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Ross Perot, billionaire former presidential candidate, has died at age 89
CBS News – Billionaire, philanthropist and former presidential candidate Ross Perot has died, CBS News has confirmed. He was 89.
In 1992, Perot made a name for himself when he became the most successful non-major party presidential candidate in 80 years, amassing 19 percent of the popular vote, running against President George H.W. Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.
As a boy in Texarkana, Texas, Perot delivered newspapers from the back of a pony. He earned his billions in a more modern way, however — by building Electronic Data Systems Corp., which helped other companies manage their computer networks.
Yet the most famous event in his career didn’t involve sales and earnings; he financed a private commando raid in 1979 to free two EDS employees who were being held in a prison in Iran. The tale was turned into a book and a movie.
Perot first became known to Americans outside of business circles by claiming that the U.S. government left behind hundreds of American soldiers who were missing or imprisoned at the end of the Vietnam War. Perot fanned the issue at home and discussed it privately with Vietnamese officials in the 1980s, angering the Reagan administration, which was formally negotiating with Vietnam’s government.
Perot’s wealth, fame and confident prescription for the nation’s economic ills propelled his 1992 campaign against President George H.W. Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton. Some Republicans blamed him for Bush’s lost to Clinton as Perot garnered the largest percentage of votes for a third-party candidate since former President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 bid.
During the campaign, Perot spent $63.5 million of his own money and bought up 30-minute television spots. He used charts and graphs to make his points, summarizing them with a line that became a national catchphrase: “It’s just that simple.”
Former President George W. Bush called Perot a patriot.
Perot died in Texas, the state where he was born, surrounded by family.
“Mr. Perot was a true patriot and a dedicated humanitarian. He will be missed greatly,” Ross Mulford of Petrus Asset Management Company said in a statement.
“Texas and America have lost a strong patriot,” Bush said in a statement. “Ross Perot epitomized the entrepreneurial spirit and the American creed. He gave selflessly of his time and resources to help others in our community, across our country, and around the world. He loved the U.S. military and supported our service members and veterans. Most importantly, he loved his dear wife, children, and grandchildren. Laura and I send our heartfelt condolences to the entire Perot family as they celebrate a full life.”
Perot’s second campaign four years later was far less successful. He was shut out of presidential debates when organizers said he lacked sufficient support. He got just 8% of the vote, and the Reform Party that he founded and hoped to build into a national political force began to fall apart.
However, Perot’s ideas on trade and deficit reduction remained part of the political landscape. He blamed both major parties for running up a huge federal budget deficit and letting American jobs to be sent to other countries. The movement of U.S. jobs to Mexico, he said, created a “giant sucking sound.”
Perot continued to speak out about federal spending for many years. In 2008, he launched a website to highlight the nation’s debt with a ticker that tracked the rising total, a blog and a chart presentation.
Henry Ross Perot was born in Texarkana on June 27, 1930. His father was a cotton broker; his mother a secretary. Perot said his family survived the Depression relatively well through hard work and by managing their money carefully.
Young Perot’s first job was delivering papers in a poor, mostly black part of town from his pony, Miss Bee. Perot said when the newspaper tried to cut his commission, he complained to the publisher — and won. He said he learned to take problems straight to the top.
From Texarkana, Perot went to the U.S. Naval Academy even though he had never been on a ship or seen the ocean. After the Navy, Perot joined International Business Machines in 1955 and quickly became a top salesman. In his last year at IBM, he filled his sales quota for the year in January.
In 1962, with $1,000 from his wife, Margot, Perot founded Electronic Data Systems. Hardware accounted for about 80% of the computer business, Perot said, and IBM wasn’t interested in the other 20%, including services.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Source: US Government Class
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New laws taking effect Monday reflect N.M.’s progressive shift
Santa Fe New Mexican – The effects of a progressive shift in New Mexico politics are being felt as new laws take effect that restrict gun access, raise taxes, decriminalize low-level drug possession and provide a major boost in state spending on everything from teacher salaries to road construction.
Starting Monday, taxes on vehicle sales rise by 33 percent. Background checks will be required for nearly all firearms purchases, and smaller public bathrooms will become gender-neutral.
The state also is raising its salaries and channeling more money toward public education initiatives designed to help at-risk students in response to a court order mandating greater school resources.
Aside from the tax hikes, a windfall from the oil sector will help with increased government spending as the industry is expected to provide the state with a $1 billion surplus for a second consecutive year.
Many of the new laws make good on Democratic campaign promises, while Republican state Sen. Steven Neville argues that the initiatives are “borderline socialism.”
Here’s a glance at key new laws and spending provisions:
Gun control: The gun regulations that go into effect Monday have been a lightning rod for criticism by rural sheriffs, county commissions and many Republican lawmakers.
Most notably, the new laws expand statewide background checks to nearly all gun purchases. That includes sales between neighbors or friends, with exceptions for relatives and antique guns.
New Mexico also is limiting who can carry firearms on school grounds to trained security personnel and prohibiting people from possessing a firearm if they’re under permanent protective orders for domestic violence.
First-year Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham campaigned on pledges to improve gun safety and signed the new initiatives with enthusiasm.
