Senator Sanders

Family Values Sen. Sanders said when Republicans refer to the issue of family values, they generally are discussing their opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, but that's not what most Americans think about when it comes to the topic, reported HNGN News and The Times-Picayune. Sanders introduced his own family values bill on Thursday to require all employers with 15 or more workers to offer two weeks of paid vacation to employees who have worked there for a year or more, reported CNN and Newsmax. "This is already done in almost every other major country on earth," he said.  LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK  

Free College Tuition Sanders has proposed an ambitious plan to make four years of public college free by imposing a transactions tax on Wall Street firms. It's unlikely that Republican presidential candidates will sign onto any plan with the word "free" in it, but even GOP contenders are expressing interest in finding ways to tackle the cost of college, said The Washington Post. Some economic critics say that injecting “guaranteed money” into the education system will accelerate cost inflation for ancillary services like room, board, and textbooks, Cheat Sheet reported. LINK, LINK  

Sanders' Mainstream Agenda From infrastructure spending and trade, to income inequality and campaign finance reform, Americans overwhelmingly agree with the issues on Sen. Sanders' agenda, wrote The Washington Post. "He isn’t radical, or at least he wouldn’t be in a sane society," Counter Punch wrote. "I maybe old-fashioned enough to believe that Congress might want to be representing a vast majority of our people … and not just the Koch brothers and other campaign contributors,” Sanders is quoted in The LA Times. LINK, LINK, LINK  

Immigration Sen. Sanders' commitment to addressing economic disparities has sparked some criticism about the narrowness of his appeal. "I haven’t heard him say anything [about immigration]... So I hope that when he sees this program he sees that there’s a lot of people waiting to hear from him,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez said on Thursday while speaking with Larry King. Sanders in fact has a strong voting record on the issue. He voted for comprehensive immigration reform in 2013 and the DREAM Act. He was a strong supporter of President Obama’s executive actions on immigration and has been plenty vocal about his desire for a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants, reported Salon. LINK  

World

Iran Backs Taliban With Cash and Arms Tehran has quietly increased its supply of weapons, ammunition and funding to the Taliban, and is now recruiting and training their fighters, posing a new threat to Afghanistan’s fragile security. Iran’s strategy in backing the Taliban is twofold, countering U.S. influence in the region and providing a counterweight to Islamic State’s move into the Taliban’s territory in Afghanistan, The Wall Street Journal reported.  LINK

National 

House Rejects Trade Bill House Democrats voted to kill the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill, a program their party created and has stood by for four decades.  Just 40 House Democrats voted for the bill which fell in a landslide, 302-126. Republicans moved quickly to hold a vote on Trade Promotion Authority, but even though the bill received a majority of votes, it will not go to the president's desk because it does not match the Senate-passed package, The New York Times reported.  LINK

Vermont

Energy Bill Gov. Peter Shumlin signed an energy bill into law that promises to create 1,000 new jobs and help Vermonters save on energy costs over a 15-year period. Shumlin said the legislation will put the state on a path to become 90 percent renewable by 2050. Mary Powell, chief executive officer at Green Mountain Power, said the state’s renewable energy standard and energy transformation program, known as RESET, “is the most forward-leaning legislation in the country,” VT Digger reported.  LINK