Senator Sanders

Vermont Eyes Bigger Goal on Health Care Vermont plans to launch the nation's first universal health care system, a sort of modified Medicare-for-all. It's an open question whether Vermont can work as a model for other states. "Developing a single-payer system for Vermont is a lot easier than in California or Texas or New York," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, using a term to describe a system in which health care is paid for by a single entity. He has been pushing for some form of socialized medicine since he was mayor of Burlington 30 years ago, according to The Associated Press. LINK

Spying on Allies In Washington on Saturday, demonstrators held up signs reading "Thank you, Edward Snowden!" as they rallied near the U.S. Capitol to demand that Congress investigate the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of Americans and eavesdropping on allied heads of state. “It sends a terrible message throughout the world. We’re saying we don’t really trust you,” Sen. Sanders told WCAX-TV in an interview on Friday.  He also called for legislation to limit the NSA’s wholesale collection of data on Americans who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. He called the NSA “out of control” and urged the spy agency to “stop this nonsense.”  VIDEO

Budget Conference Sen. Sanders is on the special budget conference committee that begins work this week on what could be a one-year plan to keep the government running when funding runs out in December. “I really don’t expect another government shutdown. I think Republicans have learned their lesson,” Sanders said on WCAX-TV. VIDEO

Bernie for President? “We need voices in the national campaign to speak about the needs of working people,” Sanders told WCAX-TV in the Friday night interview, but he quickly added that “there are other fine people out there” and said that “it’s very unlikely” he will mount a campaign for the White House. On Vermont Public Television, Vermont This Week host Stewart Ledbetter mentioned that there is talk, “as far-fetched as it may sound,” of Sanders running for president. Running as a Democrat, Ledbetter added, “seems anathema to the senator from Vermont.” Radio host Mark Johnson also was dubious but said Sanders, when pressed, “hasn’t closed the door on it.”  VIDEO, VIDEO

Bernie for President? “Bernie Sanders, what a godsend, I wish we had 535 Bernie Sanders in the Congress. The country would be so much better off,” a caller from New Mexico declared on the Sunday morning C-SPAN program The Communicators. “I believe in Bernie Sanders. I believe he should be president. I think maybe his vice president might be Angus King of Maine. I don't know a lot about him,” another caller said. VIDEO, VIDEO

Sanders’ Social Security Petition The Campaign for America's Future and Social Security Works are joining Sen. Sanders in a petition to resist cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Republican leaders are pressing for these cuts, even though they're opposed by an overwhelming 82 percent majority of Republican voters. The president's budget includes some of these cuts already, despite the fact that Democrats and independents oppose them by similarly large majorities, Richard (RJ) Eskow wrote for The Huffington Post. LINK

Save Social Security The next drama shaping up in Washington is one almost all Americans don’t want: cutting retirement benefits earned over a lifetime. At least nine Democratic senators are lining up with Republicans looking for big spending and tax cuts. “It’s a horrible negotiating position,” Warren Gunnels, senior policy advisor to Sen. Sanders, told Salon. LINK

Democratic Unity White House aides were amazed at how long and how close red state Senate Democrats stuck together while Republicans squirmed. Halfway through the shutdown, when Sen. Sanders blasted Republicans for the havoc they'd caused by resisting the president, Sens. Mark Begich and Jon Tester stood right beside him, joining the complaints. Now, according to Politico, Democrats have scattered. LINK

Republican Leadership Fight At least two candidates have stepped forward to take over a Vermont Republican Party which suffered sweeping defeats in the past two elections and has ceded complete control of state government to Democrats. John MacGovern, who lost a bid to unseat independent Sen. Sanders last fall, said Wednesday he is looking to replace current GOP Chairman Jack Lindley. Former Rutland state Rep. David Sunderland announced his own candidacy for the party’s leadership post Thursday, the Vermont Press Bureau reported. LINK

World

Obama Knew of Merkel Spying Since 2010, German Reports Say President Obama was personally informed of mobile phone tapping against German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which may have begun as early as 2002, German media reported Sunday. Bild am Sonntag newspaper quoted US intelligence sources as saying that National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander had briefed Obama on the operation against Merkel in 2010. "Obama did not halt the operation but rather let it continue," the newspaper quoted a high-ranking NSA official as saying. Meanwhile newsweekly Der Spiegel reported ahead of its Monday issue that leaked NSA documents showed Merkel's phone had appeared on a list of spying targets since 2002, and was still under surveillance weeks before Obama visited Berlin in June, AFP reported. LINK

National

Budget Conference While the most dire predictions about the impact of across-the-board cuts to federal spending cuts may not have materialized in 2013, the tricks that many agencies employed — deferring maintenance, using unspent money from earlier years, cutting staff by attrition — are likely to be exhausted by 2014, when federal departments must trim an additional $24 billion from already tight budgets. House and Senate budget negotiators, forced together by the deal that ended the recent 16-day government shutdown, will finally sit down on Wednesday to devise a spending plan for the current fiscal year. Though Republicans and Democrats remain far apart on virtually every matter of policy, they agree on one: sequestration must end, according to The New York Times. LINK

Vermont

Vermont Yankee Gov. Peter Shumlin's administration is recommending that the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant be allowed to continue operating through next year but must set aside at least $60 million to restore the site after it closes. Those recommendations came in a filing Friday to the state Public Service Board, which is deciding whether to grant the plant a certificate of public good, AP reported.

Rail Trail Another bridge has been installed as part of a 93-mile recreation trail that will run across northern Vermont.  The 110-foot bridge over a washout in Danville was installed Friday. Earlier this month a 75-foot bridge was installed in St. Johnsbury, toward the eastern end of the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. Once completed the trail will run from St. Johnsbury to Swanton.