More than two dozen sheriffs in predominantly rural areas vowed to avoid enforcement, equipped with supportive resolutions from county commissions. New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association President Tony Mace of Cibola County compares the universal background check law to texting-while-driving prohibitions that aren’t enforced a lot of the time.
“What we’re talking about is discretion on which laws we want to use to basically impact crime and prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands,” Mace said. “I do think you’re going to see a difference between the rural parts of New Mexico versus the metropolitan parts.”
State Attorney General Hector Balderas has warned sheriffs and police chiefs that they risk legal liability if they refuse to enforce the new law.
Lujan Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki said people, including responsible gun owners, will be glad to see the changes take place.
Government spending: Annual general fund spending will increase by 11 percent for the fiscal year starting July 1.
A major share of the increase is aimed at public education, raising school salaries by at least 6 percent and bankrolling initiatives that extend learning time for students, training for teachers and support services outside the classroom.
Lawmakers also recently approved roughly $930 million for public construction projects and an additional $390 million for roads. Neville of Aztec said the investments in schools and roads were desperately needed and should stimulate the economy.
Criminal justice: Penalties are being reduced for the possession of small amounts of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Having up to a half-ounce — 14 grams — of marijuana becomes a petty misdemeanor that translates into a $50 fine on first offense.
Another new law sets a 180-day deadline for law enforcement agencies to process sexual assault kits that can help identify perpetrators through traces of DNA. It also requires that assault victims be advised of the deadline.
Cities including Albuquerque are attempting to clear a backlog of untested kits.
Coyotes: The state is banning contests to see who can shoot and kill the most coyotes. The prohibition was among a slate of legislation related to wildlife, gun rights and voting procedures that has drawn the ire of self-described patriot groups that favor limited government.
The groups have unsuccessfully applied to circulate signature petitions to overturn new state laws by voter referendum, a procedure rarely used in the state’s history.
Pension woes: The state is increasing its contributions slightly to retirement trusts for public employees and educators, a bump equal to 0.25 percent of salary. It’s not enough to allay concerns about growing unfunded pension liabilities.
More significant reforms are kicking in at the retirement fund for educators in an effort to pay down pension liabilities more quickly — over the course of about 46 years, rather than 70.
The changes mean less generous pension benefits for future educational employees with shorter careers.
Source: US Government Class
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NATO Considers Missile Defense Upgrade, Risking Further Tensions With Russia
New York Times – BRUSSELS — NATO military officials are exploring whether to upgrade their defenses to make them capable of shooting down newly deployed Russian intermediate-range nuclear missiles after a landmark arms treaty dissolves next month, according to three European officials.
Any change to the stated mission of NATO’s current missile defense system — aimed at threats from outside the region, like Iran — would probably divide the alliance’s member countries and enrage Russia, which has long said it views NATO’s missile defense site in Romania and one under construction in Poland as a threat to its nuclear arsenal and a source of instability in Europe.
“It would be a point of no return with the Russians,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon official and expert on the alliance. “It would be a real escalation.”
The United States announced in February its intention to withdraw from the 31-year-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987 in the waning years of the Cold War, citing Moscow’s years of violations, a step the NATO alliance supported.
The treaty, which prohibits missiles with a range of 310 to 3,420 miles from Europe, will be terminated on Aug. 2 unless Moscow and Washington come to agreement to revive it in the next few weeks.
NATO ambassadors will make one last attempt to push Russia to withdraw its new cruise missiles and revive the treaty on Friday in Brussels.
Discussions about new missile defense measures are at their earliest stages, officials cautioned. NATO’s chief spokeswoman, Oana Lungescu, denied that any studies of the feasibility of upgrading the ballistic missile defenses were underway. She said the alliance had repeatedly made clear that the existing ballistic missile defense system “is neither designed nor directed against Russia.”
But the alliance is considering new air and missile defenses, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced last week without revealing details. And given the rising threat of the Russian cruise missiles, NATO members are expected to order the alliance to study defense options, either after the October defense ministers’ meeting or the December leaders’ summit, a senior alliance official said.
Such an order would require all 29 allies to agree to it. But some officials think that if the treaty ends, the allies will at least be willing to examine the options. The senior official said that if the allies ultimately could not agree on shifting the mission of the ballistic missile defense sites, they may be open to a compromise that would introduce new systems to defend against Russian cruise missiles.
The push for improved defenses is fueled by Russia’s fielding of a new class of missiles as well as the expected demise of the treaty — a casualty of deteriorating relations between Russia and the United States. Eastern European countries, particularly Poland and the Baltic states, believe they are under growing threat of nuclear bullying by Moscow and have been eager to see the alliance develop new defenses.
Based on intelligence from multiple allied agencies, NATO countries have forged a consensus that the new Russian nuclear-capable cruise missiles pose a threat. The missiles, some American and European analysts fear, could give Moscow significant leverage, using the threat of attack to force other countries to de-escalate or give in to Russian demands during a crisis.
The relationship between Russia and the West has spiraled downward since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Russia’s destabilization of Ukraine forced the alliance to reinforce its eastern flank with new troop deployments and military exercises. Moscow responded with its own military upgrades, ultimately including the deployment of a new class of ground-based cruise missiles that the West said violated the I.N.F. treaty. Russia’s election interference, its intervention in Syria and the attempted poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer in Britain further heightened tensions.
