A new study released on Thursday showed that 15 major Fortune 500 companies avoided paying taxes on $23 billion in profits in 2014. Sen. Bernie Sanders welcomed the report by Citizens for Tax Justice. Sanders on Thursday called for a federal investigation into whether companies are firing American workers and replacing them with foreigners to cut costs. On Wednesday, the Rev. Al Sharpton called Sanders “the face of progressive politics in America” in introducing him to the National Action Network convention in New York. An in a series of television interviews this week, Sanders talked about college costs, how to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and the growing income and wealth gap in the United States.

Corporate Tax Dodgers A new study released on Thursday showed that 15 major Fortune 500 companies avoided paying taxes on $23 billion in profits in 2014. GE, CBS, Mattel, Prudential and the others paid almost no federal income tax over the past five years, the study found.  Sanders praised Citizens for Tax Justice for “revealing the unfairness of our tax system and the fact that a number of the biggest and best-known corporations in America continue to pay little or nothing in taxes.” Sanders said corporate profits are soaring at a time of growing wealth and income inequality in the United States. “It is an outrage that many large, profitable corporations not only paid nothing in federal income taxes last year but actually received a rebate from the IRS,” he said.

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American Jobs Sanders on Thursday called for an investigation into a visa program which some American companies may have exploited to replace U.S. workers with foreigners willing to work for less pay. Sanders and 10 other senators asked the Obama administration to look into the H-1B visa program. The law creating the special visas was intended to let employers hire skilled foreign workers for jobs that employers say too few Americans are trained to do. The senators called for the official inquiry after the Los Angeles Times found instances of companies abusing the law to replace existing workers with cheap foreign labor.Read more in the Los Angeles Times

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National Action Network

Sanders on Wednesday opened the National Action Network convention in New York City and laid out an aggressive national agenda to create millions of jobs and address the “ugly and obscene” level of wealth and income inequality in the United States. In Introducing Sanders to the convention, the Rev. Al Sharpton called the senator “the face of progressive politics in America.” Sanders delivered what The New York Observer called “a fiery yet statistics-laden speech on income inequality.”’

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Bernie on TV

In a series of interviews on Wednesday, Sanders talked with HuffPost Live about making all four years of college tuition free. “Higher education should be a right because that makes our country stronger,” he told Alyona Minkovski. Watch

He credited Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama for reaching the framework for an agreement to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. “I want to see us do everything that we can to make sure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon but we've got to do it in a way that doesn't take us in the middle of a war,” he told Blooomberg’s John Heilemannon “With All Due Respect.” Watch

On CNN’s “New Day,” Sanders spoke with anchor Chris Cuomo. “We are fighting for your kids and for my grandchildren. If we end up in a nation in which so few have so much and so many have so little, where billionaires can buy elections, where we are not dealing with climate change, I worry very much about the future of this great country.” Watch

And in a stop at the Comedy Central studio for “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore,” Sanders walked away with a “Keeping it 100” award for his straightforward responses.  Watch