Bernie Sanders launches a fiery attack on Trump and his billionaire allies, warning that the U.S. is sliding into an oligarchy controlled by the ultra-rich. Citing the fact that three billionaires backing Trump own more wealth than the bottom 170 million Americans, Sanders slams the corrupt influence of big money in politics and vows to fight back against corporate greed and economic inequality.
#BernieSanders #Oligarchy #TrumpOligarchy #FightForDemocracy #BernieVsTrump #WealthInequality #BillionaireClass #BernieRally #PoliticalRevolution #Sanders2024 #BernieSpeaks #AOCBernie #EndOligarchy #TrumpVsBernie #IncomeInequality
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Bernie Sanders to Run for Fourth Senate Term Amid US Democratic Concerns :: https://www.oneindia.com/international/bernie-sanders-82-seeks-fourth-senate-term-011-3818219.html?ref=DMDesc
Operation Rakth Chandan: DRI seizes Red Sanders worth Rs 11.70 crore :: https://www.oneindia.com/india/operation-rakth-chandan-dri-seizes-red-sanders-worth-rs-11-70-crore-3414939.html?ref=DMDesc
Bernie Sanders drops out of 2020 Democratic presidential campaign :: https://www.oneindia.com/international/bernie-sanders-drops-out-of-2020-democratic-presidential-campaign-3068152.html?ref=DMDesc
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#BernieSanders #Oligarchy #TrumpOligarchy #FightForDemocracy #BernieVsTrump #WealthInequality #BillionaireClass #BernieRally #PoliticalRevolution #Sanders2024 #BernieSpeaks #AOCBernie #EndOligarchy #TrumpVsBernie #IncomeInequality
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Bernie Sanders to Run for Fourth Senate Term Amid US Democratic Concerns :: https://www.oneindia.com/international/bernie-sanders-82-seeks-fourth-senate-term-011-3818219.html?ref=DMDesc
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Bernie Sanders drops out of 2020 Democratic presidential campaign :: https://www.oneindia.com/international/bernie-sanders-drops-out-of-2020-democratic-presidential-campaign-3068152.html?ref=DMDesc
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NewsTranscript
00:00Slashing USAID. Now why is all of this slashing taking place?
00:07It is taking place so that the wealthiest people in this country can receive over one trillion dollars in tax breaks.
00:17They wrote a constitution to prevent exactly what Donald Trump is trying to do today.
00:27So let us be clear about what is going on.
00:32In all of these states, and in fact all over the country, is that our nation right now faces enormous crises,
00:44unprecedented crises in the modern history of our country.
00:50And how, right now, at this moment, we respond to these crises will not only impact our lives,
01:00it will impact the lives of our kids and future generations, and in terms of climate change, the well-being of the entire planet.
01:12And Mr. President, what I have to tell you is that the American people are angry at what is happening here in Washington, D.C.,
01:27and they are prepared to stand up and fight back.
01:33In my view, and what I have heard from many, many people, is that they will not accept an oligarchic form of society
01:45where a handful of billionaires control our government, where the wealthiest person on earth, Mr. Musk,
01:56is running all over Washington, D.C., slashing the Social Security Administration
02:04so that our elderly people today are finding it extremely difficult to access the benefits that they paid into,
02:12where Mr. Musk and his friends are slashing the Veterans Administration
02:19so that people who put their lives on the line to defend us will not be able to get the health care that they are entitled to
02:28or get the benefits that they are owed in a timely manner.
02:32Slashing the Department of Education. Slashing USAID.
02:39And why is all of this slashing taking place?
02:43It is taking place so that the wealthiest people in this country can receive over $1 trillion in tax breaks.
02:54Now, I don't care if you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent.
03:02There are very few people in this country who think that you slash programs that working families desperately need
03:13in order to give tax breaks to billionaires.
03:17Mr. President, I am the former chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs,
03:24and I have had the honor of meeting with veterans in my own state of Vermont, all over Vermont,
03:30but all over the country.
03:33These are the men and women who put the uniform of this country on
03:40and have been prepared to die to defend our nation and American democracy.
03:48And these veterans and Americans all over our nation
03:53will not accept an authoritarian form of society with a president who undermines our Constitution every day.
04:06Every day there is something else out there where he is undermining our Constitution
04:11and threatening the very foundations of American democracy.
04:15That is not what people fought and died to allow to happen.
04:21Mr. President, I am not a historian, but I do know that the founding fathers of this country were no dummies.
04:33They were really smart guys.
