radiofree.asia

Category: bernie sanders

  • Unionized Boston Starbucks Workers Celebrate Win After 64-Day Strike

    Boston Starbucks workers have ended their two-month strike after management yielded to their main demand, bringing an end to the longest Starbucks strike in history.

    The workers at a unionized Starbucks near Boston University have been on strike since mid-July, largely protesting what they say was an unlawful unilateral change to employee policy from the company to force part-time workers to have the equivalent of full-time availability, even if they are only scheduled for 20 hours a week or less. Workers said that, if the part-timers didn’t have such availability, they could risk termination.

    On Sunday, management agreed to end the enforcement of the policy after the workers held a consistent strike for 64 days, the union says.

    “We are excited that our partners whose availability only permits a part-time schedule will no longer be at risk of losing their jobs because of this arbitrary rule,” the workers wrote in a statement. “We are also proud of our partners in Watertown, MA who joined us in taking action against this rule during their most recent strike action — this victory was won by all of us.”

    Along with the end of the minimum availability requirement, workers say they also won a number of other victories, largely related to problems with their store manager, Tomi Chorlian. Chorlian “aggressively” cut employees’ hours, they say, leaving the store “dramatically” understaffed. She had also used “harmful and offensive rhetoric” regarding race, gender and sexual orientation against workers and customers, according to the workers’ statement.

    The district manager overseeing the store is now looking to replace Chorlian and will be investigating her behavior with the participation of the workers.

    The staunchly anti-union company claims that, despite the end of the strike, nothing has changed policy-wise for the workers.

    Workers thanked the community for helping them keep the picket line staffed for 24 hours a day during the strike.

    “Keeping our picket line alive 24-hours a day for 64 days took a village of community supporters, union siblings, friends, and Starbucks workers,” they wrote. “We are incredibly inspired by this display of solidarity, and we look forward to supporting y’all in the larger fight for worker power.”

    The strike had garnered support from a wide swath of prominent politicians, including people like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who visited the picket line last month in a trip to rally with labor leaders in Boston.

    Sanders congratulated the workers on Twitter on Wednesday. “Let me congratulate the Starbucks workers in Boston who won their 64-day strike for fair schedules and decent working conditions,” he wrote. “When workers stand together and fight for justice, there is nothing they cannot accomplish. I was proud to have stood on the picket line with them.”

    Police had shown up to the picket line multiple times, with the seeming purpose of breaking up the strike. Picketers were threatened with arrest last week and police came once in August to remove furniture from the patio that workers were picketing on, watching them to ensure they didn’t return to the area.

    “If this isn’t blatant union busting, what is?” the union wrote of the August incident.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders to Democrats: If You Support Progressive Policies, “You Win Elections”

    On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) explained to Democrats that, if they want to win elections this fall and beyond, they must support and implement popular progressive policies like student debt cancellation and resist pressure from deep-pocketed donors to give sweeping tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy.

    In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Sanders said that Democratic candidates and lawmakers must position themselves firmly behind the working class and fight against corporate greed, rather than work to feed it.

    “If Democrats are going to do well in 2022, in my view, they’ve got to stand up very firmly for working families,” the Vermont progressive said. “Now is the time, if you want to win an election, to say … ‘I’m prepared to take on greedy, powerful corporate interests who are enjoying record breaking profits while you Americans can’t afford health care, can’t afford to send your kids to college and are working for starvation wages.’ That, to my mind, is how you go forward and win.”

    Backing policies like student debt relief is one such way that Democrats can be on the side of working families, he said.

    “I have the radical idea that good policy is good politics. And it is good policy to cancel student debt in this country,” he said, noting that he would have gone further than President Joe Biden did in his debt cancellation plan. “If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants, billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections.”

    On the flip side, Republican efforts to stop student debt relief from ever reaching borrowers will “hurt them politically,” Sanders said, noting that polls have found that canceling student debt is widely popular.

    Progressives have long maintained that supporting popular movements like Medicare for All or more recently the growing labor movement is a strong way to gain political power and support from voters. This theory stands in sharp contrast to the way that modern mainstream political candidates from both major parties run their campaigns, soliciting donations from corporations and rich donors — and perhaps promising benefits to them in return — in order to outspend their opponents and win.

    While money remains a powerful force in politics, recent wins from progressives running against corporate-backed opponents suggest that progressives may be right in their assessment of the electoral landscape. Though big donors still successfully defeat progressive candidates who vow not to take corporate funds, primary wins from progressive candidates like Pennsylvania’s Rep. Summer Lee or Oregon’s Jamie McLeod-Skinner this year are bucking the trend.

    Democrats are in need of a boost if they want to maintain control of Congress this fall. Recent polls have found that, while Democrats may be experiencing a surge in support due to moves like the student debt cancellation plan, they will need further support in order to keep their majorities in the Senate and the House.

    Sanders also emphasized in his interview that recent successes from the labor movement could be a major vehicle for political change — and an opportunity for Democrats to demonstrate which side they’re on.

    Recent news with the potential railroad strike, for instance, has exposed “the most ugly type of corporate greed imaginable” from railroad owners, he said. Because of strict attendance policies, workers are often not even able to take time off if they or their spouses are ill — and workers and rail unions say railroad owners are so adamant in their refusal to acquiesce to workers’ time off demands that they’re willing to risk tanking the U.S. economy and push their workers to strike.

    Workers’ willingness to stand up to rail owners and other labor activists’ struggles are a powerful rebuke of growing corporate greed, Sanders said.

    “People are standing up, fighting back,” he said. “What you are seeing right now are workers saying ‘enough is enough. You guys on top — you can’t have it all.’ We need an economy that works for all of us. Unions are one vehicle that help people get decent wages and working conditions.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Tells Warren Buffett to Treat Rail Workers Better and Avert Strike

    As a strike by tens of thousands of railroad workers looms, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is calling on multibillionaire and owner of a parent company involved, Warren Buffett, to listen to workers’ demands and intervene to avert the strike.

    Rail workers have been pleading with major freight companies to agree to give workers basic benefits; one of the biggest sticking points, workers say, is that many of them can’t take sick or emergency days, whether paid or unpaid, without racking up points that could lead to their termination. Workers say they’re also expected to be on call 24/7, which exacerbates burnout and exhaustion.

    One of the major freight companies that unions say won’t budge on this is BNSF, which is owned by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. As union representatives told The Washington Post, BNSF is also one of the two major rail companies, along with Union Pacific, that are blocking process on negotiations. The group representing the rail companies says that workers aren’t denied sick time.

    “In the midst of a potential rail strike, Warren Buffett, the owner of BNSF Railway’s parent company, worth $100 billion, must intervene,” Sanders wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “During the pandemic, Mr. Buffett became $36 billion richer. He must ensure that rail workers receive decent wages and safe working conditions.”

    Two of the 12 unions involved in negotiations have ratified agreements as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the National Carriers’ Conference Committee (NCCC), which represents railroads in negotiations, but there are still a number of negotiations pending involving the largest unions.

    Though it is unlikely that Buffett would heed Sanders’s call, it underscores the players of the looming strike, which the unions say can be blamed on corporate greed and “extortion,” as two of the largest unions involved, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), Teamsters Rail Conference and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Transportation Division, said in a joint statement on Sunday.

    Indeed, U.S. rail companies are making record profits, as the stock prices for all of the largest railroads – known as Class I railroads – rose in 2021. They have paid out nearly $200 billion in stock buybacks and dividends to shareholders in the past 12 years – and yet, in recent years, have eliminated tens of thousands of jobs and are pushing workers to the breaking point.

    BLET President Dennis Pierce says that the unions and the companies aren’t far apart in negotiations – and yet, the companies won’t budge to grant workers their request for a time off benefit.

    “All we’re asking is folks to be able to go to routine doctor’s visits without pay, but they have refused to accept our proposals,” Pierce said to The Washington Post. “The average American would not know that we get fired for going to the doctor. This one thing has our members most enraged. We have guys who were punished for taking time off for a heart attack and COVID. It’s inhumane.”

    If workers are pushed to strike, it will have major consequences for a large range of industries covering basic needs like energy, water and food. The White House has stepped in on the negotiations, hoping to work out an agreement between the unions.

    Republicans in Congress are planning to force a vote on a bill on Wednesday that would force both parties to accept an arbitration agreement, an option that’s favored by conservative lobbyists and railways. It’s expected to be blocked by Democrats.

    Sanders spoke out against the move on the Senate floor on Wednesday afternoon.

    While industry CEOs and companies are raking in large compensation packages and record profits, Sanders pointed out that workers are being treated inhumanely. “The key issue that is being contested is about the working conditions in the industry which are absolutely unacceptable and are almost beyond belief,” he said.

    “What the freight rail industry is saying to its workers is this: it does not matter if you have covid, it doesn’t matter if you’re lying in a hospital bed, it doesn’t matter if your wife just gave birth to your child, it doesn’t matter. If you do not come in to work for whatever reason, we in the industry, we the bosses, have the right to fire you,” he continued.

  • Manchin’s Pipeline Deal Must Be Blocked, 77 Democrats Say in Letter

    A group of 77 House Democrats are urging the chamber’s leadership to oppose the inclusion of a host of pro-fossil fuel provisions in the upcoming must-pass government funding bill, including a side deal made with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) to fast track a major fracked gas pipeline.

    The Democrats, led by House Committee on Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona), say that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) must ensure that efforts to weaken fossil fuel project permitting regulations — which are slated to be included in the upcoming continuing resolution to fund the government — are taken out.

    This is not only crucial for the climate, the Democrats say, but also for protecting low-income, Indigenous and other non-white communities. The letter was signed by prominent progressive lawmakers, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington).

    Permitting provisions that are slated to be included in the resolution are tantamount to “attempts to short-circuit or undermine the law in the name of ‘reform,’” which “must be opposed,” the Democrats wrote, noting that these reforms appear to have been proposed by the American Petroleum Institute (API).

    These “reforms” include setting maximum timelines for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which environmentalists say would severely undermine the keystone environmental law’s efficacy in guarding frontline communities from pollution and other impacts and could worsen the climate crisis. The proposals could kneecap the public’s ability to comment on projects that are slated to be placed in their communities, which is crucial to the NEPA process.

    There are also proposals to weaken permitting regulations set by the Clean Water Act and set strict deadlines for court challenges to energy projects — the latter of which are a crucial tool of climate advocates fighting against projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which is set to be fast tracked by the resolution.

    “These destructive provisions will allow polluting manufacturing and energy development projects to be rushed through before the families who are forced to live near them are even aware of the plans,” the lawmakers wrote.

    “The inclusion of these provisions in a continuing resolution, or any other must-pass legislation, would silence the voices of frontline and environmental justice communities by insulating them from scrutiny,” they continued. “Such a move would force Members to choose between protecting EJ communities from further pollution or funding the government.”

    The letter comes as Indigenous and Appalchian climate activists protested in Washington, D.C. last week to speak out against the Manchin and Big Oil deal, saying that Democrats’ approval of projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline sacrifices their communities for the profits of fossil fuel corporations.

    “The Manchin dirty deal is more than a dirty deal and a give-away to the fossil fuel industry,” Maury Johnson, co-chair of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition, which helped to lead the protest, said in a statement. “If it is passed it will decimate the environmental and social justice laws put into place over the several decades.”

    Other lawmakers have also spoken out against the pipeline, which is projected to emit the equivalent amount of greenhouse gas emissions of 26 coal plants a year and transport fracked gas between over 300 miles of West Virginia and Virginia, according to Oil Change International. Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) announced that he would not vote for the continuing resolution if it included the Mountain Valley Pipeline deal.

    “Combating climate change is more important than fossil fuel profits. I will not vote for any bill that makes it easier for Big Oil to destroy the planet and that includes approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” Sanders said on Twitter. “The Continuing Resolution must not be held hostage by Big Oil.”

    Correction: This story has been edited to reflect a new number of letter signers after lawmakers sent an updated version of the document late Monday afternoon.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Appalachians Protest Manchin’s Mountain Valley Pipeline Plan

    Climate activists from as far away as Alaska, Indigenous peoples and Appalachians rallied in Washington, D.C., Thursday against the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The protest — No Sacrifice Zones! — spoke out against concessions to West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin included in the Inflation Reduction Act that would expedite the pipeline slated to cut through Appalachia, as Senator Bernie Sanders gave an address on the Senate floor calling it a “disastrous side deal” to the Inflation Reduction Act that undermines climate activism. We speak with two environmental activists in D.C. who helped organize the protest, Crystal Cavalier-Keck and Russell Chisholm. “We do not want this dirty deal that Senator Joe Manchin is pushing forward,” says Cavalier-Keck. “This project must be stopped, and these extractive industries that create sacrifice zones must also be stopped,” says Chisholm.

    TRANSCRIPT

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: As California faces a record-breaking heat wave, climate activists joined Indigenous and Appalachian groups at a rally in Washington, D.C., Thursday to protest against the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The protest came a month after President Biden signed the $739 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which included major concessions to West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, the biggest recipient of fossil fuel money in Congress. One provision expedites fossil fuel permitting, including for the controversial MVP — that’s Mountain Valley Pipeline. If built, it will carry 2 billion cubic feet of fracked gas across more than a thousand streams and wetlands in Appalachia, including parts of West Virginia.

    On Thursday, Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent of Vermont, slammed what he described as a “disastrous side deal.”

    SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: In the coming weeks and months, the Senate has a fundamental choice to make. We can listen to the fossil fuel industry and the politicians they pay, who are spending huge amounts of money on lobbying and campaign contributions to pass this dirty side deal, or we can listen to the scientists and the environmental community, who are telling us loudly and clearly to reject this side deal and eliminate the $15 billion in tax breaks and subsidies Congress is already providing to big oil and gas companies each and every year.

    Mr. President, while the legislative text of this side deal has not been made public, according to a one-page summary that was released last month, this bill would make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to receive permits to complete some of the dirtiest and most polluting oil and gas projects in America. Specifically, this deal would approve the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile fracked gas pipeline spanning from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. We’re talking about a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to 37 coal plants or over 27 million cars each and every year. Mr. President, it is hard for me to understand why anyone, anyone who is concerned about climate change, would consider for one second voting to approve a pipeline that would be equivalent to putting 27 million more cars on the road each and every year.

    AMY GOODMAN: Senator Sanders spoke on the same day as protesters rallied in Washington, D.C., against the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

    We’re joined now by two guests who took part in the protest. Russell Chisholm is the Mountain Valley Watch coordinator for the POWHR coalition — P-O-W-H-R, that’s the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition. He’s also an Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm. Crystal Cavalier-Keck is a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation in North Carolina, chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the NAACP.

    Welcome you both to Democracy Now! Crystal Cavalier-Keck, let’s begin with you. And if I mispronounced the name of your nation, please pronounce it correctly for us. But talk about why you’re in Washington and why you went to the White House, as well, for a meeting.

    CRYSTAL CAVALIER–KECK: Meku. Thank you so much for having me here. Well, it is the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation.

    And I am here — well, we were here yesterday to lobby Congress, but we were also here to have a rally, and we organized this rally in less than 30 days. And we were here to have our voices heard all across Turtle Island, which is the United States, to show that our fights are very similar, and we do not want this dirty deal that Senator Joe Manchin is pushing forward. That is the number one reason we were here. But we were here to uplift our voices, especially our Indigenous communities here on the Southeast coast. We are often invisibilized, and we’re not really listened to and heard here.

    AMY GOODMAN: And talk about just what the Mountain Valley Pipeline — what kind of map — describe the map for us and how it goes from West Virginia to North Carolina, and what it would mean.

    CRYSTAL CAVALIER–KECK: So, the map, it starts in West Virginia, and it goes through the mountaintops. And on these mountaintops are our sacred burial grounds of our Monacan, Saponi and Occaneechi nations. And, you know, the MVP, they call these burial mounds “rock piles,” and they often say these do not exist, which often makes us — they’re trying to extinct us or genocide us again. But it’s going through these very sacred mountains, going through waters, boring under rivers — and these sacred waters of, like, the Roanoke, the Dan and the Haw River, which is very sacred to my tribe and my community. This pipeline, the MVP Southgate, Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate extension, is coming five miles from my home. It’s also going through the backyard of my relative, Renée, who lives in Rockingham County. And so, it’s going to destroy a lot of water.

    And what these companies don’t understand — they don’t come and consult with us, and these agencies, like FERC, do not do a good job of listening to the community. And we are here to talk about the NEPA process, which is the National Environmental Policy Act, which this dirty deal is going to gut. It’s going to cut the time in half of what we, especially here on the East Coast, the state-recognized tribes, we get to respond to that. We get, I believe, about a seven-year period to respond to that, due to the NEPA process, which helps all tribes with the consultation process. But when they gut this, this limits our time to respond back to these dirty pipelines and dirty asphalt plants that are coming through our communities. And usually these agencies, they don’t do a good job of advertising the comment periods. So, therefore, I feel that they’re helping these dirty companies.

    AMY GOODMAN: Russell Chisholm, if you could talk about what you discovered, what happened to your community in Virginia, if the Mountain Valley Pipeline is completed? And what stage is it at right now?

    RUSSELL CHISHOLM: Thank you, Amy. Good morning.

    Currently, the best way to describe this stage of the Mountain Valley Pipeline is segmented all along those 303 miles. For example, the first incomplete stream crossing that they come to is less than three-quarters of a mile from mile post zero on the project. So, what is remaining is some of the most difficult and challenging work and all of the heavy construction work adjacent to, around, under streams, wetlands, rivers, creeks. And Dr. Cavalier has described it well. These are water sources that feed our communities, feed our households, that people use to take care of their livestock. And all of that runs downstream, destroys habitat and puts people’s health and safety at risk.

    So, there is a lot of heavy construction remaining on that project, and yet there is a lot that we can also save, which is why we continue to show up, continue to show up and link up with other frontline communities to stand together, as we did yesterday, to say this project must be stopped, and these extractive industries that create sacrifice zones must also be stopped wherever they are happening.

    AMY GOODMAN: And, Dr. Cavalier-Keck, what do you say to Joe Manchin, to the senator, the largest recipient of fossil fuel money in Congress, his power, and what Bernie Sanders called this “dirty side deal”? What do you say to the other senators?

    CRYSTAL CAVALIER–KECK: So, they need to wake up. I honestly believe — how could this not be an ethics violation? But you are killing millions of people, millions of animals, and you’re ultimately killing our water. This is how we are going to survive. This is how the human race will survive. And it’s at your hands that you’re causing the destruction and death of these. And I just can’t believe that this is happening. Like, I was talking earlier today. Like, this is how government works, these backdoor, side-room deals to help a child who throws a temper tantrum because he can’t get the MVP pushed through? Like, he’s being very childish. And, you know, just disappointed. Like, you’re letting your constituents down. And also, the other senators who are not saying, like, “Whoa, wait. What’s going on?” or the other House of Representatives, do not given in to his demands. Like, he is literally twisting your arm behind your back to get what he wants. Like, this is not how government should work.

    AMY GOODMAN: And the connection of the MVP developers to Joe Manchin, the senator?

    CRYSTAL CAVALIER–KECK: Oh, most definitely. NextEra, they donated to his campaign, as well as, I believe, they donated to Chuck Schumer’s campaign, too. Like, how are you guys not in ethics violation? You should have recused yourself from this and appointed someone else to do this. Matter of fact, listen to Bernie Sanders. He should have been heading up this, and he would have made sure we wouldn’t have had no side deal, especially the MVP coming through our backyard. That’s horrible. Like, in this side deal, well, this whole IRA, you’re going to give the IRA, and you’re going to still push fossil fuels? What is that? Like, come on, President Biden. Like, why did you sign that? So you just think it’s OK to, like, give a little bit of fossil fuels, but it’s OK, because we’re going to give you, what, $700 billion? No, I don’t think so.

    AMY GOODMAN: Crystal Cavalier-Keck, I want to thank you so much for being with us, of the Occaneechi Band —

    CRYSTAL CAVALIER–KECK: Thank you.

    AMY GOODMAN: — of Saponi Nation in North Carolina, chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the NAACP of Alamance County, and Russell Chisholm, the Mountain Valley Watch coordinator for the POWHR coalition.

    That does it for our broadcast. And we end today on a very sad note. We want to extend our deepest condolences to our Democracy Now! producer María Inés Taracena on the death of your grandmother, Ana Elsa Herrera, in Guatemala. Mama Elsa was 94 years old. And also, dear Maria, on the passing of your brother, David Miller Flores, in a tragic car accident in Arizona. He had turned 26 years old last Sunday. Our condolences to your whole family.

