This Week Sunday talk show guests include Sens. Bernie Sanders and Graham on ABC's "This Week." Sen. Levin, former House Majority Leader Armey and former Bush White House counselor Ed Gillespie are on CBS' "Face the Nation." Bill and Melinda Gates and the Rev. Rick Warren are on NBC's "Meet the Press." Sens. Lugar and Jack Reed and Rep. David Obey are on CNN's "State of the Union." Sens. Kyl and Bayh, and former Govs. Huckabee and Dean are on "Fox News Sunday," The Associated Press reported. LINK

Health Care - Single Payer If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to get the 60 votes he will need to break a filibuster and pass a health care reform bill, he's going to have to include a robust public insurance option. Without that basic protection for consumers and taxpayers, Reid will lose the vote of Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats but has made no secret of his frustration with attempts to dumb down reform, John Nichols blogged for The Nation.  LINK

Health Care - Politics "Unhappiness about an escalation in the Afghanistan war and muddled healthcare reform could create a more liberal independent challenger. Take Howard Dean, for instance. The former Vermont governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee has been ripping ObamaCare lately and says he would vote with Sen. Sanders against it if he were a senator, according to Reuters. LINK

Credit Cards Following a rally in Charlotte last month, Wachovia are now negotiating with the North Carolina Industrial Areas Foundation on a proposal to limit interest rates for military veterans and to restructure at-risk mortgages to avoid foreclosures. Last week in Massachusetts, four Democratic candidates running to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy supported a cap  But in Washington, Sens. Dick Durbin and Sanders tried unsuccessfully to enact rate caps on consumer credit earlier this year, Durbin at 36 percent and Sanders at 15 percent, the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer reported. LINK

FM Radio The Local Community Radio Act, which would reauthorize the Federal Communications Commission to grant licenses to low-power FM radio stations and implement recommendations from an FCC report on low-power FM service, is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Maria Cantwell. It has bipartisan support - tripartisan if you include Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont. Cosponsoring on the GOP side of the floor is Sen. John McCain, last year's Republican candidate for president, according to the Baltimore Catholic Review. LINK

New England Independents "Third-party candidates tend to run strong when one party becomes so dominant that it becomes comfortable pushing unpopular policies. That seems to be happening now in the Democratic stronghold of New England.Maine elected James B. Longley in 1974 and Angus King in 1994 as independent governors. In 1990, Connecticut elected Lowell Weicker governor as an independent, while Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman currently represent Vermont and Connecticut as independent U.S. senators," according to The Wall Street Journal. LINK

International

Afghans Offer Jobs to Taliban The battlefield push is intended to lure local fighters and commanders away from the Taliban by offering them jobs in development projects that Afghan tribal leaders help select, paid by the American military and the Afghan government. By enlisting the tribal leaders to help choose the development projects, the Americans also hope to help strengthen both the Afghan government and the Pashtun tribal networks, according to The New York Times. LINK

2 Afghans Allege Abuse at U.S. Site Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban. The accounts could not be independently substantiated, according to The Washington Post. LINK

Dubai Debt Woes Dubai is stuck with a glut of real estate that no one wants to buy or rent. Creditors and markets had always assumed that when push came to shove, its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi would bail out Dubai. But that assumption was called into question this week, and the resulting fear that Dubai might not be able to pay its bills sent a wave of uncertainty rippling through markets just as investors thought the worst of the global financial instability was over, according to The New York Times. LINK

National

Black Friday Retailers succeeded in enticing deal-hungry shoppers into their stores on Friday, but at the checkout lines many people were sticking to the most deeply discounted items. That may prove to be a disappointment to executives at the nation's major chain stores, which have been battered by the recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

Vermont

Unemployment Benefits Vermont Department of Labor officials say they've begun notifying some people receiving jobless benefits that they could be eligible for more.  The added benefits are available thanks to something called the Workers Assistance Act, which was signed into law by President Obama earlier this month, AP reported. LINK