04:36And in the 1780s, they wrote a Constitution and established a form of government
04:46with a separation of powers, a separation of powers,
04:52with an executive branch, the president, a legislative branch, the Congress, and a judicial branch.
05:03These revolutionaries in the 1780s
05:09had just fought a war against the imperial rule of the King of England,
05:17who was an absolute dictator, the most powerful person on earth.
05:22And these revolutionaries here in America, forming a new government,
05:28wanted to make absolutely sure that no one person in this brand new country that they were forming
05:39would have unlimited powers.
05:43And that is why we have a separation of powers.
05:48That is why we have a judiciary, a Congress, and an executive branch.
05:55In other words, way back in the 1780s,
06:00they wrote a Constitution to prevent exactly what Donald Trump is trying to do today.
06:09So let us be clear about what is going on.
06:14Donald Trump is attacking our First Amendment and is trying to intimidate the media
06:22and those who speak out against him.
06:26In an absolutely unprecedented way, Mr. President,
06:32he has sued ABC, CBS, META, the Des Moines Register.
06:41His FCC is now threatening to investigate NPR and PBS.
06:49Yes, he has called CNN and MSNBC illegal.
06:56In other words, the leader, or the so-called leader of the free world, is afraid of freedom.
07:06He doesn't like criticism.
07:08Well, guess what? None of us like criticism.
07:12But you don't get elected to the Senate, you don't get elected to the House,
07:15you don't become a governor, you don't become a president of the United States,
07:20unless you are prepared to deal with that criticism.
07:25And the response to that criticism in a democracy is not to sue the media,
07:32is not to intimidate the media, it's to respond in the way you think best.
07:40But, Mr. President, it is not just the media that Trump is going after.
07:47He is going after the constitutional responsibilities that this body, the United States Congress, has.
07:55And I will say it amazes me, it really does,
07:59how easily my Republican colleagues here in the Senate and in the House
08:04are willing to surrender their constitutional responsibilities.
08:09Give it over to the President.
08:12Trump has illegally and unconstitutionally withheld funds that Congress has appropriated.
08:21You can't do that.
08:24Congress has the power of the purse, we make a decision, we argue about it here,
08:29big debates, voter-amas, the whole thing.
08:32Make that decision, that money goes out.
08:35The President does not have the right to withhold funds that Congress has appropriated.
08:41Trump has illegally and unconstitutionally decimated agencies
08:47that can only be changed or reformed by Congress.
08:50You don't like the Department of Education? You don't like USAID?
08:54Fine, come to the Congress, tell us what reforms you want to see.
08:59You do not have the right to unilaterally do away with these agencies.
09:05Trump has fired members of independent agencies and inspectors general
09:11that he does not have the authority to do.
09:14But Mr. President, it is not just the media that he is trying to intimidate,
09:21it is not just the powers of Congress that he wants.
09:27Now, in an absolutely outrageous, unconstitutional, and extraordinarily dangerous way,
09:35he is going after the judiciary.
09:39His view is that if you don't like a decision that a judge renders,
09:47you get rid of that judge.
09:50You try to impeach that judge.
09:54You intimidate judges so that you get the decisions that you want.
10:01You know, I'm thinking back now as someone who is not a supporter of the Roberts Court.
10:10And I'm thinking about one of the worst Supreme Court decisions that has ever been rendered,
10:16and that is Citizens United. I'll say more about that in a moment.
10:20And I'm thinking about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,
10:25taking away American women's right to control their own bodies.
10:31In my view, these were outrageous decisions, unpopular decisions.
10:36But it never occurred to me, because maybe I'm old-fashioned and conservative,
10:42and I believe that you live by the rule of law,
10:46to say, hey, look at the decision Roberts made. We're going to impeach him.
10:51No. We try to elect a new president who's going to appoint new Supreme Court justices.
10:56That is the system that people have fought and died to defend.
11:02But it's not just the movement toward oligarchy,
11:08which is outraging millions of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, by the way.
11:15And it's not just the movement toward authoritarianism that we are seeing.
11:21The American people, especially with Mr. Musk and 13 billionaires
11:28in the Trump administration running agency after agency,
11:32the American people are saying as loudly as they can
11:36that they will not accept a society of massive economic and wealth inequalities
11:46where the very richest people in our country are becoming much richer,
11:52while working families are struggling to put food on the table.
11:59Having gone all over this country, I can tell you
12:03that the American people are sick and tired of these inequalities,
12:08and they want an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%.
12:17You know, Mr. President, we deal with a whole lot of stuff here in the Congress,
12:23and virtually all of it is important in one way or another.
12:29But let's do something fairly radical today.
12:33Let's try to tell the truth, the real truth, about what is going on in our society today.
