"Eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans"
June 30, 2023 8:23 AM Subscribe

Supreme Court rejects Biden student loan forgiveness plan (WaPo, Reuters), protects website designer who won't do gay weddings (WaPo, ABC, side note)

Both decisions were 6-3.

Biden v Nebraska (.pdf), 303 Creative LLC v Elenis (.pdf)

Because a Supreme Court post needs a Supremes song, here's 'Everybody's Got a Right to Love.'

posted by box (284 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite

Fucking ridiculous. Biden should just direct the Dept of Ed to stop collecting on student loans then, but he won't.

The same-sex wedding one is also fucking egregious because the entire case was fictional. I don't even know where to begin with this fucking court.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:24 AM on June 30, 2023 [64 favorites]

On the student loan decision, perspectives from the higher education world: the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed.

Also the 6-3 decision text. (Can you tell I was prepping a post?)
posted by doctornemo at 8:26 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

From Inside Higher Ed:

The decision means that the millions of borrowers who were promised loan forgiveness will be denied that relief. About 26 million people applied and more than 16 million were approved for relief before a federal judge blocked the administration from moving forward with the plan. The administration had said the debt-cancellation plan would help prevent high rates of default and delinquency when payments resume later this summer.

Restarting payments without canceling student loans first will be “catastrophic,” advocates for cancellation have said. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently said that millions of borrowers are at risk of defaulting.
posted by doctornemo at 8:27 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

I want to point out to all the "LGB without the T" types, who I hope mostly don't exist on Metafilter, that this was about a gay wedding website, something about as mainstream, anodyne, and "respectable" as possible. I hope this is a wakeup call that respectability politics won't save them, distancing themselves from the loud weird queer and trans people won't save them, solidarity is the only thing that will keep us safe.
posted by an octopus IRL at 8:31 AM on June 30, 2023 [95 favorites]

I'm tired of seeing the word "upended" in Supreme Court news articles. Rather than commenting on my desired outcome for the health of various Supreme Court Justices, I'll simply quote President Biden: "This is not a normal court."
posted by JDC8 at 8:32 AM on June 30, 2023 [15 favorites]

My best friend texted me a few months ago that her student loan would be forgiven; she was like, "Now I can put more towards savings."

I read this and went, "Oh shit."
posted by Kitteh at 8:33 AM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

The same-sex wedding one is also fucking egregious because the entire case was fictional.

The case may be fictional, but the vendor is real - and here is her portfolio.

I encourage people to have a look and see if you've patronized anyone who's used her services - and maybe consider discontinuing your relationship with those business, and telling them why.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:37 AM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

I want to point out to all the "LGB without the T" types, who I hope mostly don't exist on Metafilter, that this was about a gay wedding website

What's even more insane is that it wasn't!

“This business does not do wedding services, has never designed a website for a wedding and therefore doesn’t face a live circumstance where a same-sex couple has asked for a wedding website,” Elizabeth Sepper, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law who co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of Colorado state on the case.

On the eve of the court releasing its decision, questions were also being asked about the veracity of key evidence in the case. Smith had claimed that she was approached by a gay man named Stewart requesting her services for a wedding website, but the New Republic reported that he had never made the approach and was, besides, in a heterosexual marriage.

Entirely fictitious case pursued solely for the outcome.
posted by N8yskates at 8:37 AM on June 30, 2023 [89 favorites]

Lol back on the hook ok

I'm technically no worse off than before, but this combined with the PPP forgiveness? It kind of sort of definitely feels like I'm getting my nose rubbed in shit right now. I went to a community college for 2 years and then to my state's public university to finish the Bachelor's. I majored in a hard science. I qualified for Pell grants every semester. I was told with breathless enthusiasm by every authority figure in my life that I was investing in my future. I'm 35 years old and I'm tired out yall.
posted by cubeb at 8:41 AM on June 30, 2023 [60 favorites]

This decision is bad, and it's also why we have to win state elections. We have to get rid of the filibuster. The president alone cannot make laws. It's the point of the system and also the problem. (Also, we have a weird last 30 years of the court being a relatively liberal institution. It's not a reliable thing - often courts are more conservative, and this one will be for decades.)
posted by mercredi at 8:42 AM on June 30, 2023 [13 favorites]

It's just infuriating how much situations like these highlight the disparity in power. Like, conservatives can openly defy laws specifically intended to stop their toxic behavior, but the rest of us are supposed to go aw shucks and kick rocks?
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 8:42 AM on June 30, 2023 [32 favorites]

A quick read of the WaPo story says that Colorado decision was tailored to whether doing websites for LGBTQ couples infringed on the designer's free speech rights, as an artist. (If I'm reading that right.) They ruled, essentially, it's OK to discriminate against a protected class of people if "creating" for them imposes on your freedom of speech.

Hmmmm. I work for a PR/communications company. This week we did a lot of work for a Black-owned firm. What if we said, yeah, no, working for Black people goes against our beliefs, and writing is clearly creative work and involves our free speech, so we're gonna tell them to go elsewhere.
posted by martin q blank at 8:42 AM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

And don't forget yesterday's Groff v. DeJoy [pdf] case, which teed up a very strong defense for, e.g., unethical pharmacists who don't want to dispense abortion medications, contraceptives, or medications for gender-affirming care. The "substantial cost to the employer" analysis may end up being a very high bar for a pharmacy depending on how courts interpret it in such a case:

1. Is the "cost" being measured simply the loss of revenue from that particular prescription? For a generic drug that might just be pennies, which is hardly substantial.

2. Is the "cost" the loss of revenue from all such prescriptions over the pharmacist's career? That would still be a tiny, tiny fraction of a large chain pharmacy's total revenue. Is that "substantial" when considered in relative terms?

3. For a large chain pharmacy, given that the patient could probably eventually find a location willing to dispense the medication, the actual cost to the pharmacy would be zero. It is not clear that the cost to the customer even enters into the analysis, unless maybe the patient takes their business elsewhere entirely, but then see arguments (1) and (2).

4. In the worst case, suppose the patient incurs massive costs due to an unwanted pregnancy or even dies. It's not clear that that would matter at all, which is just sickening.
posted by jedicus at 8:44 AM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

I was told with breathless enthusiasm by every authority figure in my life that I was investing in my future. I'm 35 years old and I'm tired out y'all.

Yeah I'd like any acknowledgement that my generation was financially defrauded by literal propaganda.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 8:44 AM on June 30, 2023 [69 favorites]

Reminder that Biden was set to nominate a anti-choice wingnut on the same day Roe fell, and has signalled a willingness to let schools discriminate against trans students as long as they do it on an individual basis. Oh, and Durbin reinstated the blue slip nonsense and refuses to do anything to substantially improve the judicial nomination process for Democrats.

This isn't just respectability politics, a lot of liberals just really do not care about us and are willing to use their power to block chances at improving things.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:47 AM on June 30, 2023 [44 favorites]

Biden can't do anything about it while staying with in the bounds of respectability—and like it or not, he was elected because we all knew he'd stay within those bounds. It's not his job. You want a less shitty world? Persuade people in all those empty white states that it's what they want. And no, "loud and weird" is not going to do that. The system sucks, but "revolution" is unattainable and would both get hundreds of thousands of people killed and also provoke a much worse reactionary backlash.

Just got back from the centrist rally. Amazing turnout. Thousands of people holding hands and chanting “Better things aren't possible”.
posted by N8yskates at 8:48 AM on June 30, 2023 [92 favorites]

Yep, it's the same "hide your queers, the normies will get upset" bullshit that gets trotted out every time this happens.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:51 AM on June 30, 2023 [31 favorites]

This isn't just respectability politics, a lot of liberals just really do not care about us and are willing to use their power to block chances at improving things.

Value-neutral governance will be liberalism's funeral pyre.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:51 AM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

Is it possible for someone to sue claiming that the gov't doesn't have the right to forgive PPP loans? And make all those fuckers pay it back? Or has it already happened and therefore impossible?
posted by dobbs at 8:52 AM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]

"loud and weird" is not going to do that

I don't think lecturing queer people who are under attack for being too visible is a great look. Also, again, this (yes, fake) case was about a wedding website. That's not "loud and weird" and they still ruled against us.
posted by an octopus IRL at 8:53 AM on June 30, 2023 [61 favorites]

Just got back from the centrist rally. Amazing turnout. Thousands of people holding hands and chanting “Better things aren't possible”.

He got more votes than anyone else in history.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:55 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Sometimes, I jokingly sum up the reason why I'm a liberal as being Reagan raised taxes on me. Beyond raising federal taxes on the poor (those making under $10,000 a year. I made about 60,000 in total for the eighties), he raised taxes on science graduate students in particular (being in school for several years in the 80s was one reason I was poor. Having a graduate student pay of about six thousand a year is another.)
Finally, Reagan raised interest rates on student loans in the eighties and I could mark which year I got a particular loan by the increasing interest for that particular year. The interest rates went well above the prime.
My $50,000 debt when I finished my doctorate may seem quaintly low by today's standards, but it was hard-to-impossible to pay back such loans on a post-doctoral salary. (About half my take home pay, starting even before I graduated.)
I put off starting a family until my loans were paid off. I am in my mid-sixties with a teenage son. I have stashed away virtually nothing for retirement and my job doesn't include a pension plan: my suffering, trying to make it on Social Security, is still to come.
I would have loved student loan forgiveness.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:55 AM on June 30, 2023 [19 favorites]

Is it possible for someone to sue claiming that the gov't doesn't have the right to forgive PPP loans? And make all those fuckers pay it back? Or has it already happened and therefore impossible?

Forgiveness was explicitly written into the law.

Court would rule 6-3 the other way.

It wouldn't even make it onto the docket.

Also, you just fucking know the next step after this one is a 6-3 decision striking down Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:55 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

The system sucks, but "revolution" is unattainable and would both get hundreds of thousands of people killed and also provoke a much worse reactionary backlash.

Are we not already in the midst of a reactionary backlash? Are hundreds of thousands of people not dying already? Or is it just that the 'wrong people' would be at risk, for you?
posted by CrystalDave at 8:56 AM on June 30, 2023 [56 favorites]

I'm sorry but if you don't have any money to give these people they're going to go against you, every time. All of them, whether they're publicly nice or not.

That is the way it is, although it does raise the question of why there's universal suffrage if it requires all this rigamarole to pretend it counts.
posted by kingdead at 8:58 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Biden can't do anything about it while staying with in the bounds of respectability—and like it or not, he was elected because we all knew he'd stay within those bounds. It's not his job. You want a less shitty world? Persuade people in all those empty white states that it's what they want. And no, "loud and weird" is not going to do that. The system sucks, but "revolution" is unattainable and would both get hundreds of thousands of people killed and also provoke a much worse reactionary backlash.

As long as this attitude prevails---that our elected leaders owe us nothing---we'll be where we are at. Why is the onus on us to go persuade millions of unpersuable (against a right-wing media machine) to give up all they hold dear, and not on the most powerful person in the world to do their fucking job?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:59 AM on June 30, 2023 [27 favorites]

Is it possible for someone to sue claiming that the gov't doesn't have the right to forgive PPP loans? And make all those fuckers pay it back?

Honestly, I'm wondering whether something that gets at the root of the problem may be the best angle -

Over in the thread on the affirmative action ruling, I noticed that Paul Singer - the businessman who took Justice Alito fishing - went to Harvard. Alito did not recuse himself, nor did he report that to anyone at the time of the trip. And Singer has been involved in cases that have come before the court between then and now.

