5 Remarkable Moments from Bernie Sanders' Town Hall in the Heart of Coal Country

#FeelTheBern

POLITICS 

03/11/2017 01:54 pm ET | Updated 1 day ago

Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Faced A Fake News Tsunami. Where Did It Come From?

The trolls set out to distract and divide the invigorated left.

By Ryan Grim, Jason Cherkis

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-fake-news-russia_us_5...

WASHINGTON ― Last June, John Mattes started noticing something coursing like a virus through the Facebook page he helped administer for Bernie Sanders fans in San Diego. People with no apparent ties to California were friending the page and sharing links from unfamiliar sites full of anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda.

The stories they posted weren’t the normal complaints he was used to seeing as the Vermont senator and the former secretary of state fought out the Democratic presidential primary. These stories alleged that Clinton had murdered her political opponents and used body doubles.

Mattes, 66, had been a television reporter and Senate investigator in previous lives. He put his expertise in unmasking fraudsters to work. At first, he suspected that the sites were created by the old Clinton haters from the ‘90s ― what Hillary Clinton had dubbed “the vast right-wing conspiracy.”

But when Mattes started tracking down the sites’ domain registrations, the trail led to Macedonia and Albania. In mid-September, he emailed a few of his private investigator friends with a list of the sites. “Very creepy and i do not think Koch brothers,” he wrote.

Mattes and his friends didn’t know what to make of his findings. He couldn’t get his mind around the possibility that trolls overseas might be trying to sway a bunch of Southern Californians who supported Sanders’ run for president. “I may be a dark cynic and I may have been an investigative reporter for a long time, but this was too dark ― and too unbelievable and most upsetting,” he said. “What was I to do with this?”

By late October, Mattes said he’d traced 40 percent of the domain registrations for the fake news sites he saw popping up on pro-Sanders pages back to Eastern Europe. Others appeared to be based in Panama and the U.S., or were untraceable. He wondered, “Am I the only person that sees all this crap floating through these Bernie pages?”

He wasn’t. Bernie supporters across the country had been noticing dubious websites and posters linked back to Eastern Europe long before Mattes did ― and even before The Washington Post reported in mid-June that Russian government hackers had stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee. They had been warning each other that something weird was going on, posting troll alerts and compiling lists of fake news sites.

There is enough real news to fight over, they thought, without arguing over anti-Hillary conspiracy theories from Macedonia.

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Sometimes it was hard to tell who was doing the trolling and for what purposes. Aleta Pearce, 54, who lives in Malibu, California, was an administrator of half a dozen pro-Sanders Facebook groups and a member of many others. In May 2016, she posted a memo to various Facebook groups about the fake news issue, warning of bogus sites.

“The pattern I’m seeing is if a member is repeatedly posting articles that are only from one URL that person is just there to push advertising,” Pearce wrote. “They probably have a sock account with little to no content. They are often from Russia or Macedonia.” (A “sock” or “sock puppet” account uses a false identity to deceive.)

Pearce added, “Please share this with other Bernie groups so we can put an end to this spam bombing that’s filling up our pages and groups. It’s time to chase the mice out of the hen house and send them a message. They don’t know who they are messing with.”

The first tidal wave of spam was mostly anti-Bernie, Pearce recalled, posted by Clinton backers. (David Brock’s Clinton-backing super PAC had likely paid for some portion of those.) But after Clinton became the Democratic nominee in July, Pearce noticed a switch to anti-Hillary messages with links to fake news and to real news with obnoxious pop-up ads.

“Every site publishing those ― you clicked on the article, you would be slammed with ads and strange articles,” Pearce told HuffPost. “It was overwhelming. It was 24/7.”

She kept a list of fake news sites to watch for ― it grew into dozens. There were posts on the Clinton-has-Parkinson’s conspiracy and the Clinton-is-running-a-pedophilia-ring-out-of-a-pizza-shop conspiracy.

On the Sanders campaign, it was Hector Sigala’s job to connect with all the organic Facebook groups. He recalled seeing “a lot of trolls” try to convince people of something “that was obviously fake.”

Many of the interlopers, Sigala said, claimed to be Sanders fans who had decided to vote for GOP nominee Donald Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the general election and tried to convince others to do likewise. “It made it seem like the community as a whole was supporting that, but that wasn’t the case,” he said.

