Senator Sanders

Ahead of His Time On domestic policy, Sen. Bernie Sanders has remained incredibly consistent since he served as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Take almost any excerpt from his announcement address, and the thread can be traced back in time, often to a speech or article that is decades old but adopts the very same language. Sanders was comparing soaring corporate profits and the accumulation of wealth at the top with a decline in real terms wages of average workers in 1974. He attacked “giant banks and multimillion-dollar corporations” in his inauguration speech in Burlington in 1981. Sanders first started speaking about the richest “one percent” – language now adopted by mainstream politicians – as far back as 1996, The Guardian reported. LINK  

Trade Deal Hillary Clinton's statement Thursday that she would vote against the Trans-Pacific Partnership contrasts sharply with her previous support for Obama's trade agenda. As his secretary of state, she helped negotiate the deal, according to The Washington Post. CNBC speculated that Clinton reversed her stance on the issue so she wouldn't anger unions and the Democratic left, which would feed more momentum to Sanders. "Bernie Sanders—and only Bernie Sanders—took a clear and unequivocal position of principle without the ifs, ands, buts, wiggles and insults,” Brent Budowski wrote in the New York Observer. LINK, LINK, LINK  

Immigration Sen. Sanders will speak at the National Association of Latino Elected Officials meeting in Las Vegas on Friday and will stand before many Latino lawmakers that feel he hasn't been liberal enough on the issue of immigration. Sanders does have a strong voting record and personal history when it comes to immigration, though, He backed the 2013 immigration reform law, he has worked extensively on migrant worker rights and has spoken out, at times, about how lower wages impact immigrant families more than most, CNN and USA Today reported. LINK, LINK  

Pension Bill Legislation to repeal the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 was introduced yesterday by Sen. Sanders and Rep. Marcy Kaptur. The Keep Our Pension Promises Act of 2015 would prohibit trustees of multiemployer pension plans from reducing retirees’ monthly benefits, Benefits Pro reported. LINK  

Education On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders met with Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association. Both the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers have heard from Sanders, O'Malley and Hillary Clinton. Sanders is the only candidate so far to focus on problems with No Child Left Behind in his remarks to the unions, according to excerpts provided by the NEA and AFT. Sanders said there are few others who are as opposed to "this absurd effort to force teachers to spend half of their lives teaching kids how to take tests," US News reported. LINK  

Obama's Mistake According to Sen. Sanders, President Obama's biggest mistake was leaving behind the huge numbers of people who supported him. Sanders said that Obama ran one of the best campaigns in history, inspiring people all over to take action, but once he was elected into the White House he failed to utilize the grassroots campaign he had built. Sanders said he would not make that mistake, The Huffington Post reported.  AUDIO

Allen Ginsberg As reported first in The Guardian, famous “beat” poet Alan Ginsberg wrote a poem for Sen. Sanders during his time as mayor in Burlington, Vermont, Mother Jones reported. LINK   

World

No Ceasefire in Yemen Peace talks between Yemen's warring factions have failed to produce a ceasefire agreement, according to the country's exiled foreign minister. Riad Yassin blamed the failure of talks in Geneva on the rebel Houthi side, which he said had stalled progress. Mr Yassin said that efforts would continue to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but added no date had been set for a second round of talks. Yemen's conflict has left an estimated 20 million people in need of aid, the BBC reported.  LINK

National

South Carolina Church Shooting The gunman charged with killing nine people in an African American church was unrepentant during a confession to police, even after almost backing out of what he called his “mission” because church members were so nice to him. Dylann Roof had expressed rage and unsettling plots to others before this attack, but they were apparently never passed to authorities as warnings, The Washington Post reported.  LINK

Vermont

Embezzlement A Vermont woman is accused of embezzling nearly $700,000 from a law firm where she worked as a legal secretary, paralegal and bookkeeper. Catherine McKinney of Hartland was indicted by a grand jury in Rutland on Wednesday. The 61-year-old McKinney worked for Myers Associates PLLC for 15 years and left in January. The indictment alleges she used the money to pay personal credit card bills and other debts and issuing forged checks, WCAX-TV reported.  LINK

Vermont's unemployment rate unchanged in May The Vermont Department of Labor says the state's unemployment rate was unchanged in May at 3.6 percent, tying for the fourth lowest rate in the country. That compares to the national jobless rate of 5.5 percent. May was the eighth consecutive month that the unemployment rate did not increase in Vermont. The Labor Department says the number of employed increased by 500 and the number of people without jobs fell by 200, WCAX-TV reported.  LINK