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They Talk About Class Warfare -- The Fact Of The Matter Is There Has Been Class Warfare For The Last Thirty Years. It's A Handful Of Billionaires Taking On The Entire Middle-class And Working-class Of This Country. And The Result Is You Now Have In America The Most Unequal Distribution Of Wealth And Income Of Any Major Country On Earth And The Worst Inequality In America Since 1928. How Could Anybody Defend The Top 400 Richest People In This Country Owning More Wealth Than The Bottom Half Of America, 150 Million People?

-Bernie Sanders

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They Talk About Class

Bernie Sanders

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They Talk About Class Warfare -- The Fact Of The Matter Is There Has Been Class Warfare For The Last Thirty Years. It's A Handful Of Billionaires Taking On The Entire Middle-class And Working-class Of This Country. And The Result Is You Now Have In America The Most Unequal Distribution Of Wealth And Income Of Any Major Country On Earth And The Worst Inequality In America Since 1928. How Could Anybody Defend The Top 400 Richest People In This Country Owning More Wealth Than The Bottom Half Of America, 150 Million People?

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I Would Have Put More Emphasis On Bringing Working Class People Together To Fight For A Government That Works For All Of Us.

Income And Wealth Inequality Have Reached Obscene Levels, The Threat Of Climate Change Is More Frightening Than Ever, And The Billionaire Class Is Now Allowed To Spend Unlimited Amounts Of Money To Buy The Candidate They Want. And It Is Up To Us To Stand Up And Fight Back. If We Stand Together, There Is No Limit To What We Can Accomplish.

It Is A Public Financing System That Everybody Knows Is Antiquated. It No Longer Works. Nobody Can Become President Based On That System.

The Main Problem Of America Is That You're Seeing People Working All Over This Country Two Jobs, They're Working Three Jobs, And They're Getting Nowhere In A Hurry. They're Working Hard. They Can't Afford To Send Their Kids To College In Many Instances. They Can't Afford Child Care For Their Little Babies. They're Worried To Death About Retirement.

The Bottom Line Is That When Senator Inhofe Says, 'global Warming Is A Hoax,' He Is Just Dead Wrong, According To The Vast Majority Of Climate Scientists.

We Still Have People In The Active Duty, And If People Are Feeling Ill, If They're Experiencing Various Symptoms And They're Still In The Active Duty, They're Less Likely To Come Forward Because That Could Result In Their Medical Discharge.

The Next Time You Do A Filibuster, Keep Walking Around.

A Nation Will Not Survive Morally Or Economically When So Few Have So Much And So Many Have So Little.

Economic Inequality

As A Nation, There Are Many Issues We Don`t Talk About, We Just Don`t Talk About, Push Them Under The Rug. Poverty Is One Of Those Issues.

It Is A Dictatorship. They Did Have A Good Health - Do Have A Decent Health Care System And A Decent Educational System. A Lot Of People Have Left Cuba For Better Dreams, To Fulfill Their Aspirations.

I Think We're Going To Win A Very Good Share Of Those Delegates. I Think You've Got Major States Coming Up. And I Think The Important Point Is That People Throughout This Country Are Resonating To Our Message.

We Are Rapidly Moving Toward A Nation Of The Super-rich, By The Super-rich And For The Super-rich

I Will Do My Best To Transform Our Trade Policy And Take On These Corporations Who Want To Invest In Low-income Countries Around The World Rather Than In The United States Of America.

It Reminds Me In Some Ways Of The Debate Taking Place In This Country And Around The World In The Late 1930s. There Were People, In This Congress, In The British Parliament Saying, 'don't Worry! Hitler's Not Real! It'll Disappear'.

The Reality Is That We Have One Of Lowest Voter Turnouts Of Any Major Country On Earth Because So Many People Have Given Up On The Political Process. The Reality Is That There Has Been Trillions Of Dollars Of Wealth Going From The Middle Class In The Last 30 Years To The Top 1/10th Of 1 Percent.

When A Mother Has A Baby, She Should Stay Home With That Baby.

Who Do You Think Controls The Republican Party? Big Money Controls The Republican Party. This Is Where Their Campaign Contributions Come From.

As A Result Of The Digital Age And The Decline Of First-class Mail, There Is No Question That The Postal Service Must Change And Develop A New Business Model.

Brothers And Sisters: Now Is Not The Time For Thinking Small, Now Is Not The Time For The Same-old, Same-old Establishment Politics And Stale Inside-the-beltway Ideas.

We Need Real Tax Reform Which Makes The Rich And Profitable Corporations Begin To Pay Their Fair Share Of Taxes. We Need A Tax System Which Is Fair And Progressive. Children Should Not Go Hungry In This Country While Profitable Corporations And The Wealthy Avoid Their Tax Responsibilities By Stashing Their Money In The Cayman Islands.

This Is A Very Important Issue That The Corporate Media Chooses Not To Talk About A Whole Lot, That We Have An Economic System Which Is Rigged, Which Means That At The Same Time As The Middle Class Of This Country Is Disappearing, Almost All Of The New Income And Wealth In America Is Going To The Top 1 Percent. You Have The Top One-tenth Of 1 Percent Owning Almost As Much Wealth As The Bottom 90 Percent - 58 Percent Of All New Income Is Going To The Top 1 Percent.

The Combat [with Isis] On The Ground Must Be Done By Muslim Troops With Our Support. We Must Not Get Involved In Perpetual Warfare In The Middle East.

