Archive for Bernie Sanders

VIDEO: Bernie Sanders Writes Law to Break Them Up: 10 Largest Banks Bigger Now Than Before Taxpayer Bailout

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banks too big to prosecute sanders v holder

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout, via my pal Mark Karlin:

As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont)  charges in a news release issued from his Senate office:

The 10 largest banks in the United States are bigger now than before a taxpayer bailout following the 2008 financial crisis when the Federal Reserve propped up financial institutions with $16 trillion in near zero-interest loans and Congress approved a $700 billion rescue for banks that some considered “too big to fail.” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. now says the Justice Department may not pursue criminal cases against big banks because filing charges could “have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”

“We have a situation now where Wall Street banks are not only too big to fail, they are too big to jail,” Sanders said. “That is unacceptable and that has got to change because America is based on a system of law and justice.”

[...]

As a result of this Obama administration economic injustice and the threat that letting the same rip-off artists who caused the American economy to collapse continue to run even bigger banks and financial entities, Sanders and his staff penned a bill. It’s a short piece of legislation that gets right to the point in Section 3:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, beginning 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall break up entities include on the Too Big To Fail List, so that their failure would no longer cause a catastrophic effect on the United States or global economy without a taxpayer bailout.

[...]

If you want your dose of restoring economic accountability and justice to America, watch the Sanders/Sherman news conference on the law that would break up the too big to fail banks, [in the video above].

Please read the entire post here.

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Video- Real Time with Bill Maher Rips Ignorant Americans Over Anti-Science Beliefs – 4/5/13

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Via.

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Senate Democrats challenge Pres. Obama over his willingness to cut Social Security benefits

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chained cpi social security

The Hill:

At a meeting that lasted just less than 90 minutes, Obama was peppered by questions from Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), among others, who challenged Obama on adopting “chained CPI” — a less generous formula for adjusting benefits under Social Security and other programs for inflation. 

Obama has said he is open to chained CPI as part of a “grand bargain” that would include spending cuts as well as new revenue. And he didn’t back down from that support during a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats, despite pushback from Harkin and Sanders.

See, the problem is, put simply, here’s what “chained CPI” would do:

chart social security chained cpi

Here’s Senator Sanders on chained CPI:

“It would be criminal to cave on this issue.”

Please watch, it’s not long. Via Bernie Sanders YouTube channel:

Watch Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ed Schultz discuss the disastrous effects the Chained CPI would have on seniors, working families and disables vets.

And my fellow Dems wonder why I say that the president has, indeed, made it clear that he is willing to “cave,” as Sanders put it.

At the meeting, Obama  pledged to more regularly update Senate Democrats on the administration’s plans — an indication that the White House’s charm offensive would become a bipartisan effort.

I don’t find him so charming when it comes to chained CPI, sorry.

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SNL VIDEO: The Hagel confirmation hearing we didn’t see. The “fellating a donkey” mention might be why we didn’t.

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snl fred armisen bernie sanders hagel confirmation committee

Saturday Night Live goes all out and skewers Senate Republicans in an unaired spoof of the grilling Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel got during his confirmation hearings on CSPAN. It was cut from the show at the last minute, but thanks to the Internets, we get to see an SNL Moment of Utterly Inane, and Not Yet Ready for Prime or Late Night Time Hilarity.

We see the GOP bickering, grandstanding, and falling all over themselves to compete over who loves Israel the mostest of all.

Before you know it, they go skidding into full-on SNLvision as John McCain demands to know whether or not Hagel would go on national television and– wait for it– “fellate a donkey if the survival of Israel were at stake.”

Yes he says that.

but wait there's more

The Republicans then try to outdo each other to prove they would all have oral sex with a donkey– or maybe a mule, since donkeys might be castrated– if it meant a secure Israel.

Of course, Lindsey Graham says he’d “do it in a second, but then I grew up on a farm, so…”

And yes, tea bagging made its way into the sketch.

But you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Fred Armisen stifling a laugh while doing his hilarious impression of Senator Bernie Sanders.

snl fred armisen bernie sanders

You’re welcome.

Huge h/t: Taegan

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Chart: Rachel Maddow and Sen. Bernie Sanders are right. The gender pay gap is real.

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Via the DCCC:

“Women’s median earnings are lower than men’s in nearly all occupations.”

The reason it’s necessary to repeat that Rachel is right is that she was in a heated debate with a very condescending Alex Castellanos on Meet the Press who insisted she was wrong.

The pay gap is real. Castellanos’s arguments are not.

Via and more here.

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VIDEO: Are the Koch Brothers Funding Rush Limbaugh?

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The Koch Brothers are likely funding the always demure and refined Rush Limbaugh, who is such a class act that they must find him utterly irresistible.

:

EXPOSE THE KOCHS: The Koch brothers fund multiple think tanks and academic centers to promote their ideology and grow their profits, a Brave New Foundation investigation reveals. Let’s create an echo chamber of truth by using YouTube’s SHARE tools above to protect Social Security and counter the Koch billions. http://KochBrothersExposed.com/socialsecurity

Welcome to the right wing nut job message machine. Now it seems the vile Boss Limpdong (sorry, I turn into a five-year-old when his name is mentioned) is French kissing the Koch brothers. Paints quite a picture, doesn’t it?

Think of all the extra money they’ll contribute to his prescription drug habit!

Via Robert Greenwald and Jesse Lava at AlterNet:

Just in time for the release of Brave New Foundation’s new film, Koch Brothers Exposed, Rush Limbaugh has thrown in with Charles and David Koch in their letter war with Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. No surprise there; Rush has made his fortune defending the rich and powerful against the 99%. But does Rush actually have a vested interest in the Koch brothers’ success? [...]

Koch Brothers Exposed goes into detail on exactly how this echo chamber works. The reality is that corruption doesn’t happen mainly when a rich guy wangles a quid-pro-quo from a politician in a smoke-filled room. It happens when interests align so that powerful people have an incentive to stick up for each other and keep things just the way they are.

So are the Koch brothers funding Limbaugh? I’m not sure Rush has ever sent them an invoice. But he doesn’t have to. And that’s what’s so insidious about what the Kochs do.

This bunch creates their own news, repeats it over and over and over, and sadly, Americans buy into it.

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Bernie Sanders offers constitutional amendment to strip corporations of First Amendment rights

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You go Bernie!! Too bad it won’t get anywhere.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday proposed an amendment to the Constitution to exclude corporations from First Amendment rights to spend money on political campaigns.

The bill is a reaction to the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the government cannot put limits on election advertisements funded by corporations, unions or other groups. Democrats have charged that the decision essentially treats corporations as people that can enjoy First Amendment rights.

“Make no mistake, the Citizens United ruling has radically changed the nature of our democracy, further tilting the balance of power toward the rich and the powerful at a time when already the wealthiest people in this country have never had it so good,” Sanders said.

“In my view, history will record that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is one of the worst decisions ever made by a Supreme Court in the history of our country.”

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