Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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What? Cruz, Cornyn and Obama on same side?

I believe hell has just frozen over.

U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, two stalwart Texas Republicans, have locked arms with the Democratic president of the United States, Barack Obama, in support of a student loan bill that rolls back a plan to double interest rates for students who have to pay back their college loans.

I’m pinching myself. I’m still here, yes?

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/07/cornyn-cruz-side-with-obama-on-bipartisan-student-loan-deal/

The bill sailed through the Senate with an 81-18 vote. Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee was the lone GOP vote against it; Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri did not vote.

And get a load of this: The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to approve the legislation in about a month, enabling the president to sign quickly into law.

The bill essentially ties student loan interest rates to the market, which effectively kills the plan that would have doubled the interest rates students would be charged. The effect of that would have a serious impact on non-scholarship students’ ability to pay for college.

We all want our young people to get as much education as possible, yes?

As the San Antonio Express-News reported, the bill would have an impact on approximately 650,000 Texas college students.

I’m glad — no, delighted — to see this demonstration of bipartisanship, especially when it involves two fire-breathing Republican senators from Texas.

I do not, though, expect it continue. Politics is politics, you know, and that means the two sides are going to look for reasons to sink their teeth into each other’s throat. 

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President needed to say it

I heard President Obama’s remarks today about race relations in the wake of the George Zimmerman acquittal in Florida.

The president was on point.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/07/president-obama-speaks-about-race-but-is-anyone-really-listening.html/

This is the kind of talk — you can’t call it a “speech” because he delivered it without notes — is what you get when an important person has no more political campaigns to wage. He’s done. Three-plus more years and he’s gone, heading back to Chicago to write his memoir, give a lot of speeches and start working on his presidential library.

The president’s tone was stunning in its personal nature. He made no judgment on the rightness of the verdict that acquitted Zimmerman of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. He has left that for the judicial system to sort out. He didn’t weigh in on whether the Justice Department should file civil rights charges against Zimmerman.

No. Instead he spoke of the deep feelings he harbors about how people treat African-Americans. The president spoke of knowing — as an African-American — how it feels to hear car doors lock when a black man walks across the street, or when he enters an elevator and a woman clutches her purse a little more tightly.

Yes, we need to have some serious talk among ourselves about race in this country.

Who better to lead that discussion than the president of the United States of America?