{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=E5F0A035-C2E9-4EDF-BC7F-14053601717C", ": News September 13", "2013-09-13", "2013", "2013-09", "Independent", "House", "VT", "Bernard Sanders", "S000033", "sanders.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "News September 13\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\tFriday, September 13, 2013\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\tSenator Sanders\r\nDental Crisis\u00a0Sen. Sanders chaired a Senate hearing on Thursday to call attention to the high cost of dental care and ways to improve access to oral health care for all Americans. The Senate panel learned that more than 47 million Americans live in places where adequate dental care is difficult to access and 130 million do not have dental insurance, reported\u00a0WPTZ-TV\u00a0and other\u00a0NBC News\u00a0affiliates,\u00a0KWTC-TV\u00a0in Oklahoma City, Okla., and other\u00a0CBS News\u00a0affiliates,\u00a0CBS Radio, KNX-AM\u00a0all-news radio in Los Angeles,\u00a0The Associated Press,\u00a0Washington Times,\u00a0Congressional Quarterly\u00a0and others.\u00a0VIDEO,VIDEO,\u00a0VIDEO,\u00a0VIDEO,\u00a0VIDEO,\u00a0AUDIO,\u00a0AUDIO,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK\u00a0\r\nThe American People Have Spoken\u00a0\"With a loud and clear voice the overwhelming majority of the American people, across the political spectrum, are saying no to another war in the Middle East,\" Sen. Sanders wrote for\u00a0The Huffington Post,\u00a0Daily Kos, and\u00a0Green Mountain Daily. Building on that momentum, Sanders said Americans must demand action on important domestic issues. \"Now is the time to use that same energy and passion to save the middle class,\" he wrote.\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK\r\nWhere\u2019s Obama on Jobs?\u00a0President Obama just waged an unprecedented campaign to sell Americans on the need to go to war. Some in Congress want him to bring the same focus to jobs and other domestic priorities. \u201cI raised this issue to the president the other day,\u201d Sen. Sanders told\u00a0Yahoo News. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to give a speech which most people know really is not going to translate into terribly strong action,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cIntensity is the key issue. Is he prepared to fight?\u201d Sanders declined to describe Obama\u2019s response, but a congressional aide who does not work for Sanders said the exchange was a bit combative, with the senator asking, in effect, \u201cWhy the hell aren\u2019t we talking about jobs?\u201d\u00a0LINK\r\nSyria\u00a0Americans, from both red states and blue states, are strongly opposed to a war in Syria and are telling their members of Congress,\u00a0The Huffington Post\u00a0reported. Sen. Sanders said that \"95 percent of my constituents have indicated to me in emails and phone calls that they do not want to see the United States getting involved in a bloody and complicated civil war in Syria - and that certainly has some influence on me.\"\u00a0LINK\r\nLame Duck\u00a0If President Barack Obama doesn't want to spend the rest of his term as a lame duck, he is going to have to address the obstructionism of Republicans in Congress, Sen. Sanders told Ed Schultz in an interview cited by\u00a0The Raw Story.\u00a0LINK\r\nIrene Recovery\u00a0Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation and the Springfield Regional Development Corporation have received an additional $500,000 in funding for a program that has already provided grants to over 30 area businesses struggling from the effects of Tropical Storm Irene. Sens. Sanders and Patrick Leahy and Rep, Peter Welch fought to include $400 million in disaster funding in the federal budget, the\u00a0Brattleboro Reformer\u00a0reported.\u00a0LINK\r\nVeterans\u00a0\u00a0Sen. Sanders chaired a joint hearing on veterans\u2019 issues this week to receive testimony from advocacy groups,\u00a0The American Legion\u00a0reported. Sanders defended the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs, saying that the VA \"is making progress in reducing the disability claims backlog.\" Sanders lauded the VA for its implementation of cutting edge health care such as alternative medicine and telehealth systems.\u00a0LIN\r\nMissile Defense Site\u00a0The Vermont National Guard's Camp Ethan Allen has been selected by the Department of Defense as a finalist for a potential East Coast missile defense site, Sen. Sanders, joined by Sen. Leahy and Rep. Welch, opposed the selection. \"My first impression is that this is a very bad idea and, for a wide variety of reasons, I do not believe that it will ever happen,\" said Sen. Sanders\u00a0according to\u00a0WCAX-TV,\u00a0WPTZ-TV,\u00a0ABC22,\u00a0VPR,\u00a0Vermont Press Bureau,\u00a0VTDigger\u00a0and\u00a0Seven Days. Sen. Charles Schumer hoped the missile defense site will be located in New York to create jobs.\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0VIDEO,\u00a0VIDEO,\u00a0AUDIO,LINK,\u00a0LINK,\u00a0LINK\r\nSpace\r\nExiting the Solar System\u00a0In a first for mankind, a NASA-built spacecraft, the Voyager 1, has exited the solar system. \u201cThis is historic stuff, a bit like the first exploration of Earth, and we had to look at the data very, very carefully,\u201d Edward C. Stone, 77, NASA\u2019s top Voyager expert, told\u00a0The New York Times.\u00a0LINK\r\nWorld\r\nUS-Russian Talks Begin\u00a0Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva for a second day of diplomacy, linked the removal of chemical weapons from Syria to prospects for a broader peace conference,\u00a0The Associated Press\u00a0reported. Russian diplomats pushed for the United States to take military threats off of the table.\u00a0LINK\r\nU.S.-Born Jihadist Killed in Somalia\u00a0Omar Hammami, a United States-born jihadist living in Somalia, has been killed my fellow militants\u00a0TIME\u00a0has learned. Hammami was on the United States' most-wanted list and the State Department had offered a $5 million reward for his capture.\u00a0LINK\r\nState of Emergency in Egypt\u00a0American diplomats asked Egyptian authorities Thursday to lift a state of emergency in force since August,\u00a0AFP News\u00a0reported. \"The interim government and military must ensure due process and that any citizens arrested by police or military are referred only to civilian courts,\" said a spokesman for the State Department.\u00a0LINK\r\nNational\r\nFive Years After Financial Crisis, Americans Don\u2019t Like Wall Street\u00a0Americans continue to overwhelmingly dislike and distrust Wall Street five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing financial crisis, according to the latest\u00a0NBC News/Wall Street Journal\u00a0poll. Forty two percent said they have a negative view of the New York financial institutions while just 14 percent have a favorable opinion.\u00a0\u00a0LINK\r\nJobless Claims\u00a0Jobless claims dropped last week to an all-time low since April 2006, reportedBloomberg. However, the decrease in filings was not due to an improvement in the job market, but rather due to computer network issues in two states that caused those unemployment agencies to underreport for the month.\u00a0LINK\r\nTwitter IPO\u00a0Twitter is getting ready to file for an initial public offering, the company tweeted on Thursday. According to\u00a0CBS News, the company has been working to boost ad revenue and advertising products. CEO Dick Costolo said in January that he was cautious about filing an IPO because he didn't want Twitter to be a public company that must bend to shareholders' wishes.\u00a0LINK\r\nVermont\r\nBurlington City Council\u00a0The Burlington City Council will be offering extended public comment time at three upcoming meetings addressing the livable wage ordinance, F-35s and gun-related city charter changes, reported the\u00a0Burlington Free Press.\u00a0LINK\r\nMedia Shield Law\u00a0The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Leahy, on Thursday approved a federal media shield law that would protect journalists who use confidential sources to report on the actions of government agencies, says\u00a0The Associated Press.\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=E5F0A035-C2E9-4EDF-BC7F-14053601717C"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5122340992093086, "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"}