Category: Voter Turnout

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 18, 2022

On Friday, the DOJ filed a motion in the 11th Federal Circuit Court for a partial stay of judge Cannon’s order appointing a special master to review the stolen documents that the FBI recovered at Mar-a-Lago (MAL). They are asking the federal appeals court to temporarily block Cannon’s ruling that prevents the DOJ from using thousands of pages of government documents seized from Trump at MAL.

It came after judge Cannon, for the second time in two weeks, issued a ruling in Trump’s favor that flabbergasted legal experts. From the WaPo:

“US District Judge Aileen M. Cannon on Thursday night rejected the Justice Department’s request to allow it to review the documents seized from Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago that were marked classified. Cannon previously ruled that a special master review all the seized documents, at least temporarily delaying the government’s criminal probe.”

The brief is here: Motion for Partial Stay Pending Appeal. The essence of the DOJ’s argument is summarized at page 6:

“Plaintiff has no claim for the return of those records, which belong to the Government and were seized in a court-authorized search. The records are not subject to any possible claim of personal attorney-client privilege. And neither the Plaintiff nor the court has cited any authority suggesting that a former President could successfully invoke executive privilege to prevent the Executive Branch from reviewing its own records.”

Let’s leave it to Robert Hubbell to point out the double standard at work in a recent Supreme Court decision: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)

“Here is a fun fact: “Executive privilege” is not mentioned in the Constitution. Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that executive privilege is “implied” in the Constitution because it is “inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution.”

Another fun fact: The Constitution does not mention “separation of powers.” So, executive privilege is an implied right based on an implied principle [in the Constitution].

Compare the Court’s recognition of the implied right of a president to invoke executive privilege to the Court’s recent pronouncement in Dobbs regarding reproductive liberty: “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”

With its decision in Dobbs, the Supreme Court eliminated an implied right that offends its religious agenda.

But Cannon and most likely, the Supremes will likely protect Trump by implying a right based on the general structure of the Constitution. On to cartoons.

Judge Cannon bars the DOJ from Trump. We thought we’d hit bottom and then we heard knocking from below:

Trump envies Charles. There’s always Burger King:

Republican immigration plan:

Ukraine advances supported by Russian troops:

Putin maintains same strategy:

Right to choose has many meanings:

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Saturday Soother – September 17, 2022

The Daily Escape:

View from Schnebly Hill Road, Sedona, AZ – August 2022 photo by Cathy Franklin

As we discussed yesterday, DeSantis is one of many Republican politicians who are working overtime to convince MAGA-land that they are yuuge Christians. Here’s DeSantis in February, talking to students at the very Christian Hillsdale College:

“Put on the full armor of God. Stand firm against the left’s schemes. You will face flaming arrows, but if you have the shield of faith, you will overcome them, and in Florida we walk the line here. And I can tell you this, I have only begun to fight.”

The Tampa Bay Times takes issue with their governor: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The biblical reference DeSantis is using is from Ephesians 6, and calls on Christians to spiritually arm themselves against the “devil’s schemes.” In DeSantis’ speeches, he has replaced the ”devil” with “the left” as he tries to mobilize supporters ahead of his reelection in November and possibly a run for the White House in 2024.”

It’s dangerous that Republicans on the ballot in November are openly saying that the only true Americans are Christians. They’re portraying the battle against their political opponents as between good and evil.

The Tampa Bay Times (TBT) says that it has some religious leaders worrying that such rhetoric could mobilize fringe groups who may be prone to violence. From the TBT: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Christian nationalism for many Conservatives has become a political identity, and unlike Conservative politicians in the past who used their faith to inform their arguments, DeSantis is more aggressive, using war imagery to describe the political debates as a battle over who will be the better American.”

The TBT quotes Philip Gorski, a comparative-history sociologist at Yale University who co-wrote the book “The Flag and the Cross: White Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy”:

“The full armor of God passage is a favorite amongst certain types of Pentecostals who really do see the world in terms of spiritual warfare,”

They also quote Allyson Shortle, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma who has co-written the book “The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics”:

“I think DeSantis has really stood out as someone who has effectively used this type of God talk and used these types of Christian nationalist talking points to curry favor…”

For Republicans, talking about the importance of faith is nothing new, and debates about how visible Christianity should be in our society — whether it be prayer in schools or religious symbols outside American courthouses — have been ongoing for decades.

