The independent Vermont senator argued against unfettered capitalism in an interview with journalist Chris Wallace
The US government should confiscate 100% of any money that Americans make above $999m, the leftwing independent senator Bernie Sanders said late last week.
Sanders expressed that belief in an exchange on Friday evening with the host of Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? on HBO Max.
Continue reading...Howard Schultz defends company’s practices before Senate committee, while Republicans condemn Sanders’ ‘witch-hunt’
Starbucks’ former chief executive Howard Schultz was accused at a Senate hearing on Wednesday of running “the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country”.
The hearing, “No Company is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks,” was chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders, a longtime critic of Starbucks’ anti-union activities.
Continue reading...Markwayne Mullin, a former MMA fighter, argues with union’s Sean O’Brien as Bernie Sanders seeks order in Senate hearing
A Republican senator who once had to reassure voters he didn’t think he was “Rambo” and was a mixed martial arts fighter before entering politics got into a vocal brawl with a union boss during a public congressional hearing, saying: “You need to shut your mouth.”
Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma exchanged verbal fire with Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, during a hearing staged on Wednesday by the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee.
Continue reading...Bernie Sanders had threatened to subpoena Howard Schultz if he refused to appear while workers file unfair labor practice charges
The Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, has agreed to testify before a Senate committee investigating the company’s intense opposition to national efforts to unionize its stores.
Senator Bernie Sanders had threatened to subpoena Schultz if he refused to appear before the US Senate health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee. Sanders said Schultz had “refused to answer any of the serious questions we have asked” for over a year.
Continue reading...Bernie Sanders moves to summon chief executive Howard Schultz to Senate committee to explain repeated anti-union violations
Starbucks is under fire over the company’s response to unionization efforts as senator Bernie Sanders threatens to call its chief executive before his committee on alleged labor violations and staff petition for it to end “intimidation” of organizers.
Sanders, chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee, announced on Wednesday that the committee will be voting on whether to issue a subpoena to compel the Starbucks chief, Howard Schultz, to testify about Starbuck’s federal labor law violations, and to authorize a committee investigation into labor-law violations committed by major corporations.
Continue reading...House Republicans are seeking to embarrass president over retention of papers from time as vice-president
The Biden administration is calling on House Republicans to “come clean” about the deals Kevin McCarthy made to win election as House speaker, and accusing the party of embracing extreme policies.
“House Republicans have yet to come clean with the American people about the secret agreements Kevin McCarthy made with the most Maga members of their conference in order to end their leadership election debacle,” the White House said in a statement. “But as we learn more about what was hashed out behind closed doors, it has become clear that these hidden agreements could impact the lives of every American.”
An unprecedented tax hike on the middle class and a national abortion ban are just a glimpse of the secret, backroom deals Speaker McCarthy made with extreme MAGA members to end this month’s chaotic elections and claim the gavel. The few agreements we know about would fundamentally reshape our economy in a devastating way for working families and criminalize women for making their own health care decisions. They’re also planning to plunge the economy into chaos and take millions of American jobs and 401k plans hostage unless they can cut Medicare. What other hidden bargains did Speaker McCarthy make behind closed doors with the most extreme, ultra MAGA members of the House Republican conference? The American people have a right to know – now – which is why we are calling on him to make every single one of them public immediately.
Continue reading...Senator adds to chorus of detractors against Arizona lawmaker who left Democratic party and declared herself an independent
The popular progressive US senator Bernie Sanders would consider supporting any Democrat who might mount a challenge against his chamber colleague Kyrsten Sinema after she recently left the party and declared herself an independent like him, arguing that she has “helped sabotage” some of Congress’s most important legislation.
Sanders’s comments on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union added to the chorus of detractors against the Arizona lawmaker who has undermined the agenda of the Joe Biden White House and other progressives, including by voting down raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and reforming the Senate filibuster so that voting rights legislation can pass.
Continue reading...It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, out next year, will argue the world needs to ‘recognise that economic rights are human rights’
Former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is to publish a book outlining “a vision of what would be possible if the political revolution took place”.
It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism will be published by Penguin Random House in February 2023.
Continue reading...Paul Pelosi was attacked at San Francisco home while House speaker was in Washington
The Guardian’s Joan E Greve has taken a close look at Democrats’ chances ahead of the 8 November midterms, and finds things are not looking good for Joe Biden’s party:
With less than two weeks to go until election day, Democrats’ hopes of defying political history and keeping their narrow majorities in the House and Senate appear to be fading, as many of the party’s candidates go on the defensive in the final days of campaigning.
Continue reading...‘I don’t hear any of these Republicans squawking when we give massive tax breaks to billionaires, Vermont senator says
Senator Bernie Sanders chided Republicans on Sunday for backing tax breaks for corporations and wealthy Americans while criticizing Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan.
“Look, I know it is shocking … to some Republicans, that the government actually, on occasion, does something to benefit low income families and working people,” the progressive from Vermont said during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News’s This Week. “I don’t hear any of these Republicans squawking when we give massive tax breaks to billionaires.”
Continue reading...Vermont senator opposed ‘corporate welfare’ to firms paying huge salaries to executives – but Chips and Science Act passed Congress
When it comes to alliances in Washington, few are as unlikely as the common ground the democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders briefly found with the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, two architects of conservative policies across the United States.
