Senator Sanders

Obama U-turn on Health Insurance President Barack Obama reversed course Thursday and said millions of Americans should be allowed to renew individual coverage plans cancelled under the health care law. Sen. Bernie Sanders supported Obama’s attempt to keep his promise to consumers who wanted to retain their current insurance, the Valley News reported. But Sanders told Politico he remains concerned that many insurance plans do not provide sufficient coverage. LINK, LINK

The Solution “I get very tired of the carping of our Republican friends who have completely forever ignored the health care crisis in the country, 48 million uninsured, we as a nation are the only country in the industrialized world not to guarantee health care, 45,000 people die each year because they don’t get to a doctor on time and at the end of all that we end up spending almost twice as much as any other country for health care, which is why, by the way, I am a strong advocate of a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program,” Sen. Sanders told Chris Hayes on MSNBC. VIDEO

Senate Democrats Tight Lipped Senate Democrats met with administration officials Thursday in a closed-door caucus meeting to discuss the health care law and plans for moving forward. After the meeting, senators were tight-lipped. “Sen. Mark Begich practically sprinted from the meeting room to a nearby elevator. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp spoke at length to a reporter about an unrelated energy-regulation issue, but when Obamacare came up she professed an urgent need to get to the Senate floor,” according to National Review. “Give me a ring in the office on that one, ok?” the “normally loquacious” Sen. Sanders said. LINK

Raise the Minimum Wage Sen. Bernie Sanders is part of a move to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. “We have a shot to do it because the American people are very clear about what they want," Sanders said Thursday on The Ed Schultz Show. Seventy-six percent of the American people want the minimum wage raised. AUDIO

Hands Off Social Security Rep. Paul Ryan’s congressional office was presented with a petition signed by more than 700,000 Americans saying “no” to cuts in Social Security, Common Dreams and Daily Kos reported.  Sen. Sanders spearheaded the effort in the Senate. “I will do my best to make sure that we don’t cut these very important programs, which are life and death to millions of Americans,” Sanders said. LINK, LINK

Border Crossing Delays Long lines at Vermont’s border with Canada, exacerbated by a staffing shortage, are frustrating travelers. Rep. Peter Welch said at a House hearing on Thursday that he’s heard travelers have to wait up to an hour to enter Vermont even after paying $50 for a card designed to let pre-screened travelers cross the border quickly. Customs and Border Protection officials pledged in August to add 20 more officers in Vermont. They are in the process of adding 15 and are working to add more, according to staff for Sen. Sanders. LINK

Sanders, Markey Press NRC on Entergy Finances Sens. Edward Markey and Sanders are demanding to know why top Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials allegedly prevented their staff from pursuing Entergy for more information last summer about the company's financial ability to operate its fleet of reactors. After Entergy contacted the NRC, the final requests for information from commission technicians were not published, according to the Cape Cod Times. LINK

Community Health Centers Gifford Medical Center last week gained the coveted designation as a Federally Qualified Health Center, which brings significant financial benefits, will allow it to provide access to both dental and mental health services to the hospital’s “underserved” patients as part of the primary health care they receive. The announcement of an initial $812,500 grant to kick start the new services came from Sen. Sanders, The Herald of Randolph reported.

Grants for Rural Housing Four Vermont groups are going to be getting $350,000 in federal grants to improve housing conditions for low-income rural residents, The Associated Press and Burlington Free Press reported. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Sanders and Rep. Welch said Thursday the investments in housing improvements will make lives and communities better, according to a Brattleboro Reformer editorial. LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK

The Fed At a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday for Janet Yellen to head the Federal Reserve, Democrats seemed to be the only people at the hearing interested in the issue of transparency, a topic which should have enjoyed bipartisan consensus. Sen. Sanders pushed for a Fed audit - a move which should be celebrated across the political spectrum, Richard Eskow wrote for The Huffington Post. LINK

White House ’16 Almost a thousand days away from the next presidential election, the media refuses is obsessively covering potential candidates. All the speculative talk about Gov. Chris Christie, Hillary Clinton, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders is wasteful when there are issues to address and legislation to pass, says William Rivers Pitt in a Truthout opinion piece. LINK

