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Millennials will represent nearly 40% of the voting population by the year 2020, and the race is on to win this crucial voting demographic.
To my eye, neither party has worked particularly hard to woo young people in the past. Democrats have pandered to them and Republicans have barely even acknowledged them.
But now, with so many up for grabs, and millennials shaping our lives in such important ways, pandering and avoidance won't cut it.
They aren't very impressed by government solutions to problems they've watched their idols in Silicon Valley solve, some without even a college degree. And they don't take kindly to being cut out of the political process or treated like children when it's their parents' generation that has created many of the problems (and debt) they will have to carry. Full story
The first thing we need to do to get serious about student debt? Stop calling it "student debt."
"College debt" or "education debt" might work. Anything but student debt - because not just students but entire families are paying the cost of our broken system for funding higher education.
Case in point: The other day, one of the top stories on CNN.com was about two grieving parents who lost their child but are still stuck with her student loan bills.
This story represents so much about what is wrong with our system of financing higher education - not to mention our national priorities. Full story
I'm sure you think you know him. He's everywhere: on that TV show; courtside; making headlines for saying something, er, colorful; tweeting to his 2.3 million followers.
I thought I knew Mark Cuban, too. When someone's got a mouth like his, it's hard to imagine that there's much mystery left or that anything is saved for close company. But in fact, Cuban surprisingly leaves a lot off the table and, like any good showman, tells you just enough to leave you wanting more.
He's worth billions ($2.6 billion, in fact), which you probably did know. He's owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Magnolia Pictures and Landmark Theaters, star of ABC's investor competition show "Shark Tank" and chairman of HDTV network AXS TV and sold his first company, MicroSolutions, for $6 million. His next, broadcast.com, was bought by Yahoo for $5.7 billion.
But you probably knew most of that, too. Because he's told you all about it. Full story
Texas is the center of the current crisis at the border. From Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, thousands upon thousands of children are pouring into the United States.
This flood of foreign children is not a problem of border security. They are not sneaking across the border illegally. Under the Feinstein Amendment of 2008, unaccompanied minors from these countries can present themselves at a legal border crossing, claim to be political refugees and seek asylum.
The argument on the left is that these three countries have violent gangs and therefore we have a moral obligation to take in their children. One Democratic senator told me that the real key was to end violence in those three countries. Read more
The third "B" in the collapse of our national security system and the State Department hit this week.
The release of five very high-value terrorist leaders as a swap for one U.S. serviceman was the third strike against the Obama administration's policy of defeat, dishonesty and self-delusion.
When Congress starts investigating the Bergdahl case it must broaden the analysis to look at the common patterns which connect it to the administration's approach on two other national security questions: Boko Haram and Benghazi. Full story
Mudslinging and feeding the homeless
Stephanie is outraged about the political fight in Mississippi and Newt is outraged a couple is fined for feeding the homeless.
Crossfire host Van Jones asks Senator Dean Heller how he would handle the VA scandal, Sen. Bernie Sanders debates.
Should the head of the VA lose his job?
Newt Gingrich asks Senator Bernie Sanders if Eric Shinseki should lose his job.
A "Benghazi-like" effect with the VA?
Van Jones and Newt Gingrich debate the politicization of the VA scandal along with Sens. Bernie Sanders and Dean Heller.
Joint outraged: Prison system failing America
Van Jones and Newt Gingrich are both outraged that the Prison system is failing America.
The numbers are arresting.
If Americans under correctional supervision counted as a city of their own, they would form the largest city in the United States after New York.
The number of people in prison, on parole or on probation, 6.9 million Americans, exceeds the populations of the second- and third-largest cities, Los Angeles and Chicago, combined. Or the size of the next four - Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix and San Antonio - put together.
Thirty-eight U.S. states are home to fewer people than live under the corrections system in this country. There are about as many people behind bars as live in Chicago. That's one in every 108 Americans. One in 35 are under some form of correctional supervision.
Among African Americans, the numbers are even more horrifying. According to the NAACP, one in three black males born in the United States today is likely to spend time in prison at some point in his life. That's compared with one in six Hispanic males or one in 25 white males.
It would be hard to overstate the scale of this tragedy. For a nation that loves freedom and cherishes our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the situation should be intolerable. It is destroying lives and communities. FULL STORY.