FREE Copy of My Bernie Journey Book

Hey Progressives!!

I wanted to take a moment and tell you about an exciting new book I wrote that exposes corruption inside the “Democratic” Party in a way that no other book has the guts to tackle. My Bernie Journey – An Inside Look at the 2016 “Democratic” Primary Through the Eyes of a Bernie Sanders Volunteer is the result of two years of intense hard work and hands on research.

The first thing that makes this book special is that I was actually in the trenches, traveling from state to state, knocking on doors, attending meetings and rallies and chronicling the insane corruption that I witnessed first hand.

There is an entire chapter of this amazing book just dedicated to ELECTORAL FRAUD inside the “Democratic” Party.

There is also an entire chapter where I went BACK ON THE ROAD interviewing the people who took Bernie Sanders’ message to heart and actually took steps to take over their local government.

But this book is about SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT!!

It’s also a personal story of how Bernie Sanders saved my son’s life and an epic story that talks about how we were labeled as terrorists and teargassed by helicopters in the streets of Philadelphia when we went there to protest the corruption of the DNC.

This book is fire in your hands and I personally guarantee that anyone who picks it up will be absolutely unable to put it down.

In short, I wrote the book that I kept waiting for someone else to write.

I wrote the book that blows the lid off the entire rigged “Democratic” primary, while interweaving a personal story of inspiration that will get you fired up to take your activism to the next level.

Or as my former Hillary supporting friend put it:

“I never realized the depths of the depravity engaged in by the DNC in 2016 and now that I have eyes for it, I see this corruption continuing in every move they make. Michael’s book made me cry, but it also made me angry and it inspired me to take action. I had friends who worked really hard for Bernie. Honestly, at the time, I thought they were kind of crazy. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been out there knocking on doors with them.”

And THAT IS WHY I feel this book is important.

People need to know OUR story.

They need to know exactly what happened from someone who was actually part of it.

Going forward into the 2018 midterms and on into the 2020 presidential election, WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!!

The first step to stopping it from ever happening again is to educate EVERYONE on how it went down in the first place.

I sincerely believe that My Bernie Journey does this in a way that is so fun and exciting that you could give it to the Trump or Hillary supporter in your life and they will come away with a new perspective.

Every Sanders supporter will want to read this.

And everyone who is not a Sanders supporter WILL BE by the time they put it down.

I really feel that strongly about it.

Here is a video where I talk about what’s inside the book in greater detail.

If you are in a hurry to order the book, you can skip the video, scroll down right under the video and order your FREE electronic copy (the E-Book can be read on your computer, phone or tablet) or if you want an autographed physical copy delivered to your door you can order that as well.

Thank you for believing in my work.

This book has been the hardest and most rewarding artistic endeavor of my life.

DO I EVEN NEED TO TELL YOU THAT THIS BOOK IS THE ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS BOOK FOR ANY BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTER OR MAYBE AN EVEN BETTER GIFT TO GIVE TO THAT FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER WHO LOVES HILLARY CLINTON??or maybe nothing can wake those people up – I’m not really sure)

Scroll past the video to order or watch the video if you need more details.

How to Get the Book

To get your FREE E-Book copy of My Bernie Journey simply send an email with My Bernie Journey in the title to GoBernieGoBernieGo@gmail.com

If you want an autographed physical copy sent to your door, along with the second book The Independent Thinker Chronicles (included for free) then send $27 through PayPal by clicking HERE (Be sure to put your shipping address in the notes section)

If you don’t like PayPal you can pay through Square or with a check or money order by clicking HERE.

If you don’t like any of those methods you can order through Amazon by clicking HERE (I urge you not to buy through Amazon as they represent the very corporate entities which we are standing up to!!)

I suppose you could even follow me by clicking HERE and pay through Facebook messenger (did you even know that you could send money through Facebook messenger? I didn’t either until recently.)

Also feel free to DONATE a copy of the book to a random person.

What this means is that if you already have a copy and want to get one for someone who can’t afford one right now, just write “Pay it forward” in the notes line and I’ll write Donated by (Your Name) and donate the book to a library, school or individual who has limited funds.

Consider it a nice way to give the gift of Political Revolution to a stranger.

Anyway, I hope you love the book regardless of rather you pay for it or get the free copy.

It’s your book.

I’m just the guy who wrote everything down.

The Time We Almost Hacked the U.S. Presidential Election

Hello fellow revolutionaries!!

This is a chapter from my new book My Bernie Journey – An Inside Look at the 2016 “Democratic” Primary Through the Eyes of a Bernie Sanders Volunteer. In the book, we discuss en depth what the Progressive movement is all about and why it is alive and well even in the era of Trump’s alt-right fascism.

The book is deeply personal, but everyone who has read it has stated that it echoes their own experiences and has inspired them to increase their activism while bringing them renewed hope.

Right now we all need to band together to take on the corruption, not only in the GOP, but also in the “Democratic” Party that cheated Bernie Sanders out of the nomination in 2016.

I’m incredibly proud of the book. I worked very hard on it for two years and traveled to more than 50 cities, getting down in the trenches to make it real and authentic. It’s funny. It’s sad. And yes, it will make you angry. But more than anything it will remind you that we are actually winning this fight.

After reading the chapter, scroll down to the bottom of this page and you can order a FREE electronic copy of the book. Or if you prefer a signed copy delivered to your door, with a FREE second book, The Independent Thinker Chronicles, there are links for you to order that and I as long as you order before 12/20 it will be delivered by Christmas.

