President Obama and members of Congress held town hall meetings on the need for health care reform and to dispel myths about the legislation. Senator Bernie Sanders is hosting meetings on Saturday in Rutland and Arlington. While some town meetings were disrupted by protesters, Sanders said that in Vermont “people understand that you treat people with respect. In this state, at least, people listen to other people. If they disagree with them, they are polite about it." Health care was the subject of the senator’s weekly video program, “Senator Sanders Unfiltered.” He also talked about health care and the Vermont tradition of town meetings in a column for The Huffington Post. To watch the video, click here. To read the column, click here.

Town Meetings “In some parts of the country, the meetings have been dominated by hostile crowds shouting down Senators and representatives. The protestors’ high-pitched rhetoric and over-the-top accusations about socialism and death panels are drowning out serious debate about this critical issue,” The Burlington Free Press said in an editorial. “This is another chance for Vermonters to show the rest of the nation how democracy works in a civilized society…[H]ealth care reform calls for vigorous public debate. Our representatives in Washington from the president on down must answer the difficult questions and addressed even the most far-fetched fears. None of this will be accomplished unless the exchange remains civil." To read the editorial, click here.

Health Care “The issue is whether we are going to have legislation that addresses the very serious crisis facing the American people,” Sanders said. “If we do not get our act together in terms of health care, if we don’t join the rest of the world in guaranteeing health care to all people, if we don’t control costs, it will be devastating not only to people in an individual way, but it’ll be devastating to the economy of our country.” To watch Senator Sanders on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” click here.

Drug Deals After Sen. Sanders read reports that the White House told the drug industry it would not pursue legislation to permit importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and Europe, he was assured by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel there was no such deal. Later, however, A White House spokeswoman allowed that worried pharmaceutical company executives were told that "health insurance reform that lowers costs, including pharmaceutical costs, would probably make such legislation unnecessary." Sanders views that as a dubious assumption and intends to continue to pursue the provision, the Los Angeles Times reported. To read the article, click here.

Energy Plans are moving forward to create a new federal "clean energy bank" that could ladle out funding and guarantees for new technologies. Nuclear, "clean coal," wind, and solar energy would all benefit from federal backing. To ensure that all technologies get a fair shot at loan guarantees, the House energy bill has a 30 percent cap on the amount any one technology could receive. The Senate version does not have a cap, which worries Senator Sanders. His proposed 20 percent cap was swatted down by members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. To read more about it in The Christian Science Monitor, click here.

Dairy Crisis  “Last Friday, for the first time in 144 years, no one at the Borland family farm got out of bed in the pre-dawn hours—rain, shine, searing heat, or blinding blizzard—to milk the cows. A day earlier, all of Ken Borland’s cattle and machinery had been auctioned off. After six generations on the same 400 acres of rolling pastures, lush fields, and forested hillsides tucked up close to the Canadian border in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom, the Borlands were no longer a farm family. It was not a decision they wanted to make,” Vermont writer Barry Estabrook wrote in a sad story about a farmer forced to sell the farm that had been in the same family for six genertions. To read more of the poignant piece called “Selling the Farm,” click here.