Instead of talking about cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, we must end the absurdity of corporations not paying a nickel in federal income taxes.
To be honest with you, I worry about concentration of ownership in media, where you have a handful of media conglomerates largely controlling what we see, hear and read.
It is time to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol. It is time to end the arrests of so many people and the destruction of so many lives for possessing marijuana.
In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism.
The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America.
We have got to change the political culture in America. We need a political revolution. That means we are working on politics not just three weeks before an election but 365 days a year.
A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932 ... and 50 million people died as a result ... what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important.
We are the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right and yet we end up spending much more than they do, so I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system.
This country is never going to move forward unless we end Republican rule in the House and Senate.
For Democrats to win, they're going to have to address the needs of working people. They're going to have to address the needs of the middle class. And that means standing up to Wall Street, standing up to the greed of corporate America. Even now and then, standing up to the media. And that means having a candidate who can excite working families, excite young people, bring them into the political process, create a large voter turnout.
This is what oligarchy looks like: Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. The top one-hundredth of 1 percent makes more than 40 percent of all campaign contributions. The billionaire class owns the political system and reaps the benefits from it.
We can`t allow racism and xenophobia to gain traction.
I think the immediate thing is we stand up to protect those people who are in trouble.
There are three major political organizations in this country: the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and the Koch Brothers Party. With billions to spend on campaigns. think tanks and 'educational' organizations, the Koch brothers are the most powerful. We must overturn Citizens United, move to public funding of elections and pass real tax reform.
CEOs of large corporations earn 400 times what their workers make. That is not what America is supposed to be about.
What you don't see on television is people dying today because they can't get to a doctor and they can't afford prescription drugs. That's why they are also dying. They are dying in Iraq because they are poor and they have gone into the military because they can't afford to go to college. They're dying because they're living in communities where asthma rates are extremely high because the air is filthy. The suffering of the poor and working class people is a virtual nonissue for the media. But that is the reality.
The American people understand that we need real change in this country, in my view, a political revolution, which says to the people on top, "You know what, you guys can't have it all."
In my view, we need a massive federal jobs program which puts millions of our people back to work. We must end our disastrous trade policies. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And we have to fight for pay equity for women.
We need real tax reform which makes the rich and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. We need a tax system which is fair and progressive. Children should not go hungry in this country while profitable corporations and the wealthy avoid their tax responsibilities by stashing their money in the Cayman Islands.
Don't underestimate me.
We cannot go back to a racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic type of society.
The focus, to my mind, is to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States. I think by temperament he is unqualified to be president. I think his views - you have a guy who's running for president who rejects science, doesn't even believe climate change is real, let alone wants to do something about it, wants to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top two-tenths of one percent.
We are rapidly moving toward a nation of the super-rich, by the super-rich and for the super-rich
One in four corporations doesn't pay any taxes.
Real freedom must include economic security.
