hits-biden-over-riding-on-obamas-coattails

The 2020 campaign paid staffers working 60 hours a week an average of 13 dollars per hour despite Sanders campaigning on a 15 dollar per hour minimum wage https://www.vox.com/2019/7/20/20700841/bernie-sanders-minimum-wage-staff-pay

Bernie Bros attacked Biden’s Detroit rally on 3/9/20, striking senior aide Symone Sanders in the head with an iPad and knocking her down. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/joe-biden-detroit-protests-sanders-124874

“Nobody Likes Him”: Sanders Himself

In 1996, Congressman Barney Frank said of Sanders, “Bernie alienates his natural allies.  His holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”  https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/04/11/history-barney-frank-bernie-sanders-criticize

In her recent Hulu documentary series, Hillary Rodham Clinton briefly spoke about Sanders, saying “He was in Congress for years.  He had one senator support him.  Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.” https://twitter.com/Burkmc/status/1235863901813661697?s=09

A former campaign staffer called Sanders “unbelievably abusive.”  Another campaign insider called him an asshole, and a former Senate staffer recounted, "He yelled in meetings all the time.”  https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/anger-management-sanders-fights-for-employees-except-his-own/Content?oid=2834657

One aide stated that Sanders “never makes you feel like you’re good enough to be in the room with him.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/us/politics/bernie-sanders-image.html

Sanders voted in favor of dumping nuclear waste on the poor and predominantly Latinx community of Sierra Blanca, Texas https://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/28/Sanders-Nuclear-Waste-Votes-Divide-Texas-Activists/

When asked if he would visit the site in Sierra Blanca, Sanders answered “Absolutely not.” https://archives.texasobserver.org/issue/1998/09/11#page=11

Sanders voted five times against the Brady Act which required universal background checks and a waiting period to buy firearms. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/13/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-voted-against-brady/o

He also voted against the AMBER Alert System. http://archive.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/09/21/sanders_vote_on_amber_alert_emerges_as_key_campaign_issue/

He wanted to primary Obama in the 2012 election cycle. https://www.thenation.com/article/yes-bernie-sanders-wanted-obama-primaried-in-2012-heres-why/

After saying millionaire senators are immoral (https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/bernie-millionaire-senators-immoral/index.html) and railing against millionaires and billionaires in his 2016 campaign, Sanders responded to criticism of his millionaire senator status by saying “if you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”  His stump speech now only rants about billionaires. https://theweek.com/speedreads/834228/bernie-sanders-says-millionaire-like-write-bestselling-book 

Upheld a ban on rock concerts as mayor of Burlington like a Footloose villain https://i.redd.it/atpybo1rcwa31.jpg

Despite running on forgiving student loan debt since 2015, when pressed for specifics during an interview with Dana Bash, Sanders responded, “I don't have the plan in my pocket right now,” because, you know, why on Earth should he know the details of his key campaign promises? https://mobile.twitter.com/DanaBashCNN/status/1137779734467792897

Two days before the 2016 general election, Sanders tweeted “I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist.” https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/794941635931099136?lang=en

 Sanders had a heart attack at age 78, making his continued life expectancy 3.1 years. https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/acute-coronary-syndrome/study-65-older-mi-patients-die-within-8-years

He could have dropped out of the race after his heart attack and endorsed Warren, and she could have spent the primary building coalitions with the demographics where she was the weakest, and could well have been the front runner by now.  Instead, he selfishly stayed in the race, screwing her over and knowing full well the odds are against him living through a single term.  He continued to do the only thing he’s good at: fucking everyone over.

[Image Description: A screenshot of a Twitter page.  The time stamp in the lower right corner of the screenshot is highlighted and shows that the screenshot was taken at 6:23 AM on 12/30/2019.  Two tweets are displayed.  The first is from Rep. John Lewis, @repjohnlewis, made on January 4, 2016.  The tweet displays two images of Rep. Lewis playing with cats, and has the caption “I hope everyone had a safe holiday.  I spent some of the break playing with my cats.”

The second tweet is from Briahna Joy Gray, @briebriejoy.  It is a reply to the first tweet and was posted on 1/11/2017.  It reads “Careful, We know Lewis will throw cats under the bus if it helps the DNC. #BernieWouldHaveWon”]

Briahna Joy Gray is the National Press Secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign.  This is her official Twitter which she uses for the campaign.  Civil rights hero and US Representative John Lewis issued a statement yesterday, December 29, that he has been diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer.  Ten hours later, Briahna’s tweet is still up, on what is, again, the account of National Press Secretary for the Sanders campaign.

