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Bernie Sanders And Black Democratic Voters

Bernie Sanders is slightly more popular among black Democratic voters than white ones.

Three weeks after launching his presidential campaign, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading all other announced candidates in support from black voters, a new poll finds. The only potential candidate who polled better with African-Americans than Sanders, according to the poll by Morning Consult, is former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not announced a campaign.

Despite a persistent notion that his supporters are disproportionately white male “bros,” the new survey suggests that Sanders is actually slightly more popular among black Democratic voters than white ones, indicating that the narrative that developed during the 2016 campaign may no longer hold, if it ever did.

Sanders’s support among black voters, at 28 percent, puts him in second place among that demographic, behind Biden, at 32 percent. He trailed Biden 31-25 among whites.

There appears to be a strong class element at play in the finding. The same poll found that the demographics Sanders is least popular with — at 19 and 17 percent, respectively — are Democrats who make more than $100,000 per year and Democrats who have post-graduate degrees (two qualities that typically, if not always, overlap). Because of structural wealth and income gaps, that population is heavily white.

Sanders, meanwhile, receives his strongest support from those making less than $50,000 — a group that is, for the same reasons, much more diverse. The poll found that 30 percent of those with the lowest incomes backed Sanders.

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The preference for Sanders among black voters might be better explained by ideology than identity. February’s Harvard-Harris poll found that 56 percent of black voters preferred a “mostly socialist” economic system, against 44 percent who want a “mostly capitalist” one.

The findings pose both challenges and opportunities for Sanders. Wealthy and middle-class Democrats tend to be more likely to vote than the working class and poor, but Sanders is running a 50-state field and digital program that aims to unleash over a million Sanders volunteers to register and turn out voters who have stayed home in the past. That work could then pay dividends in the general election, which was decided in three states by just tens of thousands of votes in 2016.

Bernie Sanders Wants You to Fight

Bernie! Bernie!” the crowd chanted in Council Bluffs, Iowa on the campaign trail last week. But Bernie Sanders demurred. “It ain’t Bernie, it’s you. It’s not me, it is us.” The crowd responded with a new chant: “Not me, us! Not me, us!”

A similar exchange took place at each of the two campaign kick-off rallies the previous weekend, first in Brooklyn and then in Chicago. In Iowa, Bernie gave a rationale for his response. “The truth is that the powers that be,” he said, “they are so powerful, they have so much money, that no one person, not the best president in the world, can take them on alone. The only way we transform America is when millions of people together stand up and fight back.”

No viable presidential campaign has ever been so encouraging of agitation from below.

Bernie is often compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, but while Roosevelt inveighed eloquently against inequality, he was nowhere near as consistent in calling for for mass political activity from below. It was his contemporary, the socialist leader Eugene Debs, who spoke of the power of working people to change the world despite the considerable political advantages of elites.

“Employers, who are the beneficiaries of the wrong, have hitherto been able to crush, in most of the states, all remedial legislation,” Debs wrote, but “labor may be induced to unify, and taking the aggressive in politics, bring about the reform required.”

The language is old-fashioned, but the formulation is almost identical to Bernie’s in Iowa: an acknowledgement of the ruling class’s formidable power, paired with an insistence that ordinary people can break that power by uniting and fighting back.

In the few weeks since he announced his 2020 run, Bernie has made it clear that he plans to emphasize the importance of political activity outside the established channels of state power.

‘Medicare-for-all’ gets unexpected surge of support, even in red states

It was a sleepy Saturday in mid-February. But Virginia Sanders was speaking, and the audience was rapt.

“One might not have the power. But a thousand has the power,” she said. “Don’t let anybody fool you that you don’t.”

Sanders, 76, has been an organizer and activist all her life. She marched in the civil rights movement. She protested against the Vietnam War. During the 2016 primary, friends recall, this petite black woman marched up to men in Ku Klux Klan robes to distribute flyers about then-candidate Bernie Sanders — no relation. (They took the papers, she said.)

