Fuck, I'm a Millennial, and I'll never forget this. And my Gen Z kids are also pissed even though we are fortunate enough to be able to pay for their college. This family is never voting red.
Yeah between this, abortion rights, and the affirmative action thing... it's gonna be a rough next few years, but in the long term the Republicans are toast. I think what we're experiencing now are their last spasms for power because they know they're on the way out.
Just look up the amount of registered democrats vs. registered republicans in this country. IIRC there's like half again as many democrats.
It's almost like the only reason republicans ever win elections right now is due to is voter suppression.
I hope all americans pay attention. This was struck down due to the way it was implemented (under the "heroes act" as an "emergency) which reflects how broken the US political system is.
While the court is conservative this probably better reflects how broken the system is in Washington. It's arguable whether this is the courts fault or the dems for using something they knew might be struck down. The initial picture of this just being the courts fault is probably too simple - it is better seen through the prism of next year's elections and both sides posturing and scoring points.
It's helpful to the dems to have another unpopular court decision, but it's up for debate whether this is straight forward conservative court blocking the dems or the dems knowingly pushing something that would get struck down to help drive outrage, it a bit of both with the dems taking a gamble knowing they win either way. None of the scenarios reflects well on US democracy.
It's helpful to the dems to have another unpopular court decision, but it's up for debate whether this is straight forward conservative court blocking the dems or the dems knowingly pushing something that would get struck down to help drive outrage
It's a great lesson in how important elections are. Trump was able to appoint multiple supreme court justices which have shaped the future of America for years due to their most recent decisions and will continue to shape it for decades after he is gone.
It's a great reminder why first-past-the-post needs to go. Who's going to step up for the Dems this year? Are we really counting on an anemic Biden to carry the party against an energized right? Or will someone step up to the plate only to be reprimanded as a "spoiler"?
We need actual competition in the political space. If incumbent cronyism could be effectively challenged we'd have politicians who care a bit more about representing and a bit less about political capital.
yeah, i'm glad that there wasn't anything that could of been done under Obama...oh wait (yes it was a multi factor fuck up, but all the fuck ups were from people who were supposed to be "on our side" trying to claim power just a little longer and fucking miss me with the hand waving of there was nothing that could be done! there was!) Voting is important yes but can we stop pretending it's a fucking magic bullet? Cause it's not. Its one tiny itty bitty thing that needs to be done. Hell voting doesn't even work if you don't have any of the other stuff surrounding it. People need to get organized both at home and at work and get ready to take the fight to them through unions and strikes at the very least.
i'm so fucking sick of the answer to all of this is "go vote" when there is much more than just that needing to be done. Don't just vote, go get fucking organized with community, and fucking fight.
Don't just vote, go get fucking organized with community, and fucking fight.
And do what exactly? Hold a sign on a sidewalk and yell? It all revolves around voting. If your actions don't end up changing votes, then it's literally pointless.
"Getting organized with your community" could mean things like volunteering to help register voters, giving people rides to polling sites, resisting voter suppression, etc. It could also mean things like setting up group panel discussions to help regular people articulate their needs to elected representatives, or organizing fundraisers for political candidates.
In my opinion these types of activist work have potential to be more helpful than just encouraging to people to vote in an abstract sense.
You can even sometimes organize groups of people to solve problems directly on their own. In a town I used to live in, people got sick of waiting on the government to provide better clinics, so they started a free clinic with donated money and labor. Later, they were easily able to secure government grants once it was operating. No voting, signs, or yelling required (I believe they did have a few benefit concerts). It was a win for the community, who got a free clinic, and a win for the local government, who got a longstanding problem off their plate with essentially no effort on their part, just a little ongoing funding.
Doing the work of calling people up & coordinating getting them to come to events (like, say, polling sites, or city council meetings, or benefit concerts) is basically 90% of what "political organizing" is.
I want to copy this to use in other threads. This perfectly captures out tired of this argument I am. Also when try to blame people rather than the candidate, when they lose an election.
Voting is the BARE MINIMUM required of a citizen living in a democratic society. You use all tools available to ensure a difficult job is done efficiently and effectively.
At scale, thinking that any problem cannot be solved via a single-facet solution is so myopic that I can barely contain my anger when I encounter it.
Couple that with a lack of understanding that nothing is instant, and everything requires participation in a democracy - and it becomes nearly impossible.
It’s a vote saying that nobody was able to excite them enough to get out and do something.
Everybody looks at those voters and assumes that they are votes that they would get, but a lot of them are swing voters. People unexpectedly coming out led Barack Obama to a huge win in 2008, but on the other hand people unexpectedly coming out also led to a Donald Trump win in 2016. For the ladder to be possible, there are a number of areas that went blue in 2008 that decided to go red in 2016, and perhaps decided to go Blue again in 2020.