The Light Bulb Going Off In My Head Was A Fear That In This Pivotal Moment In History, When America Faces So Many Serious Problems, When The Middle Class And Working Class Of This Country Are Being Decimated, That There Were Not Voices Out There Representing The Tens Of Millions Of People Who Needed A Voice. And The Idea Of Going Through A Campaign Where There Is Not A Serious Discussion About The Most Important Issues Facing America, Where There Are Not Voices Out There Representing People Who Are Hurting - That Seemed To Me Unacceptable.

Rich Get Richer. Everyone Else Gets Poorer. And All These Guys Can Talk About Is War And Defunding Planned Parenthood.

The American People, Whether You Are Democrat, Independent, Republican, Progressive, Conservative, Do Not Believe Corporations Are People Or That Corporations Should Be Able To Buy Elections.

We Did Phenomenally Well With Young People. I Think We Did Well With Working Class People.

I Have A Lot Of Respect For President Obama. I Consider Him A Friend. I Disagree With Him On Issues Like The Extension Of Tax Breaks That Bush Initiated. But I Think History Will Judge A President Obama A Lot Better Than Many Other Contemporaries, Given The Fact That He Came Into Office At A Time When This Country Was In Terrible, Terrible Shape.

I'm Interested In - In That His Power, If That Is The Word, Is Such That He Has Actually Been Able To Be In A Way A One-man Wrecking Crew In The Area Of Deportment And How One Proceeds Politically On The Stump. Marco Rubio Is - Is Attempting, As You Know, To A - To Give [donald] Trump A Fight In Trump's Own Style. I'm Not Sure How That Works, But - But Certainly The Indices Are Good.

The American People Are Growing Extremely Unhappy With Establishment Politics, With Establishment Economics, And You Know What Else? Even With Establishment Media.

I Want To See Working People And Young People Come Into The Party In A Way That Doesn't Exist Now. And You Know What, I Want A 50-state Strategy So The Democratic Party Is Not Just The Party Of 25 States.

A Job Should Lift Workers Out Of Poverty, Not Keep Them In It.

The Tpp Is Another Corporate-backed Agreement That Is The Latest In A Series Of Trade Policies Which Have Cost Us Millions Of Decent-paying Jobs, Pushed Down Wages For American Workers And Led To The Decline Of Our Middle Class. We Want American Companies To Create Decent-paying Jobs In America, Not Just Low-wage Countries Like Vietnam, Malaysia Or China. The Tpp Must Be Defeated.

Let Us Wage A Moral And Political War Against War Itself, So That We Can Cut Military Spending And Use That Money For Human Needs.

Don`t Go To The Dark Side. Don`t Go Bashing Immigrants Or Muslims.

I Don't Want To See Kids In America Being Scared Because They're Hearing People On Television And The Radio Saying Really Ugly Xenophobic And Racist Things.

Finally, Let Understand That When We Stand Together, We Will Always Win. When Men And Women Stand Together For Justice, We Win. When Black, White And Hispanic People Stand Together For Justice, We Win.

The First Thing That I've Got To Think About Is: What Does A Donald Trump Presidency Mean For The People Of My State And For The People Of This Country? And For The People Of The World? I Think It Would Be An Absolute Disaster. It Would Be Beyond A Disaster.

I Am The Longest- Serving Independent In The History Of The United States Congress. People Of Vermont Sent Me To Washington As An Independent. That Is True.

One Can't Predict The Future, That Maybe Our Training And Their Fighting Capabilities Are Improving And We Are Going To Make Some Progress In Destroying Isis.

I Was Elected By The Democrats To Be Chair Of The Veterans Committee, Which I'm Very Proud Of. And Now Am The Rankings Member On The Budget Committee, Leader Of The Democrats In Opposition To The Majority Republicans.

If We Greatly Expanded Primary Health Care, Lower The Cost Of Prescription Drugs, We Take A Giant Step Forward In Lowering Health Care Costs In America.

Rescind The Appointment Of [steve] Bannon. We Will Not Be Involved In The Expansion Of Bigotry, Of Racism, Sexism, Homophobia.

I Think People Cast Their Votes For A Number Of Reasons. I Think If You Look At Your Polls, You'll Probably Find That Many, Many People Think That Our Views Are Closer To What They Believe The Future Of America Should Be. That Our Views Are Closer On Economic Issues. And A Lot Of Those Polls Come Down To Demographics, To Age, To How Much Money You Are Making.

I Went Back To A Small Town In Poland Where My Dad Grew Up. It Was A Very Traumatic Experience For Me As A Young Man To Know That My Father's Family Were Killed By Nazis, Killed By Hitler. And That Left, You Know, If Not Intellectually, At Least An Emotional Part Of Me Which Said, God, We Have Got To Do Everything We Can To End This Kind Of Horrific Racism Or Anti-semitism. And I Have Spent Much Of My Life Trying To Fight That.

I Don't Represent Large Corporations And I Don't Want Their Money.

Debating, Doubting, Or Rejecting The Basic Scientific Facts About Climate Change In The Face Of The Overwhelming Evidence And Overwhelming Scientific Opinion Will Not Change Those Facts.

I Don't Believe Government Should Take Over, You Know, The Grocery Store Down The Street Or Own The Means Of Production.

Together, Leading The World, The U.s.a. Will Rid Our Planet Of This Barbarous Organization Called Isis.

There Is A Reason Why These People [from Wall Street] Are Putting Huge Amounts Of Money Into Our Political System. And In My View, It Is Undermining American Democracy And It Is Allowing Congress To Represent Wealthy Campaign Contributors And Not The Working Families Of This Country.

Real Freedom Must Include Economic Security.

