Loans, choices and fake presidents
A brief primary review. Via Buzzfeed News:
With the fight over abortion rights looming large over the midterm elections, voters in Florida ousted two prominent anti-abortion elected officials in separate races on Tuesday.
Florida Rep. James Bush lost his reelection bid, a notable defeat for the sole Democrat in the state legislature who voted on a 15-week abortion ban and the anti-LGBTQ "Don't Say Gay" bill.
His opponent, 37-year-old lawyer Ashley Gantt, ran on a platform focused on affordable housing, public education, and criminal justice reform. Gantt, an attorney and former public school teacher, has criticized Bush for siding with Republicans on the abortion ban and the "Don't Say Gay" bill, which bars "classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity."
"As a Black woman, I was offended when he voted to restrict my rights, our right to make decisions over our bodies," she said last week. "As a former teacher, I was insulted that he voted to inject Tallahassee extremism into our classrooms and deny local control over our school systems."
The other judge had ruled that a teenager’s grades were too low so she lacked the responsibility to have a choice.
Elsewhere, for the Alaska US Senate race, incumbent Lisa Murkowski - a Republican who voted to impeach Trump - easily defeated her Trump-backed opponent.
Overall, Trump’s endorsements boosted most candidates, but his influence is showing slippage within the party.
Analysts indicate House races will be closer than previously thought and while the early indicators support that view, it’s too early for me to reach any firm conclusions. The polling in September will be critical to determine that. Trump will be all over the map pushing for his slate, but he’ll also be weighed down by all the legal actions against him, in New York and Georgia, so far.
With the newly announced Biden school loan forgiveness plan, millions of lower income Americans can dismiss up to $10,000 of debt. The poorest, who qualified for Pell Grants during their school years, may get as much as $20,000 dismissed.
The GOP response was swift, loud and predictable. ‘Socialism!’ they yelled, from McConnell on down.
When Marjorie Taylor Greene joined in, a quickwitted researcher was ready to respond.
Several notable Republicans - and others - also got highlighted here:
And here:
(Note: I’ve not verified the amounts).
Donald Trump Jr. ranted about this being a scam by leftwing universities and got lambasted by numerous people who pointed out that his dad’s Trump University (which wasn’t an accredited university at all), had to pay out $25 million in reparations after defrauding students for the failed enterprise.
If you’d like details about whether and when to apply for this student loan forgiveness, there’s a government page you should check out and sign up for notifications.
Meanwhile, back at the circus, a clown is doing his impression of a kicking toddler throwing a tantrum.
1) Innocent of what? The DOJ and the federal government haven’t charged you with a crime.
2) The radical left doesn’t control any government body or agency and nobody has spied on you. You’re subject to exactly the same scrutiny that presidents and presidential candidates get from the media and from political opponents. If you can’t handle the heat, well, you know…
3) I believe the evidence indicates one person gave some false information to a FISA Court judge once. That person deserves criticism and whatever else is required by the law.
4) I know of know hoaxers or scams others ‘put on you’. If you have evidence that your unnamed tormentors have broken the law, be specific about what law(s) got broken, so legal authorities can respond to that evidence.
5) Everyone criticizing you is not ‘sick’ or ‘demented.’ That’s toddlerspeak. Your critics are pretty ordinary people. Most people refer to them as ‘the majority’.
6) Look, we know Hunter Biden is a recovering drug addict with other mental health issues. For all the claims you’ve made about him, nobody has seen evidence that he’s done anything besides breaking anti-drug laws. And nobody has provided any evidence that Joe Biden has broken any laws at all. Your word, alone, is not evidence. It’s an unfounded political claim.
7) Hunter Biden’s laptop came from a repair shop not from Hell. It contains no evidence of the crimes you keep yelling about. And you know that. Everyone knows you know that.
8) The news media is not fake. It encompasses thousands of publications. Some make mistakes. There is no conspiracy in the media to misrepresent what you do and what you’ve done.
9) When you say the media ‘is pushing hard for the Sleaze to do something’, we have no idea who this ‘Sleaze’ is. Nothing is resolved by tantrums and yelling that requires deciphering. It just sounds really really dumb.
