Senator Sanders

Health Care Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday said Vermont could lead the nation toward a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system that provides better care for more people at less cost. The state in 2017 plans to implement a new universal health care system like every other major nation already has and like the one Barack Obama promised for the country when he campaigned for the White House in 2008, MSNBC reported. Sanders said health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry oppose the move because they would lose their lucrative advantages under the current setup that wastes money on bureaucracy and paperwork. VIDEO

Save Social Security Sen. Sanders’ coalition to protect Social Security and Medicare has gathered nearly 500,000 petition signatures in a matter of days. “To put into context how successful this petition drive has been, it took months and a national television advertising campaign for Ted Cruz’s defund Obamacare petition to get to 2 million signatures,” Jason Easley wrote for Politicususa. LINK

Save Social Security Polls show that Democrats, Republicans and independents overwhelmingly do not want to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, but people like the Koch brothers believe in a very different kind of America. They want Congress to end or drastically reduce government involvement in retirement programs (Social Security) and health care (Medicare and Medicaid) while also giving more tax breaks to the rich and large corporations, Sen. Sanders wrote in a column published Sunday by the Burlington Free Press. LINK 

Save Social Security Sen. Sanders of Vermont is leading the opposition to cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Sanders is working with many groups to try and find a way to balance the budget without taking away from working families and the poor. "At a time when the number of people living in poverty in our country is at an all-time high, we must not cut programs which provide basic security to tens of millions of our people who are struggling economically,” Sanders said in a Sunday morning report on WPTZ-TV. VIDEO

Veterans’ COLA The Senate last week passed the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act, sponsored by Sen. Sanders, to provide a cost-of-living increase in compensation for military veterans with service-connected disabilities, according to a summary of key votes in Congress distributed to newspapers nationwide.  

National

NSA Spies on Friends When United Nations secretary General Ban Ki-moon sat down with President Obama at the White House in April to discuss Syrian chemical weapons, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and climate change, it was a cordial, routine exchange. The National Security Agency nonetheless in advance intercepted Ban’s talking points for the meeting, a feat the agency later reported as an “operational highlight” in a weekly internal brag sheet. It was emblematic of an agency that has operated on the principle that any eavesdropping that can be done on a foreign target of any conceivable interest should be done. Thousands of classified documents show  the National Security Agency as an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other targets of their secrets, The New York Times reported. LINK

White House ’16 Sen. Charles E. Schumer used a speech to Iowa Democrats on Saturday night to endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, another indication of how quickly the party is coalescing behind the former secretary of state. Speaking in the state that helped lift President Obama’s campaign and dashed Clinton’s hopes in the 2008 caucuses, Schumer said the time was right that year for Obama. “2016 is Hillary’s time,” Schumer declared at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson Dinner. “And our nation will be all the better for it,” The Des Moines Register reported. LINK

Vermont

Child Poverty in Vermont In 2007, state leaders created a high-profile task force and gave it a daunting challenge: Cut childhood poverty by half in 10 years. As the effort by the Childhood Poverty Council moves into its sixth year, however, the number of children living below the federal poverty line has actually increased, according to U.S. Census data. And top officials and advocates say the goal will almost certainly go unrealized. “I am quite pessimistic about that,” Human Services Secretary Doug Racine told the council last week, the Times Argus and Rutland Herald reported. LINK

Brattleboro Homeless Shelter A winter shelter for the homeless in Brattleboro will open Sunday, a month earlier than usual because of increased demand that some say was brought about by federal budget cuts, AP reported. LINK

Shumlin on White House Climate Council The White House has announced that Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin will serve on a nationwide task force on ‘‘Climate Preparedness and Resilience.’’ A total of 26 officials from around the country, including eight governors, local officials and two tribal representatives, have been named to the panel, AP reported. LINK