The-Ave.US

Clinton in recent weeks has redoubled her outreach to young voters, who comprised a large portion of Sanders’ support. But she still has more work to do. A nationwide straw poll of 461 Sanders delegates, released Thursday by the Bernie Delegates Network, found that only 37 percent plan for vote for Clinton in November.

Alexandra Chalupa FB post

The national press secretary for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign encouraged people to vote for Jill Stein in 2016 during the general election.

Today, the day of the Democratic Debate, she told blatant lies about another Democratic candidate, falsely claiming Bloomberg had a heart attack, as part of her attempt to distract from Bernie’s campaign failing to make good on its promise to release his medical records. Regardless of which candidate you may or may not support, these falsehoods mirror Trump’s and are unacceptable. Though she “walked back” her lies after being called out on Twitter, she did not apologize for them.

It’s important to be aware of who Bernie Sanders surrounds himself with. While he has some exception people on his campaign, there are very problematic ones too. Another example, his campaign Chairman who is helping lead foreign policy for the campaign, Rep. Ro Khanna, promoted anti-Ukraine Kremlin propaganda and even spearheaded an initiative to prevent Ukraine from receiving military assistance in parts of the war zone in eastern Ukraine, based on Russian disinformation. Here’s an article of how he may have gotten “duped” by Kremlin propaganda:

https://thehill.com/…/381246-Did-Californias-Ro-Khanna-get-…

It’s also worth noting that a longtime friend and consultant to Bernie Sanders was Paul Manafort’s associate Tad Devine, who worked with Manafort in Ukraine propping up Putin backed candidates. Yes, political operatives like that have been normalized for too long by those in Washington (which is why we’re in this mess today) and Sanders did the right thing this election cycle by refusing to hire Devine, who not coincidentally ran the same mirroring playbook as Trump/Manafort during the 2016 primary election raising millions by accusing the DNC of rigging the election against Bernie, which without this narrative, would not have allowed Wikileaks to have the impact Russia intended. All while Trump/Manafort accused the RNC of rigging the primary election against Trump. The “rigging” narrative was pumped on both sides of the aisle into the public discourse and then Trump escalated it during the General election by accusing Obama of rigging the election against him which made it all the more difficult for the White House to sound the alarm bells that Russia was attacking the election to help Trump. We later learned every state voting system was targeted, as were some election machine vendors. So good for Bernie for rejecting Devine this time. Instead, Andrew Yang hired Devine.

It’s also concerning that Bernie’s voting record shows he’s unable or unwilling to stand up to Russia, which history has shown, helps Putin grow more empowered and aggressive toward democracies. He voted against the 2012 Magnitsky Act, against 2014 Russian sanctions, against 2017 Russian sanctions, and did not vote on 2019 Russian sanctions involving Deripaska (his office had a scheduling conflict due to addressing a sexual harassment issue related to his 2016 campaign, which he felt took priority).

Those of us who have extensively studied the history and evolution of the KGB playbook understand the significance of Bernie’s 1987 honeymoon to Moscow. In the 1980s, under Soviet Secretary General Andropov, who previously headed Soviet intelligence, as the Kremlin foresaw the inevitable fall of the USSR only years away, it stepped up its game at longterm planning to infiltrate western political systems. It was a two-prong strategy that had long been in play but was stepped up then: infiltrate the Republican Party via conservative businessmen and infiltrate the extreme left via socialists. Trump went to Moscow in 1987 and came back talking about the Trump Tower Moscow project and someday running for President. Bernie and Jane went the following year for their honeymoon, a few days before President Reagan’s famous Moscow Summit. While there, during a large dinner banquet, Bernie spoke against U.S. foreign policy, causing someone in his delegation to storm out since it was undermining US foreign relations at a sensitive time. It’s worth noting that while the KGB playbook was meant to create loyalists on both sides of the aisle and prop up conservatives into power, it did not want socialists to actually win highest office because back then, it was thought they would realize the Soviet Union was a myth and turn against it when given the opportunity.

Bernie has been correct in his criticism of Henry Kissinger who is one of Putin’s most loyal advisors and was a “Russia election interference” denialist and pushing Moscow’s agenda, so that’s also worth consideration.

But there is a reason Kremlin propaganda and Trump promote Bernie’s candidacy. It’s not because they fear him. At best, he’s proven to be weak on national security when it comes to Russia, surrounds himself by senior advisors who are clueless and have even recently been played by Kremlin propaganda. And given that we’ve seen as much of Bernie’s medical records as we’ve seen of Trump’s taxes, can we trust the 78 year old who recently had a heart attack to pick a strong VP? The Democratic VP announced came a mere 72 hours or less before the Democratic National Convention in 2016. He could choose someone solid and who will unite the country. But what if he chooses his loyal friend Tulsi Gabbard? Then what? Putin wins….again.