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Biden adviser pushes back on criticism of student loan debt cancelation: 'Everything doesn't benefit everybody'

Former senior White House adviser Cedric Richmond on Sunday dismissed criticism that the Biden administration’s move to cancel some student loan debt is unfair, saying “everything doesn’t benefit everybody,” reiterating that the plan will help the country’s working class. 

“Remember, everything doesn’t benefit everybody, but it’s about the common good and this president is focused on working families and empowering people to reach their full potential, and I think that this does exactly what he’s trying to do,” Richmond said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The Biden administration announced last week it’s forgiving up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt for Americans earning less than $125,000 a year, and up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients. It also extended a pandemic-era freeze on federal student loan repayments and interest accrual until Dec. 31 for what it said was the final time.

Richmond served in the Biden administration as director of the Office of Public Engagement and is now an adviser to the Democratic National Committee. 

“This country is not a zero-sum game where somebody has to fail for others to succeed. And so, we have historic tax credits, we have business tax credits to help those who own businesses and not everyone in America owns a business, but we help business owners because we want to promote it,” Richmond said Sunday.

“We’re not picking winners and losers. America is a country about the common good, and what we’re doing here is making sure that we invest in all of America. And right now, we are investing in working families.”

The former Louisiana congressman rejected a suggestion by anchor Jennifer Griffin that the plan is an “election gimmick” by Biden ahead of this year’s midterms.

“It’s not. What it’s doing is empowering people to get an education, lift themselves out of poverty, free up the high cost of the debt that they owe to colleges so that they can invest in American dreams, buy a home, invest in their children, be better community members. This is about lifting up America,” Richmond said.

He noted that Biden’s move, which the White House says will mainly benefit Americans making less than $75,000 a year, fulfills a promise the president made on the campaign trail. 

The debt forgiveness plan has been praised by progressives, while Republicans have called the plan unfair and economically irresponsible.

Asked by reporters after last week’s announcement whether his plan is unfair to those who have already paid off or chose not to take out loans, Biden parried with a hit at tax cuts on the rich. 

“Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multi-billion dollar businesses if they see one of these guys getting all the tax cuts? Is that fair? What do you think?” Biden said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Mississippi mayor urges residents to get out 'now' as river waters rise

The mayor of Jackson, Miss. has urged residents to evacuate as river waters continue to rise due to flooding.

“I’ve already received calls from individuals wondering or questioning whether they should get out if you are capable of getting out now,” Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (D) said in a news conference Saturday.

“Get out now get out as soon as possible to prevent any incident or challenge with people trying to leave the area all at once; or any concern over whether the river crests sooner than you may anticipate our projection.” 

On Saturday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) declared a state of emergency for areas that are still affected by the river flooding.

“This will allow our state agencies to better assist in our response efforts and carry out their emergency responsibilities,” Reeves said in a tweet.

Flooding swept across the southwest region of the U.S. last week, as the National Weather Service (NWS) warned about a potential tropical cyclones in the region.

Mississippi’s Pearl River is expected to crest at 35.5 feet on Monday, six inches lower than previous forecasts, a NWS hydrologist told the New York Times. Though the flooding had reached some subdivision streets in Jackson, it has yet to reach houses.

A spokesperson for Lumumba said 100 to 150 homes could be affected in the city.

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Hogan sidesteps questions on if Trump FBI search was 'political witch hunt'

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Sunday said he isn’t satisfied with the current level of transparency regarding the FBI’s search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, but sidestepped questioning about whether he agrees with fellow Republicans who allege the move was politically motivated. 

“Many Republicans believe this is a political effort to harm and tarnish the reputation of former President Trump. Do you agree with them? And do you think the government has been transparent enough in this extraordinary set of events?” chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett asked Hogan on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“It is an extraordinary set of events. It’s never happened before with a former president and so the very first day I– I called for more transparency,” Hogan replied.

The Republican governor lauded Attorney General Merrick Garland making brief but public comments on the case against Trump as well as the release of an affidavit by the Justice Department justifying the FBI search.

“But we still don’t know a whole lot. I mean, most of it was redacted. It didn’t give us a lot of color. And so I think some Republicans are saying without you showing us more to it, we don’t- we think it may be political,” Hogan said without clarifying if he was among those posing such questions about the investigation’s motives.

