Bernie Sanders speaks on the Senate floor this Wednesday. (Screen grab via C-SPAN.org)
Speaking on the Senate Floor this Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to allow a vote on the House-passed measure that increases from the $600 COVID stimulus checks to $2,000.
"If you want to vote against $2,000 check for people in your state, votes against it," Sanders said.
Later during his speech, Sanders put up a display featuring a blown-up version of one of President Trump's tweets.
"We have a very unlikely ally in President Trump," Sanders said.
"Nobody here has disagreed with Trump more times than I have, and yet here is what the leader of the Republican Party says," Sanders continued, pointing to a Trump tweet that read, "$2,000 ASAP!"
"So even on this issue, amazingly enough, the President of the United States is right," Sanders said.
Among other things, the deck features an email from Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott in which she berated host Eric Shawn for fact checking former President Donald Trump's false claims about Democrats using "massive dumps of votes" to cheat in the 2020 presidential election.
Shortly after Shawn shot down this claim on air, Scott sent out an angry email to Fox News executive Meade Cooper complaining that hosts such as Shawn were infuriating their viewers by providing context to Trump's false claims about election fraud.
"This has to stop now," she demanded. "This is bad business and there clearly is a lack of understanding what is happening in these shows. The audience is furious and we are just feeding them material. Bad for business."
In its lawsuit, Dominion has repeatedly shown that Fox News aired claims about Dominion's machines purportedly rigging the election for President Joe Biden that it knew to be false.
A woman in northern France is to be put on trial on charges of insulting President Emmanuel Macron after describing him as 'filth' in a Facebook post, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.
The woman, risks a fine of 12,000 euros but not prison if convicted at the trial due to be held in June.
She was arrested on Friday and held in custody for questioning after the state's local administrative office filed a complaint over her Facebook post, the prosecutor in the northern town of Saint Omer, Mehdi Benbouzid, told AFP.
The complaint focused on a post on her Facebook page made on March 21, the day before Macron gave a lunchtime interview to TF1 television to defend his controversial pension reforms that have sparked nationwide protests.
"This piece of filth is going to address you at 1:00 pm... it's always on television that we see this filth," she wrote.
The woman, in her 50s, had been a supporter of the 2018-2019 "Yellow Vest" protests that shook Macron during his first mandate.
She stands accused of "insulting the president of the republic" and will stand trial on June 20 in Saint Omer, the prosecutor said.
"They want to make an example of me," the woman told La Voix du Nord regional newspaper which first reported the accusations.
The woman, named by the paper as Valerie, said she was astonished when she answered the knock on the door on Friday morning to find police had come to arrest her.
"I asked them if it was a joke, I had never been arrested," she said. "I am not public enemy number one."
The months-long protest movement against the pension reform has sent social tensions spiraling in France and Macron and his government refuse to give way.
New clashes between police and protesters erupted Tuesday and unions have announced a new day of strikes and protests on April 6.
During a hearing about Starbucks' efforts to block its stores from being unionized, Schultz slammed an attempt by Sanders to paint him as a privileged oligarch who had success handed to him early in life.
"I grew up in federally subsidized housing, my parents never owned a home, I came from nothing," Shultz said. "I thought that my entire life was based on the achievement of the American dream! Yes, I have billions of dollars -- I earned it! No one gave it to me. And I've shared it constantly with the people of Starbucks."
"No it is not!" Sanders shot back, and then informed him that it was now time to hear from other witnesses because "you're not the only person testifying."
At the start of the hearing, Sanders accused Schultz and Starbucks of waging "the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country."
Multiple Starbucks locations have voted to unionize over the past two years but so far the company has not recognized any of them as legitimate.
\u201cFormer Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz complains about Sen. Bernie Sanders\u2019 (I-VT) \u201cunfair\u201d labeling of him as a billionaire:\n\n\u201cI came from nothing \u2026 Yes, I have billions of dollars \u2014\u00a0I earned it. No one gave it to me. And I\u2019ve shared it constantly with the people of Starbucks.\u201d\u201d