Politics In A Democratic Society Should Not Be Treated Like A Baseball Game, A Game Show Or A Soap Opera. The Times Are Too Serious For That.

The Basic Issue Of An American Society Which Is Fair, Which Is Providing Opportunity For All, Is Nowadays Being Replaced By The Correct Perception That We're Living In A Rigged Economy - Where It Doesn't Matter How Hard You Worked, The Result Will Be All The Income Goes To The People At The Very Top. It's Leading To A Lot Of Frustration And Anger, And People Want Some Fundamental Changes To The Way We Do Economics And Growth.

We Don`t Need To Drive Up The National Debt By Giving Tax Breaks To Millionaires And Billionaires.

When The Media Worries About What Hillary’s Hair Looks Like Or What My Hair Looks Like, That’s A Real Problem. We Have Millions Of People Who Are Struggling To Keep Their Heads Above Water, Who Want To Know What Candidates Can Do To Improve Their Lives, And The Media Will Very Often Spend More Time Worrying About Hair Than The Fact That We’re The Only Major Country On Earth That Doesn’t Guarantee Health Care To All People.

I Understood That These Trade Agreements Were Going To Destroy The Middle Class Of This Country. I Led The Fight Against Us. That Is One Of The Major Differences That We Have.

I Call Upon Donald Trump To Rescind The Appointment That He Made Of Stephen Bannon. A President Of The United States Should Not Have A Racist At His Side, Unacceptable.

One In Four Corporations Doesn't Pay Any Taxes.

This Is What Income Inequality Means In America, And Why The Gap Between The Very Rich And Everyone Else Is Growing Wider. According To A Recent Study, Ceo Pay Is Now 295 Times More Than The Pay Of A Typical Worker. In 1965, The Differential Was 20 Times. We Must Create An Economy That Works For All, Not Just The Top 1%.

The Good News Is That The American People, Not Just The African-american Community Are Saying Enough Is Enough. You Can`t Hold People In Custody And Suddenly Find Out That They Are Dead. You Can`t Shoot People In The Back.

African American

20 Million People Thrown Off Of Health Insurance, Prescription Drug Prices Raising For Seniors, Privatization Of Medicare: Devastation. And We've Got To Fight Back Against That.

These Are The Same People Who Believe, In Some Cases, The Federal Government Should Not Play Any Role In Providing Health Care To Our People Or Protecting The Environment.

Hillary Clinton And I Have Worked Together On A Higher Education Proposal Which Will Guarantee Free Tuition In Public Colleges And Universities For Every Family In This Country Making $125,000 A Year Or Less. We're Going To Fight For Paid Family And Medical Leave. Those Are The Issues That The American People Want To Hear Discussed, And I'm Going To Go Around The Country Discussing Them And Making Sure That Hillary Clinton Is Elected President.

Do Not Tell Me That I Have Not Shown Courage In Standing Up To The Gun People, In Voting To Ban Assault Weapons, Voting For Instant Background Checks, Voting To End The Gun Show Loophole And Now In A Position To Create A Consensus In America On Gun Safety.

Assault Weapons

The Only Way Change Happens Is When People Become More Significantly Involved In The Political Process. We Have To Increase Voter Turnout And Citizen Participation So That People Know What's Going On And Demand A Government That Works For Everybody And Not Just The One Percent.

As A Single-payer Advocate, I Believe That At The End Of The Day, If A State Goes Forward And Passed An Effective Single-payer Program, It Will Demonstrate That You Can Provide Quality Health Care To Every Man, Woman And Child In A More Cost-effective Way.

So What I Have Said With Regard To Boeing And Ge And Other Multinationals That Pay Zero Taxes, You Know What We're Going To Do? We're Going To End That Loophole. They Are Going To Pay Their Fair Share Of Taxes.

But On The Other Hand, There Are Many Corporations Who Have Turned Their Backs On The American Worker, Who Have Said, If I Can Make Another Nickel In Profit By Going To China And Shutting Down In The United States Of America, That's What I Will Do.

We Need A Growing Middle Class, Not One That Has Been Disappearing For 40 Years. We Need A Vibrant One Person-one Vote Democracy, Not One Which Is Dominated By Billionaire Campaign Contributors. It's Time For A Political Revolution. It's Time To Make Our Government Work For All Of Us, And Not Just The 1%.

Political Revolution

In My View, It Is Not A Question Of Trump Having Won The Election, It's A Question Of Democrats Having Lost The Election. Democrats Need A Strong Progressive Agenda Which Says To The Working Class Of This Country, We Are Going The Stand And Fight For You, We're Going To Raise The Minimum Wage, Pay Equity For Women, We're Going To Rebuild The Infrastructure, And We're Going To Guarantee Health Care To All People As A Right. We're Going To Make Public Colleges And Universities Tuition-free.

I Believe That Climate Change Is The Great Global Crisis That We Face, Environmental Crisis. I Believe That If You're Serious About Climate Change, You Don't Encourage The Excavation And Transportation Of Very Dirty Oil.

You Know, Let Me Be Very Clear. I Supported Barack Obama Originally.

The United States Has More People Living In Poverty Than At Almost Any Time In The Modern History Of Our Country. I Believe That In A Democratic, Civilized Society None Of Our People Should Be Hungry Or Living In Desperation. We Need To Expand Social Security, Not Cut It. We Need To Increase Funding For Nutrition Programs, Not Cut Them.

The Political World Is Changing Rapidly. What The Establishment Has Learned, What The Democratic Establishment, The Republican Establishment, The Media Establishment, Is The World Is Not Quite What They Thought It Was. With The Middle Class Disappearing, With People Working Longer Hours For Lower Rages, With People Worried About The Future Of Their Children, What You Are Seeing Is A Lot Of Discontent At The Grassroots Level All Over This Country. And That's What's Going On Right Now.