But there is something different emerging: A strain of Conservative thought that sees the country’s politics as an open battle between good and evil. TBT quotes Marilyn Mayo, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism:

“There’s always been candidates who espouse Christian values, but what I think is very different is you have many people on the right and the far right seeing the current situation in the US as a battle, an absolute battle, between good and evil….And the good are the mostly white, Christian conservatives. And on the other side are the liberals, progressives, left-wingers, and certainly the LGBTQ community…. They really see this as a battle and paint the other side as…an evil force that needs to be defeated.”

Shortle says that Christian nationalism is the belief that a “true” American should be Christian. Some Christian national extremists say that the US is no longer a Christian nation, that it’s been taken over by secular forces.

Over the summer, Florida social studies teachers were alarmed that a civics training session led by DeSantis’ administration had a “Christian nationalism philosophy that was baked into everything” that was taught.

The initiative emphasized that the Founding Fathers did not desire a strict separation of state and church. State trainers also told teachers that the 1962 US Supreme Court case that found school-sponsored prayer violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment was unjustly decided.

In July, DeSantis was endorsed by Moms for Liberty, a group that focuses on adding Christian nationals to school boards across America. It has more than 200 chapters and 95,000 members in 38 states. At the group’s first national summit, DeSantis said that he intended to “leave Florida to God and to our children better than I found it.”

And what is “better” is in the eye of the beholder.

On to our Saturday Soother. We had our first sub 50° night on Thursday. Soon the indoor plants will return to the sunroom.

Take a few moments of your Saturday and listen and watch “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5” by Heitor Villa-Lobos. He wrote a series of nine suites between 1930 and 1945. Here the 5th is played by Hauser on cello and Petrit Çeku on guitar in 2017 at the Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb:

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DeSantis Dickitude

The Daily Escape:

Cathedral Valley, Capitol Reef NP – September 2022 photo by Mary Warner

Pretty sure everyone saw the news about planes landing on Martha’s Vineyard full of Venezuelan immigrants. From the NYT:

“The migrant group, which included children, arrived on two planes around 3 p.m. without any warning, said State Senator Julian Cyr, a Massachusetts Democrat representing Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket. Officials and volunteers from the island’s six towns “really moved heaven and earth to essentially set up the response that we would do in the event of a hurricane,”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) took credit for sending the planes with migrants. This is frat-boy behavior from a dick Republican governor. Not to be outdone in showing his big dickitude, Texas governor Greg Abbott (R) sent two busloads of migrants to the home of VP Kamala Harris in Washington DC.

DeSantis isn’t the first to do this. The JFK Library twitter account reminds us that in 1962:

“To embarrass Northern liberals and humiliate Black people, southern White Citizens Councils started their so-called “Reverse Freedom Rides,” giving Black people one-way tickets to northern cities with false promises of jobs, housing, and better lives.”

Maybe DeSantis and Abbott should have read a few history books before deciding to ban books.

DeSantis knows that Florida is home to 60% of the Cubans living in the US. These immigrants fled to the US to escape poverty, violence, and a Communist dictatorship. Many didn’t follow immigration laws at the time. More still try to reach Florida every week. Is DeSantis saying that he doesn’t want Venezuelan migrants but sure, more Cuban migrants are ok?

MA State Rep. Dylan Fernandes, whose district includes Martha’s Vineyard, tweeted: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The Governor of one of the biggest states in the nation has been spending time hatching a secret plot to round up & ship people—children, families-lying to them about where [they’re] going just to gain cheap political points on Tucker [Carlson] and MAGA twitter….These immigrants were not met with chaos, they were met with compassion. We are a community & nation that is stronger because of immigrants.”

Another thing: Have these plane/bus operators committed crimes? Airlines usually file manifests about who is onboard and where they’re going. Why would they, most likely private/charter operators, agree to be part of a political stunt?

The companies that transported the migrants should be told that while Abbot or DeSantis can hire them, the transport companies also have legal obligations to their passengers. If the charter companies are MAGA and won’t comply, they could have their permission to operate revoked.

And one more thing: Why are people who may not qualify for asylum being sent to other parts of the US rather than being sent back to their country of origin? And by self-professed law-and-order type governors?

