NoName's final address to the nation

My Fellow Americans…….

"My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for sixty years, and especially my fellow Arizonans,

Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.

I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of my life. I have loved my life, all of it. I have had experiences, adventures and friendships enough for ten satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good or bad times, for the best day of anyone else's.

I owe that satisfaction to the love of my family. No man ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America. To be connected to America's causes — liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people — brings happiness more sublime than life's fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.

`Fellow Americans' — that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world's greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have acquired great wealth and power in the process.

We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.

We are three-hundred-and-twenty-five million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do.

Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening.

I feel it powerfully still.

Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.

Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless America."

Top student loan official resigns, says Trump team betrayed families

By Dan Desai Martin -

August 27, 2018

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In a scathing resignation letter, one of the country's top student loan officials accuses the Trump administration of betraying American families to serve 'the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.'

The Trump administration official tasked with overseeing $1.5 trillion in student loans sent a powerful resignation letter accusing the White House of “open hostility toward protecting the nation’s millions of student loan borrowers,” the Associated Press reports.

Seth Frotman is resigning as the student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), and his resignation letter addressed to CFPB director Mick Mulvaney didn’t mince words.

“The damage you have done to the bureau betrays these families and sacrifices the financial futures of millions of Americans in communities across the country,” Frotman wrote to Mulvaney. He added that Mulvaney has “used the bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America” instead of helping American families.

Frotman, who has worked at CFPB for seven years, said that after just 10 months of Mulvaney’s leadership, “it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side.”

Frotman laid out a number of specific grievances in his letter, which NPR reproduced in full.

Frotman said that CFPB political appointees “silenced warnings by those of us tasked with standing up for servicemembers and students,” and suppressed reports meant to warn borrowers about potential dangers.

Political leadership also undermined the ability of career staff to properly oversee the student loan market, he said.

Frotman accuses current leadership of abandoning its duty to fairly and robustly enforce the law.

In his time at CFPB, Frotman helped return $750 million to student loan borrowers harmed by predatory practices. But under Trump’s leadership, according to Frotman, the bureau is now more focused on protecting big banks and lending institutions than on helping families struggling with mounting debt.

Like most agencies under Trump, CFPB has seen quite a bit of controversy. When the former head of the agency, Richard Cordray, resigned to run for governor of Ohio, Trump appointed Mulvaney to the post, even though Mulvaney was also serving as the head of the White House budget office. A legal battle ensued, with many claiming the appointment was illegal.

More recently, the bureau has been trying to scrap efforts to protect members of the military from predatory payday lenders. One veterans group described this effort as “giving a huge smile and thumbs up to slimy payday lenders ripping off our troops.”

During his presidential campaign, Trump made grand promises about addressing student loans.

But as usual, Trump decided to side with big business and against struggling families once he got into office.