{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=C2AC80C1-2443-4FC8-BA7D-0F1D83AD5484", ": News September 2", "2013-09-02", "2013", "2013-09", "Independent", "House", "VT", "Bernard Sanders", "S000033", "sanders.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "News September 2\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tMonday, September 2, 2013\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\tSenator Sanders Sanders: Why Intervene in Syria\u2019s Civil War?\u00a0Sen. Bernie Sanders condemned the use of chemical weapons by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. \u201cThe use of chemical weapons by the Assad dictatorship is inhumane and a violation of international law. However, at this point in time, I need to hear more from the president as to why he believes it is in the best interests of the United States to intervene in Syria\u2019s bloody and complicated civil war,\u201d Sanders said in Monday\u2019s\u00a0Bennington Banner,\u00a0Rutland Herald,\u00a0Times Argus\u00a0and\u00a0Keene Sentinel\u00a0and on\u00a0WCAX-TV\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0VIDEO\r\nSanders Opposed Iraq War Resolution\u00a0As Congress embarks on a debate over whether to launch a strike against Syria, it's worth looking at the most recent vote for the authorization of force against Iraq in 2002. When President George W. Bush asked Congress to go to war against Iraq in the fall of 2002, the resolution was introduced by leaders of both parties in each chamber: The measure passed the House 296 to 133 and the Senate 77 to 23. The one independent in the House at the time, Sanders, voted no, according to\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0online.\u00a0LINK\r\nFighting Bob Fest\u00a0Sen. Sanders will keynote Fighting Bob Fest No. 12 on Saturday in Madison, Wis. This will be his fourth appearance and he has a huge following in Wisconsin. I can think of no one in public life who has contributed more to the fight for social and economic justice, Ed Garvey wrote in\u00a0The Capital Times.\u00a0LINK\r\nNational\r\nLawmakers Doubt Obama\u2019s Syria Plan Will Pass\u00a0Members of Congress from across the political spectrum reacted with deep skepticism Sunday to President Obama's bid for approval of strikes against Syria, with lawmakers raising doubts about whether a vote would succeed. Few of the approximately 100 members of Congress who returned to Washington for a classified intelligence briefing Sunday said they would support the administration's request to authorize the use of force, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0reported.\u00a0LINK\r\nLeahy Skeptical of War Resolution\u2019s Chances\u00a0From the Democratic dean of the Senate to tea party Republicans, lawmakers say that Obama\u2019s resolution will need to be rewritten and narrowed in its scope to gain support in a skeptical Congress. The request would not pass the Congress as written because it is too broad, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy told reporters after a meeting on the resolution seeking military force,\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0reported.\u00a0LINK\r\nCourt Rules VA Must Extend Benefits to Gay Married Couples\u00a0A federal judge in California found that federal veterans\u2019 benefits laws that limit those benefits to opposite-sex spouses are unconstitutional. Finding no rational basis for the definitions in Title 38 of the U.S. Code that limit provision of veterans\u2019 benefits to opposite-sex couples, Judge Consuelo B. Marshall found those statutes unconstitutional. The ruling echoed the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling earlier this summer striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act,\u00a0BuzzFeed\u00a0reported.LINK\u00a0\r\nDrug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.\u2019s\u00a0For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counter-narcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans\u2019 phone calls \u2014 parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency\u2019s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs. The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an extremely close association between the government and the telecommunications giant,\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0reported.\u00a0LINK\r\nVermont\r\nAge Wave\u00a0Vermont is the second-oldest state in the nation, after Maine, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, and the population shift that some experts have called an \u201cage wave\u201d is bringing new jobs in health care, personal care, construction and more as retiring baby boomers seek to live independently. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that personal care aides and home health aides are the fastest-growing occupations in the nation, theBurlington Free Press\u00a0reported.\u00a0LINK", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=C2AC80C1-2443-4FC8-BA7D-0F1D83AD5484"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.083845203742385, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}