Senator Sanders

Taxes The White House and congressional Republicans have begun working behind the scenes toward a broad deal on tax cuts and fresh spending to bolster the economy. "What we have got say is, no, we`re not going to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and ignore the needs of working families. The priorities have got to be not increasing our national debt by $700 billion by giving tax breaks to people who don`t need it," Sen. Bernie Sanders told Ed Schultz on MSNBC. VIDEO

 The Fed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has won a victory is his long-running battle with the Federal Reserve. Under a provision sponsored by Sanders in the Wall Street reform law, the Fed was forced to disclose its details about the $3 trillion it loaned out during the recession, WCAX and Slate reported. LINK, LINK and VIDEO

Foreign Bailouts "Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations," Sen. Sanders said in The Wall Street Journal. Thanks to Mr. Sanders, who has been leading the fight to make the Fed more transparent, the Government Accountability Office will conduct an audit of the Fed's emergency actions going back to the start of the crisis in 2007. LINK

Corporate Welfare Sen. Sanders suggests the paperwork from the Fed raises the prospect that the banks and corporations used the money to pad their bottom lines. Indeed, an analysis by Sanders' office, points to the prospect that "secret Fed loans turned out to be direct corporate welfare to big banks," John Nichols wrote for The Nation. LINK

No-Strings Loans "Sen. Sanders, who wrote the provision requiring these disclosures, noted that the Fed could have forced the companies they helped to restrict executive pay and lighten the burden on mortgage holders. But they didn't. Instead, the Fed loaned out trillions while families lost their homes. $3,300B in taxpayer cash went to private banks abroad while half a million Americans a month were losing their jobs," Laura Flanders wrote for The Nation. LINK 

Black Box Mystery "Bernie Sanders points out the international issues of international banks benefiting, and just the sheer scope of this lending that happened without a lot of oversight at the time. We now have a great deal of insight into what this lending was. At the time, it was kind of a black box and kind of a mystery," The Washington Post's Neil Irwin sai on The PBS Newshour. LINK and VIDEO

Editorials "The information pouring out about how the Fed doled out $3.3 trillion in aid during the financial crisis -- thanks in large part to Vermont's independent senator -- is a victory for transparency against a public institution too long shrouded in secrecy," the Burlington Free Press editorialized. The Washington Post called Sanders "shortsighted." Investors' Business Daily said Sanders "forced the Fed to reveal how U.S. capitalist booty saved the Europeans' booties." LINK, LINK and LINK

Environment and Public Works Sen. James Inhofe, ranking member on the Environment & Public Works Committee, told Inside EPA that he has room to work with several committee Democrats with whom he has a good relationship, including Committee Chair Barbara Boxer, Sens. Benjamin Cardin, Tom Carper, Frank Lautenberg and Bernie Sanders.

Jobs Leaders of the liberal religious community, joined by three U.S. Senators and other activists, braved the deficit-cutting political headwinds in Washington on Thursday and launched a new campaign to help the unemployed find jobs, acccording to In These Times. "The world would be a different place if one million unemployed workers said, ‘I need help in my fight for dignity, in my fight for work,'" Senator Sanders of Vermont remarked. LINK

Shumlin in D.C. Vermont's governor elect held several private meetings with Cabinet members, including one with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that was also attended by Sen. Sanders about a single-payer health care system for Vermont. Shumlin said the administration is open to ideas as long as health care standards are not lowered, the Bennington Banner reported. LINK

Food Safety After languishing for more than a year, a food-safety bill that has enjoyed strong bipartisan support passed the Senate, raising prospects for tougher and more extensive federal inspections and other safeguards. "We struck the right balance between the viability of small family farms that process foods and the safety of the nation's food supply," Sen. Sanders said in The Valley News.

Dental Clinic A group seeking to open a new Middlebury dental practice that could absorb more under-insured clients is looking to partner with an organization trying to establish a Federally Qualified Health Center in Bristol. An alliance has been working with Sen. Sanders. on the application and organizers are seeking to open the new health center by the fall of 2011, The Addison Independent reported. LINK

Letter "I was pleased to see that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., recently criticized our government's practice of doling out agricultural commodity subsidies. He correctly identified cutting such subsidies as a way to reduce the federal government's deficits. Cutting these subsidies would also help the world's poorest farmers," Isaac Evans-Frantz wrote to the Brattleboro Reformer. LINK

International

Cables Depict Heavy Afghan Graft, Starting at the Top From hundreds of diplomatic cables, Afghanistan emerges as a looking-glass land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest man is a distinct outlier, The New York Times reported. LINK

National

Unemployment Up to 9.8 Percent November's unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, the highest level since April. More than 15 million people who would like to work can't get a job, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

Fed Reveals Investors Scores of wealthy investors participated in a Federal Reserve emergency lending program in 2008. Their' identities were disclosed as part of a trove of 21,000 records released on Wednesday, They include famous Wall Street financiers like J. Christopher Flowers and John A. Paulson, The New York Times reported. LINK

Obama Seeking Aid for Jobless in Any Deal on Tax Cuts The Obama administration is holding out for an extension of unemployment assistance and of a variety of expiring tax breaks for low-wage and middle-income workers as part of a deal with Congressional Republicans to extend all the Bush-era tax cuts, The New York Times reported. LINK

Fiscal Plan Is Expected to Fall Short of Votes The ambitious debt-reduction plan before President Obama's bipartisan commission is likely to get support from a majority of the members on Friday but fall short of the votes needed to send it to Congress for a vote, according to The New York Times. LINK

House Votes to Censure Rangel After high political drama and an emotional debate, the House of Representatives censured Rep. Charles B. Rangel  on Thursday for ethical misconduct, meting out its first such punishment in nearly 30 years, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK

Vermont

Shumlin Gives Schools Time to Make Cuts Incoming governor is giving school districts more time to make a total of $23.2 million in budget cuts outlined in legislation passed this year. Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin is telling schools he doesn't expect them to achieve the total savings this year considering the state is getting $19 million in federal stimulus money for education, AP reported. LINK

Illegal Immigrants Flee to Canada The Royal Canadian Mounted Police says the number of illegal immigrants entering Quebec from Vermont has quadrupled and that in October and November 60 people were arrested along the border. WCAX-TV says officials attribute the increase, at least in part, to Canadian immigration law, which allows illegal immigrants to apply for refugee status upon arrival in Canada. LINK