    That does it for our show. Democracy Now! produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Mary Conlon. Our executive director, Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Jon Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike Di Filippo, Miguel Nogueira. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Nearly All Senators Vote Against Sanders’s Amendments to Inflation Reduction Act

    During the Senate’s 16-hour amendment marathon for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) over the weekend, nearly all senators united against several amendments that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) introduced to expand the bill, which is a mixed bag for the climate crisis and prescription drug prices.

    Through Saturday and Sunday, lawmakers proposed dozens of amendments to the bill during the so-called vote-a-rama that precedes a vote on a budget reconciliation bill; following the vote-a-rama, the IRA passed by a party line vote of 51 to 50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. Many of the amendments were introduced by Republicans on unrelated issues like reinstating Title 42, a racist and cruel anti-immigration policy.

    But Sanders brought several proposals to consideration before the Senate that would have expanded the U.S.’s social safety net and ensured that the bill — which has been advertised by Democrats as a groundbreaking climate proposal — falls much more in line with what leftists and climate advocates have called for to combat economic and climate crises facing the public.

    Nearly all of the amendments were proposals that had been considered during last year’s negotiations on the Build Back Back Better Act (BBBA) — and all of them got near-unanimous disapproval from the Senate.

    One amendment would have provided $30 billion for climate spending, including for the formation of a Civilian Climate Corps. Democrats had pushed for the inclusion of a Civilian Climate Corps in last year’s bill, saying that such a jobs program could boost conservation and resilience efforts across the U.S. That amendment failed 98 to 1, with Sanders casting the lone “yes” vote.

    Another amendment would have removed some of the giveaways for the fossil fuel industry that were included in the bill to woo coal millionaire Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia). Sanders proposed removing a tax credit for carbon capture — which some climate advocates say is a scheme to give fossil fuel facilities funding for greenwashing — and nixing a royalties cap on offshore oil and gas leasing. That amendment was rejected 99 to Sanders’s 1.

    Senators also denied Sanders’s attempts to add social spending provisions to the bill. Proposals to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing and to allow Medicare to halve prescription drug prices by accessing the same rates offered to the Department of Veterans Affairs were defeated 97 to 3 and 99 to 1, respectively. The Vermont progressive’s proposal to implement the expanded child tax credit, which expired in December and kept millions of children from experiencing poverty, was rejected 97 to 1.

    Democrats argued that their “no” votes were justified in order to keep the vote on the IRA straightforward, claiming that they feared adding any of the amendments to the bill would have threatened its passage. But Sanders argued that there was no harm in allowing 48 Democrats to vote for his amendments if his amendments wouldn’t garner enough support to be added to the bill anyway.

    Indeed, Sanders has argued several times over the past year that the Senate should vote on proposals that are overwhelmingly popular with the public, like expanding Medicare; this would ensure that senators’ objections are on the record instead of only known to those involved in high-up, secret negotiations, Sanders said. It’s also a messaging opportunity for Democrats, who would be able to point directly to lawmakers who oppose policies that would benefit tens of millions of Americans.

    Following the vote, Sanders had limited praise for the bill but continued to criticize it as insufficient, as he has for the past week. While the bill is “a step forward,” he said, “this legislation goes nowhere near far enough for working families.”

  • Sanders: If US Can Spend $76B on Computer Chips, It Can Pass Medicare for All

    In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) denounced Republican senators for saying that the U.S. should follow the lead of other countries on subsidizing the computer chips manufacturing industry, instead of on measures like universal health care.

    As Sanders highlighted in his speech, recent reporting from The Associated Press found that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and other Republicans believe that the U.S. should join other countries in giving large subsidies to chip manufacturers like Intel by passing the Senate’s $76 billion chips bill. The Vermont senator pointed out that these same lawmakers don’t believe that the U.S. should follow the lead of other countries when it comes to expanding the social safety net.

    “Now I find the position of Senator Romney and others to be really quite interesting because I personally have been on this floor many many times urging the Senate to look to other countries around the world and learn from those countries,” Sanders said. “And what I have said is that it is a bit absurd that, here in the United States, we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all of their people.”

    He said that the U.S. should join countries like Germany, where higher education is largely free. The U.S. should also join every other wealthy country in the world in guaranteeing its workers paid family and medical leave, Sanders said — measures that he and Democratic lawmakers tried to pass in last year’s Build Back Better Act.

    “Let’s join the club!” he exclaimed several times.

    Republicans and conservative Democrats were uniformly opposed to provisions for paid family leave during last year’s Build Back Better Act negotiations, claiming that the federal deficit and excess government spending justified their opposition to the bill. But these same lawmakers seem to have no problem spending billions funding the corporate oligarchy in the U.S., Sanders said.

    The real reason that lawmakers are so eager to pass the bill, the senator went on, is because computer chip manufacturers and lobbyists are compelling them to do so. “But I gather the problem is that to join those clubs — in terms of universal health care, in terms of paid family and medical leave, in terms of free tuition at public colleges and universities — we’re going to have to take on powerful special interests and they make campaign contributions, so that’s not what the Senate does,” he said.

    He concluded by saying that, in addition to his concerns about corporate welfare, he is worried that the bill will set a precedent for companies to operate however they want without consequence. “What the precedent is is that any company who is prepared to go abroad, who has ignored the needs of the American people, will then say to Congress, ‘hey, if you want us to stay here, you better give us a handout,’” he said.

    Sanders has continually spoken out against the Senate’s bill to provide $52 billion to chips manufacturers, which he says is tantamount to corporate welfare for major manufacturers. These manufacturers have made huge profits during the pandemic and paid their CEOs millions of dollars in compensation, profiting from a global chips shortage that has allowed companies to majorly hike their prices.

    The bill cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday, setting it up for passage soon.

    Last week, Sanders introduced an amendment to the legislation that would restrict the funds, ensuring that a company that accepts the subsidies cannot use the funds on stock buybacks, outsourcing jobs to other countries or union busting.

  • Pressley Calls on Biden to Stop Allowing Military Weapons to Go to Police

    A group of Democrats and progressives sent a letter to the Biden administration this week asking officials to stop allowing police departments from accessing weapons from the military, saying that the militarization of law enforcement is causing increased police violence, especially against Black communities.

    Representatives Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) and Henry C. Johnson (D-Georgia), and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) led their colleagues in the effort to urge administration officials to follow up on President Joe Biden’s police reform executive order that he signed earlier this year, which pledged to investigate the impact of and potentially ban the transfer of military weapons to police.

    The lawmakers say that allowing police to use such weapons actively makes communities less safe and only enhances law enforcement officers’ mindset that they are in combat with the public. Indeed, research backs up this claim; a study published in 2017 found that, in counties that received militarized weapons, police killed over twice as many civilians as in counties that didn’t receive any military weapons.

    “Militarized law enforcement increases the prevalence of police violence without making our communities safer,” the lawmakers wrote. “Furthermore, the negative effects of police militarization disproportionately affects communities of color.”

    The letter was signed by 22 Democrats and progressives in the House and the Senate, including Representatives Mondaire Jones (D-New York) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Washington) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). A wide swath of human rights groups also supported the letter effort, including progressive, labor and anti-discrimination groups.

    The lawmakers call for weapons listed in Biden’s executive order, including high-caliber firearms, gun silencers, grenades and grenade launchers, armored vehicles, weaponized drones, and other deadly weapons, to be on the “Prohibited Equipment List.” The list was established in 2016 under an order signed by former President Barack Obama, which prohibited law enforcement agencies from accessing certain weapons and equipment.

    Currently, there are two federal programs by which the police receive most military-grade equipment like tear gas, rubber bullets and armored vehicles – via direct purchase, or as is more often the case, free of charge, through the 1033 program. The practice is so common, in fact, that there is an estimated market worth $20 billion around military weapons transfers to police. The exact value of the market is unknown as there is very little oversight of the transfers – perhaps deliberate, in order to obscure the links between the two entities.

    Police and prison abolitionists say that the police and military are inherently intertwined, whether through weapons-sharing or law enforcement officers’ roles in perpetrating a police state. Short of the ability to reach abolitionists’ goal of defunding the police and military altogether – which they say is the only way to truly end police violence – many human rights groups have called for the end of 1033.

    The police’s use of militarized equipment – riot gear, armored vehicles and surveillance helicopters, high-caliber rifles, and more – are often on full display when the public rises up in protest against injustice. These weapons are most often used to suppress movements for Black lives (or in raids and mass killings of Black political advocates), though they were also recently used to silence protesters against the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

    Lawmakers have tried to stop the military-to-police weapons pipeline before. In 2020, Schatz introduced an amendment to end 1033, which was later watered down and passed as reforms to the 1033 program instead.

  • Sanders Moves to Limit $76 Billion in “Corporate Welfare” for Microchip Industry

    Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday introduced an amendment that would impose restrictions on the billions of dollars in federal subsidies and tax credits that Congress is poised to hand to the profitable U.S. microchip industry, which has been lobbying aggressively for the handouts.

    Sanders’ proposed changes to the CHIPS Act, which cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate Tuesday evening, would prohibit companies that receive subsidies under the bill from using the funds to buy back their own stock, offshore U.S. jobs, or crack down on unionization efforts. The senator argues that no-strings-attached giveaways to the microchip industry would amount to “corporate welfare.”

    “If private companies are going to benefit from generous taxpayer subsidies, the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, not just wealthy shareholders,” Sanders said in a floor speech. “In other words, if microchip companies make a profit as a direct result of these federal grants, the taxpayers of this country have a right to get a reasonable return on that investment.”

    The latest version of the CHIPS Act, which now clocks in at 1,054 pages of legislative text, comes with an overall price tag of around $250 billion, tens of billions of which would be used to subsidize U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. Fresh tax language included in the bill increased the benefits to the microchip industry from around $52 billion to $76 billion.

    The approval of such subsidies would be a major boon for companies like Intel, whose CEO took to the airwaves last week to implore Congress to do everything it can to pass the microchip bill.

    “Do not go home for August recess until you have passed the CHIPS Act,” Pat Gelsinger, who was one of the highest-paid CEOs in the U.S. last year with a total compensation package of $179 million, said in a CNBC appearance on Friday.

