The three major Democratic candidates for president ripped Republicans to the cheers of 1,400 party faithful Sunday at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner fundraiser.
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Sanders, without naming Clinton, drew sharp distinctions between himself and the former secretary of state.
Sanders said that if his support continues, he can pull off one of the great political upsets in U.S. history.
“From coast to coast, the American people are crying out for change, for real change,” Sanders said. “They are tired of the same old, same old establishment politics, establishment economics and establishment foreign policy. They want this county to move in a new direction.”
Sanders said that as he travels the country and draws thousands of people – including many political newcomers -- to his rallies, “I see a future not just for my candidacy but also for the Democratic Party.
“I believe the campaign we are running is a campaign that not only regains the White House but takes the Democratic Party in a huge step forward into the future.”
“We are running a campaign which calls for real change” Sanders said. “We are running a campaign which calls for a political revolution and tonight I ask all of you to join in that revolution.”
Despite an extremely tight primary race in New Hampshire, neither she nor Sanders mentioned each other by name in their speeches. Still, each took some subtle jabs.
Sanders again touted his U.S. House vote against the war in Iraq in 2002, while Clinton repeated her promise to not tax middle-class families. Last week, Clinton’s campaign sent out emails hitting Sanders on his social programs, saying they would unfairly tax middle-class families to pay for his proposed programs to grow jobs and make health care and public college free.
Sanders also took a stance on a local issue Sunday night; he came out against the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline. Sanders is the first candidate to come out strongly against the controversial energy infrastructure project which, if federally approved, is slated to transport natural gas through towns in southwestern New Hampshire.
“I opposed the Keystone pipeline from Day One,” Sanders said. “And that is why, right here in New Hampshire, I believe the Northeast Direct Energy pipeline that would carry fracked natural gas for 400 miles through 17 communities is a bad idea and should be opposed.”
Sanders also devoted a substantial part of his speech to foreign policy, calling for Arab countries to share more of the burden of the fight against ISIS and to stop relying so heavily on Western forces.
Let me begin by thanking all of you who are here today for doing what too few Americans do. Thank you all, every person in this room, for standing up for American democracy and participating in the political process.
Let me also say that if these were normal times many people in our country could be supportive of Establishment politics, Establishment economics and Establishment foreign policy. But these are not normal times. And what I see, from coast to coast is an American people crying out for change, for real change. They do not want the same-old, same-old. They want a political revolution.
When, in the last election, 63 percent of the American people didn’t vote, when 80 percent of young people and low income people didn’t vote; when millions of people have given up on the political process; when there is profound disgust across the political spectrum with a campaign finance system that allows millionaires and billionaires to buy elections through their super PACs, now is not the time for establishment politics. Now is the time for a political revolution.
When most Americans understand that we are living in a rigged economy where almost all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent, where Wall Street continues to dominate our economic and political life, when corporate profits soar while millions of our children live in poverty – now is not the time for establishment economics. Now is the time for a political revolution.
When our foreign policy, for the last many decades, has failed the American people, has led to wars, like the war in Iraq which we should never have gotten into. Now is not the time for more establishment foreign policy.
We began this campaign seven months ago. We had no organization, no money, very little national name recognition and were at 3 percent in the polls. Today, we have hundreds of thousands of volunteers in every state in the country, including some 5,600 here in New Hampshire. Today, without a super PAC, we have more than 800,000 individual contributors – more than any candidate in the history of our country at this point in a campaign for a first term. And, today, with your help, we are poised to pull off one of the great political upsets in the history of our country. We have come a long way in seven months. The people of this country want real change.
Bernie Sanders offers a plan that would permit students to attend college without having to pay for tuition or apply for grants. According to his website, Sanders’s plan would be fully paid for by taxing Wall Street speculators. He notes this is a similar tax to those imposed in many European countries that offer a tuition-free college education. Such countries include Germany, France, Switzerland, and even China.
