Sanders At The Jefferson-Jackson Dinner
Senator Bernie Sanders delivered his sharpest criticism to date of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton tonight at the Iowa Democratic Party’s historic Jefferson-Jackson dinner.
The Vermont senator and longest-serving independent member of Congress did not say the word "Clinton" once, but he implicitly drew contrast between his voting record and the political careers of both Hillary Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton. He focused in on gay rights, free trade, the Keystone pipeline and the Iraq War specifically.
"In 1996, I faced another fork in the road. A very, very difficult political situation. It was called the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA," he said, referring to the law signed by President Clinton. "And let us all remember that gay and lesbian rights were not popular then, as they are today. It was a tough vote. ... That was not a politically easy vote.
"Now today, some are trying to rewrite history by saying that they voted for one anti-gay law to stop something worse," he said. "That is not the case. There was a small minority in the house opposed to discriminating against our gay brothers and sisters and I am proud that I was one of those members."
Sanders On The March
Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, used his speech to draw sharp contrasts with Clinton on a number of issues, implicitly criticizing her delayed opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Keystone XL pipeline as well as her vote in favor of the Iraq war.
Without naming Clinton, he pointedly criticized the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act during Bill Clinton’s administration, saying in prepared remarks, “some are trying to rewrite history by saying they voted for one anti-gay law to stop something worse. Let us be clear. That’s just not true.” Hillary Clinton said in an interview with MSNBC on Friday that the law was signed as a “defensive action.”
“I will govern based on principle not poll numbers,” Sanders said. “I pledge to you that every day I will fight for the public interest not the corporate interests.” He vowed “not to abandon any segment of American society — whether you’re gay or black or Latino or poor or working class — just because it is politically expedient at a given time.”
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It capped a daylong pageant of political activities: Former President Bill Clinton headlined his first rally of the campaign, introducing pop singer Katy Perry at a free concert for Clinton’s faithful. Sanders led cheering supporters across a Des Moines bridge in a march that included chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho, the oligarchy has to go!”
Sanders On Republican Amnesia:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders went on the attack against the GOP during a campaign speech at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Iowa on Saturday night.
The dinner was described by USA Today as a “fundraiser, an organizational test, a media frenzy and an old-fashioned political spectacle” that has a history of being pivotal in primary nominations.
Sanders took to the stage to remind the crowd that so-called fiscally conservative Republicans ran up the deficit, and that before President Obama took office, the global financial system was “on the verge of collapse” and hundreds of thousands of people were losing their jobs each month.
“They suffer from amnesia,” Sanders said. “They forgot what the world looked like seven years ago. They forgot that 800,000 people a month were losing their jobs. They forgot that the world’s financial system was on the verge of collapse. And they just forgot that we ran up the largest deficit in the history of the United States in the last year of George Bush.”
Bernie Sanders: Public college should be free:
In 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes became the first president to make a strong case for universally available public education. “Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education,” he said in his inaugural address, adding that “liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools.” Hayes, a Republican, didn’t worry that some poor kid might benefit from access to “free stuff,” nor did he believe that the children of wealthy elites should be excluded from the universal nature of the program. For him, education was the basis for full economic and political participation, and full participation was the basis for all prosperity. An education should be available to all regardless of anyone’s station.
Today, there is universal access to free, public schools across the United States for kindergarten through 12th grade. That didn’t happen by presidential decree. It took populist pressure from the progressive movement, beginning in the 1890s, to make widespread access to free public schools a reality. By 1940, half of all young people were graduating from high school. As of 2013, that number was 81 percent. But that achievement is no longer enough. A college degree is the new high school diploma.
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It is time to build on the progressive movement of the past and make public colleges and universities tuition-free in the United States - a development that will be the driver of a new era of American prosperity. We will have a stronger economy and a stronger democracy when all young people with the ambition and the talent can reach their full potential, regardless of their circumstances at birth.
Bernies Secularism Is An Important Difference With Clinton:
Bernie Sanders has frequently championed economic issues, has often spoken out on Clinton’s pro-war stance, and has now become a more reluctant culture warrior and hero to secularists in this campaign.
Sanders appeared much more comfortable in this position when appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week. To the shock of conservatives, and delight of secularists, Sanders downplayed the role of religion.