I'm wondering if that right there might not be enough to call for some kind of judicial-review-whatamahoozey that would trigger a re-hash of practically everything that Alito has ruled on in the past 5 years or so, because clearly there was a corrupt justice sitting in. (Can we....do that?)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hard to claw back any sense of normalcy or decency from this week's decisions. Trump really fucked up this country.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [13 favorites]

Rights are negotiated and they are being negotiated away.
We need to wake up to the cumulative crisis - we are reaching a tipping point where the very idea of rights is in danger of being negotiated away.
posted by Glomar response at 9:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

Biden can't do anything about it while staying with in the bounds of respectability—and like it or not, he was elected because we all knew he'd stay within those bounds.

We thought he would stay within the bounds of the law and norms that grow out of the ideals of a democratic government. I feel like growing the SC is well within those bounds. The fact that Biden thinks it is not is one of the reasons I didn't want him as the nominee to begin with.
posted by rikschell at 9:01 AM on June 30, 2023 [24 favorites]

He got more votes than anyone else in history.

Trump also got more votes than any candidate in history, save for Biden. If you don't understand negative partisanship I don't know how to have a conversation about US politics with you.
posted by N8yskates at 9:02 AM on June 30, 2023 [13 favorites]

I'm wondering if that right there might not be enough to call for some kind of judicial-review-whatamahoozey that would trigger a re-hash of practically everything that Alito has ruled on in the past 5 years or so, because clearly there was a corrupt justice sitting in. (Can we....do that?)

The only justice that can be served against a sitting SC justic is impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate. I think you can see how fruitful that is likely to be.
posted by rikschell at 9:05 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

This situation has likely opened a much bigger can of worms than may be visible at first glance.

The economy has avoided recession despite high inflation and other factors due to a strong labor market and consumer spending. My guess is that we're going to see a pretty nasty recession in the next several months now that a lot of people have to send money to the banks instead of putting it into the economy.
posted by azpenguin at 9:12 AM on June 30, 2023 [15 favorites]

Very good comments on the student loan and admissions decisions from the extraordinary College Unbound.
posted by doctornemo at 9:14 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

The only justice that can be served against a sitting SC justic is impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate.

Right, but I'm not describing an action against a justice. I'm talking about a re-do of the ruling itself. Hell, Alito can stay, he will just have to sit this one out (like Jackson sat out the Harvard case because she went to Harvard).

And oh hey, that probably mean that Thomas would have to be forced to recuse himself too for similar reasons.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:15 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

As long as this attitude prevails---that our elected leaders owe us nothing---we'll be where we are at. Why is the onus on us to go persuade millions of unpersuable (against a right-wing media machine) to give up all they hold dear, and not on the most powerful person in the world to do their fucking job?

He has the National Guard, he'll shoot your ass. That's why.
posted by kingdead at 9:15 AM on June 30, 2023

The attempts to militate the age bracket now occupying the top occupational rungs against everyone younger by those even older have not been subtle, and it's only going to intensify.

But that discussion goes extremely poorly on Metafilter.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:17 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

By the way, this disproportionately hurts minorities, much like yesterday's educational decision.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:21 AM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]

Very good thoughts from Mark Kelchen on the student loan decision.
posted by doctornemo at 9:23 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

It may have been questionable for congress to create a completely open-ended power for the executive to forgive student loans (it certainly isn't compatible with congress' role as steward of the budget) but they definitely did do just that. It's pretty extraordinary to contort yourself into saying "we think that was a bad idea" without using those words because those are political and not legal words, but that's what this decision comes down to.

Where now for beloved strict interpretation of the text? I thought the conservatives were into that.
posted by atrazine at 9:25 AM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]

But justices can’t be forced to recuse themselves.
posted by rikschell at 9:25 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

The cruelty is the point. The only point.
posted by tommasz at 9:26 AM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

Where now for beloved strict interpretation of the text? I thought the conservatives were into that.

Better yet, they're going to trumpet that this is a triumph of Constitutionalism over 'activist judges.'

Those running the Federalist Society and Judicial Watch and etc understand the joke that is, the resentful dimwits in their thrall do not.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:29 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

people here in the year of our lord 2023 who despite it all still think it's sensible to roll up with a "be quiet and discreet and not too weird and the people with an interest in killing you and everyone you know will come around and like you instead" hot-take deserve a full ride scholarship to a school with a top-flight history department.

i guess we all deserve that, though.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:29 AM on June 30, 2023 [49 favorites]

But justices can’t be forced to recuse themselves.

Why not?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:35 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Biden will have to fall back on the unenforcability precedent established by President Jackson (shudder I know ugh). That is the court has made a decision; but it can’t enforce it because that’s an executive power. The court can declare that the laws of gravity cannot be enforced on Sunday; but good luck getting gravity to obey the ruling.
posted by interogative mood at 9:40 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Why not?

First, because they are not bound by the regular code of judicial ethics for Federal judges. And if they were, who would enforce it? If it were a majority of the rest of the Court, then what's to stop an imbalanced Court from just recusing the minority all the time?

The intended remedy for a misbehaving SCOTUS Justice is impeachment. Further afield, discussions on stacking the Court when you have a sufficient majority, etc. Nothing immediate.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:42 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

I now want to open a business just so I can pick and choose who I get to do custom with.

"Who'd you vote for? Trump? Get the fuck outta my store."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:42 AM on June 30, 2023 [18 favorites]

Really, I should open a store that sells AR-15's for $10, then refuse to sell them to anyone who is a conservative. I mean, yeah, I'd never sell one then, but that would be the only conscionable way to operate an AR-15 store.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:45 AM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

Joe Biden will today announce “new actions” to protect people who take out student loans, Reuters reports, citing a White House source.

“While we strongly disagree with the court, we prepared for this scenario,” the source said. “The president will make clear he’s not done fighting yet, and will announce new actions to protect student loan borrowers … The president will make clear he’s not done fighting yet, and will announce new actions to protect student loan borrowers.”

My predictions:

1. The "plan" is to call for new legislation.
2. A bill will be introduced. There will be a showy vote, but it will inevitably fail. Opposition to the bill in both the Senate and the House will be "bipartisan" because of Manchin, Sinema, and whoever else decides to "have concerns" about it.
3. This will lead to much hand-wringing about "not having the votes" which will be followed by hundreds of emails soliciting contributions to "help fight back against Republicans"
4. Republicans will move on to attacking something else and we'll be so overwhelmed worrying about the next terrible thing they're about to unleash that we won't have enough spoons to keep up the outrage over today's rulings.

Prove me wrong Dark Brandon!

(Please please please prove me wrong)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:49 AM on June 30, 2023 [36 favorites]

"Who'd you vote for? Trump? Get the fuck outta my store."

Hilariously (not really) this type of conservative is often OK with legislating against discrimination in public accommodations based on political belief. (They'll just hate you religiously, instead.)

Screeches from the Red Hen: Public Accommodations Laws and Political Affiliation Discrimination in the United States and Louisiana

Using the brouhaha over Sara Huckabee Sanders being kicked out of a diner, and the resulting legislation as a jumping off place.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:50 AM on June 30, 2023

So first, the debt case is also partially fake as one of the crutches the plaintiffs used for standing (the Missouri financial org) both doesn't agree and would do better under the debt relief. So both of these are real fake-case law.

First, because they are not bound by the regular code of judicial ethics for Federal judges. And if they were, who would enforce it? If it were a majority of the rest of the Court, then what's to stop an imbalanced Court from just recusing the minority all the time?

The intended remedy for a misbehaving SCOTUS judge is impeachment. Further afield, discussions on stacking the Court when you have a sufficient majority, etc. Nothing immediate.

No, we're in the fucking crisis right now. Biden pro-rogueing justices for not meeting Article 3 Good Behavior requirements until congress weighs in is a right and proper use of executive power. They, see above, just Made Shit Up! While taking bribes! There's currently no check or balance on SCOTUS just as there is no check or balance on POTUS because congress cannot (CANNOT) work with its current residents to be a check or balance on anything. Like, say, a guy who ran a literal coup attempt.

I do not care that the other side would abuse pro-rogueing under article 3, we are IN THE CRISIS. IT IS NOW. IT IS RIGHT NOW. They will have that power and more anyway after the next election, Bush v Gore is right there. They don't have to pretend, the mask is off.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:51 AM on June 30, 2023 [21 favorites]

It would be preferable for us to not have to beg for the use of any weird "break glass in case of fire" options but alas, the system is currently not not-on-fire.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:53 AM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

He got more votes than anyone else in history

I'm amazed that anyone offers this useless data point as though it actually means anything. The US population was greater than it had ever been in 2020, voter turnout was therefore higher in total numbers because there were more people to vote. "More votes than anyone in history" is thus not actually impressive to anyone who understands this fact. Especially when that "more votes than anyone ever" represents 51.3% of the total number cast (LBJ and FDR both got over 60%).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:54 AM on June 30, 2023 [39 favorites]

Is there a high season for rulings from the SCOTUS? This is the third time that I hear from them this week:

https://www.metafilter.com/tags/supremecourt

Also, they overturned Roe vs. Wade at the end of June last year.
posted by WalkingAround at 9:55 AM on June 30, 2023

Who'd you vote for? Trump? Get the fuck outta my store."

You could do this before today’s ruling. Trump voters aren’t a protected class, whatever feelings of resentment and victimization they carry.
posted by notyou at 9:56 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Is there a high season for rulings from the SCOTUS? This is the third time that I hear from them this week:

Yes, it’s June.
posted by notyou at 9:57 AM on June 30, 2023 [11 favorites]

Yes, there's a 'decision season.'

Scotusblog: We don’t know what the last day of the term will be. The justices normally try to issue all of their decisions by the end of June, but in 2019 and 2020, the term’s final opinions came in early July.

What you could maybe do now that you couldn't before would be refuse to serve, say, straight cis men in some expressive capacity because the embrace of Their Noodly Appendage forbids it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:57 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

If there is any way, any way at all, that Biden could figure out to just wipe out all existing student loan debts, I wish he'd take it. Immediately. Declare all future loans would be taken out with 0% interest and stupidly low monthly repayment plans forever more.

Make the Court and all those conservatives weep that they should have taken the $10K/$20K option.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 9:58 AM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

I hope all the borrowers say fuck that and default. I know the penalties are ridiculous but direct action may be all that's left.
posted by emjaybee at 10:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

Is there a high season for rulings from the SCOTUS? This is the third time that I hear from them this week:

it's the end of the their annual term. They save the blockbuster cases for last.
posted by tafetta, darling! at 10:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

The announced plan to cap income based repayments to 5% of discretionary income instead of 10% was - I think - not touched by this and at the very least this needs to be put into place ASAP. That at least halves payments for a whole lot of people when these restart, and is part of longer term fixes that need to be addressed beyond a one time forgiveness of $10-20k.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

We've reached the point where conservatives can upend established laws using outright fabricated cases to get their way. Bearing false witness against your neighbor is enshrined as a conservative virtue. "Hypothetically speaking" is now the same as "this actually happened." Straw men being treated as citizens.
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:01 AM on June 30, 2023 [19 favorites]

Hilariously (not really) this type of conservative is often OK with legislating against discrimination in public accommodations based on political belief.

