The Week in Review

As the new year began, Sen. Bernie Sanders laid out a progressive agenda for 2014. In a column and a webvideo, the senator outlined ways to deal with a host of key issues ranging from income inequality to global warming. The Senate is set to vote this coming Monday on extending benefits for the long-term unemployed. Sanders on Tuesday said raising the minimum wage also should be a top priority. And on Friday, he questioned the head of the National Security Agency about the scope of its domestic surveillance operations.

Plant Your Flag “If we are going to save the middle class and protect our planet, we need to change the political dynamics of the nation. We can no longer allow the billionaires and their think tanks or the corporate media to set the agenda,” Sanders wrote in a column on Monday for The Huffington Post. “You’ve got to plant your flag. We have to have some very specific legislation that the American people can rally around,” he said in a video outlining a progressive agenda for the new year. Read "2014: Seize the Moment", Watch "Plant Your Flag"

Restore Unemployment Benefits Unemployment benefits expired last weekend for 1.3 million Americans out of work for longer than 26 weeks. Unless Congress acts, the same fate awaits an additional 1.9 million people nationwide during the first half of 2014. A vote is set in the Senate on Monday to take up legislation to restore the benefits.  During an interview with Alex Witt on MSNBC, Sanders said cutting benefits not only hurts the unemployed, it hurts the overall economy. Watch the interview

Raise the Minimum Wage New Year’s Day brought an increase in the minimum wage in 13 states, including Vermont. Sanders made the case on Tuesday for an increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour. “States and communities are not waiting for Congress to raise the minimum wage.  They are doing the right thing because the simple truth is that working people cannot survive on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or $8 an hour or $9 an hour. If people work 40 hours a week, they deserve not to live in dire poverty,” Sanders said. Read more

NSA Spying Sanders on Friday asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress or other elected officials in the United States.  In a letter to Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director, Sanders also said he was concerned by revelations that American intelligence agencies harvested records of phone calls, emails and web activity by millions of Americans without any reason to even suspect involvement in illegal activities. Read the letter

Another Global Warming Warning Climate change may be far worse than scientists thought, causing global temperatures to more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Nature. Examining the effect clouds have on the planet, researchers found that as the planet heats, fewer sunlight-reflecting clouds form, causing temperatures to rise, according to a report on Tuesday in The Guardian. Read more in Nature