The Progressive Wing

Bernie Sanders previews his major speech on Medicare for All and responds to Biden’s latest attacks:

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BERNIE SANDERS SAYS NANCY PELOSI IS A ‘LITTLE BIT’ TOO TOUGH ON ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: “YOU CANNOT IGNORE YOUNG PEOPLE”

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders defended New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez amid increased tensions with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during his appearance on Meet the Press on Sunday. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate suggested Pelosi was being a “little bit” too tough on Ocasio-Cortez and other young women of color who have recently launched political careers.

Sanders was asked to weigh in on the current intra-party strife that’s occurring within the House Democrats between new, generally more progressive members of Congress and the party’s leadership that has appeared to resist shifting too far to the political left. The senator suggested people who have long been affiliated with the party needed to be more supportive of its younger members.

“It goes without saying the future of our country and the future of the Democratic Party rests with young people,” Sanders said. “And I’m very proud, by the way, in virtually every poll I have seen—we are winning people under 45 or 50 years of age and younger.”

Ocasio-Cortez recently suggested some comments Pelosi has made were dismissive of her and her group of progressive freshman Democrats, referred to as “The Squad,” which included the Bronx native as well as Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. While speaking to the Washington Post on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez claimed there was an “explicit singling out of newly elected women of color” by Pelosi.

Sanders said older members of the Democratic Party needed to do a better job of hearing out the new voices as they advocate for issues affecting a younger generation of society.

“Alexandria and other young women and women of color are saying, ‘We have got to reach out to young people. We’ve got to heal the pain of the working class of this country.’ And that is causing some political disruption within the leadership of the Democratic Party,” Sanders said.

He continued: “Let me give you one example where I am very concerned: I have helped lead the effort to expand community health centers in this country, and right now there is legislation in the House—the Democratic House—to cut real inflation accounts for dollars community health centers by 20 percent. Unacceptable. So I support Alexandria’s and the other women’s desire to bring more people, especially young people, working-class people into the Democratic party. That is the future of the Democratic Party of this country.”

When asked if Pelosi was being too hard on Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders said, “I think a little bit.”

“You cannot ignore the young people of this country who are passionate about economic and racial and social and environmental justice. You gotta bring them in, not alienate them,” he added

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Sanders invokes vote against DOMA in video highlighting LGBT support

On the anniversary of his 1996 vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, Bernie Sanders through his 2020 presidential campaign has issued a video in which LGBT supporters in New Hampshire highlight his record.

The 3-minute video, titled “Even When It was Hard,” shows images of Bernie Sanders with LGBT supporters, including a march through a Pride parade.

The video includes clips from New Hampshire Constituency Director Mo Baxley, who led the fight for marriage equality in Freedom to Marry, New Hampshire for Bernie steering committee member David Holt and New Hampshire deputy state director Carli Stevenson.

“Thirty to forty years ago, there weren’t people standing up to support the LGBT community,” Baxley says. “Bernie Sanders was one of the very few, and it meant all the world to us.”

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The Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriage, came out for a vote on July 12, 1996. The vote was 342-67. Sanders was one of the lawmakers in the minority against DOMA.

2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Joseph Biden were on opposite sides of DOMA. When the bill came up for a vote in the Senate on Sept. 10, 1996 Biden voted for the bill.

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Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez move to declare climate crisis official emergency

A group of US lawmakers including the 2020 Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders are proposing to declare the climate crisis an official emergency – a significant recognition of the threat taken after considerable pressure from environment groups.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic congresswoman from New York, and Earl Blumenauer, a Democratic congressman from Oregon, plan to introduce the same resolution in the House on Tuesday, their offices confirmed.

A Sanders spokesperson said: “President Trump has routinely declared phony national emergencies to advance his deeply unpopular agenda, like selling Saudi Arabia bombs that Congress had blocked.

“On the existential threat of climate change, Trump insists on calling it a hoax. Senator Sanders is proud to partner with his House colleagues to challenge this absurdity and have Congress declare what we all know: we are facing a climate emergency that requires a massive and immediate federal mobilization.”

Climate activists have been calling for the declaration, as data shows nations are not on track to limit the dangerous heating of the planet significantly enough. The UN has warned the world is experiencing one climate disaster every week. A new analysis from the economic firm Rhodium Group today finds the US might achieve less than half of the percentage of pollution reductions it promised other countries in an international agreement.

Sixteen countries and hundreds of local governments, including New York City last month, have declared a climate emergency already, according to the advocacy group the Climate Mobilization. The activist group Extinction Rebellion has said the declaration is a crucial first step in addressing the crisis.

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The resolution says: “The global warming caused by human activities, which increase emissions of greenhouse gases, has resulted in a climate emergency” that “severely and urgently impacts the economic and social well-being, health and safety, and national security of the United States”.

It then goes on to say that Congress “demands a national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization of the resources and labor of the United States at a massive-scale.”

