Bernie Sanders (I-VT) criticized his Republican colleagues on Tuesday for attacking Planned Parenthood while denouncing what he described as a pointless vote.
“Now is not the time to continue a witch hunt for an organization that provides critical health care services, from reproductive health care to cancer screenings and preventative services to millions of women,” Sanders said on the Senate floor. “No one is forced to seek care at Planned Parenthood. It is a choice — a choice millions of women make freely and proudly.”
The Democratic presidential candidate made mention of the recent attack against a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado, noting that the group had already been the subject of “vicious and unsubstantiated statements.” Instead of trying to defund it, he said, he hoped that legislators would move to expand its services.
“It is also my sincere hope that people throughout this country — including my colleagues here in the Senate and across the Capitol in the House — understand that bitter, vitriolic rhetoric can have serious, unintended consequences,” Sanders said.
As the socialist senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders attracts lots of unique fans. But not all of them have a Bernie Bus.
For months, Martin Buckley has been riding “the 101” -- a powder-blue bus decked out in American flags, Bernie Sanders signs and Christmas tree branches -- up and down the East Coast in support of his favorite candidate.
“It’s a 1992 handicapped children’s bus from Ohio,” he said while giving ABC News a tour. The bus runs entirely on vegetable oil, which “smells like vanilla cake when it first starts up.”
As Sanders supporters chanted outside the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on Sunday, Buckley ticked off items he had brought on board: a funeral organ, a 40-gallon water tank hidden inside a London steamer trunk, a counter acting as "Constitution Cafe," doors to act as bunk beds, and solar panels on the roof, which doubles as a stage for demonstrations.
Oh, and a 9-year-old rooster.
“This is my co-pilot, Mr. Clucky,” Buckley said, taking his feathered friend out of its cage behind the driver’s seat. “He loves to ride his bicycle.”
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is opening five more Nevada campaign offices, including one near the UNLV campus.
The campaign announced the new locations Tuesday and scheduled parties this week for each spot.
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The Sanders campaign will also have new locations in Henderson, Reno, North Las Vegas and northeast Las Vegas. It already occupies a space in western Las Vegas.
Campaign officials have said they plan to open as many as 12 offices and bring on anywhere from 25-100 staffers. The Sanders campaign started hiring Nevada staff this fall, months after Hillary Clinton's campaign.
I am a public school teacher, wife,and mother of three who has increasingly lost hope in the United States and its leaders. It seems that policies and decisions are made without much thought to their impact on marginalized populations and future generations.
However, Bernie Sanders has made me become less apathetic. His policies are something I agree with: addressing climate change, supporting veterans, raising minimum wage and giving back the power to average hardworking Americans.
The first step in getting Bernie Sanders into the White House is electing him as the Democratic candidate and this can only happen if registered Democrats vote for him in the Democratic caucus on March 1, 2016. I consider myself “independent” but have recently registered as a Democrat for the sole purpose of participating in the Democratic caucus. I am writing to urge you to do the same.
I have been going door to door lately trying to raise awareness of Bernie Sanders' run for the presidency. I have run across a lot of "independents." I love these people; they wish to not be bound by political machinery or shoehorned into orthodoxy. In short, they want to evaluate candidates on their merits. How much more true to American ideals can that be?
A large number of independents that I have spoken to support Sen. Sanders. In fact, several outright stated that they intend to vote for him. They were then confronted with the reality that the political machine does not want Sanders in the general election and they likely will not get to cast a vote for the person whom they deem of merit.
What to do? Co-opt the system. By going to govotecolorado.com, an independent can change their party affiliation to Democrat (ugh) in less than three minutes. If they do this before Dec. 31 they will, by the rules of the Colorado Democrat machine, be able to attend their neighborhood caucus on March 1, 2016, and cast a "vote" for the person of their choice.
As nearly 150 world leaders gather for a summit in Paris on climate change, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on Tuesday that the United States must lead the world in taking bold actions to stop climate change.
Calling the need to combat climate change a moral issue, Sanders agreed with Pope Francis about the urgent need to take action,
“The pope was right when he said the problems are getting worse and that unless we act ‘we are at the limits of suicide,’” Sanders said.
A member of the Senate environment and energy committees, Sanders said scientists have warned that there is a short window of opportunity to transform our energy systems away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy.
“The evidence is overwhelming. When the final calculations are made, 2015 will replace 2014 as the warmest year on record. Droughts, floods and severe storms already are impacting the planet and the situation will only become worse in years to come,” Sanders said.
Despite snide commentary and smirking pundits, Bernie Sanders correctly identifies climate change as the biggest threat we face today. Terrorists may wipe out pockets of people in their quest to gain attention, but climate change poses a threat to all life on the planet, and has the potential to exterminate our species along with many others in this (human-caused) sixth mass extinction.
Even the Pentagon understands that extremes of climate have intensified the struggle for food and water in the arid Middle East. They know more countries will experience upheaval, migration and conflict due to droughts, floods and famines if current trends continue.
Fossil-fuel-driven climate change is causing loss of forests (through drought, fires and spread of pests). There are organisms in the ocean that produce more than half the oxygen we breathe; we are jeopardizing them with the warming and acidification produced by unprecedented CO2 release during mankind’s existence on our planet.
Man evolved when air had 21 percent oxygen, but now some cities have as little as 12 percent. Global warming threatens our supply of food, potable water and adequate oxygen content in the very air we breathe.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has announced a plan for infrastructure investment. How does her plan stack up against that of her chief competitor, Bernie Sanders?
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Clinton's $275 billion infrastructure plan offers modest spending and contains few specifics. Contrast that with candidate Bernie Sanders, who has proposed a highly detailed, $1 trillion plan.
Sanders' infrastructure plan was originally introduced in January as a Senate bill called the Rebuild America Act. A summary is laid out on his campaign issues page, Creating Jobs Rebuilding America. The plan calls for spending $1 trillion over the same five-year period.
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Why does Clinton propose spending so much less than the needed amount? The second paragraph of her plan says, "Estimates of the size of our 'infrastructure gap' register in the trillions of dollars." Following the fourth paragraph, a new section begins, "That’s why Hillary Clinton is announcing a five-year $275 billion dollar infrastructure plan." That sums up Clinton's less-than-courageous proposal.
Republicans are not going to allow any infrastructure spending to pass anyway, so why not take a strong stand? And why not enter into negotiations with a solid progressive position to fall back from? Like her proposal for a $12 minimum wage while Sanders, labor and most progressives propose $15 – with Republicans allowing neither to become law – her $275 billion infrastructure proposal appears to be some sort of signal to voters that she is to the right of and perhaps less "scary" than Sanders. But it is also a recipe for little, if any, incremental improvement at a time when the people and the country clearly need transformative reform.
The Bernie News Roundup is a voluntary, non-campaign associated roundup of news, media, & other information related to Bernie Sanders' run for President.
More information about Bernie & The Issues @ feelthebern.org
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