Any move by NATO to redirect its missile defenses or expand its system with new capabilities could be a tipping point. Russians have never believed the alliance’s denials that its interceptor system would not eventually be used to shoot down Russian missiles. The system has remained a persistent irritant for Moscow, which questioned why the alliance still needed it after Iran agreed in 2015 to pause its nuclear enrichment program and threatened to direct missiles at the alliance interceptor sites.
Officials at Russia’s NATO embassy did not return requests for comment.
Last week, allied defense ministers approved an examination of potential responses to the Russian deployment of so-called SSC-8 cruise missiles, the weapon NATO accuses Moscow of deploying in violation of the treaty, according to three NATO officials. They include expanding existing deterrence exercises and publicizing the alliance’s nuclear exercises, which are highly secretive. Drawing more attention to the allied nuclear exercises and arsenal would help deter Moscow’s use of its own weapons, some officials think.
NATO will probably need to examine more broadly what defenses it needs against the cruise missiles. Such work, if approved this year, would include exploring whether it can upgrade its Aegis Ashore radar and interceptor sites in Romania and Poland and looking at new radar or air defense capabilities against the cruise missiles.
Upgrading existing ballistic missile defense capabilities, including its two Aegis Ashore sites, would be complex. The NATO Aegis systems in Romania and Poland are incapable of firing the interceptor used to strike intermediate-range missiles. And given their close positions to Russia, the systems have significantly less time to detect, lock onto and attempt to intercept the missiles.
The United States Missile Defense Agency has examined how existing Aegis Ashore missile defense systems could be upgraded with new radar, software and interceptors to allow them to strike intermediate ballistic missiles and potentially cruise missiles, according to current and former officials briefed on the discussions.
Newer technologies like high-velocity projectiles and directed-energy lasers are likely to provide a far better defense long term, experts said. Ballistic missile defenses intercept missiles high in the atmosphere, while cruise missiles fly relatively low to the ground.
Fielding new systems to defend against a cruise missile threat, rather than upgrading the existing ballistic missile defense, may also prove more politically palatable. “If NATO is to update its systems, it may undermine its yearslong claim that the launchers were never meant to counter Russia,” said Bruno Lété, a defense analyst in the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
But many Europeans see themselves as in the line of fire with the new Russian cruise missile deployments, he said. “There is a clear incentive for NATO to see if they can upgrade the existing systems to counter Russian intermediary missiles,” Mr. Lété said. “From a military perspective, this would be a relatively simple, decisive and cost-effective step.”
Russian military doctrine, according to American and European military strategists, is increasingly focused on using limited nuclear strikes to quickly end a potential conflict in Moscow’s favor. Such a use of nuclear weapons for a battlefield effect is unthinkable to European politicians and has made some allied officials more open to examining the practicality of using the existing missile defense system to defend against Russia.
“We want to make sure the Russians don’t want to exercise nuclear blackmail, and missile defense is the way to take away that intimidation, to deter that intimidation,” Mr. Townsend said.
American officials have focused on trying to deter Russian intermediate-range missiles by quickly developing their own ground-launched cruise missile, a class the I.N.F. treaty has banned. Many in the alliance oppose deploying new offensive weapons. NATO planners are not expecting a directive to add offensive capabilities, only to expand defensive measures, the senior allied official said.
Since April, the Aegis site in Romania has been undergoing an upgrade. Officials said it was long planned and did not involve recalibrating the system.
If the alliance wants to counter Russian cruise missiles, it may make more sense to deploy new technologies like directed-energy lasers, microwaves or electronic warfare measures, said Mark Gunzinger, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“We have invested in ballistic missile defenses, but frankly the cruise missile threat is a growing threat and we just haven’t fielded the capabilities to deal with it,” Mr. Gunzinger said.
Even if the alliance opts not to upgrade its Aegis Ashore sites, Mr. Gunzinger said, Russia’s new weapons will force it to field new air and missile defenses. Without them, it would be difficult to reinforce its front-line troops during a conflict, he said.
“Deterring Russia is going to take a different posture in Europe,” Mr. Gunzinger said. “It will take air and missile defenses to counter their salvos, it will take electronic warfare capabilities, it will take long-range precision strike.”
Source: US Government Class
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Trump takes 20 steps into North Korea, making history as first sitting US leader to enter hermit nation
CNN – Seoul (CNN)President Donald Trump shook hands with Kim Jong Un on Sunday and took 20 steps into North Korea, making history as the first sitting US leader to set foot in the hermit kingdom.
Trump crossed the low stone curb separating the North and South at 3:45 p.m. local time, making his way alongside a grinning Kim into a country that’s long been a global pariah for its nuclear ambitions and dismal record on human rights.
The event, seemingly spontaneous and broadcast live, took to a new level Trump’s showman instincts and view of diplomacy as a test of interpersonal skills. Afterward, Trump said he agreed with Kim to revive staff-level talks that had collapsed after their last summit in February.
The encounter at the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone — their third in person — came a day after Trump raised the prospect of a border handshake in a tweet and declared he’d have “no problem” stepping into North Korea.
