Senator Sanders

Health Care A community health center in Plainfield is a model that Sen. Bernie Sanders say should be used all over the country, WPTZ reported Monday morning. A Daily Kos blog, about an ad played on CNN during a Sanders interview on Saturday, pointed to Rick Scott’s “checkered past in the health insurance industry.” Another Daily Kos post says “Sanders seems to have come around to the view that adopting a strong public option to compete with private insurers is a way to move toward a single-payer system.” LINK, LINK and VIDEO

International

Vote Fraud Probe in Iran Iran's supreme leader ordered Monday an investigation into allegations of election fraud, marking a stunning turnaround by the country's most powerful figure and offering hope to opposition forces who have waged street clashes to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. State television quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directing a high-level clerical panel, the Guardian Council, to look into charges by pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has said he is the rightful winner of Friday's presidential election, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Netanyahu Backs Palestinian State, With Caveats The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday endorsed for the first time the principle of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but on condition that the state was demilitarized and that the Palestinians recognized Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The New York Times said Netanyahu reversed his longstanding opposition to Palestinian statehood, a move seen as a concession to American pressure. LINK

National

Obama at AMA President Barack Obama, continuing to barnstorm for his health care proposals, will urge doctors gathered in Chicago to support wider insurance coverage and targeted federal spending cuts. Obama planned to tell the American Medical Association's annual meeting in his hometown on Monday that overhaul cannot wait and that bringing down costs is the most important thing he can do to ensure the country's long-term fiscal health, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Obama Is Pressed to Tax Health Benefits The White House is caught in a battle within its own party over how to finance a comprehensive overhaul of America's health-care system, as key Democrats advocate a tax plan that could require President Obama to break his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Details Set for Remake of Financial Regulations President Barack Obama is expected Wednesday to propose the most sweeping reorganization of financial-market supervision since the 1930s, according to The Wall Street Journal. The plan would remake powers of the Federal Reserve to oversee the biggest financial players, give the government the power to unwind and break up systemically important companies, and create a new regulator for consumer-oriented financial products, according to people involved in the process. LINK

Democrats Struggling for Consensus on Climate Bills Democratic allies remain at odds over provisions of a House climate bill and a Senate energy bill. The latest rough patch came late Thursday afternoon when House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson met with the two chief sponsors of a climate bill to hash out differences in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After more than an hour, they emerged without an agreement, gave reporters curt expressions of optimism and left without taking questions, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Panetta vs. Cheney CIA director Leon Panetta says it's almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney would like to see another attack on the United States to prove he is right in criticizing President Barack Obama for abandoning the "harsh interrogation" of terrorism suspects. Panetta, in an interview published in The New Yorker magazine's June 22 issue, says, "It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point." LINK

Vermont

Railroad Stimulus The long-stalled dream of restoring modern freight and passenger service along Vermont's state-owned western rail corridor could get a jump start if transportation officials succeed in their bid for $100 million in federal stimulus money for rail projects, Vermont Public Radio reported. LINK

Welch: Single Payer DOA Rep. Peter Welch, speaking at a Windham County event, agreed that a single payer system might provide some answers to the country's health care crisis, but he said there was so little support for it that the idea was largely dead on arrival in Washington, the Brattleboro Reformer reported.  LINK

Home Sales Still Sluggish Home sales in Rutland County remain sluggish, said Jill Alderman, president of the Rutland County Board of Realtors. Sales are down one-third from this time last year with more than 800 homes on the market in Rutland County. Despite the glut, she said no more than 300 homes will be sold this year for an average price of $175,000, the Rutland Herald reported. LINK