Bernie Sanders Seems to Have Forgotten a Few of His Votes

[Cali_Democrat]

Bernie Sanders Seems to Have Forgotten a Few of His Votes
That's the problem with his holier-than-thou attitude.
—By Patrick Caldwell
Tue Mar. 1, 2016 6:00 AM EST

Bernie Sanders has been increasingly direct in his attacks against Hillary Clinton's past positions. But there's only one problem with his holier-than- thou narrative: Sanders' own voting record shows he's often voted for similar measures.

Sanders and his supporters seem to consider political consistency as the main measure of a politician's character. "You can be a moderate. You can be a progressive. But you cannot be a moderate and a progressive," Bernie subtweeted Clinton last month. But Sanders has been in the House or Senate for more than 25 years, and during all that time, any politician's voting record is bound to have some inconsistencies. Sanders is no exception. At times he's voted in favor of bills on national security, criminal justice, and immigration that he says he now opposes, attacking Clinton for casting the same votes that he did.

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It's true that Clinton voted for a resolution in 2007 that said detainees from the prison "should not be released into American society," but that same year she co-sponsored legislation that directly stated the island prison should be shut down and that some prisoners should be transferred to US facilities. But Sanders voted in favor of a 2009 bill that more directly kept the prison open. And when, early in his presidency, Obama was exploring options to close Guantanamo, the Senate voted 90-6 in favor of a measure that barred the president from moving any detainees into prisons on the US mainland. Sanders was one of the 90 who voted in favor of the measure that rebuked Obama.

The Sanders campaign has also been hammering Clinton over the 1994 crime bill that increased penalties for repeat offenders and added funding to build more prisons. "What he does not do is throw people under the bus when it's politically expedient," Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver said on MSNBC earlier this month. "Whether it was in 1994 when then First Lady Clinton called African American youths 'super predators' to push a terrible crime bill or whether it was using coded language in 1996 to pass welfare reform, or whether it was throwing gay people under the bus with DOMA. That's not what Bernie Sanders does. He stands tall with people even when the fight is not popular." Except Sanders failed to "stand tall" against the popular fight in 1994. He sided with the majority of Democrats when he was a member of the House and voted for the crime bill that Bill Clinton signed into law. When Sanders tried last week to explain his support for the 1994 bill, he cited the bill's ban on assault weapons as part of his reason—except the initial House version that he voted for didn't include the assault weapons ban, a provision added by the Senate.

Read more:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-voting-history

[NurseJackie]

1. It would appear that he's not the only one.

Note to Jury: This is not a slam of any candidate or candidate's supporters. It is a statement and opinion based on my own observations which may or may not be correct and which may not be the same as someone else's opinions. It's not against the rules to have a difference of opinion.