Trump administration official resigns, calls for massive student debt forgiveness

"A senior government official appointed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned Thursday, saying the current student loan system is “fundamentally broken” and calling for billions of dollars in debt to be forgiven." "Johnson told The Wall Street Journal he reached his conclusion after watching climbing defaults and realizing that a majority of student debt will never be repaid. Indeed, five years into repayment, half of student loan borrowers haven’t paid even $1 toward their debt’s principal, according to the Education Department’s own data. And 40% of student loan borrowers could default by 2023, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution. “We run through the process of putting this debt burden on somebody … but it rides on their credit files — it rides on their back — for decades,” Johnson, who wrote his dissertation at Mercer University on student debt, told the Journal. “The time has come for us to end and stop the insanity,” he added." (jn) http://ow.ly/xYAn50wYVnx
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Things Aren’t Getting Better for 2020’s Most Vulnerable Senate Republicans

"The most vulnerable Republican senators are not improving their standing in their home states ahead of a tough 2020 election cycle, while the field of potential Democratic challengers took shape and began to flex its muscle. According to Morning Consult’s latest quarterly Senator Approval Rankings based on nearly 534,000 responses from registered voters collected July 1 through Sept. 30, Republicans representing Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, Maine and Iowa all saw their net approval — the share of voters who approve of a senator’s job performance minus the share who disapprove — decline between the second and third quarters of 2019." (jn) http://ow.ly/U6cS50wYVmz
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United States objects to mention of "sexual and reproductive health" in UN resolution on women, says it promotes abortion

""I must note that we cannot accept references to 'sexual and reproductive health,' nor any references to 'safe termination of pregnancy' or language that would promote abortion or suggest a right to abortion."" (jn) http://ow.ly/rpkY50wYQQa
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House Passes Resolution Formalizing Impeachment Inquiry

"House Democrats released a draft version of the resolution, which outlines the next steps of the inquiry, on Tuesday. The resolution authorizes the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to conduct open hearings and allows the president and his attorneys to cross-examine witnesses. The resolution also directs the House committees leading the inquiry to report their findings to the House Judiciary Committee, which will decide whether to recommend moving forward with articles of impeachment." (jn) http://ow.ly/U6mj50wYQNf
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