Bernie Sanders take on the Republican debate
Bernie Sanders continues at pace like no other politician in addressing both huge crowds and every free media he is able to get. He is everywhere.
On Saturday he appeared in two rallies, one in which he weathered a protest. On Sunday morning he appeared on Face The Nation with moderator John Dickerson. That evening he appeared at his largest rally to date where north of 28,000 people listened to his revised stump speech.
Dickerson asked Bernie Sanders if he watched the debate. Bernie replied that he did. He then asked for Sanders’ impression.
“Not much. What amazed me is not just the answers that I heard,” Bernie Sanders said. “It’s the answers that I did not hear. Scientific community is virtually unanimous that climate change is one of the great environmental crisis facing this planet. Not one word. Massive level of income and wealth inequality, the rich is getting richer. Almost everybody else is getting poorer. No discussion. Citizens United Supreme Court decision allows billionaires to buy elections and buy candidates, huge issue, future of American democracy. No discussion at all. So on some of the most important issues facing our people, there was almost no discussion. But I will tell you what there was and what concerns me very very much. Apparently most of the candidates up there do not remember the consequences of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the kind of easy feeling, the kind of non-consequential talk about going to war or rejecting the President’s effort to negotiate an agreement with Iran disturb me very much. Because I think these people do not know what the war in Iraq did to our people, did to the people in Iraq. And how many of our folks came back wounded and dead.”
That snippet pretty much describe what was in fact an empty debate. That said, the least likely candidate, Ben Carson, had one statement that was unexpected, prescient, and necessary in the GOP debate.
Senator Bernie Sanders tweaked his stump speech to overtly take on social justice issues dead on at his Portland event.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released a detailed platform on combating racial inequality.
Sanders’ campaign posted the platform on his website on Sunday, and he addressed the issue of racial justice that evening in front of more than 20,000 supporters in Portland, drawing his largest crowd yet along the campaign trail. Nearly 12,000 people attended Saturday’s event in Seattle.
The platform delineates policy proposals pertaining to what Sanders calls “the four central types of violence waged against black and brown Americans: physical, political, legal and economic.”
Sanders proposes a series of police reforms, including the demilitarization of police forces, a federal program giving police body cameras, and increasing police transparency and accountability. He also calls for an end to mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenses and bemoans the disproportionate rate at which blacks are targeted by police.
“It is an obscenity that we stigmatize so many young Americans with a criminal record for smoking marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy. This must change,” he said. “We must address the lingering unjust stereotypes that lead to the labeling of black youths as ‘thugs.’ We know the truth that, like every community in this country, the vast majority of people of color are trying to work hard, play by the rules and raise their children. It’s time to stop demonizing minority communities.”
Bernie Sander seems to be on a mission. He is one candidate that is reaching out. The access he gives is allowing all those with grievances to use his growing platform to give their message traction.
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