Hmm. Might the existing ruling strengthen the ability of an establishment to discriminate against Trump supporters, in that case?

If there is any way, any way at all, that Biden could figure out to just wipe out all existing student loan debts, I wish he'd take it.

There is even Biblical precedent he could use, to satisfy the hardline evangelicals in the GOP.....and force them to publically decide between God and mammon.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:02 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hmm. Might the existing ruling strengthen the ability of an establishment to discriminate against Trump supporters, in that case?

Depends on what the basis for your refusal to serve them is. The point is more the irony that they demand the right to discriminate against actual protected classes, while wanting to abridge the First Amendment in its most obvious applications so they can be horrible and not face private remonstrance in the form of 'accommodation discrimination;' in places that are public in the sense only of being open to the public, and thus denying access to them is a natural part of a civic response to intolerable behavior, etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:05 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Is there a high season for rulings from the SCOTUS? This is the third time that I hear from them this week:

To be a little more detailed than some other replies, their term in the sense of “active season” runs from October until around the end of June, with the end of oral arguments a couple months before that. So yes, we are getting all the whammies because they are closing out decision season.
posted by atoxyl at 10:07 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

There is even Biblical precedent he could use, to satisfy the hardline evangelicals in the GOP.....and force them to publically decide between God and mammon.

I am going to shriek and wail and turn into a corn cob. They don't care! The Christian aspect to this is fake! They're faking giving a damn! There will never be a gotcha because they'll just continue being fake!
posted by Slackermagee at 10:07 AM on June 30, 2023 [51 favorites]

They don't care! The Christian aspect to this is fake! They're faking giving a damn! There will never be a gotcha because they'll just continue being fake!

I know they don't care, but they've been hiding that. I'm suggesting this to call their bluff and expose them in front of the people who voted them in, most of whom believe them to actually be the Good Christian Folk they say they are.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:10 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

For the Nth time, The Pain...: JESUS vs. Jeezus (2005).

Might need an update for Yeezus.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:11 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

And I am sure that there would be a good lot of mental gymnastics from the Prosperity Gospel folk about how "that's different and doesn't count", but....it would be a few more cracks in the facade.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:12 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Is there any sense yet in what the administration will do about the loan decision? For once I find myself unable to believe that they'll do nothing--normally I'm on team Everything Is Bad Forever, but in this case, it was a campaign promise that was quite popular, actively being delivered on before the administration got its hand slapped. There'd be a political price to backing down. Nor can I believe that Joe Biden of all people will sweep in and eliminate our loans with the flourish of a pen. But between those two extremes...what's realistic? What's likely? (More to the point, exactly how poor should I expect to be starting this fall?)
posted by mittens at 10:12 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

What's likely is the reaction was yesterday and he'll campaign on more promises.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:15 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

And funding emails!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:17 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

I know they don't care, but they've been hiding that.

Have they, though? Every single right-wing motherfucker for the past seven years (no, it didn't start with Trump, etc. etc., but it's an easy thing to point to) has repeatedly pulled off their mask and revealed their true selves. Their voters keep eating that shit up and asking for more. There's no facade to crack, no moment of enlightenment waiting to be had. A whole lot of folks are absolutely fine with hypocrisy.
posted by heteronym at 10:19 AM on June 30, 2023 [24 favorites]

And Trump got 74,223,975 in 2020.
posted by obfuscation

eponysterical. in context of that conversation thread, who got more votes in 2020?

---

And no, "loud and weird" is not going to do that.

so what counts as loud and weird? just asking because it kinda feels like no matter what queer people do it's too much.

- i mean, i guess pride is a bit loud and weird. so that's gotta go.
- drag is pretty weird, i guess, too, so that should go.
- so is a lot of queer and trans art; i mean, have you heard 100 gecs? too loud and weird.
- what about alok and jvn's sense of style? bit loud and weird too, innit?
- they say transfemme voices can be weird, so i guess i won't talk as much.
- well, actually, trans people are either reifying gender stereotypes or not conforming to them enough, and that's just weird for everyone, so i guess we'll have to go. even those of us who prefer teacups finding their saucers to the corporate-backed parades while being the completely harmless, "acceptable" "good" ones whose gender identity isn't hard to grasp.
posted by i used to be someone else at 10:23 AM on June 30, 2023 [22 favorites]

He got more votes than anyone else in history.

My dog, upon receiving the nomination of 1 of the 2 major political parties in the United States, would likely receive more votes than any other presidential candidate in history.
posted by rhymedirective at 10:23 AM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

If heightening the contradictions worked on conservative, religious republicans then Trump would not have gotten 70+ million votes last election. Hell, lets go back further: The Daily Show/Colbert Report style lampooning would have truly gotten Senator Sad Dog Face (I legit cannot remember his name) elected as president in 2004.

I still think there's a difference between "The Daily Show pointing at the hypocrisy" and "Senator Hufflebraw voting AGAINST a bill that Biden said was FLAT-OUT INSPIRED BY Biblical precedent." John Q. Biblethumper can write off the first with "pfft, that's a librul New York show from the media elite", but....the latter?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 AM on June 30, 2023

We're way beyond that. "Heightening the Contradictions" is now an entire genre known as "Triggering the Libs" and other forms of ragebait and trollery; and per the Crowder/Shapiro blowup is a low-effort way to make a lot of money.

Basically, the whole don't argue with Nazis thing applies. I'm sure that's rough when it's your supposed co-religionists.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:24 AM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

Biden won't do shit precisely because he agrees with the type of liberal who believes stuff like being "loud and weird" is the real problem here.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:25 AM on June 30, 2023 [15 favorites]

The thought that any of the 46 million Americans with student debt--that's one in five--could ever vote Republican just boggles my mind.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:26 AM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

And of course we have the obligatory shitting on Biden and blaming him for this decision by the Supreme Court and Congressional Republicans refusal to act. If you want a dictator you will get one. As frustrating as this is attacking Biden is just strengthening the people who did you wrong here.

The point of this is, we won't get one, we got one! Its SCOTUS. They're accountable to no force in US politics and they don't have to pretend. Legislating from the bench, reinventing the wording on amendments, flagrantly disregarding Good Behavior because they know no one will ever touch them. Like, what is the line they have to cross for this to become apparent? Overturning another election? Bringing back segregation?
posted by Slackermagee at 10:27 AM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

The Department of Education "plans to give a 90-day grace period for missed payments and is considering future grace periods. Needless to say, Republicans are not happy and may go to court to stop grace periods based on the agreement in this summer’s debt ceiling legislation."

cruelty/point/etc
posted by gottabefunky at 10:28 AM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

John Q. Biblethumper can write off the first with "pfft, that's a librul New York show from the media elite", but....the latter?

"Devil can cite Scripture, and as we know all Democrats are devils" + "Sometimes God works through an ungodly man (Trump)", no contradictions needed. There's no gotcha that if revealed will cause the GOP to melt away. Statements are expressions of power. Trying to peel away hypothetical voters is just buying into the power of their worldview.
posted by CrystalDave at 10:28 AM on June 30, 2023 [16 favorites]

What's likely is the reaction was yesterday and he'll campaign on more promises.

I know it's Joever... but it never really began... But in my heart it was so real, and you really spoke to me, and you said

"If you're so clever, why do you still owe $50k? Oh by the way donate to Vote Save America"
posted by kingdead at 10:31 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Optimistic me: if the 46 million Americans with student debt never vote Republican again, that could mark the end of them winning nationwide elections.

Pessimistic me: a more moderate SC than this one already did Bush v Gore.
posted by box at 10:32 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

I know they don't care, but they've been hiding that. I'm suggesting this to call their bluff and expose them in front of the people who voted them in, most of whom believe them to actually be the Good Christian Folk they say they are.

I desperately, desperately need you to understand that the vast majority of the people to whom you are referring absolutely do not care about the hypocrisy or lack of morality and those that do feel uncomfortable about it are not going to change their beliefs or behavior because of it. The longer anyone believes that these people can be persuaded or that they're going to play by the rules (as opposed to making up the rules as they go along doing whatever they want) the more dangerous the world is for those of us under direct attack.
posted by an octopus IRL at 10:35 AM on June 30, 2023 [46 favorites]

and "Senator Hufflebraw voting AGAINST a bill that Biden said was FLAT-OUT INSPIRED BY Biblical precedent." John Q. Biblethumper can write off the first with "pfft, that's a librul New York show from the media elite", but....the latter?

But what does it mean to be "flat-out inspired by biblical precedent"? There's no one to declare that something is inspired by biblical precedent. It's not like there's a single authority somewhere that certifies things as being "biblical" or "non-biblical". Quite the contrary!

It's frustrating, but there's never going to be a single contradiction that causes someone to completely change their political beliefs. There's no "bluff" to be called.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:39 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Derail about who got more votes removed. Also, once comment against the Content Policy. Cursing on the site is fine but cursing at someone is not okay.
posted by loup (staff) at 10:39 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

I desperately, desperately need you to understand that the vast majority of the people to whom you are referring absolutely do not care about the hypocrisy or lack of morality and those that do feel uncomfortable about it are not going to change their beliefs or behavior because of it. The longer anyone believes that these people can be persuaded or that they're going to play by the rules (as opposed to making up the rules as they go along doing whatever they want) the more dangerous the world is for those of us under direct attack.

I see I was not clear....

Reminding you that the thing that triggered this tangent was a suggestion that Biden announce a debt relief package, and use Biblical language when he did that. My suggestion of the Biblical language was not meant to be the point of that - more like icing on the cake.

Ultimately, Biden using executive privilege to provide debt relief is the point. If we can additionally hang some GOP fucksticks out to dry, this would be a chance to do so (and I believe it might work). However, if you are correct and it doesn't work - well, we still have the debt relief executive action either way, so that's still a win.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:39 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

If it wasn't for leftists the possibility of student debt cancellation wouldn't have even been on the centrist dem table.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:46 AM on June 30, 2023 [39 favorites]

Ahh good, we’ve gotten to the circular firing squad part of the day’s festivities.
posted by notyou at 10:46 AM on June 30, 2023 [55 favorites]

Reminding you that the thing that triggered this tangent was a suggestion that Biden announce a debt relief package, and use Biblical language when he did that. My suggestion of the Biblical language was not meant to be the point of that - more like icing on the cake.

He would be instantly, sanctimoniously pilloried for violating separation of state principles to lecture Americans about their beliefs given the [INSERT LIST OF HUNTER BIDEN FACTS HERE] and [INSERT CREEPY JOE PICTURE HERE], and then there would be the commentaries from Tucker et al about how the President thinks it's OK to push his global Papist perspective on Real Americans but be against school prayer or what the fuck ever.

It doesn't matter that they like it when some right-wing shouter does the same thing. There is absolutely no consistency. That is not how it works, anymore, if it ever did. Look at the contortions required to defend Trump, and compare to the moralizing rhetoric of the Clinton era.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:48 AM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

AOC makes the point that Biden can still use the Higher Education Act to continue loan forgiveness.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:48 AM on June 30, 2023 [11 favorites]

The only justice that can be served against a sitting SC justic is impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate.
That's just established law, which apparenty no longer matters.
posted by MtDewd at 10:49 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

The "firing squad" started in the very first comment. I guess it became "circular" when somebody pointed out that Biden tried to cancel student debt and it's the GOP-controlled Supreme Court who blocked it?

