Also on today’s menu:
Obstruction Or Exoneration?
Japan’s Nuclear Future
The cost of higher education has nearly tripled in the last 40 years, yet many states have cut their tuition support for state universities, President Joe Biden pointed out in announcing his plan to cancel student debt for qualifying individuals who apply for the relief. Pell Grants used to cover 80 percent of the cost of a public four-year college; today they cover about 32 percent.
That is why the repayment of student loans today is much more difficult than it was for those of us who completed college 40 years ago. Many of those from earlier generations — and some who joined the military as a way of helping to pay their way through college — are strongly objecting to Biden’s plan to forgive as much as $10,000 in outstanding federal student loans — $20,000 for those who qualify for Pell Grants.
The relief is targeted aid for families making less than $125,000 a year, and only applies to federal loans. Nevertheless, although the plan is billed as applying to the most needy families, critics point out that the cutoff is almost twice the median household income level, and that the total price tag could be around $330 billion over the next 10 years, equivalent to $2,000 per taxpayer over that period. Additionally, they say that about 90 percent of student debt borrowers are paying back their loans on time (but that figure includes the wealthy.)
As irking as it may be for those who have paid their own debts to be called upon as taxpayers to assist others in paying off their debts, it should be just as objectionable to be paying the cost of Paycheck Protection Program loans that were not used to protect workers. Many companies still dismissed employees while using the money for other purposes, and then had their loans forgiven. Among them were high-profile congressmen who have railed against educational loan forgiveness.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven. Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL) had more than $2.3 million in PPP loans forgiven. Representative Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) had more than $1.4 million in PPP loans forgiven. Representative Kevin Hern (R-OK) had more than $1 million in PPP loans forgiven. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) had $987,237 in PPP loans forgiven. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) had $482,321 in PPP loans forgiven. Yet they oppose the forgiveness of $10,000 or $20,000 for people who are far from millionaires.
Obstruction Or Exoneration?
Under order from the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, the Department of Justice released the full text of the memo written for former president Donald Trump’s attorney-general, Bill Barr, from Steven Engel, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and Ed O'Callaghan, the principal associate deputy attorney-general at the time. The memo set out the argument that Trump should not be charged with obstruction of justice over his attempts to shut down the investigation into his alleged collusion with Russia, despite his firing of Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and Trump’s urging witnesses not to “flip” and hinting of pardons to those who stayed quiet.
They wrote that former special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation of Trump and Russia “identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constituted obstructive acts, done with a nexus to a pending proceeding, with the corrupt intent necessary to warrant prosecution under obstruction-of-justice statutes.”
Mueller has said he declined to make a determination on whether Trump committed a crime based on DOJ policies and “principles of fairness” but he also directly refuted claims by Trump that his report “exonerated” Trump.
In an interview with Bari Weiss published on August 25, Barr explained his own thoughts on Russian collusion.
“Information has now come out that supports the proposition that these ideas really got going because of a political ploy by the Clinton administration to try to hang Putin around Trump’s neck and claim they were in cahoots. I never thought there was any basis for this. The Russians did apparently hack and dump. They stole emails and they dumped them out in the public. That is really the extent of what happened. And that is their stock and trade — that’s what they do all the time. They don’t have to collude in order to do that. It never made sense to me that they would get Americans involved in that operation.”
The fact that the mainstream media has continued to promote the collusion story perplexes Barr: “My perception was that before the election, there was a smaller group that gave these ideas credence and tried to help give them traction. But at the time, the mainstream media didn’t pay that much attention to it. It was really after the election that the mainstream media went hammer and tongs after this story. That was curious because, after the election, the dossier and the other stuff they had been relying on had collapsed. It was pretty clear not too long after the election that this whole thing was a farce. Yet that’s when both the F.B.I. doubled down on it, and the mainstream media kicked in. I always thought that was very strange.”
Barr made it clear in the interview that, while he supported many of Trump’s accomplishments, he disagreed with his approach and is worried about the future of the Republican Party with Trump still having influence.
“The problem with Trump is that it’s all about running a base election. Whip up your base, get them all upset and outraged, and turn them out at the polls. Both sides do that. That is a prescription for continued hostility and demoralization of the country. The first side to break out of that will do so by restoring politics to what it should be, which is the politics of trying to capture a majority of the people through persuasion and with a decisive enough majority to change things. That’s what we should be focused on, but we’re not right now. That’s not Trump's approach.”
Japan’s Nuclear Future
The prime minister of Japan announced that his country would restart more idled nuclear power plants and look into the feasibility of developing next-gen reactors 11 years after the Fukushima disaster, when a powerful earthquake and tsunami led to a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco), the operator of the wrecked plant, still has not removed the highly radioactive melted fuel from its damaged reactors, and has permission to release some radioactive water into the ocean. The company has said it had to further postpone the start of the nuclear fuel removal because of delays in the development of a remote-controlled robotic arm that would do the job. The company originally planned to begin removing melted fuel from the Unit 2 reactor last year.
Greenpeace opposes the changing attitude toward nuclear power plants, which many tout as part of the solution to climate change. “Nuclear power is touted as a solution to our energy problems, but in reality it’s complex and hugely expensive to build,” the environmental organization’s website states. “It also creates huge amounts of hazardous waste. Renewable energy is cheaper and can be installed quickly. Together with battery storage, it can generate the power we need and slash our emissions.”
Café Chatter: On ‘Making A Point’
The problem isn’t government. The problem is human nature. What problem will be solved?
— Jay S.
I think that the Supreme Court prevented this idea with Texas in the 1880’s with precedent that you cant mess with the “United” States of America.
— Jack Polidoro
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