Peter's Place

February is American Heart Month , a federally designated event designed to remind Americans to focus on their hearts and encourage them to get their families, friends. and communities involved. As anyone who has supported or followed US Senator Bernie Sanders knows, the costs associated with healthcare in the United States continue to skyrocket , while the outcomes of that care continue to decline . It's gotten so bad that major corporations are forming their own healthcare networks to help keep costs down. The American Heart Association (AHA) provides the following facts that confirm our nation's declining health and broken healthcare system: Graphic from the Go Red for Women campaign of the American Heart Association showcasing fact that heart disease is the #1 killer of women in the USA Cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, remains the leading global cause of death with more than 17.9 million deaths each year. This amounts to 2,300 Amer...

Bernie Sanders' Address to the DNC Convention on July 25, 2016 July 26, 2016. PHILADELPHIA, PA: Congressmember Keith Ellison, a self-declared "proud" supporter of Bernie Sanders and one of his delegates, came out onto the stage at the DNC Convention after Elizabeth Warren's speech. He spoke for a few minutes about voting and some of Bernie's more progressive issues, and then introduced the star of the event, US Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders spoke at the Democratic National Committee's 2016 Presidential Convention on Monday, July 25, 2016 at approximately 10:30 pm. Prior to his appearance, a modified version of his "America" campaign ad played with the ending modified to include Clinton. He walked out on stage while "America" continued to play and was greeted with the evening's most energetic applause and cheers in the convention hall. His supporters refused to subside their cries and thunderous applause in a standing ovation t...

Selected tweets. Click to enlarge. Monday, July 25, 2016 – NEW YORK:  On Sunday, July 24, 2016, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation to the Democratic National Committee as its chair effective at the end of this coming week, according to numerous reports in the mainstream media . Reports about whether or not Schultz would be participating in the upcoming Democratic convention this week bounced back and forth throughout the day. Early morning reports indicated that she would "gavel in the convention" but early afternoon reporting once again had DWS completely removed from having any role in the convention. Supporters of US Senator Bernie Sanders, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton to become the next President but who has yet to pledge his delegates to Clinton or even suspend his campaign, became livid and took to social media, expressing their anger over Schultz's continued participation in the convention, as shown in the sampling of...

WikiLeaks logo Before the last 16 states concluded their primary process, a leaked email —part of the DNC Email Archive published by Wikileaks —shows that planning for former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the Democratic nominee  had begun long before one-third of the nation even had a say in the matter. The email below shows that the DNC had already completed content proclaiming their nominee to be Hillary Clinton on the morning of April 26, 2016—before 16 states had completed their primary voting process. The sender of the e-mail, Eric Reif , is a DNC staffer. The email contains content written to be sent out by various members of the DNC, including DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC CEO Amy K. Dacey, and President Barack Obama: Hi all — We are starting to plan ahead with messaging to our supporters for the end of the primary and transition to the general. Below are a handful of emails and graphic copy for the initial few days of that change, arra...

At 8:30 pm EDT on Thursday, June 16, 2016, US Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders delivered an address to his supporters via livestreaming on the Internet where he vowed to continue his campaign and the fight to transform America. Sanders called out the fight to create a world of social and economic justice as the major tenet to what his campaign is about, and that that fight must continue into the future. In his address , Bernie decried the notion that his ideas were fringe or not mainstream, citing the 22 primary contests he won decisively plus 5 additional primary contests where he lost by less than two percent of the vote. He called out mainstream media’s determining that his campaign was not to be taken seriously. Drawing attention to the “ overwhelming majority ” of voters aged 45 and under who supported his campaign, “ sometimes by yooge numbers ” as an unexpected result of the political revolution Sanders initiated, he referred to them as “ the f...

On the evening before five very important primary elections were to be held on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, supporters of Bernie Sanders noticed something quite strange taking place on Facebook: groups advocating support for Bernie Sanders, which have been a primary vehicle for disseminating information and mobilizing support for actions, were disappearing. According to Lauren E Stafford, a social media consultant and administrative assistant, many of the affected Bernie Sanders Facebook groups have more than 50,000 members. "At least ten such very well-known and popular groups were removed during Monday evening's attack, leaving hundreds of thousands of Bernie Sanders supporters in the dark," she claimed. Evidence implicating a coordinated effort by Hillary Clinton's campaign and/or her supporters was quickly uncovered as some Clinton supporters, such as Casey Champagne, bragged about being part of that effort in the "BROS 4 HILLARY #GiveEmHill" Facebook gr...

At a youth town hall in London, England on Saturday, April 23, 2016, President Obama said that activists—specifically Black Lives Matter activists—need to be willing to compromise . He also claimed that the tone of some activism can turn people off to its message. "You have a responsibility to prepare an agenda that is achievable," Obama told the crowd. But achievable by whom, and in whose eyes? People wonder why I'm no fan of this POTUS. Where would the Marriage Equality movement be in this country if we in the struggle to achieve marriage equality in all 50 states "learned to compromise"? Some may recall the amicus curiae brief Obama's DOJ filed in Windsor v. United States , which advocated for a ruling in favor of Edie Windsor but limiting the scope to that particular plaintiff—a breadcrumb, if you will. That brief further argued that each state should make up its own mind on the issue of marriage equality. Indeed, had the Supreme Court foll...

Foreword One of my friends and fellow activists recently penned an essay personalizing his support of Hillary Clinton's candidacy. I offer the following not so much as a response but rather, to provide a similar tale of my own journey in supporting Bernie Sanders's presidential candidacy. Tif's writing inspired me to return to my writing roots by authoring an essay-turned-short-story, written more in a poetic prose than the usually journalistic-styled English of an article. I hope this narrative will inspire you while infusing hope into our collective efforts in supporting Bernie's political revolution. Please keep in mind that while this narrative is sprinkled with many facts, much of it is my personal experience and opinion. I wish Americans were familiar with the differences between fact and opinion , including the varying degrees that exist between those two extremes. I also wish people were familiar with how to engage in civilized debate, which includes rec...