At home in Vermont, health care, energy costs, after-school programs and cable television ripoffs all were high on Senator Bernie Sanders' agenda. Around the world, after years of stubborn refusal, the Bush administration agreed on "aspirational goals" for pulling troops out of Iraq. In quadrennial rites of summer, the Beijing Olympics wound down as Americans geared up for back-to-back presidential nominating conventions.

The War in Iraq A little more than two months before American elections and amid overwhelming opposition to President Bush's war in Iraq, the United States reportedly agreed to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by next June and from the rest of the country by the end of 2011 if conditions remain stable. "What that's all about is that the American people want to bring our troops home," Sanders told Air America Radio's Thom Hartmann Program. "It has been a long hard struggle to get the Bush administration to recognize that the Iraqi people have to take responsibility for their own country." To hear a podcast of Friday's Brunch with Bernie show, click here.

Health Care Sanders announced that a community health center based in Morrisville is now a full partner in a nationwide program that provides basic medical care, dental services, and low-cost prescription drugs. Community Health Services of the Lamoille Valley was awarded $487,500 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to make it the seventh Federally Qualified Health Center in Vermont. In future years, the center will be in line for $650,000 a year under the cost-effective and successful federal program. Sanders has been a leading advocate for health centers. There were only two centers in Vermont six years ago. Legislation to expand the program nationwide recently was introduced by Sanders, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, health committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and other key senators. To read more about it, click here.

Oil Speculators The Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined speculation in the crude oil futures markets. It found that so-called swap dealers maneuvered behind the scenes, exploiting their political influence and gaps in oversight to gain exemptions from regulatory limits and permission to set up new, unregulated markets. "Using swap dealers as middlemen, investment funds have poured into the commodity markets, raising their holdings to $260 billion this year from $13 billion in 2003. During that same period, the price of crude oil rose unabated every year," The Washington Post reported. Sanders told Vermont Public Radio that speculators drive up crude oil prices by as much as 50 percent. He is a cosponsor of legislation that would re-regulate the energy futures market and he hopes the plan will be included in a comprehensive energy bill next month. To read the Post article, click here. To listen to the VPR report, click here.

Cable Television Comcast reduced the number of analog channels earlier this summer, effectively forcing consumers to purchase a more expensive digital service if they wanted to keep their subscriber package. So many Vermonters complained that Sanders, an independent with a good instinct for monopolistic bad behavior, held a town meeting in Rutland to allow people to vent about Comcast's service. The place was packed, the Valley News said in an editorial. "Comcast's hegemony in the cable universe is not optimal for consumers. Cable deregulation in 1996 was supposed to lead to more competition and lower prices. Instead, as Sanders points out, cable prices have risen 77 percent since then, double the rate of inflation. Perhaps it's time more people complained not just about Comcast but also about the effects of cable deregulation. Send your complaints c/o the U.S. Congress to Washington, D.C. With any luck, your customer service representative might actually get the message." To read the Valley News editorial, click here. To read the ABC News report on cable price gouging, click here.