Yet that is what happened this week when Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, made a lonely and unsuccessful stand against a $280bn bill funding scientific research and, controversially, giving computer chip manufacturers financial incentives to build more production in the United States – one that rightwing groups also encouraged lawmakers to make.
Continue reading...Senator also rebukes Biden for Saudi Arabia trip: ‘I don’t believe we should maintain a warm relationship with a dictator like that’
Bernie Sanders harshly criticized prominent fellow Democrats on Sunday, accusing his Senate colleague Joe Manchin of sabotaging the president’s agenda and rebuking Joe Biden for traveling to Saudi Arabia last week.
During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Sanders interrupted host Martha Raddatz when she said Manchin had “abruptly pulled the plug” on supporting a scaled-back version of a spending bill that is crucial to Biden’s agenda. Manchin said he would not support provisions in the bill that increase spending to combat climate change and close tax loopholes. Democrats cannot pass the bill without Manchin’s support in a US Senate that is divided 50-50, with vice-president Kamala Harris serving as a tiebreaker in the event one is needed.
Continue reading...It looks like William Barr, Trump’s final attorney general during the time of the 2020 election, will be playing a major role in the today’s hearing.
The committee last Thursday aired video in which he said he thought Trump’s claims of election fraud were “bullshit,” and committee members say he will reappear today to elaborate on his views.
Continue reading...About 1,500 eligible workers at LDJ5 sorting center on Staten Island vote in union ballot, after recent success at JFK8 warehouse
Amazon workers in New York will go to the polls again as labor activists push to unionize a second facility in the US following their surprise recent victory over the tech giant.
About 1,500 eligible workers at an LDJ5 Amazon sorting center in Staten Island, New York, begin voting in a union election on Monday, in a process that will continue through 29 April. Ballot-counting starts on 2 May.
Continue reading...Over on Capitol Hill, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell lamented the “sad spectacle” of Democrats trying to change the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation.
McConnell accused majority leader Chuck Schumer of launching a “direct assault on the core identity of the Senate” by attempting to amend the filibuster, which Republicans have repeatedly used to block Democrats’ voting rights bills.
Continue reading...About 80% of US adults now have at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 70% of American adults are fully vaccinated.
According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 206,333,974 American adults have now gotten at least one vaccine dose, and 179,729,970 of them are fully vaccinated.
Continue reading...Party locked in a bitter struggle over two massive legislative bills that could make or break the Biden presidency
Bernie Sanders, the leftwing firebrand who has drawn the fight against poverty and inequality into the mainstream of American politics, issued a call to arms on Sunday for fellow progressives to stand firm in the intensifying battle over the future of Joe Biden’s economic and social policy agenda.
With the Democratic party locked in a bitter struggle over two massive legislative bills that could make or break the Biden presidency, Sanders said the outcome of the next few weeks would be critical not just for the future of American working families but also for the country’s political future.
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In his remarks before signing the anti-Asian American hate crimes bill, Joe Biden denounced racism as an “ugly poison” that has tarnished the country.
“I believe with every fiber of my being that there are simple core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans,” the president said of the bill.
President Biden: "I believe with every fiber of my being that there are simple core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans. One of them is standing together against hate, against racism — the ugly poison that has long haunted and plagued our nation." pic.twitter.com/DB1gsTNoen
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell applauded Joe Biden for signing the anti-Asian American hate crimes bill into law moments ago.
“Recent increases in anti-Asian hate crimes are alarming,” the Republican leader said on Twitter. “I’m proud the Senate took bipartisan action — and, as the proud husband of a remarkable Asian-American woman, I am especially glad this effort is now law.”
I applaud @POTUS for signing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law. Recent increases in anti-Asian hate crimes are alarming. I’m proud the Senate took bipartisan action — and, as the proud husband of a remarkable Asian-American woman, I am especially glad this effort is now law.
Continue reading...As the pandemic forced us inside and online, Room Rater was one Twitter account giving doomscrollers a well-needed levity break. A year on, co-founder Claude Taylor explains how he plans to keep going
With its stately lamp and verdant window view, Hillary Clinton’s “Zoom room” is nicer than most. So when Room Rater – a Twitter account which scores the video conference backgrounds of high-profile figures – gave it nine out of 10 last spring, Clinton took her disappointment to social media: “I’ll keep striving for that highest, hardest glass ceiling, the elusive 10/10,” she tweeted at the account.
Judging the backgrounds on video calls has been the armchair sport of the past year. Room Rater just happened to screengrab these moments. As we doomscrolled through bleak statistics online, it was cheering to see shots of Meryl Streep’s sterile shelves or the copies of Fahrenheit 451 and The Twits propped up behind Boris Johnson at a school in Leicestershire. Scrolling through the posts a year after it launched, these images have become emblematic of just how quickly coronavirus forced all of us inside and online.
Continue reading...Biden’s $1.9tn relief package struggles through Senate but majority leaders vows passage ‘however long it takes’
A fiery speech and last-ditch effort by Bernie Sanders to secure a place for a federal minimum wage hike in the $1.9tn coronavirus relief package appeared as good as doomed on Friday, following a day that saw the flagship legislation hit grinding delays in the Senate.
Senate leaders and moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin struck a deal late on Friday over emergency jobless benefits, breaking a nine-hour logjam.
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