The Emerging LIBOR Scandal: Will Britains
Reaction Put the US to Shame

post from Firedoglake on 02 July 2012 04:30:12 PM. © Firedoglake

Along with Barclay's Bank, sixteen other major financial institutions are implicated in the scandal. In the simplest terms, Barclays admitted to manipulating the inter-bank lending interest rates to cash in on derivatives and also mask weaknesses in its[...]

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For Romney, there is no life after Bain

post from Daily Kos on 02 July 2012 04:29:42 PM. © Daily Kos

In recent weeks, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has tried to redefine the calendar by inserting the new milestone "AB"?or "After Bain"?into the timeline of human history. Defending its man from damaging reports that he profited when Bain Capital invested in companies that shipped jobs overseas, extracted massive dividends and fees from firms that later failed and even harvested cash from medical waste, the Romney camp routinely protested that most of these episodes occurred "after Mitt left Bain."

Unfortunately for the Republican, Americans are catching on to Mitt Romney's "after Bain" immaculate deception. A growing mountain of evidence suggests that Romney continued to play an active role at Bain even after his supposed February 1999 departure for the Salt Lake Olympics. And as the New York Times documented back in December, Romney's sweetheart deal with the Bain Capital private equity firm he founded ensures that Mitt continues to make millions every year from his old employer.

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Judge strikes down for-profit college loan
repayment regulation

post from Daily Kos on 02 July 2012 04:27:15 PM. © Daily Kos

piggy bank wearing graduation cap and with money sticking out of slot A federal judge is sending the Department of Education back to the drawing board on its effort to crack down on the scammiest, most useless for-profit college career-training programs. Under the Obama administration's gainful employment regulations, in order to maintain eligibility for federal student aid, career training programs must meet at least one of three tests: At least 35 percent of a program's former students must be repaying their loans, or else the program has to have estimated annual loan payments of no more than 30 percent of a former student's discretionary income or 12 percent of total earnings. Nearly 200 programs are currently failing to meet even one of these thresholds?but for the moment at least, they're off the hook:

But Judge Contreras ruled that the 35 percent debt-repayment standard had no basis. "No expert study or industry standard suggested that the rate selected by the department would appropriately measure whether a particular program adequately prepared its students," the opinion said. "Instead, the department simply explained that the chosen rate would identify the worst-performing quarter of programs. Why the bottom quarter? Because failing fewer programs would suggest that the test was not 'meaningful' while failing more would make for too large a 'subset of programs that could potentially lose eligibility.'"

Since it seems the concept that 35 percent of students of a career-training program should be able to pay back their loans doesn't pass legal muster, the administration will have to come up with a replacement regulation; the good news here is that that's possible since the judge only overturned a specific test rather than the entire concept of regulating the for-profit college industry in this fashion. The better news is that the for-profit college industry is a target-rich environment and the government shouldn't have much trouble coming up with a new test, backed by expert study, to rein in programs that put students deeply in debt without equipping them to get jobs that will enable them to pay off that debt.

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Le Tour de France 2012

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 02 July 2012 04:14:10 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

The Tour de France 2012, the world's premier cycling event kicked off last Saturday with the Prologue in Liège, Belgium and will conclude on July 22 with the traditional ride into Paris and laps up and down the Champs-Élysées. Over the next 22 days the[...]

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ALLEN WEST: PRESIDENT OBAMA WANTS AMERICANS TO BE
HIS SLAVE

post from AAreports on 02 July 2012 04:06:23 PM. © AAreports

Allen West: President Obama Wants Americans To ‘Be His Slave’ I wish I was making this up but I’m not. The fact that Allen West is actually a sitting congressman should scare the sh** out of every sane person in the USA. During a Sunday rally with constituents in a newly drawn district he wants [...]

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Gingrich Speaks At Rally In France For Iranian
'Terror' Group

post from TPMMuckraker on 02 July 2012 04:01:32 PM. © TPMMuckraker

At a rally in Paris last Sunday, former Republican presidential candidate and House Speaker Newt Gingrich expressed his support for the MEK, an Iranian opposition group considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

"...This is a massive, world-wide movement for liberty in Iran," Gingrich said, in a short speech posted on YouTube. "And not anything like the State Department's descriptions. And I think what you did yesterday was historic and extraordinary, and needs to be driven home, so that everybody who makes foreign policy decisions in the United States understands just how big this movement is getting, how wide-spread it is, and how bipartisan the American support for it is."

Gingrich delivered his remarks while Maryam Rajavi, the MEK's France-based leader, stood beside him. Among other things, Gingrich's speech included a reference to George Washington crossing the Delaware when the American revolution was "hanging on a thread." (As The Atlantic's Max Fisher points out, Gingrich also mentioned Mark Bowden's book "Guests of the Ayatollah," a study of the Iran hostage crisis, an event the State Department says the MEK participated in. The group denies it played a role in the embassy takeover.)

Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that it will order the MEK off the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations if the Department doesn't makes a decision to keep or remove the terrorist designation within the next four months. MEK supporters in the U.S. have for years called for the group to be delisted, and have been very successful recruiting high-level former government officials from both parties to their cause. Earlier this year, the Treasury Department sent subpoenas to speaking firms that represent several of the MEK's big backers. Many of these former officials have received tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for their appearances at pro-MEK events, and an Obama administration official told NBC in March that the probe "is about finding out where the money is coming from."

The MEK's opponents say the group has little support inside Iran itself, where people remember that the group sided with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Gingrich and his wife Callista were apparently in Italy late last week. A Newsmax article published Thursday on the Supreme Court's health care law ruling quoted Gingrich "speaking from Italy," and Callista Gingrich has been using Instagram in recent days to document her views of the countryside.