Trump got 14 million primary votes in a twelve person race.

Transcript:

Bernie Sanders: This is cyber warfare.  And the Russian effort very clearly is to destabilize our democracy, destabilize other democracies, around the world, and they’re gonna have to pay a price for that.  That cannot be allowed to continue.

Ari Melber: But at the time, I mean, it does look different in hindsight.  Did you know then that this might have been part of their design, was to leak these emails precisely so there would be more rifts in the Democratic party?

Two days before the 2016 general election, Sanders tweeted “I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist” https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/794941635931099136?lang=en

 In 2015, during a meeting with police reform activist group Campaign Zero, Sanders responded to being asked why he thought a disproportionate amount of people of color were incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses with “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African-American?”  Those present at the meeting stated, “Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can

Sanders opposed busing students of color to reduce racial segregation in schools, saying the practice was an example of “the government sometimes [doing] bad in the guise of good things.” Scan of article here

In 2019, Sanders asked if “ anybody think[s busing is] a good idea” following Senator Harris’s argument over busing with Vice President Biden at a DNC primary debate. https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-knocks-busing-on-this-week-does-anybody-think-its-a-good-idea/

In 2018, fifteen racial and social justice leaders in Vermont, including multiple NAACP branch presidents, ACLU organizers, and BLM activists, sent an open letter to Sanders and the Sanders Institute to complain that they were “excluded” from the “national progressive movement that Senator Bernie Sanders is trying to foster.”  The letter asks “how could Senator Sanders host what is supposed to be an intersectional, progressive event without inviting the very people whom he serves?”  http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/vpr/files/201812/sanders-letter-2018.pdf

Curtiss Reed, Executive Director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, stated that the exclusion of Vermont POC from the Sanders Institute’s event was “a catastrophic failure of his sort of tone deafness to marginalized communities in the state of Vermont” and added “I’m tempted to say this is no longer a question of benign neglect on the part of the senator, but willful ignorance on his part not to include marginalized voices in this national conversation on the progressive movement.”   https://www.vpr.org/post/we-find-ourselves-excluded-racial-justice-leaders-ask-bernie-sanders-get-program#stream/0

Vermont Black leaders stated they were “invisible” to Sanders, and that the senator “was just really dismissive of anything that had to do with race and racism, saying that they didn’t have anything to do with the issues of income inequality.  He just always kept coming back to income inequality as a response, as if talking about income inequality would somehow make issues of racism go away.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/vermonts-black-leaders-we-were-invisible-to-bernie-sanders

In 2016, Sanders dismissed Secretary Clinton’s lead in primary votes with “a lot of that came from the South.” POC make up a huge bloc of southern Democrat voters.  https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-sen-bernie-sanders/story?id=38277617

When speaking in Jacksonville, Mississippi, on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, Sanders chose to criticize the Democratic party by saying “the business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure.  People sometimes don't see that because there was a charismatic individual named Barack Obama, who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can

At the same event, he focused on Dr. King as a champion of economic injustice rather than civil rights, saying, “All of us know where he was when he was assassinated 50 years ago today.  He was in Memphis to stand with low-income sanitation workers who were being exploited ruthlessly, whose wages were abysmally low, and who were trying to create a union. That's where he was. Because as the mayor just indicated, what he believed — and where he was a real threat to the establishment — is that of course we need civil rights in this country, but we also need economic justice.”

While speaking at the She the People presidential forum, Sanders was booed by women of color for being unable to say anything of substance regarding racial issues, instead just constantly reminding everyone that he marched with Dr. King decades ago. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-met-with-boos-after-name-dropping-martin-luther-king-at-she-the-people-summit

Sanders voted for the 1994 crime bill https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-has-dodged-criticism-crime-bill-vote-while-others-n1020726

He touted his vote for the crime bill on his website at least until 2006, as proof he was “tough on crime” and “strong on the cops” https://web.archive.org/web/20061018180921/http:/www.bernie.org/truth/crime.html