Happy reading!! 🙂

 

Shy Ridley passing out fliers for the Vermont Bernie Sanders write-in campaign at the Take Back Democracy March. Photo by Melaine Oringer.

 

Chapter 18 – The Vermont Bernie Sanders Write-In

In which the author proves his absolute insanity by trying to hack into an exploit in the United States presidential race at the risk of pissing off the very person he is trying to help

Bernie had been very clear about the plan. We all vote for Hillary and then Bernie would use the leveraging power of millions of die-hard supporters to push Clinton to endorse Progressive policies. The plan was simple enough. The problem was that this plan involved Hillary Clinton becoming president and that just seemed too much to bear for people like myself who had given everything to Sanders’ campaign. There had to be a better way.

Many noted that Hillary seemed ill. “Perhaps she will die.” people would say, but then because they were good liberals they would add “Not that I would ever wish death on anyone.” There was also a looming indictment, but none of us really believed that the courts could touch someone so powerful. But there had to be a way. Looking back now I accept that I was simply in denial. But I kept looking. “There has to be a way.” Carrie would catch me saying aloud while I tore through article after article.

Then one day, while traveling, I pulled over to get coffee. While standing in line, reading The Inquisitr, I stumbled across an article by Dawn Papple called Could Just Thousands In Wyoming or Vermont Hold the Key to a Surprise Bernie Sanders Presidency? The article spoke of a ludicrous idea that people had been discussing on Twitter. In a nutshell, the idea was that we could focus in on seven states that allow write-in voting and canvass those states, Sanders could win those states, depriving Trump and Clinton of the 270 electoral votes needed to attain the presidency. This would force the House of Representatives to choose the President, as is the law. In short, there would be a slim chance of a Sanders presidency.

One who is informed on political matters would quickly note that The House was controlled by Republicans and therefore Trump would be the obvious choice between Sanders, Clinton and Trump. This was more than likely true, but my counterpoint was that establishment Republicans hated Trump and that there was a slim chance that some may step out on both sides of the aisle to support Sanders, especially after the Democrats had blackballed him in the primary. Granted this was a Hail Mary, but when that’s all you got, you throw it deep and hope for a miracle.

To Dawn’s credit, she kept her sanity and journalistic integrity. She wrote the article with a whimsical “wouldn’t it be nice” folly. I, on the other hand, being completely desperate and insane, took the words far too seriously and began to research. I started calling into the seven states asking them about their write-in laws. I began reading obscure passages in each state’s law, getting stuck and making phone calls and asking odd questions that no one knew the answers to. I would get referred to someone who had spent their entire life studying voter law, who probably hadn’t been asked a question in twenty years. These people would be so grateful for my query that they would want to talk forever, discussing the finer points of said law and its origins. I did not have that kind of time. “Thanks!! Gotta go!!” I’d say, hanging up and heading off to the next challenge. My desk was a mess of printouts and sketches. I felt like a mad scientist who had discovered time travel and only needed a single equation to bring the whole thing together. Sleep became a distant memory. I researched and researched and researched until it was all very clear.

OH MY GOD!!! WE CAN DO THIS!!!

I’ve spent my entire life intentionally pursuing delusion. I’m not insane. I get it. I know how things work. I know statistical probabilities. But I also know that all great things are done by people who decide to do something that everyone around them thinks is completely crazy. After all, my hero is a man from Vermont who decided to run against the Clinton empire when it had already been preordained that Hillary Clinton was going to be the candidate. Bernie knew that the deck was stacked against him. He ran anyway. And now I’m sitting here writing this book and your life, just like mine, has been forever changed by him making this completely irrational decision.

When I started the Vermont Bernie Sanders Write-In Campaign someone said “This has a one in a million chance of succeeding.”

I replied “The odds of success are actually much lower, but the chances of Sanders becoming president if we don’t try this is actually zero in a million.”

So I got to work. The first thing I did was to write an article about it. I needed every volunteer I could get so I wrote an article that explained every aspect of how the plan would work. I wrote it in a question and answer style that was fairly easy to understand. Sanders’ supporters are generally pretty intelligent and this was necessary as I was attempting to explain a loophole in our electoral process and most Americans have no idea how that process even works. I didn’t either when I started the movement. People think that I’m some sort of expert on politics. Honestly, I don’t know a damned thing. I just have a burning desire for The Truth, so I read a million articles on every subject I’m passionate about. I don’t seek out articles that reinforce what I believe. I am not lured in by this appeal to my ego, nor am I seduced by extreme opinions on an issue. I seek only the illusive reality that can be found only when one is able to anesthetize their confirmation bias and enjoy the pleasant feeling of accepting that they had been previously wrong. For much of humanity’s time here on Earth, those in power kept the serfs ignorant as a means of control. Now, for this brief time in history, we have access to the entire wealth of human knowledge, yet the serfs keep themselves ignorant by diving into toxic rabbit-holes filled with rhetoric and hyperbole. It’s very sad. I suspect if you are reading this, you are as frustrated with this trend as I am.

The article exploded. Its blatant insanity inspired people to action. My email box was overflowing. I simply could not keep up. I live my life by a saying, “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” The first mighty force that came to my aid was Shannon Blosser-Salisbury. She became my assistant and quickly recruited others to assist her and just like that, before I knew what was happening, the Vermont Bernie Sanders Write-In Campaign was off and running.