When I Talked About Boeing And I Talked About General Electric, What I Was Referring To Is An Outrage... Right Now You Have A Loophole Such That These Guys Are Putting Their Profits, Multi-billion Dollar Profitable Corporations Putting Billions Of Dollars Into The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, And Other Tax Havens.

I Want To Applaud Those Workers Rallying To Raise The Minimum Wage To $15 Per Hour. I Believe Strongly That A Great Nation Will Not Survive When So Few Have So Much And So Many Have So Little. Every Worker In America Should Be Given Respect, Dignity And The Wages And Benefits They Need To Take Care Of Their Family.

Donald Trump's Language Has Been Atrocious, His Behavior Toward Women.

Prescription Drug Prices Are Skyrocketing And One-third Of All Seniors Depend On Social Security For At Least 90% Of Their Income.

You All Remember How Many Years Ago, We Were Younger, It Was Uppity Women Who Are Trying To Take Our Jobs As Men. It Was Those Gay People Who Wanted To Make Everybody Homosexual In Our School System. It Was Blacks Wanted To Take White Jobs. That's What Demagoguery Is About. It Is To Obfuscate The Real Problems Facing Our Society And Find Somebody You Can Blame And Rally The American People.

I Think The American People In Many Cases Want To Transform Our Energy System.

When My Republican Colleagues Talk About Family Values, They Mean That A Woman Should Not Be Able To Have The Right To Control Her Own Body; That Women Should Not Be Able To Purchase The Contraceptives That They Want. Those Are Their Family Values, Not Our Family Values.

The Message Is Resonating, Not Just In Wisconsin, But All Over America, The People Are Sick And Tired Of Establishment Politics, Establishment Economics. They Want Real Change.

We Are Imprisoning Or Giving Jail Sentences To Young People Who Are Smoking Marijuana.

To My Mind, What Is Most Important Now Is The Defeating Of The Worst Candidate For President That I Have Seen In My Lifetime, Donald Trump, Who Is Not Qualified To Be President By Temperament, Not Qualified To Be President By The Ideas That He Has Brought Forth.

At A Time When The Average Student Is Graduating From A Four-year College $27,000 In Debt, When Hundreds Of Thousands Of Capable Young People No Longer See College As An Option Because Of High Costs And When The U.s. Is Falling Further And Further Behind Our Economic Competitors In Terms Of The Percentage Of Young People Graduating From College, No Agreement Should Be Passed Which, Over A Period Of Years, Makes A Bad Situation Worse And Will Make College Even Less Affordable Than It Is Today.

I Know That Virtually Every Member Of The Senate Understands We Just Cannot Turn Our Back On Men And Women Who Have Put Their Lives On The Line To Defend Us And Who Are Hurting Today.

What We Need To Do Is To Stand Up To The Big Money Interests, And The Campaign Contributors. When We Do That, We Can, In Fact, Transform America.

Countering Violent Extremism And Destroying Isis Must Be Done Primarily By Muslim Nations With The Strong Support Of Their Global Partners.

I Know A Great Country That Needs To Be Rebuilt In Terms Of Roads, Bridges, Schools. That Is Called The United States Of America.

I Come From A Rural State. People Drive 50, 100 Miles To And From Work Every Single Day. That Is True All Over America.

We Need The Best Educated Workforce In The World. Hundreds Of Thousands Of Bright, Young, Qualified People Who Want To Go To College Or Get A Higher Education Are Unable To Do So, Not Because They Lack The Ability But Because They Lack The Money.

I Am Not Supportive Of Large Multi-national Corporations That Made Billions A Year In Profit And Don't Pay A Nickel In Taxes, Nor Am I Supportive Of Those Corporations Who Throw American Workers Out On The Street And Then Move To China Or Mexico.

I'm Not A Democrat, I'm An Independent, But I Caucus With The Democrats.

There's No Question To My Mind And I Think No Question To Any Objective Observer's Mind That The Dnc Was Supporting Hillary Clinton And Was At Opposition To Our Campaign. So I'm Not Quite Shocked By This. And That Is Why Many, Many Months Ago I Made It Clear That I Thought Debbie Wasserman Schultz Should Resign, Should Step Down.

The Point Is Change Can Come About, But It Only Comes About When Millions Of People Are Actively Involved In Political Struggle, The Billionaires May Have The Money, But We Have The People.

One Of The Ongoing Crises In America Is Institutional Racism. We Have A Very Broken Criminal Justice System. We Live In A Country Where There Are More People In Jail Than Any Other Country On Earth. There Are Some 2.2 Million People Currently Incarcerated And They Are Disproportionally African American And Hispanic. Unarmed African Americans Have Been Abused And Sometimes Killed While In Police Custody. Clearly These Are Issues That Must Be Dealt With And Changed.

You Can't Become A Billionaire Stepping Over Children Sleeping On The Street.

In Fact, Climate Change Is Directly Related To The Growth Of Terrorism.

The Cold War Is Over. And Our Focus Has Got To Be On Intelligence, Increased Manpower, Fighting Internationally Targets.

Things Are Getting Worse. You Know, When You Look At This Campaign, And You Realize The Enormously Serious Issues This Country Faces, Right, We Got A Collapsing Middle Class. We Have More Wealth And Income Inequality Today Than We've Had Since The 1920s. We Have All Of These Enormous Issues.

Education Should Be A Right, Not A Privilege. We Need A Revolution In The Way That The United States Funds Higher Education.

