Government Urging 25% of U.S. Workforce to Strive for Student Loan Forgiveness

(CNSNews.com) - There's no student loan forgiveness program for mothers who raise their own children, but there is for some daycare workers; And student loan forgiveness may be yours if you work for the government in some capacity, but not if you earn a low salary in the private sector.

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is trying to make it easier for people in certain jobs -- teachers, nurses, social workers, police and firefighters, and federal, state and local government workers -- to understand the route to student loan forgiveness.

On Wednesday, the CFPB released a "toolkit" to "empower" school districts and other public service organizations to help their employees understand how they can pay off their student loans or have them forgiven. That toolkit asks employers to pledge that they will talk to their workers about student debt, help them understand their options, and assist them in enrolling in student-loan repayment benefits. 

Richmond Public Schools in Virginia and the City of South Bend, Indiana, are the first public employers to sign the pledge.

Up to a quarter of the U.S. workforce is in public service and may be eligible for existing student loan debt-forgiveness programs, the CFPB said. 

Via: CNS News

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New Obamacare rule uses terms ‘shared responsibility payment’ and ‘penalty’ instead of ‘tax’ more than 50 times

The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) final rule on Obamacare’s individual mandate, released this week, uses the term “Shared Responsibility Payment” more than 50 times to describe the mandate’s non-compliance penalty, which the Supreme Court in 2012 defined as a tax.

The IRS also used the term “shared responsibility penalty” in the rule, which does not identify the individual mandate as a tax.

The 75-page rule published by the IRS, which is tasked with enforcing Obamacare as the law is fully implemented in 2014, is entitled “Shared Responsibility Payment for Not Maintaining Minimum Essential Coverage.”

While the Obama administration originally pitched the individual mandate as a penalty, not a tax, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ruled in June 2012 that Obamacare is only constitutional because the individual mandate is technically a tax.

Nevertheless, the IRS used the term “penalty” in at least one instance in the new document.

“A commentator expressed a concern that a United States citizen or national who resides outside the United States may be subject to the shared responsibility penalty even if the individual has health care coverage provided by a foreign health insurance,” the IRS document states on page 22. The IRS document also uses the terms “monthly penalty amount” (page 44) and “monthly penalty amounts” to refer to individuals’ hypothetical costs under their shared responsibility payments.

Using the term “shared responsibility payment” to refer to what was legally defined as a tax might constitute an act of dishonesty on the part of the Obama administration, according to one expert.

“They lied to the American people, lied to the Supreme Court, now they’re back to lying to the American people,” Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist told The Daily Caller.

Via: Daily Caller

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Ed Show Online Poll Asks: ‘Are Conservatives the New Confederates?’

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz is not particularly subtle in his political analysis. Case in point, his big online poll question today is: “Are conservatives the new Confederates?” The response was a resounding “yes.”

Schultz was spurred to ask this question by ReverendJesse Jackson saying in a POLITICO interview yesterday, “The tea party is the resurrection of the Confederacy, it’s the Fort Sumter tea party.”

But Schultz’s poll takes things one step further. Jackson’s comment was just about the tea party. Schultz is asking if all conservatives are Confederates. As of this typing, “yes” has 1,336 votes, making up 74.18 percent of total votes.

Jackson elaborated on his remarks on Schultz’s MSNBC show, citing the “anti-voting rights, anti-women’s rights, anti-labor… Confederate agenda” of the modern right.

Watch the Ed Show clip below, via MSNBC:

Via: Mediaite.com

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Gutiérrez (DEM): Women Will Get Raped Unless We Pass Immigration Reform

Death, a lost limb or eye, and rape: Those are the possible consequences of not passing immigration reform, according to Representative Luis Gutiérrez. The Illinois Democrat is one of the leading House members pushing for immigration reform.

At a town-hall event in Chantilly, Va., yesterday, Gutiérrez told attendees that while he has objections to the immigration bill passed by the Senate earlier this year, he would “vote for that proposal today . . . even under those harsh conditions” rather than not pass anything. He went on to list a series of cautionary tales about the tragedy that would result should Congress fail to pass an immigration bill:

“Today, someone is going to die in that desert, trying to return to their families, women and men are going to die in that desert; someone’s going to lose a finger, a hand, an eye, a life today because an unscrupulous employer is going to put them in harm’s way, someone’s going to die; there’s a woman that’s going to be raped in a field somewhere in America today because she has no rights in this country, and we need to end that; there are children who are going to cry and there are marriages that are going to be destroyed because someone is going to be deported, and there are going to be children that are going to be left orphaned in this country.”

“For all of those reasons, we would accept [the Senate bill],” Gutiérrez said.

