“Bernie Sanders: Together” by Jermaine Rogers
 
Running for president is a pursuit that attracts control freaks—let’s just say freaks, full stop. For a candidate seeking the presidency, Bernie Sanders has embraced the power of relinquishing control to a remarkable degree.

Sanders’ campaign is all about restoring power to the people, and in keeping with that, his strong reputation among our nation’s artistic community has enabled him to establish a traveling art exhibition that feels a lot like a street art show. To a considerable extent, Bernie is picking up where the grassroots campaign of Barack Obama in 2008 left off, as Obama was able to secure the support of protest-oriented artists like Ron English and Shepard Fairey and many others.

Sanders’ exhibition is titled “The Art of a Political Revolution,” and features artists like Fairey, English, Aaron Draplin, Gilf!, and Jermaine Rogers.
 

“Strong America,” by Ron English
 
A few days ago Sanders himself visited the exhibition for the first time, during which he commented that “I gotta tell you, on a personal level, it’s a little bit weird ... to see all thee guys who look like me on the wall.”

As the Slate video below asserts:

“Bernie and unsanctioned art appeal to the same people. He is to establishment politics what street artists and graffiti writers are to blue-chip galleries.”

Donate to the Sanders campaign.
 

“Thick Lines Bernie” by Aaron Draplin
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
I probably found this way funnier than I should have, but maybe it’s just that it appeals to my soft spots for both Senator Sanders and for “fucked-up noise bands.”

Still this bit of YouTube tomfoolery had me legit LOLing at the name “Frog Piss,” the shot of Sanders in the barber chair getting his terrible wig cut, and the line “nobody likes us and we don’t like nobody, and that’s how we like it… [pregnant pause]... we also like having a strong middle class.”

You can check out more from the jokers behind this at their Facebook page. And why not donate to the good Senator’s campaign? Bernie is promising to take it all the way to Philly. This is going to be the best summer for politics since 1968. Maybe EVER. Why let the Republicans have all the fun? (Did you know that the difference in pledged delegates between Sanders and Hillary Clinton—with ten states including California still to vote—is but 327?)

Frog Piss, FOREVER!
 

 
Okay, this pretty good: Dig my new favorite thing, Buff Bernie: A Coloring Book For Berniacs by illustrator Nicole Daddona. The book features a freakishly muscle-bound Bernie Sanders in different scenarios. In one, a seemingly nude Bernie with strategically placed mixing bowl reads “I’m cooking up some tasty AF universal healthcare.”

According to Nicole, “Politics can get so angry and heated,” she said. “They tend to separate people rather than bring them together. Coloring is something that everyone likes to do — regardless of your race, ethnicity, religion or sexuality. My hope is that this book makes people take a step back and not take things so seriously.”

Feel the buff Bernie! (And why not donate to the good Senator’s campaign?)

 

 
More after the jump…

This sure looks like my Bernie to me.

Yesterday on the In These Times website, Miles Kampf-Lassin alerted readers to a newly posted video that purports to be of a young Bernie Sanders getting arrested at a civil rights protest against school segregation in Chicago in 1963. The future Vermont Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate was then just a 21-year-old student at the University of Chicago.

Clearly—if this footage is indeed Bernie Sanders and it sure looks like him to me, he was rather a distinctive-looking fellow even in his younger years—then this is visual proof positive that Sanders has been consistent in his beliefs—and fighting the good fight—for his entire adult life. And yes, this was back when a young Hillary Clinton was a confirmed “Goldwater girl.” Feel the burn?

The footage was taken from Kartemquin Film’s ‘63 Boycott project, which chronicles the Chicago Public School Boycott of 1963, and was filmed by Kartemquin co-founder Jerry Temaner.

The protest on Chicago’s South Side took aim at racist education and housing policies being carried out in Englewood—namely the proposed construction of a new school for black students made up of aluminum trailers known as “Willis Wagons,” named after the Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Benjamin Willis who first ordered them. These trailers were used by the city to deal with overcrowding in black schools, thereby preventing integration of black students into less-densely populated white schools.

