People in the media and especially on this site have long attacked Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (D) for not knowing how to get things done and more recently for not knowing the specifics of policies he wants to pass. Take this article from The New York Times as a more recent manifestation of this narrative:

The easy slogan here is “Break up the big banks.” It’s obvious why this slogan is appealing from a political point of view: Wall Street supplies an excellent cast of villains. But were big banks really at the heart of the financial crisis, and would breaking them up protect us from future crises? Many analysts concluded years ago that the answers to both questions were no. Predatory lending was largely carried out by smaller, non-Wall Street institutions like Countrywide Financial; the crisis itself was centered not on big banks but on “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers that weren’t necessarily that big. And the financial reform that President Obama signed in 2010 made a real effort to address these problems. It could and should be made stronger, but pounding the table about big banks misses the point. Yet going on about big banks is pretty much all Mr. Sanders has done. On the rare occasions on which he was asked for more detail, he didn’t seem to have anything more to offer. And this absence of substance beyond the slogans seems to be true of his positions across the board.

But that is beside the point of this diary.

Robert Reich recently defended Bernie from these sorts of attacks in an interview, an excerpt of which is posted in the title picture of this article. I did a little research just to see if Reich was correct about Sander’s being able to get things done and here’s what I found:

The facts about Sanders’ back Reich’s statements up. Sanders knows what he’s doing, contrary to some conclusions drawn from the much hyped New York Daily News Interview, and he certainly knows how to ‘get things done’.

Politifact rated Sanders’ Amendment King claim as True

From Politifact:

From Alternet:

Not only has Sanders gotten a lot more things done than Clinton did in her own short legislative career, he's actually one of the most effective members of Congress, passing bills, both big and small, that have reshaped American policy on key issues like poverty, the environment and health care. The Amendment King Congress is not known to be a progressive institution lately, to say the least. Over the past few decades, the House of Representatives was only controlled by the Democrats from 2007 to 2010, and a flood of corporate money has quieted the once-powerful progressive movement that passed legislation moving the country forward between the New Deal era and the Great Society. Yet, as difficult as it may be to believe, a socialist from Vermont is one of its most accomplished members. ... Sanders did something particularly original, which was that he passed amendments that were exclusively progressive, advancing goals such as reducing poverty and helping the environment, and he was able to get bipartisan coalitions of Republicans who wanted to shrink government or hold it accountable and progressives who wanted to use it to empower Americans.

What are some of those pieces of legislation you may ask? Well here are several of them that he worked on as Vermont’s only U.S. Representative:

Corporate Crime Accountability (February 1995): A Sanders amendment to the Victims Justice Act of 1995 required “offenders who are convicted of fraud and other white-collar crimes to give notice to victims and other persons in cases where there are multiple victims eligible to receive restitution.” Saving Money, for Colleges and Taxpayers (April 1998): In an amendment to H.R. 6, the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, Sanders made a change to the law that allowed the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education to make competitive grants available to colleges and universities that cooperated to reduce costs through joint purchases of goods and services. Expanding Free Health Care (November 2001): You wouldn't think Republicans would agree to an expansion of funds for community health centers, which provide some free services. But Sanders was able to win a $100 million increase in funding with an amendment. Fighting Corporate Welfare and Protecting Against Nuclear Disasters (June 2005): A Sanders amendment brought together a bipartisan coalition that outnumbered a bipartisan coalition on the other side to successfully prohibit the Export-Import Bank from providing loans for nuclear projects in China.

And as Senator…

Protecting Our Troops (October 2007): Sanders used an amendment to win $10 million for operation and maintenance of the Army National Guard, which had been stretched thin and overextended by the war in Iraq. When the Affordable Care Act was in danger of not having the votes to pass, Sanders used his leverage to win enough funding for free health treatment for 10 million Americans through Community Health Centers. This gutsy move—holding out until the funds were put into the bill— has even Republican members of Congress requesting the funds , which have helped millions of Americans who otherwise would not have access.

An article from The Intercept puts Bernie’s bipartisan work on healthcare:

Over the years, Sanders has tucked away funding for health centers in appropriation bills signed by George W. Bush, into Barack Obama’s stimulus program, and through the earmarking process. But his biggest achievement came in 2010 through the Affordable Care Act. In a series of high-stakes legislative maneuvers, Sanders struck a deal to include $11 billion for health clinics in the law. The result has made an indelible mark on American health care, extending the number of people served by clinics from 18 million before the ACA to an expected 28 million next year.

This article in particular sums up Sanders’ congressional career very nicely, because it is apparently, possible to ‘get things done’ without selling your heart and your soul to the powerful few:

How Bernie Gets Things Done in Congress Without Being Bought Off

He kicked off his political career with an amendment to start a National Program of Cancer registries, which is now maintained by all 50 states. In 2001, he successfully passed an amendment to the general appropriations bill which banned the importation of goods made with child labor , and passed an amendment to increase funding by $100 million for community health centers.

and finally, in the last section of the piece…

When Mr. Sanders was elected to the Senate in 2006, he continued pushing amendments through legislation, including securing $10 million in additional funds for the Army National Guard, providing financial assistance for childcare to people in the armed forces, exposing corruption in the military industrial complex, support in treating autism in the military’s healthcare system and ensuring bailout funds weren’t used to displace American workers.

But of course,

Despite Mr. Sanders’ impeccable record in Congress, The New York Times recently ran an article initially praising his ability to work with both parties to get amendments added to legislation and passed—but later edited it without any footnotes or addendums explaining why the changes were made. The Times has been infamously harsh on Mr. Sanders in favor of Ms. Clinton, possibly because the top shareholder of the company, billionaire Carlos Slim, is a major donor to the Clinton Foundation.

The right donations to the right people can really work some magic can’t it? Or as one might say, it can distort reality. It can make it seem like the Iraq War was just fine and dandy because contractors were making billions off of the deaths of Iraqi civilians, the destruction of their homes, and the collapse of their economy. It can make it seem like the TPP is a good thing for anyone but the wealthy and powerful interests when it’s not. It can make it seem like certain candidates were there for the Fight For $15 an hour all along when they weren’t.

Indeed, the right money to the right people can even make a progressive, pragmatic legislator, like Senator Bernie Sanders, seem like he’s some meddling old fool who doesn’t know what he’s doing and hasn’t done anything but twiddled his thumbs in congress for three decades.

We know that’s not true.

Robert Reich knows that’s not true.

Enough is enough.

#FeelTheBern