Via: National Review Online

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UPDATE 2-Russia sends warships to Mediterranean as Syria tension rises

 Interfax says two Russian warships head to Mediterranean

* Navy official says no plans to beef up forces

* U.S. is repositioning warships in Mediterranean (Adds details of naval force)

By Timothy Heritage

MOSCOW, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Russia is sending two warships to the east Mediterranean, Interfax news agency said on Thursday, but Moscow denied this meant it was beefing up its naval force there as Western powers prepare for military action against Syria.

Interfax quoted a source in the armed forces' general staff as saying Russia, Syria's most powerful ally, was deploying a missile cruiser from the Black Sea Fleet and a large anti-submarine ship from the Northern Fleet in the "coming days".

Any strengthening of the navy's presence could fuel tension, especially as the United States has said it is repositioning naval forces in the Mediterranean following an alleged chemical weapons attack which it blames on Syrian government forces.

"The well-known situation now in the eastern Mediterranean required us to make some adjustments to the naval force," the source said in a reference to the events in Syria.

It was not clear when the vessels would arrive but Interfax said the Moskva missile cruiser was currently in the North Atlantic and would set sail in the next few days.

Via: Rueters

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Politico: Obama's surveillance board packed with insiders

President Barack Obama pledged he’d appoint “outside experts” to review the country’s surveillance practices, but he’s since tapped largely insiders for the key posts.

The group, formed to examine the policies and procedures at the National Security Agency as it tracks terrorism suspects’ digital communications, is composed mostly of Washington types, many with connections to the very intelligence establishment they’re now tasked with scrutinizing in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks.

There’s Michael Morell, a CIA veteran who once led the agency on an interim basis; Richard Clarke, a top counter-terrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations; and Cass Sunstein, a well-known academic who did regulatory work for the Obama White House and is married to United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power. The panel also includes Peter Swire, a former Clinton administration privacy expert, and Geoffrey Stone, a top professor at the University of Chicago Law School who knows the president.

Announcing the inquiry at an Aug. 9 press conference, Obama described it as “a high-level group of outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies” — and he stressed it would be “independent.”

“I think it’s fair to say that by stressing the idea of an independent review board, the appointees don’t live up to what most people view as independent,” said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

What Obama was actually seeking, Harris said, was a group to look at the internal management and effectiveness of surveillance programs. She added the board has a “very broad mission, and I’m going to withhold judgment until I see what they do.”

Via: Politico

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Feds Spending $30 Million to Clean State Department

ALL SIGNS OF HILLARY WILL BE WIPED CLEAN!!

The State Department is spending nearly $30 million to have its buildings cleaned, it was announced Monday.

A $29.8 million contract for “Janitorial Services” was awarded to R and R Janitorial, Painting, and Building Services, Inc. for cleaning and maintenance of the main State building, the Harry S. Truman building, and the Blair House in Washington, D.C.

The agreement includes a base year and four option years, and covers a wide array of services for the buildings, including basic janitorial services, snow removal, carpet shampooing, and recycling.

Detailed instructions are provided to the contractor on “insight to cleaning terrazzo floors,” and the types of dusting cloths to use in the State Department.

Under the section “specific directions for housekeeping staff of the diplomatic reception rooms,” the contract states, “Dust hardwood around and under all heavy furniture and their legs with fuzzy extended hand duster.” No feather dusters, or dusters with yellow cloth or strips, can be used, the contract orders.

In addition, the contract instructs when to use the “white dust cloth” (wood furniture, lamps, bowls), “small museum dust brush” (frames, mirrors), and the “damp green cloth” (mirror glass).

It also includes quality standards for escalators, drinking fountains, and telephones. The company must use a Nilfisk vacuum for rugs.

Via: WFB

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NY Times: Putin Incensed by Obama's 'Bored Kid' Remark

A comment by President Obama that Vladimir Putin looked "like the bored kid in the back of the classroom" apparently "infuriated" the Russian president, The New York Times reported Wednesday. 

The comment came Aug. 9 at a news conference concerning a showdown with Putin over Edward Snowden, the former defense contractor who leaked top-secret details of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs.

Putin ultimately gave Snowden temporary asylum over the objections of Obama, and the president was asked about his working relationship with the Russian leader.

Editor's Note: 22 Hidden Taxes and Fees Set to Hit You With Obamacare. Read the Guide to Protect Yourself. 

"I know the press likes to focus on body language, and he's got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom. But the truth is that when we're in conversations together, oftentimes it's very productive," Obama said.

