The Week in Review
The Senate on Thursday sent to President Barack Obama a House-passed bill to provide funds for training and arming Syrian rebels. Sen. Bernie Sanders voted no. Sanders and Rep. John Conyers on Tuesday introduced legislation to address a youth unemployment crisis in the United States by creating jobs for 1 million young Americans. Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a bill to promote equal pay for equal work. On Thursday, a news media watchdog issued a study showing that network news mostly ignored the issue of money in politics while the Supreme Court is gutting campaign funding laws and public support is growing behind a constitutional amendment to reverse the ruling.
Sanders Votes No as Congress Oks Funds for Syrian Rebels Sanders said the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria “is a brutal and dangerous extremist organization which must be defeated, but this war cannot be won by the United States alone. There needs to be a real international coalition led by the countries most threatened – Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey and Iran. The worst thing that we can do now is allow ISIS to portray this struggle as East vs. West, as Muslim vs. Christian, as the Middle East vs. America. That is exactly what they want and that is exactly what we should not be giving them.” He faulted wealthy Middle East nations for doing too little to protect their own interests, especially when Saudi Arabia has the fourth largest military budget in the world. He also questioned why American taxpayers are footing the bill when royal families that rule those Mideast nations are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. “This is not just a question of whether young men and women in Vermont and across America should be putting their lives on the line in another Mideast war. It is not just about whether the taxpayers of our country should once again pay for a war in the Middle East. It is about the reality that, long term, this struggle will never be won by the United States alone. It must be won with the active participation of the Muslim countries in the region,” Sanders said.
Watch Sanders on MSNBC with Chris Hayes
Network News Ignores Citizens United Network news broadcasts barely mentioned campaign finance reform during a period when the Supreme Court gutted limits on how much millionaires may spend to influence elections and Congress considered a constitutional amendment to undo the court decisions, according to a Media Matters for America study that Sanders called disappointing but not surprising.Network news broadcasts barely mentioned campaign finance reform during a period when the Supreme Court gutted limits on how much millionaires may spend to influence elections and Congress considered a constitutional amendment to undo the court decisions, according to a Media Matters for America study that Sanders called disappointing but not surprising. There is a reason why confidence in the American media is declining. More and more people say the media is not paying attention to the issues of real importance to the American people. This Media Matters for America study confirms that.” The study found that the major networks barely covered the issue of money in politics. Each network devoted less than single minute per month to talking about campaign finance reform. “To my mind, the single most important issue facing our country today is that, as a result of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, we are allowing billionaires to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates who will represent the wealthy and powerful rather than the needs of ordinary Americans. This is an issue of enormous consequence.”
Meet the Press In his first-ever appearance Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Sanders called for a grassroots movement to continue pushing for passage of the constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. He also discussed wealth and income inequality in the United States and other issues.
Youth Jobs Crisis The youth unemployment rate in the United States for 16- to 19-year-olds was 19.6 percent in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The African-American youth unemployment rate is 32.8 percent. “The most serious crisis facing this country is the lack of decent-paying jobs, particularly when it comes to young Americans,” Sanders said. “If young high school graduates are unable to find entry-level jobs, how will they ever be able to develop the skills, the experience and the confidence they need to break into the job market?” he asked.
Senate Republicans Block Pay Equity Bill Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a bill to promote equal pay for equal work. The vote was 52-40 on a procedural motion that needed 60 votes to pass. Not a single Republican voted for giving women the tools they need to ensure they receive the same pay as men for performing the same work. “If the U.S. Senate had 80 women rather than 80 men as it does now, this bill would pass immediately. It is absurd that women receive 77 cents for every dollar a man makes,” said Sanders.