DeSantis says he’s a Christian, but he’s not clothing the naked or feeding the hungry. He’s doing the opposite: Driving them from his state, not because it’s required legally, but because he can use them to advance his political ambitions. He’s using vulnerable human beings for his personal advancement. That’s evil personified.

Are we now a country of political gotcha? Should Chicago and NYC send their gang bangers to Florida and Texas? What do any of these stunts solve? From Digby about DeSantis:

“…his despicably cruel, racist worldview has been embraced by conservative Christians [for] as long as I can remember. Certainly in the years after 9/11 it was on display everywhere you looked. Their view of Christianity is that Jesus loves white people like them, period. Everyone else can literally go to hell.”

There is nothing Christian or Conservative about what DeSantis did. The folks in Martha’s Vineyard, who welcomed the immigrants, were the ones who acted as Christians. DeSantis is surely aware of the passage in Matthew:

“Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.”

The requirement of that passage is what a Christian church on Martha’s Vineyard did to help these migrants. All that DeSantis and his friends do is complain that they can’t have their preferred prayers said in public schools.

Christian nationalism as it is practiced today in the US is becoming the worst and most destructive heresies to afflict American Christians. More about this tomorrow.

This incident on Martha’s Vineyard is another reminder that a central conceit of Republican politics is that everyone is secretly as cruel as they are. And because of that, no one would be genuinely willing to help the people Republicans pack into planes and buses and ship off to liberal land.

They’re wrong.

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Corporate Money Is Flowing To Senate Republicans

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Housatonic River, New Milford CT – 2022 photo by Tony Vengrove

There are just 55 days left until the 2022 midterm elections, and Wrongo’s crystal ball remains cloudy. For example, take the US Senate race in Pennsylvania. Democrat John Fetterman leads Republican Mehmet Oz by 48.5% to 40.4% in the 535 average of polls as of September 8. Sounds like a big lead, no?

But the US Chamber of Commerce told Axios on Sept. 11 that it was donating $3 million to support Oz’s campaign. Who is the US Chamber? They are an industry group that represents virtually every major American corporation. From Judd Legum:

“Corporations — whether individually or through a trade organization like the Chamber — are prohibited from donating $3 million directly to Oz’s campaign. (Corporate PAC donations are capped at $5,000 per election.) So instead, the Chamber is routing the money through the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super PAC set up by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell….The Senate Leadership Fund can raise unlimited funds from any source and spend them to boost Oz and other Republican candidates.”

In a statement, Chamber EVP Neil Bradley described Oz as “a pro-business champion” and said Fetterman “subscribes to a far-left, government-knows-best approach.”

So, America’s big corporations are against Fetterman. Sounds like a reason to be for him.

Legum takes a deep dive into where the US Chamber gets the millions it is donating to promote Oz’s candidacy: It comes from dues paid by member corporations. And which corporations are members? The Chamber keeps its membership list secret. More from Legum:

“We know, however, that virtually every major American corporation is a member of the Chamber. The Chamber’s board of directors includes representatives from FedEx, Bristol Myers Squibb, Facebook, AT&T, United Airlines, Abbott, 3M, Microsoft, Deloitte, Fidelity, Chevron, Intuit, Xerox, Pfizer, Dow, AllState, Delta, and many others.”

And most member companies don’t have a board seat. Their donations are secret as well, but CVS disclosed that it paid $500,000 to the Chamber in 2021 and $325,000 to a related organization, the US Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. And CVS isn’t a board member! Imagine how much the really big guns paid.

A few major corporations aren’t members. Apple, for example, resigned its membership in 2009 in protest of the Chamber’s policy on climate change.

Sadly, corporations are not accountable (or even visible) in their support of the extreme policies of the GOP when they donate through vehicles like the US Chamber. We have to hope that as the Republican message gets ever more extreme, corporations will have a harder time continuing their support for this type of Citizens United chicanery.

This shows just how scummy our politics have become with the help of the Roberts Court and the Federalist Society. If it’s illegal to donate a certain amount directly to this person or organization, we simply create a PAC or a Super-PAC, and then donate huge sums directly to them.

If creating a PAC achieves this result, how is the individual limitation protecting democracy?

There’s an old joke about how if you know a little about politics, your issues are guns, abortion and taxes. If you know a lot about politics, your issue is campaign finance reform.

Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that could determine which Party holds the majority in the Senate. While Fetterman has a lead, Pennsylvania is still a competitive state, with money pouring into its governor’s race as well. This $3 million from the Chamber could have a real impact on the outcome.