Joe Biden: Let's forgive student debt.
Supreme Court: No, you can't.
MetaFilter: Why would Joe Biden do this?
posted by The Tensor at 10:49 AM on June 30, 2023 [27 favorites]

You need to stop being so harsh on Christians, leftists, or whoever because this was a bank vs a bunch of people who owed money. The bank can contribute to the careers and the personal well being of the judges, the president, and the representatives, the debtors for the obvious reason cannot.

Even if every person who you find personally objectionable came around to your views, unless they also somehow came into a huge amount of money it wouldn't have made a difference.
posted by kingdead at 10:50 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

He would be instantly, sanctimoniously pilloried for violating separation of state principles to lecture Americans about their beliefs given the [INSERT LIST OF HUNTER BIDEN FACTS HERE] and [INSERT CREEPY JOE PICTURE HERE], and then there would be the commentaries from Tucker et al about how the President thinks it's OK to push his global Papist perspective on Real Americans but be against school prayer or what the fuck ever.

Alright, then, let's say you're right and there's no reaching them.

What do you suggest we DO about that?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:50 AM on June 30, 2023

The "firing squad" started in the very first comment

There's a huge difference between criticizing the actions of politicians, expressing disappointment that they didn't meet your expectations or doubting that they are motivated to act and implying that other commenters who disagree with you are in some way responsible for the current politicial environment and should apologize.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:54 AM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

Focus on persuading everyone else, and de-legitimizing them over time; it is of note that they're now expressly at work trying to constrain the ability to do just that.

We dodged a bullet with the independent state legislature case, because for the time being the conservative SCOTUS majority feels comfortably ensconced enough that it's not inclined to cede Federal power.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:54 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm skeptical of 11 dimension chess excuses for the Democratic leadership inability to do the right thing, but IMO if there's no student debt forgiveness/cancellation/reform by November 2024, the Dems will certainly lose. And I think there's strong evidence for this and I think they recognize it as well. I strongly suspect/hope that they have something else up their sleeve---and they do have the political power to do more---and they have every incentive to do it. If the dem leadership says "welp, we tried! aw shucks nothing else we can do", no one will believe that bullshit and it will really, really hurt them.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:57 AM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

The only justice that can be served against a sitting SC justic is impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate.
That's just established law, which apparenty no longer matters.

I will argue loudly and forever that Article 3 allows (or demands) that justices be pro-rogued for not fulfilling Good Behavior obligations. They can only hold office in times of good behavior. That doesn't say, "and you must remove them as officers of the state through impeachment". Just, they can't do the job. It's One Weird Trick but like, Jesus, it's all we got. You will never see a Supreme Court justice impeached in your lifetime I don't care how old you are.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:57 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

Since religion has already been mentioned, there is also this working on Sundays decision for everybody to fight about.
posted by sardonyx at 10:58 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

...Chief Justice John Roberts has more than once said the court is working on an ethics code for itself, but so far, crickets...

Instead of responding to ProPublica's written questions, Alito did something no justice before him has done. He defended his conduct in an op-ed published on the editorial page of the conservative-friendly Wall Street Journal. In explaining why he did not recuse himself from a case in which Singer had ended up with a $2.4 billion windfall, Alito said that he had met Singer only casually at events attended by large groups. But as Indiana University law professor Charles Geyh told ProPublica, "If you weren't good friends, what were you doing accepting this" private jet trip? And "if you were good friends, what were you doing ruling on his case?"

And then, of course, there are the ethics stories involving Justice Clarence Thomas. What we now know is that for probably two decades, Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, have gone on lavish trips around the globe paid for by his Republican megadonor friend Harlan Crow and that Crow paid the private school tuition for Thomas' grandnephew and bought properties owned by Thomas and his family. Thomas never disclosed any of this, as he was required to do under the disclosure provisions of the federal Ethics in Government Act, which applies to all federal judges, including Supreme Court justices...

Other justices have faced ethics questions related to their spouses' jobs. The ethics code requires that justices disclose their spouses' employment but not their salaries. Jane Roberts, wife of the chief justice, owns an interest in a legal recruiting business that places lawyers in major firms. By all accounts, she is very good at her job and makes big money at it, estimated in the millions of dollars...

The problem for the justices is that all these stories — and more — are a corrosive drip, drip, drip, eroding public confidence in the court. And if one compares the Supreme Court today to the court 40, 50 or 75 years ago, this is a very different world. Justices back then were not, for the most part, big public figures. They didn't write books or give lots of speeches, and especially not for groups with clearly ideological viewpoints.

And perhaps most importantly, there was not a huge coterie of enormously wealthy people — often tied to political parties and causes — trying to get close to the members of the court.

In the old days, the justices had political friends; they even played poker at the White House. Washington is, or was, a very chummy town. But the justices did rule against their political pals, and if they got too close, as Justice Abe Fortas did with President Lyndon B. Johnson, ultimately he had to resign.

Today there are billionaires, lots of them, who want to build bridges to certain members of the court. As far as is known, at least so far, they are conservative men and women interested in conservative causes. They want bragging rights about knowing the justices, and even if they don't discuss Supreme Court cases, they want proximity and, indirectly, probably influence.

Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the crisis of confidence in the Supreme Courtposted by y2karl at 10:59 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

(If I hadn't shot my shot with this post today, I would be sharing NPR's latest Tiny Desk Concert, with Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, and guests Trombone Shorty, Alvin Ford, Jon Batiste, and The Amours.)
posted by box at 11:00 AM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

If the dem leadership says "welp, we tried! aw shucks nothing else we can do", no one will believe that bullshit and it will really, really hurt them.

This is true, but they don't believe it. They think that a large chunk of the student loan forgiveness voter demographic says they vote and but actually just stays home and records tiktoks or whatever. They don't make meaningful donations, after all.

I really hope that overturning Roe in combination with the stink on Trump and a brutal GOP primary has enough of a cross-cutting effect to hamstring GOP turnout in the general, or things could go real bad real fast.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:03 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Biden fucked this from the beginning. If he had done universal loan forgiveness for all federal student loans and made it immediate, instead of having to fill out paperwork and wait for approval, it would have been a fait accompli. The supremes could rule however they wanted, the loans would be gone. Instead they went with the "reasonable" means tested compromise bullshit in an effort to make it more likely to stand up to a lawsuit. When will the democrats get that the conservatives are not interested in compromise, they're interested in the utter destruction of the programs of new deal and the great society and they will not stop until conservative white capitalist christian dominion is established. You've got to fight them like the radical revolutionaries they are, not treat them like reasonable good faith political actors.
posted by dis_integration at 11:06 AM on June 30, 2023 [44 favorites]

What do you suggest we DO about that?

France might be demonstrating a way forward.
posted by cubeb at 11:08 AM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

France might be demonstrating a way forward.

i mean yes, but last time something like that happened here we had a lot of good people on both sides complain about how loud and weird those BLM protests were
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:11 AM on June 30, 2023 [14 favorites]

I was able to save up enough to buy a house while paying down straight principal of my loan during this payment pause, so I am grateful for this. I wonder how much I saved overall due to not having interest accruing. I would encourage anyone who can afford to put money toward their loan to do so before collection begin again to avoid additional interest.
Now I must figure out who I pay my loans to as the lender of course has changed.
posted by greatalleycat at 11:14 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Focus on persuading everyone else, and de-legitimizing them over time; it is of note that they're now expressly at work trying to constrain the ability to do just that.

But if they don't care what we think of them, and their followers don't either, how would we do that?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:23 AM on June 30, 2023

In my dream vision of the US, the military would be a tiny part of our budget, and our taxes would go to ensure that all education from pre-k to grad school would be public and free, health care would be free, the elderly and disabled would have well-paid caregivers, and the rest of our taxes would go towards fixing our old and tired infrastructure, investing in high speed rail and public transportation, making sure we have clean air and water that's available to everyone, and righting the wrongs of racism, misogyny, and gay- and trans-phobias. But I imagine none of this will happen in my lifetime (I'm 59 and feeling very very tired today).
posted by ceejaytee at 11:24 AM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]

Don't forgive student loan debt but make it 0% interest forever, only pay back what you actually borrowed
Don't forgive student loan debt but eliminate the bullshit laws that say you can't default, because those laws are bullshit
Don't forgive student loan debt but put hard caps on what public universities can charge per semester, IF the university wants to remain eligible to receive federal funds

None of those things are solutions but all of them are options that can be proposed without flat forgiving student loan debt. For fuck's sake, less debt means more disposable income. More income means more people can shop American. Why are Republicans against supporting American businesses?
posted by caution live frogs at 11:26 AM on June 30, 2023 [20 favorites]

ceejaytee: "In my dream vision of the US, the military would be a tiny part of our budget, and our taxes would go to ensure that all education from pre-k to grad school would be public and free, health care would be free, the elderly and disabled would have well-paid caregivers, and the rest of our taxes would go towards fixing our old and tired infrastructure, investing in high speed rail and public transportation, making sure we have clean air and water that's available to everyone, and righting the wrongs of racism, misogyny, and gay- and trans-phobias. But I imagine none of this will happen in my lifetime (I'm 59 and feeling very very tired today)."

Or you could move to Europe. You're kind of describing a lot of places there
posted by caution live frogs at 11:27 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Moving to another country is an option that requires a whole lot of privilege, money and luck
posted by jason_steakums at 11:30 AM on June 30, 2023 [31 favorites]

as far as student loans go, the nytimes published an article on how to cancel your debt, and apparently just didn't think much about wording; those last two paragraphs have been rewritten.

bit dark.
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:31 AM on June 30, 2023 [20 favorites]

Or you could move to Europe. You're kind of describing a lot of places there

ah, yes, the countries that are letting people wanting to move there drown in the mediterranean because they don't fit the exact, restrictive checklist of who they'll allow to move in.

many of those don't like older immigrants, those with health conditions, those who are disabled, those who aren't neurotypical...

it's like telling queer people in red states "why don't you just move to a safe blue state?" and not considering just how expensive and time-consuming that proposition is.
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:33 AM on June 30, 2023 [21 favorites]

Holy fuck is that dark.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:33 AM on June 30, 2023

The rewritten article is gated.
posted by cooker girl at 11:36 AM on June 30, 2023

Also dark is June 27th the Dept of Ed Tweeted:

We can all help prevent suicide.

If you or someone you care about is in distress, text or call 988 for 24/7, free and confidential support from the @988Lifeline

posted by foxfirefey at 11:38 AM on June 30, 2023 [11 favorites]

Imagining the editor, "No, you've got to put death last, otherwise they might not survive to read the entire list!"
posted by mittens at 11:38 AM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

@cooker girl:
ungated, rewritten version
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:42 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

...The hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is stunning. They had no problem with billions in pandemic-related loans to businesses – including hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars for their own businesses. And those loans were forgiven. But when it came to providing relief to millions of hard-working Americans, they did everything in their power to stop it.

While today’s decision is disappointing, we should not lose sight of the progress we’ve made – making historic increases to Pell Grants; forgiving loans for teachers, firefighters, and others in public service; and creating a new debt repayment plan, so no one with an undergraduate loan has to pay more than 5 percent of their discretionary income.

I believe that the Court’s decision to strike down our student debt relief plan is wrong.

But I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families. My Administration will continue to work to bring the promise of higher education to every American.

And later today, I will provide more detail on all that my Administration has done to help students and the next steps my Administration will take.

