#BernieSanders news roundup: week ending 9/20/2015 | Blog#42

“Bernie Sanders – The Only White Guy to Show Up…

Legendary reporter Greg Palast appeared on The Thom Hartmann show and spoke about Bernie Sanders longstanding work with the Congressional Black Caucus dating back decades. “His film, Vultures and Vote Rustlers is now available on DVD, Website: www.gregpalast.com/, about how he was asked by the Congressional Black Caucus to present his discovery of the illegal purge of Black voters in Florida, only one white guy showed: Bernie Sanders.” Watch:


An Evangelical Reddit user explains his support of Bernie Sanders:

Hi my name is Jim. I am the guy who recently posted onto Reddit under the Sanders4President Subreddit that I’m a Liberty University Alumni, and that I support Bernie, and think that he’s a good spokesman for justice.

I thought I would take a second to, sort of, unpack that, because I could tell there’s a lot of people, both Evangelical conservative folk and more liberal Bernie-supporting folk, who are very confused that I could occupy both worlds. So, I thought, I’ll take a few seconds and explain myself, and maybe that will be helpful for the conversation.

Read the rest on Reddit.


 Bernie Sanders appeared on the Colbert Show. Here are two segments, if you missed them:

and


Bernie was on CNN to talk about the GOP debate:


Bernie Sanders’ Bank Plan: Too Big to Succeed?

It’s not at all clear how his four-page bill would work.

Thu Sep. 17, 2015

A week after announcing his run for the presidency at the end of April, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont presented a bill that would become the anchor of his campaign. Together with Rep. Brad Sherman, Sanders introduced the Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act, which would break up America’s biggest banks by setting a cap on the size of financial institutions. “If any of these financial institutions were to fail again, the taxpayers of this country would be on the hook for another bailout, perhaps even larger than the last one,” Sanders said at a Capitol Hill press conference announcing the bill. “We cannot let that happen again.” Sanders boasted that his bill would mean the end of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley, all within less than a year of the act becoming law.

At the time, the bill fit with the general perception of Sanders’ candidacy: a challenger seeking to inject liberal priorities into the presidential debate, but not quite serious enough as a candidate to win the nomination and implement his policies. Since then, Sanders has slowly gained in the polls to become a legit challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Polls this month have shown him with an edge over Clinton in New Hampshire and Iowa, though he still trails by a wide margin nationally. His populist screeds against the outsize influence of banks and economic elites have propelled his rise and helped him amass huge crowds wherever he travels.

But amid the hoopla, a simple question has been missed: Even if you support the goal behind the proposal, is his plan to break up Wall Street at all feasible?

Read the rest of this article on Mother Jones.


Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill to Ban Private Prisons

Fri, Sep 18, 2015

Yesterday, Independent presidential candidate and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Justice Is Not for Sale Act, which would ban government contracts with private prisons.

Prisons operated by private companies—as opposed to those controlled directly by the government—housed 8.4 percent of federal and state inmates in 2013. They have been tied to higher rates of violence and recidivism, shown to supply less-than-adequate health care, and found to offer fewer opportunities for educational enrichment. And a 2014 study found that when people of color are sentenced to time in prison, they are more likely than their white peers to be sent to these institutions, which profit from mass incarceration.

Co-sponsored by Representatives Keith Ellison (D-Mo.), Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Bobby L. Rush (D-IL), the bill would require the government to directly oversee correctional facilities, rather than contracting them out.

Sanders, who is running for president, held a press conference about the bill. His remarks included the following passage:

In my view, we need bold change in our criminal justice system. As a first step, we need to start treating prisoners like human beings. Private companies should not be profiting from their incarceration.

Our emphasis must be on rehabilitation, not incarceration and longer prison sentences. The basic decisions regarding criminal justice and public safety must be the responsibility of the citizens of our country and not the investors in private corporations.

It is morally repugnant and a national tragedy that we have privatized prisons all over America.

Read the rest of this article on Colorlines.


Bernie Sanders Bashes Billionaires at a Manhattan Fund-Raiser

First Draft: Sept.18

By Nicholas Confessore

The traditional campaign fund-raiser: a few dozen deep-pocketed donors in a quiet room, a trimmed-down stump speech from the candidate, a pantomime of intimacy.

A Bernie Sanders fund-raiser, like the one Friday at Manhattan’s Town Hall? Hundreds of supporters in a sweaty concert hall cheering a stem-winder from the candidate about the evils of fund-raising in a post-Citizens United world, where candidates spend a significant amount of time wooing the superwealthy.

Read the rest of this article and view the video at the New York Times.


 

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