12:41Something that we don't talk about too much here in the Senate,
12:45we don't talk about it too much in the House,
12:47we don't talk about it too much in the corporate media.
12:50But the reality is that today we have two Americas, two very, very different Americas.
12:59And in one of those Americas, the wealthiest people have never, ever had it so good.
13:07In the whole history of our country,
13:11the people on top have never, ever had it so good as they have it today.
13:18Today we have more income and wealth inequality than there has ever been in the history of America.
13:26Now I know we don't discuss it, you don't see it much on TV,
13:30you don't hear it talked about here at all.
13:33But the American people do not believe that it is appropriate that three people,
13:39one, two, three, Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, and Mr. Zuckerberg,
13:44three Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society,
13:50a hundred and seventy million people.
13:54Really? Three people own more wealth than a hundred and seventy million people?
14:00Anybody here think that is vaguely appropriate?
14:05And by the way, those very same three people,
14:11three richest people in America,
14:14are right there at Trump's inaugural standing right behind the president.
14:19So you want to know what oligarchy is? I know there's some confusion out there.
14:22What is oligarchy?
14:24Well, it starts off when you have the three wealthiest people in the country
14:28standing right behind the president when he gets inaugurated.
14:32The top 1% in our country now own more wealth than the bottom 90%.
14:38CEOs make 300 times more than their average worker.
14:45And unbelievably, real inflation accounted for wages today.
14:51The average American worker, if you can believe it,
14:54despite a massive increase in worker productivity,
14:59is lower today than it was 52 years ago.
15:04And during that period, there was a $75 trillion transfer of wealth
15:11that went from the bottom 90% to the top 1%.
15:16That is the reality of the American economy today.
15:19And you know what? Maybe we might want to be talking about that.
15:23And in our America today, in that top America, that one America,
15:28the 1% are completely separate and isolated from the rest of the country.
15:33You think they get on a subway to get to work?
15:35You think they sit in a traffic jam for an hour trying to get to work?
15:39Not the case.
15:41They fly around in the jets and the helicopters that they own.
15:45They live in their mansions all over the world in their gated communities.
15:51They have nannies taking care of their babies.
15:54They don't worry about the cost of child care.
15:56And they send their kids to the best private schools and colleges.
16:02Sometimes they vacation, not in a Motel 6, not in a national park,
16:08but on their very own islands that they have.
16:13And on occasion, for the very, very richest, just for a kick,
16:17have a little bit of fun, maybe they'll spend a few million dollars
16:21flying off into space in one of their own spaceships.
16:25Sounds like fun.
16:28But it's not just income, massive income and wealth inequality
16:32that we're dealing with today.
16:35We have more concentration of ownership than ever before.
16:40While the profits on Wall Street and corporate America soar,
16:44a handful of giant corporations dominate sector after sector,
16:50whether it's agriculture, transportation, media, financial services, etc., etc.
16:56Small number of huge corporations, international corporations,
17:00dominating sector after sector.
17:03And as a result of that concentration of ownership,
17:07they are able to charge the American people outrageously high prices
17:12for the goods and services we need.
17:16Mr. President, we don't talk about it too much.
17:19Maybe we should.
17:21But there are three Wall Street firms,
17:25BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street,
17:28that combined are the major stockholders in 95% of our corporations.
17:34Got that?
17:36Three Wall Street firms, three,
17:39are the major stockholders in 95% of American corporations.
17:45So, Mr. President, that is one America.
17:49People on top doing phenomenally well.
17:52Not only do they have economic power,
17:56they have enormous political power.
17:59That's what's going on there.
18:01They live like kings.
18:03That's one America.
18:05But there is another America.
18:07And in that other America,
18:1060% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck.
18:17And millions of workers from one end of this country to the other
18:21are trying to survive on starvation wages.
18:26And unlike Donald Trump, I grew up in a family
18:29that lived paycheck to paycheck.
18:31And I know the anxieties that my mom and dad have
18:35living in a rent-controlled apartment.
18:38Can we afford to buy this? Why did you buy that?
18:41And that's the story taking place all over America.
18:46What does living paycheck to paycheck mean?
18:50It means that every single day,
18:53millions of Americans worry
18:55about how they're going to pay their rent or their mortgage.
18:58All over the country, rents are skyrocketing.
19:01And people are wondering, what happens?
19:03What happens to me and my kids if rent goes up by 20%?
19:08And I can't afford it. Where do I live?
19:11Do I have to take my kid out of school?
19:13Where do I put my kid?
19:15In worst-case scenario, do I live in my car?