    “I and others in the industry will make investment decisions,” Gelsinger added. “Do you want those investments in the U.S., or are we simply not competitive enough to do them here and we need to go to Europe or Asia?”

    Sanders responded directly to Gelsinger’s remarks during his floor speech Tuesday, saying, “I am thankfully not a lawyer, but that sure sounds like extortion to me.”

    “What Mr. Gelsinger is saying,” Sanders continued, “is that if you don’t give the industry a blank check — here’s $76 billion, and they want more by the way — despite the needs of the military for advanced microchips… despite the needs of the medical industry for advanced microchips, despite the entire needs of the American economy for advanced microchips, the industry is threatening to abandon this country and move abroad.”

    “Mr. Gelsinger says we should stay in session, if necessary, through August in order to pass this legislation,” he added. “Well, I think we might want to stay in session through August. But not necessarily to pass his legislation. Because what I hear from people in Vermont and people all across this country is that the job they want done is not a massive handout to large, profitable corporations.”

    As The Daily Poster’s Julia Rock reported Tuesday, “Gelsinger’s company and its well-connected lobbyists are pushing Congress to allow it to potentially use the subsidies” in the CHIPS Act “to put more money into its factories outside of the country.”

    “Intel has been one of the bill’s staunchest supporters — and Gelsinger was even invited to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address to show his support for the subsidies,” Rock noted. “In that speech, Biden said that Intel was prepared to increase its investment in a new chip factory in Ohio from $20 billion to $100 billion, if only Congress passed the CHIPS Act. Intel is now holding that factory hostage.”

    In his remarks Tuesday, Sanders likened companies lobbying for passage of the CHIPS Act to “pigs at the trough.”

    “They want more and more and more,” the senator said. “Their needs are insatiable.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Denounces Manchin for “Intentionally Sabotaging” Democratic Agenda

    After conservative Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) announced his opposition to imperative climate provisions in Democrats’ new reconciliation bill on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) castigated the West Virginia senator for his role in killing his party’s agenda over the past year.

    In an interview on Sunday on ABC, Sanders said that Manchin never planned on negotiating the reconciliation bill in good faith with Democratic leaders, who have seen Manchin kill nearly every proposal except for prescription drug prices, which could also be limited by the conservative.

    After ABC’s Marsha Raddatz said that Manchin “abruptly pulled the plug” on the climate provisions of the bill, Sanders said, “I disagree. He didn’t abruptly do anything.”

    “If you check the record six months ago, I made it clear that we have people like Manchin and [Sen. Kyrsten] Sinema, to a lesser degree, who are intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda, what the American people want, what a majority of us in the Democratic caucus want,” Sanders continued. “Nothing new about this. And the problem was that we continued to talk to Manchin like he was serious. He was not.”

    Last week, Manchin said that he would not support a reconciliation bill that included funding for tax incentives to shift to renewable energies, which Democrats had hoped to include in their new bill. This could be Democrats’ last best hope to pass climate legislation to meet a goal of 50 percent emissions reduction from 2005 levels before the decade’s end.

    Sanders pointed out that Manchin’s loyalties largely lie with his deep-pocketed donors and the fossil fuel industry. Manchin is the top recipient of fossil fuel industry contributions in Congress, as the number one recipient of donations from the oil and gas, fossil gas, mining and coal mining industries, according to OpenSecrets.

    “This is a guy who is a major recipient of fossil fuel money, a guy who has received campaign contributions from 25 Republican billionaires,” Sanders said. Manchin’s supposed fears about inflation — which economists have said isn’t a legitimate reason to vote against bills like the Build Back Better Act — is just the “same nonsense” that the coal baron has been spewing for over a year, he went on.

    By opposing popular proposals like Medicare for All, raising taxes on corporations and the rich, and expanding Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision, Sanders said that Manchin isn’t representing his constituents. Instead, the right-wing senator is working on behalf of billionaires and other deep-pocketed interests.

    “In my humble opinion, Manchin represents the very wealthiest people in this country — not working families in West Virginia or America,” Sanders said.

    Sanders warned that Manchin’s obstruction endangers the entirety of humanity, and concluded by calling on voters to continue electing progressives into office to combat the outsized power of Manchin and the Republicans he works closely with. “It ain’t Democrats. It isn’t the president. It is the future of the planet,” he said, objecting to the framing that inaction on the climate is a purely political issue. “This is an existential threat to humanity.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Bernie Sanders Unveils Resolution to End US Support for Saudi-Led War in Yemen

    As U.S. President Joe Biden visits the Middle East this week, three senators introduced a joint resolution to end the United States’ involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

    The resolution is sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — and, according to the trio, it is already backed by a bipartisan group of over 100 House members.

    “We must put an end to the unauthorized and unconstitutional involvement of U.S. armed forces in the catastrophic Saudi-led war in Yemen and Congress must take back its authority over war,” Sanders said in a statement, detailing the dire conditions in the region.

    “More than 85,000 children in Yemen have already starved and millions more are facing imminent famine and death,” he pointed out. “More than 70% of Yemen’s population currently rely on humanitarian food assistance and the U.N. has warned the death toll could climb to 1.3 million people by 2030.”

    “This war has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis today and it is past time to end U.S. complicity in those horrors,” Sanders declared. “Let us pass this resolution, so we can focus on diplomacy to end this war.”

    While a cease-fire in Yemen has held over the past few months, peace advocates and progressive lawmakers have continued to call for an end to U.S. support for the yearslong war.

    “The war in Yemen has been an unmitigated disaster for which all parties to the conflict share responsibility,” Leahy said Thursday. “Why are we supporting a corrupt theocracy that brutalizes its own people, in a war that is best known for causing immense suffering and death among impoverished, defenseless civilians?”

    Both Leahy and Warren emphasized that U.S. participation was never congressionally authorized.

    “The American people, through their elected representatives in Congress, never authorized U.S. involvement in the war — but Congress abdicated its constitutional powers and failed to prevent our country from involving itself in this crisis,” Warren said.

    Not long after taking office last year, Biden announced an end to U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition’s “offensive operations” in Yemen. However, his administration has continued to allow arms sales and provide maintenance and logistical support.

    The U.S. president is set to head to Saudi Arabia on Friday. Responsible Statecraft noted Thursday that “in an op-ed explaining the reasoning behind the trip, Biden touted an ongoing truce in Yemen, but didn’t say whether he would press for an end to the war.”

    As the senators’ statement explains, their resolution — which comes after a similar one introduced in the House last month — would “follow through on Biden’s pledge” from last year by:

    • Ending U.S. intelligence sharing for the purpose of enabling offensive Saudi-led coalition strikes;
    • Ending U.S. logistical support for offensive Saudi-led coalition strikes, including the provision of maintenance and spare parts to coalition members flying warplanes which are bombing Yemen; and
    • Prohibiting U.S. military personnel from being assigned to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany Saudi-led coalition forces engaged in hostilities without specific statutory authorization.

    The statement highlighted that the resolution “is considered privileged in the Senate and can receive a vote on the floor as soon as 10 calendar days following introduction.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Rebukes Senate for Crafting $50 Billion “Handout” to Microchip Industry

    On the Senate floor on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) had harsh words for fellow members of Congress who have been crafting a bill to give major microchip companies $52 billion in corporate welfare while ignoring pressing issues that are faced by the middle and lower classes in the U.S.

    “At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the American people are sick and tired of the unprecedented level of corporate greed that we are seeing right now,” Sanders said. “In other words, we’re looking at two worlds. People on top never did better. The middle class continuing to decline, and the poor living in abysmal conditions.”

    He pointed out that everyday Americans are facing soaring inflation and the worst income inequality in 100 years — while billionaires have gotten $2 trillion richer over the past years and are buying joyrides to space and $500 million yachts. Meanwhile, billionaires and corporations often pay zero dollars in federal taxes.

    Instead of focusing on things like renewing the expanded child tax credit, passing Medicare for All, upping teacher pay, or making higher education affordable, the Senate is focused on corporate handouts, Sanders said.

    “The last poll that I saw had the United States Congress with a 16 percent approval rating, 16 percent. To me, this was shocking — really, quite shocking — because I suspect that the 16 percent who believe that Congress was doing something meaningful really don’t know what’s going on,” he said.

    “So what is Congress doing right now, at a time in which we face so many massive problems?” he continued. “The answer is that, for two months, a 107 member conference committee has been meeting behind closed doors to provide over $50 billion in corporate welfare, with no strings attached, to the highly profitable microchip industry.”

    Sanders pointed out that the bill also includes a $10 billion “bailout” for Jeff Bezos’s space flight company. The Vermont senator has been decrying this funding for months, saying that Bezos is one of the last people who needs an infusion of cash from taxpayers.

    Sanders went on to condemn the glaring hypocrisy of conservatives like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), who cry endlessly about the deficit when it comes to helping the American public, but pass massive spending bills for corporations with no questions asked.

    “For all of my colleagues who tell us how deeply, deeply concerned they are about the deficit… ‘Bernie, we don’t have the money to do that! We’ve got a big deficit!’ Well, what about the deficit when it comes to giving $52 billion in corporate welfare to some of the most profitable corporations in America?” he said. “I guess when you’re giving corporate welfare to big and powerful interests, the deficit no longer matters.”

    While Sanders acknowledged that the microchip shortage — which is raising prices and costing workers their jobs, he said — does pose problems for regular Americans, he maintained that handing corporations money with no strings attached isn’t the way to solve it.

    Semiconductor companies have made huge profits over the pandemic and are turning around to pay their executives massive compensation packages and spend tens of billions on stock buybacks — all while shipping manufacturing jobs abroad to exploit workers in poor countries. Instead of focusing on upping production and preserving jobs, the semiconductor industry is shutting down over 780 manufacturing plants in the U.S. and eliminating 150,000 jobs, Sanders said.

    For instance, Intel, one of the companies set to benefit from the bill, made nearly $20 billion in profits last year while giving its CEO Pat Gelsinger nearly $180 million. In the meantime, microchip companies have spent $100 million over the past decade in lobbying and campaign contributions — an investment that has evidently paid back in spades.

    Sanders suggested that Congress should work with microchip companies to address workers’ and taxpayers’ concerns, instead of giving companies handouts. He also said companies should agree not to outsource jobs, union bust, or do stock buybacks.