I Think Donald Trump Is Totally Unfit To Be President Of The United States. Let's Not Forget, This Guy Was One Of The Leaders Of The So-called Birther Movement, Which Was An Effort To Delegitimize The Presidency Of The First African-american President We Have Ever Had.

I Will Tell You Is The Antidote To [donald] Trump Is A Very Strong Progressive Agenda That Says, Yes, I Know You`re Angry. And You Know What? You Should Be Angry Because You`re Working Longer Hours For Low Wages. You Have A Right To Be Bitter And You Have A Right To Be That.

In Terms Of Media, We Did Not Get The Kind Of Media Attention That Somebody Like A Donald Trump Got, Because Media Is Not Necessarily Interested In The Issues Facing The Middle Class, More Interested In Attacks In Personality. So I Think There Were A Lot Of Reasons.

No. It Is Not Acceptable That The 6 Largest Financial Institutions In This Country Have Assets Of Almost 10 Trillion Dollars, And Issue Half Of The Mortgages And Two-thirds Of The Credit Cards. That Is Too Much Wealth And Power In The Hands Of A Few. If Teddy Roosevelt Were Alive Today He'd Tell Us To 'break Them Up.' And He'd Be Right. These Huge Banks Must Be Broken Up.

For Democrats To Win, They're Going To Have To Address The Needs Of Working People. They're Going To Have To Address The Needs Of The Middle Class.

Because Of A Mass Media More Interested In Gossip And Sensationalism Than Real Issues, I Would Say A Vast Majority Of The American Public Doesn't Have A Clue About How The Congress Functions And What Goes On.

Your Story Is For - Voting For Every Disastrous Trade Agreement, And Voting For Corporate America. Did I Vote Against The Wall Street Bailout?

The Postal Service Is A Vitally Important Institution For The American People. It Must Be Saved.

High-speed Trains In Japan Can Now Reach 375 Mph - Twice As Fast As Any Public Transit Train In The United States. America's Railroads Were Once The Envy Of The World. Today They Are In Disrepair And We Are Falling Further And Further Behind The Rest Of The World. We Need To Rebuild Our Crumbling Infrastructure, Including Rail. When We Do That We Not Only Make Our Country More Productive And Efficient, We Create Millions Of New Jobs.

At The End Of The Day, If Millions Of People Come Together And Say, We Are Not Going To Be A Xenophobic Society, We Are Not Going To Be Throwing Millions Of Latinos Out Of This Country, We Are Not Going To Be A Racist Society, We're Not Going To Be A Sexist Society, We Will Prevail.

The End Of The Day

At The Current $5.15 An Hour, The Federal Minimum Wage Has Become A Poverty Wage. A Full-time Worker With One Child Lives Below The Official Poverty Line.

I Actually Think The Only Way That You Can Beat Trump Is Recognizing That He Is A One- Man Wrecking Machine Fueled By This Cult Personality. So You Have To Attack Him On Those Bases. None Of These Ideological Positioning Issues Matter For [donald] Trump.

I Intend To Introduce Legislation That Will Make Police Accountable For Their Actions And Limit Uses Of Force In Cases Where It Is Unnecessary.

The American People In My View Will Never Support A Candidate Whose Major Theme Is Bigotry.

Every Candidate Running For President Has Got To Answer The Following Very Simple Question: At A Time When We Need To Address The Planetary Crisis Of Climate Change, And Transform Our Energy System Away From Fossil Fuels And Into Energy Efficiency And Sustainability, Should We Continue To Give $135 Billion In Tax Breaks And Subsidies Over The Next Decade To Fossil Fuel Companies?

The Truth Is We Have A Political System And An Economic System Controlled By A Few Extremely Wealthy People. Not Barack Obama, Not Bernie Sanders, No One Person Has The Influence By Himself Or Herself To Take On This Enormous Array Of Power Unless Millions Of People Begin To Work Together To Demand Changes.

I Think The War In The Mideast, How We Got Into It And How We're Going To Address The Current Problems, Are Issues That Every American Should Be Concerned About.

Demagogues Like [donald] Trump Come Along. He Says I Know What The Cause Is. Remember, Later, The Cause Was That Mexicans Who Are Coming To This Country, Well, They Were Criminals Or Rapists. Now It Is Muslims.

Establishing A 0.03 Percent Wall Street Speculation Fee, Similar To What We Had From 1914-1966, Would Dampen The Dangerous Level Of Speculation And Gambling On Wall Street, Encourage The Financial Sector To Invest In The Productive Economy And Reduce The Deficit By More Than $350 Billion Over 10 Years.

I Think That The Needs Of The Va And The Needs Of The Veteran Community Are Very, Very Significant. Цe're Talking About A Va System In Which, In The Last Years A Million-and-a-half More People Have Come Into The System. You're Dealing With 500,000 People Have Come Home From Iraq An Afghanistan With Ptsd And Tbi. You're Dealing With An Older Veterans Population From World War Ii And Korea Who Need Some Difficult Medical Help. We Want To See It Be More Efficient. We Want To See Doctors Go To Where They're Needed.

We Must Fundamentally Restructure Our Student Loan Program. It Makes No Sense That Students And Their Parents Are Forced To Pay Interest Rates For Higher Education Loans That Are Much Higher Than They Pay For Car Loans Or Housing Mortgages.

I Think It Makes People In The Pentagon Kind Of Nervous To Know That Chemical Agents And Environmental Factors Could Cause So Much Damage In Terms Of What May Happen In The Future.

