PRESS RELEASE


California Here We Come, Sanders Tells Huge Sacramento Rally



MAY 9TH, 2016






SACRAMENTO, Calif. – “We are coming to California,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders told a rally on Monday as he kicked off a home-stretch campaign push to win the state’s treasure trove of delegates and help “take the political revolution” all the way to this summer’s Democratic National Convention.

“The political establishment is getting nervous,” Sanders told more than 16,000 people at a soccer stadium in California’s capital city. “They should be getting very nervous because real change is coming.”

Sanders already has won 18 primaries and caucuses and amassed more than 45 percent of all pledged delegates going into this summer’s convention to Philadelphia. California will elect 475 pledged delegates on June 7. By then, Sanders could be coming off more wins in the final laps of the presidential primaries and caucuses.





“Nobody can predict the future but I think we’ve got a good shot to win in West Virginia and Kentucky and Oregon and after those three states we’re coming to California and with your help we’re going to win the biggest prize of all, the California primary,” Sanders said.

“We are going to fight for every vote until June 14 and we are going to take the political revolution into the convention in Philadelphia,” Sanders said.

At the Sacramento rally Sanders continued to detail what he called “profound differences of opinion” with Hillary Clinton.

Foremost among their differences, he said, is their approach to raising money to fund their campaigns. Sanders has relied on more than 7.3 million small-dollar donations averaging $27 apiece. Clinton has looked to big-dollar donors to fund her presidential campaign and to super PACs that take unlimited sums from special interests.





The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Clinton is relying more and more on Wall Street donors and financial-services executives. During the last reporting period, according to the analysis of records compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, she raised another $4.2 million from Wall Street – more than any other candidate running for president combined. Clinton’s super PAC has now received almost $19 million from Wall Street, more than any other industry.

Saying that “our current campaign finance system is corrupt and it is undermining American democracy,” Sanders called for public funding of elections.






https://berniesanders.com/california-come-sanders-tells-huge-sacramento-rally/

When quizzed by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Monday night, Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal dodged questions about whether or not he had spoken to the FBI about Hillary Clinton‘s private email server.

“I guess the first question is have you been interviewed by the FBI for those email investigation by the FBI, have you been interviewed?” the host of Hardball asked Blumenthal to begin the interview.

Blumenthal gave a long answer calling for transparency, but ignoring Matthews’ question. “But Sid, have you been interviewed by the FBI yet on this matter?” he tried again.

“I really don’t want to talk about an ongoing inquiry right now,” Blumenthal responded.


“You can’t say whether you’ve been interviewed or not?” Matthews pressed.

“My feeling about it is that let’s wait and see at the end and see what happens to everybody involved in it and see what the resolution is,” he said.

PRESS RELEASE


Sanders Backs California Initiative to Stop Rx Ripoffs



MAY 10TH, 2016





SACRAMENTO, Calif. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday backed a California ballot initiative to save state taxpayers from being ripped off by pharmaceutical companies which charge Americans the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

“While Congress has failed to stand up to the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, the people of California can by supporting this ballot initiative,” the Vermont senator said.

The California Drug Price Relief Act is supported by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and National Nurses United, both headquartered in Oakland, California. “Americans living with HIV/AIDS and cancer should not live in fear that they will go bankrupt because of the outrageously high cost of their prescription drugs,” Sanders said.

The proposition would prohibit the state from paying more for a prescription drug than the lowest price paid for the same drug by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The nationwide VA health care system negotiates lower prices for pharmaceuticals.

As a former chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Sanders authored landmark legislation reforming the health care system for veterans. “We know that the VA pays considerably less than retail prices for prescription drugs. The people of California and all Americans should get the same price,” Sanders said.

Prices for prescription medicine in the United States soared last year more than 10 percent – the third consecutive year of double digit price increases. One out of five adults between the ages of 18 and 64 – more than 35 million Americans – cannot afford the medications that their doctors prescribe. “In the richest country in the history of the world,” Sanders said, “that is unacceptable.”

The pharmaceutical industry is bankrolling a campaign to defeat the California initiative. “It is no surprise that the pharmaceutical industry already has dedicated $50 million to defeat this ballot initiative,” Sanders said. “Their greed has no end.”

In Congress, Sanders and Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland have introduced comprehensive legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Their bills would authorize the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies and reduce barriers to the importation of lower-cost drugs from Canada and other countries.

Sanders and Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, also have spotlighted steep price increases for generic drugs. The increases cost taxpayers an additional $1.4 billion over the last decade, according to a study Sanders and Cummings requested from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services inspector general. Prices of top-selling generic drugs rose faster than inflation 22 percent of the time over the 10-year period examined by the study.

Sanders was in California this week ahead of the state’s June 7 presidential primary election.

To read the senator’s statement, click here.

To read the senator’s plan to lower prescription drug prices, click here.






https://berniesanders.com/press-release/sanders-backs-california-initiative-to-stop-rx-ripoffs/

Sopan Deb @SopanDeb

Here is Trump turning a critique of Clinton's foreign policy positions into a crack about the Clinton marriage.

Sopan Deb ?@SopanDeb

Trump took out his Bill Clinton impersonation today, which sounds suspiciously like his Jeb Bush/Graham voice.