Bernie Sanders to unveil a $146 billion Marshall Plan for Puerto Rico

By Jeff Stein November 28 at 6:00 AM

Excerpt:

On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will unveil an ambitious $146 billion Puerto Rico recovery plan he says will allow renewable power sources such as solar and wind to provide about 70 percent of the island’s energy needs within the decade.

The bill, which has the backing of San Juan Mayor Yulín Cruz, also calls on Congress to consider retiring Puerto Rico’s debt and would give the island billions in additional federal funding for transportation, health care and education in the hopes of stemming a feared mass exodus to the mainland. It would also allocate funds to the Virgin Islands, which were similarly devastated by Hurricane Maria.

Sanders’s bill would give $62 billion to help the cash-strapped Puerto Rican government pay off its debt; $51 billion for economic development; $27 billion for infrastructure, including new energy infrastructure; and billions more for education and environmental remediation.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) will co-sponsor Sanders’s bill, and a handful of other Democratic senators are considering doing so as well. It has also been endorsed by 42 liberal and labor organizations, including MoveOn.org, the Sierra Club, and the Service Employees International Union.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/28/bernie-sanders-to-unveil-a-146-billion-marshall-plan-for-puerto-rico/



San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz talks to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during a visit Oct. 27 to the Playita community in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (AFP/Getty Images)

Bernie makes moves pointing to 2020 run

By GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI 11/27/2017 05:02 AM EST

Excerpts:

As Sanders monitors his post-2016 political group Our Revolution and the Democratic National Committee's reform efforts, he has also slightly expanded his tight circle of 2016 aides. Campaign manager Jeff Weaver has returned to the senator's political payroll after helping build Our Revolution — which still hosts Sanders' campaign email list and provides him a nationwide foothold.

In contrast to the run-up to 2016, the group of counselors also now includes pollster Ben Tulchin, who joined that year's campaign only after Sanders was persuaded that hiring a pollster was worth it. A pair of senior advisers in Sanders' Senate office have also joined. Rabin-Havt, a former Harry Reid aide, has been directing political outreach, and Matt Duss, former president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, is working on foreign policy.

Recognizing the senator’s post-campaign national platform and 99 percent name ID across the country — and aware that his status as a potential 2020 front-runner draws further eyeballs — his team has stopped sticking to just a few pet issues. Now it tries to inject him into as many productive national conversations as possible, sometimes with the support of his wife's new Sanders Institute think tank.

After resisting advisers’ pleas to give more foreign policy-oriented speeches during his campaign, Sanders has also now been working with Duss to build a public record on international affairs. That work has entailed more than just his trio of major public speeches on the topic this year — a February address to J-Street on Trump, Israel and anti-Semitism; a speech on authoritarianism, in June, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and a September talk at Missouri’s Westminster College to stress the importance of partnerships “not just between governments, but between peoples.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/27/bernie-sanders-2020-elections-258160

Chuck Schumer Is All In On Bernie Sanders' Democratic Party

11/19/2016 12:10 pm ET Updated Nov 20, 2016


By Michael McAuliff

Excerpt:

“On economic issues in particular, a strong, bold economic message wins,” Schumer said. “Bernie and I think alike on these issues and always have,” he said, adding that Warren and Sanders both backed him when he first announced his intent to replace retiring Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Schumer has even embraced Sanders’ choice to head up the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota.

“Bernie convinced me of this. Bernie asked me to do it, to organize it,” Schumer said, adding that he agrees with Sanders’ idea that the DNC needs to become more of an activist and organizing operation.

“So when we’re pushing for a strong college bill on the floor, there are hundreds of thousands of people on campuses across the country emailing, and tweeting and calling and protesting. And when we do minimum wage, there should be minimum wage workers all over the country pushing for that,” Schumer said. “That’s what Bernie wants to do with the DNC, and I completely agree.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chuck-schumer-is-all-in-on-bernie-sanders-democratic-party_us_58307a38e4b030997bbfc3cc

Kaine sides with Sanders, calls for eliminating superdelegates

11/15/17 06:15 PM EST

Excerpts:
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, is siding with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in advocating for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to end the use of superdelegates, saying that they have "undue influence" over the primary process.

"I have long believed there should be no superdelegates. These positions are given undue influence in the popular nominating contest and make the process less democratic,” Kaine wrote in the letter, obtained first by Politico.

Superdelegates consist of powerful Democratic operatives and elected officials whose votes carry more weight than regularly elected delegates, sometimes trumping the winner of state primary votes.

Kaine, a former DNC chairman and superdelegate himself, urged the Unity Reform Commission, a group reviewing and recommending changes to the system, to do away with superdelegates altogether and said he would protest the rule by voting strictly in accordance with his home district in the future.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/360587-tim-kaine-sides-with-sanders-calls-for-eliminating-superdelegates

For the last 18 years @GunnelsWarren has been by my side watching Republicans try to destroy ...

Bernie Sanders: We must end global oligarchy

By Bernie Sanders
Updated 7:56 AM ET, Mon November 13, 2017

Excerpt:

The essence of oligarchy is that the billionaire class is never satisfied with what they have. They want more, more and more -- no matter what impact their efforts have on working people, the elderly, children, the sick and the poor. Greed is their religion. While the oligarchs are avoiding their taxes, Trump and his Republican colleagues, ostensibly in order to save federal dollars, have been trying to throw tens of millions of Americans off of their health insurance, and make massive cuts in education, nutrition assistance and affordable housing.

