The negative reviews of and cascading events from Bernie Sanders’ less-than-deft Q&A with the New York Daily News earlier this week continue. But there is one additional passage from that interview that deserves, but has largely escaped, notice (emphasis mine):

Alright, I believe that in the midst of the kinds of crises that we face with a disappearing middle class and massive levels of income and wealth inequality, the only major country on earth not guarantee to healthcare to all people, only major country not to provide paid family and medical leave, it is time to get beyond establishment politics. So to put your question in maybe a simpler way, is she a candidate of the establishment? The answer is, of course she is.

This is an astonishing thing for Sanders to say for a couple of reasons. First because, as he surely knows, it was the “establishment” Bill Clinton who, as one of his first acts as president in 1993, signed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) after it had twice been vetoed by his predecessor. Second (and maybe Sanders doesn’t know this; few do), having signed the FMLA providing up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to workers to care for a newborn or a sick family member, Clinton, with the active help of his wife, became the first president to use federal power to provide paid leave to American workers.
....
So the “establishment” politician Hillary Clinton can rightly claim a share of the credit for the paid leave programs that exist in the United States. They’re far from universal, but they’re real, up-and-running programs that seem to be working as advertised. And the reason they’re not more wide spread is not “establishment politics”—they are in fact the result of establishment politics—but Republican resistance.

Both Clinton and Sanders sponsored bills in the Senate to expand family leave that didn’t pass, and each has put forward plans to do so if they’re elected president (though the plans differ in how they’re financed). So both are, for progressives, on the “right side” of the issue. But only one of them has actually accomplished anything on this, and it isn’t Bernie Sanders.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2016_04/hillarys_establishment_politic060205.php

CNNVerified account
?@CNN
Bernie Sanders: "How often have I talked about Hillary Clinton's emails? Not one word"

http://cnn.it/1NdHk6b

Sanders: Clinton emails 'very serious issue'

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/31/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-emails-iowa/

....Niemi's brush with history came last Wednesday at an MSNBC Town Hall meeting where Chris Matthews was grilling the GOP front-runner.

Stepping up to the microphone, the University of Wisconsin Green Bay student asked the question that had been on her mind.

"What is your stance on women's rights and their rights to choose in their own reproductive health?" she asked.
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Matthews then followed-up, asking Trump, "Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no as a principle?"
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But if Trump ever had a chance to get Niemi's vote, he definitely lost it that day.

"I'm voting for Hillary Clinton," she said.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/meet-teen-whose-abortion-question-could-sink-trump-n551181?cid=sm_tw

Democrats could win Mississippi in this fall's presidential election for the first time in 40 years, according to a new poll.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is running almost even with Republican front-runner Donald Trump in the deep-red state, a Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey released Tuesday found.

Trump has 46 percent support, while Clinton pulls in 43 percent — within the margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The last time a Democrat won Mississippi was 1976, when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney beat President Obama in Mississippi in 2012 by 12 points.

Clinton is closing the gap on Trump primarily because of his weakness among women voters.

Clinton takes 47 percent support among women, with Trump at 40 percent. She also attracted 15 percent of the vote from white Republican women, the poll found.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/275222-shock-poll-clinton-neck-and-neck-with-trump-in-deep-red

Bernie Sanders’s false claim that he has released his full federal tax returns

........The Pinocchio Test

Plainly put, Sanders has not released his full federal tax return. The little he has released was the Form 1040 in 2014, which is a summary of his tax filing that gives a snapshot of his finances — not what is considered a full tax return. The Sanders campaign confirmed to The Washington Post that it has not released other tax returns prior to 2014, which is a sharp contrast to Clinton’s voluminous release of her complete tax returns.

Tapper correctly questioned Sanders, asking why “nobody has seen them [federal tax returns] at all.” Yet Sanders interrupted Tapper to reject the notion, insisting: “That is not true. Of course, we have released them in the past.” But this answer is nothing remotely close to the little federal tax records he has released to the public.

Sanders says there is nothing in his 2015 tax return that is different from what the public has “seen for the last many years.” This indicates he may have been referring to the information filed in his financial disclosures. But that’s not the same as a full federal tax return — and as a longtime member of Congress, Sanders should know that.

Sanders is not required to release his tax filings, and he clearly decided to keep them confidential. That’s his choice. But it doesn’t excuse him from misleading the public to believe otherwise with this false claim.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/04/05/bernie-sanderss-false-claim-that-he-has-released-his-full-federal-tax-returns/