Bernie Sanders 2020

Why is it stupid? Because you don't like him.

How does it undercut his credibility?

A White House spokesman directed questions to USDA and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Requests seeking comment were not returned.

"The president was on a campaign speech and speaking, as he normally does, off the top of his head," Chandler Goule, CEO of the National Association of Wheat Growers, told the Capital Press. "What's most unfortunate, in my mind, is he was sitting here in the last couple months talking about how all our farmers in the United States are doing great, but yet, they're not and they're suffering."

Goule said Trump's comments were "very frustrating." He said the president claims to be continually supporting farmers, but started a trade war, and then directly attacks "the bread basket commodity of the United States."

"Do I want to say that it was probably speaking before you think?" Goule said. "Yes, it probably was, but you're the president of the United States and the farmers and ranchers of this country are who put you in office. To have you attack a commodity that is high-quality and in high demand ... and that truly depends on export markets is really just irresponsible."

"I disagree with the President’s comments and stand by our wheat growers in Eastern Washington," Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers said. "We value our relationship with Japan and are committed to providing the high quality wheat they need. We pride ourselves in producing the best wheat in the world and will continue to lead on cutting-edge research to help with global food security.”

In a statement, the Oregon Wheat Growers League said it was "profoundly disappointed" in Trump's comments.

"The President's dismissive statements ... demonstrated that he doesn't fully appreciate the 70 years of efforts by generations of wheat growers to build the great relationships we have with our customers in Japan," the league stated.

Relationships between Japanese millers and U.S. farmers began in 1949, when the league organized a trade delegation to investigate expanding wheat sales.

Japan is the No. 1 market for U.S. wheat, and the No. 2 market for soft white wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest, the league said. U.S. wheat has a 50% market share in Japan.

"Our customers in Japan don’t buy our wheat because they are doing us a favor or to make us feel good, they buy our wheat because we have built a relationship with them, earned their trust, listened to their needs, and provided great customer service," the league stated.

"This is not a situation in which they're simply buying what can be close to $1 billion worth of wheat a year for political reasons," said Steve Mercer, vice president of communications for U.S. Wheat Associates, the overseas marketing arm for the industry. "This is a need and a desire on the part of their industry to purchase U.S. wheat."

It looks as if he doesn't really understand how foreign trade works; his statements are prone to error and are often untrustworthy.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) unveiled his plan to reform the criminal justice system on Sunday, with proposals to cut the country’s incarcerated population in half, ban private prisons, legalize marijuana, and end mandatory minimum sentencing, solitary confinement, and the federal death penalty.

“America’s prisons are hotbeds of human rights violations, torture, sexual assault, and wrongful imprisonment,” he wrote in the plan, which was published on his campaign website of ahead of a campaign event in Columbia, South Carolina, scheduled for Sunday afternoon. “We must put an end to this barbarism and respect the rights of all human beings and treat them with basic dignity.”

Other Democratic presidential candidates have also put forward ambitious plans to overhaul the justice system, including former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Cory Booker, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg, some of whom have also called to halve the prison population, ban private prisons, and end solitary confinement.

But Sanders’ plan is among the most comprehensive, in part because it proposes to restore voting rights to all incarcerated people, an idea Sanders first put forward earlier this year at a CNN town hall. Other candidates have been more timid on this issue, focusing on expanding the franchise to people only after they finish their sentences.

In addition to ending private prisons, whose profits have soared under President Trump, Sanders says he will:
•Stop charging people for prison phone calls;
•Audit prison commissaries to ensure they are not price-hiking (something that Warren has also proposed);
•End cash bail, a practice that disproportionately keeps low-income people locked up ahead of their trials;
•Vacate past marijuana convictions, something that could help communities of color, who are disproportionately prosecuted for these drug crimes; and,
•Legalize safe injection sites and needle exchange programs.

Sanders also calls for an end to prison gerrymandering, a common practice whereby states count incarcerated people as residents of the town where their prison is located, rather than where they are from, reducing representation in their communities.

Sanders’s plan is no less ambitious on policing. He wants to establish national standards for use of body cameras and for when police can deploy force, a response to public outrage over police killings of unarmed people of color. He also wants to require the Justice Department to review all officer-involved shootings, a major departure from the Trump administration. (Former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, another Democratic candidate, has also called for national standards on police force and for more thorough investigations of officer-involved shootings, as part of a police reform plan that is perhaps even more detailed.)

Echoing proposals by Sen. Kamala Harris, Sanders is also calling for higher pay to public defenders, who represent people without money to hire their own attorney, but who are currently underpaid and overwhelmed, with some juggling hundreds of felony cases a year. As part of that proposal, Sanders wants to cancel their student debt. His plan also suggests reinstating the federal parole system, which would allow people to spend less of their sentences in prison, and to expand the use of halfway houses, which the Trump administration has sent fewer people to. Other priorities in his plan include ending the national rape kit backlog, preventing children younger than 18 from being tried in adult courts, and guaranteeing a living wage to all incarcerated workers, many of which currently make mere pennies on the hour.

The senator unveiled his plan during a weekend of campaigning in South Carolina, an early voting state where the majority of Democratic voters are African American.

hightor wrote:

It looks as if he doesn't really understand how foreign trade works; his statements are prone to error and are often untrustworthy.

I was beginning to suspect just that

Have you read his policy on incarceration??? Amazing!!😊 I’m so damn glad this guy exists.

Sanders is a gadfly, plain and simple.