“Would you like me to step across?” Trump asked Kim as they shook hands. “I am OK with it.”
While inside North Korean territory, Trump and Kim shook hands and patted each other’s backs before returning across the border to the South after about a minute.
“I never expected to meet you at this place,” Kim, who appeared overjoyed in the moment, told Trump through an interpreter.
Later, Trump said he was “proud to step over the line” and thanked Kim for the meeting. He invited him to the White House, though later acknowledged such a visit would likely not come soon.
The North Korean leader said he was surprised by Trump’s request to meet, and accepted the offer due to their “excellent relationship” and the significance of meeting at the border.
“I think meeting here, two countries that have a hostile past, we are showcasing to the world that we have a new present and we have a positive meeting going forward,” he said.
After the historic handshake, the two men met inside the Freedom House at the DMZ for just under an hour — a more substantial session than Trump previewed earlier when he said his encounter with Kim would amount to little more than a h andshake.
The moment marks a milepost in the United States’ fraught history with North Korea, but what it means beyond a display of friendship wasn’t immediately clear.
There did not appear to be any new commitments made in Trump’s 50-minute meeting with Kim beyond an agreement to restart talks. And Trump himself said afterward he was in no rush to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons.
Still, the meeting and historic border crossing have broken a stalemate in the talks that hasn’t broken since Trump walked out of his last meeting with Kim in Vietnam four months ago.
Trump said negotiating teams would begin meeting in a matter of weeks.
The US team will be led by the current US special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, Trump said. Turning to Biegun, Trump wished him luck.
Confirmation came after back-and-forth
Trump arrived to the border zone about an hour after he confirmed he would meet with Kim, and used an observation platform to peer into the North.
Standing alongside his South Korean counterpart, he appeared somber as he listened to a US military official, who pointed at landmarks in the distance.
“It used to be very, very dangerous,” Trump said, citing his briefing. “After our first summit, the danger went away.”
Even with history in the air, Trump did not avoid criticizing the media, claiming he wasn’t given credit for improving relations with Pyongyang.
“When they say there’s been no difference, there’s been a tremendous difference,” he griped. “I say that for the press, they have no appreciation for what is being done, none.”
The meeting along the fenced and barbed wire-topped border came after a morning of back-and-forth over whether the brief greeting would transpire after Trump on Saturday issued a public invitation for a handshake.
On Sunday morning, Trump framed the question of whether he’d actually meet Kim as a matter of logistics, indicating both sides were sorting arrangements to make the handshake happen.
Such a meeting was once unthinkable
The prospect of a US president stepping over the world’s most heavily fortified border into North Korea would once be unthinkable. But it’s in keeping with Trump’s deeply personal style of diplomacy and his flair for orchestrating drama around those efforts.
Still, some diplomats even in Trump’s own administration were caught off guard when he tweeted the invitation for Kim to meet Saturday while attending the final day of the G20 summit.
Trump’s last meeting with Kim collapsed when the two sides could not agree on terms exchanging sanctions relief for relinquishing North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. And the two sides have made little progress since.
After Trump’s first summit with Kim, a year ago in Singapore, there appeared to be progress in thawing relations. North Korea released some imprisoned Americans and returned the remains of some soldiers who’d been killed in the Korean War.
For a period, North Korea also suspended its provocative missile tests. But in the past month they have resumed testing short range missiles, though have not yet conducted nuclear or intermediate- or long-range missile tests.
“I’m not sure what it is that President Trump is trying to accomplish, because while all this engagement has gone on, there has been no decline in the stockpile of North Korean nuclear weapons or missiles,” said Joseph Yun, a former US special representative for North Korea under Trump and now a CNN analyst.
Trump says he’s in no rush and claims to have already seen results — both enough, in his view, for another meeting.
“If you’re in a rush, you get yourself in trouble,” he said during a news conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in before his DMZ visit on Sunday.
Other presidents have gone to the DMZ — without Kim
Sunday was not the first attempt Trump made to get to the DMZ, the heavily guarded stretch that has divided the Korean
Peninsula for three-quarters of a century. He was foiled by weather last time around, in 2017. Always highly attuned to optics, Trump wasn’t likely to pass up the opportunity to stare into the North from the observation platform.
Other presidents have made the same journey — all peering into the North through binoculars — but none have actually met the despotic leaders who rule it.
Nor has any sitting US president stepped across into the North.
CNN’s Faith Karimi contributed to this report
Source: US Government Class
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Sanders to propose canceling entire $1.6 trillion in U.S. student loan debt, escalating Democratic policy battle
Washington Post – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will propose on Monday eliminating all $1.6 trillion of student debt held in the United States, a significant escalation of the policy fight in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary two days before the candidates’ first debate in Miami.
Sanders is proposing the federal government pay to wipe clean the student debt held by 45 million Americans — including all private and graduate school debt — as part of a package that also would make public universities, community colleges and trade schools tuition-free.
Sanders is proposing to pay for these plans with a tax on Wall Street his campaign says will raise more than $2 trillion over 10 years, though some tax experts give lower revenue estimates.
Sanders will be joined Monday by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who will introduce legislation in the House to eliminate all student debt in the United States, as well as Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has championed legislation to make public universities tuition-free.
