releases: https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=01F819B9-54C8-40BA-B8A9-FEFD45D459FC
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=01F819B9-54C8-40BA-B8A9-FEFD45D459FC | News August 11 | 2013-08-11 | 2013 | 2013-08 | Independent | House | VT | Bernard Sanders | S000033 | sanders.senate.gov | legacy | News August 11 Sunday, August 11, 2013 Senator Sanders Obama on VA Claims Backlog President Obama, addressing the annual convention of the Disabled American Veterans on Saturday, said his administration is making progress on reducing a backlog of disability claims that shrank by nearly one-fifth since peaking at more than 600,000 just a few months ago. CNN reported that the backlog built up as new waves of claims were coming in. The VA completed more than 1 million claims each of the last three years, according to Sen. Bernard Sanders, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. LINK Local Legends Sen. Sanders, Vermont’s first woman governor, Madeleine Kunin, Phish members and Ben & Jerry of ice cream fame are among an eclectic crowd of people featured in a new book, “Legendary Locals of Burlington” by Robert Resnik, himself something of a local legend, according to a Burlington Free Press book review. LINK Senate Independents Sen. Angus King, who rode Maine's penchant for "independent" politicians to a Senate victory last fall, has amassed a solidly Democratic record during his first seven months in Congress. King and Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic whip, voted the same way 89.8 percent of the time. King was on the same page as John Cornyn, the Republican whip, 35 percent of the time. The Senate's other independent, Sanders, voted with Durbin 92.4 percent of the time and with Cornyn on just 25 percent of votes, the Portland Press Herald reported. LINK World Drug Kingpin Released in Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto will have to handle furious fallout after Caro Quintero, one of Mexico's major drug cartel leaders, was freed Friday after serving 28 years for the kidnapping, torture and murder of a U.S. narcotics agent, Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, in 1985, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK National Obstacles Limited Congressional Oversight of NSA Surveillance Some members of the intelligence and judiciary committees say briefings on a massive telephone surveillance program were one-sided affairs, with lawmakers hearing only from government officials steeped in the legal and national security arguments for aggressive spying. “In terms of the oversight function, I feel inadequate most of the time,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and an NSA critic, told The Washington Post. Bulk surveillance “certainly was approved by Congress. Was it approved by a fully knowing Congress? That is not the case.” LINK U.S. to Charge Two Who Worked With 'London Whale' U.S. authorities are preparing to file criminal charges against a former supervisor and colleague of the J.P. Morgan Chase trader known as the "London whale" as they ramp up a probe of the supersize bets that backfired into more than $6 billion in losses, said people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK Vermont F-35s A resolution critical of basing F-35 fighter jets at Burlington International Airport has been withdrawn from Monday’s City Council agenda for lack of support, its sponsor said Friday. “I was unable to draw substantive support for it from across the political spectrum,” City Councilor Thomas Ayres said. Ayres said he was unable to win support for his resolution from any of the other six Democrats or four Progressive councilors on the panel, even though the state Progressive Party recently came out against the plane, the Burlington Free Press reported. LINK Border Guards Wanted U.S. Customs and Border Protection is looking for Vermonters who would like to work at ports of entry along the Vermont-Quebec frontier. The agency is seeking applicants from across the country, but is hoping to find Vermonters who would like to apply. A new CBP employee in Vermont would make just over $31,000 a year in one of these positions and about $69,000 annually within four years, The Associated Press reported. LINK | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |