The caucus in Nevada has been an messy affair from the beginning. Being new to the caucus process, there has been any number of irregularities and confusion, and none of this has been helped by the corporate media “dog race” coverage. Instead the media has tried in earnest to make the Bernie Sanders campaign the equivalent of Donald Trump. The coverage of the alleged violence inside of the convention is no exception. Cell phone video of the supposed chair throwing by a Sanders supporter shows that not only was there no chair ever thrown, rather fellow supporters peacefully took the the chair away and then hugged the enraged person who had lost his cool. I got it off of Twitter and anyone media outlet looking for the real story could have reported it correctly too.
RT this! NO chair throwing at #nvdemconvention – guy picks chair up, puts it down, they HUG it out. #TeamBernieNV pic.twitter.com/mBZmEeg1T5
— Jenn Dize 👩🏻💻Bit.ly/RickSnyderFlint (@JennElizabethJ) May 17, 2016
Here former Ohio Senator Nina Turner is interviewed by Ed Shultz https://youtu.be/OYaR4X2KDmk who was there and has said repeatedly that there was no violence on the part of the Sanders supporters. They go into the spin the media and the Clinton surrogates in California are trying to distort the record. It is definitely worth watching.
Instead the corporate media blew this out of proportion and tied this incident into reports of death threats to the chair and vandalism at the party HQ. None of this was instigated or sanctioned by the Sanders campus, and Bernie himself this issue the statement on this.
However, in keeping with their drumbeat of the inevitable coronation of Clinton, this served the media narrative as a useful distraction from the fact that Sanders won his first closed primary in Oregon and Hillary squeaked by at the last minute in Kentucky state that she had one by a wide margin against Obama.
Democracy Now reported it this way.
“Bernie Sanders’ victory in Oregon comes amid tensions with the Democratic Party after Sanders supporters erupted into protest Saturday at the Nevada convention. They say rules were abruptly changed and 64 Sanders supporters were wrongly denied delegate status. Clinton ultimately won 20 pledged delegates to Sanders’ 15. The state party chair, Roberta Lange, said she received death threats, while state party headquarters were vandalized. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid urged Sanders to condemn the behavior of some of his supporters, saying he faced a “test of leadership.” In a statement, Sanders rejected violence, and noted that during the Nevada campaign, shots were fired into his campaign office in the state, and his staff’s housing complex was broken into and ransacked. He also accused Nevada Democratic leadership of “[using] its power to prevent a fair and transparent process” at the conventions on Saturday.”
It is worth noting that inside the caucus they had a policeline guarding the stage which gave the appearance that it was not a transparent process and was intimidating. The tone of favoritism toward Clinton has been set by by the DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She has always been close to Hillary Clinton and has tried to limited debates as well as a number of other things to give Hillary the full advantage. Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver has complained vociferously about this.
There is a lesson to be learned here. When you are inside any party convention, everything you do will be held as an example of the campaign and it will be used by the media to tell the story that they want to tell. It is a good lesson for the the State Convention in RI convention which is coming up in June.
Also, for any delegates going to the Democratic National which will be contested as the neither candidate will have the number of pledge delegates needed so it will be up to the superdelegates to tip the scale’s. Not everyone inside of the Democratic Party has been pleased about the way Debbie Wasserman Schultz has manipulated the election and many of them made it clear that they didn’t want to be the one deciding the election.
Footnote: For anyone interested in the wonky details of what went on in Nevada here is a good explanation,
https://johnlaurits.com/2016/05/15/what-happened-at-the-nevada-democratic-state-convention/
Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) announced at a press conference today that it has served formal notice of a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for its decades-long campaign to discredit climate change and knowingly endanger people and communities. An exposé last September by 
Roseann Bongiovanni, Chelsea Green Space environmental justice advocate, commented, “I’ve lived in Chelsea my entire life, and for all that time there’s been imbalance between community members who desperately want waterfront access and the industries that dominate the water’s edge. A decade ago, ExxonMobil spilled thousands of gallons of oil into our river and denied its wrongdoing for months until confronted and forced to pay by the Department of Justice. Today, we have a greater understanding of the full extent of ExxonMobil’s climate denial and we have another opportunity to show the world that we won’t stand for it.”
Now, in order to construct a true re-entry program, it has to start with the courts, and in conjunction with the men and women that court affects. The courts should know what they need to see in a prisoner in order to not have to see them again. And we offenders should know what we need to do in order to not see the court again. What I am advising is a small-scale thing for now, to see if it would work.
EnergizeRI and our carbon pricing proposal have recently come under attack from the Heartland Institute. We are taking this opportunity to reach out, set the record straight and shed some light on the work and reputation of this group as you consider their comments on carbon pricing legislation here in Rhode Island.
This is the same group that included scientists on a list of “climate deniers” 
There are legitimate debates to be had about the best way to address climate change, but pretending it isn’t happening or that we are powerless to stop it helps no one. We are already seeing the effects of climate change here in our state. No Rhode Islander will deny the damage that was caused by Hurricane Sandy in Westerly and Charlestown. No one can deny the damage caused by the microbursts in Cranston or the severe flooding witnessed in Warwick. All over the state Rhode Islanders are dealing with the fallout and leading climate scientists believe it will only get worse. Climate change denial is no longer part of the national conversation and it should not be part of the policy debate here in Rhode Island.
The Sierra Club’s ally the Communications Workers of America (CWA) is currently on strike against Verizon and Verizon Wireless (Verizon) in 9 northeast and mid-Atlantic states, including Rhode Island, after contract negotiations broke down. (The other states are MA, NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE, DC and VA). CWA members have been critical allies to the Sierra Club on issues ranging from democracy to trade to climate disruption. Now it is our turn to stand up for them.
I had never heard of Eastland Food Products Inc before hearing about the efforts of workers there to unionize. The company cleans, cuts and packages fruits and vegetables for supermarkets up and down the coast. Think of the half a butternut squash you might see at your supermarket, wrapped in plastic on a styrofoam tray. That’s likely come from Eastland Foods, 69 Fletcher Ave, in Cranston.
It’s the kind of situation we don’t imagine happening in Rhode Island. It’s the kind of company we picture operating in a right-to work state down south, where workers are not treated fairly or humanely.