Bernie Sanders is teaming up with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez —again — this time on a resolution calling for “massive” federal government action to reverse climate change.https://t.co/C3Odsbj1xY

— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) July 9, 2019

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Sanders in Las Vegas: ‘We are taking on virtually everyone’

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders detailed a long list of institutions Saturday that his revolution-themed presidential campaign seeks to challenge, from pharmaceutical and fossil fuel companies to wealthy political donors and members of the Republican and Democratic parties.

“We are taking on virtually everyone,” Sanders, a Democratic candidate, told a church full of supporters while campaigning in Las Vegas.

Sanders, who kept a popular political following after his 2016 primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, told the crowd their support would help topple power concentrated in corporations, the wealthy and the establishment.

“The one percent has enormous wealth and power. But you know what we’ve got? Ninety-nine percent is a hell of a lot bigger number than one percent,” Sanders said to loud cheers.

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Later Saturday afternoon, Sanders met with veterans and their family members at the Veterans Village, a nonprofit that provides housing, food, employment training and more for veterans, particularly homeless veterans.

Sanders asked questions of those in the room, including querying the veterans who had been homeless about how they managed to survive living on the streets of Las Vegas with the triple-digit summer temperatures.

Veterans described how they struggled to find places to stay cool or clean, the burdensome paperwork they have to fill out to receive health care and other benefits and the difficulty of learning about what help is available to them.

“We have a moral responsibility,” Sanders said. “If a country is worth anything, it is how we treat those people who put their lives on the line to defend us. And frankly, we have not been doing anywhere near as much as we should.”

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Bernie Is the Best Candidate on Palestine

In an interview last year with the New Yorker, Palestinian author and activist Yousef Bashir recounted his 2017 visit to Bernie Sanders’s congressional office with a group of Israeli students. “I told Bernie he was the most popular Jew in Gaza since Moses,” Bashir recalled.

And for good reason.

Alone among the major presidential candidates, Sanders has repeatedly spoken out about Israel’s violence against Palestinians. During the last Gaza War, in 2014, he called Israel’s use of force “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate.” He publicly condemned Israel’s killing of peaceful Palestinian protesters during last year’s Great March of Return. “Innocent people are being killed,” Sanders told the Intercept. “Those are terrible actions. Instead of applauding Israel for its actions, Israel should be condemned.” In an additional tweet, Sanders called the deaths “tragic” and unequivocally defended Palestinians’ freedom of assembly, saying: “It is the right of all people to protest for a better future without a violent response.”

And while many US politicians have rushed to blame Gazans for their own dire circumstances, Sanders has instead pointed to the prolonged Israeli siege as the source of the humanitarian crisis. In a coauthored letter to secretary of state Mike Pompeo last year, Sanders decried the massive levels of unemployment and poverty in the blockaded Strip and reminded the Trump appointee that “while Israel withdrew its forces from within Gaza in 2005, its continuing control of Gaza’s air, sea, northern, southern, and eastern borders have made the humanitarian crisis there even worse.” He reiterated his call for rebuilding Gaza, easing the blockade, and restoring US funds to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).

Not surprisingly, Sanders’s outspoken support for Palestinians has put him in the crosshairs of hawkish pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). During the last presidential campaign, Sanders was the only major candidate to decline to appear in person at AIPAC’s annual conference. When AIPAC refused to allow him to address the conference by video link from the campaign trail, Sanders recorded a speech addressed to the AIPAC audience and posted it online. “We have also got to be a friend, not only to Israel, but to the Palestinian people,” Sanders said in his remarks. “When we talk about Israel and Palestinian areas, it is important to understand that today there is a whole lot of suffering among Palestinians and that cannot be ignored.” Sanders also skipped this year’s AIPAC conference. In response, AIPAC has targeted the Vermont senator in Facebook ads in key Democratic primary states, urging users to sign an online petition telling Sanders that “America stands with Israel.”

Compare that to Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who insisted before a large crowd of AIPAC donors last March that “too many Palestinians and too many Arabs do not want any Jewish state in the Middle East” because “they don’t believe in the Torah.” Or Democratic presidential candidates like Joe Biden, who gushed to a group of AIPAC-affiliated donors in 2014: “Send a message to Bibi: I love him, I love him.” Or Pete Buttigieg, who recently snagged an endorsement from former AIPAC president Steve Grossman. Or Kamala Harris, who turned her private meeting in March with California AIPAC into a very public one on Twitter. Or Cory Booker, who has met regularly with AIPAC representatives to coordinate a “unified voice from Congress” against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. (While stridently pro-Israel in the past, Elizabeth Warren has taken a more balanced stance of late, including signing on to the Pompeo letter.)

Amid this sea of anti-Palestinian sentiment, Sanders has consistently expressed his support for Palestinians’ civil rights in the United States. He staunchly opposed the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, a bipartisan bill that criminalizes the boycotting of Israel. He was quick to condemn another bill, the Combating BDS Act, sponsored by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), tweeting: “It’s absurd that the first bill during the shutdown is legislation which punishes Americans who exercise their constitutional right to engage in political activity.”

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