No, I refuse to consider this normal adult behavior. You are a very very strange man doing and saying very strange things.
The advice you get from political activists like Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial Watch (a noted propaganda org) isn’t helping you. It’s clearly led you to further criminal acts. Can’t you find a competent attorney?
Trump even asked Fitton at one point to brief his attorneys, said a person familiar with the matter.
"The moment Tom got in the boss' ear, it was downhill from there," said a person close to the former President, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
In a phone interview with CNN, Fitton would neither confirm nor deny conversations he's had with Trump, but noted that he has been vocal on social media and television that Trump had the right to keep the documents he took with him at the end of his presidency because they inherently were personal.
Wikipedia on Tom Fitton:
In 2022, researchers found Fitton was the third-most prolific purveyor of election misinformation on Twitter during the late months of 2020.[4]
Fitton rejects the scientific consensus on climate change; under his tenure, Judicial Watch has filed lawsuits against climate scientists.
His legal training?
Fitton has a bachelor's degree in English from George Washington University.[9]
You can read about the scope of his deliberate lies here. No evidence exists that he’s a bonafide legal authority on anything. He’s just a propagandist. And Trump wanted him to lecture his attorneys about the classified documents Trump deliberately stole. And how does Fitton know the documents were ‘inherently personal’? Has Fitton reviewed the documents? Has he seen the highest classification of top secret documents? If so, Trump clearly violated the law to give him access to them.
The very strange man keeps doing very strange things that the majority of adults can see and the majority disapproves of. Many saw the video of Trump micromanaging a video shoot after January 6th where he struggled with words like ‘yesterday’ and tried to avoid conceding defeat. To him, this is just another reality TV game show. Selling misinformation. Fundraising. With zero concern for the best interests of the US or its 332,000,000 citizens.
It’s only about the interests of Trump. Which is why we voted him out of office. And it’s why he’ll lose by a bigger margin if he runs in 2024.
And yeah, he was actively collecting those national security secret documents and actively resisted returning them. There’s just no point in countering his propaganda and the propagandists he rode in on. The truth is visible. Let the courts sort out the lies and render judgment. And let’s hope they’re not as crooked and strange too.
Quit trying to play us all, Donald. You’ve maxed out your herd and there’s nobody left to fleece.
After writing this, I checked out a few more sites. I won’t bother quoting them. They’re just a dozen recommended reads. Pick and choose, per your interest.
1) Heather Cox Richardson, August 24th. Numerous topics.
2) Considering all the microtechnology that gives us smart phones and Bluetooth, etc, why does something as simple as hearing aids come with an exorbitant price still? Finally, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. An affordable one.
3) Among other groups, Republicans are attacking the League of Women Voters now. They can’t seem to get along with anyone except gangsters, hate groups and dictators.
4) David Kay died. Another guy who became an outcast to the administrations of George W. Bush and Tony Blair for investigating and reporting the truth: Saddam Hussein had no WMDs. Do we dismiss the half a million dead Iraqis? I can’t.
5) Amanda Marcotte on the forces of anti-democratic vote organizing, and the growing backlash led by women.
6) Marcy Wheeler on the coverup memo by Attorney General William Barr when he was still a willing sycophant of Trump (and before his post-election self-redemption effort).
7) Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior? He’s a crook too? Are you surprised? Is anyone?
8) Great. Now Costa Rica has an authoritarian asshole president. This cancer keeps spreading all over the globe.
9) The massive loan dismissal scam that provided billions to billionaires. It was sold as help for the overburdened small business owners. Now the middle class is supporting the top 1% again.
10) The doctor with an ingenious plan to provide reproductive healthcare, including legal abortions - at little to no cost. This could float.
11) A researcher’s warning: we may be headed to an extreme violence event that rivals what Timothy McVeigh and his crew did in Oklahoma City.
12) An anti-abortion activist busted for solicitation of a minor? How convenient. He can knock her up and force her to carry his fetus. Except he got busted. And everyone he worked for in the anti-choice world is busy deleting his name.
And now for something completely different.