#senator bernie sanders

[saywhat-politics]

80,000 people told to evacuate.

Blazes 0% contained.

Eight months since the area has seen rain.

The scale of damage and loss is unimaginable.

Climate change is real, not “a hoax.”

Donald Trump must treat this like the existential crisis it is.

[agentfascinateur]

We 🫶🏼 you, Bernie! Congrats!

Future generations count on you.

[merelygifted]

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., plans to introduce legislation that would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours per week to 32 hours per week, without lowering pay.

[karanseraph]

Thought this was a good conversation.

[thenewdemocratus]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: 'Washington Democrats’ Prescription Drug Socialism Means Fewer Lifesaving Cures'

Source:Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) talking about Senate Democrats plan to regulate drug prices. Source:The New Democrat “U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding prescription drug socialism.” From the Senate Republican Leader Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is talking about…

[filosofablogger]

Striking For A Fair Deal

Most of the time I find that my views are very closely aligned with those of Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic-socialist.  I would like to share with you Bernie’s latest OpEd in The Guardian about the potentially upcoming autoworker’s strike and why we should all support the union. The United Auto Workers may soon strike. Every American should support them Workers at the big…

[xtruss]

Image: Getty Images

American Universities Have An Incentive To Seem Extortionate

They are much cheaper than the “Crisis of College Affordability” suggests

— July 23, 2023

The Cost of Many Private Colleges in America has reached $80,000 a year. The median household income in America in 2021 was $71,000 a year. This shows that college is unaffordable. Or does it?

The consensus view is that America has a college-affordability crisis and things are getting worse. According to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, “college costs are out of control”. Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont, and other progressives have pushed for free college and loan-forgiveness for years. The White House attempted a costly bail-out of student borrowers which the Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional. Both sides are telling a similar, but mostly inaccurate, tale. Most undergraduate degrees in America are actually affordable, and in many cases going to college is getting cheaper.

There are three main types of colleges in America: public, non-profit private and for-profit private. Public colleges are much less expensive than private ones. According to us News & World Report, which ranks colleges, the average tuition fee for students at a public college studying in their home states is about $10,000, compared with nearly $40,000 for private colleges. And most American students benefit from these lower prices. In 2021, 77% of college students (about 12m) were enrolled in public colleges. Some states are cheaper than others. Tuition in Wyoming costs $6,000 per year for residents, whereas Vermont charges $19,000.

At first glance, public colleges in America look more expensive than most of their rich-country counterparts. America ranks second-highest for fees in the oecd, a club of mostly rich countries, behind England. However, this does not give a true picture.

American universities advertise a sticker price that few students actually pay. According to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, a non-profit organisation, private colleges discount tuition by over 50% on average. And contrary to the common narrative, the net cost (what students really pay) of public and private colleges has fallen.

Schools with large endowments are particularly generous. According to us News & World Report, the average student at Princeton University pays $16,600 for tuition and fees (compared with a $56,010 price tag), and tuition is free for families making $160,000 a year or less. With these tuition discounts, private colleges can sometimes cost less than public ones, though public colleges are usually cheaper.

Americans also have alternative paths to a four-year degree that can help them save money. Students can attend two-year public community colleges for less than the annual tuition cost of a four-year university degree. They can then apply those two years toward the four-year degree. The system is flexible: two-thirds of community-college students work and 70% attend part-time. This is an “interesting feature” of the American system that is less common in other countries, says Simon Roy of the oecd.

Though there are plenty of stories of students being landed with lots of debt for worthless degrees, college generally pays off. College-educated men earn $587,400 more over their lifetime than men who graduated from high school (women earn $425,100 more). This is much greater than the equivalent premium in Britain ($210,800 for men and $193,200 for women). “The expected gains from having a college degree are actually quite high in the us because the us is also one of the countries where income inequality is the highest,” says Abel Schumann of the oecd. This inequality makes college-going worth the initial cost for most people.

Why, then, is there a perception that there is some sort of general crisis in college affordability in America? One reason is that country-level comparisons, such as the analysis by the oecd, compare the sticker price of American universities with that of their peers. Sticker prices are rising while net costs remain steady and, in some cases, drop. A report from the College Board, a non-profit, shows that whereas published tuition and fees for private non-profit colleges increased from $29,000 in 2006-07 to $38,000 in 2021-22 (in 2021 dollars), the net price actually decreased from $17,000 to $15,000. The story is similar for public colleges. Published tuition and fees were nearly $8,000 in 2006-07 and rose to nearly $11,000 in 2021-22, but the net cost fell by $730.