I made several attempts to get phone lists for Vermont so that we would be able to phone-bank into the state. Everyone I asked for assistance with this project told me that I was insane, that only legitimate political campaigns had access to this information and that I was wasting my time trying. This information seemed to be accurate. I was making zero headway and time was the one thing we did not have as we had started our desperate campaign just six weeks before the general election. Finally Shannon had the idea that we would simply call through the Vermont phone-book. I wrote out a script and began training phone-bankers and then heroically, Terje Oseberg came in with the actual phone-bank info for every single person in Vermont!! He even used his own money to pay for it!! Mighty forces were coming to my aid so fast that my head was spinning!!

I had done the math and knew that we needed to convert one out of every four voters that we spoke with. Expecting this kind of result in normal phone-banking is just delusional, but we were calling into Bernie’s backyard. The people of Vermont absolutely love Bernie Sanders. The key was having an effective script. Explaining a plan to usurp the United States general election in just a few seconds in a way that sounded fun and was easy to understand was one of my greatest writing challenges to date. I must have nailed it because we were converting 75% of voters!! Even though we were angry revolutionaries who wanted to right a great wrong perpetrated by the Democratic Party, I knew that the people of Vermont would not want to hear anything like that. Instead we framed it as a “celebration of Sanders lifetime of service to the people of Vermont.”

The people of Vermont loved our idea and most everyone hung up the phone saying that they would write in Sanders name on their ballot. The problem we were running into was that we had to call 625,000 people and we only had about 20 people volunteering to phone-bank. This was incredibly frustrating. I knew that I had built a successful model, but as determined as our volunteers were, we just didn’t have the bodies to make this work. It was at this point that I promised myself that I would build a political organization that was able to generate enough funds to support worthwhile projects in the future. Had I been financially prepared for this opportunity, I could have hired a bunch of kids who needed jobs, paid them $15 an hour, rented a call-center and flooded Vermont. I can tell you with extreme certainty that Bernie Sanders would have won Vermont if only I had had the money to pour into this project. Our phone-bankers were amazing, but we just didn’t have enough of them.

I called every major newspaper in Vermont. My goal was to run full page ads alerting the population of Vermont to our plan, but I simply could not afford it. To run these ads for six weeks would have been about $20,000. I was too proud to crowdfund the project. I was used to paying for everything myself. In retrospect I was just being selfish, letting my pride get in the way like that. I should have open the conduit and let others pool their resources. We would have won Vermont if we could have raised $40,000 dollars. Of course, we know now that it wouldn’t have made any difference. In order for our plan to work, Trump and Hillary would have had to be incredibly close in the electoral college. It wasn’t close at all. Trump won the electoral college handily. Still our movement taught me a lot and I realized that in order to get anything done in politics, great ideas and determination were a great starting point, but in reality, money is required.

For such a small group, we made a lot of noise. We even had people travel to Vermont to canvass. One family came all the way across the country from Colorado, with two small children, and were greeted with smiling faces at nearly every door they knocked on. Vermont resident Claudia Pringles did the same in her own backyard. All reports were that the residents of Vermont were incredibly receptive to our initiative. Phish drummer, Jon Fishman, even wrote an open letter to Vermont residents encouraging them to write-in Bernie Sanders. Before we knew it, Vermont news stations were covering our movement and The Washington Post contacted me and asked me to do an interview on what we were doing. A similar movement even popped up in Utah, as upstart Evan McMullin decided to throw his name in the electoral college lottery by trying to win that state. Another movement, OpDeny270, sprung up to focus on the other six write-in states. It was abundantly clear that the people were not happy with the “choice” between Clinton and Trump and would grasp at any and all attempts to be able to vote for an honest candidate who represented The People.

Just when I thought my Bernie Journey was over, I found myself planning a trip to Vermont to canvass, one last time, for this great man. I scraped together a few hundred dollars and told Carrie and the kids that I was headed off to knock on doors. They had dealt with me darting off to different cities so many times at this point that they didn’t even bat an eye.

But I was scared. One thing that I had been incredibly concerned about during the entire process was the fact that I was trying to get Bernie Sanders elected president, even though he had already stated very clearly that he was endorsing Hillary Clinton. I knew that if we contacted him directly about our movement that he would be forced to denounce it, as per his agreement with the Democratic Party, so basically my goal was to keep it hidden from Bernie until we had already canvassed all 600,000 Vermont residents. In the back of my mind this always nagged at me. What if Bernie didn’t want to be the president any longer? What if he was just exhausted and relieved that he didn’t have to take the job? Would Bernie be angry at me when he learned that I was going against what he had asked me to do? Was I deceiving Bernie Sanders with all my hard work?

In addition to keeping our movement a secret from Bernie, we also needed to keep it a secret from the Democratic Party, who had become well-known for using underhanded tactics against anyone who became a threat to their agenda. Vermont was an easy win for Clinton. What would they try to do to us if they found out we were trying to steal electoral votes from her? As it turned out, we did have a political campaign attack and sabotage us, but it wasn’t the Clinton’s.

I had to get a few things lined up on the home-front before I could head out. It would be two weeks before I could touch down in Vermont. I put out an advertisement looking for a canvassing coordinator to train incoming volunteers until I could get there. This is where the wheels came off the entire operation.

The most qualified applicant was a woman named Lisa (changing her name to protect her). Lisa was not only an experienced canvasser for Bernie Sanders, but had even been canvassing for Jill Stein after Bernie was cheated in the primary. Lisa said that she lived close to the Sanders’ residence and that in Vermont, Bernie and Jane were just normal people. She added that she remembered swimming in their pool when she was a little kid. In retrospect, I should have realized that this was too good to be true, but remember, I was desperate for help and as a result I was really susceptible to believing what I wanted to believe. I forgot to anesthetize my confirmation bias and it cost me dearly. Hiring Lisa proved to be a complete fiasco.

