Progressives (Liberals)

Bernie isent into realism. He is using a chicken in every pot in order to be elected president. He has done nothing for the country since he has been in congress. Ill admit he has tried to do something for his constituents.

You’re lying. Bernie has worked wonders for vets, for unions, and for the minimum wage. Why lie? You can’t find one good criticism that’s true?

I agree Rabel, he's just another typical politician promising the sun, the moon and the stars, promising anything he thinks will get him elected. Anyone who has been in Congress as long as he has would know that he couldn't pass the necessary legislation. I like the "chicken in every pot" metaphor, a pithy way of putting it.

Don’t buy lies. Here are facts.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/mar/24/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-was-roll-call-amendment-king-1995-2/
Excerpt:

Bernie Sanders was the roll call amendment king from 1995 to 2007

Bernie Sanders is often criticized for "pie-in-the-sky" proposals and impractical ideals, but his campaign argues the Vermont senator actually gets things done.

"Bernie Sanders passed more roll call amendments in a Republican Congress than any other member," according to a TV ad paid for by the Sanders campaign.

A version of this ad appears on Sanders’ YouTube channel, and Sanders has made this claim on Twitter and Facebook as well so we wondered if it was true.

The Sanders campaign didn’t get back to us, but we found that this carefully worded statement is accurate for his earlier years in Congress.

The ‘amendment king’

Sanders served in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 2006 and has been in the Senate since then. Republicans were in control of the House from 1995 to 2007 and of the Senate from 2015 to present.

In 2005, Rolling Stone named Sanders the "amendment king" of the House. At the time, the title held true with a specific qualification: amendments agreed to by record votes. (Amendments can also be passed with voice votes, in which the volume of yeas and nays dictates passage, or by unanimous consent, in which no one raises an objection.)

Out of 419 amendments Sanders sponsored over his 25 years in Congress, 90 passed, 21 of them by roll call votes. Here’s a breakdown (bold indicates Republican Congresses):

From 1995 to 2007, Sanders passed 17 amendments by a recorded roll call vote — more than any other member in the House.

Ohio Democrat James Traficant came in second with 16 roll call amendments, but he served five less years than Sanders after being indicted on several corruption charges in 2002 and then expelled from Congress. If we look at all amendments, not just those passed by roll call votes, Traficant passed 72 more than Sanders.

New Jersey Republican Chris Smith, who served in the same time period as Sanders, finished third with 14 roll call amendments (and 32 overall amendments).

Craig Volden, an expert on the legislative process at the University of Virginia, told PolitiFact that records like these are rather unusual in the House.

"There are so few members with large numbers of substantive and successful amendments," he said. "Sanders and Traficant were exceptions to that rule."

In comparison, Hillary Clinton passed zero roll call amendments during her tenure as a senator from New York from 2001-09.

Overall effectiveness

In the current Congress, Sanders ranks fourth when it comes to the number of career roll call amendments passed, according GovTrack founder, Josh Tauberer. The three lawmakers who top him are Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., with 27 in 15 years in Congress; Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., with 24 in 33 years; and Rep Steve King, R-Iowa, with 22 in 13 years.

Roll call amendments aside, Sanders isn’t shattering any legislative records, though he’s not doing poorly either. Tauberer’s research places Sanders at No. 14 in Congress with 90 amendments. The other senator from Vermont, Democrat Patrick Leahy, on the other hand, has passed 226.

Of course, amendments are just one of the ways lawmakers press their agendas. Sanders has had much less luck with passing bills.

During his 25 years in Congress, Sanders introduced 324 bills, three of which became law. This includes a bill in a Republican Congress naming a post office in Vermont and two more while Democrats had control (one naming another Vermont post office and another increasing veterans’ disability compensation). Clinton, for the record, also passed three bills in eight years.

Well, I'm certainly gratified to read that Sanders is in there fighting the good fight . . . to name post offices. What a maroon.

I see Lash drags Clinton, her personal bête noire, into this. Sanders with three bills in 25 years doesn't stack up too well in comparison to three bills in eight years. Do the math.

So, who do you support?

I am sitting here wondering why a simple question would be voted down, has it crossed your mind? I put you back to zero.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elections-2020/amy-klobuchar-raises-over-dollar2-million-dollars-after-debate-campaign-says/ar-BBZNkco?ocid=spartandhp

I agree most of those things can be done and we could do more in all the areas Bernie Sanders campaigns on. I am just saying, even given all the reductions you cite, it can't cover all the many programs Sanders wants to implement. I mean, what he wants is just a good dream of any liberal democrat, but it is not realistic. Moreover, I wouldn't want to drastically cut down on the military as much you might.

Have you examined how much we spend? Do you know what it’s all paying for. What attracted me to the GOP was almost solely a strong defense.

A vast reduction in military expenditures still leaves us overwhelmingly dominant. A cadre of insiders are stealing us blind via military funding. Where does the CIA and FBI bank account come jnto the conversation? Do you know what JFK said about the CUA months before he was assassinated?

Connect the dots.

You're probably right on the military. However, I am not down on our intelligence agencies, never have been. Wasn't even when Bush was president. I just thought it should go through the FISA and warrants and they corrected that. (I remember they tried to go past it shortly after 9/11) I was ok with the whole spying thing and disagreed with Snowden stealing our military secrets and giving it to WikiLeaks and who knows who else for all the world to know.

No it doesn't. Our ability to defend the nation from enemy conquest dropped to zero under Obama.

We still have no real air superiority capability against a peer power thanks to Obama.

So in the Senate, Sanders works more through amendments than through bills. What does that say? How to interpret that, I mean.