    As it stands now, with no-strings-attached handouts to corporations, the government is willingly perpetuating “crony capitalism,” he said.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Poll Finds 83 Percent of Americans Want to Expand Social Security

    Social Security, one of the nation’s oldest welfare programs, is set to start running out of money in about a decade — and Americans want Congress to take action, new polling finds.

    In a poll of about 1,300 likely voters, Data for Progress found that a bipartisan majority of Americans — 84 percent — are “very” or “somewhat” concerned that Social Security won’t be able to pay out full benefits to future generations. Eighty-three percent of voters, also on a bipartisan basis, support raising Social Security benefits in order to match current cost of living standards, and to ensure that everyone who has paid into the program will be able to access its full benefits when they’re of retirement age.

    Plans to expand Social Security by taxing the rich are also popular. When asked about lawmakers’ bills that would raise taxes for Americans making more than $400,000 a year in order to pay for expansions of the program, 76 percent of respondents, including 83 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of independents and Republicans, said they “strongly” or “somewhat” support the proposal.

    One such bill is the Social Security Expansion Act, introduced by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) last month. The bill would increase Social Security payments by $2,400 a year, and would fully fund the program for the next 75 years, until 2096.

    It would also create more parity in the tax system, as it would eliminate the cap for Social Security payments for people making over $250,000. Currently, the income cap for Social Security taxes is $147,000, meaning that people making more than that stop paying into the program by the time they’ve made that amount of income in the year; for instance, people making a salary of $1 million stop paying into the program by February each year.

    Thanks in part to Republicans’ refusal to raise taxes, the program is set to be insolvent by 2033, meaning that it will have to start paying out only 75 percent of the benefits, which are already low. Though GOP lawmakers likely wouldn’t say it out loud, due to the program’s popularity, right-wingers have been working behind closed doors and in think tanks for years to slash Social Security, often with the goal of privatization.

    This is an unpopular idea, however. Data for Progress found that 68 percent of likely voters oppose privatizing the program, including 75 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans. Economists also agree that privatizing Social Security would be harmful and lead to yet more poverty — and that what’s truly needed to ensure that the seniors and disabled people who are most in need have the funds they need to survive is a large expansion of the program.

    Meanwhile, when presented with the statement that Democrats are trying to expand the program and the GOP is trying to end it, 55 percent of voters say they would vote for a generic Democrat running for Congress, with 22 percent of self-identified Republicans agreeing as such.

    As it is, Social Security is failing to provide enough funding for many seniors to live off of, as Sanders pointed out in a Senate Banking Committee hearing in June. Over half of seniors are living on incomes of less than $25,000 a year, while many of those same seniors don’t have any retirement savings.

    “Our job, in my view, is not to cut Social Security, is not to raise the retirement age, as many of my Republican colleagues would have us do,” Sanders said at the time. “Our job is to expand Social Security so that everyone in America can retire with the dignity that he or she deserves and that every person in this country with a disability can retire with the security they need.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Warren, Sanders Slam Banks for Inaction Against Millions of Scams Using Zelle

    Senate Democrats sent letters to big banks on Friday, demanding that the corporations answer for their roles in allowing millions of Americans to be defrauded through scams involving Zelle, a money transfer network whose parent company is owned by seven large banks in the U.S.

    Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Senate Banking Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and four others said that the banks aren’t doing enough to prevent scams that use Zelle, which The New York Times deemed in an investigation earlier this year as a “favorite of fraudsters.”

    “It is imperative that the banks that created, own, and offer the service do more to protect consumers from the fraud and scams that are being perpetrated through the platform,” the lawmakers said in letters to Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

    The service is popular due to its ability to immediately transfer money between bank accounts — but is easy to exploit, the lawmakers say, due to the fact that users have no way to cancel a transaction after they’ve made it.

    Still, even people who have lost money to scammers on the service are met with a stony response from their banks. Reports have found that Wells Fargo and other banks have said that transactions done under a false premise aren’t fraudulent because the victim of the scam authorized the payment, leaving consumers short potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars. Instead, Zelle qualifies “fraud” as anything not authorized by the user — a definition that excludes scams or frauds.

    In at least one case, The New York Times reported earlier this year, victims who didn’t even authorize the purchase themselves had lost money due to Zelle-related fraud. One victim, Bruce Barth, lost $2,500 in Zelle transactions when someone stole his phone in 2020 while he was hospitalized for COVID-19.

    Lawmakers say that a lack of oversight and shedding of responsibility from the banks has led to widespread fraud on the platform. “The distinction [Early Warning Services, Zelle’s parent company] draws between fraud (transactions not authorized by the account owner) and scams (transactions authorized by the account owner, but induced through deception) ignores how consumers actually suffer financial loss on Zelle,” the senators wrote.

    According to the lawmakers, about 18 million Americans fell victim to scams that used Zelle or other instant transfer services in 2020. And, of the $490 billion that was sent through Zelle in 2021, Americans lost an estimated $440 million due to defraudment through transactions on Zelle.

    “While several banks have made the argument that they should not be held responsible for such scams, we believe that you need to do more to protect your customers,” the Democrats concluded. “Given the sheer numbers of consumers using online payments services such as Zelle and the amount of money at risk, the absence of protective measures is unacceptable.”

  • Democrats Want to Extend Medicare Solvency by Closing Trump-Era Tax Loophole

    In their negotiations over the next budget reconciliation bill with conservative Democrat Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Senate Democrats are working on two provisions that could help balance the budget for Medicare and close a major Donald Trump-era tax loophole.

    On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) released a plan to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for the most expensive drugs and cap out-of-pocket costs for recipients at $2,000 a year. It would also place a cap on the amount that drug companies can raise prices annually. The plan reportedly has the support of all 50 Senate Democrats, and is pending review from the Senate parliamentarian.

    The new drug price proposal is slightly narrower than last year’s proposal, which also included a plan to cap the cost of insulin at $35. Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) had hoped to get a major expansion of Medicare, including allowing it to negotiate prices for a wider range of drugs and expanding it to cover dental, hearing and vision, but the plan was watered down thanks to pharmaceutical industry-funded Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona).

    Democrats passed a bill introducing the same price cap on insulin earlier this year, but the legislation has stalled in the Senate. Senate Republicans are likely uniformly opposed to the current drug price plan, which Democrats plan to include in a roughly $1 trillion reconciliation bill that can be passed in the Senate through a simple majority vote.

    Democratic aides also say, according to the Associated Press, that Senate Democrats are planning to extend the solvency of Medicare. They’re hoping to raise $203 billion to fund the service until 2031. The program is currently set to start running out of funding in 2028.

    They’re aiming to extend Medicare’s solvency by closing a tax loophole created by Republicans in 2017 that has allowed wealthy executives to dodge hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, in taxes — including Medicare taxes. The current proposal would make it so that people with incomes higher than $400,000 a year and couples with incomes higher than $500,000 a year would have to pay a 3.8 percent tax on earnings from pass-through businesses, or businesses that pass all of their income onto owners and investors.

    Proposals to lower drug prices and expand Medicare are incredibly popular among the electorate. Polling done by Data for Progress last year found that about 83 percent of likely voters support expanding Medicare to include dental, hearing and vision. Other polling, conducted by CBS, found that 88 percent of people support lowering prescription drug prices.

    The popularity of the plans could be due to exceptionally high drug prices in the U.S. Last year, a Government Accountability Office report found that, among 20 name brand prescriptions, prices were about four times higher in the U.S. than they were in places like Australia and France, and about 2.5 times higher than in Canada. Meanwhile, the amount the pharmaceutical industry gained in sales from the U.S. was nearly double that of the rest of the world combined in 2020.

    The fact that Democrats are drafting the two Medicare provisions is a sign that Manchin may be in favor of the plans, though the lawmaker played a major role in watering down and ultimately killing the party’s reconciliation bill last year. Democrats are hoping the new proposal may also include provisions to address the climate crisis, with as much as $300 billion in clean energy tax incentives.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Beyond the Blob

    An interview with Senator Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy advisor Matt Duss.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Who Are the People?

    The politics of the 2010s and 2020s are about who the people are and what it means for them to matter.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Sanders Calls for Windfall Tax to Defend Economy Against Corporate Greed

    Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday slammed oil companies for raking in huge profits on the backs of U.S. consumers and reiterated his case for a windfall tax, a demand that came as President Joe Biden’s call for a federal gas tax holiday faced growing pushback from progressives and top officials in his own administration.

    “Corporate greed is destroying this economy. Right now, people all over the country are paying $5, $6 for a gallon of gas,” said Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee. “Meanwhile, in the first quarter of this year, oil company profits were $93 billion, and they’re going to spend $88 billion on dividends and stock buybacks for their wealthy stockholders.”

    “This is outrageous,” he added. “Corporate profits soar, working people can’t afford to fill up their gas tank. We need to pass a windfall profits tax now.”

    In March, Sanders led the introduction of a bill that would impose a 95% tax on the windfall profits of major companies, including oil giants that are taking advantage of Russia’s war on Ukraine to hike prices and pad their bottom lines, helping to push inflation to a four-decade high. The Vermont senator has also signed onto a separate measure that would specifically target Big Oil with a new tax and use the resulting revenue to pay out quarterly rebates to U.S. households.

    Price increases in the U.S. have only accelerated since Sanders unveiled his legislation, with the average cost of a gallon of gas reaching an unprecedented level earlier this month as oil majors such as Chevron and ExxonMobil tout their surging profits.

    “Gas is over $5 a gallon,” Sanders noted Thursday. “Why? Well, oil companies made $93 billion in profits in the first quarter and are spending $88 billion on stock buybacks and dividends to enrich their wealthy stockholders. Yes, it’s time for a windfall profits tax now.”

    Under mounting pressure to boldly confront corporate profiteering to rein in prices, Biden earlier this week pushed Congress to enact a three-month suspension of the federal gas tax of 18.3 cents per gallon and the diesel tax of 24.3 cents per gallon — a plan that, like the windfall profits tax, faces long odds in the Senate thanks in part to fossil fuel industry ally Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

    The president’s call for a gas tax holiday was immediately met with criticism from Democratic lawmakers and even top administration officials who — according to the Washington Post — “said privately that it would probably do little to significantly lower gas prices.”