While discussing social/cultural issues, Sanders also said he is “not unfavorably disposed to moving towards the legalization of marijuana” when asked by Kimmel. He came out strongly against the drug war in pointing out, “We have more people in jail today than any other country on Earth.” He also said, “We have large numbers of lives that have been destroyed because of this war on drugs and because people were caught smoking marijuana and so forth. I think we have to end the war on drugs.”
This is quite a contrast to the views of Hillary Clinton, who has been as much a war-monger on the drug war as on foreign policy.
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Clinton’s cultural conservatism and promotion of conservative causes has often been seen in her membership in The Fellowship while in the Senate
More On The Recent Rocking With Bernie Show:
Last night (Oct. 23), Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders held his “Rockin’ the Bern” event in Davenport, Iowa and it featured a wealth of musicians, including Alice in Chains frontman William DuVall. The singer performed covers of Tom Petty‘s “Won’t Back Down” and Bruce Springsteen‘s “Born in the U.S.A.” Also featured on stage were musicians Wayne Kramer, singer-songwriters Marshall Crenshaw and Jill Sobule, locals Brother Trucker and Matthew Grimm, punk icon Walter Schreifels of Quicksand, Lisa Kekaula and Bob Vennum of the Bellrays, Sean Kelly of the Samples, Ryan Miller of Guster, Eric Gardner of Street Sweeper Social Club and Brad Jones, according to The Bern Report.
Commenting on Sanders before singing “Won’t Back Down,” the singer stated, “For quite awhile now, I’ve had to listen to a lot of mean-spirited talk from people who do not agree with us, saying they want their country back. But, of course, by ‘back,’ they mean ‘backwards.’ The thing is, I don’t wanna go backwards. ‘Cause that’s one of the reasons why I’m here tonight — ’cause I’m ‘feeling the Bern’ and I wanna take it forwards.”
The Sanders Schtick:
Bernie Sanders is having a moment.
And his moment looks nothing like what many people -- not even Bernie Sanders himself -- would likely have predicted for the super-serious Democratic socialist president candidate. Known for his dour, everything-is-awful approach to politics, Sanders has more recently become something else entirely. He has morphed into a kind of walking punchline for a joke that he is (sometimes) in on.
Sanders went on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and went all meta, impersonating David, his doppelganger. Or perhaps he was just being Bernie Sanders. It was hard to tell.
His campaign says part of the flood of Sanders late night appearances is simply because he is getting invited -- which wasn't the case earlier.
"We have opportunities now that we didn't have before. We are getting invites," said Tad Devine, a senior Sanders adviser. "He is getting more comfortable doing stuff like that and he has come to accept that it's part of the process."
We Need A 40 Hour Workweek
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) thinks Americans may have forgotten about the 40-hour week.
"A hundred years ago workers took to the streets" to fight for 40 hours, Sanders told The Huffington Post. "And a hundred years have come and gone, we’ve seen an explosion in technology, we’ve seen an explosion in productivity, we have a great global economy, and what do you have? The vast majority of people are working longer hours for lower wages."
American workers with full-time jobs work an average of 42.7 hours per week, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Including part-timers in the calculation puts the average American workweek at 39 hours.
Sanders said he wants to appropriate the term "family values" from Republicans, who have historically used it to talk about social issues, and use it to promote legislation mandating paid vacation, paid sick days and paid parental leave for U.S. workers.
The Hedgehog And The Fox:
Here’s how Bernie Sanders is the only truly contemporary politician in the Democratic field: He’s a hedgehog, and the current political climate – not just in America, but globally – favors hedgehogs.
The terms “hedgehog” and “fox” were popularized in 1953 by the scholar Isaiah Berlin, although the credit for the coinage goes to Archilochus, the ancient Greek poet: “a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing.”
The most successful hedgehog in recent American political history was undoubtedly Ronald Reagan.Reagan cared little for the details of policy implementation: instead, he embodied large, resonant ideas about reducing the size of the government while fighting the Evil Empire.
Barack Obama, by contrast, is the ultimate fox. He came into office with great ambition but precious little ideology: He wanted to get things done, and brought in highly regarded experts who would not only get things done but get the best things done, in the best possible way.
When I interviewed Sanders last week, the idea was for us to put politics to one side and wonk out a bit on the subject of economic policy. But policy wonkery is what foxes do, not hedgehogs, which explains why the interview got, well, a bit prickly at times. The hedgehog knows one important thing, which is that billionaires and large corporations have too much money and too much power, and that the people, at the ballot box, need to reclaim that power.