Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders drew a welcome so warm Sunday night that the crowd broke into a sweat in his Davenport campaign office.
Dozens of people crammed into the building where several people led cheers and chants minutes before the senator from Vermont arrived from Mt. Vernon.
“I think we’re going to win here in Iowa,” said Sanders, who spoke about education reform, reliance on fossil fuel and the American political system.
Several people in the crowd led chants. “Feel the … Bern! Feel the … Bern!” the crowd roared just before Sanders walked into the room.
“Congratulations, Iowa!” Sanders said. “Because I think you are certainly one of the leading states in this country. You’re getting something like 29 percent of your electricity from wind and that’s going to go up. You’re certainly leading in biofuels, helping us break our dependency on fossil fuels.”
He said his Republican colleagues understand the reality of climate change, but they also understand the reality if they stand up and tell the truth about climate change. “Their campaign funds from the Koch Brothers and the fossil fuel industry get cut off,” he said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders pledged that, if elected president, he would ensure all military veterans receive the mental and physical care they need.
Sanders, during the second of a two-day swing through Iowa, held a brief round-table discussion with veterans Sunday afternoon in a back room of the athletic building at Cornell College.
During the discussion, Sanders and the panel listed off a variety of veteran's issues, including the GI Bill, leave time from active duty and access to care through the U.S.Department of Veterans Affairs. Sanders highlighted his experience serving on the U.S. Senate Committee on Veteran's Affairs, including his two years as chairman of that committee.
"The bottom line for me is that when people put their lives on the line for this country, I think we we have a moral responsibility to make sure we give them the best quality health care that we can provide and we get their benefits to them in a timely manner," Sanders said.
Sanders pointed to 2014 legislation he helped broker that pumped billions of additional dollars to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. That measure allowed for the hiring of more doctors, nurses and other caregivers after a scandal uncovered extensive wait times for veterans to receive care.
“I believe the VA in general does a good job, but there needs to be a lot of improvement,” Sanders said Sunday.
Democratic presidential hopeful and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was greeted like a rock star at Cornell College. "I do not represent corporate America," he told the crowd of more than 1,000. "I do not represent the billionaire class."
It was standing ovation after standing ovation as Sanders wasted no time calling out corporate greed at the Mount Vernon town hall meeting.
For some first time voters in the fired-up crowd like Cornell sophomore Kira Fish, events like this will help decide between frontrunner Hillary Clinton and Sanders.
"It seems like everyone has kind of the same opinion, so I don't know," Fish said. "She and Bernie are on the same stance on a lot of different things, so it's sometimes hard to sift through the difference between them."
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For Fish, she said the one thing swaying her vote to Sanders is his stance on college. Sanders told the crowd he would make public colleges and universities' tuition free. "As a paying college student, going to school is so expensive," she said. "I think I'm leaning more towards him because of that."
His speeches in Waterloo differed in length but not much in substance. Sanders focused on income inequality and the importance of jobs and education in both speeches. He also pushed the point that his “political revolution” cannot happen without people coming together.
That message is what made Cedar Falls’ Oliver Weilein switch parties from an independent to a Democrat so he can caucus for Sanders and volunteer and organize events on his behalf in the meantime.
“I feel like that Bernie’s message resonates really well with people who have been disenfranchised and just don’t care about American politics anymore, because they feel like it’s always going to be corrupt; it’s always going to be controlled by big money interests,” Weilein said
While Weilein said it’s “uncanny” how many issues he and Sanders see eye to eye on, he said to undo the Supreme Court case known as Citizens United that allowed more money to flow into campaigns through super political action committees is the top priority.
“Once we get that taken care of, then I think the majority of Americans can actually be heard,” Weilein said.
The average television viewer might not know it, but Bernie Sanders is making waves. People who don’t use or have the Internet may have little clue as to who the Vermont senator is and that he’s even running for president. That is because corporate media appears to have a Bernie Sanders blackout, a situation in which the major stations are paying as little attention to him as possible.
One of the biggest offenders is ABC, which has given Donald Trump 81 minutes of coverage, but only gave 20 seconds to Bernie Sanders. The Sanders campaign is currently circulating a petition to force networks to give him equal coverage.
Despite stations aggressively ignoring him, Sanders is making it onto several states’ primary ballots. Last week, he officially made it onto the Arizona ballot and also garnered three new state legislator endorsements.
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In Ohio, Bernie is tentatively on the ballot unless a challenge is filed questioning his eligibility to be the Democratic candidate. The Ohio Secretary of State has until January 5 to determine who will and will not appear on the primary ballot.