19:18Let's be clear.
19:20There are many people who are working today
19:23who are living in the back of their cars.
19:26How do I pay for child care?
19:29Talk to a guy the other day, a police officer.
19:33Spend $20,000 a year for child care.
19:37How do I buy decent food for my kids
19:40when the price of groceries is off the charts?
19:44What happens if I get sick or my kid gets sick
19:47or my mother gets sick and I got a $12,000 deductible
19:51and I can't afford to go to the doctor?
19:54How, at the end of the month, am I going to pay my credit card bill
19:59even though I am being charged 20% or 30% interest rates
20:05by the usurous credit card companies?
20:09People are worrying about simple things.
20:12What happens if my car breaks down
20:16and the guy at the repair shop says it's going to cost $1,000
20:21and I don't have $1,000 in the bank?
20:24And if I don't have a car, how do I get to work?
20:27And if I don't get to work, how do I have an income?
20:30And if I don't have an income, how do I take care of my family?
20:35Those are the crises that millions of Americans are experiencing today.
20:41But it's not just working-age Americans.
20:45Today in our country, half of older workers
20:50have nothing in the bank as they face retirement.
20:54And they're watching TV and they're seeing Mr. Musk firing Social Security workers
21:00and actually worrying whether Social Security will be there for them.
21:06And it's not just older workers with nothing in the bank
21:09wondering what happens when they retire.
21:1122% of seniors are trying to survive on $15,000 a year.
21:17I dare anybody in this country, let alone somebody who is old
21:21who needs health care, needs to keep the house warm,
21:24try to survive on $15,000 a year.
21:27And there are people here, by the way, talking about cutting Social Security.
21:33Mr. President, it is not just about income and wealth inequality.
21:40It is about a health care system
21:44which everyone in the nation understands is broken,
21:48is dysfunctional, and is outrageously expensive.
21:52I hear my Republican friends, I don't know where they are today,
21:56wanting to destroy the ACA.
21:58And my Democratic friends say, oh, we've got to defend the ACA.
22:01ACA is broken. It doesn't work.
22:04In my state, the cost of health care is going up 10-15%.
22:08In America today, you've got 85 million people uninsured or underinsured.
22:14The function of the health care system today
22:17is not to do what a sane society would do,
22:22guarantee health care to all people in a cost-effective way.
22:25Something which, by the way, every other major nation on Earth manages to do.
22:30The function of our health care system, as everybody knows,
22:34is to make billions of dollars in profits
22:38for the insurance companies and the drug companies.
22:41So I say to my Democratic friends, it's not good enough
22:44to defend the Affordable Care Act. It's a broken system.
22:48You've got to have the guts to stand up
22:51and allow us to do what every other major nation does.
22:54Guarantee health care to all people as a human right.
22:59Not allow the drug companies and the insurance companies
23:02to make massive profits every year.
23:05And, Mr. President, I want to touch on an issue
23:08that gets virtually no discussion,
23:11but I think it is enormously important.
23:14And it says a hell of a lot about what's going on in our society today.
23:19In America, according to international studies,
23:23our life expectancy, how long we live as a people,
23:28is about four years lower than other countries.
23:33Most European countries, people there live longer lives.
23:36Japan, they live even longer lives than in Europe.
23:40So question number one, why is that happening?
23:44We spend $14,000 a year per person on health care,
23:48almost double what any other country spends,
23:51and yet people around the world are living, on average,
23:56four years longer than we do.
23:58But here is the really ugly fact, even worse than that.
24:03And that is that in this country, on average,
24:08if you are a working class person,
24:12you will live seven years shorter lives
24:17than if you're in the top 1%.
24:20If you're a working class person,
24:23your life will be seven years shorter than if you are wealthy.
24:29In other words, being poor or working class in America today
24:35amounts to a death sentence.
24:38Mr. President, it's not only a broken health care system.
24:44We have got to ask ourselves a simple question,
24:47and the Biden administration began a little bit of movement in this direction.
24:52And that is, why are we living in a nation
24:56where one out of four people can't even afford
24:59the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe?
25:02Why are we in some cases paying ten times more
25:06than our neighbors in Canada or in Europe?
25:10How does that happen?
25:13And the answer, of course, has to do with the greed
25:16of the pharmaceutical industry and their power right here,
25:19all of the campaign contributions that they make,
25:23which has prevented us from negotiating prices.
25:27But it's not just health care or prescription drugs
25:30when we look at what's going on in America.
25:33In Vermont and throughout this country, we have a major housing crisis.