This discrepancy between the sticker price and the net price creates confusion, but it continues because it is valuable to colleges, says Beth Akers of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank. Wealthy students pay the full price, subsidising their poorer peers. The higher prices are also good for marketing. Consumers tend to associate higher prices with higher quality. And students (and their boastful parents) are flattered by tuition markdowns pitched as merit scholarships rather than discounts.

Yet even with decreasing costs and with discounts, college can still feel unaffordable to many. Plenty of citizens in countries with free or low tuition (such as Denmark) do in fact pay for college. Instead of paying a tuition bill, they pay over time with high taxes. Americans pay less in taxes, but that lump-sum tuition bill can be frightening. For those students and their families unable to pay cash, loans can be an answer. But accrued interest can quickly turn a reasonable cost into an unreasonable one. This may change soon for federal-loan borrowers: a new initiative by the Biden administration will prevent interest from accruing on federal loans for people making timely payments.

College does not benefit everyone, and the quality is highly variable. For-profit colleges are notorious for providing little value and targeting poor and non-white students. And certain majors and occupations pay better than others. College dropouts do not get the benefit of the degree (though they do get to keep the debt). On average college is affordable and worth attending, but that does not mean that every individual benefits.

Regardless of the reality, American confidence in college is declining. A poll by Gallup released this month shows that only 36% of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. This is down from 48% in 2018 and 57% in 2015. The perceived high cost of college could be driving down these results, says Jeremy Wright-Kim, an education professor at the University of Michigan. College may be relatively affordable and worth the overall cost, but Americans are struggling to believe it.■

[reasonsforhope]

Less than three months after U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin and her colleagues launched an investigation into the four major American manufacturers of inhalers, three of the companies have relented, making commitments to cap costs for their inhalers at $35 for patients who now pay much more.

25 million Americans have asthma and 16 million Americans have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), meaning over 40 million Americans rely on inhalers to breathe.

Inhalers have been available since the 1950s, and most of the drugs they use have been on the market for more than 25 years.

According to a statement from the Wisconsin Senator’s office, inhaler manufacturers sell the exact same products at a much lower costs in other countries. One of AstraZeneca’s inhalers, Breztri Aerosphere, costs $645 in the U.S.—but just $49 in the UK. Inhalers made by Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, and Teva have similar disparities.

Baldwin and her Democratic colleagues—New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders—pressured the companies to lower their prices by writing letters to GSK, Boehringer Ingelheim, Teva, and AstraZeneca requesting a variety of documents that show why such higher prices are charged in America compared to Europe.

As a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Baldwin recently announced that as a result of the letters they had secured commitments from three of the four to lower the out-of-pocket costs of inhalers to a fixed $35.00 rate.

“For the millions of Americans who rely on inhalers to breathe, this news is a major step in the right direction as we work to lower costs and hold big drug companies accountable,” said Senator Baldwin.

A full list of the inhalers and associated drugs can be viewed here.

It’s the second time in the last year that pharmaceutical companies were forced to provide reasonable prices—after the cost of insulin was similarly capped successfully at $35 per month thanks to Congressional actions led by the White House.

-via Good News Network, March 25, 2024

[thegreatwhinger]

Begging – Or Petitions – Don't Help Anyone

I've recently got an email from Sen. Bernie Sanders' office about Moderna raising the price of it's COVID-19 vaccine and it makes me wonder why is it that the 'government' is begging a pharmaceutical corporation not to raise the cost of their vaccine when it's their polices that make it possible in the first case.

Now, I'm aware that Sanders supports #MedicareForAll, but getting on his knees due to Moderna's predatory polices – he's old and that's might be a difficult position for him to be in – isn't the way to go, especially for a Senator.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

From @theimeu:

BREAKING: For the first time in US history there will be a vote in Congress to block weapons to Israel.

Sending Israel weapons is a violation of US law and opposed by a majority of Americans, who are sick of seeing their tax dollars fund Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians.

Thank you @sensanders, @senjeffmerkley, and @senpeterwelch for taking this historic step.

The weapons included in this $20 billion proposed transfer have been used in apparent war crimes in Gaza. For a detailed breakdown, swipe left.

[thoughtportal]

This is a crucial bill. Even if the research finds that everything we know about long COVID is wrong, this work has ramifications for Lyme, POTS, ME/CFS, and other postviral diseases, which have long been ignored.

Please write to or call your senators.