Now, she is focused on a different battle, one that has captured liberals’ imagination across the country: “Medicare-for-all.”

Outside Washington, Sanders is among the ranks of activists readying for a fight, even in states where, backers acknowledge, this approach often isn’t considered mainstream.

Organizers working with National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association for registered nurses in the U.S., have launched a grassroots campaign, championing a sweeping Medicare-for-all bill introduced in Congress late last month by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.).

In states including Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Idaho and Missouri, a series of events have been held to harness energy on the ground and to showcase enthusiasm – even in unlikely places – for the Medicare-for-all idea.

And that enthusiasm is sizeable.

The budget cuts $1.7 billion in funding for child nutrition.

It's estimated that 29,000 Minnesotan kids would lose access to subsidized school meals.

Trump's budget director: "We don't think our budget cuts the programs you refer to." pic.twitter.com/kaOCWMvUbu

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) March 12, 2019

‘Monumental step backwards’ – the $1bn gas pipeline project dividing New York

A battle is erupting over a proposed gas pipeline on the doorstep of New York City, with environmental groups claiming the project is unnecessary and would lock in planet-warming emissions for decades to come.

Energy company Williams, based in Oklahoma, plans to build a 23-mile-long underwater pipeline through New York’s lower bay to bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New York. The $1bn project would link existing infrastructure in New Jersey, to the Rockaways in the New York borough of Queens.

Pipeline proponents argue the project is needed to allow thousands more New Yorkers to switch from oil to gas for their heating but environmental groups are marshaling a growing protest movement to pressure Andrew Cuomo, New York’s governor, to block the development.

“This pipeline would incentivize reliance on gas, which is way more carbon-intensive than renewables,” said Robert Wood, a campaigner at 350.org, a climate advocacy group. “It would be a nightmare happening, not in a rural area, but right here in New York City.”

A draft of a study commissioned by 350.org disputes many of the assertions made by Williams and National Grid, the utility that will be the sole customer for the gas. According to the analysis, New York is already well on its way to eliminating the dirtiest types of oil, a carbon-heavy fuel, for heating and the state’s power operators are forecasting a drop in electricity use due to efficiency improvements.

Measures such as installing heat pumps, replacing old boilers, expansion of renewable energy and planned improvements to building energy efficiency should be “ramped up before considering construction of costly and potentially risky infrastructure like a massive pipeline in the New York harbor”, concluded the analysis, conducted by Suzanne Mattei, a consultant and former regional director of the New York department of environmental conservation.

Repeating incase anyone missed it:

Bernie Sanders Makes Top Iowa, New Hampshire Hires for 2020

Sen. Bernie Sanders has hired four key Iowa staffers and three veterans in New Hampshire, building out a team of old and new staff as he makes his second Democratic bid for president.

The Iowa team, in particular, showcases the Vermont senator’s emphasis on grassroots organizing and an effort to diversify his staff following allegations of sexism and sexual harassment against some of Sanders’ top 2016 staffers.

Leading the team is Misty Rebik, Sanders’ Iowa state director. She previously worked on LGBTQ rights and education advocacy for One Iowa, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, and served as a regional director for Planned Parenthood, where she created the organization’s first transgender care program in Iowa. In 2018, Rebik worked as campaign manager for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cathy Glasson, a union leader who embraced Sanders’ progressive policy priorities in her failed bid.

Another new addition is Jess Mazour, who will serve as Sanders’ political director. Mazour was most recently lead organizer on the farm and environment team at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, a progressive advocacy group, and was a Sanders delegate in 2016. Her hire underscores the emphasis on rural issues that the senator has made a focus of his 2020 bid as he hopes to defeat President Donald Trump.

“I’ve spent over six years organizing grassroots rural Iowans impacted by factory farming, corporate agriculture, and other rural issues in parts of the state that went for Trump in 2016,” Mazour said in a statement. “It’s clear Iowans want clean water, health care, living wages for workers and fair prices for farmers.”

