Random Politics & Religion #00

Food could be good, you never know.

Food could be good, you never know.

A former CFO is now on food stamps after a video he posted on YouTube two and half ago criticizing Chick-Fil-A went viral and destroyed his career.

Adam Smith, 37, was the CFO of a medical device manufacturer in Arizona, until the summer 2012, when he -- and thousands of other people -- started protesting against Chick-Fil-A for the fast-food chain’s anti-gay stance.

One day, Smith decided to go through the drive-thru at his local Chick-Fil-A, where he ordered a free water -- the fast food chain offers customers free water -- and videotaped himself telling the drive-thru attendant how much he despised Chick-Fil-A.

“Chick-Fil-A is a hateful corporation,” Smith said, in part, to the drive-thru attendant. “I don’t know how you live with yourself and work here. I don’t understand it. This is a horrible corporation with horrible values. You deserve better.”

Smith then posted the video on his personal YouTube channel, but when he got back to work, he received a major shock.

“I got into work and the receptionist, the first thing, big eyes, ‘Adam, what did you do?’ ... she said, ‘The voicemail is completely full, and it’s full of bomb threats,’” Smith said in an exclusive interview with ABC News' "20/20."

Smith was fired that same day. He said at the time he was earning $200,000 annually and had over $1 million in stock options.

“It was taken when I lost my employment,” he said.

Failing to repay student loans has all sorts of terrible consequences, but in some states, more than just your financial well-being is at risk — student loan default could cost you your professional certification or even your driver's license.

Two state legislatures (Iowa and Montana) are considering bills that would repeal laws that allow states to suspend the driver's licenses of student loan defaulters, Bloomberg reported in a March 25 piece on the topic. Even if those repeals succeed, several other states have such laws in place. Some states suspend licenses needed to practice in certain fields, from health care to cosmetology, though license suspension can extend to driving, too.

Repeal advocates argue that license suspension is a counterintuitive punishment for student loan defaulters, because it may keep them from working, which theoretically enables them to repay their debts. That's the case Montana state Rep. Moffie Funk is making for the bill she introduced to repeal the state's law that allows driver's license suspension, Bloomberg reports.

According to a list from the National Consumer Law Center, 22 states have laws that enable suspension of state licenses issued to student loan defaulters. The professions and licenses affected by suspensions vary by state and cover a wide range of earning potential, but some of them include doctors, social workers, barbers, transportation professionals and lawyers — the lists can be quite extensive. If your state is on the list and you're at risk of defaulting, you might want to research the details:

Alabama
Alaska
California
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Mississippi
Montana
New Jersey
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
Washington

Student loan default trashes your credit, and the loans continue to incur interest and fees as long as they remain unpaid, so getting out of default can be very challenging. If you have federal student loans, as most people who borrow do, there are many options available to you before you're 270 days past due on your student loan payments (that's the definition of default): You can apply for income-based repayment or pay-as-you-earn programs, in addition to applying for an extended repayment period, which will raise the cost of your loans in the long run but make them more affordable now.

If you want to see how your student loans are affecting your credit, you can get your free credit scores, updated monthly, on Credit.com. You can check your credit reports for free once a year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies at AnnualCreditReport.com. Because student loans are generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy and default can be catastrophic for your credit, it's crucial to prioritize making your loan payments on time.

Barack Obama will make a long-awaited return to Kenya this July, visiting his father's homeland for the first time since becoming US president, the White House announced Monday.

During the much-delayed visit, Obama will attend a summit to encourage entrepreneurship and meet the country's controversial leader Uhuru Kenyatta.

Obama's late father was from a small village near the shores of Lake Victoria. He met Obama's white American mother in Hawaii, where they had a son before divorcing.

America's first black president has visited sub-Saharan Africa four times since taking office in 2009, but political scandal has blocked a presidential visit to his ancestral home.

For much of Obama's time in power, Kenya's president Kenyatta had been under investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Kenyatta was indicted on five counts of crimes against humanity for his alleged role in 2007-08 post-election violence that killed an estimated 1,200 people.

The 53-year-old son of Kenya's founding father protested his innocence until the case was dropped in December.

Prosecutors complained that they had been undermined by a lack of cooperation by the Kenyan government, as well as the bribing or intimidation of witnesses.

A White House official told AFP that Obama and Kenyatta would meet during the visit.

One person was killed in gunfire that erupted outside National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., Monday after a car carrying two men dressed as women tried to crash through a checkpoint at the base, officials say.

One of the men in the car was killed when armed security guard at the gate opened fire, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press. ABC News reported that the other was “severely injured” and “probably won’t survive.”

An NSA official told the AP that their vehicle smashed into a police car, and that police opened fire when it refused to stop. An NSA police officer was injured in the encounter, the official said.

According to WTOP.com, one person was transported to a Baltimore trauma center.