Statement from President Joe Biden on Supreme Court Decision on Student Loan Debt Relief
posted by y2karl at 11:42 AM on June 30, 2023 [14 favorites]

Holy fuck is that dark.

It's also not true of all private student loans. Potentially including refinanced Federal loans, as was heavily promoted.

Some private lenders will try to maintain a claim against the estate if there's anything in it.

And may attempt to collect loans co-signed (usually by the parents) that were originated before 2018 from the guarantor, which is when the law was changed to mandate forgiveness of guarantees in the event of the death of the borrower.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:42 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Really, I should open a store that sells AR-15's for $10, then refuse to sell them to anyone who is a conservative. I mean, yeah, I'd never sell one then...

17 percent of self-described liberals say they own guns (vs. 49 percent of conservatives). The difference might be greater for AR-15s, but you'd still sell some. Not everyone who agrees with you on some things agrees with you on everything.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:45 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm glad I have metafilter to tell me how student debt relief being struck down by a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court is actually the fault of the guy who tried to do the student debt relief. Otherwise I might remember back in 2016 when we were told that pointing out we would lose the Supreme Court for a generation if Trump got elected was emotional blackmail and Dems hadn't earned our votes and its best to just pretend that didn't happen.
posted by Justinian at 11:46 AM on June 30, 2023 [43 favorites]

17 percent of self-described liberals say they own guns (vs. 49 percent of conservatives). The difference might be greater for AR-15s, but you'd still sell some. Not everyone who agrees with you on some things agrees with you on everything.

oh, speaking of guns: next year we'll get to find out if people who have a dv restraining order will be allowed to have guns or not!

don't hold your breath on the "not" part
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:50 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

If I suspect my student loan servicer is gay, can I refuse to do business with them?
posted by mittens at 11:54 AM on June 30, 2023 [53 favorites]

I'm glad I have metafilter to tell me how student debt relief being struck down by a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court is actually the fault of the guy who tried to do the student debt relief

It is in the sense that thinking that just implementing a spending program that 100% couldn't get past Congress and was seen as DOA on its first da by anyone who didn't subscribe to the Willam Barr theory of the power of the Executive was a good idea worth pursuing. Doing something that is guaranteed to fail isn't as bad as doing nothing at all, but it's not exactly great either.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:11 PM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

Also, you don't have to go as far back to 2016 to find examples on this website of the "emotional blackmail" stuff, there was plenty in 2020 as well.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:12 PM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Biden himself said he wasn't sure unilateral action was Constitutional and that's why he was reticent to do it. People were yelling that he was just using that as an excuse because he didn't want student debt relief and it was the final straw! So he said, "Ok, I'll do what you're asking" and now that it turns out the Court says it wasn't Constitutional people are like "why did he do what we demanded he do!"
posted by Justinian at 12:15 PM on June 30, 2023 [13 favorites]

Doing something that is guaranteed to fail isn't as bad as doing nothing at all, but it's not exactly great either.

Sometimes you do things that are guaranteed to fail because it buys time and/or makes it clear it's the other side's fault for refusing to do it. It may be realpolitik rather than policymaking, but if policymaking wasn't an option, maybe it's all that's left.
posted by alligatorpear at 12:16 PM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

I am just zero percent surprised by all of this Supreme Court shit this week. Of course this happened, it's the darkest timeline.

I ended up trapped in a breakout room yesterday with a bunch of financial people (note: I don't work in finance) after being shown a poll in which the top reason students drop out was money. One guy was all sad and "The students could take out loans to pay for it, but they don't want to." I restrained myself from saying, "Gee, I wonder why not."
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:28 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

After reading the link to biden’s statement posted by y2karl , i think it is clear this is the end of this fight

- he reminds us of what they have done
- he says he’ll “keep finding other ways” to help the working class

This is done folks. They are throwing in the towel, and hoping they can spin the “accomplishments”

As someone in the category of having a shit load of school debt, for a degree I never finished because of a divorce, and a time when the interest rates were not as regulated, I am completely fucked on this one.
posted by das_2099 at 12:30 PM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

now that it turns out the Court says it wasn't Constitutional people are like "why did he do what we demanded he do!"

Who's saying that? There are people saying he should have approached it differently, and even more people saying "fuck the Supreme Court, everyone should default", neither of which is an incorrect position.
posted by heteronym at 12:33 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm tired of seeing the word "upended" in Supreme Court news articles. Rather than commenting on my desired outcome for the health of various Supreme Court Justices, I'll simply quote President Biden: "This is not a normal court."

Too bad he doesn't want to do anything about it.
posted by Gadarene at 12:34 PM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Self declared leftists spent the last 25 years attacking democrats like Al Gore, John Kerry, Hilary Clinton and that got us a 6-3 Republican supermajority Supreme Court. The only thing those people should be saying at this point is either admitting they were fascists all along or a heartfelt apology and acknowledgement that this is the direct consequence of their own actions.

I'm glad I have metafilter to tell me how student debt relief being struck down by a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court is actually the fault of the guy who tried to do the student debt relief. Otherwise I might remember back in 2016 when we were told that pointing out we would lose the Supreme Court for a generation if Trump got elected was emotional blackmail and Dems hadn't earned our votes and its best to just pretend that didn't happen.

I think this kind of jumping on the leftists over 2016 rhetoric is pretty transparently silly and played out given that the vast, vast majority of Bernie voters or other self-described leftists, myself included, voted for the Democratic candidate in both 2016 and 2020, but if we're going to reach into the grab-bag of hypotheticals for who is to blame for the current 6-3 Supreme Court without specifically centering Mitch McConnell I think we could go ahead and be here all day. We could blame the arrogance of RBG for not resigning under Obama, we could blame Hillary for running one of the worst general election campaigns of a lifetime, we could blame the DNC for arraying itself against a Bernie campaign that might have won the general... There's plenty of avenues here for fruitless what-ifs and relitigating of 7 year old debates, but I don't think any of that would be particularly helpful. I think anger toward a Biden administration that won't even consider taking action against a criminally corrupt court with two stolen seats is also perfectly justified.
posted by N8yskates at 12:36 PM on June 30, 2023 [17 favorites]

Yes, they can. It's cut and paste litigation. And government loans are publicly guaranteed. So if you're in default status (not a judgment debtor) they can garnish your wages, and your tax refund, among other things.

Studentaid.gov: Your loan holder can order your employer to withhold up to 15 percent of your disposable pay to collect your defaulted debt without taking you to court. This withholding (“garnishment”) continues until your defaulted loan is paid in full or the default status is resolved.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:37 PM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

If Biden doesn't expand, and pack, the Supreme Court while he has the chance, we're fucked until the end of time.
posted by bink at 12:43 PM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

Can we maybe not police who people are angry at in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that will immiserate millions of lives? Leaving my own political leanings out, maybe let's just let people be angry right now, idk.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 12:51 PM on June 30, 2023 [12 favorites]

Well, that's [more] onerous than the IRS.
Yes, part of the insidiousness of student loans is how they are a special category of debt, a super punitive kind of debt that we encourage minors to enter into.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 1:00 PM on June 30, 2023 [13 favorites]

Biden himself said he wasn't sure unilateral action was Constitutional and that's why he was reticent to do it. People were yelling that he was just using that as an excuse because he didn't want student debt relief and it was the final straw! So he said, "Ok, I'll do what you're asking" and now that it turns out the Court says it wasn't Constitutional people are like "why did he do what we demanded he do!"

But that's politics for you. To be a successful politician, you have to get people to vote for you. If you want people to vote for you, you have to either deliver on the promises you make to them or be persuasive enough that they'll overlook your failures because you're still fighting the good fight. You need simultaneously balance the need to over-promise lest you be perceived as not caring with the risk of under-delivering and being seen as incompetent. Politics is just that fucking brutal, and it's not fair to simultaneously claim that elections matter while blaming the electorate for wanting something that's politically impossible.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:01 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Too bad he doesn't want to do anything about it.

Biden spent three and half decades as the Senator from Delaware. (A tiny state that is a corporate haven, with more companies registered there than residents, for those not familiar.) Which is exactly the time over which the cost of higher education skyrocketed, and student loans were turned into a profit center. For banks, and the Treasury.

He's never had any credibility on any kind of significant reform beyond whatever the financial industry is willing to accept. At best he'd be in favor of re-adopting prior rules the industry is familiar with like Reg Q. (the separation of retail and investment banking established under 'Glass Steagall' and relaxed in 2010).

Anyone who thinks he actually cares about student loans should recall he voted to strip bankruptcy protections in 2005, reflecting his true constituency at the time.

“Biden was one of the most powerful people who could have said no, who could have changed this. Instead he used his leadership role to limit the ability of other Democrats who had concerns and who wanted the bill softened,” said Melissa Jacoby, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill specialising in bankruptcy.

posted by snuffleupagus at 1:02 PM on June 30, 2023 [14 favorites]

https://twitter.com/mstratford/status/1674870341636612098

NEWS: Biden admin will begin regulatory process to enact student debt relief under Higher Education Act, per notice posted today on Ed Dept's website:
posted by Justinian at 1:07 PM on June 30, 2023 [16 favorites]

Fleshing out my last comment a little bit more:

Right now America is seriously struggling at best, outright broken at worst. Every aspect of its political system, including but not limited to the center-left and the not-as-center-left, reflects that sundering. I don't mean this as a both-sides thing: every single person who wants good things for this country and the world is aware that every group positing itself as a force for good has less power and is less effective than it would like to be.

I understand bristling and feeling defensive when it's the ideology that you most agree with getting attacked as The Thing Destroying America, but I think we're all feeling an inchoate despair and/or rage and/or terror at the fact that nothing is working the way it ought to. We all fixate on the pieces that, to us, most leap out as Not Working Right, because it's hard to grasp the full Lovecraftian dysfunction that is the American political machine utterly breaking down on every possible level. We use the words we have, espouse the ideology we know, because expressing the deeper-down anger and identifying the "fundamental" problem is harder. But right now, everyone is mad and everyone is hurt, and the fingers we're pointing are just our fumbling attempts to assert even a little control over the situation, in our armchair-general ways, when the fact is that nobody here has any power over the state of the country in any way that matters.

It all sucks and this is a horrible day, and I think we get more out of recognizing that this is a multi-faceted problem without a single easy clear answer, and that there are reasons why everyone is mad at the specific thing they're mad at. Those angers aren't contradictory because half of the people here are wrong: they're contradictory because this is a multifaceted clusterfuck. And nobody having a terrible day over this is going to have a better day just because you tell them that, actually, they're being angry wrong. That's just not how this works.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 1:07 PM on June 30, 2023 [20 favorites]

You know, on top of it all , the personal impact to me re: debt relief made me forget how terrible the affirmative action ruling was, and the allowances for religious bigotry decision was there for a second.

Kind of like forgetting your house is on fire for a minute, because you stepped on a nail.

What a shitty couple of days
posted by das_2099 at 1:13 PM on June 30, 2023 [11 favorites]

NEWS: Biden admin will begin regulatory process to enact student debt relief under Higher Education Act, per notice posted today on Ed Dept's website:

Awesome!
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:17 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Anyone got a link to that notice for those of us without Twitter logins?
posted by DebetEsse at 1:21 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Anyone got a link to that notice for those of us without Twitter logins?

Here you go!
posted by mittens at 1:24 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Awesome!

