That's good news. I'll have to check out the series. One of favorite Bernie Sanders moments was when he recited a long list of fraudulent of the insurance industries and Pharma and the huge settlements, one of them being ripping off Medicaid (Medicare might have made the list, too), and to think it's just the cost of doing business. During this whole health care debate I was posting the link to this video on just about health insurance reform article on HuffPo. And then it got yanked off YouTube.

One of Obama's favorite lines on health care (insurance) reform is "keeping the insurance companies honest." How do you keep two industries that haven't been honest in decades honest? How is that possible?

Yep--Beyond absurd.

Never let them get away with the word "compromise". Tell them straight up that it's concession, not "compromise" and they will be put on the defensive.

..."while Sanders is staking out a far-left position."

I noticed this too and was furious enough to call them on it. This kind of spin is exactly how Obama/the dems get painted as extremists when nothing could be further from the truth. (But the meme sure helps move the center so far to the right, that the policies of the last 8 years can be spun as the norm.)

Is there something unethical about holding out for the highest bidder?

Sorry but it seems our dear Senator Sanders has mastered the art of simultaneously talking and doing nothing.

The mose glaring example is the pollution that Bernie knew about for years in our environmentally friendly, green state of Vermont. I'm talking about Agri-Mark in Cabot (you know that great Vermont Cabot cheese, don't you?).

Well, this is what has gone on in Cabot, Vermont and surrounding towns for the past 25 or so years for the sake of corporate profit and while legislators like Leahy and Sanders had there eyes wide shut:

High cancer rates from benzene. Also lung irritant toulene. These chenicals are among those involved in 100,000 to 150,000 GALLONS of spraying fields from May to November.

Jill from Vermont wrote this:
...there are three ways Agri-Mark disposes of waste:
1. The non-sewage dairy wastewater is sprayed onto fields via trucks.
2. This same non-sewage dairy wastewater is trucked to farmer's manure pits and pumped into them so the farmers can spread it "wily nilly" without restrictions at all.
3. The so called polished permeate is pumped from the Agri-Mark main building to three unlined lagoons where it is stored. They claim this stuff is "pure water" but aren't allowed to put it into the river directly. (Does that tell you that it isn't "pure water" or what!) Then it is pumped UPHILL for about a quarter of a mile. This stuff is Not ALLOWED to be land applied anywhere else except on my old family farmstead and a small field below it. There are huge sprayers, we counted around 20 but I never wanted to go near enough to physically count them, that solely spray this junk onto the same areas from something like May-Nov. 1 EVERY DAY in hopes that it will "evaporate" and become airborne. Naturally since I live due East of these sprayers, I am bound to get some residues. The remained of the "permeate" water runs downhill and makes it's path wherever water does with the Winooski river nearby. At a District 5 environmental commission site visit, I insisted that we visit the fields, lagoons. Pecolar (AGri-Mark) insisted that there were no sprayers in the beautiful old hayfields on our old farm. I rather forced them to stop and walked the entire commission and citizens out into my old field (which Agri-Mark had purposely turned the sprayers off that day probably in fear that this might happen,) and showed them that there were INDEED many, many sprayers located there and discovered even more of them on a steep slope on a field below that one. (I would estimate at least 20 sprayers) I also pointed out areas where cinderblocks were placed to slow down the flow of these waters and apparent erosion clear to me and Jessica Miller to be the result of water flow that had been taken place. I also noted that our beautiful hayfield had turned to moss. Agri-Mark announced that they were going to have it planted to winter rye but had been letting my neighbor grow pumpkins commercially there for the past couple of years. The upper part of that same field has been seen to also receive "non-sewage dairy waste" sprayings as well. No pumpkins were planted this year at all so apparently things didn't grow that well there as my neighbor reported across the street. On that same site visit, District 5 Environmental, Agri-Mark, party status members present, I asked Agri-Mark's Pecolar why the backhoes were down making repairs on these lagoons several times if they were so secure. He at first denied this and then when I reported that I SAW them there several times he offered up that the Muskrats had made holes in the sides of the embankment causing the ponds to "leak" on many occasions.

Tags: Agri-Mark, Cabot, environment, ANR, Vermont, pollution, cancer, (All Tags)

Sanders AND Leahy are just shills for big business. They give lip service to the environment while allowing corporations to trash Vermont so Vermonters can have jobs. I do not think more jobs + more cancer is a solution. Do you?

Amen EastCoastLefty101 !

I can't believe that Sanders isn't bringing up his own S 703 for a simple vote for all his talk on getting a stronger public option, whatever that is anymore. If he really cared to strengthen, actually bring up a real public option, he would be better off bringing his own bill to the floor and forcing senators from both parties to tell the public who they are with.