It’s important to understand that more than 40% of the Pennsylvania electorate seems to want what Oz is offering. That’s scary, and it speaks to something that many in the media don’t want to address. They’re actually scared to address what the Republican Party has become. It isn’t surprising because the media are both a large part of the problem and not a part of the solution.

And when Biden accurately calls out what the Republican Party has become, when he says that Republican behavior and beliefs are inimical to what America is supposed to be, the media says he’s being divisive.

Oz is an example of what happens when one Party creates an existential situation out of whole cloth. When it’s backed by their 30 years of increasing extremism, the existential threat to democracy is now real.

No, America’s corporations aren’t going to save you. Giving money and time to Democratic Senate candidates like Fetterman, or Georgia’s Warnock (up by 2%), or Arizona’s Kelly (up by 2%), or New Hampshire’s Hassan (up by 4%), or Ohio’s Ryan (up by 1%), or North Carolina’s Beasley (up by 1%) MIGHT save you.

Do what you can.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 11, 2022

It’s 21 years since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As Michael de Adder says:

Twenty one years on, America is more at war with itself than with any foreign terrorists, despite having troops deployed in 80 countries. Our society and our democracy are threatened from within in a way that Osama bin Laden could never have managed. And where are we today? Cartoonist Mike Luckovich has a thought:

If ever so briefly after that fateful day. Today we face threats that might end our democracy:

  • We’ve nearly lost our social cohesion
  • We aren’t dealing with income inequality
  • We’re seeing racism grow
  • We see clear threats to the right to vote, or whether our votes will even count if we cast them

In these 21 years, Republicans have moved from being the Party of national security to the Party of grievance and anger. As Elliot Ackerman wrote last year in Foreign Affairs:

“From Caesar’s Rome to Napoleon’s France, history shows that when a republic couples a large standing military with dysfunctional domestic politics, democracy doesn’t last long. The US today meets both conditions.”

MAGA asks the wrong question:

When you have no policies, this is what you get:

Let’s close today with a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter that she wrote back on the first anniversary of 9/11. Carpenter was inspired by an interview with Jim Horch, an ironworker who was among the early responders at the WTC site. Here’s part of what Horch said:

“My responsibility at the site was to try to remove big pieces of steel. The building fell so hard there wasn’t even concrete. It was dust….I started to feel the presence of spirits…not very long after I was there. The energy that was there was absolutely incredible and…it was more than just the people that I was working with…it was energy left behind….One day when I was working, I felt this energy and it felt lost and it wanted to go home but it didn’t know how to go home and it came to me to go to Grand Central Station. When I got off the subway, I walked into the Great Room. Into where the constellation is in the ceiling. And I walked around the perimeter and…out of the building. I didn’t feel the energy anymore. I could feel it leave.”

And here’s Carpenter’s “Grand Central Station”:

 

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While Wrongo Was Away

The Daily Escape:

Morning storm, Grays Beach, Cape Cod, MA – August 2022 photo by David J. Long

It’s good to be back. Did Wrongo miss anything besides the fraught decision by a Trump-appointed judge about the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago (MAL)? Or, the contrasting apocalyptic speeches by Biden and Trump?

First, with the end of summer in sight, a few words about what Wrongo did on his vacation. We attended a Judy Collins concert at Tanglewood, MA. At 83, her voice remains remarkable. She opened with “Both Sides Now” and although Joni Mitchell owns the song’s copyright, Judy Collins owns the song. Collins performed songs by many other artists and led the crowd in several folk-style sing alongs. It was a very worthwhile evening.

Let’s turn to the two big news items that occurred over the Labor Day break.

First, the competing views of America by President Biden and the former president. Last Thursday, Biden gave a speech identifying Trump and MAGA Republicans as a threat to democracy. Then on Saturday, Trump gave a speech in Pennsylvania that proved Biden’s point.

Trump reprised his “Pocahontas” attack on Elizabeth Warren. He claimed that the FBI planted evidence at MAL. He called for the death penalty for drug dealers, and a ban on electric vehicles. Trump took on the FBI and DOJ:

“The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters, controlled by radical left scoundrels, lawyers and the media, who tell them what to do.”

David Frum in The Atlantic:

“For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump. Make it about gas prices, or crime, or the border, or race, or sex education, or anything—anything but Trump….Republicans had good reason to dread the havoc he’d create if he joined the fight in 2022.”

