Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders railed against the political and economic establishment he contends has failed the middle class during a campaign appearance Monday.
Thousands of people packed into the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University to cheer on the U.S. senator from Vermont as he called for a “political revolution.”
Although Sanders has focused his political message on the economy, he began his hourlong-plus speech talking about the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, saying what is needed to defeat the Islamic State is an international coalition involving not only Western nations, but also Iran and other countries in the Middle East.
He also criticized Republicans for trying to score political points, included a pointed critique at those who have called for a halt to allowing Syrian refugees into the country. He said Americans should not give in to Islamophobia and turn their backs on those in need.
“Now is not the time for demagoguery and fearmongering,” Sanders said shortly before pivoting to the economy.
Sanders said he is running a campaign without the help of the rich, who he accused of trying to buy elections through unlimited donations to super PACs and candidates who will defend the interests of Wall Street.
A largely working-class crowd of 6,000 people got a bellyful — and earful — of Bernie Sanders’ populist rhetoric as preached “political revolution” on Monday night.
And they seemingly loved every minute, and point after point after point, made by the Democratic presidential candidate as he thundered on for 80 minutes at a rally at Cleveland State University’s half-full Wolstein Center.
The U.S. senator from Vermont, a socialist who ties the excesses and indulgences of the wealthy and Wall Street to the economic plight of the average working man and woman, touched on nearly all things foreign and domestic.
But, there was one place he didn’t go. Sanders never once mentioned the woman he is chasing to wrest away the Democratic nomination — the front-running Hillary Clinton.
Sanders did call out some Republican presidential candidates, but not by name, as he talked of the tragedy of terrorism in Paris and GOP calls for U.S. military intervention in the Mideast to destroy ISIS.
Bernie Sanders usually begins his massive rallies across the country by talking about the decline of the middle class and economic inequality in America, drawing cheers from thousands of adoring supporters.
Here in Cleveland Monday night, though, he opened with foreign policy to a crowd that seemed surprised to hear it—a sign of just how much Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris have scrambled the 2016 race and forced every candidate to address the threat of ISIS on the campaign trail, no matter where their focus typically lies.
“Let me begin my remarks in a somewhat somber way, in telling you what you already know: that as Americans we are appalled, we are disgusted, by the attack against the people of Paris by the terrorist organization ISIS,” he said. “And I know that I speak for everyone here and everyone in our country when we send our condolences to the families who lost loved ones in that barbaric attack.”
The crowd at Cleveland State University, which the campaign said was more than 7,000 people strong, broke the pattern of a traditional Sanders rally as well. Gone were the deafening cheers that erupted when he first took the stage: The crowd remained silent through the beginning of his foreign policy remarks and only cheered again when Sanders called out those who are “trying to take political advantage of this difficult moment.”
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In discussing the best way to eliminate ISIS, Sanders called for an international coalition that includes all enemies of ISIS, including those with whom the United States does not agree on other issues.
“Now is the time, as President Obama is trying to do, to unite the world in an organized campaign against ISIS by bringing together all of the countries who have common interest in defeating international terrorism—even countries that we have disagreements with,” he said. “… What we need is an international coalition including Iran and Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait and Turkey. Putting together this coalition is not going to be easy … but that is what President Obama and Secretary [of State John] Kerry are trying to do, and I support their efforts.”
Bernie Sanders said Sunday in Iowa that he would support working with Russia and Iran to combat the ISIS, taking a slightly more hawkish stance than he did earlier in his campaign.
"We have different points of view ... but Russia has got to join us. We are concerned about Iran, but Iran has to join us. We have concerns about Saudi Arabia, but Saudi Arabia has to join us," Sanders said during a speech at Simpson College. "If all over the world these attacks are taking place, the world has got to come together."
The Vermont senator, who has not outlined a detailed plan to defeat ISIS, has long stressed cooperation to combat terror and stressed that the United States should not take the lead on the effort.
His willingness to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a world leader who's had a rocky relationship to the U.S., makes it unclear how Sanders -- someone who is notably against further foreign entanglements -- would work with Russia without getting more involved in Syria.
In an interview after his speech on Sunday night, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate said it is possible to "destroy ISIS" when countries work together.
"When you have Russia, when you have Iran, when you have Saudi Arabia, when you have Western Europe, when you have those countries united in the fight against ISIS, we will destroy ISIS," he said. "Now what I have said is that I think the folks that have got to be on the ground are the people who are fighting for the soul of Islam. That is not American troops, that is troops from the region. They can't sit it out, they have got to be on the ground. We should be supportive. Very supportive."
On Monday evening, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders addressed the ongoing crisis of Syrian refugees fleeing the Islamic State. In a press release sent shortly after his appearance ended, the Vermont senator called for a “concerted international effort” to vanquish ISIS.
He also criticized the fear mongering among U.S. political leaders and talking heads who are calling for the United States to close its borders to Syrian refugees and other refugees seeking asylum from terrorists.
“In my view, now is the time for developing a serious and effective approach to destroy ISIS. Now is not the time for taking cheap political advantage of this tragedy. Now is the time…to unite the world in an organized campaign against ISIS that will eliminate the stain of ISIS from this world.”
