04 Mar
‘Sanders Speaks In Lawrence, KS & Lincoln, NE’
BNR – ‘Sanders Speaks In Lawrence, KS & Lincoln, NE’
.Bernie Sanders’ days of ignoring his rival — Hillary Clinton — are gone.
Sanders Speaks In Lincoln
The candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, who stuck to policy while campaigning in the Iowa caucuses, jabbed Clinton numerous times Thursday during a raucous rally in Lincoln, where he enjoyed eardrum-rattling roars of approval.
Sanders chided Clinton for taking too long to oppose the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, calling the decision a “no-brainer.”
He then hammered her for not releasing the transcripts of three speeches that she gave for investment house Goldman Sachs. At $225,000 each, Sanders joked, they must have been “great speeches” and deserved to be in the public domain.
In short, Sanders may be trailing Clinton in national delegates after her commanding sweep of Southern states on Super Tuesday, but the self-described “democratic socialist” from Vermont is making it clear that he has no plans to give up — or tone down his fiery nature.
“Now, the main opposition to the Keystone pipeline was kind of a no-brainer,” Sanders told the crowd of 2,500 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. “If you believe in climate change, why in God’s earth would you think about supporting the excavation and the transportation of some of the dirtiest fossil fuel in the world?”
More On Bernie In Nebraska
A capacity crowd of 2,500, including supporters seated in chairs on the stage, filled the Lied Center. Outside, more than a thousand people were unable to get into the performing arts center after waiting in a line that spread across the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus for more than six blocks.
Before delivering his 57-minute speech, Sanders grabbed a microphone and spoke to the overflow crowd outside, which he estimated at 1,500 people.
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Young people, mostly students, composed the largest segment of Sanders’ enthusiastic Lincoln audience. But there was a smattering of ages, a gathering of opponents of the rejected Keystone XL pipeline and at least a dozen cowboy hats.
Jane Kleeb, who mounted the battle against the TransCanada pipeline and its pathway across Nebraska, introduced and endorsed Sanders at the event.
Sanders pledged to lead transformation of the nation’s energy system away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy, arguing that the future of the planet is on the line as humans confront climate change.
“Let’s listen to the scientists, not the politicians,” he said.
As president, Sanders said, he would tell TransCanada and others in the fossil fuel industry: “Pack up; get out.”
4300+ Gather To Hear Sanders In Lawrence
Nearly 4,300 people gathered Thursday night in Kansas to hear a self-described democratic socialist call for universal health care, free college tuition and an end to employment discrimination against gays and lesbians.
“You think I scared everybody in conservative Kansas?” Sen. Bernie Sanders jokingly asked as he navigated his way backstage to pose for photos with supporters after delivering a speech full of progressive policy dreams two days before the state’s caucuses.
Sanders began his speech at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds by highlighting that in 2004 he had voted against invading Iraq as a member of Congress. Clinton, in the U.S. Senate, voted for it.
“The cost of war is far, far greater than many people realize,” he said, referring to veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions upon coming home from war.
Working-class kids go to war, not “the sons and daughters of the billionaire class,” he said.
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After the rally Sanders met with five activists from Kansas People’s Action, a Wichita-based group that advocates on social justice issues that endorsed him earlier in the day…………………..