Sanders helped popularize demands for tuition-free college during his 2016 presidential campaign run but did less to emphasize solutions for those who had already left school saddled with debt. Since then, liberal Democratic lawmakers have called for increasingly aggressive government solutions for erasing existing student debt, with 2020 candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposing $640 billion in student debt forgiveness and former housing secretary Julián Castro introducing a more modest debt forgiveness plan.
These proposals have faced fierce objections, including from some moderate Democrats, for giving taxpayer subsidies to educated Americans who, on average, have higher earnings than those with only a high school degree.
Advocates say the push reflects the growing recognition of the economic harm created by the nation’s soaring student debt burden, particularly on the millennial generation, which ballooned from $90 billion to $1.6 trillion in about two decades, according to federal data.
“This is truly a revolutionary proposal,” said Sanders, who is announcing the plan with the support of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and a handful of other House Democrats. “In a generation hard hit by the Wall Street crash of 2008, it forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education.”
Sanders is proposing to pay for the legislation with a new tax on financial transactions, including a 0.5 percent tax on stock transactions and a 0.1 percent tax on bonds. Such a levy would curb Wall Street speculation while reducing income inequality, according to a report by the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank, though conservatives warn it would stunt economic growth and investment.
Conservatives and moderate Democrats are likely to raise concerns about these student debt forgiveness plans. They have pointed out that Democratic presidential candidates, including Sanders, have pushed more than a dozen expensive federal projects — including Medicare-for-all, the Green New Deal and large infrastructure improvements — projected to cost substantially more than the $1.5 trillion GOP tax law approved in 2017, at a time of already high deficits.
“The cost will march toward $3 trillion and benefit a lot of wealthy families and future high-earners,” said Brian Riedl, an analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank. “Of all problems requiring a $3 trillion federal expenditure, the college costs of middle- and upper-class college graduates seem lower-priority.”
A fierce debate has raged in left-leaning policy circles as well as over whether canceling student debt offers too much help to families with higher incomes. The top 40 percent of earners would receive about two-thirds of the benefits from Warren’s plan, according to Adam Looney, a former Treasury official under President Barack Obama who is now at the Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank.
That number is likely to be higher under Sanders’s plan, given that proposals by Warren and Castro do not call for wiping clean the debt of those earning over six figures. Warren has proposed forgiving up to $50,000 in student debt for those earning under $100,000, or about 42 million people. Under Castro’s plan, borrowers would not have to repay their loans until their income rose above 250 percent of the federal poverty line — about $64,000 for a family of four — after which it would be capped.
Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor at Temple University who specializes in higher-education financing, said she had mixed feelings about plans such as the one proposed by Sanders that involve forgiving all student debt.
“There’s a piece of me that has seen how widespread the pain is, including among people you might say are financially fine,” Goldrick-Rab said. “But there’s a piece of me that knows what the pot looks like, and says, ‘That’s not the best use of the money.’ ”
Other experts say these criticisms miss the mark. If the plans are paid for with higher taxes on affluent Americans, they will ultimately redistribute resources down the income distribution, said Marshall Steinbaum, a former researcher at the Roosevelt Institute who was recently hired as an economics professor at the University of Utah.
Student debt forgiveness would also help stimulate economic growth by freeing borrowers to buy homes and improve their credit, while primarily benefiting racial minorities, according to Steinbaum and researchers at the Levy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Omar, who has student debt, said in a statement that the plan would “unleash billions of dollars in economic growth.”
Additionally, poorer Americans would see the percentage of their income held in debt fall much more dramatically than that of higher earners under the plan, Steinbaum said. Steinbaum has also disputed Looney’s analysis, arguing it ignores people who have so much debt they cannot pay.
The difference in these plans may reflect a wider debate in the Democratic Party over how to tailor government programs.
Sanders has proposed universal government programs whose benefits also go to the rich and do not depend on recipients’ earnings. Sanders’s Medicare-for-all plan, for instance, would offer government health insurance to every American regardless of income, a break from Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which aimed to expand insurance primarily to low-income individuals.
Supporters say making government programs also available to the affluent makes them more politically durable, citing the popularity of programs such as libraries and K-12 public education, though critics contend such programs offer help to those who do not need it.
Warren, for instance, has proposed a child-care plan that would make child care free only for those earning up to $51,200, in the case of a family of four.
Her approach also makes her plans much less likely to require tax hikes on middle-class Americans. She has said she can pay for these programs with tax hikes on people with more than $50 million and on corporations with more than $100 million in profits — math that is made easier because her plans cut off those above a certain income bracket. Sanders has embraced higher taxes on the middle class, saying families will benefit overall by seeing other expenses reduced.
Critics are likely to say Sanders’s plans reflect his attempts to distinguish himself from Warren, who has risen in the polls during the past several months of the Democratic primary, sometimes overtaking Sanders’s No. 2 position in polling behind former vice president Joe Biden.
Warren’s student loan plan would entirely clear student debt for more than 75 percent of borrowers. She also has embraced some universal plans, co-sponsoring Sanders’s single-payer legislation.
Like Sanders, Warren has crusaded against rising income inequality and released detailed proposals for taking on Wall Street and expanding government programs.
