Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So...

Clinton’s unexpected new ally in the email investigation: President Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/clintons-unexpected-new-ally-in-the-email-investigation-president-trump/2017/03/13/ffaadf76-0827-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.8e0320cda75d

After the “lock her up” campaign of 2016, President Trump’s administration has an unexpected message for those still investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails: Shut it down.

Trump made clear after the election that he had no appetite to go after Clinton legally, and on Monday his administration went further: His Justice Department went to court to fight those still going after Clinton.

Two conservative legal groups were in federal court in Washington on Monday morning to compel the release of more Clinton emails. And the Trump administration was on the other side.

Topkek

 feeder wrote:
I'd posit that any "X"-ist/ian organization that routinely commits atrocities contrary to the teaching of it's holy book isn't truly "X"-isc/ian.

I'd posit you are not qualified to determine what other people's holy book “truly teach”, and likely not even your own holy book if you have one.

 Frazzled wrote:

Only because the US market is an aberration due to the bulge of college degrees looking for positions.

I didn't know that there was a "bulge" of mechanical engineers looking for positions. . . Crazy, my ME degree holding friends must be lying about the job requirements for entry-level work in their field.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
So...

Clinton’s unexpected new ally in the email investigation: President Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/clintons-unexpected-new-ally-in-the-email-investigation-president-trump/2017/03/13/ffaadf76-0827-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.8e0320cda75d

After the “lock her up” campaign of 2016, President Trump’s administration has an unexpected message for those still investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails: Shut it down.

Trump made clear after the election that he had no appetite to go after Clinton legally, and on Monday his administration went further: His Justice Department went to court to fight those still going after Clinton.

Two conservative legal groups were in federal court in Washington on Monday morning to compel the release of more Clinton emails. And the Trump administration was on the other side.

Topkek

In what I think we've seen of his presidency thus far, when he usually wants to "shut it down" it's because he's worried about people seeing the dog poo he's stepped in himself.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I'd posit that any "X"-ist/ian organization that routinely commits atrocities contrary to the teaching of it's holy book isn't truly "X"-isc/ian.

I'd posit you are not qualified to determine what other people's holy book “truly teach”, and likely not even your own holy book if you have one.

I can read. What more qualifications would I need to posses in order to determine what is and is not laid out in a book of text?

 feeder wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I'd posit that any "X"-ist/ian organization that routinely commits atrocities contrary to the teaching of it's holy book isn't truly "X"-isc/ian.

I'd posit you are not qualified to determine what other people's holy book “truly teach”, and likely not even your own holy book if you have one.

I can read. What more qualifications would I need to posses in order to determine what is and is not laid out in a book of text?

FAQ and Erratta, the right edition, newest codex....c'mon man this is a 40k site, you know the drill.

Codex: ISIS is OP.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Codex: ISIS is OP.

new armies usually are, but they are crap for ally matrix.

 feeder wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I'd posit that any "X"-ist/ian organization that routinely commits atrocities contrary to the teaching of it's holy book isn't truly "X"-isc/ian.

I'd posit you are not qualified to determine what other people's holy book “truly teach”, and likely not even your own holy book if you have one.

I can read. What more qualifications would I need to posses in order to determine what is and is not laid out in a book of text?

The snark of Kok aside, this is a tricky subject. . .

There are brands of Xtianity which suggest that the only thing you need, aside from the ability to read, and a "true" belief, and deep faith.

There are brands that believe in order to fully understand the entirety of the holy book, that you need years of seminary training, and/or essentially be brought into the priesthood (whatever it is called in that brand)

The same applies to Islam: there are clerics who preach that reading and understanding are individual and between that person and god, while others declare that only the clerics/priesthood can fully understand the Koran (that's why they are there to teach you)

I would argue that pretty much every PhD holder in ever Religion department of most universities have a much better understanding than even some certain preachers/priests/clerics, etc. so the "having faith" argument doesn't hold water for me.

 feeder wrote:
I can read.