Lisa was supposed to go to college campuses to explain our initiative and recruit canvassers, but instead each day she would tell me about how busy she had been dealing with kids, work, etc.. While I certainly understood how life can place incredible demands on us, I still reminded her that we had to get our canvassers on the ground immediately. She agreed each time and then the following day came at me with a variation on the same excuses. When I told her that I would need to hire a different canvassing coordinator, Lisa told me that her busy schedule wasn’t the real reason why she had been dragging her feet. Lisa told me that the real reason was that she felt like she was betraying her lifetime friends, Bernie and Jane Sanders.

I had to do some deep soul-searching. In my desire to see Sanders elected president I had not only started a major movement behind his back, but now I was asking his friends and neighbors to keep a secret from him. I messaged Lisa back and told her that if Bernie knows then he will have to denounce the movement or risk his position with the Democratic Party. I asked her if she would be willing to compromise and ask Jane Sanders. Lisa agreed and I waited on pins and needles for the entire day. The following morning Lisa messaged me and told me that Jane was incredibly moved by what we were trying to do, but that she wanted us to stop it. Jane said that Bernie didn’t want to be president and pleaded with us to stop doing what we were doing and to “vote for someone who is actually on the ballot.”

I was devastated. I went to our volunteers and told them that I was walking away from the movement. To their credit they told me that they were going ahead without me. I loved them for that, but I simply could not bring myself to force something on Bernie that he didn’t even want. I felt so sick and foolish. I contacted The Washington Post and told them that I was canceling my trip to Vermont. That night I wrote an addendum to the article that had started our movement that simply said that Jane Sanders had asked us to stop and that I would no longer support a movement that went against the wishes of the person it was intending to honor.

The following morning I awoke to chaos. Someone had shown my article to Jane Sanders and Jane had tweeted that my article was a lie. Jane said that no such conversation with Lisa had ever taken place and that she would never advise someone to not vote for Bernie. Also someone sent me a video of Bernie Sanders being asked about our movement and Bernie laughed and said something to the effect that it would probably be okay due to the fact that Vermont only had three electoral votes.

This was incredibly scary. Bernie and Jane knew about our movement and had both given it a pseudo-endorsement. On the other hand, I had spread misinformation about the Jane Sanders. I immediately went into damage control mode. I released a statement saying that the write-in initiative was still in effect and apologized for the confusion I had caused, even though I still really had no idea what was going on.

Sifting through thousands of messages I found a series of screen shots from a conversation that Lisa had had with someone who worked very closely with Jill Stein. I’m not going to say this person’s name either, but the gist of the conversation was that Lisa was supposed to infiltrate our group and convince us to stop our initiative. It turns out that Lisa was telling the truth about one thing. She was a huge fan of Jill Stein. Apparently some of Jill’s loyalists had come up with the naive notion that our progress in Vermont was somehow threatening Jill’s chances of attaining 5% of the nationwide vote. At 5% The Green Party would qualify for federal funding in the next presidential election cycle. Some people, close to Jill Stein, had decided that we were a threat to their federal funding and hatched a plan to sabotage our campaign. If this sounds ridiculous it’s because it absolutely is. Jill Stein was not a serious candidate in the state of Vermont or any other state for that matter, so I have no idea why her people would think that 175,000 votes (our target goal) would affect her either way. While I don’t hold Jill personally responsible for the sabotaging efforts against our campaign, it is hard to believe that she didn’t know about what was happening, considering her proximity to the person who initiated the sabotage.

In the end we didn’t win, but I took some personal satisfaction in the fact that we managed to get more people to write-in Bernie Sanders than all those who voted for Jill Stein, Gary Johnson and the other two small-party candidates combined. Our campaign for a man who wasn’t even on the ballot managed to get three and a half times as many votes as the campaign that attempted to sabotage us.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t accomplish something. With a little more time and money, we would have accomplished our goal and Bernie Sanders would have been the first write-in candidate in American history to actually win a state. We were a lot closer to achieving this than most people realize.

How to Get the Book

To get your FREE E-Book copy of My Bernie Journey simply send an email with My Bernie Journey in the title to GoBernieGoBernieGo@gmail.com

If you want an autographed physical copy sent to your door, along with the second book The Independent Thinker Chronicles (included for free) then send $27 through PayPal by clicking HERE (Be sure to put your shipping address in the notes section)

If you don’t like PayPal you can pay through Square or with a check or money order by clicking HERE.

If you don’t like any of those methods you can order through Amazon by clicking HERE (I urge you not to buy through Amazon as they represent the very corporate entities which we are standing up to!!)

I suppose you could even follow me by clicking HERE and pay through Facebook messenger (did you even know that you could send money through Facebook messenger? I didn’t either until recently.)

Also feel free to DONATE a copy of the book to a random person.

What this means is that if you already have a copy and want to get one for someone who can’t afford one right now, just write “Pay it forward” in the notes line and I’ll write Donated by (Your Name) and donate the book to a library, school or individual who has limited funds.

Consider it a nice way to give the gift of Political Revolution to a stranger.

Anyway, I hope you love the book regardless of rather you pay for it or get the free copy.

It’s your book.

I’m just the guy who wrote everything down.