Now, Biden’s attacks have pushed Trump over the edge — exactly where Democrats want him in the run-up to the midterms. More from Frum:

“Biden dangled the bait. Trump took it—and put his whole party on the hook with him. Republican leaders are left with little choice but to pretend to like it.”

Sounds hopeful to Wrongo.

Second, Monday brought the order by federal judge Aileen Cannon approving Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI from MAL. This stops at least temporarily, federal prosecutors from using those documents in their investigation into obstruction and mishandling of government secrets by Trump.

From a political viewpoint, while her incorrect reading of the facts and the law may slow the investigation, the DOJ was never going to indict Trump before the midterms. They’re saying they are still at the early stages of the investigation.

The judge’s decision is wrong, because stolen defense secrets aren’t privileged; they are the evidence that Trump committed a crime.

It seems clear that the DOJ hasn’t decided whether to appeal her decision to the 11th Circuit, or to play out the special master fight. Of course, it could start by complying with the order and then appeal once the judge has: a) selected a special master, and b) provided instructions on the scope and duration of effort by the special master.

The DOJ’s delay may be caused by the fact that after an appeal to the 11th Circuit, any further appeal is first heard by a single Supreme Court Justice before it goes on to an expanded Supreme Court hearing. In this case, that initial hearing would be before Justice Clarence Thomas, who would likely side with Trump.

Like in Biden’s attack on democracy strategy, Trump’s theft of government secrets will remain a front page story throughout the mid-terms, and regardless of what happens afterwards, all the way to the 2024 presidential election.

The end game politically is to persuade the few persuadables on the Right, along with the majority of Independents to agree with Biden: That we’re in a “war” about the future of our democracy. The threat from one side of our political spectrum is grave. And it’s Biden’s obligation to do whatever he can to pull people away from the brink. On Friday, Biden said to Peter Doocy on FOX:

“I don’t consider Trump supporters a threat to the country. I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, refuses to acknowledge an election….changing the way you count votes, that is a threat to democracy.”

That clarifies a message that could reach a few Republicans. They and most Independents should then vote with the Dems in November. The Dems now need to carry that message to its logical conclusion.

These can be good developments for Democrats. Before the Dobbs decision and the raid on MAL, Republicans had convinced Americans that the greatest threat to democracy was high gasoline prices.

Now Dems should be going for a win.

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New DOJ Filing In Trump Case

The Daily Escape:

Joshua Tree NP, CA – August 2022 photo by Bart Aldrich

(The Wrongologist is taking the next few days off to bask in the last days of summer. Unless something major requires his return to the internet, Wrongo will publish again starting on September 6. Enjoy your Labor Day break!)

 

“He that cannot obey cannot command”  ̶  Benjamin Franklin

Perhaps you have been following the Mar-a-Lago (MAL) saga in which the FBI under an approved search warrant, removed government-owned secret and top secret documents from MAL. That search occurred after two prior attempts (Jan. 17 and June 3) by the US government to get Trump to return documents in his possession. Unsurprisingly, Trump was less than fully cooperative, and after the second attempt, said all documents had been turned over when they hadn’t.

The search has led to a war of words by Trump and Republicans against the FBI and the DOJ. It has also led to a legal back and forth between Trump and the DOJ. Most recently US District Judge Aileen M. Cannon has said she may appoint a special master to review the seized documents. That would be a win for Trump. She gave the DOJ until last Tuesday to explain why she shouldn’t do that.

The DOJ replied in a filing that included a photo of secret and top secret SCI documents found in Trump’s office. It shows files labeled “Top Secret” with bright red or yellow cover sheets, spread out over a carpet. The files were found inside a container in Trump’s office, and apparently, the FBI spread them on the floor to capture the extent of the secret material. The DOJ filing calls this a “redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ’45 office’”:

Close examination of one of the cover sheets in the photo shows a marking for “HCS,” a government acronym for systems used to protect intelligence gathered from secret human sources. Also, imagine thinking that carpet looks appropriate for an office.

Taking a picture that includes the easy to identify carpet lets the FBI show where they found the documents.

Regarding obstruction, the DOJ’s filing also revealed the text of a written assurance given to the DOJ by attorney Christina Bobb, Trump’s “custodian of records” on June 3. It says that Trump’s team had done a thorough search for any classified material in response to a subpoena and had already turned over any relevant documents.