Environmental Factors

As A United States Senator, I've Got To Do Everything That I Can To Make Sure That Trump Does Not Become President.

We Are The Only Major Country On Earth That Doesn't Guarantee Health Care To All People As A Right And Yet We End Up Spending Much More Than They Do, So I Do Believe That We Have To Move Toward A Medicare For All, Single-payer System.

What Every American Should Know Is That We Have More People In Jail Today Than Any Other Country On Earth, More Than China. We Have Some 2.2 Million People In Jail. What That Means Is That A Lot Of Lives Are Being Destroyed.

If Trump Is Elected President... I Just Don't Know What America Looks Like Four Years After His Election, In Terms Of The Kind Of Bigotry That Will Be Erupting, In Terms Of The Kind Of Divisiveness That We Will See, The Kind Of Demagoguery That We Will See.

I Think We Need To Take On The Greed Of The Billionaire Class, A Disastrous Campaign Finance System.

The Federal Reserve Has A Responsibility To Ensure The Safety And Soundness Of Financial Institutions And To Contain Systemic Risks In Financial Markets.

I've Run For Statewide Office Plenty Of Times, And People Know Me.

I'm Not Going To Tell You I Know George W. Bush Intimately. I'm Not Going To Tell You We're Best Friends. I'll Tell You I Met Him On A Number Of Occasions. You Know What? George W. Bush Is A Very Nice Guy. Very Funny Guy. His Wife Is A Very Nice Woman; I Thought She Was A Great First Lady. George [w.] Bush Was The Worst President In The History Of The United States Of America... The Issue Is Not Bernie Sanders. The Issue Is The Koch Brothers. The Issue Is Who Owns America.

If You Looked At Jeb Bush's Campaign, It's More Than Just Money. It's The Nature Of The Candidate And The Message And All That Stuff.

In And Out Of Government, I've Always Been Willing To Take On Complicated, Sometimes Unpopular, Issues And Work Them Through To Have A Solution.

If You Want To Talk Further About A Relationship With Russia, Look No Further Than The Clintons. As We've Said Time And Time Again, Bill Clinton Was Paid Half A Million Dollars To Give A Speech To A Russian Bank, And Was Personally Thanked By Putin For It. Hillary Clinton Allowed One-fifth Of America's Uranium To - Reserve To Be Sold To A Russian Firm Whose Investors Were Clinton Foundation Donors. And The Clinton Campaign Chairman's Brother Lobbied Against Sanctions On Russia's Largest Bank And Failed To Report It. If You Want To Talk About Having Relations, Look No Further Than There.

I Want To Know In This Day And Age, Whether It Is Possible For Any Candidate Who Is Not A Billionaire Or Who Is Not Beholden To The Billionaire Class, To Be Able To Run Successful Campaigns.

I Surely Remember Being In The Administration Building Sitting In Long Sleepless Nights And Working With Young People To Do The Right Thing. And That Is To Tell Our University, At That Time, The University Of Chicago, That It Was Wrong To Own And Maintain Segregated Housing. I Remember It Very Well.

In Germany, College Tuition Is Free. In America, College Tuition Is Increasingly Unaffordable. In A Highly Competitive Global Economy, Which Country Do You Think Will Have The Best Educated Work Force And A Competitive Advantage? We Must Make Tuition Free In Public Colleges And Universities And Substantially Reduce Interest Rates On Student Loans.

Real Change Never Occurs From The Top On Down, [but] Always From The Bottom On Up.

What This [presidency] Campaign Is About This Bringing Millions Of People Jobs In This Country.

Instead Of Fighting Isis, (the Saudis) Have Focused More On A Campaign To Oust Iran-backed Houthi Rebels In Yemen.

Campaigns And Elections Are Not A Game. They're Not A Game. They're About Trying To Change America. We're The Wealthiest Country In The History Of The World. We Should Not Be Having Flint, Michigan, Or African-american Communities All Over This Country Where Schools Are Failing. Those Are The Issue We Got To Pay Attention To And Not At This As Come Kind Of Silly Game. And That Is The Critique That Bothers Me. That's What Bothers Me About Media Coverage.

Any Idiot, Especially One Who Is Prepared To Die, Who Has A Gun, Can Start Shooting Up People.

During The Debate Over Nafta President Clinton Said, 'i Believe That Nafta Will Create A Million Jobs In The First Five Years Of Its Impact.' Wrong. According To The Economic Policy Institute, Nafta Has Led To The Loss Of More Than 680,000 U.s. Jobs. I Voted Against Nafta And Other Bad Trade Agreements And Am Fighting To Stop The Tpp.

Defy The Pundits Again And Reach For A High Voter Turnout That'll Shock The Establishment.

The Palestinian People's Needs Must Be Respected.

In My View, A Corporation Is Not A Person. A Corporation Does Not Have First Amendment Rights To Spend As Much Money As It Wants, Without Disclosure, On A Political Campaign.

Everyone Can Have Health Care. Everyone Can Earn A Living Wage. We Can Educate All Our Kids - Well. But None Of That Happens Unless There's A Political Revolution. And It's Not Going To Happen Unless We Deal With Corporate Control Of The Media.

Political Revolution

Today, The Top One-tenth Of 1% Owns Nearly As Much Wealth As The Bottom 90%. The Economic Game Is Rigged, And This Level Of Inequality Is Unsustainable. We Need An Economy That Works For All, Not Just The Powerful.

An America Where Every Person, No Matter Their Race, Their Disability Or Their Sexual Orientation Realizes The Full Promise Of Equality That Is Our Birthright As Americans.

