Senator Sanders

Health Care - Public Option Sanders said on the Today Show on NBC, "It would be outrageous to me that you have an overwhelming majority of Americans wanting a strong public option that we do not deliver that."  He told SNBC's Ed Schultz, "If the bill ends up being nothing more than hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for the insurance companies and the drug companies, if it`s not affordable for the middle class, if we don`t have a public option...then I think it`s not worth proceeding." VIDEO, VIDEO

Health Care - Single Payer A plan to create a national single-payer system like Canada's, in which the federal government would be the only source of financing for all health care services, isn't politically viable, but Sanders told The Burlington Free Press and Bennington Banner he is trying to include a provision in the bill that would allow each state to create its own single-payer system. LINK and LINK

Health Care - Abortion "It is hard to imagine that with a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, we would take a major step backward in a struggle that women have engaged in for decades. So, it just seems to me inconceivable that that can remain in the bill," Sanders told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. VIDEO

Health Care - Deadline "To my mind, it`s infinitely more important to get it right. This bill is going to cost $1 trillion over a 10-year period. Where is that money coming from? Is it going to come from a tax on the health care benefits of middle-class workers or are we going to raise that money in a progressive way? How many people will have access to a public option? Will it be 5 percent? Will it be 50 percent? How do we make sure that the insurance companies are not going to raise their rates rapidly," he told MSNBC's Maddow. VIDEO

Health Care - Public Forum The public is invited to a forum to discuss health care reform and the single-payer system at 7 p.m. tonight at the Hotel Coolidge in White River Junction. Phil Fiermonte, representing Sen. Sanders will also be available to answer questions at the forum, the Rutland Herald reported. LINK

Too Big to Fail Sen. Sanders proposed legislation to break up financial institutions too big to fail, The Burlington Free Press reported. "Now THIS is legislation to get behind," Rolfe Winker wrote in Reuters Blog. "God bless Bernie Sanders," a Daily Kos blogger wrote. "If it's too big to fail, it's too big to exist," Sanders said on The Hill blog. A Fed governor told Bloomberg proposals to separate trading from deposit taking and lending wouldn't dispel the perception that some firms are too big to fail. LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK and LINK

Too Big to Exist The Times of London said, "A U.S. Senator is demanding that Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, identify which banks are too big to fail and break them up." Sanders' idea "is gaining traction and is whizzing around the electronic ether in London" on YouTube. On a skeptical note, Andrew Leonard blogged on Salon that  "Sanders' bill works nicely as a populist thermometer for measuring rage against the Wall Street machine, but it is more an act of political theater than a step toward realizable policy." LINK and LINK

International

Future of Palestinian Authority Is in Question The collapse of the Palestinian Authority, Israel's negotiating partner, was raised as a possibility on Monday, as several aides to its president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that he intended to resign and forecast that others would follow, according to The New York Times. LINK

National

U.S. Knew of Suspect's Tie to Radical Cleric Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and this year between the military psychiatrist accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Obamas to Attend Fort Hood Service President Barack Obama and the first lady will travel to Killeen, Texas, to meet with those most affected by the Fort Hood shootings. The first couple will talk privately with families of those killed and with wounded soldiers and their families, according to AP. LINK

Bill Clinton Meets With Senate Dems on Health Care Former President Bill Clinton knows just how high the political stakes are in the fight to overhaul America's health care system. His failed attempt to revamp the delivery of medical care contributed to the Republican takeover of the House and Senate in 1994, AP reported. LINK

Financial Services Overhaul Sen. Christopher Dodd will propose creating a single U.S. regulator that would strip the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. of bank- supervision authority, Bloomberg reported. LINK

Vermont

Health Care - Welch Rep. Peter Welch told Vermont Public Radio it's critical that Congress finish work on a health care bill this year, before the issue gets even more politicized. The House passed the bill this weekend. But it faces a possible filibuster in the Senate by opponents of a government-backed insurance plan. LINK

The Great Recession Vermonters can expect declines in inflation-adjusted income in the next two years as the pace of Vermont's recovery lags behind the national rate through 2013, according to the Vermont Economic Outlook report. "By the time the ‘Great Recession' ends in Vermont either later this calendar year, this downturn will almost assuredly be the longest, most difficult downturn for the Vermont economy dating back to the 1930s," according to the report covered by The Burlington Free Press. LINK

Lake Champlain Bridge The Lake Champlain Bridge is beyond repair, transportation officials from Vermont and New York said today. New York Gov. David A. Paterson and Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas have received a report from their states' respective transportation agencies, and the verdict is that it is not feasible to rehabilitate the 80-year-old bridge, The Burlington Free Press reported. LINK

Appalachian Trail A federal grant is helping to conserve 1,000 acres of land along a stretch of the Appalachian Trail in two Central Vermont towns. The $625,000 will be used to help reach the $1.75 million purchase price to conserve land along the trail in the towns of Barnard and Bridgewater, a parcel known as the Chateauguay No Town property, the AP reported. LINK

Veterans Honored In a Statehouse ceremony Monday, Gov. Jim Douglas, Brigadier Gen. Thomas Drew and other state officials presented Vermont medals to 19 veterans or their family members. Among them: 88-year-old Hilda Fitzgerald Danaher, of Milton, a former nurse who worked in operating rooms in the European theater during World War II and attended the ceremony, the AP reported. LINK

Burlington Telecom The City Council voted unanimously Monday to make public the exchange between city attorneys and the administration of Mayor Bob Kiss about Burlington Telecom's violation of a condition of its state license to provide cable television service, The Burlington Free Press reported. LINK