Bernie Sanders is as focused as any member of Congress could be on the struggles of the state he represents, and more generally on the challenges facing working people across the United States.

But that does not mean that the independent senator from Vermont fails to recognize when things are kicking up around the world-especially when those developments have meaning for the fights he is waging in Washington.

So it should come as little surprise that the news from Europe-of a democratic rejection of failed austerity policies-has caught his imagination.

Sanders knows that austerity is not just a European crisis. It threatens America as well. And he is highlighting what his Senate website recognizes as: "An Austerity Backlash."

The senator is right to be excited that citizens are pushing back.

Sanders says Europe's voters are sending a message that America's voters can and should echo: the time has come to reject austerity measures that have unfairly burdened working families, while redistributing ever more wealth upward to millionaires and billionaires.

Continue reading here.