When I Said Bernie or Bust, I Meant It

When I first started volunteering for Bernie Sanders, I was actually still excited about Hillary Clinton. This may surprise a lot of my readers, given the fact that I’ve written such scathing anti-Clinton articles as I Used To Be In Love With Hillary Clinton and Hillary Clinton Has a Gun to My Head.

I was all about having America’s first woman president. I planned to work very hard for Bernie Sanders, but vote for Hillary Clinton if she defeated Sanders in the primaries. People on social media, recognizing that I was a hardcore Sanders volunteer, repeatedly asked me to join a circulating pledge called Bernie or Bust and repeatedly I refused. In a world full of lies, spin and deception, truth becomes a valuable commodity, so I won’t pledge something that I don’t believe in 100%.

At the first “Democratic” debate, I was still planning on voting for Hillary if she won. At the second “Democratic” debate, we hosted a debate party in our home and I actually stood up and gave a speech to the 40 people in attendance about Bernie or Bust. The response was overwhelmingly negative and I told my audience that I agreed with them, but that I felt the pledge had some merit. Following the third debate I came out publicly as Bernie or Bust and begin pushing the agenda that we live and die with Bernie Sanders. As most of my friends were hardcore Democrats, many distanced themselves from me and many said that they felt like I had joined a cult.

My best friend, always seeing the bigger picture, said

“Hey. I feel like you have become kind of radical, but I am fully aware that sometimes it takes radicals to get things done.”

My personal life fell to pieces, but I didn’t care. I believed in the concept with all my heart and accepted that it was an absolute necessity if we were ever going to be taken seriously by the “Democratic” Party. The importance of the movement was to insure a fair primary election for Bernie Sanders. The idea being that we would vote for Bernie Sanders and ONLY Bernie Sanders to present the “Democratic” Party with a dilemma, nominate Bernie Sanders, because he is the ONLY one we will vote for.

I begin daily discussions with people on why I felt that it was important that they publicly declare that they are Bernie or Bust. I organized events locally and traveled to other cities spreading the word. I was interviewed by Vox, Fox News, The Washington Post and several other corporate media outlets. Each time I was offered face time, I used it to promote one thing and one thing only, the idea that millions of us were ABSOLUTELY 100% DEDICATED TO VOTING FOR BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT AND ONLY BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT.

When I said that I was Bernie or Bust, I meant it.

The problem is, it seems like I am one of very few who did.

So what took me from being a Hillary supporter in 2015 to “throwing my vote away” in 2016?

Firstly, I began to actually pay attention to Hillary Clinton and started probing under the surface of what corporate media had been telling me about her for years. In 2015 all I knew about Hillary was that she was pro-choice and pro-LBGT rights. I also knew that she once fought valiantly for universal healthcare. And I’m not going to lie, the fact that she was a woman and a Democrat were important to me as well. It’s embarrassing that our country has never had a female president. I considered Hillary’s gender a bonus. In short, I was a typical head-in-the-sand Hillary Clinton supporter.

The more I learned about her, the more I realized that I could never vote for her. The more I learned about the “Democratic” Party, the more I realized that my commitment to only vote for Bernie Sanders was not only necessary, but it was the only way to use my voice in this vacuum of lies and deceit.

Watching the “Democratic” Party attack and deceive Bernie Sanders radicalized me. I literally devoted my entire life to spreading this message. Over and over again I told people

“You can’t bluff. You have to mean it. Because if we go back on our commitment, the Dems will just repeat their transgressions in future elections. You have to vote for Bernie Sanders even if he is not on the ballot. That’s the only power we have.”

I promoted the idea that we all meet in Philadelphia at the “Democratic” National Convention to show the DNC first hand that we were serious. Our message was simple. “We will ONLY vote for Bernie Sanders! We will accept NO SUBSTITUTES!”

They built a wall to keep us out.

They didn’t take us seriously.

They laughed in our faces.

As our movement gathered momentum it was very clear that it was about more than just supporting this great man who had fought for our rights for 40+ years. It was literally a fight to reclaim Democracy itself. By promising to vote for Sanders and ONLY Sanders we were taking a stand against the sociopathic elitist class that had been causing pain and misery since the dawn of time. We were drawing a line in the sand and refusing to back down. We were here to change the world and nothing was going to stop us.

As Hillary Clinton remained in hiding, Sanders solidified our commitment by tirelessly touring the country telling everyone that the time for change was now. Sanders would fly coach into a new city (because he didn’t want to abuse our donations by wasting money on first-class) and give a speech, then go out into the parking lot and give another speech for all the people who could not get into the arena, then he would jump on a plane and repeat the process.

Sanders was always working, so we kept working. We collected ballot signatures in the snow and freezing rain. We were called communists. We had our vehicles and homes defaced. We were physically attacked. But it didn’t matter. If Bernie didn’t stop, we didn’t stop. We canvassed scary neighborhoods in states we had never been to before. We talked to thousands of voters of every background.

Sometimes a Hillary supporter would ask…

“If Hillary wins, you will vote for Hillary, right?”

I would always say..

“In my capacity as a canvasser, it is not up to me to talk about my personal political beliefs, but personally I am pledged to vote for Bernie Sanders only. I cannot support a system that is rigged against him.”

This would anger the Hillary supporters every single time. I received so many lectures, so many fingers in my face. I remember one guy pulling his wife away, because she had gotten so worked up that I truly believe that she was going to strike me. As he guided her inside, he turned to me and mouthed

“If Bernie isn’t on the ballot in November, I’m writing him in.”