I Think, Clearly, We Got To Work Closely With China To Resolve The Serious Problems We Have, And I Worry About Putin And His Military Adventurism In The Crimea And The Ukraine.

Social Security Is A Promise That We Cannot And Must Not Break.

I Do Not Believe That We Must Maintain A Bloated Military Budget Which Spends Almost As Much As The Rest Of The World Combined And May Lead Us To Perpetual Warfare In The Middle East.

In The Last Presidential Election Obama And Romney Raised About $1 Billion Each. The Koch Brothers, The Second Wealthiest Family In America, Now Say They Will Raise Nearly $1 Billion For The 2016 Elections. When One Family Can Raise As Much As An Entire Party, The System Is Broken. This Is Oligarchy, Not Democracy. We Must Overturn Citizens United.

We Are Living At A Time Where A Handful Of People Have Wealth Beyond Comprehension - Huge Yachts, Jet Planes, Tens Of Billions Of Dollars, More Money Than They Could Spend In A Thousand Lifetimes. But At The Same Time, Millions Of People Are Struggling To Feed Their Families Or Put A Roof Over Their Heads Or Find The Money To Go To A Doctor.

I Don't Believe There's A Red State In America Where People Believe You Should Cut Medicare, Social Security And Veterans' Benefits Rather Than Doing Away With Corporate Tax Loopholes.

Country Must Confront What He Called Institutional Racism. [we Should] Create A Country Which Provides Economic, Social And Environmental Justice For All.

Justice For All

Of Course The Republicans Have Long Wanted To Privatize Social Security And Destroy It. But Social Security Has Been The Most Important And Valuable Social Program In The History Of The United States.

What I Do Know Is That Drones Are A Modern Weapon. When Used Effectively, When Taking Out Isis Or Terrorist Leaders, That's Pretty Impressive. When Bombing Wedding Parties Of Innocent People And Killing Dozens Of Them, That Is, Needless To Say, Not Effective And Enormously Counterproductive. So Whatever The Mechanism, Whoever Is In Control Of That Policy, It Has To Be Refined So That We Are Killing The People We Want To Kill And Not Innocent Collateral Damage.

We Can`t Allow Racism And Xenophobia To Gain Traction.

Giving Up Is Not An Option If We Want To Prevent Irreparable Harm To Our Planet.

Irreparable Harm

For Better Or Worse, When Sen. Inhofe Speaks, The Republican Party Follows. And When The Republican Party Follows, It Is Impossible To Get Real Work Done In The Congress.

Student Debt Is Crushing The Lives Of Millions Of Americans. How Does It Happen That We Can Get A Home Mortgage Or Purchase A Car With Interest Rates Half Of That Being Paid For Student Loans? We Must Make Higher Education Affordable For All. We Must Substantially Lower Interest Rates On Student Loans. This Must Be A National Priority.

All Over This Country You Have Progressive Communities Like Madison And Burlington, But We've Got To Go Well, Well, Well Outside Of Those Communities. We've Got To Go To The Rural Areas. We've Got To Go Where A Lot Of Working People Are Voting Republican.

We Can Have Paid Family And Medical Leave. We Can Make Public Colleges And Universities Tuition-free. These Are Not Revolutionary, Radical Ideas. They're Kind Of Common Sense.

I Think The People Want To Attack Israel For Their Policies, I Think That Is Fair Game. But Not To Appreciate That There Is Some Level Of Anti-semitism Around The World Involved In That, I Think, Would Be A Mistake.

I Have Not Heard Almost Anybody Suggest That Raising The Minimum Wage To The Level We Have In Vermont Has Been An Impediment To Our Economy Which Is Doing Reasonably Well ... If Somebody Is Going To Work That Person Has Got To Receive At Least A Wage That They Can Go Out And Live With Dignity On. That's An Extremely Important Point.

I`m A Former Mayor. I Know That Being A Cop Is Not An Easy Job. But When Police Officers Misbehave, They`ve Got To Be Held Accountable.

I Want Trump To Send Out A Tweet Saying That He's Going To Keep His Campaign Promises. He's Not Going To Cut Social Security, Medicare And Medicaid.

Medicare And Medicaid

I Think You Have An Enormous Amount Of Fear And Uncertainty In This Country. And It`s Not Just From San Bernardino Or From Paris.

I Believe The Democratic Party Has Got To Be Firmly On The Side Of Working Families, Taking On The Big Money Interests, Who Today, To A Very Significant Degree, Control Our Economic And Political Life.

My Path To Victory Is To Talk About The Issues That Impact The Lives Of Millions Of Americans.

I Think The Issue Of Income And Wealth Inequality Is In Fact A Moral Issue.

During The 1999 Debate Over Permanent Normal Trade Relations With China President Bill Clinton Said, 'in Opening The Economy Of China, The Agreement Will Create Unprecedented Opportunities For American Farmers, Workers And Companies To Compete Successfully In China's Market. Wrong: Our Trade Deficit With China Has Increased From $83 Billion In 2001 To A Record Breaking $342 Billion In 2014.

Records Breaking

People Who Know The Economy Is Rigged In Favor Of Big Money, People Who Know That Our Middle Class Continues To Decline And We Have To Go Outside Of Establishment Politics And Economics, People Who Know That We Need To Reform A Broken Criminal Justice System And We Need Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

[hillary] Clinton Is Too Much Into Regime Change And A Little Bit Too Aggressive Without Knowing What The Unintended Consequences Might Be. Yes, We Could Get Rid Of Assad Tomorrow, But That Would Create Another Political Vacuum That Would Benefit Isis.

