He gave Biden credit for confronting “realities” from climate change to healthcare, “concerns progressives have had for decades”. He also dismissed criticism from the left for his relative closeness to the Biden White House. “You know politics,” Sanders said, “with a shrug”. “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Eight Democrats joined with Republicans yesterday to prevent Bernie Sanders from moving to add a $15 minimum wage to the COVID relief bill. History will not absolve them.
On a $15 Minimum Wage, Bernie Was on the Right Side of History
“Walmart, the largest employer in America, is owned by the richest family in America. Their wealth has gone up $50 billion during the pandemic, and they spend millions on themselves. But the company they own starts workers off at $11 an hour. That is outrageous.”
Calling Walton Family ‘Poster Child for Greed,’ Sanders Says Taxpayers Should No Longer Subsidize Walmart’s Starvation Wages | Common Dreams News
Bernie and AOC Are Right: Joe Biden Should Declare Climate Change a National Emergency
For decades, presidents have used their power to declare emergencies to sideline badly needed regulations and entrench the national security state. Now a group of Congress members led by AOC is proposing that those powers be used for good: to force action to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Bernie and AOC Are Right: Joe Biden Should Declare Climate Change a National Emergency
The symbolic power of Bernie’s old pair of mittens was the work of the “us” in “not me, us.”
The Meaning of the Mittens
Joe Biden and the Democratic establishment refuse to push Medicare for All even as COVID-19 continues to ravage the country. That’s all the more reason for us to demand, alongside Bernie Sanders, that everyone get the health care they need free of charge until the pandemic is over.
Bernie Sanders Is Right, and Joe Biden Is Wrong. We Still Need Medicare for All.
“When Republicans controlled the Senate they used the reconciliation process to provide huge tax breaks for the rich and large corporations,” said Sanders on Saturday. “We’re going to use reconciliation to protect working families, the sick and the poor.”
From Paul Ryan to Nikki Haley: GOP Nightmare of Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders About to Come True | Common Dreams News
“It must be made clear that no president, now or in the future, can lead an insurrection against the U.S. government.”
Why Impeach Trump at This Late Date? One Word, Says Bernie Sanders: ‘Precedent’ | Common Dreams News
Bernie Sanders is reportedly making a bid to be the secretary of labor in a potential Biden administration. That’s good news. The labor secretary has broad latitude to raise worker standards — and Bernie could use the bully pulpit to declare that all workers will have the full backing of the federal government if they organize on the job.
Bernie Sanders Would Make a Very Good Secretary of Labor
“Senator Bernie Sanders is planning to mount an aggressive campaign to counter potential attempts by President Donald Trump to delegitimise the results of the November election, warning that Democrats and Republicans alike must do “everything that we can to prevent that from happening.”
Bernie Sanders sounds alarm on a Trump ‘nightmare scenario’
. Bernie Sanders used a virtual town hall on Saturday to call out his fellow members of Congress who—in the midst of record-shattering heat waves, massively destructive storms, and unprecedented wildfires—continue to insist that a Green New Deal aimed at combating the climate emergency and creating millions of good-paying jobs in the process would be too costly.
Sanders Delivers Message to Lawmakers Who Claim US Can’t Afford Green New Deal: Climate Catastrophe Is ‘Much More Expensive’ | Common Dreams News
Biden told Sanders his endorsement “means a great deal” to him, saying, “I want to thank you for being a powerful voice. And you’ve been the most powerful voice for a fair and more just America.”
“It’s a voice like yours that refuses to allow us just to accept what is. You’ve refused to accept that we can’t change what’s wrong in our nation,” he added. “And you don’t get enough credit, Bernie.”
As Chomsky said, Sanders has fundamentally changed the conversation. Ideas that were unthinkable even two years ago are now part of the conversation. The media largely dismisses them, but the very fact that they have to respond at all speaks volumes. Politicians, too, are forced to respond to the ideas of M4A, tuition-free public college and eliminating student-loan debt. The conversation is changing. Sanders’ focus on the issues, sometimes unfortunately to the exclusion of smart politics, has brought that style of campaign back to the forefront of politics. Long may this continue.
Bernie Drops Out: A Post Mortem – » The Australian Independent Media Network
I’m sorry you will not be president, but I understand and appreciate your decision to end your quest at this point
Addressing the employment crisis by ensuring workers remain employed and paid as well as providing social services for everyone in the country, regardless of citizenship or immigration status
Guaranteeing a free at point of service Medicare for All single payer healthcaer system for everyone in the country
Immediately using the Defense Production Act to manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and other needed healthcare equipment for frontline workers dealing with the pandemic
Providing food for everyone in the country for the duration of the crisis
$600 billion in aid to states and cities
An immediate suspension of collections of rent, mortgage payments, medical debt, and consumer debt for four months and a suspension of student loan payments through the duration of the pandemic
No Billionaires or Corporations here (ODT)
via After South Carolina, MSNBC Pundits Write Off Bernie Sanders
The Vermont senator was alone in saying he would back whoever won a plurality of delegates – with others open to superdelegates tipping the balance for another candidate at the convention
via Debate shows Bernie Sanders could win most votes but be denied nomination | US news | The Guardian
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the neoliberal establishment residing within the U.S. Democratic Party would not want Bernie Sanders to get the presidential nomination.
