If campaign contributions are any indication of broader support, members of the military are lining up behind Democrats in the presidential race, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) in the lead. Individuals listing their employer as the U.S. Department of Defense or one of the branches of the military have given $374,600 to Sanders, more than to any other presidential candidate. Hillary Clinton comes in second behind her Democratic rival at $247,649, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) not far behind and other failed Republican candidates following. Military support for the GOP’s last man standing, Donald Trump, has been in comparatively short supply — just $15,502. The figures include gifts from those who identified themselves as retired servicemembers. While it may seem surprising that someone who applied for conscientious objector status to avoid serving in Vietnam would be the top choice of military donors, the support for Sanders can be partially explained by […] Read More
Tag: Bernie Sanders
By Sami Jamil Jadallah on February 16, 2016 If The Founding Fathers were alive today, for sure they would call on the nation to revolt and rise not against Great Britain but a against a political and economic system that went awry, far from the idea of what they had in mind. Bernie Sanders is right when he calls for a social, political and economic revolution that will shape the future of the nation for the next hundred years. By the way every country needs some kind of political and economic revolution at least once every hundred years. America’s time is now. While the last 100 years of the nation history saw a major breakthrough in our political and economic systems from women suffrage to Roe vs. Wade, to the Civil Rights Act of 68 to the Great Depression and FDR answer “ the New Deal” with investment in […] Read More
What is Fascism? Recently Chris Hedges wrote of an imperialist US that is infected by “the virus of fascism, wrapped in the American flag, held aloft by the Christian cross and buttressed by white supremacy.” Hedges was not using the term fascism as it would be used by a political theorist or historian. It is common to use “fascism” to indicate a more general and imprecise fascistic tendency. Yet there comes a point when so many fascistic traits are in evidence that you know you must be dealing with a type of Fascism. The US has become a Fascist state. The similarities between the US regime and past Fascist regimes are too numerous to ignore. There are notable differences, it is true, but they can all be traced to a single point of departure: the original Fascism was a nationalistic creed with imperialist ambitions, this new Fascism is an […] Read More
Bernie Sanders has been making a lot of waves lately speaking out against police brutality and corruption, but recently the Democratic presidential hopeful came out against the Department of Justice’s weak pledge to supposedly “get serious” about white-collar crime. A lot of this sort of white collar criminal activity on Wall Street is what fueled the 2008 financial crisis. But while the Department of Justice said Thursday that it pledges to crack down on corrupt bankers and investors, Sanders isn’t impressed. The DOJ memo claims the government will from this point forward try to hold both corporations and individual employees accountable for illegal Wall Street activity. Sanders says this is long over due, but he says the DOJ doesn’t go far enough, and that the government is being hypocritical by destroying lives in the so-called “War on Drugs” while letting so much white collar crime go unpunished, or with just a slap on […] Read More
A congressman calls out his colleagues on education policy. Progressive Democrats are right to hail the new populism in their party driving the debate about the nation’s economic policies and the atrocious inequality those policies have created. Heartened by the bold leadership of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the huge crowds cheering on the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, progressives can truly feel their agenda is driving the national debate and propelling change. So it’s beyond disappointing when progressive leaders in the Democratic Party who can knock an argument for economic populism out of the park continue to whiff on education populism. Currently, the House and Senate are in the process of rewriting No Child Left Behind — the federal law that started enforced testing and harsh punishments in public schools. Both versions that have passed in their respective chambers allow for states to end current accountability measures enforced […] Read More
Clinton’s record is far from stellar. While the Black Lives Matter movement has focused attention on Bernie Sanders for his perceived racial justice deficiencies, no one seems to be giving much scrutiny to the civil rights record of Bill and Hillary Clinton and the impact their political work has had on the black community. History has not been kind to the Clintons’ record and it is possible that Bill Clinton while president, with no public objections and often with enthusiastic support from Hillary, did more damage to the black community than any modern American president. Let’s take a look at the Clintons’ record, in particular the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, the 1994 Violent Crime Act, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the support and passage of NAFTA and NAFTA-style trade agreements. 1996 Welfare Reform Act: Any consideration of Bill Clinton’s impact on the black community must include the 1996 Welfare Reform […] Read More
The day before President Barack Obama gave his 2014 State of the Union address, in which he made economic inequality the centerpiece, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) made an appearance on CNN’s “Situation Room.” About halfway through the segment, he started to lose his cool. Sanders and Michele Bachmann, the former Republican representative from Minnesota, had been trading verbal jabs for several minutes and stepping all over each other’s lines, when they landed on the subject of Social Security. “Do you believe in the chained CPI?” Sanders asked Bachmann, referring to an idea then being considered that would have decreased payments for cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security benefits. He wanted Bachmann to concede that the GOP aimed to cut Social Security. She alternately dodged the question and scolded him for lying. “I asked you a question, and you wouldn’t give me an answer,” Sanders thundered after repeating the question five […] Read More