In Texas, primary candidates can use either money or signatures to get a position on the primary ballot. On December 6, Bernie Sanders supporters gathered at the Texas State Capitol in Austin to rally as more than 12,000 verified signatures were handed over, more than double the 5,000 required to get on.
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The Bernie Sanders campaign is still working to get on the ballot in other states, but according to his website, they are gathering signatures only in certain states. The following states still need to gather signatures in order to get him in the primaries:
Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Other states where Bernie Sanders is currently on the ballot are Alabama, Virginia, and Vermont.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is often dismissed as too radical because he identifies himself as a democratic socialist. But when people consider his proposals and policies, they don’t think they are that radical, and the vast majority supports them. The term “socialism” is the source of much unfounded prejudice and misunderstanding.
Socialism is simply using the government to benefit the people with useful programs, many of which we already enjoy in the United States. When government responds to the people, that’s what Sanders calls democratic socialism. In his own words: “I mean, to me, it means democracy, frankly. That’s all it means.” For the masses of Americans, it means voting in their own economic interests.
On Nov. 19, Sen. Sanders gave an excellent speech at Georgetown University outlining what he means by democratic socialism. It is the kind of socialism demonstrated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his New Deal programs, which helped working people and raised millions from poverty into the middle class. As a result he was among the most popular American presidents, since his New Deal policies gave us Social Security and decades of prosperity.
Sanders would like to restore America to the peace and prosperity of those times by empowering the people and having the government work for them, and not just for the rich and the corporations. We can help the people advance and restore the middle class by investing in free college education and health care. We can return to prosperity by creating millions of jobs with living wages by repairing our crumbling infrastructure and making the transition to a clean energy economy.
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Sanders advocates a democratic socialism that maximizes the economic freedom of the people. He believes citizens should demand that our government work for them, rather than serving elite special interests. But it requires a grass-roots political revolution to ensure that we have a government “of the people.”
All citizens must get politically involved to achieve real democracy.
“Bernie Sanders would be good not only for the United States but for the Philippines and Asia,” Walden Bello told the US media after he chatted briefly with the candidate for Democratic Party presidential nomination in Waterloo, Iowa on Sunday, 13 December 2015.
Interviewed at length, Bello said he had driven 292 kilometers “in blinding rain and fog” from Madison, Wisconsin to tell Sanders and his supporters that his election “would hopefully bring about an end to US interventionist policies that have created such chaos and misery in so many parts of the world.”
“His vision of socialism is also one that inspires us. He shows, in fact, an alternative to a system that runs on greed is not only possible, but necessary,” Bello added.
The resigned Akbayan party-list representative chatted briefly with Sanders while giving the Democratic candidate a signed copy of his 2013 book, “Capitalism’s Last Stand?”
According to Enriquez, Sanders immediately recognized and warmly greeted Bello, an old friend whom he had brought over to the United States in 1998 to testify in a hearing to end funding of the International Monetary Fund that he organized while still a member of the US House of Representatives.
When Bello informed the Democratic candidate that he was running for the Philippine Senate on a platform that had many of the same items in his platform, Sanders shook his hand vigorously and said, “Good luck!”
Sunday, he joined the congregation of Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Waterloo.
He called for change. Pointing to government investment in education rather than the nation's prison system to keep people off the street and employed.
"Education and Jobs for the kids, rather than jails and incarceration," said Sanders.
Some supporters say their personal experiences draw them to Sanders.
One man saying, this time last year, he was homeless and struggling to find work.
"So you know with Bernie talking about getting people free education and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, that would help out a lot. Like I said, I was there," said Derron Black, a Bernie Sanders supporter.
And for others they are looking to the future.
"I am also looking into my son's future and I know that if I don't have the money, if he does get good grades in school and stuff like that, then I know the free education would be good for him," Xaveir Spies, an event attendee.
Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign will open offices in Carson City and Fernley this week, according to a release.
Nevada state director Joan Kato said the Carson City office will open Wednesday and the Fernley office Thursday. Combined with the opening of an office in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon, the campaign will have eight offices in the state.
"We know that people in rural areas — such as Fernley — are wanting to join the Bernie Sanders campaign and we are letting them know we are eager to get things going in their community," Kato said in the release. "The campaign will continue investing across Nevada, such as the office that is opening in Carson City this week. We want to thank the community for wanting to help us organize around the upcoming caucuses on Feb. 20."
The Bernie News Roundup is a voluntary, non-campaign associated roundup of news, media, & other information related to Bernie Sanders' run for President.
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