Watch Gingrich's speech in France:

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MegaVote: SC 1st, 7/2/2012

post from The Politics of Jamie Sanderson on 02 July 2012 04:01:14 PM. © The Politics of Jamie Sanderson

Recent Congressional Votes

Senate: FDA User Fees – Final Passage
Senate: Highway/Flood Insurance/Student Loan Package – Adoption of Conference Report
House: Contempt Resolution
House: FY13 Transportation-HUD Appropriations – Final Passage
House: Highway/Flood Insurance/Student Loan Package – Adoption of Conference Report

Editor's Note: The House and Senate are not in session this week. Recent Senate VotesFDA User Fees – Final Passage - Vote Agreed to (92-4, 4 Not Voting)

The Senate last week cleared a compromise version of FDA user fee legislation, paving the way for President Obama’s signature. The five-year reauthorization measure allows the FDA to charge the industries it oversees a fee to finance the approval process for medical devices and prescription drugs. The bill will also create new fee programs for generic drugs and generic biologic drugs. Final passage in the Senate followed about a month of negotiations after each chamber passed slightly differing bills in late May. As with everything coming through the Senate these days, a cloture vote was needed before voting on the underlying bill.

Sen. Lindsey Graham voted YES......send e-mail or see bio
Sen. Jim DeMint voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

Highway/Flood Insurance/Student Loan Package – Adoption of Conference Report - Vote Agreed to (74-19, 1 Present, 6 Not Voting)

After months of speculation about whether any of the highway, flood insurance, or student loan bills would become law this year, all three cleared the Senate as a single package last week. The final agreement combined a 27-month reauthorization of highway, transit and transportation safety programs; a one-year extension of lowered interest rates on federally-subsidized Stafford loans; and a five-year reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The surface transportation component featured by far the most drama of the three provisions, as the fight surrounding it lasted far longer, dating back to last year. More importantly (at least outside the Beltway) infrastructure spending will provide a much-needed shot in the arm for the construction industry and hopefully the broader economy. The bill makes several major changes to existing transportation law, including streamlining project approval, drastically reducing the number of federal programs through consolidation, and giving states more spending flexibility on certain types of projects. The NFIP measure is designed to bring the program back into solvency following years of indebtedness. Payouts resulting from the devastating Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005-6 had left the program roughly $18 billion in debt. The new law will raise premiums overall and cover more homeowners. The combined measures would be paid for largely by two changes to pension law. The first would change the formula by which employers contribute to their employees’ defined benefit plans. The second would increase employer premiums on insurance provided by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal entity that insures private sector defined benefit pension plans. A third offset would shorten the amount of time students are eligible for an in-school interest subsidy on their loans.

Sen. Lindsey Graham voted NO......send e-mail or see bio
Sen. Jim DeMint voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Recent House VotesContempt Resolution - Vote Passed (255-67, 1 Present, 109 Not Voting)

Last week the House voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt Congress, the first time in American history either house has held a Cabinet member in contempt. An accompanying measure was also passed, authorizing the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to intervene in judicial proceedings in order to enforce its subpoenas. The vote was the culmination of well over a year’s worth of congressional investigation and, depending on whom you ask, showboating and stonewalling, regarding a failed “gun-walking” operation overseen by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The operation allowed firearms to “walk” into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, with the intent of tracking the guns and locating the cartels, whose movements are difficult to trace. Weapons bought through the operations were later used in the murder of a Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry. The subject of the contempt vote, however, has specifically to do with a very narrow set of documents demanded by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. from the Department of Justice (DOJ). DOJ has already announced they will not prosecute Holder, so House Republicans are expected to try their hand in civil court.

Rep. Tim Scott voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

FY13 Transportation-HUD Appropriations – Final Passage - Vote Passed (261-163, 8 Not Voting)

The House passed its annual transportation spending measure in addition to a transportation policy measure last week. The bill, which also provides funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), would provide $51.6 billion in discretionary spending for FY2013 ($103.6 billion when including spending from the transportation trust funds. In direct contradiction to the highway bill, which passed the House just minutes after the appropriations measure, an amendment from GOP freshman Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La. was included in the final bill text that would prohibit the Transportation Department from requiring that commercial trucks install on-board electronic recording devices to track hours of use. The highway bill, by contrast, mandates the installation of such devices. The bill also provides no funding for Obama’s favored TIGER grants and high-speed rail initiatives. On the housing side, the bill would increase funding for Community Development Block Grants but cut funding for rental assistance. The Senate Appropriations committee passed its bill in April, but no spending measure has made it to the Senate floor this year. The president has threatened to veto the House bill, objecting primarily to its overall funding level, but also to a few particulars such as those mentioned above.

Rep. Tim Scott voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

Highway/Flood Insurance/Student Loan Package – Adoption of Conference Report - Vote Passed (373-52, 7 Not Voting)

The House passed the conference report for the Highway/Flood Insurance/Student Loan Package shortly before the Senate.

Rep. Tim Scott voted NO......send e-mail or see bio

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Why Bain Is Back

A month ago, conventional wisdom had it that the Bain attacks on Mitt Romney were somehow failing terribly -- notwithstanding the fact that they've been key parts of every other campaign Democrats and Republicans have run against Romney going all the way[...]

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Making A Big Show Of It Now But ...

Sahil Kapur has the list of Republican governors who are already declaring they'll refuse the Medicaid expansion offered under Obamacare. It might make for good politics for those governors at the moment, but Jonathan Cohn has a good reminder that poor[...]

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Just Read This

Is the Health Care mandate the 'biggest tax increase in history'? Just look at this chart. Just look. That is all. [...]

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