US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1097

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama used the college commencement season Saturday to get behind Senate Democratic legislation that would let college graduates with heavy debts refinance their loans.

The Senate is expected to debate the legislation next week, but it faces significant obstacles.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama noted the program would be
paid for by doing away with tax loopholes for millionaires. He says the choice facing lawmakers is whether to "protect young people from crushing debt or protect tax breaks for millionaires."

According to the Institute for College Access and Success, the average debt for
the class of 2012 was $29,400. Obama also notes that the unemployment rate for college graduates is about half what it is for high school graduates and that a typical college graduate makes $15,000 more a year than a worker with just a high school degree.

"At a time when college has never been more important, it's also never been more expensive," he says.

The White House is drawing attention to college affordability and student loans Monday with an event featuring Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden.

U.S. and Iranian officials will meet early next week before the next round of negotiations between Iran and six world powers on Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. State Department said on Saturday, signaling Washington’s desire to ramp up diplomatic activity ahead of a looming July deadline to reach a deal.

Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, who conducted negotiations that helped bring about the Nov. 24 interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers, will lead the U.S. delegation. It will also include the senior U.S. negotiator with Iran, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and senior staff from the State Department and National Security Council.

The meeting comes after the most recent round of nuclear talks between Iran and the six powers in Vienna last month – the so-called "P5+1" process – ran into difficulties, with each side accusing the other of having unrealistic demands in negotiations aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for an end to sanctions.

The U.S. decision to head to Geneva and meet with the Iranian delegation, which a senior U.S. official said might be led by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, appeared to highlight Washington’s desire to break the deadlock.

"We’ve always said that we would engage bilaterally with the Iranians if it can help advance our efforts, in active coordination with the P5+1," a U.S. official told Reuters. "In order to really seriously test whether we can reach a diplomatic solution with Iran on its nuclear program, we believe we need to engage in very active and very aggressive diplomacy."

The official said the talks next week were not negotiations. "These are really consultations to exchange views in advance of the next negotiating round in Vienna," the official said.

Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R), who unsuccessfully campaigned for U.S. Senate in 2012, compared the economic situation in the U.S. to Nazi Germany on Saturday.

"The people of Germany in a free election selected the Nazi party because they made great promises that appealed to them because they were desperate and destitute," Mourdock said during a speech at the Indiana Republican Convention in Fort Wayne, as quoted by the Indianapolis Star. "And why is that? Because Germany was bankrupt."

Mourdock called the comparison his "most important lesson" as he leaves public office at the end of the year, according to the Star. He also referenced the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, which took place the day before his speech.

"The truth is, 70 years later, we are drifting on the tides toward another beachhead and it is the bankruptcy of the United States of America," he said.

"Over the next several years, every time a program began to fall apart, Mr. Hitler's party was very, very good at dividing Germany by pointing to this group or that group," he added. "First they went after their political opponents. Then they went after the aristocrats. Then they went after the trade unionists. And ultimately of course they went after the Jews. They deprived them of their property, their rights, their citizenship, and for millions their humanity. Because they were bankrupt!"

On June 08 2014 07:36 KwarK wrote:
About as insightful a comparison as you can expect from someone who describes 1933 as 70 years ago.

On June 08 2014 07:36 KwarK wrote:
About as insightful a comparison as you can expect from someone who describes 1933 as 70 years ago.

On June 08 2014 07:36 KwarK wrote:
About as insightful a comparison as you can expect from someone who describes 1933 as 70 years ago.

On June 08 2014 12:31 Wegandi wrote:


While the Godwin recollection is overused, his points remain accurate. States which become decadent, lavish, and spend like money is a font of infinity with no consequences attached, whose political situation is rife with corruption devolve into tyranny. Most use the example of the Roman Republic, but really, any Nation who had any significant degree of freedoms for its plebiscites always go through these 'stages', so it's important to recognize and combat. Of course, humanity is quite myopic so I don't expect any lessons learned. To bad death has to erase experience and wisdom.

On June 08 2014 07:46 hunts wrote:


Being he referenced the 70th anniversary of d-day as it said there, which was 70 years ago, I'm going to have to say you are misinterpreting what he said to try and make him look bad because you disagree with his points. Given what is said, He is quite aware that 1933 was not 70 years ago, but 1944 was. Or perhaps you did not know that d-day was in 1944 and not 1933, which is what he referenced?

On June 08 2014 12:31 Wegandi wrote:


While the Godwin recollection is overused, his points remain accurate. States which become decadent, lavish, and spend like money is a font of infinity with no consequences attached, whose political situation is rife with corruption devolve into tyranny. Most use the example of the Roman Republic, but really, any Nation who had any significant degree of freedoms for its plebiscites always go through these 'stages', so it's important to recognize and combat. Of course, humanity is quite myopic so I don't expect any lessons learned. To bad death has to erase experience and wisdom.