In his 1998 autobiography, Sanders repeatedly used the n-word. He chose to keep the word in the text when republishing the book in 2015.  https://www.inquisitr.com/5620596/bernie-sanders-under-fire-for-use-of-n-word-in-2015-book-clip-from-audiobook-version-goes-viral-friday/

 The Sanders 2020 campaign hired and fired YouTuber Matt Orfalea within 24 hours after being alerted of his sexist, racist, homophobic, and ableist content, suggesting he was not vetted before his hiring https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bernie-sanders-matt-orfalea-mlk-youtube-video/

 The campaign also hired and fired Darius Khalil Gordon after two days after being alerted of his sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and ableist Tweets https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/12/bernie-sanders-new-head-organizer-called-people-fgs-bhes/

The campaign also hired former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate.  The Women’s March cut ties with Sarsour following anti-Semitic statements. https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/womens-march-founder-calls-on-current-leadership-to-step-down/

Sarsour was also condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for the statement that “a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.” https://forward.com/news/national/435964/bernie-sanders-linda-sarsour-jewish-voters/

 Sanders opposes open borders as he feels they would lead to the global poor flooding the United States, making the country unable to fund universal health care and free college. https://psmag.com/news/bernie-says-immigration-threatens-the-social-safety-net-research-shows-otherwise

During a 2015 interview, Sanders called open borders a “Koch brothers proposal,” arguing that “what right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don't believe in that.”  https://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9014491/bernie-sanders-vox-conversation

Sanders the Politician

Voted five times against the Brady Act which required universal background checks and a waiting period to buy firearms https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/13/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-voted-against-brady/

Voted against the AMBER Alert System http://archive.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/09/21/sanders_vote_on_amber_alert_emerges_as_key_campaign_issue/

Voted in favor of dumping nuclear waste on the poor and predominantly Latinx community of Sierra Blanca, Texas https://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/28/Sanders-Nuclear-Waste-Votes-Divide-Texas-Activists/

When asked if he would visit the site in Sierra Blanca, answered “Absolutely not.” https://archives.texasobserver.org/issue/1998/09/11#page=11

Voted against the Iraq War in 2002 but voted to fund both the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan https://www.alternet.org/2015/05/bernie-sanders-troubling-history-supporting-us-military-violence-abroad/

Voted for the 1994 crime bill https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-has-dodged-criticism-crime-bill-vote-while-others-n1020726

Touted his vote for the crime bill on his website at least until 2006, as proof he was “tough on crime” and “strong on the cops” https://web.archive.org/web/20061018180921/http:/www.bernie.org/truth/crime.html

Supported primarying President Obama in the 2012 election cycle https://www.thenation.com/article/yes-bernie-sanders-wanted-obama-primaried-in-2012-heres-why/

Signed a resolution as mayor of Burlington affirming that marriage is between “husband and wife” https://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/02/06/clinton-surrogates-pounce-on-sanders-over-82-marriage-resolution/

Argued same-sex marriage was a states’ rights issue in 2006 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&v=kej9QAsS3uI&feature=emb_logo

In 2006, after same-sex civil unions had been legal in Vermont since 2000, responded to a reporter asking if same-sex marriage should be legalized in Vermont with “Not right now,” after the “very divisive debate” preceding the civil union legislation https://web.archive.org/web/20160407064606/http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060607/NEWS/606070302/1003/NEWS02

Has passed three bills in his twenty-nine years as a Congressman, two of which renamed post offices: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on

Is nicknamed “the Amendment King” for his reputation of sponsoring roll call amendments to bills during his tenure in the House of Representatives, but came second in House amendments passed during that time period to Rep. James Traficant, whose tenure was 5 years shorter than that of Sanders: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/24/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-was-roll-call-amendment-king-1995-2/

In total, has introduced 513 amendments in 29 years in Congress (averaging 17.69 per year) in comparison to senior Vermont Senator Leahy’s 942 amendments in 44 years (21.41 per year avg.), Secretary Clinton’s 296 amendments in 8 years (37 per year avg.), Senator Warren’s 180 amendments in 6 years (30 per year avg.), Senator Klobuchar’s 254 amendments in 11 years (23.09 per year avg.), and Senator Booker’s 140 amendments in 6 years (23.33 per year avg.) https://www.congress.gov/member/bernard-sanders/S000033?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Bernard+Sanders%22%5D%2C%22type%22%3A%22amendments%22%2C%22sponsorship%22%3A%22sponsored%22%7D