You can read ancient Arabic and are familiar with the context of the revelation of the Quran? Woah that's quite impressive. I'm sure you are well-educated on the various hadith, what they say, what their chain of transmission are, etc, too!

Does that work for science books too? Is “being able to read” the only skill required to understand string theory?

Rachel Maddow is tweeting that she has trumps tax returns and will be showing them in 30 minutes

A man in Indiana is flying a Nazi flag in front of his house along with a Confederate flag.

There is a lot of discussion about the American Civil War as well as the connotation of the flag that is often shown to go along with it, but it would seem bad form to put it next to a Nazi flag.

 Ahtman wrote:
A man in Indiana is flying a Nazi flag in front of his house along with a Confederate flag.

There is a lot of discussion about the American Civil War as well as the connotation of the flag that is often shown to go along with it, but it would seem bad form to put it next to a Nazi flag.

Anyone who lives or was born in a northern states can't use the argument about southern heritage (even though that is a load of bull people who fly that flag know what it stood for) to fly the flag

 Ahtman wrote:
A man in Indiana is flying a Nazi flag in front of his house along with a Confederate flag.

There is a lot of discussion about the American Civil War as well as the connotation of the flag that is often shown to go along with it, but it would seem bad form to put it next to a Nazi flag.

Or, it would seem that opponents of that particular flag's modern usage are being proved right, at least in this instance.

 Ahtman wrote:
A man in Indiana is flying a Nazi flag in front of his house along with a Confederate flag.

There is a lot of discussion about the American Civil War as well as the connotation of the flag that is often shown to go along with it, but it would seem bad form to put it next to a Nazi flag.

I sincerely hope I get mobilized to stop the riot that starts at that feltcher's house, I'll rally the troops to stop anyone from interfering with the beating.

Prestor Jon wrote:
I don't disagree with the other points you made but I still think you're underestimating the impact Federal loans have on the price of tertiary education. Yes it is difficult to assess the true value of getting a degree from one school versus another and getting a BS or BA is never going to hurt your job prospects so its worth getting but even if you could create an accurate metric for determining the value of a degree from a given school there still wouldn't be any pressure on schools to make tuition affordable.

There would be, because it would become possible to compare two colleges and contrast their relative benefits and relative costs. If one school gives $200k in overall benefit and cost $100k, and another school gives $220k in overall benefits and cost $180k then people would pick the cheaper school. This would place a downward pressure on prices, in a market where the benefit of a more expensive college is minimal, which is the situation in the US today, I believe. But the issue is that no decent benefit analysis is possible, so people are left to guess, and typically they associate price with value, and thereby assume the more expensive school must have some kind of value to justify its price.

If the Federal govt stopped providing FAFSA loans a significant plurality of college students wouldn't be able to afford to attend the school they're enrolled in. If you want to replace your Mazda with a new expensive car then regardless of whether or not the new car gives you good value for its price your ability to get a car loan to buy it is dependent on your income, if you can afford a down payment, your credit score, etc. With college loans the govt is giving you a loan to cover the cost of tuition at the school you got accepted to even though you have no income, no guarantee that you'll earn a degree there and no guarantee what income you'll earn at whatever job your get after you graduate if you do graduate but you'll still have to repay the govt tens of thousands of dollars. There's no pressure on schools to make college affordable for people straight up, like there is with cars. I can't get a car loan to buy a Bentley but I can get a loan to buy a Camry. With college students they can all get loans to go to a Camry school even if it charges the price of a Bentley. While attending Harvard or Ohio State should cost more than attending a local community college it doesn't need to cost so much that graduates face crippling student loan debts but that won't ever change under the current system.

You make a good point, and explain it really well the with line about giving a loan to attend a Camry school, even if it charges the price of a Bentley. That's a point I missed from my earlier answer, and it should have been in there - government loans should have a review process in which they assess whether the loan they are asked for can be justified by that school, given the performance of its past graduates. That analysis would probably also need to be down to the course/career level, and probably also include some assessment of the student. But this is politically very unlikely, late in the Obama administration they looked to police the accreditation system more closely, and even picking out schools that were all but scamming kids was a big political mess.