Sanders has also brought back Evan Burger to serve as his Iowa caucus director and Pete D’Alessandro to serve as a senior adviser to his team. Both worked on Sanders’ 2016 campaign, Burger as the senator’s advance director and D’Alessandro as his campaign coordinator. Burger most recently worked for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement as a senior organizer, while D’Alessandro made a failed bid for Congress last cycle.

The insurance companies, drug companies and others have announced that they'll spend huge amounts of money to protect their obscene profits as they try to defeat Medicare for All.

Show them we're not backing down. Add your name to be a Citizen Co-Sponsor. https://t.co/PxtnrqyGtP

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 12, 2019

This Friday, young people around the world will fight for their right to a livable planet and call for urgent action on climate change. We stand with all those making their voices heard at the #ClimateStrike. pic.twitter.com/BloPWyDCqu

— Earthjustice (@Earthjustice) March 11, 2019

The CEO of Wells Fargo said they chose to finance the unstable Dakota Access Pipeline over Standing Rock Sioux objections, because the bank determined it was “worth the risk.”

To whom?#DAPL has leaked at least 5x. And we, the public, are left to pay for cleanup+destroyed land. https://t.co/ugGY1BeBdO

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 12, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right – it’s time for radical change, not more ‘meh’ politics

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an equal-opportunity irritant. The newly elected congresswoman doesn’t just drive Republicans to distraction, she routinely riles establishment Democrats with her refusal to meekly toe the party line. Ocasio-Cortez, to the chagrin of many of her colleagues, has no interest in diluting her views and occupying a “safe” middle ground. If that wasn’t obvious enough already, AOC made her derision for political moderates extremely clear in a speech at South by Southwest on Saturday.

“Moderate is not a stance. It’s just an attitude towards life of, like, ‘meh,’” Ocasio-Cortez told a packed room at the tech-centric festival in Austin, Texas. “We’ve become so cynical, that we view … cynicism as an intellectually superior attitude, and we view ambition as youthful naivety when … the greatest things we have ever accomplished as a society have been ambitious acts of vision. The ‘meh’ is worshipped now. For what?”

It’s a shame Ocasio-Cortez didn’t reference ‘centrist dads’ in her speech, as I reckon the British insult could do with being popularised in the United States. Despite this omission, however, the congresswoman was spot on. On both sides of the Atlantic, the “meh” is worshipped while progressive politics are condescendingly dismissed as unworkable. In Britain, people see Corbynism as an existential threat to Labour; in America, people see the likes of Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez as an existential threat to the Democratic party. More than ever, it would seem that the greatest enemy of the left isn’t the right, but the centre.

This reverence for the centre is frustrating, considering we live in an age of extreme inequality. There is nothing moderate about the world’s 26 richest people owning as much in assets as the 3.8 billion who make up the poorer half of the world’s population. (Even billionaires such as Ray Dalio and Warren Buffett have been frank about the fact that capitalism isn’t working for most people.) Nor is there anything moderate about the climate crisis. We face massive systemic problems and fixing them requires massive systemic change. Yet the establishment keeps telling us incrementalism is the reasonable answer to an unreasonable situation. It keeps telling us we are naive if we think the world can change. It keeps telling us to be “pragmatic”. It keeps telling us, in essence, to shut up and accept the status quo.

‘Almost certain extinction’: 1,200 species under severe threat across world

More than 1,200 species globally face threats to their survival in more than 90% of their habitat and “will almost certainly face extinction” without conservation intervention, according to new research.

Scientists working with Australia’s University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society have mapped threats faced by 5,457 species of birds, mammals and amphibians to determine which parts of a species’ habitat range are most affected by known drivers of biodiversity loss.

The project is from the same team of researchers that found just five countries are responsible for 70% of the world’s remaining wilderness.

The new research, published in PLOS Biology, maps “hotspots” where species are most affected by threats such as agriculture, urbanisation, night lighting, roads, rail, waterways and population density, and “coolspots” that provide refuge from these threats.

The team looked only at threats that were known to affect a species within its habitat range and found that for the majority of wildlife studied, intrusions were “extensive” across most habitat, “severely limiting the area within which species can survive”.

