Senator Sanders

Veterans Bill Would Undo Military Pension Cuts Legislation by Sen. Bernie Sanders would restore full funding for military retiree pensions and expand veterans’ benefits, WCAX-TV and Military Times reported. In a front page article, The Washington Post cited aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying the Senate will soon bring forward Sanders’ legislation to restore the benefit cuts. Sen. Richard Burr plans to introduce a Republican alternative to Sanders' bill, because he doesn't think Sanders' legislation can pass the House. The Senate Armed Services Committee will address the military pensions issue on Monday as it considers legislation by Sens. Mark Pryor and Kay Hagan, National Journal reported. VIDEO, LINK, LINK

Pensions Deal Floated House Speaker John Boehner reportedly urged Republicans on Wednesday to consider raising the nation’s borrowing limit in exchange for ending a recent military-pension cut. Sen. Sanders, who already proposed legislation to stop the pension cut, insisted on Wednesday in an interview that raising the debt limit is “not negotiable,” according to an online article by The Washington Post. Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show that the pension cut for younger military retirees passed in the recent budget bill will help reduce projected growth for the retirement payments by about 5 percent by 2023, according to another online report in The Washington Post. LINK, LINK

New Veterans Tool The Veterans Affairs Department rolled out a "one-stop shop" GI Bill comparison tool Tuesday that allows veterans and their families to see tuition, housing and book costs for more than 10,000 colleges and training programs based on a veteran's service, National Journal reported. The VA is also releasing the number of GI Bill beneficiaries at an institution for the first time. The comparison tool's rollout comes after the House passed legislation Monday that requires all public universities to give in-state tuition rates to veterans. A similar provision is included in Sen. Sanders's omnibus veterans' legislation bill. LINK

VA Benefits Backlog As veterans come home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are facing significant delays at the Department of Veterans Affairs, an agency that has struggled to upgrade its aged paper system to digital, Politico reported. The total number of backlogged VA claims has dropped more than 35 percent since it peaked in March. Sen. Sanders, chairman of the Senate veterans committee, said the department is  finally “in the process now of undertaking something that should have been done years ago.” LINK

Farm Bill The Senate approved a five-year farm bill Tuesday. Nine Democrats voted against the bill because it cuts food stamps. Sen. Sanders told the Burlington Free Press that he was “very disappointed” about the cuts. In Vermont, however, Sanders won assurances from Gov. Peter Shumlin that he will work with the state Legislature to continue a “heat and eat” program, National Journal, Bennington Banner and vtdigger.org reported. Under the program, families and seniors who get help paying their heating bills automatically qualify for increased food stamps. LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK

Sanders Supports USPS Banking The Postal Service should be allowed to find innovative new ways to shore up its finances including offering limited banking services to customers, Sen. Sanders told The Ed Schultz Show. “We need to give the Postal Service the tools it needs - not just in banking but in a number of other areas - to serve the needs of the America people.” AUDIO

The Koch Brothers Party Sen. Sanders lamented the rise of a third party in national and state politics - the Koch Brothers party - on The Thom Hartmann Program Wednesday. As wealthy donors pour millions into the political process following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, Sanders said the political money "affects every single issue" and "undermines the very foundations of our American democracy." Sanders called for public financing of elections.

The Fed Salon interviewed Dean Baker, who co-chairs the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research, about the Federal Reserve. Asked who in Congress is playing a good role in holding the Fed’s feet to the fire on unemployment, Baker said, Bernie Sanders, certainly he’s been very out front on that. You know, we’ll see if Elizabeth Warren does. Obviously she’s been more active on regulatory issues, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she does.” LINK

NSA ‘Probably’ Spies on Congress Deputy Attorney General James Cole told the House Judiciary Committee this week that the National Security Agency “probably” collects information about phone calls made by members of Congress. Sen. Sanders previously asked the agency whether or not it has snooped on members of Congress, but did not get a direct answer, The Atlantic, Fars News Agency and TechDirt noted. LINK, LINK, LINK