It’s a simple matter of logistics. Capitalism is tanking, profiteering is harder to achieve, ergo a candidate gunning for health care for all and financial reform, higher taxes and a nationalised electricity grid creates problems for the establishment.
It’s not so hard to imagine the Democrats doing whatever they can from behind the scenes so the right person (for them) gets the nomination. It’s not hard to imagine any powerful political groups anywhere doing this — such is the corruption bar of the present time.
The old man the young with heart love and they along with Women and Black Americans have the capacity to change America’s Direction (ODT)
“Sanders is a movement candidate — who will be accountable to our generation,” Carney replied. “He has proven that he is aligned with the version of the world that we want to create. And since before our generation was born, he was fighting the injustices that we are fighting today.”
New Hampshire Youth Movement is a natural ally of the Bernie 2020 campaign, as the organization’s website makes clear:
via Bernie Sanders and His Movement Are on the Verge of History
Is Trump’s Impeachment raising Bernie? (ODT)
The Vermont senator is now the first choice of 25% of voters, the New York Times/Siena College survey found, an increase of six points from a similar poll taken in October.
A drop in popularity of Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator, from 22% to 15% accounts for Sanders’ boosted standing, with Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and former vice-president Joe Biden stagnant in second and third place respectively with 18 and 17%.
Sanders, 78, has been “consolidating support from liberals and benefiting from divisions among more moderate presidential candidates who are clustered behind him”, the New York Times article accompanying the poll data claimed.
via Bernie Sanders surges in Iowa poll ahead of caucuses | US news | The Guardian
“We need a serious debate in this country on issues,” Sanders said. “We don’t need to demonize people who may disagree with us. … I appeal to my supporters: Please, engage in civil discourse.” He pointed out (rightly) that “we’re not the only campaign that does it. Other people act that way as well.” But he added, “I would appeal to everybody: Have a debate on the issues. We can disagree with each other without being disagreeable, without being hateful.”
Sanders cited figures of vast wealth disparity in the United States, where “the top 1 percent of people own more wealth than the bottom 92 percent.” He said there is higher income and wealth inequality today than at any time since the 1920s. And, Sanders stated, “despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, the average wage of the American worker in real dollars is no higher than it was 46 years ago and millions of people are forced to work two or three jobs just to survive.”
via Bernie Sanders’ Radical New Proposal Could Transform America
But it has been an uncomfortable moment for Sanders, forcing him to speak about himself rather than systemic problems in American society.
He’s discovering that the shift from underdog to frontrunner comes with a catch: increased scrutiny. It’s a price Sanders will have to pay for the right to take on Donald Trump in 2020.( Matthew Knott Ch9)
What a load of hypocritical bullshit this is on the part of the Ch9 writer for The AGE Matthew Knott. It’s what you can expect from Murdoch Inc, and we will hear for a long time to come as an attack on Burnie Sanders.
However, individuals don’t choose their position in the Capitalist social system so readily it selects them in most cases. I’m an Australian millionaire and a Socialist. I believe it makes Sanders and I reasoned rather than just emotionally selfish because we know where we stand in the grand scheme of things. Sanders and I aren’t the exceptions nor do we need to be destitute, to be honest. To be able to recognise a rigged system for what it is and not support it is being educated. Education is something Capitalism has commoditised and is fast removing critical thinking from its curriculums.
We don’t believe in Charity and therefore have no need to give money away frivolously on bandaid causes. That too is the Capitalist promise of the trickle-down economic solution to everything rather than the taxing one so commoditising Charity as well.
AOC, Ilhan Omar is currently young Democrats and left-wing Socialists in Congress. Capitalism will if it continues on its current path will make them millionaires but not hypocrites or never Mother Theresas. They see a broader problem as does Sanders the American system.
It’s why the question is a distraction which will be aired by some thinking they are just devils advocates but are more just pushing the barrow helping regressive turn on the emotion rather than the truth of reasoned progress. (ODT)
“Trump said tonight, ‘We are born free, and we will stay free.’ Well, I say to President Trump: People are not truly free when they can’t afford to go to the doctor when they are sick. They are not truly free when they cannot afford to buy the prescription drugs they so desperately need. People are not truly free when they are exhausted because they are working longer and longer hours for lower wages.” Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders quickly delved into all the things Trump got wrong about the economy, infrastructure, health care, immigration and more in his own response delivered online.
The nearly 30-minute speech was watched by tens of thousands on YouTube alone, where commenters filled the page with comments such as “Bernie 2020” and “Feel the Bern” and expressed their support for progressive policies supported by the Vermont senator such as “Medicare-for-all” and the “Green New Deal.”
Here are some of the highlights of his speech, followed by the full video below:
Sanders Highlights American Struggles in Fierce SOTU Response
Pulling no punches, the Vermont senator says Trump’s lies are a “very serious political problem in this country”
Source: Bernie Sanders slams Donald Trump: “What should we do if the president is a liar?” – Salon.com
Source: 
olddogthoughts 