Wednesday, April 29, 2015

To fellow veterans and active duty military re: House GOP blocking protections for Active Duty Military against Predatory Lenders

Fellow military vets and current active duty, if you don't know this already, you need to understand that Republicans say they love military folks but that love manifests itself like how ticks love dogs. 

Sure, they will fight to get you the most expensive weapons systems, because the defense contracting firms are donating tons of money to their campaigns so that they do, but the fight isn't nearly as hard to make sure those weapons systems actually work once delivered.

Then, when it comes to ponying up to pay for health services for veterans after they've served, or protecting active duty military from predatory lenders, or just plain not throwing military personnel into meat-grinding conflicts that didn't need to happen in the first place? Republicans don't have much love for active duty or veterans at all, just the opposite.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/29/predatory-lending-military_n_7171748.html?ir=Politics&utm_campaign=042915&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-politics&utm_content=FullStory&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

House Republicans Want To Block Predatory Lending Protections For American Troops

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are pushing legislation to block predatory lending protections for American soldiers, under pressure from the banking lobby.

GOP lawmakers tucked the deregulation item into the National Defense Authorization Act -- a major bill setting the military's funding, along with a number of other controversial terms on Guantanamo Bay and other issues. If the banking item is enacted, it would impose a one-year delay on new Department of Defense rules meant to shield military families from abusive terms on payday loans and other forms of high-interest credit. The bill is being considered Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee.

The military has been struggling with the financial impact of predatory lending on service members for years. A 2014 report issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau documents a host of abuses targeting troops. One family that took out a $2,600 loan ended up paying back $3,966.84 over the course of a year. Another borrower spent $1,428.28 to pay off a $485 loan in just six months. Thousands of service members receive short-term, high-interest loans each year.

In 2006, Congress passed legislation imposing a 36 percent cap on interest rates for payday loans, auto title loans and tax refund anticipation loans to military families. Lenders responded by slightly tweaking the terms of their loans to avoid the limits. Since the law applied to payday loans with terms of 91 days or less, and amounts of $2,000 or less, credit companies were able to shirk the rules with 92-day loans, or loans of $2,001.
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(more at above link)

Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Daily Beast's Tomasky: "The Clintons Still Aren't Corrupt"

Well said by Tomasky. Hillary and Bill are the most investigated folks on the planet and the best the GOP has been able to come up with in 22 years of vitriolic persecution of them is, Bill got consensual oral sex from someone. Oh and he didn't want to tell the truth about that. Knock me over with a feather. Get out the vapors and smelling salts!

Republicans have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in politically motivated investigations that found no wrongdoing and that was before Benghazi for which we have now seen no less than eight investigations that have all ended with "Gee, neither Secretary Clinton nor the rest of the Obama administration did anything wrong."

I'm waiting for the next manufactured outrage since that's all the GOP seems to have regarding Hillary and Bill.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/22/the-clintons-still-aren-t-corrupt.html

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

President Obama should call the Armenian Genocide what it is.

This is very disappointing. I acknowledge the complications in terms of our relationship with Turkey, which is very important, but the message needs to be sent that the world and the US will not turn its back on genocides and war crimes anywhere for any reason.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/armenian-hopes-crushed-as-obama-decides-not-to-use-the-word-genocide/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=MM_frequency_six&utm_campaign=Morning%20Memo%20-%202015-04-22