Sanders campaign punished for accessing Clinton voter info

Bernie Sanders made a stand against religious intolerance on Wednesday, meeting with representatives from Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities to discuss rising religious tensions in America.

Ah well, Sanders did also announce today that he’s hit a goal of receiving almost 2 million individual campaign contributions.

At an event where Sanders appeared with members of the union’s executive board, CWA President Chris Shelton said the decision to back Sanders was a reflection of strong support for him by the rank-and-file, expressed in a survey of the members. DFA asked its members to vote for who the group should endorse, as it does for most of its political endorsements.

CWA – which has members concentrated in states like Ohio, California, Texas and New Jersey – is the third and biggest national union to endorse Sanders, after National Nurses United and the American Postal Workers Union.

The suspension comes as Sanders prepares to face Clinton at the Democratic debate Saturday and as he received the endorsement of a major union, the Communications Workers of America, and a liberal group Thursday.

Each Democratic presidential candidate – Sanders, Clinton and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley – emailed Democracy for America members seeking their support.

Sanders has condemned financial super PACs throughout his presidential campaign, arguing that the limitless amount of money that candidates can raise defeats the goal of a democratic process.

Sanders will hold a press conference at 1pm Friday in Washington to “answer questions about the situation involving the DNC”, an aide said.

It follows a series of endorsements for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton by 18 unions and labor alliances representing more than 11 million people. Former CWA president Larry Cohen has been an unpaid adviser to the Sanders campaign. “CWA doesn’t get out in front of our members, and our members will decide what action we take on endorsement”.

But the union force still pales in comparison to the numbers behind the endorsements Clinton has already racked up from the American Federation of Teachers, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee and the Service Employees International Union among many others. Sanders’s growing support from big labor, however, poses challenges to a candidacy built around his independence from big money and special interests. There are folks out there who say, ‘it doesn’t impact me, I’m not a union guy, I’m not a teacher, I’m not a civil servant.’ Let me tell you how it does matter to you: Wages are going down in this country for everybody.