I'm not sure what the other alternatives might be? Maybe just a straight up rule that college loans will only be paid for tuition up to a certain level per semester?

For several administrations now we've seen every new President clear out most or all of the US attorneys appointed by the previous administration. Usually its somewhat delayed because their replacements have to appointed and confirmed but all of the US attorneys serve at the discretion of the PotUS so dismissing holdovers from previous administrations is normal. Is the hiring freeze about limiting expansion of new Federal hires or just any Federal hiring at all? Turnover in existing roles isn't creating new jobs just changing faces in pre existing jobs. Who knows, Trump's administration seems to prefer to just make things up as they go along.

Hiring freezes mean no new staff, even ones to replace staff who are lost. When you put a ban on new positions it's generally called a cap.

That said, hiring freezes always have exceptions, typically for essential services like the military, and also for politically sensitive areas. The AG office, given how close it is to the president, and given the nature of the clean out that happens each time, it's likely they'll be exempted from the hiring freeze.

 sebster wrote:

That said, hiring freezes always have exceptions, typically for essential services like the military, and also for politically sensitive areas. The AG office, given how close it is to the president, and given the nature of the clean out that happens each time, it's likely they'll be exempted from the hiring freeze.

But then again, with how incompetent and chaotic Trumps administration has been so far, would anyone be surprised to find out that they had overlooked it?

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Um, ISIS did at one time lay claim to Israeli soil (calling itself ISIL IIRC), but seeing that that region included competent armies like the Jordanians as well, the group downsized themselves a bit...

ISIS actually started with mostly Chechnyan refugees in Jordan. They were routinely hammered by Jordanian security forces. It was only when they set off in to the chaos in Iraq that they experienced any kind of success. I think that, as well as their capability, has defined how they operate - they look to exploit weakness and regional dysfunction, they have no means and no desire to take on disciplined and effective militaries all by themselves.

 sebster wrote:

I'm not sure what the other alternatives might be? Maybe just a straight up rule that college loans will only be paid for tuition up to a certain level per semester?

I don't really think this would have a cost lowering effect though. Currently, the VA's payment of college benefits for former servicemembers is capped at a certain price, generally based on the cost of a State run university (I cannot recall right now if that is based on the most expensive state school or not though). As such, that leaves 2 options for private schools no matter the size: get on the "Yellow Ribbon program," or lower their tuition costs to the same level as the state school.

I say that about the VA system to say this: I can't see FAFSA, or other government created/backed loans operating the same way for regular students. There's the obvious part that the banks would not have as much debt to purchase, and that would leave them with two options. The first being to keep interest rates about the same, and simply make less money, and the second being to skyrocket interest rates even higher so that they continue making the same amount of money as they currently do. Sounds callous, but I'd like to think that most of us aren't naive to what the US banking industry has been proven to be getting up to.

Prestor Jon wrote:
The AHCA is a hot mess of incoherent policies and does nothing to bend the cost curve of health care spending. It doesn't help fix any of the unresolved issues from the ACA. The ACA made more people eligible for health insurance and helped more people get covered by health insurance which is good but it didn't drive down costs and now neither does the AHCA.

Whether ACA drove down costs or not is debatable. There were certainly a whole bunch of things in there to push down costs, like paying for treatment over process. Whether they worked is the question. Because the growth in year on year healthcare costs is down from the years before ACA. The curve has been bent, as the saying goes. However, costs were already showing signs of trending down before ACA, mostly due to a lull in major new medications, so maybe ACA just benefitted from an existing trend, instead of doing anything itself. And there's also a fair point to be made that given the outrageous expense of US healthcare merely bending the curve isn't enough, you guys should actually be seeing a reduction in costs back to something more like 13-15% of GDP.

