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@Sunshine
Last week Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced that he had introduced legislation to block a $20 billion arms sale to Israel.

The Joint Resolutions of Disapproval would 👉prevent the delivery of 💥offensive 💥weapons that the State Department approved in August, just days before ceasefire talks were set to resume.

The package includes fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles.

“Sadly, and illegally, much of the carnage in Gaza has been carried out with U.S.-provided military equipment,” said Sanders in a statement.

🔥“Providing more offensive weapons to continue this disastrous war would violate U.S. and international law.
The sales would reward Netanyahu’s extremist government, even as it continues to cause massive destruction in Gaza,
undermine the prospects of a ceasefire deal that would secure the release of the hostages,
and advance its effort to illegally annex the West Bank.

Congress must act to save lives, uphold U.S. and international law, and stand up for U.S. interests.

We must end our complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate military campaign,
which has caused mass civilian death and suffering.”

The effort was cosponsored by Senators Jeff #Merkley (D-OR), Peter #Welch (D-VT), and Brian #Schatz (D-HI).

“In #Kamala #Harris we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class because she is from the middle class,” progressive Rep #Ocasio-#Cortez said in her speech on Monday.

“She understands the urgency of rent checks and groceries and prescriptions. She is as committed to our reproductive and civil rights as she is to taking on corporate greed.”

Ocasio-Cortez issued a wholehearted endorsement of the new nominee, and she promised that, if elected, Harris would serve as a champion of the middle class.

In his own convention speech, Senator #Bernie #Sanders pledged that Democrats would use their governing power to “tax the rich”, “take on price gouging” and “expand Medicare”.

The possibility of that change has animated progressives.
“The energy is electrifying and it’s a lot of young folks,” the congresswoman #Pramila #Jayapal, chair of the Congressional #Progressive #caucus, told the Guardian.
“If you have young people, if you have progressives, Black, brown, Indigenous folks, working-class folks, that is actually the base that helps us to win because they are the ones that go door to door. They’re the ones that mobilize voters.”

To deliver on the promises that progressives are seeking, Harris may have to distance herself from Biden in certain areas, especially climate and the war on Gaza.
During his 2020 campaign, Biden embraced a sweeping climate agenda as he looked to reassure the millions of progressive voters who had not backed him in the primary.
While Biden signed the most significant federal climate bill in history, the Inflation Reduction Act, however, failed to follow through on his campaign pledge of “no more drilling on federal lands”.

Progressives hope Harris will stick to some of the promises that Biden made as a candidate but then walked back.

“We cannot have that happen again,” #Jeff #Merkley, a senator, told the Guardian.
“We, as climate truth-tellers, have to be very present, very loud, very determined to say,❇️ ‘We will back you 1,000%, but you can’t keep expanding the fossil infrastructure.’”❇️
theguardian.com/us-news/articl

The Guardian · ‘They aren’t going to accept empty promises’: progressives back Harris with cautious enthusiasmBy Joan E Greve

#US #Senators Chris Van #Hollen and Jeff #Merkley

»said they saw a warehouse in #Rafah filled with material that had been rejected in inspection. It included #oxygen cylinders, gas-powered #generators, tents and medical kits used in delivering babies.

Aid workers told the senators the tents were refused because they included metal poles, and the medical kits because they included scalpels. Most solar-powered equipment appears to be barred — though it is vital in #Gaza«

apnews.com/article/israel-gaza

AP News · Cumbersome process and 'arbitrary' Israeli inspections slow aid delivery into Gaza, US senators sayBy LEE KEATH