Miley Twerking On Things We Should Talk About

Here's the full text of Bernie Sanders' Iowa speech - Vox

“Thank you. Iowa, thank you. Nine months ago, we came to this beautiful state. We had no political organization; we had no money; no name recognition. And we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America.

And tonight while the results are still not known, it looks like we are in a virtual tie.

And while the results are still not complete, it looks like we'll have half of the Iowa delegates. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Secretary Clinton, somebody -- yep -- and her organization for waging a very vigorous campaign.

And I want to thank Governor O'Malley. It's never easy to lose. I've lost more than one campaign. But he should know that he contributed a whole lot to the dialogue, that he ran an issue-oriented campaign, and he won the respect of the American people... If I think about what happened tonight, I think the people of Iowa have sent a very profound message to the political establishment, to the economic establishment, and, by the way, to the media establishment.

...Given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for establishment politics and establishment economics.

What the American people have said — and by the way, I hear this not just from progressives, I hear it from conservatives, I hear it from moderates — that is: 'We can no longer continue to have a corrupt campaign finance system.' I am the former chairman of the Senate veteran's committee. In that capacity, not only have I worked hard to try to protect the interest of our veterans, I've had the privilege of meeting so many, men and women, who put their lives on the line to defend us and protect our way of life.

And what they were protecting is an American democracy of: One person, one vote. Not billionaires buying elections. I am overwhelmed, and I am moved by the fact that millions of people throughout this country have helped volunteer in our campaign, that three -- we have received in this campaign $3.5 million individual contributions. People who went to BernieSanders.com. And you know what the average contribution was? It was $27!

We do not represent the interests of the billionaire class, Wall Street or corporate America. We don't want their money. We will -- and I am very proud to tell you, we are the only candidate on the Democratic side without a super PAC. And the reason that we have done so well here in Iowa, the reason I believe we're going to do so well in New Hampshire, and in the other states that follow, the reason is, the American people are saying, 'no to a rigged economy.' They no longer want to see an economy in which the average American works longer hours for low wages while almost all new income and wealth is going to the top 1%.

What the American people understand is this country was based and is based on fairness. It is not fair when the top 1/10th of 1% today owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. It is not fair when the 20 wealthiest people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America. So you guys ready for a radical idea? Well, so is America. And that radical idea is, we are going to create an economy that works for working families not just the billionaire class.

And when millions of our people are working for starvation wages, we are going to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. And, yes, we are going to have pay equity for women. I've been all over this state of Iowa: We have spoken to some 70,000 people, and in meeting after meeting, I hear people standing up and, they say: 'Bernie, I went to college. I graduated college — now I am 60, 80, 90 thousand dollars in debt. That is crazy. That is crazy. They want to get a decent education; they should not be punished.

That is why I believe in the year 2016, public colleges and universities should be tuition free. And then my critics say, well, Bernie, that's a great idea, all this free stuff, how are you going to pay for it? I will tell you how we will pay for it, we are going to impose a tax on Wall Street speculation. The greed, the recklessness and the illegal behavior of Wall Street drove this economy to its knees. The American people bailed out Wall Street, now it's Wall Street's time to help the middle class. And when we talk about transforming America. We will end the disgrace of having more people in jail than any other country. Disproportionately African-American and Latino. What we are going to do is provide jobs and education for our kids not more jails and incarceration. I'll tell you something that really does astound me. I'm on the senate energy committee — on the senate environmental committee — I have talked to scientists all over the world. The debate is over: Climate change is real. And we have a moral responsibility to work with countries throughout the world to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

What amazes me, what totally amazes me, is that we have not one Republican candidate for president prepared to come up and tell us, and agree with what virtually all scientists agree with, and you know why they are not prepared to do that? Because on the day that they do acknowledge the reality of climate change and call for change, you know what happens? They're going to lose their campaign funds from the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel (industry) ...

So I say to the Republicans, stop worrying about your campaign funds from big oil or the Koch brothers worry about the planet you're going to be leaving your children and your grandchildren. Now, I have been criticized during this campaign for many, many things. Every single day. That's okay. That's okay.

But let me repeat what I believe. I believe that at a time when every major country on Earth guarantees health care to all people as a right, that I believe that we should do the same in the United States of America.

So for all of my critics out there in the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and in corporate America, wherever you may be, let me tell you straight up, yes, I believe that health care is a right, not a privilege!

And that is why I believe in a Medicare for all single payer program which will not only guarantee health care to all, it will not only end the pharmaceutical ripoff of the American people but it will save the middle class family, the average middle-class family thousands of dollars a year in health care costs.