But yeah, AHCA does nothing about healthcare costs. It doesn't even address the issue. The whole point of AHCA is to cut the taxes ACA put on the rich, and it does that by pulling back medicaid and exchange subsidies etc. And then it starts pulling back on lots of public health programs like the vaccination program. It doesn't address any real issues in health because it simply doesn't care, that isn't a thing that Paul Ryan or the modern Republican party concerns itself with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skyth wrote:
How do you balance this out with the idea that an educated citizenry is a societal good and valuable regardless of what major the degree is in and should be encouraged?

If the government wants an educated citizenry because of the overall public good, then it shouldn't be leaving the student with $100k in debt, government should wear that debt itself. Leaving the student with the debt is only justifiable in a situation where the student ends up with a much greater earning potential.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:
I suspect if students could discharge student loan debt via bankruptcy, and the Feds didn't give or guarantee the loans, loans for majors without decent earning potential and for students without good grades/performance would be much more difficult to obtain.

They would be impossible to obtain, because it would be so easy to game the system.

Step 1 - get loan for law degree.
Step 2 - get law degree.
Step 3 - declare bankruptcy, lose 1987 Datsun and collection of collectable bongs. Still have degree in law.
Step 4 - earn sweet lawyer pay.

The only loans that would be available would be where parents have assets they are willing to put up as collateral on the loan. Which means people with poor parents don't go to college. All of a sudden instead of the best students going to college, instead the field will be restricted down to the best students who were lucky enough to be born to parents with a bit of money.

As another way of explaining this, here in Australia anyone who does well enough to get in to university course can attend, the government will stump up the cash. And they will only have to repay it once their income reaches a certain threshold. If you never earn that much the debt is never repaid. And your debt will only be about a third of the total cost, the rest is covered by the Federal govt. This is a much more generous scheme than the US. But the cost per student here is about half of what it is in the US. So the primary driver really isn't the loan scheme.

 jmurph wrote:
Article didn't explain much on Bannon. His father lost a bunch to corporate America, like many Americans, and the Steven Bannon is a wealthy financial type who blames it on the bankers and foreigners. So the solution is to remove safety nets and cut taxes for the top?

Oh wait, he figured out angry and hateful people can be hoodwinked, and it can be very profitable, especially when they swallow whatever you feed them. Carry on.

I think the crux of the story, and the epicenter of Bannon/Breitbart, is a core motivation of fear/fear mongering. I didn't know about his father's experience from the collapse, but fear is always at the genesis of a lot of the ugliness we see in society, i.e. racism, xenophobia, anti-establishmentism, etc. His father's experience left a jarring impact on the younger Bannon's psyche and sorts out, for me anyways, a reason for why he operates from the skewed morass he seems so at home in.

 Ahtman wrote:
A man in Indiana is flying a Nazi flag in front of his house along with a Confederate flag.

There is a lot of discussion about the American Civil War as well as the connotation of the flag that is often shown to go along with it, but it would seem bad form to put it next to a Nazi flag.

At this point I don't even associate the Confederate flag with the Confederate army. After all, they only flew it for what, 4 years or so? When I see it, I think of the decades of racism it symbolized - as the flag of Bull Connor, George Wallace, and all the other gak heels.

Yes, i accept that there are some people who truly don't see it a racist symbol - for example, I presume Andre 3000 isn't a white supremacist. But we have to reasonably realize those people are a distinct minority, just as it's ludicrous to assume someone flying a swastika is a Jainist. Both have been thoroughly and possible irrevocably appropriated.

 CptJake wrote:
Knowing they can charge whatever they want and students will always be able to secure loans for tuition, there is no incentive for the universities to keep tuition costs down, they WILL get what they want to charge, the Fed gov't assures it.

You really, really haven't thought through the economics of this at all. While the kid can get the loan, he will also be expecting to have to pay it back, unless he's sitting there signing up for a loan just happily accepting that his future will be one of crushing, unpayable debt. Most kids actually believe they'll end up in nice paying jobs at the end of college, and with that in mind obviously they're going to want to pay as little debt as possible. Why have to repay $200k when you can repay $100k?