All this being the case, that makes it the candidate’s job to get people to want to vote, and for them.
I think a big problem right now is that you have two options, and both of them are kind of shit. You hear this from a lot of allegedly right-wing commentators who call it the uniparty – neoliberals and neo conservatives working together to enrich their corporate backers to the detriment of the common Man. Every time that any president, whether it be Barack Obama or Donald Trump or Joe Biden goes up there and tells the American people that they are better off than they were four years ago when they’re objectively not, especially once it happens a few times you get a Halo voter.
Yeah, Democrats lost a Supreme Court seat because one old lady refused to retire and they lost out on months of judicial confirmations this year because a different old lady refused to retire.
(if the Republicans take the Senate in 2024 I hope it's by a narrow enough margin that they have to worry about 90-year-old Chuck Grassley the same way we've had to worry about Feinstein)
Still can, we just have to avoid giving Republicans a window of Senate + WH control in which to replace Alito or Thomas. (and even if we only get one of them we get another crack at it a few years later with Roberts)
Thomas is 75, fat, and I assume he's not doing daily yoga, abstaining from alcohol, and following a strict vegan diet on all of these rich-guy junkets he goes on. Alito is 73 and likewise. Pure evil can get you an awfully long way - c.f. Henry Kissinger - but even so, the odds of either of them lasting much more than another decade are pretty slim.
That whole situation still makes me so mad. That turtle bastard refused to even hold hearings for Merrick Garland for 9 months because it was an election year, and then four years later held hearings voted on and seated Barrett after the election had started.
We should absolutely have a liberal 5-4 majority. Instead we live in a conservative 6-3 dystopia, with Republicans openly planning on denying any results they disagree with and installing whatever fucking president they want.
For all we know that one person could have convinced another to vote in favour of debt relief. Or perhaps when it became clear the vote was standing 5-4 it would make one of those five decide it's not clear enough and switch their vote because there wasn't a strong enough majority to block the executive branch.
Or perhaps if it was blocked at 5-4 it would give more options for result to be challenged or appealed.
Lots of things might be different if politicians who say they are for the people actually act in the best interests of the people, even if that means they retire.
Let's not pretend that he conservative justices didn't already know how they were going to rule on this. They just needed to do a little parallel construction before issuing their opinion.
Re: Feinstein, my understanding of why they've kept he is that, with her, the Dems have a one-seat majority on the Judicial Committee. The moment she resigns, it's an even split. Customarily, the Senate would promptly appoint a replacement and all would be well. However, that vote would be subject to the filibuster, and the Dems don't trust McConnell to not block it. If McConnell does block a replacement, then the Judicial Committee stays split and appointing any judges becomes completely impossible.
They'd rather deal with Feinstein's limited availability rather than take the gamble that they'd be allowed to fill a replacement. I agree that she should absolutely retire, but there are political games that have to be considered when the stakes are this high.
Because Republicans would rather break the system than allow it to work as intended. Because they know that's the only way they can ever have an advantage.
You know how everyone knows you're supposed to brush your teeth twice a day for 2 minutes, AND FLOSS? If we all did that on the regular, dentist appointments would be quick and painless the vast majority of the time.
Instead, we've got people who barely brush, never floss, avoid the dentist and then hate the dentist for giving them pain and grief when they finally get around to it.
Voting is like that. No one would have to harp on everyone to go vote if everyone did it, and frankly if everyone voted according to their own actual interests and benefits, we wouldn't be IN this mess to begin with.
It's not that it's a magic bullet, and I don't think anyone is pretending it is. It's that not enough people ARE voting, and it's the single best way we have to make a large step in the right direction.
If we all voted blue every election, without fail, eventually we start to see the impact of avoiding the GOP regressions. Eventually we gain momentum.
Vote AND organize. But if you can't even be arsed to vote, what makes you think you'll be willing to do the vastly more intensive actions involved in an active fight?
Do the bare minimum ffs. If you (global you) don't vote, miss me with the bullshit angst and wimpy call to actions no one will take. It's just as much a hand waving whether it's a fist, a middle finger, or a dismissal if it's not engaged otherwise. We need to use ALL the tools we have against oppression.
It's especially galling being repeatedly told to vote when the dems refuse to actually fucking fight. They made nowhere near the amount of effort to block Trump appointees that republicans made to stop Obama appointees and no amount of "high road" moral victories will outweigh the effect of having a far right leaning supreme court for a generation
Taxpayers spent over $1 Trillion on the PPP program, of which, $200 billion is thought to be fraudulent. Another case of only corporations get socialism in the US.