Wall St. Gambling A recent series in The Washington Post has revealed that nonprofit assets are being used like casino gaming chips by the banking industry, Nonprofit Quarterly reported. Sen. Sanders has described Wall Street as “the largest gambling casino the world has ever seen.” LINK

Syrup Bandits Sen. Leahy chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday to highlight the problem of overcrowding in federal prisons.  With the inmate population 40 percent over capacity, Walter Pavlo wrote for Forbes that Leahy and other senators should look at their own laws. He cited, for example, a Leahy bill, cosponsored by Sen. Sanders, which called for a federal prison term of up to five years for “fraudulently representing a product” as maple syrup. LINK

Socialist in Seattle Kshama Sawant, a young Indian-American activist-academic, is poised to become the first self-labeled socialist to be elected to public office in the United States, The Times of India reported. Some liberal politicians, such as Sen. Sanders, loosely describe themselves as socialists. Sawant is running for a seat in the Seattle City Council. LINK

Vermont Republicans ‘Back from the Dead’ “The Vermont Republican Party may have taken its first, admittedly tentative step towards becoming a relevant voice in state politics again,” according to the Bennington Banner and Manchester Journal. An editorial that ran in both papers said the election of David Sunderland, a former state representative from Rutland, over John McGovern, who ran unsuccessfully against Sanders in 2012, “reflected the national debate underway within Republican ranks.” LINK

World

Iran Halts Nuclear Expansion Since Hassan Rouhani became president, Iran has stopped expanding its uranium enrichment capacity, according to a United Nations inspection report cited by Reuters. The strategic slowdown is seen as an effort to boost diplomacy ahead of negotiations with the West. LINK

National

Yellen at Senate Confirmation Hearing Janet Yellen defended the Federal Reserve’s steps to spur economic growth as the Senate Banking Committee weighed her nomination to serve as head of the Federal Reserve, Reuters reported. If confirmed by the Senate, the former professor and long-time public servant will become the most powerful woman in the history of world finance. LINK

Koch Brothers Spending Soars Americans for Prosperity — the main political arm of billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch — spent a staggering $122 million last year as it unsuccessfully attempted to defeat President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of documents filed in Colorado. The Huffington Post said that's more than the total amount the group had previously spent from its formation in 2004 through 2011. During its previous eight years of existence, Americans for Prosperity spent a combined $72 million, a review of Internal Revenue Service records indicates. LINK

Big Labor Spending Soars Despite predictions that right-wing money would flood the political system after the Supreme Court threw out key campaign finance laws, a survey finds that left-leaning groups, led by labor unions, outspent conservative donors like the billionaire Koch brothers in state political advertising wars last year. A study released this week by the Center for Public Integrity found that groups supportive of Democrats, led by labor unions, outpaced their GOP rivals by more than $8 million in those states, spending some $44 million to aid Democratic campaigns, The Washington Times reported. LINK

Foreign Investment in U.S. Media The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday said it is open to allowing greater foreign investment in U.S. radio and television stations, but may ask companies to free up more airwaves for wireless broadband in exchange, The Wall Street Journal reported. Arguing that the move would open up new sources of capital and boost diversity among station owners, the FCC voted unanimously to allow exceptions to the decades-old limit of 25 percent foreign ownership of TV and radio stations. LINK

Vermont

Single Payer Costs Questioned Consultants hired by a partnership of health and business organizations on Thursday told a legislative panel the state underestimated how much would need to be raised from a yet-to-be-determined source for the universal health care system. Robin Lunge, director of health care reform for the Shumlin administration, disputed their conclusions, the Burlington Free Press reported. LINK

Clean Energy Alliance Vermont is joining four other New England states to work on reducing the cost of solar power, The Associated Press reported. The Vermont Public Service Departments says the state will be working with Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island to reduce costs in a national nonprofit group called the Clean Energy States Alliance. LINK

Health Signups Continue As of Thursday, 3,746 Vermonters have chosen health insurance through the state's online exchange, according to The Associated Press. More than 14,570 have set up an account on the website. LINK