“Me too.” I mouthed back.

 

“But Mike, don’t you realize that they will throw your vote away?”

Absolutely I do! In fact I’m counting on it. But let’s be clear about how the this works. They WILL hand-count my ballot and record it. All the down-ballot candidates will be credited towards their totals. So I am only “throwing away” one part of my vote, the part that is asking me which sexual predator I prefer in the White House. Throwing my vote in a trashcan certainly has more dignity than voting for either of these atrocious criminals.

Some will say that I should break my promise and vote for a third-party candidate instead. While I support others who want to do that, it will not have the same effect. A vote for Bernie Sanders is absolutely symbolic. It is a message to the “Democrats” that we don’t want the candidate that they forced down our throats. It is a message that we do not support election fraud. It is a message that you can cheat your way into the White House, but you can’t silence our movement.

If millions of people keep their word and write-in Bernie Sanders then it makes a massive statement to the DNC. In fact, it would be the largest single-day protest in our nation’s history.

But my vote for Bernie Sanders is more than just a protest. I want to honor Bernie Sanders for his lifetime of commitment to fighting for Progressive values. I want to thank Bernie Sanders for the movement that he started that will never end. I will probably only have one chance to vote for this great man in the entirety of my life and I will not pass up on this opportunity. On November 8, I hope that everyone who knows that Bernie Sanders was cheated by the “Democrats” will make a YUGE statement by writing Bernie Sanders name on their ballot.

I want the corporate media to be forced to announce that “we won’t know the real winner of the election for a few days, because tens of millions of write-in votes have to be tallied and that could take several days.” In my wildest dreams I imagine that Bernie Sanders receives more write-in votes than Trump or Clinton receives ballot votes. I’d love to see the nation recognize that Bernie Sanders is the people’s choice, even as Hillary Clinton takes the throne that she cheated to obtain. Let it be a reminder to her each time Sanders puts legislation before her that she may have the title, but Sanders has the people.

If you have somehow rationalized voting for someone else, after you promised yourself that you would vote for Bernie Sanders, I submit that as the years pass, you will regret this decision more and more. On the day Bernie Sanders takes his final breath, I want to be able to say that in my one chance I had to vote for him, I took it.

Everyone else in America can be swayed by the political winds. But when I said that I was voting for Bernie Sanders and ONLY Bernie Sanders, I meant it.

I hope that you did too.

Come to the dark side by donating $1 HERE. Support Independent voices and destroy the corporate media.

 

The Curious Case of The Vermont Bernie Sanders Write-In

(IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THE TWISTED BACK-STORY REGARDING THE FALSE QUOTE OF JANE SANDERS AND HOW JANE PUBLICLY CAME OUT AND TOLD US THAT IT WAS OKAY TO WRITE BERNIE IN, THEN YOU CAN SCROLL DOWN TO THE SCREENSHOTS OF THE CONVERSATION WITH THE PERSON WHO INFILTRATED AND DECEIVED OUR GROUP AND SKIP THE SET-UP)

Hi,

My name is Michael E Sparks and I have spent the last year of my life trying to do everything I could to promote Bernie Sanders and the ideals he champions for our country.

I was a state and county delegate for Bernie Sanders and I have spent most of the past year traveling around to primary states canvassing on behalf of Sanders.

About a month ago I wrote THIS article, which asked people to volunteer and follow my crazy family to Vermont to convince the citizens there of what I referred to as a “Hail-Mary chance for Bernie Sanders to win the Presidency” by taking Vermont’s three electoral votes away from Hillary Clinton and forcing the Presidential race to be decided by the House of Representatives.

I stated from the beginning that it was a long shot, but for those of us who are desperate to break out of this awful Trump/Clinton conundrum, a long shot seemed infinitely better than what we felt would be certain war and hardship, if either of these two took office.

As soon as the article hit, my life became pretty chaotic.

My family and I started rearranging our work and school schedules to get to Vermont, which was pretty hectic.

Also we were contacted by an amazing group called #OpDeny270, which had the goal of organizing a Sanders write-in for the other states where a write-in victory would actually be counted.

Vermont, New Jersey, Alabama, New Hampshire, California, Oregon, Wyoming, Delaware and Iowa do not require the candidate to register in order to win a write-in campaign.

I expressed to our group that I wanted to keep our campaign separate from #OpDeny270, because time was limited and flipping a single state was already a monumental undertaking and also because most of the members of our group were Jill Stein supporters and we did not want to do anything to hurt Jill’s chances of attaining 5% of the national vote, which would qualify The Green Party for federal funding in the 2020 Presidential election and would go a long way towards our Progressive goal of busting up the corporate duopoly.

From the beginning we were very careful to be respectful of Jill Stein’s campaign.

Part of the reason why we were focusing on Vermont is that our numbers indicated that there was a very small Green Party presence there and most people were reluctantly voting for Hillary and had overwhelmingly voted for Sanders in the primary.

We crunched all the numbers beforehand, so we knew exactly what we needed to do in order to flip the state and we were absolutely positive that doing so would, in no way, hurt Jill’s chances at federal funding.

We checked the Vermont write-in laws extensively and found out that we could actually achieve our goal.

Terje Oseberg wrote a fantastic phone-banking program and imported every phone-number in Vermont into it.

People started phone-banking and Vermont residents were responding positively.

We needed to convert 25% of the state’s voters in order to achieve our goal and we were initially flipping 40%.

Terje was constantly telling us how many bankers we needed from day-to-day and really motivating people.