Oversaw the Department of Veteran Affairs as Senate chairman of the Veteran Affairs Committee during the 2014 scandal in which dozens of veterans died while waiting for medical care from Phoenix Veterans Health Administration Facilities https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-veterans-scandal-on-bernie-sanderss-watch

Sanders Campaign 2016

Breached the Clinton campaign’s voter data and harvested and stored voter information https://time.com/4155185/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/

Received a 645 page letter from the FEC detailing the campaign’s finance violations https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-bernie-sanders-donors-who-are-giving-too-much/482418/

Paid a $14.5 K fine to the FEC after receiving donations from non-citizens https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/376373-sanders-campaign-pays-145k-fine-to-settle-fec-complaint

The Nevada campaign director sought to rig the state’s caucus by urging staffers to buy double-sided coins for tie-breaking coin tosses http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sanderss-nevada-director-floated-two-sided-coins-for-tiebreaks-report/ar-AAhHiAI?getstaticpage=true&automatedTracking=staticview

Initially decried superdelegates as “undemocratic” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/opinions/superdelegates-democratic-party-kohn/) before attempting to persuade them to go against the primary’s outcome and back Sanders instead of Clinton https://www.npr.org/2016/05/19/478705022/sanders-campaign-now-says-superdelegates-are-key-to-winning-nomination

The Mueller Report confirmed that Russian interference in the 2016 election boosted Sanders’ campaign as well as Trump’s https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/read-the-mueller-report/

Had no reasonable path to victory after Super Tuesday (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/was-the-democratic-primary-a-close-call-or-a-landslide/) yet insisted on taking “our fight” to the DNC convention four months later https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/bernie-sanders-vows-continue-fight-convention-n588011

The campaign was accused by staffers of sexual harassment, demeaning treatment toward women, and pay disparity by gender https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-sexism.html

Weeks before the 2016 general election, Jane Sanders retweeted a video from an April town hall of her husband telling an attendee to “make these decisions yourself” regarding whether or not to vote third party if Secretary Clinton won the primary https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/26/retweet-bernie-sanders-wife-jane-raises-questions/91140254/

Sanders Campaign 2020

Appointed Russian interference denier and Jill Stein 2016 voter Briahna Joy Gray as the campaign’s National Press Secretary https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/888555665865814017?lang=en

Following promises to run a civil campaign, hired David Sirota, a man who’d spent months attacking other primary contenders online, as a speech writer.  The campaign also confirmed that Sirota had already been serving in an advisory role prior to his official hiring https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray called for the doxing of a Sanders critic on Twitter. If there was any repercussion for this behavior, it has never been made public. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/14/1879124/-Bernie-Sanders-s-Campaign-Doxed-a-Critic-on-Twitter

Hired and fired YouTuber Matt Orfalea within 24 hours after being alerted of his sexist, racist, homophobic, and ableist content, suggesting he was not vetted before his hiring https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bernie-sanders-matt-orfalea-mlk-youtube-video/

Hired and fired Darius Khalil Gordon after two days after being alerted of his sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and ableist Tweets https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/12/bernie-sanders-new-head-organizer-called-people-fgs-bhes/

Sanders National Campaign Co-Chair Nina Turner claimed that Biden’s strong support among Black voters is due to the voters’ “short memories” and “not a true understanding of the history” https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/473161-top-sanders-officials-hits-biden-over-riding-on-obamas-coattails

Paid staffers working 60 hours a week an average of 13 dollars per hour despite Sanders campaigning on a 15 dollar per hour minimum wage https://www.vox.com/2019/7/20/20700841/bernie-sanders-minimum-wage-staff-pay

Sanders Himself

Two days before the 2016 general election, Sanders tweeted “I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist” https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/794941635931099136?lang=en

Unsuccessfully and habitually ran for office from 1972 until his election as mayor in 1982, during which time he held no steady job and could not afford to pay child support for his son Levi.  In 1974, Levi’s mother Susan Mott was quoted in a Burlington Free Press article stating that she was refused apartments because she was a single mother on welfare: https://twitter.com/m_mendozaferrer/status/1093295853907922946

