Eleven antiwar protesters were arrested Wednesday after they occupied the office of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Capitol Hill to demand the senator support efforts at diplomacy over sending further U.S. aid, such as weapons, to Ukraine.

Capitol Police arrested the 11 people inside the Dirksen Senate Office Building under a D.C. code that prohibits crowding, obstructing or incommoding, a Capitol Police spokesperson said. The code is often cited when arresting protesters during peaceful planned acts of civil disobedience.

The protesters, who were with the antiwar group Code Pink, were advocating for Ukrainian, Russian and U.S. leadership to negotiate an end to the war, the group said in a news release.

“Yes, Bernie should condemn the Russian invasion, but he should also be calling for a negotiated end to this brutal war,” Crystal Zevon, from Barnet, Vt., said in the news release.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Washington has pledged more than $46 billion in military, humanitarian and financial assistance to Ukraine.

A spokesperson for Sanders said the senator’s chief of staff, foreign policy adviser and Vermont state director met with Vermonters who were concerned about the war. In a Wednesday letter to the Vermont Peace Anti-War Coalition, Sanders said he shares a “dedication to peace” and “hope for a peaceful resolution as soon as possible.”

“The U.S. should support a just peace in Ukraine, based on the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty, and international law,” Sanders wrote in the letter.

  • TinyPizza@kbin.social
    44·
    9 months ago

    Those numbers might be skewed towards a certain selection bias. Per the article:

    The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from July 1 through 31 among a random national sample of 1,279 adults initially reached by mail. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.

    The fact that the people in the survey had to respond to initial correspondence by mail makes me think that the survey self selects for an older audience (age was mentioned nowhere.) That mixed with the sampling error could easily just represent a 50/50 split, which is pretty par for the course. Wouldn’t call them tankies though as their ideological manipulation comes from the other side of the political spectrum.