“But let me also say that now is not the time for demagoguery and fear mongering…During these difficult times, we will not succumb to Islamaphobia. We will not turn our backs on the refugees who are fleeing Syria and Afghanistan. We will do what we do best and that is to be Americans — fighting racism, fighting xenophobia, fighting fear.”
Appearing in Ohio for the first time since becoming a presidential candidate, Sanders said he was “disturbed” by what he was hearing from “my Republican colleagues.”
“During these difficult times, we will not succumb to racism,” the Vermont senator said, drawing loud cheers from a crowd at Cleveland State University. “We will not allow ourselves to be divided and succumb to Islamophobia.”
Sanders said that it’s essential that the United States work as part of an international coalition, including Muslim nations, to destroy ISIS -- and said the country must act in a way that is “tough but not stupid.”
“Yes, a worldwide coalition must defeat ISIS,” Sanders said. “But no, the United States must not be involved in perpetual warfare in the Middle East.”
He blamed former president George W. Bush for leading the nation into a misguided war in Iraq, which Sanders said bred “massive instability in the region, chaos which allowed the rise of ISIS.”
“He was very, very tough -- but not very smart,” Sanders said of Bush.
With just under a year left until the presidential election, Yale students got the chance to discuss pressing national economic questions with a top adviser to a major presidential candidate.
Stephanie Kelton, an advisor to Bernie Sanders, outlined the motivations and details behind the Democratic presidential candidate’s chief economic policies and also highlighted the broader economic challenges facing the United States at a discussion Monday. Kelton, who also serves as the chief economist for the Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee, joined the Yale College Democrats and a group of roughly 40 students in the Branford Common Room.
Kelton underscored that Sanders’ chief initiatives — which include raising the minimum wage to $15, implementing shorter work weeks and breaking up the big banks — are aimed at creating a groundswell of support that can sustain a “political revolution.”
“In terms of explaining his ideas in a really clear and compelling way, I think there’s nobody better,” Kelton said in an interview with the News. “And I think the demographic that he is dealing best with is young people.”
She added that one of the more complex economic issues Sanders has championed is financial sector reform. He is dedicated to reforming systemically dangerous institutions that can “bring down the entire national economy,” she said.
There are no doubt convincing political and demographic reasons for Sanders’ competitiveness, the most obvious being that the long-time Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is widely regarded as unprincipled and insufficiently liberal. But none of these reasons explain why I like Sanders. I’m not a Democrat, a socialist or a social democrat. I’m a conservative.
Let me stress: I would not vote for Sanders under any circumstance. I find some of his statements reprehensible, as when he says that the United States is not “anything resembling a just society today.” That’s a preposterous slur.
Yet I enjoy listening to him speak and rather envy those who can in good conscience support his candidacy. My reluctant admiration began when I heard him in a radio interview. “In my view,” he told the interviewer, “health care is a right, not a privilege.”
Health care, in the sense in which we use the term, has only existed for a century or so; to claim we have some inherent “right” to it is an abuse of language. But it wasn’t the content of Sanders’ claim that caught my attention. It was that little introductory phrase: “In my view.” How refreshing to hear a politician — an ambitious one at that — refer to an ideological stance as a “view.” The phrase suggests that he acknowledges the existence and legitimacy of other views.
“In my view,” he said in the first Democratic debate, “what we need to do is create millions of jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour” and several other things that, if done in tandem, would ruin the nation’s economy for a generation. Very few politicians characterize their views as views in this way, so terrified are they that someone might not treat their assertions as peremptory truth.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday pressed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to endorse legislation to provide paid family leave for new parents.
Sanders has called for three months of paid leave if an employee has a child. Clinton says she supports the idea too but her campaign has not detailed a plan or endorsed legislation by leading advocates in Congress.
Sanders is one of 19 Senate cosponsors of the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act introduce by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Clinton’s successor in the Senate. In the House, Rep. Rosa DeLauro is the chief sponsor of a companion bill with 112 cosponsors. The measures also would provide paid leave for workers diagnosed with a serious medical condition.
Sanders spoke about the proposal during a town meeting Sunday night in Indianola, Iowa. “It is unconscionable that millions of new parents in this country are forced back to work because they don’t have the income to stay home with their newborn babies.”
The family leave legislation would be paid for by a small payroll tax totaling $1.38 a week for a typical worker, which Sanders at a meeting with family caregivers in Des Moines on Sunday called “a good investment.”
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders joined Snapchat on Monday, becoming the latest contender in the 2016 White House race to join the social media app popular with teens and millennials.
On his official Twitter account (@BernieSanders), the 74-year-old U.S. senator from Vermont announced that he had joined Snapchat: “What is this Snapshot thing and why do I only get ten seconds?”
Snapchat, a messaging app particularly popular among people ages 18 to 24, a desirable group of potential voters, allows its almost 200 million users to send photo messages that disappear in seconds.
Sanders joined Snapchat as “bernie.sanders” and just hours later posted his first “Snap Story,” a string of snaps that lasts for 24 hours instead of just few seconds: “3, 2, 1 … We’re off to Cleveland. Join the political revolution. Help us make real change in America.”
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