 

 
Sanders was arrested for his civil disobedience—specifically resisting arrest—and fined $25.

Look at the glasses. Also, compare the big chunky watch in the clip below with the big chunky watch the young Sanders is seen sporting in the photo below:
 

 
I wouldn’t bet my life on it that it’s a young Bernie Sanders in this footage, but I’d surely wager a pinky or a toe…
 

 
Just in time for Valentine’s Day… some super sexy lingerie-style Bernie Sanders underwear! (I refuse to use the word “panties,” btw.) Made by Bullet and Bees on Etsy—the same shop who brought you The Golden Girls underwear a few months ago—the Bernie-themed underwear sells for anywhere from $40-$60 depending on the style.

Don’t say I never gave you nothing for last minute gift ideas.

 
Wear Dinner, the apparel purveyors who gave the world that wonderful Black Sabbath/Minor Threat mash-up we told you about last summer, have upped the I-want-one stakes with their new Bernie Cash shirt, which plops the face of encouragingly popular left-wing insurgent presidential candidate Bernie Sanders onto Jim Marshall’s indelible image of Johnny Cash flipping the bird at San Quentin prison in 1969, a juxtaposition that aptly captures a lot of the anti-establishment hostility expressed by some of the candidate’s backers.
 

 
The shirts are available only in black because duh. $5 from each shirt sold will benefit the Sanders campaign.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
We kinda totally love these Bernie Sanders punk rock t-shirts
‘Berned in D.C.’: Images of Bernie Sanders with hilarious fake punk rock quotes

 
That the music underground is so engaged with Bernie Sanders’ worker-friendly, anti-1% presidential campaign comes as no surprise—punk and left politics have always been extremely comfortable bedfellows (sorry not sorry Michale Graves), and it’s a big plus that Sanders’ oppositional candidacy is being run within one of the mainstream parties, and thus won’t serve as a potential election spoiler like the Nader insurgency that ultimately spelled disaster for both the Green Party and the USA. Last autumn, we at Dangerous Minds told you about Berned in DC, a Facebook group producing image macros of the candidate paired with invented quotations that mirrored hardcore scene purism, to utterly hilarious effect. Today, our task is to show you the work of L.A. artist Mark Mendez and Portland printer Rob Campbell, who’ve created a wonderful series of Sanders shirts based on well-known punk band logos. In an interview with Visual News, the pair offered:

It’s hard to think of Bernie as “punk rock” by his appearance alone. He’s a 74-year-old, white, veteran politician from Vermont. But his ideals are what make him the most punk rock candidate who ever ran for office. He’s been speaking about economic inequality, civil rights, and antiestablishment politics for over four decades. It is people like us who do what we can to support his campaign and raise awareness about who he is, what he stands for, and how we the people can make a difference.

They’ve named the t-shirt line “Bern the White House” (simply brilliant—how has nobody used that before now?), and the shirts can be bought from the pair’s Etsy shop or from bernthewhitehouse.com. The profits from the sales will of course benefit the Sanders campaign up to the amount legally permitted for individual contributions, after which proceeds will go to “Bernie-friendly charities and grassroots organizations.”
 

Misfits
 

The Adicts
 

Ramones
 
More after the jump…

GG Allen. Get it here
 
Need a last-minute, inexpensive holiday gift for that hard-to-please friend? Okay, I believe I’ve got you covered with these amusing mash-up t-shirts by Wear Dinner. They’re pretty funny and each one sells for $25.00 + shipping. Not too shabby, in my opinion
.

Minor Sabbath. Get it here
 

Bernie 2016. Get it here
 

Mötley Cüre. Get it here
 
More after the jump…
 

 
There were two blink and you missed ‘em moments on both CNN and Fox News after the Democratic debate last night that I wanted to call to your attention while the memory is still fresh…

Who “won” the debate? We know who didn’t win it—everyone not named Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, but of the two of them, who was the winner in the eyes of the Democratic electorate?

