Sen. Bernie Sanders: a tutorial on tax policy

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) went old school on Friday and demonstrated for the boys and girls in the millionaire's club of the U.S. Senate what a real filibuster is supposed to look like, not that cowardly chickenshit nonsense the Republicans have been doing in their scorched-earth obstructionism of the people's business.

While not a filibuster per se — no bill was pending for debate — Sanders captivated C-Span junkies for some eight and one-half hours. At one point, so many viewers were streaming live video online that the Senate server crashed.

While Bernie Sanders was largely ignored by cable and network media, who tend to only break away from their mindless babble for things like car chases on the L.A. freeway or celebrity murder trials, Sanders became an immediate sensation with people who actually care about this country. The Washington Post reports, Sen. Bernie Sanders took over Senate floor in hours-long speech:

Sanders' Twitter stream followed his speech. He hit the number two trending Twitter topic worldwide during Friday afternoon. Two hashtags have started in response to his speech: #Filibernie and #Berniebuster. Two Web sites were launched to keep track of whether or not the senator was still talking: isberniesandersstilltalking.com and isberniestillfilibustering.com.

Sanders conducted a tutorial on the failure of faith based supply-side "trickle down" conservative economics and the dangers posed by the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few turning this country into a Banana Republic. This is the kind of education and persuasion the president is supposed to be doing using the bully pulpit of the presidency. Sigh…

Maybe someone can turn this speech into a documentary with a clever title reference to the movie Weekend at Bernie's.

I don't believe anyone has posted the full eight and one-half hours, but here is a sampling from crooksandliars.com.

Part 1 – Sanders' Opening Statement

Part 2 – Sanders' colloquy with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

Part 3 – Sanders' Closing Statement

Transcripts posted at Bernie Sanders: Republicans are trying to take us back to the 1920s | Crooks and Liars.