A noted Trump critic within the Republican party, Hogan separated himself after the search from Republicans “just reacting, just defending” the former president. He’s said the search was justified, but has been vocal in calling for transparency on the matter from federal authorities. 

An unsealed warrant indicates Trump is under investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws in relation to documents kept at Mar-a-Lago after the end of his presidential term, including 11 sets of classified material recovered by the FBI during its search of Trump’s Florida resort earlier this month.

The affidavit used to apply for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant was released in redacted form last week but revealed that authorities recovered 184 classified documents from the property.

“On the one hand, it could be, as some Republicans think, just, you know, just a political witch hunt. On the other hand, it could be really serious, you know, federal felonies. We don’t know that yet,” Hogan said.

Pressed on whether he sides with Republicans who believe the probe into Trump’s document handling is a witch hunt, Hogan said not enough information has been released, but hinted at some trust that the FBI had justifications for the investigation. 

“I don’t know that we have enough information yet. I think– it’s hard to believe that the Justice Department, the FBI, would take steps unless they had something pretty serious that they were investigating. We just don’t know the facts yet,” Hogan said.

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Hogan says he won’t endorse any Maryland governor candidate

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said he won’t endorse anyone in the race to replace him.

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” moderator Major Garrett asked Hogan about the race between Trump-backed GOP nominee Dan Cox and Democratic challenger Wes Moore.

Hogan has called Cox, a state lawmaker, a “Qanon whack job” and “a nut”. Cox beat Hogan’s preferred candidate, former Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz, in the GOP primary.

“When people ask me a question, I usually give them a direct answer. And I you know, made it very clear that this guy should not be the nominee and he shouldn’t be governor,” Hogan told Garrett.

“I’m not getting involved in endorsing in the race. But this is not just Maryland. This is happening across the country. This is something that, it’s why Mitch McConnell is saying that we may not win the Senate,” Hogan added of the success of pro-Trump election deniers in this year’s primary cycle.

“It’s why we were hoping to pick up seats in governor’s races and now we’re not. It’s why we’re- we’re the margin in the House is so much smaller.”

McConnell drew Trump’s ire last week when he predicted the fight for control of the Senate would be tight, citing the importance of candidate quality in the statewide races.

What was once expected to be a “red wave” in the midterms, due to soaring inflations and President Biden’s low approval ratings, is now expected to be a much smaller GOP gain in the House, and a toss-up in the Senate.

Hogan, whose second term as governor ends in January, has been an outspoken Trump critic amid speculation that he is considering a 2024 presidential run.

However, he reiterated on Sunday that he’s focused on finishing his term as governor.

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GOP senator: Trump should have turned over 'all' documents

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Sunday defended former President Trump in the wake of an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago property but noted Trump “should have turned over all” of the classified documents authorities said he kept after he left the White House.

“I understand he turned over a lot of documents. He should have turned over all of them. I imagine he knows that very well now as well,” Blunt said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” 

Blunt avoided answering several questions about whether Trump was right to take the sensitive material from the White House to his Palm Beach, Fla., resort before conceding that the former president should have turned the documents over to the National Archives, as required by the Presidential Records Act.

“He should have turned the documents over and apparently had turned a number of documents over… What I wonder about is why this could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election, suddenly, we’re talking about this rather than the economy or inflation,” Blunt said.

Blunt questioned the timing of the investigation so close to this year’s midterms, as well as why the Justice Department (DOJ) and the Director of National Intelligence hadn’t flagged the issue to the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which he is a member.

“Why hadn’t we heard anything about this, in fact, if the administration was concerned that there was a national security problem?”

The FBI seized 11 sets of classified material from Mar-a-Lago when it executed a search warrant there earlier this month. An unsealed warrant indicates Trump is under investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws in relation to the documents. 

The affidavit justifying the FBI’s search warrant for Mar-a-Lago was released in redacted form last week.

The Missouri senator also tried to draw parallels between Trump’s case and that of Hillary Clinton, who was under FBI investigation for mishandling emails while she served as secretary of state. But he also acknowledged that sensitive government information should be handled appropriately.