The president went on to say that he didn't have "a bad personal relationship with Putin," and that "when we have conversations, they’re candid, they’re blunt; oftentimes, they’re constructive."

But Putin was not amused — and the remark just "intensified" Putin's suspicion of Obama, as did his abrupt cancellation of a meeting scheduled for next week in Moscow, The Times reported.

"The comment infuriated" Putin, The Times said, citing an unnamed Russian official.

Via: Newsmax

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Obama’s Jim Crow Education System

How is banning school vouchers for poor black students a fulfillment of MLK’s dream?

In his speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s march on Washington, President Obama hypocritically bemoaned the current state of education, saying that many Americans face a “fortress of substandard schools and diminished prospects.” He claimed that such schools were “underfunded” and that every child has a “right ... to get an education that stirs the mind and captures the spirit and prepares them for the world that awaits them.”

However, it is the Obama administration that has been instrumental in depriving poor, especially minority, children from the “right” to a quality education with its campaign to eradicate school vouchers. Just recently, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit in New Orleans federal court to prevent Louisiana from implementing a voucher program at public schools that remains under federal desegregation orders.

According to the DOJ, the 570 students who received the vouchers for the 2012-2013 school year “impeded the desegregation process,” and therefore vouchers for 2014-15 school year must be blocked. The great irony here is that 90 percent of the children who used the vouchers to get themselves a better education are black Americans. Yet the DOJ remains concerned that 10 percent of the 2012-2013 voucher recipients came from schools that remain under desegregation orders written a half-century ago. In their court petition, the DOJ insists that some of the voucher recipients were “in the racial minority at the public school they attended before receiving the voucher.” As the Wall Street Journal wryly notes, the DOJ “is claiming that the voucher program may be illegal because minority kids made their failing public schools more white by leaving those schools to go to better private schools.”

However, it is the Obama administration that has been instrumental in depriving poor, especially minority, children from the “right” to a quality education with its campaign to eradicate school vouchers. Just recently, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit in New Orleans federal court to prevent Louisiana from implementing a voucher program at public schools that remains under federal desegregation orders.

According to the DOJ, the 570 students who received the vouchers for the 2012-2013 school year “impeded the desegregation process,” and therefore vouchers for 2014-15 school year must be blocked. The great irony here is that 90 percent of the children who used the vouchers to get themselves a better education are black Americans. Yet the DOJ remains concerned that 10 percent of the 2012-2013 voucher recipients came from schools that remain under desegregation orders written a half-century ago. In their court petition, the DOJ insists that some of the voucher recipients were “in the racial minority at the public school they attended before receiving the voucher.” As the Wall Street Journal wryly notes, the DOJ “is claiming that the voucher program may be illegal because minority kids made their failing public schools more white by leaving those schools to go to better private schools.”

Via: Canada Free Press

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Obama's Affordable Care Act Looking a Bit Unaffordable

Independent National Journal analysis finds premiums higher under Obamacare as employers weigh dropping coverage.

                                                                                                               Kathleen Sebelius and President Obama 

Republicans have long blamed President Obama's signature health care initiative for increasing insurance costs, dubbing it the "Unaffordable Care Act."

Turns out, they might be right.

For the vast majority of Americans, premium prices will be higher in the individual exchange than what they're currently paying for employer-sponsored benefits, according to a National Journalanalysis of new coverage and cost data. Adding even more out-of-pocket expenses to consumers' monthly insurance bills is a swell in deductibles under the Affordable Care Act.

Health law proponents have excused the rate hikes by saying the prices in the exchange won't apply to the millions receiving coverage from their employers. But that's only if employers continue to offer that coverage--something that's looking increasingly uncertain. Already, UPS, for example, cited Obamacare as its reason for nixing spousal coverage. And while a Kaiser Family Foundation report found that 49 percent of the U.S. population now receives employer-sponsored coverage, more companies are debating whether they will continue to be in the business of providing such benefits at all.

Economists largely agree there won't be a sea change among employers offering coverage. But they're also saying small businesses are still in play.

Caroline Pearson, vice president at Avalere Health, a health care and public policy advisory firm, said there's a calculation low-wage companies will make to determine if there's cost savings in sending employees to the exchanges.

"The amount you have to gross up their wages so they can get their own insurance and the cost of the penalties may add up to less than the cost of providing care," she said.

It's a choice companies are already making. The number of employers offering coverage has declined, from 66 percent in 2003 to 57 percent today, according to Kaiser's study.

Via: National Journal

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Mother of two beaten by gang of black teenage girls in brutal 'racist attack' in which she 'thought she was going to die'

• Ginger Slepski was set-upon by four teenagers when she confronted them for throwing a bottle at her car

A Pittsburgh mother has said that she feared for her life when she was attacked by a group of teenagers in the city's North Side on Sunday as they beat her while calling her racial slurs.

