Press
Senator Bernie Sanders Delivers Keynote To Sanders Institute Gathering
WAMC. Progressive and liberal thinkers from around the world are in Burlington, Vermont this weekend to discuss issues and find practical ways to move forward. Many of the people at this first conference organized by the Sanders Institute attended the opening reception Thursday evening to hear the keynote speech from Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.
The Sanders Institute was created in June 2017 by Senator Bernie Sanders’ wife Jane O’Meara Sanders and his stepson David Driscoll. The Senator is not affiliated with the group. O’Meara Sanders says this is the first major event the organization has coordinated. “We are using the Sanders Institute Gathering, our first conference, to bring together leading intellectuals and people from a variety of experience to come and talk together. We ended up with 49 speakers in 48 hours and it’s only the beginning. We’re hoping that a lot of things spin off from this and we’re going to establish a global network of progressives that resonate each others’ ideas.”
Sanders gathering hears Medicare-for-all funding plan
WCAX3. A new study presented to people attending a meeting of supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders says a Medicare-for-all system could save money over the nation's current system while increasing access to care for everyone.
The study released Friday during the Sanders Institute Gathering in Burlington examines the Medicare-for-All Act that Sanders, the Vermont independent, proposed last year.
University of Massachusetts economist Robert Pollin, one of the authors, said the system would save an estimated of 9.6 percent over current U.S. health care consumption expenditures.
The Sanders Institute is separate from the senator's political operations but grew out of the ideas generated during his 2016 presidential campaign. The meeting comes as Sanders is considering whether to seek the presidency in 2020.
COMMON DREAMS. With fascist movements on the rise and controlling the levers of power in the United States and across the world, the U.S.-based Sanders Institute and Europe's DiEM25—the groups founded by Jane Sanders and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, respectively—announced the launch of Progressive International on Friday with the goal of beating back right-wing forces with an organized "grassroots movement for global justice."
"There is a global war being waged against workers, against our environment, against democracy, against decency," declares the Progressive International's open call to join the movement, which was unveiled Friday evening by Varoufakis and Sanders, wife of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), during The Sanders Institute Gathering in Burlington, Vermont.
ALTERNET. Confronting the question most commonly asked of the growing number of Americans who support replacing America's uniquely inefficient and immoral for-profit healthcare system with Medicare for All—"How do we pay for it?"—a new paper released Friday by researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) shows that financing a single-payer system would actually be quite simple, given that it would cost significantly less than the status quo.
"It's easy to pay for something that costs less," Robert Pollin, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and lead author of the new analysis, declared during a panel discussion at The Sanders Institute Gathering in Burlingon, Vermont, where Pollin unveiled the paper for the first time.
Progressive thinkers gather in Burlington for Sanders Institute event (11pm report)
WCAX3. The Sanders Institute kicked off its three-day conference at the ECHO Center Thursday night.
"The role that we can play and you are playing, that we are all playing is forcing discussion about issues that the establishment does not want discussed," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.
Sanders addressed a room of 250 fellow progressives from around the country.
Politicians, celebrities and activists, including former New York gubernatorial candidate and "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon, spread across the room. They listened to the senator kick off the first day of the Sanders Institute gathering.
Sanders eyes bigger 2020 bid. Quotes from SI Gathering
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT. An insurgent underdog no more, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is laying the groundwork to launch a "bigger" presidential campaign than his first. And his advisers are predicting he would open the 2020 Democratic presidential primary season as a front-runner.
A final decision has not been made. But those closest to the 77-year-old democratic socialist suggest that neither age nor interest from a several liberal presidential prospects would dissuade him from taking a second shot at the presidency. And as Sanders' brain trust gathered for a weekend Vermont summit, some spoke about a 2020 White House bid as if it was a foregone conclusion.
COMMON DREAMS. With the American labor movement under relentless assault by the right-wing Supreme Court, the Republican Party at both the state and federal level, and President Donald Trump's plutocratic administration, prominent union leaders convened during the final day of The Sanders Institute Gathering on Saturday to confront the existential threat facing the working class and emphasize the urgency of organizing at the grassroots level to fight back and build political power.
"The working class is hurting, and they're done with business as usual," Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, declared during a panel discussion titled, "The Labor Movement: Essential to Democracy."
