Thread by @OurRev305

Happy Monday! Let’s kick it off w/a Bernie Sanders accomplished a bunch list!

We see folks parroting old smears spread by that nasty Super Pac, saying the Bern achieved nada bc he’s an uncompromising ideologue who doesn’t know how to get things done./1

occasionalplanet.org/2016/03/04/a-l…

Bernie’s in the midst of a distinguished career as a social justice activist & elected official. He’s been a mayor, member of Congress, and a senator.

Bernie’s life has been honed by decades of hard work as a public servant on behalf of poor & middle class Americans. /2

Bernie ran for president-without taking Wall Street $, corporate $, or having a Super Pac for unlimited dinero.

He’s had the integrity to live his life according to progressive values. He’s never shilled for big banks & corporations. That’s quite an accomplishment in DC./3

Bernie doesn’t spout focus-group talking points or read@someone else’s words off a teleprompter.

Bernie understands the poor & middle class struggles & the origins of injustice & inequality.

His authenticity resonates among voters who lost confidence in politics./4

Some of Bernie’s accomplishments are his votes against war.

Bernie was correct in his predictions that these costly wars would bring disaster. These votes underscore his wisdom & judgment, qualities we need in a president. /5

Thru deal making & compromise w/Dems & Repubs, Bernie’s amassed a solid record on behalf of vets, children, lower & middle income individuals & families, & our black, LatinX, women, LGBT, & elderly communities. He’s consistently given voice to those with less power./6

No surprise, Bernie has the highest approval rating of any Senator.

An astonishing 83% of Vermonters trust Bernie to represent them.

Instead of lowering expectations of what’s possible, Bernie offers a bold & humane vision of what our country can be. /7

Bernie Sanders:

•Elected by Vermonters 8x to House of Representatives.
•Longest-serving independent in congressional history.
•Dubbed “amendment king” in House of Reps for passing more amendments to legislation than any other member of Congress. /8

google.com/amp/s/www.alte…

Bernie Sanders:

•Ranking member on Senate Budget Committee.
•Former student organizer for Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) & Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
•Led first ever civil rights sit-in in Chicago history to protest segregated housing. /9

Bernie Sanders:
•In 1963, Bernie marched in Martin Luther King Jr’s Civil Rights March.
•Bernie is 1 of 2 sitting US Senators to have heard “I Have a Dream” in person.
•Former Prof of political science at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Govt & Hamilton College. /10

•Bernie was a mayor of Burlington, VT.

In a stunning upset in 1981, Sanders won the mayoral race in VT’s largest city.

Bernie shocked the political establishment by defeating a six-term, local machine mayor. Burlington is now one of the most livable cities in the nation. /11

1984: Bernie established the Burlington Community Land Trust, the first municipal housing land-trust in the country for affordable housing.

His project becomes a model emulated throughout the world. It later wins an award from Jack Kemp-led HUD. /12

google.com/amp/s/slate.co…

•Bernie Sanders co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus & chaired its first 8 years.
•NAACP & NHLA (National Hispanic Leadership Agenda) have given Sanders 100% voting scores during his tenure in the Senate.
•Bernie has D- from the NRA. /13

1991: Bernie votes against US military force in Iraq.

“I have a real fear the region is not going to be more peaceful or more stable after the war.”

The war dragged on 9 years, was 1 of worst foreign policy fiascos in US history, & caused ISIS. /14

1992: Bernie’s 1st piece of signed legislation passes to create the National Program of Cancer Registries.

Readers Digest says the law is “the cancer weapon America needs most.”

All 50 states now run registries to help cancer researchers gain important insights. /15

1993: Sanders votes against NAFTA.

Returning from factory tours in Mexico, Bernie predicts: “If NAFTA passes, corporate profits will soar because it will be even easier for American companies to flee to Mexico and hire workers for starvation wages.” /16

google.com/amp/s/m.huffpo…

1996: Sanders is 1 of only 67 (out of 435) votes against the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal benefits to married same-sex couples.

Sanders urged the Supreme Court to throw out the law, which it finally did in a landmark 2013 ruling – 17 years later. /17

1999: Standing up to Big Pharma, Bernie takes seniors & breast cancer patients to Canada to buy lower-cost prescription drugs.

These men & women purchased their meds in for one-tenth the price charged in the United States. /18

1999: Bernie hosted a town hall to protest IBM’s plan to cut in half older workers’ pensions by as much as 50%.