    “I fully understand that a gas tax holiday alone is not going to fix the problem,” Biden acknowledged Wednesday. “But it will provide families some immediate relief, just a little bit of breathing room, as we continue working to bring down prices for the long haul.”

    But leading Democratic lawmakers, including Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), countered that a “gas tax holiday won’t make it down to consumers or stop the profiteering of oil and gas companies.”

    “It also robs the Highway Trust Fund of necessary infrastructure funds,” Jayapal added. “An excess profits tax on oil companies with a rebate to consumers is a better solution.”

    Sanders, too, has rejected the idea of a gas tax holiday, expressing agreement with former President Barack Obama that the proposal is a mere “gimmick.”

    “Barack Obama was right,” Sanders said in March. “A gas tax holiday was a bad idea in 2008 and it’s a bad idea today. If we’re serious about providing consumers relief at the gas pump, let’s take on the greed of Big Oil by enacting a windfall profits tax and ending OPEC’s illegal price-fixing cartel.”

    While Senate passage of a windfall profits tax is unlikely due to opposition from Manchin and the entire Republican caucus, the proposal is overwhelmingly popular with U.S. voters — which proponents say makes it both better policy and better politics than a gas tax holiday ahead of the November midterms.

    One recent poll showed that 80% of U.S. voters, including 73% of Republicans, back the idea of “placing a windfall profits tax on the extra profits oil companies are making from the higher gasoline prices they are charging because of the Russia-Ukraine situation.”

    “We need to get gas prices under control, but a gas tax holiday is not the answer,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) tweeted Thursday. “We can’t trust oil execs to pass the savings on to consumers — rebates and windfall taxes would be far more meaningful and wouldn’t rob infrastructure funds.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Warren Unveils Bill to Ban Sales of Health Data With “Roe” Overturn Looming

    As the country braces for the likely criminalization of abortion seekers by Republicans, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) has introduced a bill that would ban data firms from selling sensitive data that could endanger abortion patients.

    The Health and Location Data Protection Act would ban data firms from selling individuals’ health and location data, which Warren and fellow bill introducers say endangers not only the safety of abortion clinic visitors but also the safety of all Americans who may be unwittingly subject to surveillance. The Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general and people whose data has been sold would be able to sue firms if they’re found to be in violation of the law.

    The bill, which is cosponsored by fellow Democrats like Senators Ron Wyden (Oregon) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), would be among the strictest regulations on consumer data collection and sales — an industry estimated to be worth $200 billion.

    “Data brokers profit from the location data of millions of people, posing serious risks to Americans everywhere by selling their most private information,” Warren said in a statement. “With this extremist Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and states seeking to criminalize essential health care, it is more crucial than ever for Congress to protect consumers’ sensitive data.”

    In May, Warren sent letters to two data firms, SafeGraph and Placer.ai, which have sold information about where and when people visited reproductive care facilities like Planned Parenthood. This data included their movements before and after the visit and how long they were at the clinic, which could be used to expose whether a person got an abortion. Facebook has also sold personal data about abortion seekers.

    Anti-abortionists have already been using location data to harass clinic patients. But with the likely overturn of Roe, abortion seekers and providers could be at higher risk under extremist laws that allow people to collect a bounty if they expose providers or that criminalize people who travel out of state to get an abortion in a state where the procedure is legal.

    Experts have warned that health data collected from period tracking apps could also put people at risk, as the apps can tell when a period is late and a person could be pregnant. Such data isn’t protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), experts say, as long as the app is free to use.

    Data and privacy experts have endorsed the bill, emphasizing that the largely unregulated data sale industry poses risks to everyone.

    “Health and location data are incredibly sensitive and can be used for a range of harms, from profiling and exploiting consumers to spying on citizens without warrants to carrying out stalking and violence,” Justin Sherman, research lead of Duke University’s Data Brokerage Project, said in a statement. “Companies should not be allowed to freely buy and sell Americans’ health and location data, on the open market, with virtually no restrictions.”

    Indeed, sale of location data has been used to facilitate anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant crusades – in 2020, for instance, the Wall Street Journal found that government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security has been using location data collected from millions of cell phones in order to find and arrest undocumented immigrants.

  • Bernie Sanders Blasts Lindsey Graham and Political Establishment in Fox Debate

    In an Oxford-style debate Monday with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Bernie Sanders argued that progressive policy goals such as Medicare for All, Social Security expansion, and a higher minimum wage are “what the American people want” and blasted the political establishment — including his GOP colleague — for ignoring the most important crises facing the United States, from the climate emergency to obscene levels of economic inequality.

    “That’s what the establishment does, and Lindsey is a very good and effective representation of the establishment,” Sanders said after Graham delivered his opening remarks of the debate, which was held at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston and streamed live by Fox Nation. “Does Lindsey have a concern that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people? That some 60,000 people a year die because they don’t get to a doctor on time? I didn’t hear much about that in that opening statement.”

    “Does Lindsey care that we have the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, and that the pharmaceutical industry right now has 1,500 paid lobbyists in Washington, D.C. to make sure that in some cases we pay 10 times more for the medicine that we need?” Sanders asked. “Did Lindsey talk about the fact that we have, in South Carolina and all over this country, tens of millions of workers working for starvation wages? Did he talk about a corrupt political system in which billionaires today can start a super PAC — and I guess you have some familiarity with super PACs, they help fund your campaign — who can spend unlimited amounts of money to elect candidates.”

    “I didn’t hear Lindsey talk about the crisis of climate change,” the Vermont senator continued. “Do you have a concern that two people own more wealth than the bottom 42%? … Bottom line is: we are moving toward oligarchy. And if we don’t stand up and say that we need a government that represents working people and the middle class, I worry very much about the future of this country.”

    Watch:

    Sanders, who has appeared on Fox News several times in recent years to counter right-wing narratives and make the case for a progressive agenda, did so again during Monday’s event, forcefully dismissing Graham’s attempt to cast basic and popular policy objectives as “full-on socialism” and detached from public sentiment.

    “The policies that I advocate are taking place all over the world,” countered Sanders, who identifies as a democratic socialist. “I would like to ask Senator Graham: Do you think raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is socialistic? Do you think doing what every other major country on Earth does — guaranteeing healthcare to all people — is socialistic? Do you think expanding Medicare to cover dental care is quite socialistic?”

    “I think we should increase benefits for Social Security recipients by lifting the cap… is that socialistic?” he continued. “Is making sure that all of our kids are able to get a higher education, is that socialistic? Is saying that three Wall Street companies should not control $20 trillion in assets, and we gotta break them up, is that socialistic?… Take a look at the issues we are fighting for: on every one of those issues, Lindsey, guess what, the American people support me, not you.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • An American History of the Socialist Idea

    If there’s a lesson to be derived from Gary Dorrien’s account of American socialism, it’s that the movement’s open participation in and with the broad democratic left benefits the socialist cause.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Sanders Wants to Up Social Security Benefit by $2,400 a Year by Taxing the Rich

    A new bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) would increase Social Security payments annually by “scrapping the cap” on the amount that the wealthiest Americans pay into the program.

    The bill would increase Social Security payments by $2,400 a year and would fully fund the program until 2096, or the next 75 years — far past the current estimated insolvency date of roughly 2033, thanks to Republican refusal to raise taxes to fund the program.

    The bill would eliminate the income cap on Social Security taxes in order to ensure that people with high incomes contribute the same portion of their incomes to the program as the rest of the country; currently, the income cap for Social Security payments is $147,000, meaning that people making $1 million in income a year stop paying into Social Security by the end of February.

    As a result, while those with an income lower than $147,000 are paying 12.4 percent of their incomes into the program each year, the wealthy pay a far smaller proportion of their incomes in Social Security taxes. This income cap, Sanders said, is “absur[d]” and “grossly unfai[r].”

    Sanders introduced the Social Security Expansion Act alongside fellow Expand Social Security Caucus co-chair Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and seven other Democratic senators, as well as Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) in the House. The bill also has the support of 50 organizations, including major labor unions like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

    In a Budget Committee hearing on the program on Thursday, Sanders said that Social Security is something that Americans often take for granted — which makes fully funding the program to ensure that younger generations can enjoy its benefits in several decades all the more critical. At the same time, Sanders pointed out, the current program payments are too small for some seniors to live on, meaning that many seniors are putting off or giving up retirement in order to survive.

    Despite the “important success” of the program that has drastically reduced the number of seniors living in poverty in the U.S., Sanders said, “tens of millions of senior citizens are still struggling today to make ends meet and many older workers are scared to death — literally frightened to death — that they will never be able to retire with any shred of dignity.”

    The senator cited data showing that 12 percent of seniors are struggling to live off of incomes of less than $10,000 a year, while 55 percent are living off of incomes of less than $25,000 a year. At the same time, half of Americans 55 and older have no retirement savings, meaning that many rely largely on Social Security payments in order to survive — payments of, on average, about $1,500 a month.

    “Our job, in my view, is not to cut Social Security, is not to raise the retirement age, as many of my Republican colleagues would have us do,” Sanders said. “Our job is to expand Social Security so that everyone in America can retire with the dignity that he or she deserves and that every person in this country with a disability can retire with the security they need.”

    Sanders emphasized that the bill is also about leveling the playing field. “At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time when billionaires pay an effective tax rate lower than the average working person, at a time when the very richest people in this country are becoming much richer,” he said, “this legislation demands that the wealthiest people in this country start paying their fair share of taxes.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Dems Face Midterm Defeats If Sinema and Manchin Keep Obstructing, Sanders Says

    As Democrats scramble to craft their midterm strategy amid rising fears of a GOP takeover, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday implored the party’s leadership to offer voters an honest assessment of the role Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema played in tanking the popular Build Back Better agenda — and make clear that a larger Democratic majority is necessary to push it over the finish line.

    “Say to the American people: ‘Look, we don’t have the votes to do it right now. We have two corporate Democrats who are not going to be with us,’” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an interview with Politico, warning that the increasingly authoritarian Republican Party stands “an excellent chance of gaining control of the House and quite possibly the Senate” if Democrats don’t change direction.

    “The leadership has got to go out and say we don’t have the votes to pass anything significant right now. Sorry. You got 48 votes. And we need more to pass it,” added the Vermont senator. “That should be the message of this campaign.”

