Sanders Brings Top U.S. Fire Official to Vermont

“There wasn’t a hint of smoke, but that didn’t stop more than 100 firefighters from dozens of departments from responding to Randolph Union High School on Saturday morning,” the Rutland Herald reported. “Though nothing was burning when they arrived at 9:30, the firefighters themselves were “fully involved” during a two-hour “town meeting” organized by Sen. Bernie Sanders and attended by the nation

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Chinese Sweatshops

A Senate subcommittee on Thursday held a hearing on Sweatshop
Conditions in the Chinese Toy Industry. Americans spent $22.3 billion
on toys and sporting goods last year, and China accounted for 86
percent of U.S. toy imports, according to Charles Kernaghan, director
of the National Labor Committee. “Many parents in America would be
shocked and disturbed if they knew of the abusive sweatshop conditions
under which their children’s toys are being made in China,” he
testified. “Parents, however, have no way of knowing, as toy companies
like Mattel (the largest in the world) hide their 40 or so contract
plants in China, refusing to provide the American people with even the
names and addresses of their plants.” Senator Bernie Sanders is a
cosponsor of the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act
that would make it unlawful to sell, trade, or advertise sweatshop
goods.

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To Save the Planet, Listen to the Scientists

A Senate panel on Wednesday took up global warming legislation. To Vermont’s own Bill McKibben, a national leader on the environment and climate change, it’s about time. “Long after the Nobel-winning reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, long after Hurricane Katrina, long after ‘An Inconvenient Truth, they’re finally taking up the single biggest question that the planet faces,” he wrote. Senator Bernie Sanders, the sponsor of the strongest legislation on climate change, is a

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Flush on Iraq, Flinty on Children

Days after he vetoed a children’s health insurance program, President Bush asked Congress for almost $196 billion that the Pentagon says is needed to keep combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year. The president says, “Our men and women on the front lines should not be caught in the middle of partisan disagreements in Washington, D.C.” Well Mr. President, neither should America’s children.

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Not Richistan

Judy Daloz is the nurse at St. Johnsbury Elementary School. Every day she sees children who show up for school hungry. She knows parents who dread eye exams because they cannot afford to take their kids to see eye doctors, let alone buy them glasses. She knows some families have trouble scraping together the $15 fee for a birth certificate needed to enroll each of their children in the Dr. Dynassaur program. Nurse Daloz talked about her experiences at a town meeting on poverty that Senator B

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