The narrative, according to the mainstream media, at least, was that Hillary Clinton was “back” and had scored significant points, while Bernie Sanders more or less held his own, but was unlikely to have picked up many new fans.

Welllllll mainstream media, not so fast there. Voters must’ve watched a different debate. Sanders picked up a lot of new fans. And money!

To wit: On Fox News, evil Republican genius Frank Luntz did his familiar polling routine where a preselected group of informed voters, not wildly for one candidate or another, were hooked up to some sort of galvanic skin response detector and watched the debate wired to gauge their emotional responses.

Probably 90% of the mainstream media called it for Hillary, but even on Fox News, the voters had a much different notion of who had really won the debate. Watch this, it’s fascinating:
 

 
Continues after the jump…

FEEL THE BERN! Bernie Sanders stud earrings
 
Now your ears can also “Feel the Bern,” thanks to Seattle artist, Thais Marchese. Marchese makes some of the strangest, coolest studs for your ears (like the ones of Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, above) that I’ve seen in a long time.
 

Jack Nicholson as “Jack Torrance” from The Shining
 

Steve Buscemi
 
Marchese uses images of pop culture heroes like Steve Buscemi, Jack Nicholson (as Jack Torrance, both above), and director Wes Anderson, and like many of us, it appears that Ms. Marchese is quite a devotee of Anderson, as many of her studs feature colorful characters from Anderson’s many films, such as Margot and Richie Tenenbaum from The Royal Tenenbaums, and runaway teens Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop from Moonrise Kingdom.

Each pair will run you nine bucks and can be obtained over at Marchese’s shop, Sleepy Mountain. A small price to pay to have Steve Buscemi quite literally in your ear.
 
More images of the other tiny studs in Marchese’s shop after the jump…...
 

 
We’re overly fond of goofy single-purpose Facebook pages here at DM, and lately we’ve been loving “Berned in D.C.” It seems to be less than a week old, and its premise is super simple: images of the surprisingly popular candidate for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination are paired with Maximumrocknroll-ishly purist “quotations” about underground punk. Given that Sanders and independent punk share an ideology that rejects corporate power, this actually works really well.
 

 

What the American people are angry about is they understand that they did not cause this recession.

Teachers did not cause this recession. Firefighters and police officers who are being attacked daily by governors all over this country did not cause this recession. Construction workers did not cause this recession.

This recession was caused by a few so-called punk and hardcore bands who charged obscene door cover and priced their merch like it was goddamned Prada.

There’ plenty more below, and more still on the Berned in D.C. Facebook page.
 

 

 
More hardcore Bernie after the jump…

Cassette cover for Bernie’s album
 
Since Bernie Sanders announced his run for President of the United States of America, his lack of polish has been far more endearing to the public than his detractors ever imagined. He’s not a slick baby-kisser; the man talks serious social democratic policy and stays on message with a self-possessed intensity. However, if Bernie’s impersonal style has given the impression he’s completely devoid of sentimentality, “Brothers and Sisters,” let me assure you otherwise! In 1987, Bernie Sanders released a spoken word album of lefty folk standards, and it is bad—positively Shatneresque, if you will.

According to Vermont blog Seven Days, Burlington-based musician Todd Lockwood got in touch with Sanders out of the blue to pitch the idea—they had never met before. At this point Bernie was the Mayor of Burlington, so Lockwood just called the Mayor’s office and left a message with a secretary describing the project. To his surprise, Bernie set up a meeting, later telling Lockwood, “I have to admit to you this appeals to my ego.” Originally, Bernie was supposed to actually sing the songs, but they quickly realized he can’t carry a tune in a bucket, so they went with spoken word. You can hear samples of the results below; all I can say is that it’s good that he’s never run on anything but the issues, because he is not winning any votes with his musical talent.