“You should be careful with classified documents. I’ve had access to documents like that for a long time. I’m incredibly careful,” Blunt said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Buttigieg reflects on one year of parenthood

Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg marked one year of parenthood with a post on Medium this weekend, recalling the day when he first discovered he and his husband Chasten would be adopting twins.

The soon-to-be parent remembered feeling both delighted and uncertain on the sunny afternoon when he got the news, after a “share of painful false starts” on the adoption waitlist.

Fast forward a year later, and Buttigieg says he experienced an “extraordinary transformation” in his life, along with Chasten.

“In one year, you go from someone absorbed in your own worries, hopes, and career, to having fully faced just how much in life is outside your control — and how magical it is to spend every day with someone who matters more to you than your old self could possibly have dreamed of,” Buttigieg wrote in a reflection

Since Buttigieg announced he and Chasten had adopted Penelope Rose and Joseph August last fall, the Transportation secretary has been eager to share moments from their lives.

In October, Buttigieg and Chasten shared photographs of the children dressed as traffic cones for Halloween, joking that they were “twinfrastructure.” And in January, Buttigieg said becoming a father for the first time lit a fire inside him.

Buttigieg said in his Saturday post that parenting has been a cause of great celebration in his life, but has not always been easy for the former South Bend, Ind., mayor and former 2020 presidential candidate.

When he got the news that a mother was putting her twins up for adoption, Buttigieg immediately took a red-eye flight to the hospital while Chasten quickly hopped in the car and drove to meet him there.

Penelope and Joseph were “perfect” and “heart melting,” Buttigieg writes, but they were born premature and underweight. They weren’t discharged from the hospital until two weeks later, and Penelope continued to struggle with a severe reflux, sometimes turning purple when she couldn’t breathe properly.

Both Penelope and Joseph, who the parents have nicknamed Gus, were hospitalized in October after a respiratory virus infection. Doctors said the children were in critical condition at one point, and Buttigieg wrote the hospital turned into a “new home base” for he and Chasten.

“Parenting is lots of things, and one of those things is terror,” Buttigieg writes on Medium. “You watch your infant, sedated and surrounded by wires and tubes and monitors and medical personnel coming and going constantly, and wonder how we could live in a universe where a few weeks could be all that a child gets on this earth.”

Buttigieg was also combatting a national crisis as supply chains were disrupted across the country, and as President Biden was pushing to get his bipartisan infrastructure law passed in Congress.

While Buttigieg worked everyday from the hospital, some conservatives criticized him for not working harder while his infants were hospitalized, in comments many said were homophobic.

By the end of October, the twins had recovered. However, the normal struggles of parenthood, such as “sleepless nights, blown-out diapers, late-night bottle warmings in the glow of the refrigerator light,” were still around, he said.

“After a presidential campaign, a wartime military deployment, and eight eventful years as mayor of my hometown, I was no stranger to very hard work. But this was a completely new level of sustained sleep deprivation,” the Transportation secretary wrote. “Every parent probably has a memory of a moment that shows you just how deep the sleep loss is running.

“For me, it was when I reached for a cup of coffee, put it to my lips, and suddenly realized it was not a mug but a baby bottle,” he added.

Earlier this month, Pete and Chasten celebrated the twin’s birthdays in Michigan. Penelope was photographed stuffing her mouth with cake and smearing the blue-and-white icing across her face, with Gus joining in.

“It was hard to believe these were the same infants we had stared at in disbelief one year earlier at that little rural hospital,” Buttigieg wrote. “Here they were, four or five times the size they started, delighted by the world around them, boisterous and alive in every sense of the word.”

Source: TEST FEED1

6 in 10 Republicans say Trump should be 2024 GOP nominee: survey

Approximately six in 10 Republican respondents in a new poll said that former President Trump should be the GOP nominee in the 2024 election.

The USA Today/Ipsos survey found that 59 percent of Republican respondents favor Trump, who has said he has made up his mind about running again, and 41 percent believe that another candidate should represent the GOP. 

By comparison, 44 percent of Democratic respondents said that President Biden should be the party’s nominee in 2024, while 56 percent believe that another candidate should represent their party.

When asked to list the former president’s positive traits, Trump’s willingness to use all tools at his disposal to get things done was cited by the most Republican respondents — 90 percent.

Eighty-two percent of Republican respondents also said they believe that Trump can win a reelection bid in 2024, pollsters noted. 