[contemplatingoutlander]

How Trump Takes Advantage of the "Red Mirage" and the "Blue Shift" in Voting to "Con" His Followers

By declaring victory early, like he did in 2020, Trump will con his followers into believing he won the election by taking advantage of the "red mirage"/"blue shift" that has happened in recent presidential elections due to the fact that Republicans tend to vote more in-person and Democrats tend to vote more by using mail-in/absentee ballots. This difference in the way that Republicans and Democrats tend to vote is due to MAGA folks believing Trump's lies about mail-in ballots being "fraudulent."

THE "RED MIRAGE": On election night 2020, the "red mirage" at first made it appear that Trump was winning because the first ballots counted by most states are in-person ballots, which favor Republicans. Hence, Trump declared victory during the "red mirage." But the phenomenon is called a "mirage" because as the night goes on and more Democratic-leaning mail-in/absentee ballots are counted, the "red" advantage begins to diminish.

THE "BLUE SHIFT": In the wee hours of the morning on election night 2020, the expected "blue shift" occurred, where suddenly Biden's numbers went way up because the Democratic-leaning mail-in/absentee ballots were finally being counted.

In addition, due to voter suppression attempts in red states, Democrats also tend to have to use provisional ballots more than Republicans. This is because Democratic voter registrations are more likely to have been removed by aggressive, and often inaccurate voter purges conducted by Republican administrators. Unfortunately, in-person provisional ballots cannot be validated as eligible until after election day. Consequently, once validated, they are among the last votes tallied.

Trump took advantage of the "blue shift" phenomenon to claim that Democrats "cheated" by finding fraudulent "extra" votes after election day, when in fact it is just that the voting method preferred by more Democrats (mail-in/absentee ballots) are counted only after in-person ballots favored by the GOP are counted.

Right-Wing Misinterpretations of the 2020 "Red Mirage"/"Blue Shift" Are Still Making the Rounds

Back in late July 2024, a MAGA blogger @the--dark--side decided to spam my notifications with posts of right-wing propaganda and 2020 election disinformation.

Below is a graph from a post he tagged me in which he apparently hoped to demonstrate that election fraud happening in Wisconsin in 2020. Unfortunately, the-dark-side apparently didn't understand that the graph actually illustrated the "red mirage"/"blue wave" phenomenon.

Yup, that circled area in the above graph was explained by the aggregate polling site FiveThirtyEight the morning after the 2020 election:

"Biden was down in Wisconsin before the Milwaukee absentee results came in early this morning."

So when the huge number of Milwaukee absentee (i.e., mail-in) ballots were counted and added to the overall data, there was a sudden bump upward in the tally of Trump votes.

How a 2020 Reporting Error in Pennsylvania Voter Tallies Led to a Conspiracy Theory

MAGA blogger @the--dark--side also sent me the CNN 2020 election night screenshots below that supposedly showed how in the course of about 30 seconds, 19,958 votes were "switched" from Trump to Biden.

Based on fact checks from AP News and FactCheck.org, I was able to figure out the (somewhat confusing) story about what happened. It seems that the vote tallies from Armstrong, PA were initially put into the aggregate PA data correctly, but then an employee from a company that gives CNN and other networks their data (Edison Research) was "scouring individual county vote totals [and] mistakenly entered the county’s totals backwards," mixing up Trump's and Biden's totals. This accounted for the sudden drop of 19,958 votes. However, eventually this error was caught and corrected.

The bottom line was there was no deliberate attempt to "switch" Trump's votes to Biden. It was just a temporary transcription error.

The problem with MAGA folks is they are too gullible, and take what they see on social media at face value. They haven't learned that if something appears to be truly outrageous, it probably isn't true. Consequently, they never go to fact check sites. (And of course, Trump demonizes fact check sites because he wants to get away with his lies.) This is how Trump scams his MAGA followers over and over again.

[edited]

News flash: On Tuesday night, regardless of what the vote tallies say, Trump will declare victory. 

He will claim the only reason he may lose is “vote stealing.”

Undermining the legitimacy of an election is how demagogues destroy faith in democracy.

Kamala for President.

[alwaysbewoke]

[dont-lick-my-foot]

Senator Bernie Sanders Wins reelection to Senate for Vermont

congrats bestie!!

[simplegenius042]

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[filosofablogger]

Skewed Priorities?

When Bernie Sanders speaks of social issues, of education, childcare, poverty, etc., I nearly always agree with him.  You see, Bernie is labelled a ‘socialist’, as if it were some sort of a bad thing, and many have been indoctrinated to back away from anything that even remotely speaks of equality, of social welfare issues.  In an OpEd in The Guardian today, Bernie makes known his views on the…