No, that's probably bad: [nerdwallet]

If Biden’s debt cancellation plan went through the Higher Education Act instead of the Heroes Act, the legal rollout could look different.

There are several plausible scenarios, explains Herrine. If the Department of Education invokes the HEA’s “compromise and settlement authority,” it might need to issue a regulation, which would require a long, negotiated rulemaking and notice-and-comment period, he says.

“That usually takes over a year to do, and it would be subject to judicial review and so on,” Herrine says. Congress could also step in and block the regulation via the Congressional Review Act.

Alternatively, the Department of Education could issue an order, which is a “quasi-judicial act,” says Herrine. “That would potentially be subject to judicial challenge, but it would not be subject to the Congressional Review Act, and it would not require over a year of rulemaking.”

Either choice requires a slew of administrative law processes, says Herrine, but if the Department of Education is already preparing for a negative Supreme Court decision, it may be able to move quickly.

Ultimately, a Plan B success story could hinge on speed: “It's harder for the court to undo cancellation than it is to prevent it in the first place,”

If they don't issue a order but embark on a rulemaking process, then nothing was learned. Or, it's a dog and pony show that's expected to go nowhere. The use of 'enact' might lean the other way, but I am not willing to expect much at this point.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:25 PM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

There is no action that Biden can take here that is immune from judicial review. And there is no "moving so fast that the courts can't stop you" because courts can issue lighting-speed retraining orders even before your action takes effect. So when we're evaluating the merits of some proposal by Biden to act, we should not be asking whether someone might sue to stop the action.
posted by prefpara at 1:27 PM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

That's true, but the review of an order is different than a rulemaking; and if ruled against it would probably be on the basis that a rulemaking is required. At any rate one indicates an effort to actually force it through quickly, the other is a sacrificial effort destined to fail.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:29 PM on June 30, 2023

Additionally, Congress can't step in to block regulations under the CRA unless Biden and the Dems are on board which obviously they aren't.
posted by Justinian at 1:30 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

CRA Overview from CRS: "What happens if Congress adjourns before the CRA introduction or action periods end?"

If, within 60 session (Senate) or legislative (House) days after a rule is submitted [typically upon being finalized and published, so after the whole rulemaking process] the Congress adjourns its session sine die, the periods to introduce and act on a disapproval resolution described above reoccur in their entirety in the next session of Congress, beginning in each chamber on the 15th day of Senate session and the 15th House legislative day. This “lookback” provision is intended to ensure that Congress will have the full periods contemplated by the act to disapprove a rule regardless of when it is received. The lookback provision may hold particular import in years in which there is a change in party control of the presidency.

The prediction in that article above was that the full rulemaking process usually means it takes a year before the regulation is published. I'm not familiar with the law interpreting the CRA, but per the CRS explainer the authority for judicial review is itself uncertain and a point of litigation—which might be part of what makes it slow.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:43 PM on June 30, 2023

I'm perfectly willing to cut Biden some slack and give him more time to get things done provided he recognizes that the cost of the delay is higher expectations to make up for lost time.

It's okay if it takes another year of rulemaking and procedure in order to achieve relief, so long as that relief is 20k across the board instead of the original 10k, especially if payments have to start again in the interim.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:51 PM on June 30, 2023

how does that affect the hopeful Not-A-Recession we've been aiming toward?

In that regard, I don't think it's quite a coincidence that "bidenomics" has suddenly started to get tossed around this week.
posted by mittens at 1:58 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Add some new justices for the ones republicans cheated away from the people.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:05 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

If Biden doesn't expand, and pack, the Supreme Court while he has the chance, we're fucked until the end of time.

Is this intended to be a good-faith criticism? Biden literally doesn't have the power to do that. He'd need votes in the House and the Senate he doesn't have, and has never had. Likewise the questions about why Biden doesn't unilaterally "pro-rogue" Supreme Court justices. Because that's not a thing US Presidents can do? That's moon law.

I really, truly DON'T understand. What's the point of criticizing Biden for not doing things he CAN'T do? It seems like textbook misinformation to me. What's the point of posting it?
posted by The Tensor at 2:19 PM on June 30, 2023 [25 favorites]

I make pretty good money but support a family of 5 and the resumption of payments, in addition to my private student loans and my high interest rate HELOC, is going to hurt. At a mass scale that is very bad.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:33 PM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

That's what they've seen Republicans actually do when they're in power, and then the Democrats are stuck cleaning up the mess after power gets handed back for just long enough to right the ship, resulting in everything tracking to the right over time; so maybe it is.

The problem is the built up advantage, not their basic perception of how shit actually works.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:36 PM on June 30, 2023 [11 favorites]

Is Obergefell at risk for destruction too in this session, or will they wait until next June to do that?

Need to know so I can decide whether I can drown my sorrows by drinking through my remaining liquor right now or whether I need to set some aside for the next oppressive, backwards-moving decision.
posted by lord_wolf at 2:38 PM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

I really, truly DON'T understand. What's the point of criticizing Biden for not doing things he CAN'T do? It seems like textbook misinformation to me. What's the point of posting it?

There's always a fantasy alternative scenario where Biden just becomes a dictator and gives us exactly what we want when we want it. His failure to be that Uncle Joe means everything is always his fault.

I worry that a lot of people don't seem to understand that democracy is a process and a set of institutions and traditions, and those things are not self-maintaining. Yes, there are people on the right attempting to set them on fire. That doesn't mean that pouring more gasoline on them and making the fire bigger is the solution.

Biden being an institutionalist, who understands extremely well how the government actually works, is his greatest strength. The amount he's gotten done because of that knowledge of how to play inside D.C. baseball has been frankly astounding. I have no doubt he'll continue to pull rabbits out of hats when given half a chance. Not that he'll get any credit from people who want a leftist daddy that rules by decree.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:42 PM on June 30, 2023 [17 favorites]

This is nonsense. The initial plan was for a cancellation of 10k. Even on its own terms the plan was weak. 10k takes a 100k balance to 90 and leaves the person in the same position of a risk of a lifetime of debt. He could have done so, so much more. But he didn’t! Even if this passed without the Supreme Court intervening the left would be justifiably angry that this doesn’t go far enough and centrists would be chiding the left for saying “sorry we all wanted more but the republicans wouldn’t let us.”
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:50 PM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

It's time for Biden to pack the court. He's got the senate, more or less. Otherwise it's a generation of this shit.
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:55 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Biden being an institutionalist, who understands extremely well how the government actually works, is his greatest strength. The amount he's gotten done because of that knowledge of how to play inside D.C. baseball has been frankly astounding. I have no doubt he'll continue to pull rabbits out of hats when given half a chance

VincentVegaLookingAround.gif

Maybe I'm failing to appreciate his use of negative space.

Top achievement, according to WhiteHouse.gov? Banning Federal officers from using chokeholds. Over a year ago. On the second anniversary of Floyd's death. To put Federal police forces "on the right track." Does little to address the brutality of the police forces most people encounter, but I guess it's good for everyone Biden helped put in Federal prison under the racist 1994 crime bill.

It's getting really tiresome to hear people sing this guy's praises and wag the finger at everyone who doesn't toe that line. I am not some Chapo accelerationist, but the administration is at best competent. A lot of bad shit is going down on its watch. His actual track record is incredibly compromised as to most of the issues at play and he is not an inspirational figure, outside the memes that everyone here wants to dunk on. Dark Brandon is the best thing he has going for him.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:59 PM on June 30, 2023 [13 favorites]

He's got the senate, more or less.

Less. He can't expand/pack the court without a filibuster-proof majority of 60 Senate votes, and Manchin has already said he won't kill the filibuster or pack the court.
posted by soundguy99 at 2:59 PM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

I work on lobbying for my professional organization. Politicians respond to pressure, which can take the form of criticism. Student debt relief wouldn’t even be on the table if it weren’t for forces as disparate as the Sanders 2016 and 2020 presidential runs (along with Warren’s in 2020) and lobbying from organizations like the student debt collective and the NAACP, to name just a few examples. If Biden takes further action, it’s because he’s listening to advisers telling him he might lose in 2024 if he disappoints younger voters who were pretty skeptical of him in the first place - Clinton’s loss in 2016 hangs in the background as an example of what happens when such advice is not heeded. A social environment that doesn’t permit criticism of a given leader won’t produce organizations able to exert necessary pressure.
posted by eagles123 at 3:03 PM on June 30, 2023 [15 favorites]

Top achievement, according to WhiteHouse.gov?

The Biden-Harris Record:

TOP ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Lowering Costs of Families' Everyday Expenses
More People Are Working Than At Any Point in American History
Making More in America
Rescued the Economy and Changed the Course of the Pandemic
Rebuilding our Infrastructure
Historic Expansion of Benefits and Services for Toxic Exposed Veterans
The First Meaningful Gun Violence Reduction Legislation in 30 Years
Protected Marriage for LGBTQI+ and Interracial Couples
Historic Confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Federal Judges of Diverse Backgrounds
Rallied the World to Support Ukraine in Response to Putin's Aggression
Strengthened Alliances and Partnerships to Deliver for the American People
Successful Counterterrorism Missions Against the Leaders of Al Qaeda and ISIS
Executive Orders Protecting Reproductive Rights
Historic Student Debt Relief for Middle- and Working-Class Families
Ending our Failed Approach to Marijuana
Advancing Equity and Racial Justice, Including Historic Criminal Justice Reform
Delivering on the Most Aggressive Climate and Environmental Justice Agenda in American History
More People with Health Insurance Than Ever Before

posted by The Tensor at 3:07 PM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

OK, that was some weird landing page; here's the record according to them

(as above)
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:08 PM on June 30, 2023

Putting myself in a "young leftist's" shoes, I'd probably be full of internalized oppression and completely disdainful of "how democracy works" because I would have experienced almost zero amount of this mythical thing called democracy.

Young people feel hopeless, and to understand that explains why they've lost faith in democracy. Which is why pointing out young leftists "don't know how democracy works" would be completely beside the point, in their shoes, because effectively there is no democracy and has not been any for their entire lives.

I'm not a young leftist, but that would be my theory of mind.
posted by polymodus at 3:10 PM on June 30, 2023 [14 favorites]

I try to address this fundamental conflict in their desires, but they won't have any of it. They want a strongman to be dictatorial up until that dictator ushers in their communist utopia.

They don't seem to understand how actual politics and political power works.

but that's precisely how it can work - you vote the dictator in, and he has enough legitimate and illegitimate power to dictate - this is something the republicans are dangerously close to trying themselves, but there's nothing stopping your 20 something friends from trying this themselves - all they need is a leader who's willing to pander to them and be ruthless

as it is, we're already faced with the republican form of fascism and the so-called liberal corporatist form of fascism, which is somewhat in effect, but not mostly - adding a 3rd movement of socialists who are willing to suppress their opponents would be possible, but i don't see any of these sides winning

our prospects are getting really sucky
posted by pyramid termite at 3:12 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Education Department announced two initiatives today: the already mentioned new rulemaking and something called SAVE, which will exempt more low income borrowers from payments (without accruing interest); forgive debt after 10 years of payment instead of 20, for some borrowers; cut in half the amount of discretionary income borrowers have to pay from 10% to 5%. Separately the department announced a one year “repayment on ramp” during which late or missed payments won’t be reported to credit bureaus and missed interest won’t capitalize. (https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-new-actions-provide-debt-relief-and-support-student-loan-borrowers)
posted by notyou at 3:13 PM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

Another article reporting that the "gay couple" cited in the website case doesn't seem to exist.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:14 PM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

Is there anything stopping that interest rate from being 0?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 3:14 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

So it would seem to be a two pronged approach. This SAVE thing is an order under the HEA, the onramp may be too; the rest will likely be done the long way.