The poll comes after a redacted affidavit used to convince a judge to approve this month’s FBI search of Trump’s Florida residence was released on Friday. Trump has denied any wrongdoing related to the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago.

The USA Today/Ipsos poll of 2,345 respondents was conducted from August 18 to August 22. Its margin of error is 4.2 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Kinzinger: Republicans in ‘real trouble because we have no leadership’

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday said that Republicans are in “real trouble” ahead of the midterm elections because the GOP lacks strong leadership from both House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

“Republicans are in real trouble because we have no leadership. This is the problem,” Kinzinger said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Kevin McCarthy isn’t leading, he’s asking, ‘What does [Republican Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene [Ga.] want me to do?’

“Mitch McConnell’s just trying to save the Senate,” Kinzinger added. “We have no leaders, and no wonder our base basically believes everything Donald Trump says.”

With the midterm elections coming up, the race for control of Congress is heating up between Democrats and Republicans.

While GOP candidates slam the Biden administration with accusations of mishandling the economy and causing high inflation, Democrats are campaigning heavily on abortion rights and are seeking to paint Republicans as extremist on the issue.

A bellwether race in New York last week showed the odds may be tipping in favor of Democrats. In the special election for the House of Representatives, Democratic candidate Pat Ryan, who had focused on abortion rights in his campaign, eked out a victory over Republican Marc Molinaro.

Polls also show Republicans, who earlier this year enjoyed a healthy advantage headed into November, are now losing ground while forecasts are shifting toward Democrats.

The GOP is also experiencing in-fighting between former President Trump and McConnell. After the Senate minority leader said the House is more likely to flip control than the Senate, Trump called for McConnell to be ousted from his leadership post.

The former president has dubbed McConnell with the nickname “Old Crow” and has called for his ouster since the Senate leader denounced Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, rioting at the U.S. Capitol.

Kinzinger, a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, said on Sunday another concerning issue with the GOP headed into November is the 2020 election, which many continue to falsely claim was rigged.

“Republicans that are running against even left-wing Democrats that believe in democracy and believe in voting, that person should be elected over somebody who basically would overthrow the will of the people and ultimately destroy this country,” the Illinois lawmaker, who announced his retirement last October, told NBC. “This country cannot survive outside of democracy. It will turn into a power struggle between groups of different races, of different ethnicities, of different religions, because the thing that holds us together is this belief that we can self-govern.”

Source: TEST FEED1

The abortion emergency in the federal courts

It is now notorious that the criminalization of abortion, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade, doesn’t do much to lower the abortion rate but has had devastating effects on the ability of doctors to treat pregnancies that go wrong.  Horror stories accumulate. Opponents of abortion have claimed that the press has exaggerated the danger. Yet two recent lawsuits have made clear that this harm is very real. Efforts to preserve women’s health are being resisted, with some success, even in cases where the fetus is doomed.

The Supreme Court indicated in Dobbs v. Women’s Health Center that it wanted to stay away from the abortion issue. Yet it is certainly coming back there, and soon, because of a new division between two lower federal courts.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), enacted in 1986, requires that emergency rooms examine every patient who comes there. If the patient has an “emergency medical condition,” the hospital must “stabilize” them, assuring that the patient’s condition won’t worsen when they’re discharged or transferred. The statute defines an emergency as a condition that in “the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in “placing the health of the individual (or, with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of the woman or her unborn child) in serious jeopardy,” “serious impairment to bodily functions” or “serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.” Sometimes, to prevent these harms, the doctor must terminate a pregnancy.

Under the supremacy clause of the Constitution, federal law preempts state law when they conflict. 

Some of the new state abortion restrictions squarely contradict EMTALA. In Idaho, abortions are prohibited unless they are “necessary to prevent the death” of a woman — meaning, as a federal district court just observed, that “severe sepsis requiring limb amputation, uncontrollable uterine hemorrhage requiring hysterectomy, kidney failure requiring lifelong dialysis, hypoxic brain injury” are not sufficiently serious to protect the doctor from prosecution. In Texas, doctors who terminate pregnancies can go to prison, possibly for life, unless they can prove that the woman “has a life-threatening physical condition” that places her “at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed.”