The problem stems from kids being unable to assess the value of one college course against another.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait government is going to put wage controls on university employees?

It's really, really weird that you'd think the only cost controls must come from wage control. Like the idea of doing things more efficiently is a concept you can't even consider.

Here's a simple cost control measure for you. Govt says it will guarantee loans for students that have max yearly tuitions of $30k. A college charges kids $40k on average. The college can choose to go it alone, or it can try to bring costs down to qualify for government backed student loans. So it looks around, and in order to bring costs in to line it fires a whole bunch of useless support staff. It goes through all the courses it offers and starts identifying all the ones where the teacher/student ratio is worse than 10, and it drops those classes. Then it looks at all the stuff that's getting cross subsidised by student tuition. Got an over-resourced football team? What about a research program that really should be expected to fund itself? Reform, reform, reform.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
No current society desires to have all its citizens have university degrees. That is a weird aberration of the US system. Vocational degrees are the majority.

No, this is totally wrong. The US is absolutely middle of the pack for the percentage of population that has passed college.

For what it's worth, #1 is actually Canada at 54%. The US is at 44%, putting it roughly equal with the UK, South Korea, Norway and Australia.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
But then again, with how incompetent and chaotic Trumps administration has been so far, would anyone be surprised to find out that they had overlooked it?

Yeah, there's been hardly any appointments anywhere across government. Trump was so keen to hit the ground running he didn't bother to actually build up an administration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I don't really think this would have a cost lowering effect though. Currently, the VA's payment of college benefits for former servicemembers is capped at a certain price, generally based on the cost of a State run university (I cannot recall right now if that is based on the most expensive state school or not though). As such, that leaves 2 options for private schools no matter the size: get on the "Yellow Ribbon program," or lower their tuition costs to the same level as the state school.

It would be an effective price cap for any college that identified it needed students who were on the government loan system. Other colleges would continue to have tuition miles above that, but that's okay. It isn't Harvard and the other Ivy League schools that are making tuition expensive for average graduates, its the middle of the pack schools charging a high premium that's the issue. Camry schools charging Bentley prices, as it were.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skyth wrote:
How do you balance this out with the idea that an educated citizenry is a societal good and valuable regardless of what major the degree is in and should be encouraged?

If the government wants an educated citizenry because of the overall public good, then it shouldn't be leaving the student with $100k in debt, government should wear that debt itself. Leaving the student with the debt is only justifiable in a situation where the student ends up with a much greater earning potential.

 skyth wrote:
Not disagreeing there ;

No, didn't think you would

The question then becomes how much government wants to spend on that, and where the balance is split between funding liberal arts degrees, and liberal arts courses undertaken by every tertiary student.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Anyway, it's been a while since I posted here. There's that much going on in the UK, sometimes I forget about the USA. We've got another referendum coming our way.

In the last 3 years, I've had 2 referendums, 1 'federal' level election, 1 'state' election, another 'state' level election in 2 months, and another referendum sometime next year.

I''ve got voting forms coming out my rear!

So, yeah, what's the situation in the USA? Trump still president?

The wall been built yet?

Remember when a ton of people were like 'dont elect Trump he will be terrible' and Republicans were like 'nah Trump will be OK because reasons'?

I'll give you one guess which side was right.

We'll see won't we.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/14/monica-crowley-lost-white-house-job-now-she-s-got-one-with-pro-russian-oligarch.html

Monica Crowley Lost White House Job, Now She’s Got One With Pro-Russian Oligarch
Plagiarism disqualified her from joining the U.S. National Security Council, but a Fox News contributor just registered as a lobbyist for a Ukrainian billionaire.

