News and updates

The Congressional August Recess keeps rolling on, and while Federal Relations is very busy hosting people on campus and round the state (check out our Facebook page to see some of our visitors), we are still enjoying some reading material.

Gmail People – Fall out from recent Ashely Madison hack has started as the hackers have revealed the email addresses of 15,000 email addresses that end with “.gov” and “.mil”. Individuals emails released include persons who work on the Hill, including a staffer of Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) and Capitol police officers, as well as four dozen people who work in the White House. Read more at Roll Call. 

Unionizing Sacked – The NLRB dismissed the Northwestern football players case and bid to unionize. Read more at NPR. Read about implications at Sports Illustrated.

Hoarders – Universities, specifically Harvard, University of Texas, and Princeton, are hoarding funds according to a recent op-ed. Read More at the New York Times. 

Brutal Amazon – In case you missed it, the corporate culture at Amazon is somewhat akin to Lord of the Flies. Read more at the New York Times. Meanwhile, Amazon has announced that it is leasing another office building near South Lake Union, but not constructing a skyscraper as originally thought. Read more at the Puget Sound Business Journal. 

New Debt Rules – The Administration is expected to release new proposed rules to discharge college debt for defrauded borrowers.  The rules are expected to be released soon, so that they may be finalized by November and take effect by July 2017. Read more at Inside Higher Education. 

Grad School Binge – Experts are concerned that the increase in grad school enrollments, and debt, combined with the new Income Based Repayment programs, an entitlement, is causing an impending crash. Graduate school debt now accounts for forty percent of all college debt. Read more at the Wall Street Journal. 

Summer in the Hamptons – Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is taking a brief two-week break from the campaign trail to vacation in the Hamptons with her husband, former President Clinton. The rental house includes a private pool and beach, which it should for $50,000 a week. See pictures at the Daily Mail.

ach, which it should for $50,000 a week. See pictures at the Daily Mail.

The House adjourned for the August recess last week and the Senate did the same this week, but there are still a few compelling articles that the Federal Relations have been enjoying this week.

Crosshairs – Colleges and college costs are going to be a central focus as Democrats want to make college cheaper, or free and Republicans want to break down the current regulatory structure. Read more in Politico.  

Kick the Can – After a rough summer, lawmakers pushed a number of critical political fights and must pass issues until September. Read more at The Hill. 

Location, Location, Location – Where you live can influence what your political affiliation. Certain areas are regions are reliably Republican and Democratic. Read more from Politico.

Pell in Prison – The Obama Administration is reversing a 1994 Clinton decision which would allow prisoners access to Pell grant funding. The move is a central part of the Administration’s prison reform agenda. Read more at The Guardian.

Textbook$ – In what could be an issues for the HEA reauthorization, college textbooks have 1,041 percent since 1977. Read more at NBC News.

But Where Will Millennials Get Their News? – Jon Stewart retires from The Daily Show after 16 years. Read more at the NY Times. 

The Debate – The long heralded Republican presidential debate was interesting for several reasons, but most of all because the moderators did not shy away from tough questions for all the candidates. Read more at the NY Times. 

Political Animals – From Cecil the Lion to Smokey the Bear, there has been a long national connection to animals as political symbols. A photo essay from Politico.

Here’s a sampling of articles the Federal Relations team have been enjoying this week.

Senate Meltdown – It’s hot in DC but it’s hotter in the Senate Republican caucus. The Senate was in session last weekend to get the highway trust fund reauthorized, but that session broke down as Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) attempted to attach an Obamacare repeal to the bill. Behind the scenes, it was much, much worse with the Senators breaking internal protocol and attempting to engage outside groups in an attempt to make fellow Republicans look bad. Senators are M-A-D. Read more at Politico.

Green Meltdown – The bipartisan Energy Innovation Act bill sponsored by Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is drawing the ire of environmental groups, most notably the Serra Club and the League of Conservation Voters. Read more at National Journal. 

Cutting Student Debt – Indiana University has come up with a creative way to keep students from over borrowing student loan funds; each year, they tell them how much they already owe in debt. Students are taking out 11 percent less, which is admittedly not a huge dent, but a dent nonetheless. Read more at Vox.

Taking Advantage – It’s long been a question/accusation that for-profits schools taking advantage of veterans for GI benefits. The PBS NewsHour goes in depth on the engagement between the University of Phoenix and the US Army. Watch the segment at PBS.

China’s Slowing Economy? – The world’s second largest economy has hit some fairly large bumps this week as the CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen plunged 8.6 percent, to 3,818.73, while the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC lost 8.5 percent, to 3,725.56 points. It is the biggest one day crash in the Chinese market since 2007. Earlier this month, the Chinese government took unprecedented intervention and support measures at the speculation of a full-blown market crash crash. There seems to be no reason for the investor souring on the market and overall has  raised questions over the viability of government efforts to prop up prices as an economy slows. China’s industrial profits fell 0.3 percent in June from a year earlier. The International Monetary Fund has urged China to eventually unwind its support measures. Ultimately, this slow down will impact American imports.  Read more from Reuters, NPR, and Bloomberg.

The 1% – With the first Fox News debate to air August 6th, Republican presidential nominees are scrambling to up their poll numbers. Fox has long stated that it will invite only the top 10 candidates per the polling data.  Fox will use five, yet to be named polls, and their data as of 5 pm August 4th. There is two weeks to go and a lot of people on the bubble (polling anywhere from 2.8 to 1.8 percent). Read more at The Hill. However, Fox News has recently changed the criteria, opening access to the debates to more candidates, by requiring participants reach at least 1 percent in polls. However, Fox will bifurcate the process by holding a debate at 9 pm of the top 10 candidates and a “forum” at 5 pm of those not in the top 10, but with at least one percent in the polls. Read more at Politico.

You Can’t Sit With Us – The powerful, Republican Koch brothers are decidedly not on team Donald. Despite a long-standing cordial relationship, the Kochs are denying Trump access to their state-of-the art data and refusing to let him speak to their gatherings of grassroots activists or major donors. The Koch brothers have one of the most broad-reaching, well-funded, and powerful conservative operations currently operating. While Trump is currently triumphing in the polls, access to the Koch network would give him a huge boost.  Read more at Politico.

My Better Half – Meet the spouses of all those people running for president. See them at National Journal.

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