Considering the source of many student loans, Bernie Sanders’s plan would keep the federal government from making a profit off of college students and their families. According to his campaign website, the federal government currently makes $110 billion in profits from its student loan programs.
Hillary Clinton’s plan is merely a continuation of a financial burden that many middle class and low-income families may not be able to afford. However, wealthy families will have no issue in paying for these expenses because they already have more money to spare. Likewise, wealthy families should have no issue with bearing a moderate increase in taxes in order to fund higher education for their children and for other people’s children, as well.
In the end, a slight tax increase is much cheaper than a student carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, which is still what Hillary Clinton’s plan would allow. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, is proposing a more sensible plan based on successful higher education programs already in place.
It is time to invest in the future, and the way to do that is to relieve the burden of crushing student debt and adopt a free college tuition plan, as Bernie Sanders has proposed.
The question was clearly meant to be a trap. At the November 14 Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders was asked if he still thought that climate change was “the most important threat for US security,” as the candidate had recently said. The day before, of course, Paris had been bloodied by terrorist attacks of unprecedented brutality in France, which seemed to relegate the urgency of the “climate emergency” for a lower level.
Sanders answered that he “absolutely” maintained his opinion. “Climate change is indeed directly related to the raised terrorist threat,” he said. “If we do not listen to what the scientists tell us, we will see countries around the world — that’s what the CIA says — fighting for access to water, to arable land, and we would see all sorts of conflicts arising.”
Drawing a link between security and climate change inspired mockery from some quarters. But this link is a certainty, and a sufficiently unpleasant one that we systematically forget it, only to see it raise its ugly head over and over again.
In March 2008, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy forwarded an unambiguous report to member states on this very issue. Seven years after it was written, it clearly served as an eerily accurate warning. The text said that global warming acts as a “threat multiplier” in areas already suffering from social, political, religious or ethnic tensions.
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With the November 13 attacks, Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraqa and the Levant) has dominated the political agenda in the short term. The decisive COP21 climate conference that is scheduled to begin today in the French capital has become less of a priority, by virtue of circumstance. This is bad news for the fight against global warming. But for Daesh and those who thrive on the desperation of the poor, it’s a major victory.
Too big to fail" means one thing for banks and another thing for union pension funds.
When banks are on the verge of collapse, Congress bails them out. When union pension funds are in mortal danger, Congress changes the law to let them shaft retirees.
Did you miss that newsflash? So did many of the 407,000 unsuspecting Teamsters, mainly former truck drivers, who received letters in October announcing whether their pension benefits will be cut.
Two-thirds of them got bad news. The Central States Pension Fund claims it will be reducing members' retirement checks by an average of 23 percent. Union activists say that figure is much higher, and for some the reductions will top 60 percent.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio have introduced companion bills, the Keep Our Pension Promises Act. They would prop up the vulnerable pension funds through changes in the tax code affecting wealthier people.
Why is it that no one but the retired workers -- the only people who have held up their side of the bargain through their years of labor -- are being made to suffer the consequences?
t used to be that you couldn’t find too many Hollywood celebrities who were willing to go on the record as Bernie Sanders supporters. Even as Hillary Clinton’s numbers were sliding amid news reports that she used a private email server during her years as secretary of state, Hollywood remained squarely in Clinton’s camp.
But these days more and more A-list names are publicly coming out in support of the Vermont senator, something unfathomable just a few months ago.
“I witnessed 20,000 people screaming for this guy at the L.A. Sports Arena and he wasn’t even wearing leather pants,” The Doors drummer John Densmore told TheWrap. “Here was a 73-year-old disheveled Vermont independent senator packing up a stadium. I knew something was happening.”
Those who support Sanders say he seems to have struck a chord with Hollywood millennials, attracted to his progressive ideology and increasingly frustrated with Washington gridlock and growing income inequality.
“Hillary is a formidable and smart candidate and she definitely enjoys the support of older people in Hollywood,” said “Mom” star and Sanders fundraiser Mimi Kennedy. “But Bernie speaks to the younger generation of actors. They want Bernie.”
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