If you’re just dying to hear the whole thing (for who doesn’t require a recording of an old Brooklyn Jew sternly intoning the words to “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”), you can actually purchase the entire album, We Shall Overcome, on Amazon.
 

 
Via Talking Points Memo

“There are no coincidences, but sometimes the pattern is more obvious.”—Neil Innes

Attention, smart people! There is a MAJOR POLITICAL EVENT that’s happening—TODAY July 29th, 2015—across this nation that you might not have heard about for Bernie Sanders. Tonight Sanders will be speaking via the Internet to over 100,000 heavily-motivated people meeting for the first time at 3,520 Bernie-related house parties and get-togethers in bars and restaurants and union halls and church basements, etcetera, etcetera, all across the United States.
 

 
Yes, over 100,000 people have found other like-minded people in their area via this map and RSVP’d to get informed and to volunteer for Sanders’ increasingly astonishing campaign. I live in Los Angeles where there are well over 100 such gatherings. I’m married, but I would assume that a lot of smart, good-looking people would attend such events. Aren’t you even curious? Of course you are. Why not search for your zip code and see what happens?

Has there ever been a larger, more dynamic and more INSTANTANEOUS grassroots movement in American history? If there has been one, they must’ve kept it a secret. Even the Tea party movement didn’t grow nearly as fast as this. And after today’s event, what happens next?

I can’t wait to find out.

The sky’s the limit, but the goal is the White House. This can happen, people.

Bernie Sanders for President: It’s time to take it to the next level, America. He can’t do it without YOU.
 

 
The 2016 election is going to be the most epicly American election in our country’s history, with all that this implies. You don’t have to be a psychic to predict that this one will be a barnstormer of high weirdness, goofy drama and unexpected twists and turns. It’ll blow 2008 out of the water and I think it’s already far surpassed 2012, which to be fair had its moments, too, but no Donald Trump or Sarah Palin.

And as if to conveniently illustrate my point of how volatile things have already gotten, here is some new polling courtesy of CNN (by way of AlterNet) that shows self-described Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders out-polling all three of the Republican Party’s major candidates (although he’s more or less tied with Jeb Bush).

SANDERS: 48%
BUSH: 47%

SANDERS: 48%
WALKER: 42%

SANDERS: 59%
TRUMP: 38%

If you limit the poll sample to just registered voters, Bush defeats Sanders by a single point.

This is nothing short of extraordinary news. This is one political story that isn’t about Donald Trump being at the top of the GOP field, it’s about the grumpy Socialist Senator from Vermont WHO CAN BEAT HIM IN A HEAD TO HEAD MATCH-UP.

I look at it this way: If, when all is said and done, it’s Hillary Clinton who is running against the eventual Republican nominee, hey, I will have no problem pulling the lever for her, because I would never vote for a Republican in a million years. But I am sure as shit going to be voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary, which is the vote—in Hillary Clinton’s case—that will count the most.

I strongly believe that either one of them, Sanders or Clinton, could and would, can and will, beat whoever the GOP nominates and polling backs that expectation up. But I’ve sent Bernie money twice and I just don’t think I’d ever send Hillary Clinton a single dime. I don’t actively dislike her, don’t get me wrong, but Bernie Sanders? He’s nothing less than a great American hero in my eyes.

Just sayin’... it’s going to get weird. Good weird. Deeply weird. Believe it.
 

 

 
Wednesday on MSNBC, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)  described the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual report on poverty as “a horror show.”

The report found that 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty, the highest amount since the Census began recording the statistic 52 years ago.

“The middle class is collapsing and we have now by far the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth,” Sanders said.

“We need aggressive action on the part of the president and the Congress, and if the Republicans continue to say ‘no, no, no to jobs,’ the president has got to continue going around the country,” he added, “because I think the overwhelming majority of the people want a jobs program, they want to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, they do not want to give any more tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations.”

 
Via Raw Story