As a candidate for president, Trump promised that he would stand up for the working class of this country. Needless to say, that was a lie. Almost half of the benefits in the Trump/Republican tax plan would go to the top 1%, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Additionally, they want to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, even though in 2012 one out of every five large, profitable corporations in the US paid no federal income taxes at all and between 2008 and 2015, 18 corporations had a tax rate lower than 0%.

Republicans also want to make it easier for companies to shelter their profits overseas and pay zero taxes. The "territorial tax system" they are proposing, which means companies would be taxed only on income earned within our country's borders, would exempt the offshore profits of American corporations from US taxes and allow for a one-time 12% tax on their offshore cash profits when brought back into the United States.

Meanwhile, while the wealthy and large corporations are receiving huge tax breaks, nearly half of middle-class families would actually see their taxes go up by the end of the decade by eliminating deductions for medical expenses, student loan interest rates, state and local income and sales taxes, and the cost of health insurance for the self-employed.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/13/opinions/oligarchy-paradise-papers-bernie-sanders-opinion/index.html

Bernie Sanders Calls On DNC Chair Tom Perez To Implement Findings Of #UnityReformCommission

Our job is to revitalize American democracy and bring millions of people into the political process who today do not vote and who do not believe that government is relevant to their lives.

by Bernie Sanders

Excerpt:

In an email sent on Monday, November 6, 2017, Senator Bernie Sanders emphasized that we need to rebuild the Democratic Party. We need a Democratic Party that is as open, as inclusive, and as progressive as it can possibly be.

In the email, he also asked supporters to sign a petition calling on DNC Chairman Tom Perez to accept, support, and implement the findings of the Unity Reform Commission.

The text from the email in full follows below:

Politics is not a baseball game, and it is not a soap opera.

People are hurting in this country, and our job is not to be distracted by political gossip and Donald Trump’s tweets. Our job is to revitalize American democracy and bring millions of people into the political process who today do not vote and who do not believe that government is relevant to their lives. Our job is to create an economy and government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent and wealthy campaign contributors.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/11/09/we-need-truly-grassroots-democratic-party-call-dnc-chair-tom-perez-implement

In Somerville's election, a heptad of Bernie-inspired aldermen victories

NOVEMBER 08, 2017

In Somerville, all seven aldermen candidates who were endorsed by a local affiliate of the Bernie Sanders-inspired Our Revolution won Tuesday: Matthew McLaughlin in Ward 1, JT Scott in Ward 2, Ben Ewen-Campen in Ward 3, Jesse Clingan in Ward 4, and at-large aldermen Bill White, Mary Jo Rossetti, and Will Mbah, according to unofficial results posted to the city’s web site.

Our Revolution is a political group that seeks to harness the progressive ideas that Bernie Sanders ran on during last year’s presidential election. Its web site says the group is looking to “transform American politics to make our political and economic systems once again responsive to the needs of working families.”

A Somerville affiliate of that group made endorsements for the city’s municipal election on Tuesday. About 50 people were involved in the endorsement process, said McLaughlin. All seven of the group’s aldermen endorsements were elected.

McLaughlin, who was the chairman for Sanders’ campaign in Somerville during last year’s primary, said he thought the results reflected that the city’s residents wanted “progressive change.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/11/07/somerville-election-heptad-bernie-inspired-aldermen-victories/0ufFnfBoUwjWLlzVAWFFVP/story.html

Sanders reacts to Brazile book with call to 'get our act together'

Published 4:23 p.m. ET Nov. 7, 2017

Excerpts:

Bernie Sanders says a provocative new memoir from the former leader of the Democratic National Committee shows the party needs a "fair and transparent political process" to avoid repeating past failures.

"What the recently released book excerpt from former interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile made clear," Sanders wrote, "is that unless we get our act together, we are not going to be effective in either taking on Donald Trump or in stopping the extremist right-wing Republican agenda.

"We have to re-establish faith with the American people that in fact we can make positive changes in this country through a fair and transparent political process that reflects the will of voters across this country," Sanders continued.

Brazile's account has inflamed resentments within the Democratic Party among established party officials and Sanders loyalists. Sanders and his staff have downplayed the controversy as a distraction and political gossip.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/07/sanders-reacts-brazile-book-shows-supporters-need-get-our-act-together/840078001/

Elizabeth Warren admits the Democratic Party was rigged against Bernie Sanders

SARAH K. BURRIS
02 NOV 2017 AT 17:01 ET

(Video at link)

Excerpt:

During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) agreed that the Democratic Party rigged the presidential nomination against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

“This is a real problem,” Warren told Tapper. “But what we’ve got to do as Democrats now, we’ve got to hold this party accountable.”

She said that when chair Tom Perez first was elected as chair she met with him and encouraged him to put the party back together so that they can begin working to help Democrats, “rather than Democrats working for the party.”

“This is a test for Tom Perez,” Warren said. “And either he’s going to succeed by bringing Bernie Sanders and Bernie Sanders’ representatives into this process and they’re going to say ‘It’s fair, it works, we all believe it,’ or he’s going to fail. And I very much hope he succeeds. I hope for Democrats everywhere, I hope for Bernie and for all of Bernie supporters he’s going to succeed.” When asked if she agreed that the system was rigged against Sanders, Warren said simply, “yes.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/elizabeth-warren-admits-the-democratic-party-was-rigged-against-bernie-sanders/