Sanders’s higher-education plan may reflect other ways he is attempting to stake out the left flank of the primary. For instance, his previous free-college-tuition plan in Congress would eliminate tuition and fees only at four-year public colleges for those making up to $125,000, the result of a compromise he reached with Hillary Clinton after the 2016 presidential campaign.
Sanders previously campaigned on free college tuition, regardless of income, in 2016.
His new plan goes further, calling for public four-year colleges and community colleges to be free for everyone, including tuition and fees. Sanders’s bill includes $1.3 billion a year for low-income students at historically black colleges and universities, and $48 billion per year for eliminating tuition and fees at public schools and universities.
Source: US Government Class
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Harvard Rescinds Offer To Parkland Survivor After Discovery Of Racist Comments
NPR – Kyle Kashuv, one of the survivors of the mass school shooting in Parkland, Fla., applied and was accepted into Harvard University.
His acceptance, however, was rescinded after Harvard discovered that Kashuv, now 18, used racial slurs in texts, Skype conversations and Google documents when he was 16.
Here’s why people are talking about Kashuv’s case.
A Parkland survivor turned activist
Kashuv’s name first came into the spotlight after he survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. After the shooting, he became a nationally prominent gun-rights advocate while many of his surviving classmates instead organized to advocate for gun control.
What did Kashuv say?
On May 23, the Huffington Post published messages written by Kashuv that contained repeated uses of the N-word and phrases like “Kill all the f***ing Jews.” According to the Huffington Post, the screenshots of the texts, Skype conversations and Google documents were provided by classmates and a “former friend” of Kashuv.
Kashuv defended himself on Twitter, saying he used “callous and inflammatory language in an effort to be as extreme and shocking as possible.” He noted that he was 16 years old when he made the comments and that the shooting changed his perspective.
“I see the world through different eyes and am embarrassed by the petty, flippant kid represented in those screenshots,” he said on Twitter.
Harvard’s decision
According to a screenshot posted by Kashuv, William Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions, asked him to provide a “full accounting” of his racist statements and a “written explanation of your actions” in a letter dated May 24.
Kashuv said on Twitter that he replied with an apology in which he stated, “I bore no racial animus” and that “the context was a group of adolescents trying to use the worst words and say the most insane things imaginable.” But in a second letter dated June 3, Fitzsimmons said that the admissions committee had voted to rescind his admission, citing “maturity and moral character.”
Colleges have long-standing, if rarely used, policies of revoking admissions offers if a student is found to have engaged in questionable conduct. In fact, in 2017 a group of 10 students had their Harvard admissions revoked, also for offensive online posts.
Rachael Dane, a spokesperson for Harvard, told NPR that the university does not comment publicly on the admissions status of individual applicants and added that the university reserves the right to withdraw an offer of admission under several conditions, including “if an admitted student engages or has engaged in behavior that brings into question their honesty, maturity or moral character.”
Before these comments came to light, Kashuv was named an outreach director for the conservative campus group Turning Point USA. According to the Huffington Post, he stepped down when his former classmates threatened to make the messages public.
Turning Point USA has on its website the slogan “Winning America’s Culture War.” The group maintains a website called Professor Watchlist that lists the names and public profiles of hundreds of professors who have expressed personal views, such as calling people “racist” on Twitter, or who have published feminist research. Many of these professors have been doxed — that is, had their identity or address exposed — and harassed, as NPR reported last year.
Onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, President Trump publicly praised conservative activist Hayden Williams, who was punched while volunteering as a campus recruiter for Turning Point USA. The president brought Williams onstage when he talked about issuing an executive order to protect campus free speech.
Jessie Daniels, a sociology professor at Hunter College who studies racists and white supremacists online, says that the Kashuv incident plays neatly into Turning Point USA’s broader agenda.
“Part of what the far right is doing in every domain is trying to push that line of what’s acceptable,” Daniels said. “The N-word has become one of the skirmishes in this larger war.”
“Harvard is pushing back and saying, ‘Nope, that’s not acceptable behavior,’ ” Daniels said.
Source: US Government Class
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Supreme Court allows war cross memorial to stand as symbol of ‘sacrifice’
ABC News – The Supreme Court on Thursday said a 40-foot, 16-ton Latin cross war memorial in Bladensburg, Maryland, can stand, upholding the constitutionality of a religious symbol on public land, but stopping short of creating a clear new standard for evaluating similar displays nationwide.
“Although the cross has long been a preeminent Christian symbol, its use in the Bladensburg memorial has a special significance,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in an opinion for the majority.
“Its removal or radical alteration at this date would be seen by many not as a neutral act but as the manifestation of a ‘hostility toward religion that has no place in our Establishment Clause traditions,’” Alito said.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” but the exact meaning and intent of the phrase remain widely debated.
The decision was 7-2. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
The cross, erected in 1925 as a memorial to 49 fallen World War I soldiers, was first built on private property using private funds but decades later was incorporated into state parkland maintained with taxpayer dollars.
Three local residents filed suit in federal court in 2014 seeking to have the monument removed from public property or modified into a non-religious memorial.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took the rare step of reading her dissent from the bench, a sign of strong opposition to the ruling. Her opinion also included an appendix with photographs of non-religious war memorials that could have been alternatives.