Let me conclude by saying what no other candidate for president will tell you. And that is that no president, not Bernie Sanders, not anybody else, will be able to bring about the changes that the working families and the middle class of this country, that our children, that the seniors, our seniors deserve. No one president can do it because the powers that be, Wall Street with their endless supply of money, corporate America, the large campaign donors are so powerful that no president can do what has to be done alone. And that is why -- and that is why what Iowa has begun tonight is a political revolution.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh told The Guardian that the official story about the killing of Osama bin Laden is completely false.

'"Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.

Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an "independent" Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. "The Pakistanis put out a report, don't get me going on it. Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bullshit report..."'

On September 17, 2011 a national movement was sparked to challenge the control of the ruling class over our political and economic system. Filling a vacuum left by Obama's shift towards the political center, the Occupy Wall Street movement used populist language of "The 99% vs. The 1%" to draw attention to the nation's increasingly astronomical wealth gap and the failure of either political party's ability to contest the rule of the economic elite and the corporate-controlled system they continue to benefit from.

Now, nearly two years after the Occupy movement was systemically repressed by police forces under control of Democratic mayors, the very conditions that spawned movement remain in place for much of the American population.

Something you won't find on CNN:

"Nobel Peace Prize laurete, Mairead Maguire tells her account of her visit to Syria. While Maguire was in Syria she discovered that the people the U.S. are funding are violent groups and do not want peace in Syria. Her her view is that Syria is being used as a proxy war by the U.S., Great Britain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar."

Some of our new friends are fans of public executions and jihad.

The president of Iran shares a message of hope for peace in the Middle East:

“As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah”

"An astonishing photograph of John Kerry having a cozy and intimate dinner with Bashar al-Assad has emerged at the moment the U.S Secretary of State is making the case to bomb the Syrian dictator's country and remove him from power."

Criminalizing people for using drugs is our society's way of neglecting stressed and abused children once they've reached legal adulthood.

'Children who endure trauma often grow up to have insufficient supplies of certain essential “reward” chemicals in the brain, such as endorphins and dopamine — the very chemicals that drugs of abuse either supplant or enhance. The core assumption of the war on drugs that addicts freely “choose” their habits and could “just say no” is a cruel mockery of the reality of [an addict]’s existence, as is the belief that imposing negative consequences on traumatized people will somehow force them to give up their addiction. If that were the case, [addicts] would have recovered long ago. Chronic drug use further impairs the addict’s capacity for rational decision-making.

The scientific literature makes clear that emotional stress is the most consistent trigger for addictive behaviours. How does that affect people...? A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that “a history of childhood abuse per se is related to increased [nervous and hormonal] stress reactivity, which is further enhanced when additional trauma is experienced in adulthood.” The point is that the addict is retraumatized over and over again by ostracism, harassment, dire poverty, disease, the frantic hunt for a source of the substance of dependence, the violence of the underground drug world and harsh chastisement at the hands of the law — all consequences of the war on drugs.'

What is it that makes these chemicals so appealing? Rather than generating further anxiety with the domestic and international war on drugs, we could be asking why people use drugs in the first place and perhaps working to find another way to fill the psycho-physiological vacuum of compassion that any number of illicit substances now comfortably occupies.

Before we start bombing more countries for their alleged illegal conduct and violation of international law, how about we take a look at ourselves?

While it's easy to point figures at Syrian atrocities, it's well documented that the U.S. government uses weapons that produce cancer, leukemia, and horrific birth defects in children born years after the war has ended.

"Countries around the world have called for the ban of depleted uranium, but unfortunately this demand has fallen on deaf ears. When asked in 2003 about Iraq's complaints about depleted uranium shells, Colonel James Naughton of U.S. Army Material Command stated in a Pentagon briefing that "They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of the them."

Last week, UK foreign secretary William Hague, said that the use of chemical weapons in Syria is "not something that a humane or civilized world can ignore." Ironically, Western countries such as the UK and their allies have appeared to ignore the use of weapons that are equally vicious."

"Researchers found that McDonald’s and Burger King were responsible for nearly all of the advertising concerning kid’s meals. McDonald’s had the strongest presence in this market, with 40 percent of the company’s overall ads targeted specifically to children." We're slowly killing our kids and giving them small plastic toys as compensation.

Poverty is a consistent form of passive violence against the poor.

An anti-war uprising in the British House of Commons led to a rejection of Prime Minister Cameron's motion for support of military action in Syria.

Marijuana prohibition is innately racist and implies a disproportional level of punishment for the poor. Legalization is not only a sensible policy, but will also prevent millions of Americans from being fed into the black hole that is our ill-designed penal system.