That’s clearly untrue. According to the WaPo, the filing says: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“When agents conducted their court-ordered search on Aug. 8, they found material so sensitive that even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents…”

The filing also says that the DOJ believes that documents at MAL had been likely moved and hidden. The search there on Aug. 8 found twice as many classified documents as Trump’s lawyers had already turned over voluntarily, despite promising they had returned everything.

One detail in the DOJ filing is that the search team found that some of the secret documents were co-mingled with Trump’s passports. That’s evidence of Trump’s active role in keeping/hiding them.

It gets worse. Scott Stedman explains what we’re looking at.

“The image is actually quite telling. The secret/top secret documents found in Trump’s office have a ‘TK’ classification which stands for TALENT KEYHOLE aka secret intelligence from spy satellites and planes.”

This means that Trump had super-secret spy technology and intelligence from human sources in his office desk at MAL.

As Wrongo has said, the government’s intelligence services have to assume that many of its sources are blown, even if they’re not. That makes Trump’s obstruction of holding on to documents he wasn’t entitled to, a National Security disaster. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that covert intelligence assets of the US won’t trust the CIA for many years.

Trump was the US Commander-in-Chief. He had access to the nuclear football. He took classified materials that were necessary to the job of president from the White House and stored them in his office closet and the desk drawer at his resort.

Wrongo is publishing this prior to learning the outcome of the hearing with Judge Cannon on Thursday. It’s unclear how she will rule on the Trump request for a special master, but the DOJ filing contains sufficient information for them to appeal if they receive a negative decision.

Trump has had more “this-time-he’s-gone-too-far” moments in the last six years than can be counted. So far, he’s escaped. It could well be that his future is as messy as that pile of documents found at MAL by the FBI. His belief that he is above the law is about to be tested.

But don’t get your hopes up, and yes, pass the popcorn.

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More On Student Loan Forgiveness

The Daily Escape:

Death Valley dunes, CA – August 2022 photo by George Cannon

At a dinner party over the weekend, blog reader Marie S. said that she felt ambivalent about Biden’s loan forgiveness plan. Several others (some were Democrats) echoed her viewpoint.

Republicans have attacked it because they’re desperate to change the subject from the extremist abortion position that they’re now trying to rapidly back away from. They’re also desperate to keep Trump off of the front page. With the loan forgiveness, they see an opportunity to excite their base and divide the Dems.

Wrongo agrees that there are things to dislike and also things to like about the plan. The major thing not to like is something that the Biden administration isn’t in a position to control: The high cost of higher education. Many say that it will be business as usual for our colleges and universities, with loan forgiveness needing to happen every ten years or so.

The cost of higher education is out of hand when we look at the growth in the cost of college and fees compared to the US consumer price index (CPI):

The chart shows that the cost of college is up exponentially more than CPI over the past 40+ years. For any child not born to affluent parents (or getting a hefty scholarship), the choice is foregoing college or taking on a ton of student debt.

Dealing with the increase in college costs isn’t something that the US government can do easily, if at all. We’re talking about a broad spectrum of privately owned institutions and an array of institutions owned by individual states. Biden has got zero power to flatten the cost curve.

Also, nothing is being demanded of the banks who made questionable student loans or the schools who gave students unrealistic information about their future earnings prospects, inducing them to commit to school.

One change that Biden could have made would be to make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, as they were before the 2005 bankruptcy “reform” that then-Senator Biden helped push through Congress.

Businesses that make bad decisions get to restructure their debts and carry on. Individuals who have a run of bad luck (big medical bills or job loss) can file for bankruptcy, but students cannot. Why should college debt be carved out as not dischargeable in bankruptcy?

The program’s means-testing could have been tighter. The $125k (individual) and $250k (for married couples) income caps do seem high considering those levels of earnings puts you in the 76th and 94th percentile of earners respectively. OTOH, it sounds worse than it truly is. See this chart:

Wrongo also doesn’t like the fact that the government is still charging high interest rates on student loan debt. The average interest rate for existing borrowers under the program is 5.8%. A 5.8% interest rate on the $1.6 trillion of outstanding student debt equates to $93 billion a year in interest payments if all of those people were paying back their loans. Much of that big number could stay in borrowers’ pockets at a lower interest rate.