“The Constitution demands governmental neutrality among religious faiths, and between religion and nonreligion,” Ginsburg said from the bench. “Today the Court erodes that principle, diminishing precedent serving to preserve it.”
Ginsburg, who a court spokeswoman said has been suffering a cold and laryngitis, sounded much better than she did on Monday, when her voice was raspy and strained.
The case had raised the prospect that hundreds of historic war memorials and government buildings bearing religious imagery could face new restrictions, but the court’s decision affirms that the symbols are part of the fabric of the nation and can pass Constitutional muster.
“The court today applies a history and tradition test in examining and upholding the constitutionality” of the cross, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion. “The practice of displaying religious memorials, particularly religious war memorials, on public land is not coercive and is rooted in history and tradition.”
Alito argued that there should be a blanket “presumption of constitutionality for longstanding monuments, symbols and practices,” a view supported by three other justices, but just short of the majority needed to establish a precedent-setting new rule.
The Supreme Court’s years of decisions on the religious symbols and the First Amendment have been highly fact-based, varied and inconsistent.
Does the Constitution only prohibit religious displays that “coerce” obedience to a religion, or those that simply “promote” or “endorse” one religion over another? What amounts to “excessive entanglement” between government and a particular religion? The justices grappled with those questions — and left them unanswered.
Source: US Government Class
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Battleground Tracker: Biden leads with Warren, Harris, Sanders close
CBS News – The belief that he could fare best against President Trump is currently propelling Joe Biden in the early Democratic nomination race by two measures — vote preference, and the delegates that would come with them. But others — including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — are in the mix, at least in terms of the candidates voters are considering.
This study looked at the Democratic contest across the places it will matter first: the entirety of 18 states that will shape the initial 2020 fight through Super Tuesday, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. And CBS News converted Democrats’ vote choices across all those states into delegates, because that’s the count that will ultimately matter — that is, the nomination contest selects delegates to the Democratic convention next year.
CBS News first asked which candidates voters are considering supporting — and told them they could pick as many or as few as they liked. (As with many decisions people make, early in the process they’ll narrow their options before settling on one.)
Biden gets the most consideration, from a majority 55% of Democrats. Warren (49%), Harris (45%) and Bernie Sanders (43%) are trailing closely in that regard.
Pete Buttigieg is being considered by just under a third (32%) across the earliest states. And in keeping with their view that the field is too large, on average the number of candidates voters are considering is actually relatively small — just under four.
Biden is the most effective at translating consideration into a first-choice vote. He leads across the early states in vote preference with 31% of Democratic primary voters, compared to Warren’s 17%, Sanders’ 16%, and Harris’ 10%. Biden converts most of those considering him into picking him as their first choice when pressed, but fewer of those considering Warren or Sanders — roughly a third – pick those candidates as their first choice.
Biden also leads in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, specifically.
CBS News’ model translates vote preferences in the states and districts into delegates because that’s the count that will ultimately matter — incorporating party rules along the way. Were these vote preferences today to be the ones that emerged across all these states, Biden would lead in the delegate standings through Super Tuesday by a wide margin, with Warren and Sanders in the mix behind him.
Biden’s top-preference numbers across the early states would translate into an estimated delegate standing of 731 delegates, compared to Warren’s 355 and Sanders’ 317. These candidates, in turn, have a distinct edge in consideration over the remainder of the field.
The model is not a forecast: it is offered as a way of demonstrating how candidate support translates into delegate allocations based on state and party rules, because the nomination contest is ultimately a contest for delegates to the convention. Delegates are awarded at the state level (“at-large”) and also by district, which the model takes into account.
Voter preferences and the political landscape can and usually do change over time, and the model does not attempt to incorporate the effects of any such changes or uncertainty going forward. CBS News and YouGov plan to conduct additional interviews and revise current estimates based on updated data on a regular basis.
When CBS News asked people to pick all the candidates they are considering, as well as their ultimate first choice, we could see who’s more directly in competition with whom in the minds of voters.
Sanders’ first-choice voters are the most singularly-focused of the field, least likely to be considering anyone else at all. Those picking Warren as their first choice are also considering Harris, and to a lesser extent Buttigieg and Sanders. Among Democrats who prefer the nominee be a woman, a majority are considering Harris, and a majority are also considering Warren.
In the early voting states, Biden bests the field with both men and women, and his lead among black Democratic primary voters is larger than it is among whites. Biden has more support among older primary voters than younger voters.
Sanders performs well with voters under 30 years of age. Most Democratic primary voters in these early states consider themselves liberal — split between those who are very liberal and somewhat liberal. Biden trails Warren and Sanders among the “very liberal” part of the party, but runs ahead among the “somewhat” liberal voters. Biden holds an even wider lead among the quarter of Democratic primary voters who identify as moderates.
The CBS News Battleground Tracker will keep tabs on the contest as we go forward. The 2020 primaries are much bigger than just Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Many large states have stacked up in the early part of the 2020 calendar.