Sigala thinks most of them were just your average internet trolls. He said he found many were members of 4chan, a gathering place for the alt-right, white nationalists and plain old nihilists from which has sprung all manner of mischief.

The Sanders campaign had begun seeing this particular brand of fake news starting in early 2016. “The first time that we kind of fell for it, for like two minutes, was this link from what seemed to be ABC News,” Sigala said. It turned out to be ABC.com.co, a fake site that has no affiliation with the real news network. It had “reported” that the pope himself had endorsed Sanders.

It came in like a wave, like a tsunami. It was like a flood of misinformation.Bev Cowling, who administered Facebook groups for Sanders supporters

In trying to wade through the flood of fake news, Sanders supporters had some serious trust issues. There was good reason to be skeptical of Clinton and the WikiLeaks dump of DNC emails was real, after all. But a steady diet of stories fabricated out of thin air can also feed into paranoia and flame wars.

Bev Cowling, 64, saw a sudden deluge of requests to join the Sanders Facebook groups she administered from her home in Toney, Alabama. All of a sudden, they were getting 80 to 100 requests to join each day. She and the other administrators couldn’t vet everyone, and the posts started getting bizarre. “It came in like a wave, like a tsunami,” she said. “It was like a flood of misinformation.”

Cowling, a retired postal worker, said some of her Facebook group members were ready to believe the bogus news links. “People were so anti-Hillary that no matter what you said, they were willing to share it and spread it,” she said. “At first I would just laugh about it. I would say, ‘C’mon, this is beyond ridiculous.’ I created a word called ‘ridiculosity.’ I would say, ‘This reeks of ridiculosity.’”

But Cowling got pushback. She was called a “Hillbot” and a Trump supporter. She ended up removing dozens of members who refused to stop pushing conspiracy theories. “I lost quite a few friends,” she said.

Matthew Smollon, a 34-year-old copy editor and page designer based in Knoxville, Tennessee, noticed an influx of posts linking to fake news as early as January 2016. So much of it, Smollon noticed, came from the same accounts. Almost all the sites he traced went back to Veles, Macedonia, which Wired magazine has since dubbed the “Fake News Factory to the World.” There wasn’t a single link he found that went to a pro-Clinton fake news story.

None of the fake stories stood out to Smollon. He described the Facebook groups as “being in a room filled with blasting televisions.” It was hard to pick out the loudest noises. “The ultimate goal of this wasn’t so much misinformation as distraction from valid info,” he concluded.

But Smollon had a hard time convincing other Bernie supporters that they were being played. “No one cared,” Smollon said. “At that point, you were a Hillary shill. It was like an echo chamber of anger.”

Even when pointing out that something like NBCPolitics.org was a fake site ― the real site is NBCNews.com/politics ― he drew criticism. He was eventually removed as a moderator from one of the pro-Sanders Facebook groups. “It’s the closest I’ve been to being gaslit in my life,” he said.

In June, Smollon posted a piece on Medium with the headline, “Dear Bernie Supporters: Stop sharing posts from dumpster fire websites.” He urged his fellow Sanders fans to wake up:

Guys, I sincerely love you. I love your passion. I love your fire. I love all of that. But when 400 people are circle-jerking clickbait links in between wondering how Hillary Clinton is behind the FEMA Earthquake drill that happens on several days with one of them being primary day?

Holy shit.

You are allowing yourselves to be manipulated. Through the practice of taking anything that agrees with your opinion at face value, actively refusing to believe anything but what agrees with your narrative and following that up with blatant disregard for doing two minutes of searching to verify the information: you become the myopic Trump supporter that you so vocally loathe.

Some people “liked” his Medium piece on Facebook and posted it on their walls, he said. Others did not. Smollon later updated his article to say he’d been banned from the group “Bernie Believers” because of it.

“This is a pretty solid case for admins/mods being part of the spam,” he wrote. “Not all of them obviously, but it only takes one person running with an ulterior motive to ensure the whole thing goes to shit.”

To long to copy & paste...................

Yeah but my shenanigans are cheeky and fun! 

Oh Eddie: If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more shocked then I am now!

Sanders Slams Big Pharma for Pumping 780 Million Opioid Pills Into West Virginia 'Trump Country'

His progressive message struck a chord with West Virginians grappling with addiction and poverty.

