Sanders criticizes Yang's universal basic income proposal: 'People want to work'
Tess Bond - The Hill
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says there’s “no question” that automation and artificial intelligence will have a fundamental impact on working families but he doesn't think fellow candidate Andrew Yang's proposal of a universal basic income is necessarily the solution.
"This is an issue that is of enormous consequences for working people," Sanders told Hill.TV in response to the future impact of automation. "It is an issue that gotten nowhere near the kind of discussion that it needs."
But in response to Yang's proposed universal basic income Sanders emphasized that "people want to work" and the desire to "be a productive member of society" is a "very deeply ingrained feeling that people have."
"The challenge that we face is how do we use technology to improve the lives of working people," Sanders said. "So if you have a really terrible job, a boring job and we make your job better and we enable you to work 20 hours a week rather than 40 hours a week, it's not a bad thing...but it means to say you still need an income to live by, we can't cut your salaries in half."
Sanders went on to tout his federal jobs guarantee as a more viable alternative.
"We take a very different approach from Mr. Yang and that is I believe in a jobs guarantee," he said. "There are an enormous amount of work that has to be done all the way from child care to health care to education to rebuilding our infrastructure to combating climate change to dealing with our growing elderly population."
Sanders said, under his administration, he would create more jobs, which would help combat job loss and other effects of automation.
"Bottom line is we cannot allow robotics technology, artificial intelligence to simply throw people out on the street," he told Hill.TV.
Yang later responded to Sanders' comments on Twitter, saying the Vermont senator is ignoring several potential benefits of universal basic income.
"Bernie ignores the facts that money in our hands would 1) create hundreds of thousands of local jobs and 2) recognize and reward the nurturing work being done in our homes and communities every day. He also assumes that everyone wants to work for the government which isn’t true," he tweeted.
Yang, a former tech entrepreneur, has made a universal basic income the centerpiece of his campaign platform. The proposal seeks to counteract automation by providing a monthly $1,000 to every American.
The long-shot candidate told CBS’ “Face the Nation” over the weekend that such a plan would result in an economic stimulus.
“The money will go right into local main street businesses,” Yang said over a question over whether such a plan would disincentivize work. “It will help rejuvenate American main street businesses and give us all a path forward.”
Tulsi Gabbard critical of DNC debate criteria: Process 'lacks transparency'
By Victor Garcia | Fox News
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Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard appeared on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Wednesday and took on the Democratic National Committee for a "lack of transparency" on qualifying for the next round of debates.
"I think the bigger problem is that the whole process really lacks transparency," Gabbard told Carlson. "People deserve having that transparency because ultimately it's the people who will decide who our Democratic nominee will be.
"When you see that lack of transparency," she said, it creates "a lack of faith and trust in the process."
Representative Gabbard, D-Hawaii, has hit the donor threshold but in terms of poll thresholds, she fell two short of making the cut for next month's nationally televised primary debates and likely won't make the stage.
The congresswoman said that voters are seeing the "political elites" front and center, while candidates like her are left on the "outside."
"Really what they see is a small group of of really powerful political elites, the establishment making decisions that serve their interests and maintaining that power while the rest of us are left outside. The American people are left behind," Gabbard said.
Gabbard pledged to continue campaigning and reaching out to voters.
"I'm going to continue focusing on speaking directly to voters across this country," she said.
Gabbard returned to the campaign trail this week after two weeks of active duty service overseas with the Army National Guard. "This training exercise further reinforced the problem-solving mindset that has been drilled into me for the past 16 years as a soldier," she said in a statement.
Beto: If Elected, I Am Going To Confiscate Your Semi-Auto Firearms
By RYAN SAAVEDRA - The Daily Wire
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Far-left Democratic presidential candidate Robert Francis O'Rourke announced over the weekend that if he is elected president, he intends to confiscate tens of millions of semi-automatic firearms from law-abiding Americans.
O'Rourke made the remarks while campaigning in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday when he was asked by a reporter how he plans to address peoples' fears that the government is going to come and take many of their semi-automatic firearms.
O'Rourke responded: "I want to be really clear, that’s exactly what we are going to do. Americans who own [the technically undefinable sub-class of semi-automatic firearms referred to as "assault weapons"] will have to sell them to the government."
O'Rourke, who is barely polling above 2% in the polls, has struggled to gain any traction with his campaign after his failed Senate bid in Texas.
In May, The Daily Beast reported that opposition research requests from a top opposition research firm on O'Rourke "have completely died off."
O'Rourke has tried to use recent tragedies to relaunch his campaign and has tried using as much profanity as possible, including on national television, as a way of getting attention.
O'Rourke immediately seized on the opportunity to exploit Saturday's tragedy for political gain, taking to Twitter to promote his campaign.
"Our hearts are with Midland, Odessa, and everyone in West Texas who has to endure this again," O'Rourke tweeted. "More information is forthcoming, but here's what we know: We need to end this epidemic."
O'Rourke later tweeted: "We don't know how many have been killed. We don't know the motivation. But here's what we do know: This is fucked up."
Earlier this year, a Reuters report revealed that O'Rourke used to write fantasies about how he wanted to murder children.
"It’s unclear whether the United States is ready for a presidential contender who, as a teenager, stole long-distance phone service for his dial-up modem, wrote a murder fantasy in which the narrator drives over children on the street, and mused about a society without money," Reuters reported.
"One day, as I was driving home from work, I noticed two children crossing the street," O'Rourke wrote. "They were happy, happy to be free from their troubles ...This happiness was mine by right. I had earned it in my dreams."
"As I neared the young ones, I put all my weight on my right foot, keeping the accelerator pedal on the floor until I heard the crashing of the two children on the hood, and then the sharp cry of pain from one of the two," O'Rourke continued. "I was so fascinated for a moment, that when after I had stopped my vehicle, I just sat in a daze, sweet visions filling my head."