![](https://preprod.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/bernie-sanders_0.gif?w=990)
Sanders hopes to put some progressive ideas on the agenda for 2016. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/truthout/4152991645/in/photolist-idwndN-i8dwQm-idcuUM-7jZaJe-qQSHmL-qbsaJE-qR2XuX-i8cUKn-rrWWcH-5GQKMq-i9YUCA-8ZVtXr-idbS6Z-ibwfWb-bEPgDu-qQSHnC-qQUb31-bTJ2w4-bTJ2rX-HKH72-4eZmPh-6cHssT-73Er2i-6KE8U7-bEPgK1-bEPgBq-d88JVS-r17vyM-bEPgRL-65hH1m-apd65r-ajeC46-9kmvAa-apfQhy-9TMtgV-9TMt7t-9TMtMV-9TMtDp-9TMtyi-9TMts6-9TMtZP-aiTAgn-aiTAyM-aiTAuD-8ZVNpE-5UvpVU-seZaMB-rXzMCg-rXzPxD-seTjJh">Troy Page</a>/Truthout
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) officially announced today that’s he’s running for president. The self-described socialist faces long odds in the Democratic primary, but chances are good that he’ll at least force a discussion on issues dear to liberals. Here are some highlights of the best of Mother Jones coverage of Sanders:
- Sanders visited our office earlier this month to discuss income inequality, trade, and his motivations for running for prez.
- “Why don’t we make Election Day a holiday?” Sanders asks. Yes, why?
- Sanders goes on Bill Moyers to perfectly predict big money’s domination of the 2014 elections.
- Sanders asks the NSA whether it is spying on members of Congress. The NSA won’t say.
- Sanders’ list of America’s top 10 tax avoiders.
- The greatest hits from Filibernie, Sanders’ eight-and-a-half hour filibuster in protest of the 2010 extension of tax cuts for the rich.
- Sanders lambastes Obama for giving loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry.
- Sanders has some ideas for reforming Wall Street.
- “A Socialist in the Millionaire’s Club“: a 2006 Mother Jones interview with Sanders, shortly after he was elected to the Senate.
- During a 1998 Congressional hearing, Sanders excoriates Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin for supporting General Suharto, “a cruel, authoritarian dictator whose family is worth between $40 and $50 billion.”
- And then there’s this Sanders blurb from a November 1989 Mother Jones roundup of promising third parties:
![](/wp-content/uploads/Bernie-Sanders.png)
The Progressive Coalition obviously never went national in the way Sanders had envisioned. But in 1991, a year after he was elected to Congress, he founded something more enduring: the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Since then, Sanders’ view of third parties has evolved: “No matter what I do,” he told Mother Jones last month, “I will not play the role of a spoiler who ends up helping to elect a right-wing Republican.”