Finally, the US government owns 92% of all student loan debt. Why does the government need to make so much money on this debt? Wouldn’t a lower rate be a good investment to make for future generations of workers?

Wrongo does like that younger people are finally being helped out by our government. Pundits complain young people don’t get out and vote. Maybe that’s because politicians don’t help young people enough.

It feels like the government has ignored people under 40 in favor of the Boomers and corporations. Today’s young people have much higher costs for essentials: Their student loans, daycare, healthcare, their cost of housing, all are much more than previous generations had to deal with.

Wrongo does like the possible psychological benefit this could give people who felt like they were stuck. The White House estimates that more than 43 million people will qualify for loan forgiveness. Wrongo thinks that the majority of these 40+ million people are overjoyed by this news. His narrow survey of college age grandchildren shows them to be deliriously happy.

And most borrowers will likely experience some psychological relief along with their financial relief. It may allow some people to buy a home sooner than expected. Or get married or start a business. Or just stress a little less about money.

On balance, given the good and the not-so-good, Wrongo thinks the program is a good idea.

In the meantime, the politics bear watching. Republicans are trying to stoke jealousy, and they might succeed. Republicans don’t agree that this relief should take place. But every complaint makes it clear why Biden was right to do this.

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Saturday Soother – August 27, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Super moon over Lake Champlain, Burlington, VT – August 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

Republicans are outraged this week about Biden’s cancellation of student loan debt! Americans now owe a total of more than $1.6 trillion for higher education. From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The result is one of the most significant changes to American higher education policy in decades — and a new cornerstone of the president’s economic legacy. Biden’s decision will dramatically change the financial circumstances of tens of millions of Americans, fully erasing the student loans of roughly 20 million people.”

Student debt played a minor role in American life through the 1960s when Wrongo accrued his $5k of college debt while attending Georgetown. But it increased during the Reagan administration. It then shot up after the 2007-2009 Great Recession as states made huge cuts to funding for their college systems.

But the argument that “tuition has gone up because public support for higher education has declined” isn’t the only one. While it’s valid for some institutions, it doesn’t explain the “arms race” among colleges and universities to add student amenities and layers of administrative staff over the past 10 years.

Over the last decade, revenue at independent (non-religious) private colleges and universities in the US has increased by 148% on an inflation-adjusted (real) per student basis. At religiously affiliated private colleges and universities revenue has increased by 87% in real per-student terms over the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, at public institutions, revenue has increased by just 23.4% on the same basis. However, this is still 36% greater than per capita GDP growth over the same 10 years.

The headline is that our elite educational institutions have gotten obscenely wealthy. And many of our second tier institutions chased after them, causing education budgets everywhere to explode.

It’s become another example of America’s new gilded age.

Opinions differ about the ethics of loan forgiveness for student debt, and that’s understandable. The general thrust of the Republican railing about the educational loan forgiveness is about how unfair it is when one group of Americans is getting a benefit at the cost of other Americans.

This tweet from former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is on point for most of the GOP:

“Joe Biden wants those who didn’t go to school, didn’t take out loans, or already paid off their loans to pay off $300 billion of other people’s debts…..It’s socialism, it’s un-American, and only makes his record-setting inflation worse.”

But it isn’t socialism when our government bails out one group at the expense of another; it happens all the time. No Republican complained about the Trump tax cuts which were directed at America’s wealthy and its corporations. No Republican complained about the bank bailout in 2008. No Republican objected when Trump gave $16 billion to farmers hurt by the Trump tariffs.

Second, despite what the GOP is saying, the $300 billion in loan forgiveness isn’t inflationary. It’s true that it’s money that student borrowers won’t be paying back. But because of the student debt moratorium, they had already stopped payments in 2020, so there’s no change going forward. They simply won’t have to restart making payments on that $10,000 of debt.

It isn’t clear that there will be much impact to inflation or the Consumer Price Index. Since they weren’t making payments, it’s likely they were already spending those funds that might have gone to loan repayments. So no new spending.

We can have a debate about how much higher education should cost per student. We live in a society that is a whole lot wealthier than it was 40 years ago, but many of our students do not come from those few wealthy families.

The political calculus of Biden’s decision will be seen in November. The WaPo reported that a majority of Americans support limited debt forgiveness. Biden’s pollster, John Anzalone said:

“This is a motivator for young people….It’s a huge issue for young people — the support levels for them are in the high 60s.”