In a guidance letter to health care providers, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote that if a patient “is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA, and … abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment. And when a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person—or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition—that state law is preempted.”

This week, two federal judges reached opposite conclusions about the conflict. At the behest of the Biden administration, Judge B. Lynn Winmill blocked the Idaho law.  EMTALA, he noted, “demands abortion care to prevent injuries that are more wide-ranging than death.” The Idaho law requires that doctors allow their patients’ conditions to deteriorate disastrously before they can intervene. “Healthcare providers can seldom know the imminency of death because medicine rarely works in absolutes.” It is often scientifically impossible to determine whether death is certain if the pregnancy continues. EMTALA, like medical practice generally, aims to intervene promptly, before the patient’s life is in danger.

In Texas, however, Judge James Hendrix granted an injunction against Becerra, blocking enforcement of the federal policy. In his complaint, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had preposterously declared that the administration’s policy would “transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.” Judge Hendrix agreed, saying that EMTALA “protects both mothers and unborn children” and “is silent as to abortion.” Nothing in the Texas statute, he declared, “makes the provision of stabilizing care impossible.”

Hendrix’s reasoning is unpersuasive. The statute indeed fails to mention abortion, or any other medical procedure. But it doesn’t have to: It tells the doctor to do whatever is necessary to keep the patient’s condition from worsening. In the hypotheticals he offers, in which it is possible to stabilize the woman without ending the pregnancy, it is not the case that, in Becerra’s words, “abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary” to address the emergency. In such a situation, it would not be the necessary treatment but merely a possible treatment.

Hendrix ignores far more common emergency cases. The amniotic sac can rupture, leading to infection. The placenta may begin bleeding. The woman may develop pre-eclampsia, which raises her blood pressure to dangerous levels. In many such cases, the appropriate response is to end the pregnancy before the patient becomes gravely ill — and then the Texas law does make stabilizing care impossible.

He writes, quoting the Texas statute: “To the extent that the Guidance would require abortion where Texas would not, Texas law does so to ‘provide[] the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive.’” Yet in many emergency cases, there is no possibility that the fetus will survive. The Texas law nonetheless forbids doctors from intervening while its heart is still beating. That will certainly lead to avoidable deaths, but they must be endured because doctors will not be able to know in advance which lives are jeopardized.

This issue is almost certainly headed for the Supreme Court, which so recently declared that the abortion question was none of its business. We will see whether its judges will torture the statute as Hendrix did. I am not optimistic.

Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, is the author of “Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed” (St. Martin’s Press, forthcoming). Follow him on Twitter @AndrewKoppelman.

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DNC chair avoids criticizing Biden calling GOP philosophy ‘semi-fascist’

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Jaime Harrison avoided criticizing President Biden for his remarks in which he referred to the Republican party’s philosophy as “semi-fascist.” 

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” guest moderator Major Garrett asked Harrison whether he embraced the president’s assessment.

“Well, it’s not about the embracing –  its calling what what it is what it is, in the end of the day, we are a country built on freedom. And when you chip away at that, when you see the bullying that takes place in place like Florida with [Gov. Ron] DeSantis, when you see them chip away at privacy rights when they try to demonize the other, that the attacks on transgender kids and their families, the attacks on marriage equality that we’re hearing from the Supreme Court,” Harrison said.

“This is not who America is. We’re about freedom and rights for all of America’s people, not just a select few. But the Republicans are turning a blind eye  – this extreme agenda, and this is what this election is all about,” he added. “It is the great contrast between a party, the Democratic Party, that is standing up for the hopes and aspirations of the American people and protecting our rights as Americans and our freedoms. And a Republican party that is focused on fear, that’s focused on fraud that is focused on just getting power.”

Speaking at a DNC event in Maryland on Thursday, Biden compared the “MAGA” wing of the GOP to fascism, telling the audience in Bethesda that this is only “the beginning” or “the end” of this type of philosophy. 

When asked if Biden should run for re-election in 2024, Harrison said the DNC would fully back the president.

“The President has consistently said that his intention is to run for president in the United States. And I can tell you, the Democratic National Committee will be fully behind- behind him and Kamala Harris. This President has a record of achievement, and America needs President Biden to continue that effort,” Harrison said.

Source: TEST FEED1