They said most concerning was their finding that 1,237 species – nearly a quarter of the animals assessed – were affected by threats across more than 90% of their distribution.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to attend union rally at UCLA

Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will speak at a union rally at UCLA next week.

Sanders will speak at 12 p.m. March 20 at a rally for University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America 9119. The location of the rally is still being determined as of this story’s publication.

UPTE-CWA 9119, which represents about 14,000 research and technical workers in the University of California, is striking to challenge inequality and privatization at the UC, according to a UPTE press release.

Members of UPTE Healthcare and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents more than 25,000 patient care technicians and services in the UC, will join the strike in solidarity.

Dan Russell, president of the UC Office of the President and UC Berkeley branch of UPTE, said there will be at least one picket line at 757 Westwood Plaza, but other picket lines are still being arranged.

The union is advocating for “A UC For the Many, Not the Few,” which aligns with Sanders’ message of robust public services, Russell said.

Bernie Sanders to hold presidential rally in Henderson Saturday

Independent Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will visit Henderson on Saturday, the most recent in a string of presidential contenders vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination to run against President Trump.

Sanders plans an open-to-the-public rally at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Henderson’s Morrell Park, at 500 Harris St. The Sanders campaign is encouraging people interested in the ralley to RSVP in advance.

Sanders was a regular fixture on the campaign trail in 2016, making multiple visits to the Las Vegas Valley and drawing big crowds at his rallies. Sanders and eventual nominee Hillary Clinton almost evenly split the vote in Nevada’s May 2016 caucus.

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The center is located at 333 S. Sixth St. Those interested can sign up for tickets here.

‘F—ing insane’: De Blasio allies warn against 2020 run

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio may be thinking of running for president, but many of those closest to him aren’t on board.

As de Blasio touted his liberal record in Iowa and South Carolina in recent weeks, nearly three dozen former and current aides, consultants and allies who spoke to POLITICO panned the idea or doubted that the mayor would run for the Democratic nomination. Aside from the few people working on the nascent effort, only two said de Blasio should run.

Their reasoning: Some say the 2020 field, a dozen-strong and growing, leaves no room for de Blasio, who’s long struggled to fashion a national persona comparable with past leaders of the country’s largest city, like Rudy Giuliani or Michael Bloomberg. Many note that he has too many glaring, unresolved problems at home. Others say the never-truly-popular de Blasio, whom a top Hillary Clinton backer once called “insufferable,” lacks charisma.

A few skeptics in de Blasio’s orbit have gone public. “I believe Bill de Blasio has 100 percent the right message; I’m just not so sure he’s the right messenger,” the mayor’s former campaign and City Hall adviser Rebecca Katz said recently on a local politics podcast.

Behind the scenes, others are more blunt.

The idea of a de Blasio candidacy is “f—ing insane,” said one former aide, laughing out loud.

Another self-described friend of the mayor called the idea “idiotic.”

Rutgers alumni talks experience serving as chairman for Bernie Sanders, progressive politics

In an interview with The Daily Targum, John Wisniewski, a Rutgers alumni, Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former New Jersey assemblyman, discussed progressive politics, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and advice for students interested in running for office.

Wisniewski previously served as the New Jersey chairman for Sanders’s campaign during the Democratic primaries. He is also known for pushing to hold former Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) accountable during the “Bridgegate” scandal when he worked as chairman of the Assembly’s Transportation and Independent Authorities Committee, according to NJ Advance Media.

He said in New Jersey, registered voters can either be affiliated with a party or unaffiliated. Traditionally, affiliated voters either align with the Democrat or Republican Party. Those who affiliate with a party can only vote in that party’s primary election. Those who do not affiliate with a party will be identified as affiliated if they vote in the primaries.

Those who register as Independent, on the other hand, do not vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary. Though Sanders is an Independent himself, he is running as a Democrat to garner more media coverage.