By Tana Ganeva / Raw Story

March 14, 2017

In a town hall televised by MSNBC Monday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders called out the pharmaceutical industry for pumping addictive opioids into small, rural towns—parts of the country already devastated by disappearing jobs and crumbling infrastructure.

“I’ve got to tell you, I’m not a great fan of the pharmaceutical industry in general,” Sanders said, according to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. “For them to make to make billions in profits by getting young people addicted and ruining their lives … we have to start holding them accountable.”

The event was held in McDowell County, West Virginia, which has one of the highest per capita fatal drug overdose rates in the country. Not by coincidence, West Virginia coal country was the target of a concerted push by the pharmaceutical industry to bring addictive painkillers to poor, rural regions.

In December, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported that out-of-state pharmaceutical companies went to extreme lengths to sell drugs in West Virginia, including McDowell County. In one case, just one pharmacy in a town of 392 received 9 million hydrocodone pills over the course of two years.

“In six years, drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers,” the investigation found. “The unfettered shipments amount to 433 pain pills for every man, woman and child in West Virginia.”

Sanders also stressed that people suffering from addiction should not be jailed, but offered treatment.

The event was part of a series of town halls called “Bernie Sanders in Trump country,” in which the Vermont senator travels to areas that skewed heavily for Trump and hears out the concerns of residents. Chief among them is the rise in addiction and fatal overdoses.

As Chris Hayes pointed out in a Friday segment preceding the event, Donald Trump’s solution to the opioid crisis is to build a wall, but in fact, many people got hooked on addictive painkillers thanks to the profit motive of America’s legal pharmaceutical industry.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions continues to promote the (debunked) idea that a rise in opioid deaths is linked to the legalization of marijuana. Sessions has also indicated that he favors rolling back criminal justice reform, a position that’s also out of line with the root causes of addictive behavior. In fact, many addiction researchers note that the best weapon against addiction is to give people a sense of purpose, which fits with Sanders’ economic agenda.

As long as Bernie chooses Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris as VP he will win in 2020. I think there's allot of buyers remorse for people who voted Trump & Clinton in 2016.

^^^^^^^^^^^No chance Bernie runs in 2020, Nugster.

So he's converting Trump voters for a party (D) he hasn't belong to for most of his career? I disagree! Maybe if Elizabeth Warren is on top of the ticket with Bernie as VP since his age will be an issue.

Mikee that was my dream ticket to.

But Bernie has been working for small town rural americans his whole life. Like Vermont voters.

Warren was told to stand down by Clinton crowd in the same way republicans told there peeps to stand down not your turn shit of the past.

The Most Popular Politician in America? Bernie Sanders

Democrats reject the Vermont senator at their grave peril.

By Trevor Timm / The Guardian March 17, 2017

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/most-popular-politician-americ...

Us northeast liberals call them parts Pennsytucky! 

Sen. Warren, in Worcester, comes out swinging against GOP

By Mark Sullivan 
Telegram & Gazette Staff

http://www.telegram.com/news/20170316/sen-warren-in-worcester-comes-out-...

WORCESTER - U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was in fighting form Thursday as she met with Massachusetts newspaper reporters and editors at the Telegram & Gazette.

The progressive champion sounded many of the populist themes that have won her an enthusiastic following on the liberal-left of the Democratic Party, leading some to regard her as a possible standard-bearer against Republican President Donald Trump in 2020.

"I want to be the America that believes in the future," Ms. Warren said. "But that's not where the Republicans want to go. Every one of their proposals is about helping people who've already made it, and making everyone else pay for it."

Ms. Warren was here for a roundtable with journalists from Massachusetts' mid-size "gateway" cities such as Springfield, Fall River and Worcester. She later took center stage at a town hall-style meeting at the Worcester Public Library that drew hundreds of supporters.

In her remarks to the press, Ms. Warren scored Republicans, the current mood on Capitol Hill, and the administration of Mr. Trump, with whom she has engaged in pitched battles on Twitter.

On the relationship between the Trump administration and Russia, she said: "That's an ongoing investigation and every few days we find another connection that raises serious concerns."

Describing the legislative climate in Washington, D.C., today, Ms. Warren cited a bill she said was introduced in the House recently to repeal a school lunch program dating to the 1960s.

"I really am left without words," she said. "What impels people to say that we spend too much trying to help poor hungry children get fed?