While waiting for my vacation time, I continued to work in my off hours canvassing for Jill Stein locally, so you can imagine my confusion when we started receiving angry responses from people claiming that they were Jill Stein supporters and that they knew that our movement was actually a plot to help Hillary Clinton.

There was no logic to the argument.

For one, I am a very public figure and everyone knows that I am a radical Sanders devotee.

I literally met thousands of Sanders and Stein supporters at the DNC protest in Philadelphia and have been interviewed by everyone from Fox News to Vox to The Washington Post regarding my passion for Bernie Sanders and the values he stands for.

The argument against our movement being for Hillary Clinton made zero sense, because getting Clinton voters to write-in Bernie Sanders was clearly intended to take Vermont away from Clinton, where she currently has a huge lead.

The entire genesis of our movement was an attempt to deprive Clinton of the Presidency and give it to Bernie Sanders, where it rightfully belonged after a rigged “Democratic” Primary.

As we began assigning volunteers and getting organized, we were hyper-conscious of being infiltrated by people who may want to sabotage our operation to insure that Clinton won Vermont.

We were not expecting to be infiltrated by anyone representing Jill Stein, because our group is full of Stein supporters and prior to the event that I am about to explain, we thought of these people as allies.

In fact, I still do feel that Stein supporters and Sanders supporters are allies.

At least I hope we are.

The events I am about to explain leave me saddened and wondering about the intentions of some of those who I thought were on our side.

It was going to be two weeks before our family could arrive in Vermont, so we needed a canvassing coordinator on the ground in Burlington.

Let me be clear, we were absolutely DESPERATE for an experienced canvasser who was already on the ground in Vermont, who could house and train our traveling canvassers.

Enter Nicole Guerin…

In the following conversation Nicole is the gray bubbles and I am the blue bubbles.

Nicole was the key to the entire operation.

She was exactly what we were looking for.

Nicole was an experienced canvasser who supported Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders.

It was a perfect match!!

As it was my job to interview the canvassing coordinator, I was extremely happy that we had found someone who was actually in Burlington, Vermont.

I immediately liked Nicole and went to the group with my recommendation that we train Nicole remotely and give her canvassing literature and allow her to train our traveling volunteers.

Then she informed us that she actually was friends with Bernie and Jane Sanders.

Nicole and I seemed to be on the same page. I was incredibly excited to recommend her to the group.

Nicole expressed concerns that the people of Vermont did not want any part of a campaign that could possibly result in a Trump Presidency.

I informed Nicole that we had changed our group mission statement, in light of Clinton taking a huge lead in the electoral college polls, after the Trump misogyny tape was released.

I told Nicole that we had reframed our mission and that we had accepted that Vermont’s three electoral votes were not going to be enough to stop Clinton, but that we really just wanted to honor Bernie Sanders for a lifetime of commitment to the people of Vermont.

Nicole agreed that this approach would work much better and I had received permission from our group to offer her the position as our canvassing coordinator (not before the higher-ups in our group asked me if I was sure that she was the “real deal” about ten times and every time I assured them that she was.)

Nicole was ecstatic.

Nicole accepted our offer and even said that she could lodge some of our traveling canvassers.

Our group celebrated.

We now had our foot in the door.

The following day, Nicole sent me this message.

 

It was a video from Claudia Stauber, someone who I have been a big fan of for a while now.

It was Claudia telling people that our movement was actually working for Hillary Clinton.

As you can imagine, we were all hurt and disappointed to hear that Claudia had been misinformed and was unknowingly spreading false information regarding our movement.

I told Nicole that our movement was not related to #OpDeny270 and that I didn’t think such a huge initiative could work and that I felt like it could interfere with Jill’s 5%.

(To my friends at #OpDeny270, I have since changed my opinion in light of the amazing work you guys are doing. I now feel that it is absolutely feasible for you guys to flip Wyoming. But I have to present the truth and the truth is that I did say that it wouldn’t work when I first head about your movement.)

At this point, things began to get interesting.

Nicole was having a crisis of conscience or at least this is what I was lead to believe.

She said that she felt bad about running a secret operation in Bernie and Jane’s backyard and wanted to talk to them about it before she went any further.

She also complimented our canvassing materials.

Nicole reminded me again, how important the Sanders’ approval was regarding our initiative.

I didn’t say anything to her, because I believed at the time that she was laboring under an intense dilemma, but I really feared that talking to Bernie would kill our initiative, because I know that he is bound by his agreement to support Hillary Clinton.

I wanted to ask her not to talk to them, but how could I?

Asking her not to talk to her “friends” would be overstepping a serious boundary.

 

Then things became strange.

As Nicole had offered her home for canvassers, I told her the days that we would be arriving and told her that we would accept her offer to use her guest room.

At this point Nicole informed me that the room was full and reiterated that she was uncomfortable running a campaign that may be against Bernie’s wishes.

I knew that Bernie would be forced by his position with the DNC to denounce the campaign, but I also knew that we were packed and on our way to Vermont in two days and we needed Nicole to feel strongly about what we were doing, so I suggested…

Nicole agreed to speak to Jane, but not to Bernie.

I supported Nicole’s choice and went to bed that night feeling scared, afraid that all of our work would be ended by a single conversation with Jane Sanders.

Nicole messaged me Sunday morning and told me that the Sanders family was not at home.

Then later that day, Nicole messaged me again and told me that she had spoken with Jane.

I nearly vomited when I saw the message.