Although it says it's "effective July 1, 2024," with other implementations in the text. So, maybe they intend to submit to Congress.

We'll see if there's an immediate challenge to the SAVE rule, whatever's actually in it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:15 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

“Is there anything stopping that interest rate from being 0?”

You know, that is what i have been thinking about for some time:
Why not eliminate the interest ? Or make it anchored to something like 1%, retroactively?

- everyone still owes , and pays what they borrowed (if you take out a loan, pay it back, right?)
- people that got fucked by the interest rate+ minimum payment death march have all of the money they paid applied to the original loan + lower interest rates

The money gets paid back, and people are helped

It might have something to do with the fact that our economy might literally collapse if all of those people weren’t literally shackled to paying that interest
posted by das_2099 at 3:24 PM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

OK, so as to SAVE -- on the one hand the regulation discusses a rulemaking and comment period that goes back to 2021 at least; but for some provisions "[t]he Secretary is exercising his authority under HEA section 482(c) to designate certain regulatory changes to part 685 in this document for early implementation beginning on July 30, 2023." There are other things that are to be implemented later than 2024.

Not sure how that all works in terms of when challenges can occur and what track the full rule is on.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:25 PM on June 30, 2023

anyway, one time i posted a comment on this site about how student loans were ruining my life and the lives of all my friends. another user spent a few comments arguing with me and posting graphs showing young people today didn't have it worse than previous generations. i think about that guy every time i read someone get really defensive about joe biden on this site.

politics is about winning people over. we can't keep telling people they're wrong when they say they feel underserved by our leaders.
posted by JimBennett at 3:27 PM on June 30, 2023 [22 favorites]

gee when congress has spent the last 20 years locked into an oppositional gridlock deathspiral and the supreme court is stripping our rights away why the hell would young people expect the president to do anything?
posted by JimBennett at 3:30 PM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm really curious about a couple of things in the SAVE document, and am very anxious for a calculator to come out. First, "Credit certain periods of deferment or forbearance toward time needed to receive loan forgiveness." As someone who used up all my deferments and forbearances while I was disabled, this is both exciting and a little terrifying. But, also importantly, "Permit borrowers to receive credit toward forgiveness for payments made prior to consolidating their loans." One of the things that always bugged me when I was no longer on an income-based payment plan was, once I re-entered the standard payment, it didn't sound like any of those years of IBR would count. Like, if I was again eligible at some point, the 25-year or whatever clock would then reset. If I could get credit for all those payments...well, okay, not as good as real loan forgiveness, and not applicable to nearly enough people, but certainly something to pull one out of a bit of despair. But I'm really really going to need to see a calculator soon, because Amazon will be delivering my pitchfork and torch shortly.
posted by mittens at 3:34 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

I see nothing wrong with making one, maybe with some links to reaction from the community. A more focused discussion doesn't have to be a dupe. Especially given that the title may have people scrolling past it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:59 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well, I'm bummed, although after months of holdup it's not unexpected.

My other thoughts are along lines that Metafilter doesn't tolerate.

We're not gonna get out of this through voting.
posted by jellywerker at 4:02 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

It is revealing of MeFi's demographics that 80% of the anger is about the student loan decision and not the dangerously retrograde gay rights decision.

I'm personally affected by the former and not the latter, so I understand this to some degree; but for precisely the reason that MeFi is particularly incensed about the student loan I think there's tremendous political pressure from a broad swath of the relatively privileged to resolve this while, in contrast, the gay rights decision is more far-reaching with less political pressure to address it.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:11 PM on June 30, 2023 [14 favorites]

why the hell would young people expect the president to do anything?

He did—he tried to forgive their student loans. The GOP-controlled Supreme Court just blocked it.

We're not gonna get out of this through voting.

Well we got here through NOT voting so if it's not too much trouble could you please VOTE ANYWAY?
posted by The Tensor at 4:15 PM on June 30, 2023 [9 favorites]

He was against student loan forgiveness before he was for it.

Delaware, after all.
posted by BWA at 4:18 PM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

He was against student loan forgiveness before he was for it.

Yes. He was wrong about a lot of things back in the day. How appalling that he adopted better positions on that and many other issues!
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:27 PM on June 30, 2023 [10 favorites]

"When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time."
posted by MrBadExample at 4:28 PM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

Well we got here through NOT voting so if it's not too much trouble could you please VOTE ANYWAY?

We do, and also that's not correct. Remember the electoral college? Remember how Trump lost in 2016 according to the American citizens who cast ballots? Also, we didn't get to vote for supreme court judges.

But yes, I'll press the buttons/color in the balloons extra hard next time.

Edit: "this" includes the regression in other areas as well. Just to be clear.
posted by jellywerker at 4:32 PM on June 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

Yes. He was wrong about a lot of things back in the day. How appalling that he adopted better positions on that and many other issues!

When? As vice-president, when he had little discretion, and since? When functioning as the head of the party rather than directing his own ship?

Also, it's politics not the rite of confession.

There's ultimately little reason for all of us to go round and round here, not a lot of mefi users are going to withhold a vote against doom in the general. Persuading people here won't matter to the demographics that may.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:33 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

So many queer and young people are going to suffer and be materially harmed because of this and I don't see any reason to believe anyone seeing this as a chance to attack leftists or claim Biden is immune to criticism actually care. Care as in caring enough to materially support indebted millenials or queer people, repeatedly, so that we don't have to be the only ones doing so. Voting isn't material support.

I would love to be proven wrong.
posted by holomancy at 4:40 PM on June 30, 2023 [11 favorites]

I understand being angry with Biden, institutionalist centrist that he is. But his power has limits, and we’ve just run up against some. I wish he had at least tried to do more, while recognizing that it’s very possible we’d be in exactly the same spot if he had.

The way to win is to build power, and the willingness to use it, at all levels from neighborhood associations on up. The Republicans certainly did. God knows if we have time for it at the rate things are going.

So I’ll go be obnoxious at a community meeting (again) tomorrow, but today I’m just tired and sad.
posted by learning from frequent failure at 5:24 PM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

As with Dobbs I must admit I don’t understand what Biden or Democrats in general are supposed to do now that won’t be immediately overturned by this court.

What law forgiving student loans would not be struck down as unconstitutional by the same six justices, understanding as we do that they aren’t operating in good faith?

(Rinse and repeat for abortion rights, civil rights in general, etc.)

The judicial arm of the GOP is in full control of the country and will be for decades to come. If we can take and hold power for all those years between now and then with no reward for doing so it might eventually pay off, but I only see one side with that level of commitment and they just won again today.

(Meet me IRL for a completely different take sometime but I’m not typing it out here. I will definitely set aside my $10 though.)
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:05 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

The main thing to remember is that there is nothing you can do, therefore you shouldn’t even try. Just sit back and let Them win.

Sit back, let it happen. It was always going to happen, why fight it?

…there you go. See, isn’t it easier this way? Now hush, let the chemicals do their work. This is the way it was supposed to be all along. Shhhhh.
posted by aramaic at 6:07 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

the "just vote" conversation gets so old to me because the majority of americans do not vote at all, and you are not going to badger them into voting no matter how many times you say the word Democracy at them. and the people you're talking about on this website (and in these threads) are a self-selected group of people who are already going to vote. and HRC won the popular vote anyway. and i live in Massachusetts, so my vote for president is functionally useless anyway. i love to still be trapped in this conversation 8 years later.
posted by JimBennett at 6:24 PM on June 30, 2023 [21 favorites]

The main response will be by the "negotiated rulemaking" process, there's going to be a committee.

We announce our intention to establish a negotiated rulemaking committee to prepare proposed regulations for the Federal Student Aid programs authorized under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA). The committee will include representatives of organizations or groups with interests that are significantly affected by the subject matter of the proposed regulations.

Like the banks, and the servicers, and their lobbyists....
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:33 PM on June 30, 2023

If the Democrats ever get control of Congress back and don’t start immediately reigning in the power of the judiciary, to stop them from acting as an unelected superlegislature, we are in for an increasingly unpleasant few decades that will likely be resolved by extralegal means, which most of us posting here will not live to see.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:39 PM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

If the Democrats ever get control of Congress back and don’t start immediately reigning in the power of the judiciary, to stop them from acting as an unelected superlegislature

They did, and didn't.
posted by heteronym at 7:50 PM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

How do you stop the Supreme Court from ruling 6-3 that reining in the power of the judiciary is unconstitutional?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 7:53 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

You put ten new justices on it to vote the other way.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:59 PM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

I really really wish these two very disparate court decisions hadn't been rolled up into one FPP because there's a lot of outrage in this thread about student loans but the voices who are despairing about whether they get served in a restaurant are entirely being drowned out.

Jonathan Capehart on the PBS NewsHour commented that two of the three decisions affected him directly; he was also outraged (at a level appropriate for PBS). YT Video

Perhaps a campaign of recording and sharing the stories of people who are negatively impacted by these horrible decisions? It could also work for post-Roe abortion stories.

Don't let the GOP control the court of public opinion, too.
posted by JDC8 at 8:02 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Which twelve Republicans are going to vote to let you do that since Mancini and Sinema are already not going to vote for it?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 8:07 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm not claiming it's within reach; it's just the mechanically workable answer to that question. Versus fantasies about suspending it, or trying to pass and ratify an amendment or whatever.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:10 PM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

How do you stop the Supreme Court from ruling 6-3 that reining in the power of the judiciary is unconstitutional?

Congress did like, a ton of shit to reign in the judiciary, and could do so again. For instance, for about the first hundred years of the republic, Congress chose their docket.

The Supreme Court can’t rule on that.

Hell, FDR merely threatening to pack the court chastened them enough to calm the fuck down in the 1930s.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:11 PM on June 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

It is revealing of MeFi's demographics that 80% of the anger is about the student loan decision and not the dangerously retrograde gay rights decision.

Personally affected by both. Not the least bit surprised about the 303creative decision; my feelings in that direction have already been worked through. Debt forgiveness might have given me some resources to work with for what's coming next. The ability to operate within the system to save up money shielded from creditors, enough to buy a reliable car, get stable shelter, move away if necessary, would be life changing, could be life saving. The idea of it sure gave me some kind of hope. Can't help being a bit pissed off I fell for a stupid daydream. I'll leave belief in the existence of effective political pressure in any helpful direction to those who are feeling less bleak just now.
posted by to wound the autumnal city at 8:13 PM on June 30, 2023 [14 favorites]

"When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time."

I can't possibly believe you actually believe you're using this reference properly when talking about someone changing a political position. Because if you do, you're basically saying that folks should be stuck with the very first position they take on every issue. Am I to believe that you arrived at what you believe to be the best policies and positions on every single issue on your first try, right off the bat? If so, you have the wisdom of Solomon and probably should be remembered for generations.
posted by Justinian at 8:37 PM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

(And more practically, if we refuse to give credit for taking better positions on stuff we incentivize digging in and never taking better positions on stuff!)
posted by Justinian at 8:38 PM on June 30, 2023 [12 favorites]

Past positions should not be like the albatross or the curse of the black spot (well, most past positions) but on the other hand they should not just go away and be taboo to talk about because of the passage of some heavily compromised and obsequiously backronymed legislation after decades of harm.

