Senator Sanders

Afghanistan President Obama plans a Tuesday night speech from West Point, N.Y., on his plans to send up to 35,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. "I've got a real problem with expanding this war...I want to see some real international cooperation," Sanders said on ABC's "This Week." The Vermont independent also worried about the rising war costs, The Associated Press and Fox News reported. LINK, LINK and VIDEO

Health Care The Senate is set to start debate tomorrow on the health care overhaul. "If you don't have that public option...you're not going to have the cost containment we need. I would be very reluctant to support legislation that did not have a strong public option," Sen. Sanders told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. In the Senate, where the bill can't pass without 60 votes, Sanders is among the people to watch, according to The Washington Times. LINK, LINK, LINK  and VIDEO

Federal Reserve Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke goes before a Senate committee this week for a confirmation hearing. Foreign Policy magazine named him the world's top thinker for 2009. Sanders told ABC News he would not vote to confirm Bernanke. "No, I absolutely will not vote for Mr. Bernanke. He is part of the problem. He's the smartest guy in the world? Why didn't he do anything to prevent us from sinking into this disaster that Wall Street caused and which he was a part of? No, I will not vote for Bernanke to stay on as chairman." LINK

Too Big Sanders introduced the Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act. "Sanders' approach is a breath of fresh air compared to the financial reform bills circulated by the Obama administration, Sen. Christopher Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank. The Sanders bill is simple, straightforward and effective," Jeffrey R. Scharf, president of Scharf Investments, wrote in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. LINK 

Environment Vermont's environmental literacy project is working to create a roadmap for environmental literacy throughout Vermont, including a pre-school component that meets the requirements of environmentalliteracy legislation cosponsored by Sen. Sanders and Rep. Peter Welchm, the Rutland Herald reported. LINK

International

Marines to Target Taliban Days after President Obama outlines his new war strategy in a speech Tuesday, as many as 9,000 Marines will begin final preparations to deploy to southern Afghanistan and renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold that slowed this year amid a troop shortage and political pressure from the Afghan government, senior U.S. officials told The Washington Post. LINK

Pakistan Leader Pressured to Cede Nuclear Office President Asif Ali Zardari has ceded his position in Pakistan's nuclear command structure to his prime minister, in a sudden political maneuver widely seen as a fresh sign of turmoil on the eve of President Obama's strategy announcement for the region, The New York Times reported. LINK

National

Food Stamps With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs, The New York Times reported. LINK

Benanke Column The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board warned that provisions in financial legislation before the House and Senate would "seriously impair" the Fed as it struggled to maintain financial and economic stability. In a column in The Washington Post, Ben S. Bernanke sharply criticized a Senate provision that he said "would strip the Fed of all its bank regulatory powers." LINK

Vermont

College Gender Gap Women outnumber men at the University of Vermont as they do on most college campuses. At UVM, they represent 56 percent of the school's 10,371 undergraduates and have been a majority since the 1970s. The shift and others like it were hailed by many as a victory for a sex that historically was shut out of higher education and the opportunities it confers, The Burlington Free Press reported. LINK