I was so scared that we might offend Bernie and Jane in some way, when we had all worked so hard to honor them.

I sat on pins and needles for several hours until the infamous messages came in regarding Jane’s message for us to cease our movement and support the candidates who are “on the ballot”.

I was deeply saddened.

I wrote THIS article (since amended) telling everyone that our movement was over, because Jane Sanders did not approve of it.

Our volunteer group had a range of emotions.

Many were angry with me.

Many were crying and inconsolable.

I have been through some tough events in my life, including the recent death of my mother and the death of one of my children, but I was not at all prepared for the intense grief that overtook me that day.

I told my family..

“Everything aches from my stomach all the way up to my throat. I’ve never felt anything like this.”

Carrie and my daughter were also deeply saddened.

We had worked very hard to juggle our schedules to go to Vermont and thought we were doing something compassionate and decent.

Now, after receiving Nicole’s message and hearing what we believed was Jane’s request to stop the movement, I felt foolish and embarrassed.

So many had worked so hard so hard and for what?

I asked Nicole if I could “use her words” to explain to everyone why we needed to stop the movement and she said that it was okay.

Dave Weigel, at the Washington Post, had been speaking to me on the phone every couple of days and had flown into Vermont to interview me regarding our movement.

I told Nicole to go ahead and do the interview on my behalf.

Nicole told Dave Weigel that there was “no story” and that the movement was over.

This is the part where Nicole said that it was okay to use her words to let people know that our movement was over.

I thanked Nicole for speaking with Jane Sanders and told our group that the movement was over.

Our group unanimously said that they would continue on the movement with or without me.

I told them that I admired their spirit, but that I had already canceled my trip to Vermont and that we had all contacted work and school and told them that we would be in as originally planned.

It was an incredibly chaotic turn of events for our family and for our volunteers.

Nicole informed me that she was grieving too.

I thanked Nicole again for her efforts.

Nicole read my article and told me that she was not comfortable with me going public with her words.

She then told me that she went back to talk to Jane Sanders and that Jane had told her that I shouldn’t use her words.

At the time, I thought this was kind of odd, but as I was grieving, I told myself that I was just reading too much into it.

I reminded Nicole that she had given me permission to use her words.

I told Nicole that I did not feel that it was right to summarize, especially when she had given me permission to “use her words”.

Nicole told me that she visited Jane a third time.

I told Nicole that I was upset about all the misinformation coming from Stein supporters on our efforts and she agreed that it had been ugly.

I told her that the whole thing had soured me on The Green Party, but I still planned to vote for Jill.

And those  was the last words that Nicole and I spoke to each other.

Jane Sanders tweeted and said that the conversations were fabricated.

The people in our movement were incredibly angry.

Nicole immediately left our volunteer group.

I told the group members that we had to give Nicole 24 hours to tell her side of the story and we would not make any public statement until that time.

We asked Nicole publicly to make a statement and she did not respond.

Then someone sent us this.

Notice the date, October 13, around the time that Nicole said that she needed to talk to the Sanders family about our movement.

And then of course, Jane Sanders graciously came out and let the world know that Nicole had been lying to our group all along.

Once again, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jane for letting us know that our movement was accepted and for giving us permission to follow our hearts and write in Bernie Sanders on our ballots.

Sadly it appears as if Nicole infiltrated our efforts and fed us lies.

I take full responsibility for this, as I am the one who trusted her and told others to trust her.

I find it deeply troubling that people who we felt were on our same team, went to such great efforts to undermine weeks of work from people who wanted nothing more than to honor Bernie Sanders and his lifetime of fighting for our collective rights.

Has the left become so fractured that Jill Stein supporters are going to great efforts to undermine Bernie Sanders supporters?

And if so, who wins?

The establishment wins! That’s who!!

We all know what it has been like dealing with Hillary Clinton’s deceptive Super-PAC, Correct the Record and now it seems that the victims of these tactics have began using them on others who are on the same team.

And for what?

We made no effort to change the minds of Stein voters in Vermont.

We only tried to flip the Hillary voters to write-in Bernie.

Why would anyone attack such a pure and honest movement?

Apparently we are not alone.

Our friends at #OpDeny270 sent us this (you will have to click it, as every time I enlarged it, the script became too blurry to read).

They say that this is a phone-banking script that some Stein supporters were using to undermine our efforts in Vermont.

I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this script and I am not interested in pursuing some sick war with other people who share the same Progressive values as we do.

I do not think that a war between Stein supporters and Sanders supporters is advantageous to our collective cause, so I would like to take this opportunity to ask that we all take a breath and rejoin forces against the establishment.

When elephants fight, the grass suffers.

I am quick to forgive, but in light of this new information, I will be focusing exclusively on Bernie Sanders Write-in and down-ballot candidates.

I know that Jill Stein did not put anyone up to this.

I know that all candidates attract all kinds of people.

But this event has left lots of people deeply injured.

I would expect something like this from those who support Hillary Clinton.

I never expected anything like this from those who support Jill Stein.

Addendum: After our story was released last night, Nicole released a statement admitting guilt and apologizing.

I have empathy for Nicole and it was very difficult for me to go forward with this story, but our group was implicated in something that we were innocent in and the people deserved to know the truth.

We all wish Nicole all the best going forward and we are grateful for her for being an adult and owning up to her actions.

We encourage ALL people who are not happy with their ballot choices to write-in Bernie Sanders as a protest to a rigged election.

Regardless of who you vote for in the Presidential race, please vote in Progressives in all down-ballot races.