"They steal so I want to steal too!" You worthless leftists never argue for principles. It always some lame, logically fallacious argument for why something should benefit you directly. Instead of arguing for reigning in corporate power and addressing the root cause of high college tuition you advocate for stealing from other tax payers.
You people deserve to be poor and destitute. Fucking lazy, stupid, unprincipled pieces of shit. I cross my fingers that the vax will eventually cull your herd. Useless eaters.
So you want to steal from other Americans that did not attend college or did attend college but not during the eligible period, because the corporations do it? You people are trash.
If you live in the US you are rich compared to the rest of the world. You are already in the top 90% of global earners. Stfu. Move to a 3rd world country with what you have and live like a king.
And why the hell would we just lay down and accept the fact that our grandparents didn't have student debt because tuition could be paid with a part time job?
Why should we accept that sometimes three incomes isn't enough to support a family when one "unskilled" laborer used to be able to comfortably support a family of five.
Why should we accept the fact that full time at minimum wage can't afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the United States?
Why should we accept that people would rather kill themselves than saddling their family with medical debt.
Why should we accept that people are forced to dangerously ration a drug that costs $10 to produce but costs hundreds of dollars at the pharmacy, with insurance?
Why the fuck would another country having things worse mean we should stop fighting for better?
our grandparents didn't have student debt because tuition could be paid with a part time job
If a thing costs $10, and the government offers to pay $5 of it without any further action, the price of the thing rises to $15. Government money without restrictions is a big part of why tuition costs so much.
sometimes three incomes isn't enough to support a family when one "unskilled" laborer used to be able to comfortably support a family of five.
Why should we accept the fact that full time at minimum wage can't afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the United States?
Tax money that goes to loan forgiveness for upple middle income people is tax money that can't be spent on decreasing the wealth gap, and in fact will help solidify the wealth gap for anyone not fortunate enough to have a college degree (ie the vast majority of poor people).
Why should we accept that people would rather kill themselves than saddling their family with medical debt.
Why should we accept that people are forced to dangerously ration a drug that costs $10 to produce but costs hundreds of dollars at the pharmacy, with insurance?
Debt forgiveness increases the cost of things. What we need is to attack the roots of the problem - the cost. Don't give people government money to repay private businesses for their ridiculous costs. Use government money to bring the cost down.
California is developing its own generic insulin that it will sell at cost. This will force companies to lower their prices. THAT is how to attack the problem.
That's not even all of the fraud, that's just the really obvious stuff - overseas scam artists inventing fake companies. Rich members of Congress getting PPP loans for their "businesses" and using the money to buy yachts doesn't seem to be counted.
Whoa, finally one thing I miss from Reddit. Those grammar correction bots were so nice to see in the wild. Unironic big up for doing it manually, though
I voted for Bernie in the primaries in 2016, then for Hillary when Bernie lost the primary. If Hillary was president when we replaced 3 Supreme Court justices, we would still have choice for abortion and student loan forgiveness.
Don't vote for Republicans, they don't care about women's rights, minorities, LGBTQ rights, worker rights, non Christians, and our democracy.
Too many people fffked up that decision and voted for the guy with the misogyny, racism and entitlement because his name was slathered on watches and ties.
Thats quite a precedent. The president doesnt have discretion about his own department of education. Thats a complete undermining of the entire executive branch if its no longer able to make decisions about the executive branch.
Well the executive branch is useless, unless you put in the ultimate cheat code of having R as your party initial. then you can do no wrong and use the hidden magical wand behind the nixon painting to do anything.
unless you put in the ultimate cheat code of having R as your party initial.
Sucks that Republicans are so hellbent on forming a christo-fascist authoritarian regime with the only goal being to pump money into corporations and the wealthy.
Eh, this was always on shaky legal grounds. Even Pelosi herself said last year that she didn't think the Executive had the authority to unilaterally do this, and as I understand, Biden was skeptical as well. It's a bit of a stretch to say that Congress intended to allow the President to unilaterally void student debt when they passed a measure to allow for adjustments during emergencies.
The ostensible textualists on the Court are certainly being a little hypocritical, but it's not an absurd ruling.
It's at least got to completely parallel the executive branch's discretion with federal drug laws, that they've exercised in not prosecuting for federal marijuana violations. I feel like that's something to watch out for now.
If a law is so broad that it brings about questions on how one should implement it, rather than asking Congress to fix it, SOCTUS gets to dictate what specifically the answer to the question is. But if Congress doesn't like that answer SCOTUS gives, Congress may pass a law being more specific. That is, the Court isn't indicating that the law, ruling, or order is unconstitutional, they are ruling that it is too broad in scope and that SCOTUS is "fixing it" for the time being. But Congress is openly invited to completely override anything they've said.
