Sen. Bernie Sanders will host town meetings on Saturday in Barnet, Cabot and Morrisville to hear Vermonters’ views on the economy. “It’s the only way I can be a good senator,” he told the Stowe reporter. Working during Congress’ August recess, Sanders also organized a campaign by 50 senators to stop Postal Service plant closings and job losses. He marked Thursday’s 79^th anniversary of Social Security, “the most successful federal program in modern American history.” And in a widely-published newspaper column, the senator talked about what unites Americans, from the need to create good-paying jobs to closing loopholes corporations exploit to evade taxes. 

Vermont Town Meetings Sanders said he looks forward to the town meetings as an opportunity to discuss the need for a massive jobs program, income and wealth inequality, health care, college affordability and any other issue of concern to Vermonters. “I love doing them because I think it gives people the opportunity in a very informal, open session to exchange ideas with me and other people, and tell me what’s on their mind,” Sanders told the Stowe Reporter. He’ll do another Tuesday evening in Jericho at the Mount Mansfield Union High School.  Read more in the Stowe Reporter

United We Stand Overwhelming majorities of Americans understand that that the middle class is disappearing; that unemployment is too high; wealth and income inequality is a threat; that corporate tax loopholes must be closed; that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and college financial aid must not be cut; that global warming threatens our planet and that billionaires should not be allowed to buy elections. “Progressives, moderates and conservatives are surprisingly united. We should build on that unity,” Sanders wrote in a column published in Vermont newspapers. Read the column

Income and Wealth Inequality “This country has more serious problems today than any time since the Great Depression,” Sanders said in an interview with Jeff Zeleny of ABC News. “You have today in America more income and wealth inequality than any time in this country since 1928 and more than any major country in the world,” Sanders said in the interview broadcast on Monday. Watch the interview

Missouri Protests The St. Louis suburb were an unarmed black teen was shot by a police officer last weekend experienced days and nights of tense clashes as police clad in riot gear confronted protesters. That changed on Thursday, when state troopers took over for the county sheriff’s office and walked side-by-side with thousands of peaceful protesters. There also were rallies around the country Thursday in sympathy for the victim, Michael Brown. In Burlington, Vermont, about 50 people gathered at City Hall Park. "The shooting of an unarmed person is unacceptable,” Sanders said. “I support calls for a thorough federal investigation. In the meantime, people have a right to peacefully protest. Police must be seen as part of a community and not an occupying force."

Iraq Sanders on Wednesday said the United States should not have to go it alone against the militant forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “The United States is not the only country on Earth with an air force. While I support President Obama’s decision to use airstrikes to protect the lives of thousands of innocent people of the Yazidi minority, the U.S. should not have to act alone militarily in this crisis.  ISIS is a danger to the entire region and to the world.  The international community must work with the U.S.”

Global Warming More than 13 inches of rain deluged Islip, New York, on Wednesday. The same storm system turned roads into rivers in Baltimore and Detroit on Tuesday. Record-breaking rain storms are becoming more common as the planet gets warmer, climate scientists said. For every degree the temperature rises, the atmosphere can hold 7 percent more evaporated moisture. “Global warming encourages what would have been a normal rainstorm to become a real downpour and increases the risk of flooding,” Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, told ABC News.

Stop Postal Service Cuts A letter signed by 50 senators said Congress should block a proposal by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to close up to 82 mail processing plants, slow mail services and eliminate up to 15,000 jobs. The letter urged leaders of a key Senate committee to include a one-year ban on mail delivery cuts as part of must-pass legislation to keep the government running into the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. “This one-year moratorium will give Congress the time it needs to enact the comprehensive postal reforms that are necessary for the Postal Service to function effectively into the future,” the senators wrote. The letter was drafted and circulated by Sens. Sanders, Jon Tester and Tammy Baldwin.

Social Security Turns 79 The law creating Social Security was signed on Aug. 14, 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Before Social Security, about half of all senior citizens in the U.S. lived in poverty.  Today, 9.1 percent live in poverty. “Social Security has been the most successful anti-poverty program in American history,” Sanders said. “We must oppose all efforts to cut Social Security and fight hard to expand it.” He stressed that Social Security has not contributed to federal deficits and $2.76 trillion surplus in the trust fund can pay all benefits owed to every eligible American for   the next 19 years.