Looking ahead to Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday discussed issues he hopes President Obama puts front and center in the annual speech to a special joint session of Congress.  The speech is widely expected to focus on income and wealth inequality, a topic Sanders has focused on for years.  The senator has urged Obama to use his executive powers to effectively raise the minimum wage for workers employed by federal contractors. He also has been a leader in trying to extend unemployment benefits for those out of a job for six months or more. Sanders discussed those and other issues during his weekly radio, television and Internet appearance on The Thom Hartmann Program. Watch the show.

Income Inequality The richest 85 people in the world control as much wealth as the poorest half of the planet’s population, according to a report on Monday by the international anti-poverty organization Oxfam. It warned that the concentration of economic resources is threatening political stability and driving up social tensions.  Even in the United States, wealth and income inequality is greater today than at any time since the Roaring Twenties. “What we need to do in Congress and we need to it all over this world is say, 'Wait a second - this world, this planet, doesn’t belong to just a few people.’ The wealth of this world has got to be enjoyed by everybody, and we need policies to make that happen,” Sanders said.

State of the Union As part of a focus on income inequality in America, the White House said on Friday that President Obama will once again call in his State of the Union address for raising the minimum wage. If Congress won’t act, Sanders has urged the president to issue an executive order requiring federal agencies to give preference in awarding contracts to companies that pay workers no less than $10.10 an hour. Currently the federal minimum wage is $7.25.

State of the Union “We need congressmen and senators who will set aside personal gain and divisive ideology in order to build compromise and find consensus on the issues that challenge us: economic opportunity, income parity, gun control, immigration, stagnant academic achievement, climate change, and long-term deficit reduction,” Alexina Federhen, a student at Mount Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vt., wrote in her winning entry in Sanders’ annual State of the Union essay contest. The winner and runners up were announced on Friday. To read the top essays selected by a panel of Vermont educators, click here.

NSA Spying The National Security Agency archiving of telephone metadata is illegal an ineffective, a federal privacy watchdog panel said in a report on Thursday. The report came one week after President Obama called for moving the phone records out of the government’s control but stopped short of ending to the program. “The president's recommendations last week did not go far enough to rein in the out-of-control National Security Agency,” Sanders said. The report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board “underscores that the collection of records on virtually every phone call made in the United States is an unconstitutional violation of the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment,” the senator added. Sanders will host a town meeting Feb. 1 in Montpelier, Vt., on privacy and violations of constitutional rights by the National Security Agency. 

Veterans The Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and other veterans and military service organizations are lining up in support of a bill that Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Sanders said the Senate could take up soon. Restoring retirement benefits for military retirees is part of the most comprehensive veterans’ legislation to come before the Senate in decades.  Other provisions address long-standing concerns of veterans’ and military service organizations by improving health care, education and other benefits. To read all of the letters from veterans’ service organizations, click here. For a complete summary of all the provisions in the bill, click here.

Citizens United Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of a Supreme Court ruling that gutted campaign finance laws and lifted limits on corporate campaign cash. The disastrous decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission led to rulings that let wealthy individuals like the billionaires Charles and David Koch pour unlimited and unregulated sums into campaign coffers. Sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment that would undo the decision. Vermont, 15 other states and some 500 local governments have passed resolutions denouncing the Citizens United ruling. The situation could get worse. The issue is before the court again this term. A ruling is expected by June in McCutcheon vs. FEC, a case that the court could use to tear down one of the few limits remaining on campaign cash. “Freedom of speech, in my view, does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government,” Sanders told a rally outside the court last Oct. 8 after he listened to oral arguments in the case. To watch the senator at the Supreme Court, click here. To read Sanders’ constitutional amendment, click here. For a fact sheet on the amendment, click here.