Good Food Champions Members of Vermont's congressional delegations were rated "Good Food Champions" by national nonprofit Food Policy Action for their voting records on several key bills related to hunger, farming and environmental issues, the Northampton, Mass., Valley Advocate reported. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was marked down by the group for voting against legislation by Sen. Sanders that would have let states require labels on foods containing genetically engineered ingredients. LINK

Tea Party Tea Party members in the House have built a variety of coalitions with rank-and-file Democrats and even leftist members of Congress, according to The New American. The article noted that Tea Party leaders have allied with Sen. Sanders on issues as diverse as preventing war with Syria, limiting the NSA, and auditing the Federal Reserve Bank.  LINK

World

U.N. Panel Assails Vatican Over Sexual Abuse In a report released Wednesday, a United Nations committee called on the Vatican to remove child abusers from its ranks and open the church's archives to hold officials who concealed crimes accountable, The New York Times reported. LINK

Syria Misses Weapons Handover Deadline Syria on Wednesday missed a deadline to hand over all the toxic materials it declared to the world's chemical weapons watchdog, putting the program several weeks behind schedule and jeopardizing a final June 30 deadline, Reuters reported. LINK

National

CBO: Obamacare Reduces Unemployment Under questioning before the House Budget Committee from Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf confirmed that the Affordable Care Act will increase labor demand and reduce unemployment, The Washington Post reported. LINK

More Jobless Men in Prime Working Ages Although the economy is improving and the unemployment rate is falling, 17 percent of working-age men weren't working in December. The trend has been building for decades, according to government data. In the early 1970s, just 6 percent of American men ages 25 to 54 were without jobs. By late 2007, it was 13 percent. In 2009, during the worst of the recession, nearly 20 percent didn't have jobs. Having so many men out of work is partly a symptom of a U.S. economy slow to recover from the worst recession in 75 years, economists told The Wall Street Journal. For women, the story is different. In the 1950s, only about a third of women ages 25 to 54 had jobs. That rose steadily until the 1990s, and then leveled off. At last tally, about 70 percent were working; 30 percent weren't. LINK

NLRB Proposes Rules to Streamline Union Elections The National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday proposed rules that would streamline union elections, the Los Angeles Times reported. Unions say the rules will curb delays that employees might encounter in organizing. Business groups have opposed the rules, calling them “a solution in search of a problem." LINK

Publicly-Owned High Speed Internet Chattanooga, Tenn.'s taxpayer-owned, fiber-optic network is the fastest and one of the least expensive high-speed Internet services in the United States. The network offers a connection that is 50 times faster than the average speed for other homes in the country, and is attracting new tech start-ups to the city, The New York Times reported. LINK

Obama to Help Democrats by Not Campaigning President Obama, struggling with low approval ratings after a dispiriting year of setbacks, conceded in private remarks Wednesday that some fellow Democrats might not want his help in this fall’s elections. The candid self-appraisal came during a policy retreat with the Senate Democratic caucus at the Washington Nationals’ stadium, part of a flurry of outreach efforts with congressional Democrats this week focused on crafting strategies for the midterms, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Vermont

IBM to Cut More Jobs in Vermont An IBM employees’ union warned warning workers to expect more job cuts in Vermont and New York, the Burlington Free Press reported. The union's national coordinator Lee Conrad said in an email that “Employees are being pushed out the door in order for executives to reach their goal of $20  per share earnings and greater wealth for them and large stockholders.” IBM cut 419 jobs in Essex Junction in June. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty’s base salary will remain at $1.5 million but she and her senior executive team will forgo annual bonuses for 2013 because revenue fell 4.6 percent amid continued hardware struggles, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK, LINK

Coke to Buy 10% of Green Mountain Coffee Coca-Cola agreed on Wednesday to buy a 10 percent stake in Vermont's Green Mountain Coffeee Roasters, The New York Times reported. In return for the $1.25 billion purchase, Green Mountain will be the official maker of the soda giant's single-serve cold beverages, built on its popular Keurig pod-based system. LINK

House Panel Critical of Defunct Vt. Health CO-OP A new report from the House Committee on Reform and Government Oversight says the Vermont Health CO-OP, which dissolved in September after failing to get a state license, cost taxpayers $4.5 million and was an example of lax federal oversight of co-ops set up under the health care law, The Associated Press reported. LINK