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Bernie Sanders: Republicans seem to be itching for war....

Elizabeth Warren to Obama Administration: Help Me Tackle Student Debt

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) isn't just a thorn in the side of Wall Street banks. She's also happy to go head-to-head with the Obama administration when she feels the president's team is part of the problem.

Right now, the issue fueling a dispute between Warren and the White House is student loan debt. Last week, Warren sent a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan alleging that his department is not using many of the tools at its disposal to help Americans who are struggling to pay back student loans. In particular, the department has authority to help students duped by predatory for-profit colleges, and Warren says they're not using it.

Since her election to the Senate in 2012, Warren has devoted a lot of energy to tackling Americans' $1.2 trillion in student loan debt. The first bill she introduced upon her arrival in the Senate in 2013 proposed allowing students to obtain loans at the same low rate the Federal Reserve gives to banks. That bill went nowhere, so the following year Warren returned with a second proposal to allow Americans to refinance their student debt at current interest rate levels. Senate Republicans blocked it.

Now Warren is turning to the Department of Education, which, she argues, already has the power to address the problem. The department, which Congress has empowered to administer student loan programs, has broad authority to collect unpaid loans. But in many cases, it also have the authority to reduce or wipe away debts.

In her letter to Duncan, Warren charges that the federal government is projected to earn $110 billion in profits from student loans over the next decade due in part to the department's "failure to implement congressional directives or utilize its discretionary authority to protect our most vulnerable borrowers." Warren's letter was signed by other progressive Democratic senators, including Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Ed Markey, also of Massachusetts.

More here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/warren-obama-student-debt-loans

John Fugelsang tweets about Jeb Bush

Ferguson Report isn't just an isolated incident, it's a National epidemic....

then I suggest we have a draft,

Papa John's To Pay $2 Million After Short-Changing New York Delivery Workers

NEW YORK, March 5 (Reuters) - A New York judge ordered a Papa John's pizza restaurant franchise and its owner to fork over more than $2 million after short-changing hundreds of delivery workers and shaving hours from their paychecks, prosecutors said on Thursday.

The judgment comes amid a national debate over minimum wage laws that has sparked protests by fast-food employees and prompted cities across the United States to propose wage increases for their lowest-paid workers.

"I call on all fast food franchisors, including Papa John's, to take steps necessary to ensure that their workers - the backbone of their business - are treated fairly and paid the wages the law requires," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.

Schneiderman last October sued the Papa John's International Inc franchisee, New Majority Holdings, LLC, and its owner, Ronald Johnson, who owns five of the pizza restaurants in the Harlem section of Manhattan.

In a judgment filed on Tuesday, New York County Supreme Court Justice Joan Kenney ordered the business to pay employees a little more than $2.1 million in back wages, unreimbursed expenses, damages and interest.

Earlier this year, Schneiderman obtained a nearly $800,000 judgment against the operator of another Papa John's franchisee, Emstar Pizza, Inc.

More here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/05/papa-johns-franchise-ord_n_6811852.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Sen. Sanders to march in Selma...

Friday, March 6, 2015

WASHINGTON – “It smacks of hypocrisy” that many Republican lawmakers who will attend a historic voting rights commemoration in Alabama this weekend don’t support legislation to update the Voting Rights Act, Sen. Bernie Sanders said Thursday.

The Vermont independent is among nearly 100 lawmakers who will be in Selma to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1965 voting rights marches there. The marches included Bloody Sunday, when police violently beat peaceful protesters trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way to Montgomery.

Sanders’ Friday-to-Sunday trip, organized by the Faith and Politics Institute, will include stops in Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak in Selma on Saturday.

“To stand up and say ‘Well, isn’t it wonderful and brave what happened fifty years ago’ while you’re actively participating in voter suppression today is to me extremely hypocritical,” said Sanders, who is expected to announce this month whether he’ll run for president.

The legislation pending in Congress, called the Voting Rights Amendment Act, would restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act nullified by the Supreme Court in 2013. That provision had required states with a history of voting-related discrimination to get federal permission, or “pre-clearance,” before making any changes to their election systems.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/sen-sanders-to-march-in-selma

Bernie Sanders: Calls Saudi Demand for U.S. Ground Troops ‘Offensive’

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