The identities of the men involved in the shooting were not immediately released.

Aerial images from news helicopters on the scene appear to show two damaged SUVs outside the gate and a white sheet covering a body next to one of them. The footage also showed emergency workers treating a man in a uniform and loading him into an ambulance.

The FBI is investigating the shooting.

“The shooting scene is contained, and we do not believe it is related to terrorism,” FBI Baltimore said in a statement.

A U.S. official told NBC News that the incident appears to be a “local criminal matter.”

Fort Meade, a U.S. Army installation, is home to approximately 11,000 military personnel and about 29,000 civilian employees, according to its website.

Earlier this month, a man was arrested in connection with five shootings that occurred over several weeks in the Washington-Baltimore area, including one near the National Security Agency at Fort Meade. One of the spy agency's buildings was damaged in the alleged shooting spree.

Eh, it's just an opportunity for liberals to rally their base over a false narrative of "Hateful murica is out do get the gays again". There is no text in the law that permits discrimination based on sexual orientation, only one that protects people practicing their religious freedom. If you want to argue that we shouldn't allow people religious freedom, by all means do so, but don't hide behind this BS when you do it.

Exit question, if you're part of a religion that believes homosexuality is wrong, what should you do? Just not go into business?

Before someone comes in an simply replaces sexual orientation with race, could you also give me an example of an active religion that thinks being born black is a sin?

The problem within your own post Nausi is that you say that nothing specifically in the bill says descriminate based on sexual orientation but in your next statement you pretty much state that is what the law can be used for. Do you not see that?

Personally I don't really care if people refuse others service for whatever reason unless its something like a utility company. Oh you're gay? No power for you. I also don't understand why you would want to give business to a person that pretty much hates you because of their religion and nothing else.

If your religion tells you to hate a specific group of people for no other reason than they are what they are then I just feel sorry for you. I'd say still go into business but get ready to be bashed or supported by consumers for the choices you make in how you run your business.

Im not quite sure how race became part of this discussion.

Edit: Also, whenever you start a business you start it knowing you're going to be governed by certain laws so you should probably take that into account before you put all that money and work into it.

More details on this story:

NSA shooting: 1 dead after 2 men dressed as women tried to crash gate outside Fort Meade

Why should it be illegal to discriminate against someone? If I own a strip club and intentionally don't hire fat chicks, I am in fact discriminating against them. The only difference between fat chicks and gay people in this case is that the lobby advocating gay people become a special class is more organized than the equivalent lobby for fat people. Probably because the fats just can't seem to respond as quickly / move as fast (rimshot).

I mentioned race as a caveat, cause I know some idiot will say "if your religious practice says you should kill blacks, should you be allowed to freely practice your religion".

Apple CEO already beat them to it.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Compares Indiana Law to Jim Crow Laws in Scathing Op-Ed

Religious freedom ... as long as it's Christian only right?

Being gay isn't a choice or something you can change. Being fat is, unless it's due to a medical condition (and even then you can still lose weight and be healthier than people think).

It's a huge step backward. If it's legal to discriminate, women will go back to being paid less than men and such.

Sure then, if you like discrimination, just increase the taxes by 20% for republicans.

Obviously there is discrimination everyday everywhere, laws shouldn't promote it.

Curves is a misleading title for a gym...

Well there are good curves and bad curves...

Why should it be illegal to discriminate against someone? If I own a strip club and intentionally don't hire fat chicks, I am in fact discriminating against them. The only difference between fat chicks and gay people in this case is that the lobby advocating gay people become a special class is more organized than the equivalent lobby for fat people. Probably because the fats just can't seem to respond as quickly / move as fast (rimshot).

I mentioned race as a caveat, cause I know some idiot will say "if your religious practice says you should kill blacks, should you be allowed to freely practice your religion".

Why should it be illegal to discriminate against someone? If I own a strip club and intentionally don't hire fat chicks, I am in fact discriminating against them. The only difference between fat chicks and gay people in this case is that the lobby advocating gay people become a special class is more organized than the equivalent lobby for fat people. Probably because the fats just can't seem to respond as quickly / move as fast (rimshot).

I mentioned race as a caveat, cause I know some idiot will say "if your religious practice says you should kill blacks, should you be allowed to freely practice your religion".

No, the difference is that it is legal for a strip club to discriminate against fat chicks or ugly chicks or men because it is the core of their business. If a flower shop didn't want to do gay weddings because their solvency depended on it, that would be a different story. This has nothing to do with a business being given undue financial hardship by doing gay weddings, it's specifically the owners having a religious objection to it.

They are not parallels, and the reason you guys are having so much trouble finding parallels is because there aren't any. There is no pro-gay equivalent to this practice, and gay business owners would never refuse service to straight people because they have a moral objection to their lifestyle.