Ginger Slepski said that she suffered torn shoulder ligaments in the attack by the four black teenage girls which has left the electrician mother-of-two unable to work.

'I thought it was so animalistic,' said Slepski to WPXI. 'So violent. I'm afraid for these girls to get out and walk the streets.' 

Police in Pittsburgh said that Slepski was attacked after one of the teens threw a bottle at her car as she was driving through the North Side of Pittsburgh.

'I was mad. I knew they were younger,' said Slepski. 'I thought they were in their early 20s. I got out and said, 'What is your problem?'

Via: Mail Online

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Administration announces new gun control measures, targets military surplus imports

The Obama administration unexpectedly announced two new gun control measures on Thursday, including one that would curb the import of military surplus weapons -- in a move that could anger collectors.

Vice President Biden was announcing the new measures Thursday morning. The new rules, announced while Washington was otherwise focused on the crisis in Syria, took the form of executive actions, which President Obama added to the list of 23 steps the White House already determined the president could take on his own.

The steps come after Congress declined to pass any gun control legislation earlier this year despite an aggressive White House push for action in the wake of the Newton, Conn., shooting massacre. With the political world focused on Mideast tensions and looming fiscal battles, the move signaled Obama's intent to show he hasn't lost sight of the issue. 

One new policy will end a government practice that lets military weapons, sold or donated by the U.S. to allies, be reimported into the U.S. by private entities, where some may end up on the streets. The White House said the U.S. has approved 250,000 of those guns to be reimported since 2005; under the new policy, only museums and a few other entities like the government will be eligible to reimport military-grade firearms. 

The Obama administration is also proposing a federal rule to stop those who would be ineligible to pass a background check from skirting the law by registering a gun to a corporation or trust. The new rule would require people associated with those entities, like beneficiaries and trustees, to undergo the same type of fingerprint-based background checks as individuals if they want to register guns.

Via: Fox News Politics

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Obama: If Minorities Start Thinking Government's The Problem, That Leaves The Marketplace On Its Own

PRESIDENT OBAMA: There is an argument that was made in 1964, 1965 on through the ’80s and ’90s in which those who resisted any change in the status quo, particularly when it came to economic opportunity, made two big arguments. 

Argument number one was, any efforts by government to help folks who were locked out of opportunity, whether it was minorities or the poor generally, unions, any effort by government to help those folks is bad for the economy. And that became a major argument. And if, in fact, people start thinking the government’s the problem instead of the solution, then what that leaves you is whatever the marketplace does on its own. And what we’ve seen is a marketplace that increasingly produces very unequal results. And it – so it – it disempowers our capacity for common action to do something about poverty, to do something to help middle-class families.

And I think the second element to that argument that has been made, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly, is that government has hurt middle-class families or hurt white working-class families, because, you know, pointy-headed bureaucrats in Washington are just trying to help out minorities or trying to give them something free. (PBS NewsHour, August 28, 2013)

Via: Real Clear Politics

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MORNING ACTION: LAWMAKERS IN WASHINGTON PLAYING WITH THE SECOND AMENDMENT YET AGAIN

GUNS.  Two Democrat lawmakers are sponsoring legislation that would create 20 percent tax on handguns and a 50 percent tax on ammunition:

Rep. Danny K. Davis and Bill Pascrell are sponsoring legislation to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to include a 20 percent tax on handguns, as well as a 50 percent tax on ammo:

Pascrell believes a new tax on handguns “has been a long time coming.” In announcing the legislation on August 21, Pascrell said, “The tax on handguns was last increased in 1955. Worse yet, the tax rate on ammunition and other types of firearms has remained the same since 1941.”

Besides taxing “pistols [and] revolvers” the bill also contains language indicating a proposed 20 percent tax on firearms “other than pistols and revolvers.”

The proposed tax on handguns would nearly double the current rate of 11%, and the tax would be applied at multiple points of sale — manufacturer, producer, and importer — significantly driving up prices. All government agencies would be exempt from the added tax, and its proceeds would benefit police departments.

EDUCATION. Virginia Walden Ford explains the benefits of school choice as an alternative to failing schools across the country:

Though our work is not yet done, and we will still strive to realize the fullness of the dream, we are now seeing children who were failing in schools across the nation thrive in schools that their parents chose. In just one instance of that accomplishment, it was a special joy for me this year to celebrate with Jordan White, the first DCOSP college graduate. Now she’s headed to a job in Kagoshima, Japan.

Via: Heritage Action

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