25:38Here we are, the richest country on earth, 800,000 people
25:42sleeping out on the streets,
25:45and 20 million people are spending
25:48more than 50% of their limited incomes on housing.
25:51Can you imagine that?
25:54You're a working person spending 50% of your income on housing.
25:57How do you have money to do anything else?
26:00And the cost of the housing is soaring.
26:03Do not tell me, Mr. President,
26:06that in a nation which could spend a trillion dollars on the military,
26:10a nation that could give massive tax breaks to the rich,
26:14that we cannot build the millions of units of housing
26:19that we desperately need.
26:22So, Mr. President, why is all of this happening?
26:26Why do we have a health care system that's broken,
26:29prescription drugs that are the most expensive in the world,
26:32a housing system, education in deep trouble?
26:35Talk to educators in Vermont, all over the country.
26:38Talk to a principal the other day from Vermont.
26:41They're starting salary at a public school, $32,000 a year.
26:45But don't worry, they can't afford to even bring people in
26:48because they can't afford the housing in the community.
26:51Why have we let education sink to the level that it has?
26:54So I think the bottom line of all this,
26:57the American people, I think, are catching on.
27:00And Mr. Musk, I must thank him because he has made it very clear.
27:04We are living in an oligarchic form of society.
27:07If anybody out there thinks that Mr. Musk is running around
27:10out of the goodness of his heart
27:13trying to make our government more efficient,
27:16you have not a clue as to what is going on.
27:20What these guys want to do is destroy virtually every federal program
27:25that impacts the well-being of working people,
27:28Social Security, Medicare, Postal Service, public education, you name it.
27:34So they can get huge tax breaks for the rich
27:37and eventually make government so inefficient
27:40that they will have the ability as large corporations
27:44to come in and privatize everything that is going on.
27:48So, Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in American history.
27:54And I sense that the American people have had it up to here.
27:58They are prepared to fight back.
28:02They do not want a government run by billionaires who have it all,
28:07whose greed is uncontrollable.
28:10We have in Vermont, and I think all over this country,
28:14a serious problem with addiction, with drugs,
28:17people drinking too much alcohol, people smoking too many cigarettes.
28:21But the worst form of addiction that this country now faces
28:26is the greed of the oligarchy.
28:31You might think that if you had $10, $20 billion, it would be enough.
28:36You know, kind of enough to let your family live for the next 20 generations.
28:41But it's not.
28:43For whatever reason, whatever compulsive reason they have,
28:46these guys want more and more and more,
28:50and they are prepared to destroy Social Security, Medicare,
28:54nutrition programs for hungry people in order to get even more.
29:00And that, to me, is disgusting.
29:02So, Mr. President, we are at a pivotal moment in American history.
29:06But having been all over this country, in many parts of this country,
29:09I am absolutely confident that the American people,
29:13and I'm not just talking about Democrats,
29:15who are as complicit in the problems that we have right now as are Republicans.
29:19Because we've got a two-party system which is basically corrupt.
29:23You've got Mr. Musk over on the Republican side saying
29:27to any Republican who dares to stand up and defy the Trump agenda,
29:33we are going to primary you.
29:35And on the Democratic side, you've got AIPAC,
29:37and you've got other super PACs saying you stand up for working people,
29:42you're in trouble as well.
29:44We've got a corrupt campaign finance system
29:47in which billionaires are able to buy elections.
29:50And that's why all over this country,
29:52people are not happy with our two-party system,
29:55the Republicans and the Democrats.
29:58So, Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in American history.
30:02But we have had difficult moments before.
30:05And I am confident, from the bottom of my heart,
30:09that if we stand together,
30:11and we do not allow some right-wing extremists to divide us up
30:16by the color of our skin or our religion or where we were born,
30:21or our sexual orientation,
30:24if we stand together, we can save this country.
30:28We can defeat oligarchy.
30:30We can defeat the movement toward authoritarianism.
30:34And, in fact, we can create an economy and a government
30:38that works for all, not just a few.
30:42Thank you very much, Mr. President.
30:52Mr. President.
30:54The senator from Indiana.
30:56I am so glad the junior senator from Indiana
31:02occupies the chair's presiding officer at this time
31:06because it was 100 years ago next week
31:10that the voice of 1,000 Main Streets
31:14first began broadcasting from the second floor
31:17of the main auto supply building in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana,
31:23an area that the presiding officer knows well.
31:26On March 31, 1925, at 500 watts, 1320 on the dial,
31:33the voice of the Midwest, Woe, Woe, Radio, hit the airwaves.
31:38In Indiana, from such humble beginnings, great things often rise.
31:44And those distinctive call letters, Woe, Woe, endure today.