Despite conceding the 2016 primary and stating that “Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination and I congratulate her for that” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders/index.html), he later made the Trump-esque statement “Some people say that if maybe that system was not rigged against me, I would have won the nomination and defeated Donald Trump.” https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-defeat-donald-trump-2016-rigged-primary-dnc-nbc-kasie-hunt-1446116

Stole electricity from his neighbors in the 70s https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927

Stole food from the refrigerator of the Vermont Freeman’s publishers https://newrepublic.com/article/122005/he-was-presidential-candidate-bernie-sanders-was-radical

Was asked to leave a hippie commune in 1971 due to sitting around engaging in “endless political discussion” rather than working https://freebeacon.com/politics/bernie-sanders-asked-leave-hippie-commune/

At age 28, wrote an article for alternative newspaper Vermont Freeman entitled “Cancer, Disease, and Society.”  In the article, he argues that sexual repression can cause cancer, and women who are virgins, have fewer orgasms than their peers, or simply don’t enjoy sex are more likely to develop cervical cancer.  The article includes statements such as “the manner in which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well determine whether or not she will develop breast cancer, among other things” and “How much guilt, nervousness have you imbued in your daughter with regard to sex?  If she is 16, 3 years beyond puberty and the time which nature set forth for child-bearing, and spent a night out with her boyfriend, what is your reaction? Do you take her to a psychiatrist because she is “maladjusted” or a "prostitute," or are you happy that she has found someone with whom she can share love?”  He also argues that the education system contributes to cancer, as does having “an old bitch of a teacher (and there are many of them).”  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

Appeared to still hold these views as of 1988, when he stated "I have my own feelings on what causes cancer and the psychosomatic aspects on cancer." https://time.com/4249034/bernie-sanders-alternative-medicine-cancer/

Called Planned Parenthood “part of the establishment” for endorsing Secretary Clinton https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/planned-parenthood-bernie-sanders-218026

In his 1998 autobiography, quoted an article calling his 1996 primary opponent Susan Sweetser “too brassy, too bitchy” https://books.google.com/books?id=_2YjBm2_JGUC&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173&dq=sanders+too+brassy+too+bitchy&source=bl&ots=SWrIR5Xa8m&sig=ACfU3U2-Hj1-UXIOM0Zz274h6_Nu8juoBg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHhtObq6LmAhWvUt8KHc8mDVUQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=sanders%20too%20brassy%20too%20bitchy&f=false

In the same autobiography, repeatedly used the n-word and chose to keep the word in the text when republishing the book in 2015.  Note that Lyndon B. Johnson was able to make this same point in the sixties without needless slurs https://www.inquisitr.com/5620596/bernie-sanders-under-fire-for-use-of-n-word-in-2015-book-clip-from-audiobook-version-goes-viral-friday/

After saying millionaire senators are immoral (https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/bernie-millionaire-senators-immoral/index.html) and railing against millionaires and billionaires in his 2016 campaign, Sanders responded to criticism of his millionaire senator status by saying “if you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.” https://theweek.com/speedreads/834228/bernie-sanders-says-millionaire-like-write-bestselling-book

Was booed by women of color at the She the People presidential forum by being unable to say anything of substance regarding racial issues, instead just constantly reminding everyone that he marched with MLK Jr. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-met-with-boos-after-name-dropping-martin-luther-king-at-she-the-people-summit

As mayor of Burlington, fired the assistant city treasurer when she was jailed for an anti-war protest https://academic.oup.com/publius/article-abstract/21/2/131/1917641?redirectedFrom=PDF

Despite participating in a civil rights protest, never bothered to vote until he ran for election and voted for himself: https://imgur.com/gallery/mmS40Gq#460q6bS

Repeatedly accuses his female opponents of campaigning on identity politics, from saying “It is not good enough for someone to say, 'I'm a woman! Vote for me!” regarding Secretary Clinton’s campaign (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/21/13699956/sanders-clinton-democratic-party), to his 1986 governor race against Madeleine Kunin, who stated, “When Sanders was my opponent he focused like a laser beam on “class analysis,” in which “women’s issues” were essentially a distraction from more important issues. He urged voters not to vote for me just because I was a woman. That would be a “sexist position,” he declared.”  https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/02/04/when-bernie-sanders-ran-against-vermont/kNP6xUupbQ3Qbg9UUelvVM/story.html

Upheld a ban on rock concerts as mayor of Burlington like a Footloose villain https://i.redd.it/atpybo1rcwa31.jpg