Let’s hope they turn out to vote on November 8.

Now, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we decompress from another week of body blows to America and find a few moments to gather ourselves for the week to come.

Here on the Fields of Wrong, we had a day of very satisfying brush clearing although we’re still waiting for rain.

Go get a big mug of decaf cold brew coffee and grab a chair in the shade. Now listen to Schubert’s “Impromptu in G flat Op. 90 No. 3”, written in 1827, and played here in 2012 by Olga Jegunova at the Bishopsgate Institute in London:

Schubert really understood how to capture emotion in his music.

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Louisiana Denies Flood Control Funding to New Orleans

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, North Plains, OR – August 2022 photo by David Leahy Photography

Wrongo and Ms. Right are streaming “5 Days at Memorial” a dramatization of the tragedy at a downtown New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina. It’s adapted from the 2013 book “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital” by Sheri Fink. Ms. Right highly recommends the book.

It is difficult to watch something when you already know the outcome is a terrible loss of life. Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005, some 17 years ago. When we visited New Orleans three years ago, damage was still visible in parts of the city.

So imagine Wrongo’s surprise to read that the state of Louisiana is withholding nearly $40 million in funding for flood control in New Orleans: (brackets by Wrongo)

“[Louisiana] Attorney General Jeff Landry successfully pushed [the State Bond Commission] commissioners to withhold the funds as punishment, after the New Orleans City Council passed a resolution asking law enforcement officers not to enforce Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban…”

Yesterday, Wrongo quoted Dan Pfeiffer who said: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Democratic efforts to turn this midterm from a progress report on Democratic governance into a referendum on GOP extremism failed to connect until the Dobbs decision. That was when Republican extremism went from an abstract argument to lived reality.”

The Dem’s performance in Tuesday’s primaries showed that Pfeiffer may be right, as many Democrats outperformed in swing districts. And what’s happening in New Orleans is another example of Republican extremism around the Dobbs decision. From Salon:

“The New Orleans City Council on July 7 passed a resolution in which local policymakers proclaimed their support for reproductive healthcare access and asked police, sheriff’s deputies, and prosecutors not to… enforce Louisiana’s draconian prohibition on abortion…”

That led to the state’s Bond Commission voting 7-6 to defer a motion to approve flood prevention funding until next month. CNN reported that this was the second time in two months that the panel rejected financing for a $39 million project that is meant to pay for drainage pumps critical to protecting New Orleans from flooding.

The Louisiana AG Landry sent a letter urging the bond commission to:

“…defer any applications for the City of New Orleans, Orleans Parish, and any local governmental entity or political subdivision under its purview….Any other funding that will directly benefit the City of New Orleans…should also be paused until such time as the council, mayor, chief of police, sheriff, and district attorney have met with and affirmed that they will comply with and enforce the laws of this state and cooperate with any state officials who may be called upon to enforce them.”

New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell told CNN that she is unwilling to budge on abortion and criticized Landry and other Republican members of the bond commission for endangering public health by holding flood mitigation funding hostage:

“We cannot afford to put politics over the rights of people, and particularly safeguarding people from hurricanes and other disasters, because we are on the front lines of climate change…”

Republicans used to favor local control. They always say federal policies shouldn’t apply unless the states agree. Now they’ll only say that if it’s politically convenient. This is political blackmail, not simply politics.

The sad part is how short sighted it is. This Landry guy and his Republican supporters who live outside of New Orleans think this can’t harm them. But, how long has it taken Louisiana to recoup all of its losses from Katrina?

And this bad behavior is becoming normalized. It happened in Texas’ Harris County when Houston was denied funds related to 2017’s Hurricane Harvey until recently. In Houston, the funds were not denied due to the abortion issue, but for other political reasons (including voting rights). Texas’s decision matrix favored more sparsely populated areas and areas with higher property values, which worked against Houston and Harris County, Harris County is a Democratic stronghold in a very Red State.

This kind of blackmail won’t go away unless fair-minded people win these important state offices, like attorney general and secretary of state.

Democrats need to hold the US House and Senate in November and retake the Presidency in 2024. If not, we will have failed to meet the moment. The defense of our previous political wins must be a constant goal in the game.

The 2022 and 2024 elections are America’s political endgame. And right now, it’s unclear how it’s going to play out.

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