The Department of Education has denied 99% of all student loan forgiveness applications.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is at it again.

She's been flouting a federal law that promises student loan forgiveness to people that go into public service professions, such as firefighters, a police officers, and teachers. But now, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which has 1.7 million members, has sued DeVos to force her to obey the law.

The law is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF). If public service employees make 120 on-time payments in 10 years, the balance of their loan is forgiven. It was signed into law in 2007 under George W. Bush and had bipartisan support. It was meant as an incentive to get people to go into professions where they often don't make enough money to pay off massive loans.

And it worked. Nearly 32 million people are eligible for PSLF. The year 2017 was the first one that people hit the 10-year mark and could apply for the loan forgiveness they'de been promised. By March 2019, 76,002 people had applied. Only 864 were approved, or around 1%.

Now, the teachers have had enough. As the president of the AFT, Randi Weingarten, put it: "Public Service Loan Forgiveness is a right, but Betsy DeVos has turned it into a crapshoot." Weingarten went on to say that DeVos's actions have "blocked [the] path to the middle class" for tens of thousands of people who were relying on loan forgiveness and made all their payments on time and in good faith.

The plaintiffs are teachers and other public service workers who made the required 120 on-time payments, only to be refused loan relief by the Department of Education. The lawsuit alleges that the Department used several techniques, such as miscounting payments or declaring applications incomplete, to deny the applications.


https://shareblue.com/teachers-forced-sue-betsy-devos-blocking-student-loan-forgiveness/

The Sundays - Here's Where The Story Ends

Tweet of the Day

Kamala Harris Shuts Down Meghan McCain

Two weeks after her star-making performance at the first Democratic presidential primary debate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) returned to The View on Friday to face some of Joe Biden’s biggest media boosters.

Before getting to Biden, co-host Ana Navarro asked the former prosecutor to weigh in on the morning’s hottest topic: the resignation of Trump’s labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, over his involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Harris “absolutely” disputed the notion that Acosta cut the toughest deal he could with Epstein, calling child sexual-assault cases “some of the most difficult cases to prosecute” because “you’re asking a jury to believe a young person over an adult.” Any prosecutor “worth their salt,” she said, should have put Epstein’s case before a jury and made sure he went to prison “for a long period of time.”

“It is difficult, but it’s done every day in courtrooms in America,” she added. “Every day in courtrooms in America, prosecutors are prosecuting these cases and getting convictions. I got them. I personally got them. So that’s what I find so troubling about the narrative.”

It was left to Meghan McCain to change the subject.

“I think we’re all in agreement of how abhorrent all of it is, and it’s very difficult to talk about, but I’m glad we are,” she said. “I need to pivot though if you don’t mind. So let’s talk about Joe Biden.”

In an attempt at a “gotcha” moment, McCain brought up a pre-debate quote from Harris in which the senator said, “You are not going to hear me criticize Joe Biden. I think he’s a great guy.” McCain said she thinks “a lot of people are curious what happened to that promise.”

“I have no intention of attacking Joe Biden, but I am going to point out our differences of opinion on a very critical moment in the history of the United States,” Harris said calmly. She went on to explain that it was Biden’s comments about segregationist senators that prompted her to bring up the issue of busing in the debate.

“So listen, this is a presidential race,” Harris said. “And I absolutely agree and believe and maintain that we should not have personal attacks against each other, we should not be attacking each other, but we’re on a debate stage.”

As McCain interrupted the senator to say that a Biden adviser called her “slick and slippery,” Harris held up a finger and said, “Hold on!”

“Well, you know what?” Harris continued. “We’re on a debate stage, and if you have not prepared and you’re not ready for somebody to point out a difference of opinion about the history of segregation in our country and what was necessary to deal with that, which at that time was busing, then you’re probably not ready.”

TX-21: Any word on Wendy Davis?

Last I heard, Davis had not officially decided to challenge Chip Roy.

From a Virginia operative: The top five legislative races to help out for 2019.

HD-10 - Wendy Gooditis (Vulnerable Incumbent): https://www.wendygooditis.com

HD-66 - Sheila Bynum-Coleman (Challenger): https://www.sheilafordelegate.com

HD-73 - Rodney Willet (Vulnerable Open Blue ):https://www.rodwillett.com/

HD-76 - Clint Jenkins (Challenger): https://clintonforvirginia.com

HD-85: Alex Askew (Vulnerable Open Blue): https://alexaskew.com


These are just suggestions, of course.

Bonus Tweet of the Day

Tweet of the Day

Major hotel chains pledge not to let ICE use rooms as backup immigration detention facilities

Major hotel chains headquartered in the Washington, D.C., area pledged not to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to use its hotel rooms as backup detention centers for immigrants targeted in this weekend’s raids.

“Our hotels are not configured to be detention facilities, but to be open to guests and community members as well,” Marriott International wrote in a statement dated Thursday. “While we have no particular insights into whether the U.S. government is considering the use of hotels to aid in the situation at the border, Marriott has made the decision to decline any requests to use our hotels as detention facilities.”

Choice Hotels, a D.C.-area company that owns 11 hotel chain brands including Quality Inn, echoed Marriott’s statement, saying Thursday that it’s asked its franchised hotels to “only be used for their intended purpose.”

“We are not aware that any of our franchised hotels, all of which are independently owned and operated, are being asked to serve as detention facilities,” the company’s statement reads. “We do not believe hotels should be used in this way and will decline any requests to do so.”


https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/452851-major-hotel-chains-pledge-not-to-let-ice-use-rooms-as-backup?rnd=1562962811

AOC chief of Staff attacks Sharice Davids