“Bernie was successful in 2016 because he demonstrated that you don’t need to be part of the establishment to run a national political campaign, that you don’t need a rolodex of well-heeled donors to raise money and that traditional Democratic values have a receptive audience,” he said.

Kansas and Vermont pay college grads to move to small towns. Montana could follow suit.

At a time when rural regions across the U.S. are struggling to attract young professionals, the states of Kansas and Vermont have used public dollars to fight “brain drain” by offering grants and tax breaks to professional workers who settle in small towns.

If an eastern Montana lawmaker has his way, Montana could soon follow suit.

Rep. Joel Krautter, R-Sidney, has introduced House Bill 405, which would offer recent college graduates between $5,000 and $15,000 apiece if they commit to living and working in a qualifying county for five years. The bill would also offer grantees a property tax credit of up to $2,000 a year for five years.

The grant amount would depend on a worker’s education level, with recipients holding advanced degrees eligible for the full $15,000, bachelor’s degree-holders eligible for $10,000, and graduates of two-year programs or apprenticeships eligible for $5,000. The program would focus on counties with fewer than 15,000 residents, but partial grants would be available to workers committing to more populous parts of the state.

Krautter calls the legislation the Catch and Keep Act, and said it’s designed to encourage grads to settle in communities where employers have a hard time finding qualified workers for health care, education and accounting jobs. He said he’s frustrated that Montana’s economic growth has tended to cluster in cities.

“I want economic prosperity throughout the state,” he said.

“We need skilled people in rural Montana to keep our communities together and vibrant.”

Why Progressive Insurgents Aren’t Waiting for Permission to Run for Office

Last month, Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) unveiled sweeping legislation to provide Medicare for all. Although the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which Jayapal co-chairs with Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI), has backed universal health-care plans for years, the new bill is arguably the boldest proposal introduced to date. With more than 100 co-sponsors, the legislation is powerful evidence of the issue’s continued resonance among progressive lawmakers. It also bolsters Jayapal’s well-earned status as one of the leading moral voices in Washington.

The founder and former leader of Hate Free Zone, a civil-rights organization created in the wake of 9/11 and now known as OneAmerica, Jayapal is one of a growing number of organizers, activists, and others of similar backgrounds who are now working to change our political system from the inside. At every level of government, these leaders, including many women of color, are injecting new ideas, challenging outdated orthodoxies, and providing moral and fearless leadership. In the House alone, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has helped spark important new debates over climate change and a Green New Deal, while freshmen insurgents are already taking on prominent roles in discussions of foreign policy, immigration, and other key issues.

In Why I Run: 35 Progressive Candidates Who Are Changing Politics, a collection of essays edited by veteran Democratic speechwriter Kate Childs Graham, Jayapal explains the mind-set that is motivating many political outsiders and insurgents to make the leap from activism to electoral politics. “I realized that I was tired of trying to get other people to do the things I, and our communities, felt should be done,” she writes in the book, which also features contributions from Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams, Representative Deb Haaland (D-NM), and Minneapolis city councilwoman Andrea Jenkins, among others. “And I realized that we organizers were ceding important political space by not thinking about elected office as another platform for organizing.”

The headlines says it all!#Bernie2020 #TuesdayMotivation https://t.co/Cbem7lQ7dK

— RoseAnn DeMoro (@RoseAnnDeMoro) March 12, 2019

We are delighted to learn the news. Thank you, @DemSocialists!#Bernie2020 pic.twitter.com/hFQaFHUZ5b

— Silvers4Sanders (@Silvers4Sanders) March 13, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez says she isn’t putting moderate Democrats in a tough spot. They disagree

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive superstar who has captured an enthusiastic following, disputed charges from moderate Democrats that she is making it harder for them to win re-election in 2020.

Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a deep blue district, told USA TODAY that she hasn’t used her platform to call out individual Democrats for not signing onto the progressive policies she champions.

“I haven’t put pressure on them specifically,” the New York Democrat said Friday. “We have an opportunity right now to have a national conversation and to move the entire country and raise the consciousness of the entire country to a better place. I’m not speaking to that member to change, I’m speaking to their districts, and I’m trying to have a conversation with the electorate.”