What Does A Political Revolution Look Like? It Means That 80 Percent Of The People Vote In National Elections, Not 40 Percent. It Means That Billionaires Can't Make Unlimited Campaign Contributions And Buy And Sell Politicians. It Means That The U.s. Government Represents The Needs Of All The People, Not Just The 1 Percent And Their Lobbyists.

Political Revolution

What The American People Want To See In Their President Is Somebody Who Not Necessarily Can Win Every Fight, But They Want To See Him Stand Up And Fight For What He Believes, Take His Case To The American People.

You Want Your Kids To Have An Opportunity. We`re Going To Fight To Give You That.

I Think, With Trump, The Major Point Is This Guy Has Business Enterprises All Over The World. And You're Looking Just At Immense, Immense Conflict Of Interest.

Washington Is Dominated By Big Money.

There Is Far Too Little Discussion In Washington About The Collapse Of The Middle Class , Almost No Discussion At All About The Incredible Income Inequality And Wealth Inequality In This Country, And The Fact That We're Moving Toward An Oligarch Form Of Society.

The Government Of Our Great Country Belongs To All Of The People And Not Just A Handful Of The Wealthy.

I Am Not A Great Fan Of The Payroll Tax Holiday Because I'm Nervous About What It Does To The Future Of Social Security.

People Are Hungry, And They're Hurting And They're Very, Very Worried About Their Children. Will Their Kids Ever Pay Off Their Student Debt? Will Their Kids Ever Get A Decent-paying Job? I Think Democrats Have Got To Be Running A Grass-roots Campaign - Mobilizing People And Being Prepared To Take On The 1 Percent With An Agenda That Speaks To The Needs Of Ordinary Workers.

In Germany, Many Other Countries, College Tuition Is Free. Why Isn`t Free In America? Why Do We Have The Highest Rate Of Childhood Poverty When Other Countries Have Rates Much Lower Than We Have? Why Don`t We Have Pay Equity For Women Workers? Why Aren`t We Leading The World In Transforming Our Energy System In Terms Of Climate Change? We Can Do That. Are We Dumb? Are We Lazy? Not The Case.

Do The Elected Officials In Washington Stand With Ordinary Americans - Working Families, Children, The Elderly, The Poor - Or Will The Extraordinary Power Of Billionaire Campaign Contributors And Big Money Prevail? The American People, By The Millions, Must Send Congress The Answer To That Question.

I Want To Say Something, And It May Sound Harsh, Not To You, But To The American People. In A Sense, In My View, The Business Model Of Wall Street Is Fraud. It's Fraud. I Believe That Corruption Is Rampant, And The Fact That Major Bank After Major Bank Has Reached Multi Billion Dollar Settlements With The United States Government When We Have A Weak Regulator System Tells Me That Not Only Did We Have To Bail Them Out Once, If We Don't Start Breaking Them Up, We're Going To Have To Bail Them Out Again, And I Do Not Want To See That Happen.

When You Have Kids That Have No Jobs And Are Not In School, Too Often They Get Themselves Into Trouble. So What We Have Got To Do Is Invest In Education And In Jobs, Something Which I Have Fought For, Rather Than More Jails And Incarceration.

Please Don't Suggest That I Think We Normalize Relations With Tehran Tomorrow. We Don't. But I Would Like To See Us Move Forward, And Hopefully Some Day That Will Happen.

I'm Not Really Opposed To People Changing Their Minds. I'm Much More Concerned With People Who Never Change Their Minds No Matter What New Information Is Available.

We Have To Invest In Our Kids, We Have To Invest In Our Communities, We Have To Create Jobs. We Have To Make Certain That Kids Are Not Dropping Out Of School And Hanging Out On Street Corners.

The American People Understand That It Is Grotesquely Unfair - We Are A Society That Prides Itself On Fairness, That Prides Itself On Equal Opportunity, And People Are Looking Out And Seeing, Since The Great Recession Of 2008, 99 Percent Of All New Income Going To The Top 1 Percent.

We Are Spending Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars Maintaining 5,000 Nuclear Weapons. I Think We Need Major Reform In The Military, Making It More Cost Effective, But Also Focusing On The Real Crisis That Faces America.

I Have Spent The Better Part Of My Adult Life Standing Up And Fighting For Working Families.

Many People Can Talk For A Long Period Of Time. But Controlling, You Know, Your Urinary Tract Is Maybe The More Difficult Issue.

I Don't Think Any Sensible Person Would Disagree That The Invasion Of Iraq Led To The Massive Level Of Instability That We're Seeing Right Now. I Think That Was One Of The Worst Foreign Policy Blunders In The Modern History Of The United States.

Wall Street Is Perhaps The Most Powerful Economic And Political Force In This Country. You Have Companies Like Goldman Sachs, Who Just Recently Paid A Settlement Fine With The Federal Government For $5 Billion For Defrauding Investors.

Today, Over Half Of American Workers Have Less Than $10,000 In Savings And Have No Idea How They Will Be Able To Retire With Any Shred Of Dignity.

At A Time Of Massive Inequality, I Think We Can Raise Substantial Sums Of Revenue To Address The Needs Of Working Families, The Elderly, And The Children, By Asking Those People Who Are Doing Phenomenally Well To Start Paying Their Fair Share.

Republicans Drove Us Into Debt With Two Wars And The Bush Tax Cuts. Now They Want To Pay For That Debt With Cuts To Social Security, Medicare And Medicaid. This Is Not Only Immoral It Is Bad Economics. Why Do Republicans Always Have Money For War But Not For Those In Need?

Medicare And Medicaid

I Fear Very Much For Our Kids, For Low Income People And For Seniors.

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