Senator Sanders

Afghanistan - Vermont Guard "There is debate all over this country about Afghanistan, but there is no debate about your mission...training that [Afghan] army to stand up against some very vicious people," Sen. Bernie Sanders told a farewell ceremony today for the first of nearly 1,500 Vermont National Guard soldiers going to Afghanistan. At the University of Vermont event broadcast live on WCAX, Sanders also told families of the departing guard members, "We are going to be with you as well as with the men and women in combat." VIDEO 

Afghanistan - The Surge The comments from Vermont's two senators and sole congressman were dripping with disappointment last week after Obama's speech at West Point announcing his new war policy and troop surge. "My nightmare is that we may get caught in a quagmire situation from which there will be no successful exit," said Sen. Sanders, an independent, who also wondered where the "rest of the world" was in making troop commitments to Afghanistan, according to the Times Argus and Rutland Herald. LINK

Health Care President Obama plans to attend a Democratic Senate caucus meeting as leaders struggle to win support for the healthcare bill, the White House said. Sen. Bernie Sanders said after a morning meeting with Democratic leaders that he told them there has been enough compromise on the public option, UPI reported. Sanders said on CNN, "I would be very reluctant to support legislation that did not have a strong public option." LINK

Hold on Bernanke Sen. Sanders put a hold on Bernanke's confirmation, CNN reported on Saturday. Leigh Gallagher, the senior editor at "Fortune," predicted that Bernanke will be confirmed. "Everybody missed the warning signs, the Fed included. "I think Senator Sanders was wrong in only one respect: it wasn't that the Fed was asleep at the switch; they were actually complicit," Eliot Spitzer said on Democracy Now. LINK, VIDEO and VIDEO

Student Loans "Concern has been raised that direct lending would...weaken or even eliminate the Vermont Student Assistance Corp. [but] servicing loans...would continue to be done by private companies...Sen. Sanders, who serves on the education committee, told me...he sees no conflict between supporting direct lending and supporting VSAC," Madeleine Kunin, a former Vermont governor and deputy secretary of education in the Clinton administration, wrote in The Burlington Free Press. LINK

International

Obama Pressed for Faster Surge President Obama, seated at the head of a conference table strewn with papers in the White House Situation Room, stared at charts showing various options for sending additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported. LINK

National

Senate Clears Way for Home Health Care Cuts Snowflakes swirled around the Capitol on Saturday, whipped by wintry winds, but on the Senate floor inside, a heated debate raged as Democrats and Republicans traded jabs over legislation to achieve President Obama's goal of near-universal health insurance coverage, The New York Times reported. LINK

Deals Cut with Health Groups in Peril Heading into a make-or-break week, Senate Democratic leaders are struggling to preserve the fragile support of interest groups for an overhaul of the nation's health-care system, even as lawmakers seek to change the carefully crafted provisions that brought the groups on board, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Overhaul Could Price Out Many While bills in Congress would make insurance more accessible for millions of Americans, advocates worry that the Senate bill would impose significant financial burdens on some of the families who will now be required to buy coverage, according to The Boston Globe. LINK

In Tuesday Speech, Obama to Promote Jobs Ideas In his latest job creation effort, President Barack Obama is trying to find practical and politically feasible ways of spurring hiring among skittish employers, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Vermont

Head Start Stimulus Champlain Valley Head Start has been awarded federal funding to start an "Early Head Start" program. CVHS, a program within the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, has been notified by the Department of Health and Human Services that it will get money from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or stimulus, for the new program, AP reported. LINK