Rifts within parties are nothing new. During their eight years in the majority, Republicans dealt with the rise of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers that pulled legislation to the right. Moderate Republicans who lost their seats in November are still bitter. And there’s President Donald Trump, who – like Ocasio-Cortez – uses Twitter to speak directly to his base, often sending members of his party scrambling to keep up.

Democrats have not been immune either. Liberals and moderates battled in the early 2000s over how to shape policy – including what became the Affordable Care Act. Then Democrats, many of them moderates, were wiped out in the 2010 election. Now they’re back in power, thanks to dozens of Democrats who won in red and purple districts. Those representatives want to hold onto their seats, but they’re fighting to separate themselves from a progressive wing of the party that has become expert at using social media to draw attention to their policies.

USA TODAY talked to more than a dozen Democratic members, aides and strategists across the political spectrum and found there is broad agreement on the need to expand background checks for gun owners, protect immigrants and combat climate change. But some moderates say that the approach Ocasio-Cortez has taken on these topics has been unrealistic and it has left little room for the bipartisan compromise they promised voters during midterm campaigns.

MPs ignore May’s pleas and defeat her Brexit deal by 149 votes

Theresa May has suffered a second humiliating defeat on her Brexit deal, as MPs voted it down by a crushing majority of 149, dealing a fresh blow to her shattered authority.

With just 17 days to go until the UK is due to leave the EU, backbenchers from both sides of the Brexit divide immediately began manoeuvring to take control of the next steps of the process, in a series of key votes in the coming days.

MPs ignored the prime minister’s pleas to “get the deal done” and voted the deal down for a second time, after the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) said it was not convinced by last-minute assurances won from Brussels on Monday.

Of the Conservatives who rejected the deal in January, when May lost by a record majority of 230, 39 switched sides, including the former Brexit secretary David Davis – with many fearing Brexit would be delayed or reversed if they did not support the agreement.

All but three Labour MPs trooped through the packed voting lobbies with the DUP, the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG), and some remain-supporting Tories, to sink May’s plan.

In total, 75 Conservatives rebelled, and the deal was rejected by 391 votes to 242.

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The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said: “The government has been defeated again by an enormous majority and it must accept its deal is clearly dead and does not have the support of this house.”

Meet the inspiring leaders pushing the environmental movement

Each year, the environmental news site Grist makes a list of 50 innovators working on creative and ambitious solutions to challenges like climate change. “There’s a lot of bad news these days, and I think we’re really intentionally trying to tell stories about what’s possible,” says Andrew Simon, director of content at Grist. Here are a handful of the “fixers” in this year’s edition of the Grist 50:

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Rhiana Gunn-Wright, policy director, New Consensus
While working on Abdul El-Sayed’s unsuccessful 2018 campaign for governor in Michigan, Rhiana Gunn-Wright became aware of the links between climate action and public health issues from pollution such as asthma and elevated cancer risk. Gunn-Wright, a young black woman who had thought of climate change as an issue for wealthy and white environmentalists, ended up joining New Consensus, the think tank behind the Green New Deal. She helped shape the resolution to include universal healthcare and a federal jobs guarantee so that it takes on poverty and inequality as part of the transition to a clean economy.

(You have to click the image in the tweet to see the irony)

Couldn't agree with you more @Itsflo.#Bernie2020 #MedicareForAll #TwitterIrony @Benny05 pic.twitter.com/pTxOUzwzW7

— TheProgressiveWing (@ProgressiveWing) March 13, 2019

Don’t Laugh, Bernie Can Win

GOP KNOWS IT TOO!https://t.co/uZMgB0Ru5v

— Rodney Latstetter (@proviewsusa) March 13, 2019

In case you're wondering why Joe Biden is running:

This is a Kamala 2020 campaign event on Monday in South Carolina.

HRC 2.0 has failed. pic.twitter.com/QSWZ9YHav3

— Carlo (@yesthatCarlo) March 13, 2019