A federal judge in California withdrew a temporary order requiring the National Security Agency to retain the data it collects under a controversial and little understood section of the FISA Amendments Act after the NSA argued that being forced to hold onto the data would both be illegal and overwhelm its computer systems, rendering the United States and its allies vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

The decision, by District Court Judge Jeffrey White in Oakland, came as part of a long-running lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of AT&T customers who allege that their communications have been intercepted in bulk by the NSA, violating the First and Fourth amendments.

White’s Friday decision came at an emergency hearing called by the judge after EFF attorney Cindy Cohn said that recent emails she had exchanged with the government’s lawyer indicated that the government was discarding surveillance data it collects under Section 720 of the FISA Amendments Act, which Cohn argued was in violation of an order White made in March ordering the NSA to retain it.

At the heart of the dispute between the EFF and the government are two legal authorities central to the kind of NSA surveillance exposed in detail by former contractor Edward Snowden.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — The Texas Republican Party now endorses so-called "reparative therapy" for gays, under a new platform given final approval at its annual convention Saturday.

The new anti-gay language never came up for debate before roughly 7,000 delegates ratified a Texas GOP platform that tea party groups succeeded in pushing further to the right, including winning a harder line on immigration.

One influential tea party group called Texas Eagle Forum had urged the party to support psychological treatments that seek to turn gay people straight. It comes after Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last fall signed a law banning such therapies on minors, and California has a similar law.

The Fort Worth Convention Hall cheered when party leaders announced that Christie finished a distant 11th in a 2016 presidential straw poll.

"There's a very, very small group of people who want to keep the party in the past. We were here today to try to pull the party into the future," said Rudy Oeftering, vice president of the gay conservative group Metroplex Republicans. "The only way the party can go into the future is to start listening to young people, to start listening to people who have gay family members."

Oeftering and allies had lined up to speak against the therapy language that had been added earlier this week. But they never got a chance to address delegates, because a parliamentary motion to approve the full platform was called first.

Under the new plank, the Texas GOP recognizes "the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle."

On June 09 2014 13:52 RCMDVA wrote:
In Virginia we've been deadlocked with a state budget.

House is Republican by a huge margin.
Senate is tied 20-20 with Democratic Lt. Gov breaking the ties.

News is that tomorrow, a Democratic state senator is going to resign.

So it will be 20-19 and the Lt. Gov is out of the picture.

The payoff?..The guy resigning...his daughter gets to become a Juvenile Court judge. And then he also gets a seat on a tobacco related board.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/democratic-senator-puckett-resigns-adding-to-state-budget-turmoil/article_391d0112-ef5d-11e3-a769-0017a43b2370.html

And what really hurts.. The Dem senator, his district went 70/30 for Romney in the last election. When they hold a special election there the Republicans will pick it up, locking up +1. So pretty much what happens, is that Terry McAuliffe is a lame duck governor after tomorrow.

On June 10 2014 00:23 Nyxisto wrote:


This is such a joke. How is this party still winning any elections?

On June 09 2014 23:57 MstrJinbo wrote:


Since most people don't know (or care) about local Virginia politics. This is basically a proxy fight over Obamacare. The governor made a requirement that the budget include expanding medicade (a key component for the Healthcare law) and republicans balked.

Also, I'm not sure where you got the impression that McAuliffe would be anything other than a lame duck. To give a sense of the support he has from the Virginia electorate, He barely beat Ken Cucinnelli (who also has high negatives) on a decent election year for democrats, and with indicted Gov McDonald as a boat anchor tied to Cucinnelli.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is signing an executive order that lets borrowers pay no more than 10 percent of their monthly income in student loan payments.

The measure expands on a 2010 law that covered those who started borrowing after October 2007 and kept borrowing after October 2011. The executive order allows those who borrowed earlier to participate, potentially extending the benefit to millions more borrowers.

Obama will sign the order Monday during an event in the White House Rose Garden. The president will also use the appearance to call for Congress to pass more sweeping legislation that would let college graduates with heavy debts refinance their loans.

The couple who allegedly shot and killed two Las Vegas police officers and then killed another person Sunday before killing themselves have been identified as Jerad and Amanda Miller, according to multiple news reports.

While neighbors had already pegged the couple as supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has been facing off with the federal government in recent months, a review of what appears to be Jerad Miller's Facebook page reveals someone who has long harbored extreme anti-government views and saw the Bundy Ranch standoff as a possible start to a revolution.

The page is attributed to Jerad Miller, with the same unusual spelling of the Vegas shooter's first name and who is listed as married to an Amanda Miller from Las Vegas. Going back to 2012, it is almost entirely filled with violent rhetoric based around a strong Second Amendment advocacy and extreme opposition to the federal government.

"The dawn of a new day," Miller posted on June 7, the day before the shootings. "May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it."