Bernie purchased 5 shares of IBM stock to buy his way in to the annual meeting & participate in a vote to reverse the company's pension plan changes. /19

After IBM enacted the plan, Bernie passed 2 amendments to prohibit fed govt from trying to overturn a court decision that ruled IBM’s plan violated age discrimination laws. Thanks to Bernie’s efforts, IBM agreed to a $320M legal settlement w/130,000 IBM workers & retirees./20

1999: A decade before 2008’s Wall Street crash spins our global economy into recession, Bernie voted NO on a bill to undo decades of financial regulations enacted after the Great Depression. The House passed the bill 362-57 over Bernie’s objection. /21
c-span.org/video/?c457093…

Bernie predicted: “This legislation will lead to fewer banks & financial service providers, increased consumer & small business fees, reduced credit for rural America, & taxpayer exposure to potential losses should a financial conglomerate fail. /22
m.dailykos.com/stories/2015/1…

2001: Sanders voted against USA Patriot Act & against reauthorizing it in 2006 & 2011.

Bernie said:All of us want to protect the American people from terrorist attacks, but in a way that does not undermine basic freedoms.

Courts later agreed w/Bernie./23
nytimes.com/2007/09/27/was…

2002: Sanders votes against the Bush-Cheney war in Iraq.

Bernie warns an invasion could “result in anti-Americanism, instability and more terrorism.”

He was right. The &4 trillion war & 4,488 US military deaths were an engine for terrorist growth. /24
usnews.com/debate-club/10…

2006: Bernie defeats VT’s richest man, Rich Tarrant, to be elected to the Senate. Bernie is endorsed by the Vermont Democratic Party & supported by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Bernie continued his streak of never running a negative ad./25

2007: The energy efficiency & conservation grant program Bernie wrote passes into law!

Bernie later secures $3.2 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for the grant program. /26

2008: Bernie Sanders’s efforts get funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funding doubles, helping millions of low-income Americans heat their homes in winter. /27 sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/video…

2009: Bernie Sanders works w/ Republican Sen. Grassley to pass an amendment to an economic recovery bill. It prevents Wall Street banks that take taxpayer bailouts from replacing laid-off U.S. workers with exploited & poorly-paid foreign workers. /28

sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press…

2009: While advocating for single payer, Bernie passes language in Affordable Care Act to allow states to apply for waivers to implement pilot health care systems. This allows states to adopt comprehensive systems to cover more people at lower costs. /29 c-span.org/video/?c453878…

2010: Affordable Care Act includes Bernie’s provisions to expand community health centers & fund NHSC for scholarships & loan repayment for doctors & nurses who practice in under-served communities. The funding helps more than 25 million Americans. /30

2010: Sanders works with Ron Paul to pass a measure as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill to audit the Federal Reserve.

They were livid the Fed Reserve gave $16 trillion in near zero-interest loans to big banks & businesses AFTER the 2008 economic collapse. /31

2013: Bernie is Chair of Veterans Affairs Committee. He leads a successful effort to stop a disastrous chained-CPI proposal that was supported by Republicans & the White House. It was a sneaky bid to cut Social Security & disabled veterans benefits. /32 thehill.com/special-report…

2013: Sanders introduces legislation to break up major Wall Street banks so large, that the collapse of one could send the overall economy into a downward spiral. Ya know, since he predicted it would happen when he tried to stop it the first time, & lo & behold, it happened. /33

2014: Obama signs a bipartisan $16.5 billion veterans bill written by Bernie Sanders & John McCaiin. The bill includes $5 billion for the VA to hire more doctors & health professionals to meet growing demand for care due to endless wars Bernie opposed. /34

2015: Sanders takes over as ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee. He fight for his economic agenda to benefit the American middle class and working people instead of special interests & billionaires. /35

2015: Sanders votes against the Keystone XL pipeline, which would allow TransCanada to transport dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. As predicted, it leaked, & the violent treatment of protesters at Standing Rock was a shameful moment in American history./36

2015: Bernie introduced legislation to expand benefit and strengthen Social Security on the same day he (& all Senators) received 2 million Petitions gathered by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare. Anyone who’s gathered petitions knows that’s huge./37

2015: Bernie Sanders, Raúl Grijalva, Keith Ellison, & Bobby Rush introduced bills to ban private prisons, reinstate the federal parole system and eliminate quotas for the number of immigrants held in detention. /38

2016: Bernie placed FDA Nnominee Dr. Califf on hold bc of his ties to Big Pharma & lack of commitment to lower drug prices. “There’s no reason to believe he would make the FDA work for ordinary Americans, rather than CEOs of pharmaceutical companies.”/39 google.com/amp/s/www.chic…

We welcome additions and updates to our thread!

#RunBernieRun #Bernie2020 #FeelTheBern