Senator Sanders

Here’s Another Reason to Love Bernie Sanders:  “We can provide primary healthcare to every American in need of it through an expansion of the successful Federally Qualified Health Center program,” the senator wrote in an op-ed published in The Hill. “On a budget of only $2 billion a year, this program provides primary healthcare, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs to 17 million people through 1,100 health center organizations in every region of the country.” Way to go Bernie!“ effused the National Association of Community Health Centers. LINK

 
Pollina Sheds Progressive Party Label Anthony Pollina, the Progressive Party's highest-profile candidate, will drop the party's label in this fall's election and run for governor as an independent, he announced Monday…Pollina invoked the names Bernie Sanders and Jim Jeffords, current and former U.S. senators, respectively, who have enjoyed support as independents. "People have said they will feel more inclined to vote for an independent in the mold of Bernie Sanders," he said, according to The Burlington Free Press. LINK

 
The First Debate “With Pollina in the race, Symington may think back with a measure of worry to an election from 1988. In that race, Peter Smith was the Republican running for Congress against independent Bernard Sanders and Democrat Paul Poirier. Sanders was the popular iconoclast, and Poirier was a legislative insider. Smith won, and Poirier finished a distant third. Symington is a stronger, more persuasive candidate than Poirier was, and Anthony is no Bernie. Still, the election of 1988 showed that when a legislative insider competes with an impassioned outsider for votes on the left, the winner may be the moderate Republican,” the Rutland Herald said in an editorial. LINK

 
Hart Building Suicide Averted A man who was precariously perched atop the protective wall that surrounds the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building for hours last night and early this morning came down safely, U.S. Capitol police said, and the building will be open as usual today. The man, who police said had limited command of English but spoke Mandarin, climbed onto the wall and stood near its edge about 5:45 p.m. yesterday…"Let's hope it turns out okay," Sen. Bernard Sanders told The Washington Post as he headed home shortly before 10 p.m. LINK

International

Iraq Points to Pullout in 2010   Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama conferred with senior Iraqi leaders, U.S. officials and military commanders Monday, as a spokesman for the Iraqi government declared that it would like U.S. combat forces to complete their withdrawal by the end of 2010. The comments by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh mark the second time in recent days that a senior Iraqi has endorsed a timetable for U.S. withdrawal that is roughly similar to the one advocated by Obama, The Washington Post reported. LINK

 
Bosnian Serb Under Arrest in War Crimes Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals for his part in the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, was arrested Monday in a raid in Serbia that ended a 13-year hunt, The New York Times reported. Mr. Karadzic’s exact place of arrest was not announced, but Serbian government officials said he was arrested by the Serbian secret police not far from Belgrade, the capital. LINK

 
National

Wachovia Posts Huge Loss Moving quickly to put an end to the constant spill of red ink, the Wachovia Corporation, the banking giant, booked an $8.9 billion loss and slashed its dividend its first quarter under new leadership, The New York Times reported. LINK

 
Bush Prods Congress, as Financers Are Inspected Bank examiners from the Federal Reserve and the Comptroller of the Currency are inspecting the books of the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as the Bush administration prods Congress to approve a plan that would enable it to inject billions of dollars into the companies. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., in a meeting on Monday with reporters and editors of The New York Times, said the Fed and the comptroller’s office began combing the books of the two companies after their declining stock prices caused widespread anxiety in the market. LINK

 
Congress Is Set to Limit Down-Payment Assistance Mortgage programs that helped nearly 79,000 people buy homes using government-insured loans last year would be eliminated as part of a broader housing package that Congress expects to pass this week, key lawmakers said. Under these programs, nonprofit groups provide buyers with money for down payments. Home sellers then reimburse the organizations and pay an administrative fee. More than half a million people -- including many first-time home buyers, minorities and single mothers -- have bought homes this way in the past decade using loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, according to The Washington Post. LINK

 
Women Are Now Equal as Victims of Poor Economy They had piled into jobs in growing numbers since the 1960s. But that stopped happening this decade, and as the nearly seven-year-old recovery gives way to hard times, the retreat is likely to accelerate. Indeed, for the first time since the women’s movement came to life, an economic recovery has come and gone, and the percentage of women at work has fallen, not risen, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, according to The New York Times. LINK

 
Hearing Will Tackle 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Democrats in Congress hope to ignite a drive to reverse the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy Wednesday with the first hearing on the subject since 1993, when President Clinton said gays could serve in uniform if they kept quiet about their sexual orientation, USA Today reported.  LINK

 
New (and Unlikely) Tell-All Jason K. Burnett, Washington’s environmental whistle-blower du jour, is an example of a once rare, now almost common, phenomenon: a political appointee willing to tell much of what he knows of the inner workings of the formerly opaque Bush administration…More will be offered Tuesday when he appears before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, The New York Times reported. LINK

 
McCain VP Pick This Week? “Sources close to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign are suggesting he will reveal the name of his vice presidential selection this week while Sen. Barack Obama is getting the headlines on his foreign trip. The name of McCain's running mate has not been disclosed, but Mitt Romney has led the speculation recently,” according to the Evans and Novak (a.k.a. Errors and No Facts) Political Report. LINK

Vermont

No Special Session There won't be a special summer session for lawmakers this year. Gov. Douglas met with House and Senate leaders for nearly an hour Monday afternoon to discuss holding a special legislative session on sex offenders, but they emerged from that meeting with no agreement, the Vermont Press Bureau reported. LINK

 
Nuclear Board Convenes Yankee Hearings A federal panel Monday started to tackle nagging questions about the safety of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and whether it can operate safely for another 20 years. The Atomic Safety Licensing Board, a quasi-judicial arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, started hearing evidence Monday on key safety issues raised by the New England Coalition, which were formally seconded by the Vermont Department of Public Service, according to the Rutland Herald. LINK