Here, Olivier, this will give you an idea of how it works, from a pro-Sanders perspective:
Sanders's amendments

I have heard critics point out that these are "roll call amendments", which is a very specific (and unusual) way of measuring amendments, and even if he is "the Amendment King", is that really a good thing? All that means is that he doesn't try to work with other people to actually write passable bills; he unilaterally writes amendments, attaches them to bills that have been argued and written for months or years and holds them hostage until the proponents of the bill give him what he wants. The number of amendments offered on bills isn't a measure of success for a United States senator. There's a solid argument to be made against them. Often they're called "riders" and used to get unpopular pieces of legislation passed by attaching it to a popular bill. It's the participation trophy of Congress. He can't brag about passing bills or starting debates in the Senate, because he hasn't, so he brags about his ability to throw stuff onto other people's work that has to pass because he can't do it himself. He's voted against some notable bills because they "weren't clean". That was his rationale for several nay votes in his career. To then run on the ability to pad other bills to get things passed appears disingenuous.

To be fair though, that's the standard legislative process in action. That's how most of our laws have always been passed.

I interpret it as showing that Sanders understands the legislative process.

Conservative posts are voted down because progressives hate everyone who disagrees with them.

From an Alternet story titled “Bernie Gets it Done: Sanders' Record of Pushing Through Major Reforms Will Surprise You” from back in October, the author Zaid Jilani points out that during a 12-year period in the House of Representatives, Bernie passed more amendments than any other House member, and was dubbed by the author:

The Amendment King

...

Despite the fact that the most right-wing Republicans in a generation controlled the House of Representatives between 1994 and 2006, the member who passed the most amendments during that time was not a right-winger like Bob Barr or John Boehner. The amendment king was, instead, Bernie Sanders.

And these amendments were not trivial, nor just pork for the folks back home. Instead, they were called “exclusively progressive.”

For example:

Saving Money, for Colleges and Taxpayers (April 1998): In an amendment to H.R. 6, the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, Sanders made a change to the law that allowed the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education to make competitive grants available to colleges and universities that cooperated to reduce costs through joint purchases of goods and services.

Holding IRS Accountable, Protecting Pensions (July 2002): Sanders' amendment to the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act of 2003 stopped the IRS from being able to use funds that “violate current pension age discrimination laws.” Although he faced stiff GOP opposition, his amendment still succeeded along a 308 to 121 vote.

Expanding Free Health Care (November 2001): You wouldn't think Republicans would agree to an expansion of funds for community health centers, which provide some free services. But Sanders was able to win a $100 million increase in funding with an amendment.

Getting Tough On Child Labor (July 2001): A Sanders amendment to the general appropriations bill prohibited the importation of goods made with child labor.

Increasing Funding for Heating for the Poor (September 2004): Sanders won a $22 million increase for the low-income home energy assistance program and related weatherization assistance program.

Fighting Corporate Welfare and Protecting Against Nuclear Disasters (June 2005): A Sanders amendment brought together a bipartisan coalition that outnumbered a bipartisan coalition on the other side to successfully prohibit the Export-Import Bank from providing loans for nuclear projects in China.

Doing this was not easy — he had to put together bipartisan coalitions (remember those?). He continued this effective work when he was elected to the Senate in 2006, with amendments like the following:

Greening the U.S. Government (June 2007): A Sanders amendment made a change to the law so at least 30 percent of the hot water demand in newer federal buildings is provided through solar water heaters.

Protecting Our Troops (October 2007): Sanders used an amendment to win $10 million for operation and maintenance of the Army National Guard, which had been stretched thin and overextended by the war in Iraq.

Restricting the Bailout to Protect U.S. Workers (Feburary 2009): A Sanders amendment required the banking bailout to utilize stricter H-1B hiring standards to ensure bailout funds weren't used to displace American workers.

...

Exposing Corruption in the Military-Industrial Complex (November 2012): A Sanders amendment required “public availability of the database of senior Department officials seeking employment with defense contractors” – an important step toward transparency that revealed the corruption of the revolving door in action.

Support for Treating Autism in Military Health Care: Sanders worked with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to pass an amendment by a vote of 66-29 ensuring that the military's TRICARE system would be able to treat autism.

He was even able to force an amendment that Ron Paul had been trying to pass forever, requiring the first-ever audit of the Federal Reserve.

Hillary sometimes seems to imply (or get surrogates to state outright) that Sanders would destroy Obamacare. To the contrary, he not only supported it, but also successfully pushed through an important amendment to fund free community health clinics:


When the Affordable Care Act was in danger of not having the votes to pass, Sanders used his leverage to win enough funding for free health treatment for 10 million Americans through Community Health Centers. This gutsy move—holding out until the funds were put into the bill—has even Republican members of Congress requesting the funds, which have helped millions of Americans who otherwise would not have access.

How many ineffective dreamers (much less applicants for conscientious objector stature) have received praise from John McCain for their work on veteran’s issues?

Another moment came when Sanders, who was then chair of the Veterans committee, worked with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), to overhaul the Veterans Administration. McCain praised Sanders' work on the bill in an interview with National Journal. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) even went so far as to say the bill would never have passed without Sanders' ability to bring the parties to a deal.

In sum, when people compare the records of Sanders and Clinton in the Senate, they often stop at the most superficial level, looking only at bills bearing their names as sponsors. Digging just a little deeper, it is obvious that Sanders has been a committed, effective, and successful progressive legislator for decades. The skills needed to be president go beyond this, of course, and Congress is much more polarized than it has ever been. Nevertheless, Bernie’s real accomplishments on behalf of some of the most vulnerable in society speak to the fact that, at least in Congress, Bernie has far outpaced Hillary when it comes to getting things done

Lash sure likes to change history. I guess she thinks she is the only one with access to history information.