Moderated by RoseAnn DeMoro—former executive director of National Nurses United (NNU)—the panel of progressive union leaders attributed Trump's presidential victory to the Democratic Party's decades-long corporate turn and abandonment of the working class, which left a gaping void that the billionaire real estate mogul exploited in his rise to power.
Tulsi Gabbard In Vermont: Protect Our Resources From Those ‘Driven By Greed’
HONOLULU CIVIL BEAT. Stop and hold your breath.
With those words, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii introduced herself to an audience of some of the brightest and most influential progressive minds in America, from Cornel West to Bernie Sanders.
“You can’t hold your breath for very long,” she said in her smooth, measured tone. “You can’t exist for very long without air. You can’t exist for very long without clean water.
“However, so many of the decisions that are being made with regards to policy, many of the decisions that are being made by the corporations, the decisions that are being made by those driven by greed rather than driven by putting the interests and the liability of the people first, don’t take this into account.”
Gabbard traveled to Burlington to take part in “The Gathering,” an ambitious three-day event put on by the Sanders Institute, a left-leaning, nonprofit tank that pushes progressive ideas such as Medicare for all, tuition-free college and a Green New Deal.
Sanders Institute Brings Star Power to Burlington
SEVEN DAYS VERMONT. A star-studded crowd joined Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the Burlington waterfront Thursday night to kick off a three-day conference hosted by the nonprofit Sanders Institute. Though many of the national progressive leaders taking part in the event were prominent supporters of the senator's 2016 presidential campaign, organizers said it was not related to a potential 2020 run.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, actress Susan Sarandon, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis were among those scheduled to address such topics as climate change, housing and criminal justice reform during the Sanders Institute Gathering.
Sanders Institute gathering a pep rally for liberal ideas
ABC NEWS. Supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders were in Burlington on Friday as part of a three-day pep rally for many of the policy issues, such as universal health care, protecting the environment and economic and criminal justice reform, that defined the Vermont independent during his 2016 run for the presidency.
In the first sessions of the day, people heard presentations on how activists could work together to push for Medicare for All, a system that would guarantee health care for everyone in the country, including a study on how it to pay the cost.
"Only all that we love is on the line," said Nina Turner, a fellow of the Sanders Institute, who expressed the fervor for universal health care felt by many at the meeting when she helped kicked off the first session.
AHF to Talk Housing Solutions at Sanders Institute Gathering
WATERTOWN PUBLIC OPINION. The Sanders Institute announced their inaugural conference, , late last week. Scheduled to be held in Burlington, Vermont, from Thursday, November 29th through Saturday, December 1st, 2018, the array of speakers come from both the national and international progressive community.
Among the participants will be AIDS Healthcare Foundation ( AHF ) and several AHF officials. In late 2017, AHF launched the Healthy Housing Foundation (HHF), part of a community-based effort to address the exploding housing and homelessness crisis in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the U.S. Since then, the Healthy Housing Foundation has purchased three underutilized single-room-occupancy hotels (SROs) on Skid Row in Los Angeles and a motel in Hollywood, adaptively reusing and repurposing the buildings as nearly 600 housing units for homeless and/or extremely low-income individuals. HHF is also well underway with design and planning a newly built 680-unit affordable housing tower in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Progressive thinkers gather in Burlington for Sanders Institute event (6pm report)
WCAX3. The Sanders Institute kicked off its three-day conference at the ECHO Center Thursday night.
"The role that we can play and you are playing, that we are all playing is forcing discussion about issues that the establishment does not want discussed," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.
Sanders addressed a room of 250 fellow progressives from around the country.
Politicians, celebrities and activists, including former New York gubernatorial candidate and "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon, spread across the room. They listened to the senator kick off the first day of the Sanders Institute gathering.
Sanders: Senate Rebuked Yemen War After Americans Learned of the Saudi’s Brutality
THE REAL NEWS NETWORK. Transcript available online.
2020 Hangs Over Bernie Sanders as he Welcomes Progressives to VT
BURLINGTON FREE PRESS. With the prospect of another presidential campaign in the air, Sen. Bernie Sanders mingled with hundreds of allies in Vermont on Thursday for an event meant to strengthen the national progressive movement.
"The message of this weekend is that we're going to try to break through the silos that exist within the progressive community," said Sanders, I-Vt., as he kicked off the three-day conference in Burlington.
The Sanders Institute, a think tank led by Sanders' son and founded by his wife, Jane O'Meara Sanders, organized the event.