Now of course, "Major Questions" brings about the obvious. "What is the definition of too broad?" And of course there's all kinds of precedent on that as well and SCOTUS saying "well this is broad, but this isn't broad". Since the WV vs EPA (2022) case, SCOTUS Conservatives have gotten a bit more ..... (and it may shock those that I'm using this word) "liberal" in what they consider "broad". And the liberal justices are more than happy to point this out each and every time to the Conservatives:
It seems I was wrong. The current Court is textualist only when being so suits it. When that method would frustrate broader goals, special canons like the “major questions doctrine” magically appear as get-out-of-text-free cards.
— Justice Kagan (brutally assaulting and ripping the Conservatives' jugular while dissenting in WV v. EPA (cir. 2022))
So it looks like we're in for a whole lot of "quite a precedent" as the Conservative Justices look posed to whip out the Major Questions doctrine to be allowed to "double think". Major Questions isn't usually used this often and by golly the Conservative Justices seem posed to right that perceived wrong, apparently. And the Liberal Justices have indicated, it's not wise to over use this doctrine. The 6-3 bench isn't forever.
Well... I'm not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. We all knew this Supreme Court was not in favour of its citizens. The Supreme Court should have been stacked long ago. Leaving it be with its insane appointments just because stacking it might start a war with the GOP was a short sighted move, as the GOP is always going to play underhanded (that's how they managed to get so many SCOTUS appointments in the first place). Biden's insistence on trying to play nice with the GOP has always been his weakness.
This really sucks for those with student loans who were depending on this. We're already in an economically rough place for the kinds of folks who would have student loans. Inflation has been sharp in recent years and wages have not kept up. In my field of tech, layoffs have been widespread and new grads would be the most severely impacted (they already struggle to get hired and now they're competing against an increased number of experienced people).
As an aside, it's also a shame that lawmakers have not managed to pass a law for this debt relief. My understanding is that the strike down is specifically because it's not a congress passed loan forgiveness. But congress isn't willing to do the right thing (not in enough numbers to pass a law, anyway).
Re: Congress, just to comment on the political reality, I think people often lose sight of the fact that only 53% of the country has a college degree, and of those that don't have degrees, you can probably guess their general political leanings. Congressional Republicans who are disproportionately representing people who didn't go and don't care about university education are unlikely to want to vote to further pay for the loans of people who are statistically going to go on to make significantly more money anyway, and their constituents certainly don't want them to.
I think there are decent economic arguments to make in favor of forgiveness, but the opposition isn't coming from nowhere. People without degrees are financially struggling as well, and the plight of tech workers isn't going to be very persuasive.
This isn't as much of a class thing as you think it is. Upper middle class and rich people with college degrees don't have student debt because their families paid for their college tuition. People from lower middle class and working class families have student debt.
It's not about "paying off" anyone's loans. It's loan forgiveness.
Mathematically the same thing.
Only people from lower middle class and working class families have student debt.
It's not about where people came from, it's about where they're going and where they are now. Statistically, people with a degree are much wealthier than those without. There are actual poor people who need the help much more.
Loan forgiveness would have helped a lot of people who didn't go to college. People who did not finish their degrees and parents who cosigned on loans were two big benefactors. The blatant hypocrisy of forgiving the PPP loans but then objecting to this forgiveness is what stings the most to me.
How in the unearthly flying fuck did the 6 Republican state governors have standing to sue on behalf of a private company that did NOT have the right to sue and had NO demonstrable harm?
Completely vacuous institution, the SCOTUS. They just make shit up at this point.
I'm not surprised they struck it down, but I guess the jaded side of me is surprised they allowed him a different avenue to do the relief instead of making the whole concept illegal.
Also, there was talk from the Republicans about try to force everyone to pay back the interest we would have been paying this entire time. Somewhat surprised they didn't agree to that as well.
There's nothing formal stopping the SC from doing anything, but courts are generally limited to ruling on the controversy in front of them in as narrow a way as practically possible. I haven't read any analysis on this ruling, but just from the little I have seen, it looks like they ruled that the HEROES Act didn't grant the federal government the ability to forgive the loans in the way they were attempting.
Biden could try using an authority from a different law or creating a different set of rules by which the loans may be forgiven.
My non-lawyer prediction is that if Biden tries again, the SC will find a new reason to stop it and will make a bigger ruling that takes more power away from federal agencies to make decisions. They've already been doing this with environmental and health decisions, and I'm sure other agencies have been impacted too.
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