    Democrats are clinging to slim majorities in both chambers, and the death of the party’s flagship climate and social spending package at the hands of Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sinema (D-Ariz.) has intensified concerns that Republicans are set to win big in November despite the unpopularity of the GOP’s agenda, as laid out by National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

    The Republican platform that Scott unveiled in February would, among a slew of other moves, hike taxes on the poor and sunset all federal legislation after five years — a policy that would eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and other key programs.

    Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden have seized upon Scott’s right-wing blueprint as part of their midterm messaging, but Sanders — who has been sounding the alarm over a possible midterm wipeout since January — argued Wednesday that “you really can’t win an election with a bumper sticker that says: ‘Well, we can’t do much, but the other side is worse.’”

    Instead, the Vermont senator said Democrats should embrace — and vow to approve — policies that are widely supported by the party’s base but impossible to pass as long as Manchin and Sinema remain a decisive force in the upper chamber.

    “Two corporate Democrats, Sens. Manchin and Sen. Sinema, sabotaged [Build Back Better],” Sanders told Politico. “And it has been downhill ever since for the Democratic Party.”

    According to the Washington Post, Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have restarted talks over a legislative package that would likely be much smaller than the $1.75 trillion bill passed by the House last November, but there’s little hope that the negotiations will yield concrete results.

    “They have been negotiating for nine months,” Sanders said. “This is not exactly terribly effective negotiation. And during those nine months, support for Democrats has dissipated very rapidly.”

    Directly addressing Biden, whose approval rating has dipped below 40% as he loses support among young voters and people of color, Sanders argued the president should do as much as he can through executive action and tell the Democratic base: “I want to raise the minimum wage, I want to deal with Medicare, I want to deal with housing, I want to deal with climate, I can’t do it. I need more votes.”

    Thus far, as Politico reported in April, Biden’s election-year strategy has largely been “to emphasize police and defense spending, accentuate federal deficit reduction, and propose higher taxes on the ultra-rich.”

    “Unless we turn around,” Sanders warned, “the voter turnout is going to be very, very low.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Warren Calls Out Tech Firms for Selling Abortion Clinic Patients’ Location Data

    Fourteen Senate Democrats sent a letter to tech firms Wednesday demanding answers to reports about the collection and sale of location data of people who have visited abortion clinics.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) led the lawmakers in writing letters to the two firms, expressing concerns about the data as Roe v. Wade faces being overturned by the Supreme Court. If Roe is struck down, over half of states are likely to ban abortion by automatic trigger laws or new legislation.

    “Especially in the wake of the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, your company’s sale of such data — to virtually anyone with a credit card — poses serious dangers for all women seeking access to abortion services,” read the letter addressed to SafeGraph, using “women” as shorthand for abortion seekers, who also include trans and nonbinary people.

    The letter was signed by Democratic lawmakers such as Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) and Cory Booker (D-New Jersey).

    Earlier this month, Motherboard reported that data firm SafeGraph is selling information about the whereabouts of people who have visited abortion clinics such as Planned Parenthood, including their movement after the visit and how long they stay at the clinic. The publication also found that Placer.ai offered data for sale showing the approximate location of where Planned Parenthood clinic visitors live; it removed the listing for such data after reporters contacted the company for comment.

    Anti-abortion groups have been harassing, attacking and murdering abortion clinic employees, escorts and patients for years. With abortion rights under threat, clinics are prepared for more vicious attacks, especially as far right Republicans seek to place bounties on people involved in reproductive care.

    Such hate groups have already used location data in order to show patients anti-abortion messaging on their phones while they are sitting in Planned Parenthood clinics. Other data, like search engine history for abortion pills, can be tied to personal information like Google accounts. The data also provides access to information on a person’s finances and political views, and emails they send and receive. In a post-Roe world, even data from period tracker apps could be weaponized by anti-abortionists to prosecute someone whose data suggests they may have gotten an abortion.

    Access to the type of data offered by SafeGraph and Placer.ai only puts patients and providers at even more risk, the lawmakers said. “It is difficult to overstate the dangers of SafeGraph’s unsavory business practices,” they wrote.

    SafeGraph has defended its sales of the data, saying that it’s “anonymized,” but the lawmakers said that that defense demonstrates a misunderstanding of the root of the problem.

    “[A]s experts have repeatedly warned, it can be ‘trivially easy’ to link someone’s location data with their real-world identities, especially when datasets are limited to only ‘four or five’ devices in a location,” the lawmakers said. “SafeGraph’s sale of this data presents an ongoing threat to women who have sought abortions and who may seek them in the future.”

    The letters’ signatories asked the companies to provide details about the type of data that it sells about abortion clinic visitors and to pledge to stop selling such data altogether. The letters are part of Democrats’ attempts to protect abortion rights and abortion seekers ahead of the likely end of Roe.

    “Democrats need to use every tool possible to defend Americans’ right to an abortion and protect women’s health,” Warren said in a statement. “With an extremist Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe, I’m calling out data-broker companies for their disturbing practices of selling and transferring the personal information of women visiting abortion clinics, including their cell-phone location data.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Tells DNC to Reject Super PAC Spending Against Progressives in Primaries

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has written an open letter to Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Jaime Harrison, imploring him and the party to reject the use of super PAC dollars in primary election contests.

    In his letter, Sanders recognized that Democrats have “condemned Republican ‘dark money’ super PACs which spend huge amounts of money to elect their right-wing candidates.”

    Just this week, the Supreme Court sided with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a dispute on campaign finances, ruling that, post-election, he and other candidates are free to use unlimited funds from donations raised to pay back personal loans they incurred during the election season.

    Sanders said that Democrats “appropriately” oppose efforts that would allow mega-donors to influence elections, including the use of super PACs in general election contests. But the party should do more to condemn such spending in its own primary elections, he said.

    “I have not heard any criticism from Democratic leaders about the many millions of dollars in dark money being spent by super PACs that are now attempting to buy Democratic primaries,” Sanders wrote to Harrison. “The goal of this billionaire funded effort is to crush the candidacies of a number of progressive women of color who are running for Congress.”

    Sanders noted that “a super PAC is a super PAC, whether it is funded by Republican billionaires or Democratic billionaires.” Dark money efforts to alter primary races should be rejected by the party, he went on.

    The Vermont senator asked the DNC to “make it clear that super PAC money is not welcome in Democratic primaries,” stating that he believes the party should make public statements about the matter, and should “consider actions that punish candidates who refuse to adhere to this principle.”

    Doing so would be advantageous to Democrats in the long-run, Sanders implied, as there would be “no question,” in his mind, “that the continuation of super PAC money in Democratic primaries will demoralize the Democratic base and alienate potential Democratic voters from the political process.”

    “Let Democratic candidates compete with each other based on their ideas and grassroots support, not on the kind of billionaire super PAC money they can attract,” Sanders concluded.

    Sanders’s letter comes as super PACs are indeed trying to shape Democratic primary races to promote more conservative choices in this year’s midterms.

    The United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has spent more than $2 million, for instance, in an effort to block progressive Pennsylvania state Rep. Summer Lee (D) from winning the primary election to run as a Democrat in the state’s 12th Congressional District. Lee is backed by Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York).

    The organization is also throwing its support behind incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar, an anti-abortion Democrat, in Texas’s 28th Congressional District, spending more than $1.2 million in his primary race to help him fend off a challenge from progressive candidate and human rights lawyer Jessica Cisneros.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Condemns Israeli Forces for Attack on Slain Journalist’s Funeral

    Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday called the attack on the funeral procession of slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh that took place earlier in the day “an outrage” that must be condemnation by the U.S. government as he also called for an investigation into the killing.

    Friday’s attack was described as “horrific” and “grotesque” across the world after footage emerged of Israeli Defense Forces and security personnel hitting and otherwise assaulting the pallbearers of Abu Akleh’s coffin and other mourners as they made their way through the streets of occupied East Jerusalem.

    “The attack by Israeli forces against mourners at the funeral of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is an outrage,” Sanders tweeted Friday afternoon. “The United States must condemn this, and demand an independent investigation into her killing.”

    Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) were among the other U.S. lawmakers who condemned both the attack on mourners and demanded answers about the killing Abu Akleh, a veteran Palestinian-American journalist who had covered the Israel-Palestinian conflict for decades.

    Tlaib said the attack on the funeral was the work of Israel’s “brutal apartheid government” while Omar said the incident was “just cruel.”

    “This is sickening,” Tlaib said in a tweet responding to footage of the behavior of the Israeli forces. “Violent racism, enabled by $3.8 billion in unconditional military U.S. funds. For the Israeli apartheid govt, Shireen’s life didn’t matter — and her dehumanization continues after death.” She further called on the U.S. State Department to “condemn this horror,” but then asked: “Or does being Palestinian make you less American?”

    “We must have an independent investigation into the killing of renowned Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh,” said Khanna on Friday. “Once again I extend my deepest condolences to her family and all those mourning her loss.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Slams AIPAC and Billionaires for Spending Millions Against Progressives

    During a rally in support of U.S. House candidate Summer Lee on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders called out super PACs bankrolled by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and billionaire donors for spending big to crush progressives in Pennsylvania and elsewhere across the country, efforts that the Vermont senator decried as “pathetic” and corrosive to democracy.

    “If they are successful, they will carry this into November,” Sanders warned at the event in Pittsburgh, which was held days before the May 17 Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District. “They have billions of dollars at their disposal.”

    “We need a strong progressive like Summer in the Congress,” Sanders added. “But honestly it is even more important that we tell these billionaires that we will not allow them to buy elections and control this democracy.”

    In recent weeks, the United Democracy Project (UDP) — a super PAC that AIPAC founded late last year — has spent more than $2 million attacking Lee or boosting her primary opponent Steve Irwin, a corporate lawyer and former Republican congressional staffer.

    Billionaire Haim Saban, a longtime AIPAC supporter, is UDP’s biggest individual donor.

    Democratic Majority for Israel — a super PAC with close ties to AIPAC — has also been spending in support of Irwin fresh off its success in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, where the group helped defeat progressive champion Nina Turner earlier this month.

    “These ads, paid for by AIPAC, are attacking Summer because she’s not a ‘loyal enough Democrat,’” Sanders said Thursday, referring to a recent 30-second spot by UDP highlighting Lee’s past criticism of the Democratic Party. “But what you should know is that this organization is funding over 100 Republican candidates.”