This could produce a clear frontrunner by spring, but on the other hand, the rules could fracture the delegate allocations. Democrats hand out convention delegates proportionally to top finishers in states — not just to winners, but in some cases to second and third place — and regionally in districts. So this could keep a large field running well into next spring. Also, the lack of so-called superdelegates this year — the party leaders who now can’t vote on the first conventional ballot as they did in the past — could leave the race more open as well.
Source: US Government Class
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Hong Kong’s Leader, Yielding to Protests, Suspends Extradition Bill
New York Times – HONG KONG — Backing down after days of huge street protests, Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, said on Saturday that she would indefinitely suspend a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China.
It was a remarkable reversal for Mrs. Lam, the leader installed by Beijing in 2017, who had vowed to ensure the bill’s approval and tried to get it passed on an unusually short timetable, even as hundreds of thousands demonstrated against it this past week.
But she made it clear that the bill was being delayed, not withdrawn outright, as protesters have demanded.
“I believe that we cannot withdraw this bill, or else society will say that this bill was groundless,” Mrs. Lam said at a news conference.
She said she felt “sorrow and regret” that she had failed to convince the public that it was needed, and pledged to listen to more views.
“We will adopt the most sincere and humble attitude to accept criticisms and make improvements,” Mrs. Lam said.
City leaders hope that delaying the legislation will cool public anger and avoid more violence in the streets, said people with detailed knowledge of the government’s plans, including advisers to Mrs. Lam.
But leading opposition figures and protesters said a mere suspension of the bill would not satisfy the protesters, who had been planning another large demonstration for Sunday. Organizers confirmed the protest was still on.
“Postponement is temporary. It’s just delaying the pain,” said Claudia Mo, a democratic lawmaker. “This is not good enough, simply not right. We demand a complete scrapping of this controversial bill.”
“We can’t accept it will just be suspended,” Minnie Li, a lecturer with the Education University of Hong Kong who joined a hunger strike this past week, said on Saturday morning, as word of Mrs. Lam’s plan to suspend the bill was emerging. “We demand it to be withdrawn. The amendment itself is unreasonable. Suspension just means having a break and will continue later. What we want is for it to be withdrawn. We can’t accept it.”
But Mrs. Lam and her superiors in Beijing were reluctant to kill the bill outright, said the people familiar with city officials’ thinking. They insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the government.
A full withdrawal of the legislation would recall the Hong Kong government’s reversals in the face of public objections to other contentious bills that were seen as infringing on the city’s liberties — national security legislation, in 2003, and compulsory patriotic education legislation, in 2012.
A team of senior Chinese officials and experts met on Friday with Mrs. Lam in Shenzhen, a mainland Chinese city bordering Hong Kong, to review the situation, one of the people with knowledge of the government’s policymaking said.
The bill would make it easier for Hong Kong to send people suspected of crimes to jurisdictions with which the city has no extradition treaty, including mainland China. Many people in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous territory with far more civil liberties than the mainland has, fear that the legislation would put anyone in the city at risk of being detained and sent to China for trial by the country’s Communist Party-controlled courts.
The bill had been moving through the legislative process with unusual speed, and legal experts who raised concerns about that said it would have to be withdrawn in order to address those worries. Otherwise, voting on it could restart at any time, at the discretion of the head of the legislature, which is controlled by pro-Beijing lawmakers, these experts said.
More than a million people marched against the bill last Sunday, according to protest leaders, the vast majority of them peacefully. That was followed by street clashes on Wednesday, as the police used tear gas and rubber bullets on demonstrators.
[See photos from Hong Kong’s biggest display of dissent in years.]
Officials say they believe that delaying the bill will reduce the risk of a young protester being seriously hurt or even killed in clashes with the police, then becoming a martyr in the eyes of the public. Dozens of protesters have already been injured, and video footage of riot police apparently using excessive force against unarmed demonstrators has deepened public anger in the city.
The government has been dismayed by early signs that mothers of young protesters, who held a candlelight vigil on Friday night, were starting to organize themselves. It is strongly averse to seeing the emergence of a group like the mothers of victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing in 1989, who have been active for decades.
City officials hope that delaying the bill will weaken the opposition by draining it of its momentum, without giving the appearance that the government was backing down entirely, according to the people familiar with the leaders’ thinking.
Asked several times by reporters at the Saturday news conference whether she would resign, as protesters have demanded, Mrs. Lam indicated that she had no plans to do so, saying she would continue her work and improve efforts to communicate with the public. The people familiar with the government’s thinking said officials in both Beijing and Hong Kong had dismissed the calls for Mrs. Lam’s resignation.
In statements issued by several official agencies, the Chinese government said it supported, respected and understood Mrs. Lam’s decision to shelve the bill.
Underlying opposition to the extradition bill is a growing fear that the freedoms that people in Hong Kong enjoy under the “one country, two systems” policy, put in place when the former British colony was returned to China in 1997, are rapidly shrinking.
Emily Lau, a former lawmaker and chairwoman of the city’s Democratic Party, said that she doubted the public would be quelled by the shelving of the bill.
“People are asking for the bill to be withdrawn; if you just delay it that means they can just resume the second reading whenever they like,” Ms. Lau said. She added that a suspension would simply result in another big turnout for the march on Sunday.
“There is always a sword hanging over our heads, and I don’t think the public will accept it,” she said.
Source: US Government Class