Remember that Obama couldn't be trusted as he met with Rap stars and former activists/terrorists but the constant connections between this administration and Russia is just business as usual.



that'll help those people keep their healthcare ! Top work !

 sebster wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Knowing they can charge whatever they want and students will always be able to secure loans for tuition, there is no incentive for the universities to keep tuition costs down, they WILL get what they want to charge, the Fed gov't assures it.

You really, really haven't thought through the economics of this at all. While the kid can get the loan, he will also be expecting to have to pay it back, unless he's sitting there signing up for a loan just happily accepting that his future will be one of crushing, unpayable debt. Most kids actually believe they'll end up in nice paying jobs at the end of college, and with that in mind obviously they're going to want to pay as little debt as possible. Why have to repay $200k when you can repay $100k?

The problem stems from kids being unable to assess the value of one college course against another.

I really, really HAVE thought it through. In other posts I mentioned the kid is the one hurt.

And as you mention, the kid is unable to assess earning potential and so is taking out gak loans. Again, the banks/gov't have little to no risk in giving these gak loans. Put the risk back on the lender, make THEM assess the kid's ability to obtain the degree and get a well paying job in the degree, just as they currently must assess the risk associated with other loans. The same kid could not get a 100k car loan to go buy his Bentley. Why? Because the bank would know he isn't going to be able to afford it, and in a worse case scenario could declare bankruptcy and leave the bank holding the bill (though obviously in this case there is a material item which could be repossessed). Yet turn that into a college loan and Uncle Sam (or in rare cases now-a-days, the bank) doensn't give a feth and will hand him the money.

 Frazzled wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Anyway, it's been a while since I posted here. There's that much going on in the UK, sometimes I forget about the USA. We've got another referendum coming our way.

In the last 3 years, I've had 2 referendums, 1 'federal' level election, 1 'state' election, another 'state' level election in 2 months, and another referendum sometime next year.

I''ve got voting forms coming out my rear!

So, yeah, what's the situation in the USA? Trump still president?

The wall been built yet?

Remember when a ton of people were like 'dont elect Trump he will be terrible' and Republicans were like 'nah Trump will be OK because reasons'?

I'll give you one guess which side was right.

We'll see won't we.

And you're waiting for what, exactly, to change the answer here? If it smells like gak, looks like gak and acts like gak...it's gak.

 CptJake wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Knowing they can charge whatever they want and students will always be able to secure loans for tuition, there is no incentive for the universities to keep tuition costs down, they WILL get what they want to charge, the Fed gov't assures it.

You really, really haven't thought through the economics of this at all. While the kid can get the loan, he will also be expecting to have to pay it back, unless he's sitting there signing up for a loan just happily accepting that his future will be one of crushing, unpayable debt. Most kids actually believe they'll end up in nice paying jobs at the end of college, and with that in mind obviously they're going to want to pay as little debt as possible. Why have to repay $200k when you can repay $100k?

The problem stems from kids being unable to assess the value of one college course against another.

I really, really HAVE thought it through. In other posts I mentioned the kid is the one hurt.

And as you mention, the kid is unable to assess earning potential and so is taking out gak loans. Again, the banks/gov't have little to no risk in giving these gak loans. Put the risk back on the lender, make THEM assess the kid's ability to obtain the degree and get a well paying job in the degree, just as they currently must assess the risk associated with other loans. The same kid could not get a 100k car loan to go buy his Bentley. Why? Because the bank would know he isn't going to be able to afford it, and in a worse case scenario could declare bankruptcy and leave the bank holding the bill (though obviously in this case there is a material item which could be repossessed). Yet turn that into a college loan and Uncle Sam (or in rare cases now-a-days, the bank) doensn't give a feth and will hand him the money.

Isn't that assessment basically random? And not d6 but d1000. At that point it's either blank 'yes' or blank 'no' to everybody.
In your Bentley example you (probably) have:
- a car you can possibly take back
- some form of income history
- some form of probable future income
(I may be talking out of my behind because I've never tried get a loan in USA)

With a degree you have a blank card.

Again, making it harder (especially if you don't have rich parents) to get a college education is a bad thing.