    “So here you have a super PAC saying ‘she’s not a loyal Democrat’ while they’re endorsing over 100 Republicans, including many who even refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election,” the Vermont senator continued. “Talk about hypocrisy. Talk about a corrupt political system. And that is why Summer and so many of us are going to do everything that we can to put these super PACs out of business by overturning Citizens United.”

    Lee, too, slammed the special interests that are pouring money into Pennsylvania’s 12th District in an attempt to undermine her campaign, which includes a platform of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and tuition-free public colleges and universities.

    “When people attack you or when they come for you, you must be doing something right,” Lee, a current member of the Pennsylvania State House, said in a fiery speech to the crowd of supporters gathered in Pittsburgh Thursday night. “But I want to be clear in this moment: It’s not me they’re attacking… They’re worried about you. If they were in this room right now, they would not be able to stare us in the eyes.”

    “If you are somebody in this country who cares about people, why would you want to stand in the way of healthcare for everybody?” Lee continued. “If you care about this country and you care about our party the way they say, why would they stand in the way of clean air and water? How dare they get in the way of us fighting for every worker to have a living wage and a union and paid sick and family leave.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Introduces Medicare for All as Solution to “Dysfunctional” Health System

    For the first time since 2019, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) reintroduced his proposal to establish Medicare for All in the U.S., the only wealthy country in the world without universal health care.

    Sanders introduced the legislation with 14 cosponsors on Thursday “to guarantee health care in the United States as a fundamental human right to all,” according to his press release. The Medicare for All Act of 2022 would establish a universal health care system over the next four years, gradually broadening the existing Medicare system until all medical benefit areas and all members of the public are covered.

    Under the proposal, any member of the public can access whichever health care provider or health facility they want, without worrying about whether or not their care is covered. It would also allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices to lower costs for the government and individuals.

    The bill’s introduction came as the Senate Budget Committee, of which Sanders is the chair, held a hearing on the subject on Thursday. The aim of the hearing, entitled “Medicare for All: Protecting Health, Saving Lives, Saving Money,” is to examine the benefits of Medicare for All both for public health and for the economy – and the benefits, Sanders says, would be vast.

    Medicare for All has been kicked around as a concept in the U.S. since as early as the 1960s, when Medicare was originally established. Though lawmakers and activists have advocated for it for decades, Sanders brought the concept into the mainstream during his 2016 presidential run. In the years since, it has become a rallying cry for progressive activists and lawmakers.

    In his opening statement on Thursday, Sanders emphasized that he believes the debate over Medicare for All isn’t really about the merits or demerits of the system, but rather a struggle between the wants and needs of the American people versus the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

    “Let’s be clear about something – and this is maybe the most important point that I want to make – the current debate that we’re having on health care and Medicare for all really has nothing to do with health care. Because, in my view, this dysfunctional health care system cannot be rationally defended,” he said.

    “What this debate has everything to do with is the unquestionable greed of the health care industry and their desire to maintain a system which fails the average American but which makes the industry huge profits year after year after year,” he continued.

    Ultimately, since the health care industry operates as a for-profit enterprise, it will always put profits before the health of its customers, Sanders emphasized. He pointed out that, while millions of Americans lost health insurance or struggled to pay for needed medications or visits during the pandemic, insurers raked in hundreds of billions of dollars. Meanwhile, compensation for executives at insurance companies shot up 31 percent between 2019 and 2020.

    “The debate we’re having is whether we have a health care system which provides quality care to all in a cost effective way, or whether we have a system which makes the drug companies and insurance companies and their executives very, very wealthy,” he said.

    Sanders pointed out that corporations’ lobbying campaign against Medicare for All echoes the original lobbying campaign against Medicare, one of the most popular federal programs in the U.S. Health care lobbyists have spent billions of dollars over the past decades on ads and campaign contributions, in part to fight Medicare for All. Similarly to attacks on Medicare before it was established, Medicare for All has also been attacked by fear mongering right-wingers as “socialist.”

    Americans spend trillions of dollars per year on health care, yet experience worse health outcomes than people in countries with universal health care, while insurers and lobbyists take that money and spend it on lobbying to keep the system the way it is, the lawmaker said.

    Though Medicare for All would be expensive to implement, the conservative Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that it would save Americans billions of dollars each year, making it less expensive than the current system – with the added benefit that Americans would no longer have to deal with piles of bills and the tedious bureaucracy of private insurers.

    “This is an issue not just of health care. This is an issue about what kind of nation we are,” Sanders said. “It’s an issue of whether we’re going to turn our backs on 60,000 people a year who die because they cannot get the health care that they need, turn our backs on the fact that we live shorter than some people in other countries, turn our backs [on the fact] that we are spending twice as much per capita as the people in other nations.”

    “This is an issue that has to be dealt with. Medicare for All will become the law of the land – if not now, then in the future,” Sanders concluded. “Because this is what the American people want.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Asks Why Manchin’s a Democrat After His “No” Vote on Abortion Bill

    After every Republican in the Senate and conservative Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (West Virginia) voted against a bill to guarantee abortion access in the U.S. on Wednesday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) questioned why Manchin caucuses with Democrats at all.

    Though the bill didn’t have a chance of passing without filibuster abolition or reform, Senate leaders hoped to get lawmakers’ votes opposing abortion access on the public record. All 49 other Democrats in the Senate voted for the bill, which would have allowed health care providers to conduct abortions “prior to fetal viability” or if the parent’s or fetus’s health is at risk. It would also explicitly ban states from prohibiting access to such services, with the goal of essentially codifying Roe v. Wade into law.

    In a tweet clearly aimed at Manchin, Sanders wrote: “If you can’t stand up for a woman’s right to choose, for voting rights, for an economy that works for all, why are you caucusing with the Senate Democrats? We need a Democratic Majority where all members believe in economic, racial, social and environmental justice.”

    Manchin announced his opposition to the bill ahead of the vote on Wednesday afternoon, claiming that he wouldn’t vote for it because “it expands abortion,” he told reporters. His statements echo that of Senate Republicans, who say that they oppose the bill because it overrules state laws and doesn’t carve out exceptions for Catholic hospitals to refuse to provide abortions.

    Moderate Republicans and Manchin claim that they’re generally opposed to abortion bans – yet their opposition to the scope of the bill shows that they want at least some restrictions to remain. Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have introduced a competing bill that they say would only codify Roe – but the law has a loophole that would still allow restrictions on abortions, like the Mississippi law barring abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, or about eight weeks earlier than the time frame protected under Roe.

    With the Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade in the works, the bill’s passage is more urgent than ever to protect families and save countless lives by guaranteeing abortion access at the federal level. Many Democratic lawmakers swiftly jumped to action after the Supreme Court draft opinion was leaked last week, joining pro-abortion protesters and warning that overturning Roe would be a major step on the far right’s path to restricting a variety of other rights.

    The exceptions were Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona). Shortly after the leaked draft opinion became public, Manchin and Sinema announced that they would not support efforts to reform or abolish the filibuster in order to protect abortion rights – essentially making it impossible to codify the abortion protections in Roe. Manchin has previously described himself as “pro-life.”

    With Manchin’s relentless obstruction of nearly every Democratic priority over the course of Joe Biden’s presidency, many political commentators and frustrated Democratic lawmakers have questioned why the conservative even considers himself a part of the Democratic party.

    According to a recently released excerpt from an upcoming book, This Will Not Pass, Manchin has joked around with Republican colleagues that he should change parties. He has repeatedly insisted that he is a Democrat, but his opposition to virtually every Democratic proposal and the major financial support he receives from right-wing sources have caused his allegiances to frequently be called into question.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders: GOP Ended Filibuster to Pack Court, Dems Must Do So for Abortion Rights

    On the eve of a key procedural vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act, Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a floor speech Tuesday that the Senate’s Democratic majority must use its power to end the legislative filibuster and codify abortion rights into federal law.

    Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, acknowledged that Senate Democrats don’t currently have the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster, an archaic rule that has enabled the Republican minority to stonewall much of the majority party’s agenda over the past year.

    “It is not good enough to just talk about passing this bill,” Sanders said of the WHPA, legislation that would cement the right to abortion care free from medically unnecessary restrictions as the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing majority gears up to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    “We must end the filibuster and pass it with 50 votes,” said the Vermont senator. “You know, I hear a lot of talk from my Democratic colleagues about the need for unity. Well, if there was ever a time for unity, now is that time.”

    Despite calling Wednesday’s vote “one of the most important… in decades,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has not given any indication that he plans to pursue filibuster reform if Republicans and right-wing Democrats block the WHPA.

    Just 50 votes and a tie-breaker from the vice president are required to eliminate or weaken the filibuster, but at least two right-wing Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — have refused to accept any changes to the rule. Both Democratic senators openly defended the filibuster in the hours after Justice Samuel Alito’s extremist draft opinion was leaked to the press.

    With Manchin opposed to the WHPA and the filibuster intact, the House-passed legislation is doomed to fail in the Senate.

    In his speech Tuesday, Sanders noted that Republicans’ 2017 decision to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster for Supreme Court nominees empowered them to “do what they could not do legislatively: Make abortion illegal.”

    “Candidate Donald Trump promised that he would only nominate Supreme Court justices who supported overturning Roe v. Wade,” Sanders said. “And, unfortunately, out of the many lies Trump made during his campaign and presidency, this seems to be the one promise he kept.”

    The Vermont senator emphasized that Alito, a George W. Bush nominee, as well as Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett were selected by presidents who lost the popular vote. All four justices — plus Clarence Thomas, who was nominated by George H.W. Bush — are expected to vote to overturn Roe.

    “Is it any wonder why Americans all over the country are losing faith in their democracy?” Sanders said. “If Republicans can end the filibuster to install right-wing justices nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote in order to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats can and must end the filibuster to make abortion legal and safe.”

    If the Supreme Court ends Roe, the implications for abortion rights — and other key freedoms — will be massive.

    In more than half of all U.S. states, abortion will likely be prohibited. If Republicans retake Congress in November and the White House in 2024, they could pursue a sweeping federal ban on abortion. The United States’ maternal mortality crisis, already the worst among rich countries, will potentially become more severe, with the impacts disproportionately hitting the poor.

    “Let’s be clear: The Supreme Court will not be able to ban abortion,” Sanders said Tuesday. “If you are wealthy and you have the means to get on an airplane or drive hundreds of miles — you will always have access to a safe abortion. But if you are poor or if you are in the working class, you will not.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.