These are not radical ideas’: Hundreds of progressives talk politics in Burlington
WPTZ (NBC) Burlington, VT. Some 250 progressive politicians and activists are taking to the Queen City this week for the Sanders Institute Gathering.
"And have them discuss together what we can do; come up with bold ideas and move forward," said Jane Sanders, wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Big political names are in town to talk progressive ideas like universal health care, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayor Carmen Cruz, as well as actors Danny Glover and Susan Sarandon.
At Sanders’ Gathering, Mix of Celebrity and Policy Drives Progressive Agenda
My CHAMPLAIN VALLEY. Dozens of celebrities, elected officials and activists are in Burlington this weekend for a three-day event featuring some of the nation's most prominent progressive figures.
The list of panelists at the first Sanders Institute Gathering, include film stars Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover, as well as high-profile elected officials like San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
And, of course, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who delivered the keynote address Thursday evening at Burlington's ECHO Center for Lake Champlain.
Sanders Institute Conference Aims to Unify Progressive Movement
VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO. Progressive politicians, activists and leaders gathered Thursday in Burlington for the kickoff of a two-day conference.
The event — called "The Gathering" — is being put on by the Sanders Institute, a progressive policy think tank founded by Jane O’Meara Sanders, the wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The lineup for the conference includes a number of high-profile figures like San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, actor Danny Glover and Dr. Cornel West.
COMMON DREAMS. Kicking off the inaugural Sanders Institute conference in Burlington, Vermont this weekend—billed as "A Gathering of Minds to Envision the World We Want"—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) gave a keynote address to a crowd of influential progressives from around the world Thursday evening.
In keeping with the Gathering's mission "to revitalize our democracy," Sanders' address encompassed the progressive vision for the future—one in which economic, social, racial, and political power is distributed amongst the people who keep the world's economies running, rather than accumulated by the wealthiest few.
Bernie Sanders Steps Out With His Favored Political Partner: His Wife
NEW YORK TIMES. When Jane Sanders introduced her event’s keynote speaker here on Thursday night, she called him “my best friend” but didn’t say his name.
“I won’t tell you who that is because I don’t want to give it away,” she quipped from the stage.
Exactly no one was surprised when her husband, Bernie Sanders, marched to the podium.
As speculation grows about whether Mr. Sanders will mount another bid for the White House, the Vermont senator had returned with his wife to his home state for the inaugural Sanders Institute Gathering, a three-day symposium to discuss issues like Medicare for All that he had pushed to popularize.
Bernie Sanders turns focus to the White House and the world
WASHINGTON POST. By now, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has gotten used to supporters urging him to run for president in 2020; at rallies, at airports, on his weekday walks to the Capitol. At a Friday night gathering here, Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis went further: Only Bernie Sanders could save the world.
“Let me convey a message from all of us in Europe, for all those comrades of yours who are now struggling to reclaim our cities, our world, our world, our environment,” Varoufakis said. “We need Bernie Sanders to run for president.”
The senator from Vermont, who is actively discussing whether to mount another campaign, smiled and closed the session. But over three days at the Sanders Institute’s inaugural conference, the senator and his supporters described a democracy under attack by populist right-wing forces as compromise-hungry “neoliberals” lacked a vision to defend it — a dynamic they see as leading to President Trump’s win in 2016.
Sanders Institute brings political, health, housing leaders together starting today
VERMONT BUSINESS MAGAZINE. The Sanders Institute (link is external) announced their inaugural conference, The Sanders Institute Gathering (link is external), late last week. Scheduled to be held in Burlington, Vermont, from Thursday, November 29th through Saturday, December 1st, 2018, the array of speakers come from both the national and international progressive community. Among the participants will be AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF (link is external)) and several AHF officials
AHF to Talk Housing Solutions at Sanders Institute Gathering
LOS ANGELES (November 28, 2018) The Sanders Institute announced their inaugural conference, The Sanders Institute Gathering, late last week. Scheduled to be held in Burlington, Vermont, from Thursday, November 29th through Saturday, December 1st, 2018, the array of speakers comes from both the national and international progressive communities.
Sanders Institute Announces Inaugural Conference
The Sanders Institute announced their inaugural conference, The Sanders Institute Gathering, today. Scheduled to be held in Burlington Vermont, from Thursday, November 29th through Saturday, December 1st, 2018, the array of speakers comes from both the national and international progressive communities.