index

On Thursday, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for president, in a direct challenge to Hillary Clinton.

Many have stated that Sanders has no chance at the better funded and well entrenched Clinton among the Democratic Party apparatus, but many political pundits have stated he is doing this to raise awareness for many of the causes he champions.

Sanders is an outspoken advocate to end income-inequality and advocates bringing relief and help to the middle class who have seen wage stagnation and loss of economic opportunities all the while the top 1% have gotten wealthier.

Sanders mentions in his announcement that, “So, all over this country, I have been talking to people, and they say, “How does it happen? I’m producing more, but I’m working longer hours for lower wages. My kid can’t afford to go to college, and I’m having a hard time affording health care. What happened, while at exactly the same time, 99 percent of the income being generated in this country is going to the top 1 percent?”

In his brief questioning with reporters after his announcement, Sander’s failed to mention nor did reporters ask that income inequality has been going on for some time, but has expanded greatly during the past six years. Nothing was stated about the Federal Reserve  $4 trillion bond-buy program, which keeps interest rates artificially low, which has helped fuel the rapid rise of the Stock Market, thus helping Wall Street and not Main Street.

Sander’s focused on Democratic talking points when he mentioned that “The major issue is how do we create an economy that works for all of our people rather than a small number of billionaires, and the second issue, directly related, is the fact that as a result of the disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, we now have a political situation where billionaires are literally able to buy themselves elections and candidates. Let’s not kid ourselves. That is the reality right now.”

Continuing, “So, you’ve got the Koch Brothers and other billionaire families who are prepared to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in elections to buy the candidates of their choice, often extreme right wing candidates.”

Again the media missed a chance to ask him does this include billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer who pledged last year to spend $100 million to help Democrats, and eventually spent $73 million in the 2014 election cycle.  There are other billionaires such has Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet who give generously to Democrat causes, and does this also include unions who gave over $50 million to Democratic candidates in 2014.  One only looks at the other person giving money in elections but fail to mention their own source of money which has contributed to the dysfunction in political governance.

Sander’s makes his statements but really just adds more partisan talking points and the press only gives softball like questions and never gets specific in their questioning.

We need to challenge all candidates no matter if they are Republican or Democrats and not give candidates a pass in their assumptions; the country deserves better!