Daily Sanders: Wednesday, August 21st

Daily Rundown of Sanders 2020 Presidential Campaign Coverage

YUGE day for the Sanders 2020 campaign with a history-making plan to strengthen unions and employee bargaining, a powerful speech to indigenous Americans and a direct response to Trump’s race baiting. Plus more corporate media nonsense and event schedule for the rest of the week.

Campaign Tracker

Bernie’s all over Iowa these past few days and he made the front page on five Iowa newspapers:

Five Newspapers with Front Page Bernie Coverage

Today

This evening, the campaign hosts a health care town hall in Des Moines, Iowa — campaign streams it here.

This morning, Bernie’s speech at the AFL-CIO Convention introduced his Workplace Democracy plan. You can watch the speech below,

Bernie Speaks at Iowa AFL-CIO convention

The Workplace Democracy plan is a comprehensive overhaul of labor law in America. This plan gives rights back to the worker and ensures that the owning class will be challenged when they exploit the working class.

The plan includes the promise of an executive order outlawing key, abusive companies.

“When Bernie is president he will issue an executive order to prevent companies from receiving federal contracts that outsource jobs overseas, pay workers less than $15 an hour without benefits, refuse to remain neutral in union organizing efforts, pay executives over 150 times more than average workers, hire workers to replace striking workers, or close businesses after workers vote to unionize.”

In today’s BERN NOTICE, David Sirota identifies the truly broken nature of our government’s policy toward labor,

“Here’s an open secret: right now, your federal tax dollars subsidize giant CEO pay packages as well as corporate efforts to bust unions and offshore jobs.” — David Sirota

The newsletter lobs direct attacks at retail giant, Amazon, automotive manufacturersGeneral Motors, weapons manufacturers Boeing, Honeywell, and United Technologies and pharmaceutical distributor, McKesson.

These are the firms that are destroying America’s labor protections. These are the firms the Sanders administration is going to regulate with the above executive order by barring them access to federal contracts (i.e. taxpayer money).

Companies like Uber will need to pay workers higher because,

“Under Bernie’s plan, companies will no longer be able to ruthlessly exploit workers by misclassifying them as independent contractors or deny them overtime by falsely calling them a “supervisor.”

Another executive order protects worker pensions,

“As president, Bernie will sign an executive order to impose a moratorium on future pension cuts and would reverse the cuts to retirement benefits that have already been made.”

The plan calls for legislation that gives all workers the right to “Give federal workers the right to strike.”

On Twitter, Bernie simplified what this plan intends to exactly do:

Bernie Sanders Fighting Class War with the Working Class

The Sanders movement is committed to mobilizing working people to build a better world!

Yesterday

from Organizers for Bernie

Issues — Justice for First Peoples

Sanders spoke at the Native American Forum

Sanders Speaks at Native American Forum

News Maven, an indigenous people focused publication, reports on the event, and I copied their transcriptions of portions of Sanders’ speech below,

“Your culture, your respect for the environment, your willingness to think generations in front rather than focusing on short term profits has had a profound impact upon millions and millions of people in this country,” Sanders said, “and I thank you very much for that.” “It speaks to me the importance of us knowing where we came from if we’re going to know where we’re going forward,” Sanders said. “The need to preserve as much as we can, the culture and the history of the United States, which among other things means language. To make sure that our kids, Native American kids and kids all over this country, understand the history of their country, their real history and the languages that those who came before them spoke.” “If there’s any people in this country today, who knows what that is about, it is you,” Sanders said. “We need you to help explain that, not only to our country but to the world. You have a history which is rich and important and at this moment of environmental crises, this is the time for the Native American people, working with an administration that respects the Native American people, to help us to transform our entire economy to one which is not at war with nature but is part of nature.”

During the question and answer section, Sanders promised to rescind medals from soldiers who took part in Native American genocide as well as fight for justice for Indigenous women.

Issues — Fighting Fascism

After the rally, Bernie continued his calls toward fighting fascism. At the Sioux City volunteer office, Bernie gave a speech that responded directly to Trump’s comments calling Jewish American who vote Democrat “disloyal”

Sanders Response to Trump’s Attack on Jewish American’s Loyalty

“I am a proud Jewish person and I have no concerns about voting democratic. And in fact, I intend to vote for a Jewish man to become the next President of the United States” — Bernie Sanders

Even the Washington Post is giving coverage to the remark.

The idea that a person can be “disloyal” to their heritage by voting against the most vile, race-baiting president since Woodrow Wilson is disgusting. The only cure for fascism is democratic socialism.

This Week

Tomorrow, the campaign heads to California on Thursday for a Town Hall in Chico and a rally in Sacramento. On Friday, Sanders addresses the DNC at a private meeting in San Francisco, then hosts a town hall on student debt that evening. On Saturday, the campaign is in Twin Cities, Minnesota for a grassroots fundraiser.