"There was a time when I would have rolled my eyeballs, but not today, not with all that's going on in Washington," she said. "One or two (regulations) every week just get rolled back. They're just stunning.

"As we're considering Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, who received the highest award from the Russian government (and who) has close ties to Russian oligarchs, what's the first regulation that gets rolled back by the new Congress? It was so that corporations that do oil and gas drilling and make payments to local officials don't have to report those payments anymore. That's all the regulation required - just report it. So if people are actually getting ripped off because the money is all going to the dictator, the oligarch, it's at least just a tiny little bit of sunshine into what's happening.

"What did the Russians do?" She caught herself in a telling slip of the tongue. "What did the Russians do - what did the Republicans do?

"Rex Tillerson had said he didn't want that regulation because it made it harder to do business in Russia. Think about what that means ... The first thing the Republicans do is just roll it back, so that regulation is just gone. It didn't even cause much of a blip - there wasn't a headline anywhere. The stuff that's happening on a daily basis - and there's so much of it - is way beyond the boundaries of what most of us would have expected a year ago," she said.

Ms. Warren said she sees "a small 'd' democratic moment in America" at this time.

"The real power is in the people and it's when people make their voices heard that we have the best chance to get enough people in Congress to say, 'I can't do this,' " she said.

"I have been surprised at how far Republican senators and representatives have been willing to go with the Trump administration ... What has surprised me is how few voices of dissent have been heard within the Republican Party to put a check on the president's actions."

She laid into what she called the "Party of No," the GOP. "Take a look at what they want to do. They want to take away affordable health care coverage for 24 million Americans. They want to shrink up what's covered by insurance. That's the Party of No. That's the Party of No Help for Anyone Who Needs It. And I think they have to be called out on this.

"It frustrates me when people say, 'We need Washington to work better, people just go down to Washington and yammer at each other, it's blah blah on one side and blah blah on the other side.'... People use the word gridlock. This is not gridlock. Gridlock implies four cars got to the intersection at the same moment and they're all jerks and nobody'll back up so nobody goes forward. That's not what's going on here," she said.

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"What's going on in Washington is a fight over what direction our country will go. Will we be a country that works great for the top 10 percent and leaves everybody else in the dirt? That is the Republican vision. You don't have to take my word for it - just read their budget.

"Or will we be a country that builds a strong middle class, that builds opportunities for working people, that gives people born into poverty a chance to get an education, to try out a job and build a future for themselves?"

The former Harvard Law professor's rhetoric has made her a favorite among progressives. She was shown an ad for a new Elizabeth Warren action figure, in which her character, Charles Atlas-like, is hoisting Donald Trump overhead.

What, she was asked, is it like to be an action figure?

"I really like that - that's cool," she said with a laugh about her toy alter-ego. "I was sort of hoping for Batman, but I wear too much color to be Batman."

So, is she running for president next time around? Ms. Warren sidestepped the question.

"Look, I know everybody wants to start talking about 2020 and I get why we're all really concerned," she said. "But I'm not worried about Donald Trump's re-election nearly so much as I'm worried about Donald Trump's current term. He's still in his first 100 days.

"We can't take our eye off the ball about what Donald Trump is doing every day, where he is leading the Republicans and where he is leading this nation. I'm in this fight all the way."

She added: "In terms of elections, I'm up for re-election (to the Senate) in 2018, so I will be shaking all of your hands again."

She then went to the Worcester Public Library for a town hall-style meeting that had the feel of a political pep rally. A friendly crowd in the hundreds filled the reading room and went up the stairs to the second-floor balcony.

She outlined her support for universal health care, for cutting the cost of college education, and for investing in business infrastructure. The senator whose silencing by Republican Senate leadership launched an instant catchphrase - "Nevertheless, she persisted" - was told by a young woman marine biology student that she was her hero. Ms. Warren also noted her opposition to the president's Muslim travel ban, and to the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch.

During her hourlong meeting with journalists at the T&G offices Thursday morning, her staff had asked that a live feed of her on-the-record interview be shut down after a half-hour. Warren staffers said they had not given prior approval for the livestream, and asked it be disconnected. The rest of the interview went on as scheduled for the remainder of the hour.

Later, at the public library, camera phones were much in evidence as audience members captured video of her remarks.