That is in no way particular to Biden; it applies to most of the (very) senior leadership.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:46 PM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

Re: the student loan decision, two points:

#1. The "major decisions" rationale is complete bullshit. The thing is, if Congress feels the Executive is overstepping the bounds it has set, it can simply change the law to make it say whatever they think it should say.

Congress can do that at any time. There is literally no reason whatsoever for the Supreme Court to step in an insert itself into a bunch of very much edge cases. Congress can look out for itself. Like in this case, it has tried to do so and failed. It is fairly amazing that the Supreme Court does not weigh this very, very heavily. It's more like: Congress tried to act and failed, therefore it is imperative that the Court step in and do what Congress didn't have the votes to do.

More like the opposite: If Congress has tried to act and failed, that is a good signal for the Court to just keep its nose out of that business altogether. Separation of powers and all that.

#2. Neither of the cases joined together in the student loan case had standing.

Clearly. Not an edge case in the least.

This entire case should have been thrown out on Day 1, based on that factor alone.

The Court ruled in the case of the individuals, they didn't have standing.

But the states that intervened somehow had standing - mostly because a few State of Missouri officials joined the lawsuit on behalf of MoHeLa.

MoHeLa was created by state law - about like any corporation in the world is formed under state law - and in some theoretical scenario might bring some income into the state. More or less like any company or corporation might earn money and pay taxes on it, I suppose.

MoHeLa did not want to join the lawsuit and in fact was very surprised to find out they were part of it. The governor and attorney general who brought this case have literally nothing to do with running MoHeLa.

Granting standing on this basis is worse than flimsy - it's just no standing at all.

It's about like granting me standing because a company in a neighboring state might have made a bucketload of money, causing the state legislature to reduce taxes in that state, causing the state legislature in my state to reduce taxes in a spirit of competition, and that would affect my personal pocketbook.

Ergo I can sue the other state for any regulation they put in place in regards to that business, because of the "direct" effect it will have on my own finances.

I happen to live in Missouri and happen to know something about the details of all this and TL;DR is:Granting standing for this case on that basis is utter and complete bullshit.
posted by flug at 9:57 PM on June 30, 2023 [15 favorites]

Especially ironic in that conservative district and circuit court judges tend to very much enjoy of disposing of cases on standing and other justiciability grounds when it suits them.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:24 PM on June 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

law is a subset of crime
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:09 AM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

while on the other hand nobody can have standing about predictable racist outcomes until they have occurred and have come with written invoices stating "due to personal racism in my heart"
posted by away for regrooving at 12:32 AM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

I feel like this is always what happens:

Some Democrats: After decades of gridlock and inaction, we've moved the political equivalent of heaven and earth to find an appropriate compromise within our party that provides a modicum of incremental progress! Congratulate us for our adept political acumen and ability to find consensus while crafting legislation!

Lots of Activists: That's nice, but what you did doesn't change much realistically and since you just said that there's been like three Supreme Court decisions that have set us back even farther than when you started on this already watered-down compromise, so really the net effect of all this is that we're still moving backwards. Maybe you should try setting your sights a little higher next time?

Some Democrats: Politics is about setting realistic expectations. We just did the impossible and gave you a huge accomplishment. No administration or Congress in the pasty forty years has been able to pass what we just passed! You should thank us!

Lots of Activists: Thank you, but that wasn't enough. We need much more help, like, yesterday. What should we do?

Some Democrats: CONGRATULATE US FOR OUR ADEPT POLITICAL ACUMEN YOU UNGRATEFUL YOUTHS.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:44 AM on July 1, 2023 [14 favorites]

Obviously, I’m going to have to walk away from this thread before somebody makes me, but I disagree with the practice of citing anything that happened in the past to figure out ways to rein in this court, when they are willing to discard all precedent and norms.

Whatever happened in the 1930s might as well have happened to another species. There were norms then and there aren’t now. Could you imagine a senator in the 1930s just balking at Merrick Garland’s nomination, or a congressional committee having hearings and hiring people to investigate the president’s son?

Would the level of explicit bribery the Supreme Court justices are simply admitting to now have stood 100 years ago? We have six unelected dictators running this country who do what they were paid to do. They know there is nothing they can do to be impeached, and that they are in absolute power until they die. They are just barely pretending to have legal reasoning behind the decisions they were paid to make, but I can imagine the mask slipping even further in the future.

We’re in a new volume of the history book now.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 5:50 AM on July 1, 2023 [10 favorites]

eponysterical?
posted by kokaku at 5:57 AM on July 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don't want to be a jackass and call anybody out, but a good political history of the Gilded Age or anything to do with early unionization (before the 1930s) will help y'all who think everything that is unprecedented in this Supreme Court is not, in fact, unprecedented. The Court has done well by the country between, oh, 1950 and 2000 or so? but the Court also gave us cases like Dred Scott, Plessy v Ferguson, Korematsu, Bowers v Hardwick, US v Wong Kim Ark, Buck v Bell, and so on.

Most of these cases were overruled just like Roe was.

I think our situation is shitty, and while I'm not personally/explicitly hit by either the student loan decision or the frankly evil "you can discriminate against queer folks" decision, I'm well aware that the ADA is on the Federalist Society's hit list and I do have skin in the game there. Plus I've spent years as a donor, and when my health permitted, a volunteer and clinic escort for Planned Parenthood so I took Dobbs pretty personally even though I'm past pregnancy myself.

But we can move the needle on the Court again. Moving the needle isn't going to happen in time for a lot of people; people are going to go through life diminished and even die because of these decisions; but our options are "change things legally" or "overthrow the government" and I think trying to overthrow the government isn't going to work. (I do think some people can and should and will leave the country; no blame if you can find somewhere better/safer and get there when the US is taking your rights!)

Also there are left-side policies I wish Biden were a lot stronger on, but also I think one of his tactics is to get the people to the left of him to push him to go places and support policies that he's not sure about personally or politically. So yeah, let's all yell at him to expand the Court and let's do what we can to give him a Congress that will pass a law to do that. I don't think that's an immediate fix but I think it's the closest thing to an actionable plan to improve the Court we have.

(I would also endorse pushing to impeach Thomas for sure and maybe some of the other justices for lying like lying liars on their disclosure form, but I think that's shooting for the moon and I'd have an expectation that we'd land in the woodpile on that request. On the other hand, it might make it easier for fence-sitters to expand the Court, so I don't think it would be wasted effort.)

It took years/decades of work to get civil rights laws passed and cases before the Supreme Court. It took the Federalist Society and the people backing them decades to remake the Court the way they wanted it. The best time to do the work of reforming the Court may have been 20 years ago, but the second best time is today.

Also don't think nobody has been fighting this battle all these years. We could have had Robert Bork on the Court. And one of the things I'm maddest at Biden about, and going to die mad about, is his part in the Clarence Thomas hearings. He fucked that up and we're all paying for it, which is one more reason we have to push Biden harder now.

(please feel free to exclude yourself from any 'we' in this comment; nobody but me has to do anything but this is what I think about collective effort, also I am tired af so please excuse any errors in this comment.)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 6:18 AM on July 1, 2023 [13 favorites]

We could have had Robert Bork on the Court.

Fun fact: After Bork was shut out, a young senator swore he would get back at the Dems and the court even if it took his whole life. That senator was Mitch McConnell.

Anyways the American right wing is a fucking nightmare.
posted by dame at 6:53 AM on July 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

I don't think anyone has mentioned in this thread that the Biden admin has actually sneakily been providing some level of significant student loan debt relief via temporary rule changes in the PSLF program. Those were in effect through Oct. 2022, and allowed me to qualify for PSLF application (where I did not before, wrong repayment plan), and 100% of my loan balances were actually eliminated a couple of months ago specifically because of those rule changes (Obama's admin created the PSLF, and Trump's had almost completely stalled it). Looks like around $14 billion of debt relief via PSLF through third quarter 2022; I'm curious what the numbers are now, because they'll include all those who benefited from the rule changes. But Biden better keep working hard to clean up this mess, he personally is a big part of the reason we have it in the first place. Hopefully he realizes this, and is genuine rather than cynical in his efforts, but we'll see.

(And I readily believe that MOHELA is genuine in their dismay at being used as a puppet in the court case, they handled my loans for the last several years, and were very loud and plenty helpful about PSLF rule changes and timely application, and just generally a fair and transparent loan manager in my experience.)

The other court decision is despairing, as well. I have to admit that my most decent self is still genuinely surprised that the "conservative" parts of our US culture are now like "fine, fuck y'all, we'll all just start openly and obviously hating everybody who isn't White, Christian and cishet" and seem to have no cognitive dissonance about just sliding into fascistic, hateful actions. I can't quite tell if they still think it's "their moment" and are seizing the day and taking the masks and hoods off because there will be no consequences; or if these are the last, desperate gasps of an anachronistic worldview slowly being subsumed by a more progressive, humanistic modernity. I suppose history will eventually tell us, but we should all redouble whatever efforts we're each making to ensure that it's the latter option.

We’re in a new volume of the history book now.

Much to my chagrin, I must emphatically agree. People are still people, but some basic cultural stuff is different now.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:31 AM on July 1, 2023 [14 favorites]

while on the other hand nobody can have standing about predictable racist outcomes until they have occurred and have come with written invoices stating "due to personal racism in my heart"

Oops, the hatred was in his soul, case dismissed.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:04 AM on July 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah, before Biden PSLF was basically a lie. The program now actually works as promised. Better even.
posted by notyou at 8:24 AM on July 1, 2023 [9 favorites]

Yeah, most of my Late Gen X/Geriatric Millennial friends work in the public service sector (lots of teachers and social workers), and the number of folks who have FINALLY gotten their loans forgiven in the past year (after trying multiples times and failing to properly check the boxes for PSLF) has been remarkable. And this is especially important since these are careers that 1) desperately need people and 2) never pay well.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:10 AM on July 1, 2023 [12 favorites]

There's a PSLF subreddit where knowledgeable people hang out and help answer questions about it, and the rapid increase of people talking about getting their loans forgiven (and overpayments refunded) after the Biden admin actually made the damn thing work has been remarkable
posted by jason_steakums at 9:13 AM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

So yeah, let's all yell at him to expand the Court and let's do what we can to give him a Congress that will pass a law to do that.

I agree*, but this is always the point in the cycle where BlueMAGA flips the switch from "Vote harder! We can pull them left after the election!" to "But the President has no power! It's a ceremonial position! They're a figurehead! The President is Constitutionally just a sad smol bean!"

*I mean, ideally we'd expand the court such that there's one Justice for each circuit, but that would require legislation, whereas Joe Biden could go out today and say, "Mr. Roberts has made his decision; now let him enforce it." Neither is going to happen, but if I'm dreaming, it may as well be a big dream.
posted by MrBadExample at 9:52 AM on July 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

There has to be some check on the Supreme
Court beyond impeachment. The branches of government are co-equal after all. While I can see the problems / slippery slope created by ignoring some Supreme Court rulings, I think that absent some other reforms we may have no choice.

Suppose Biden has the DOJ draft a memo on enforcing “major questions” Supreme Court rulings. The memo could say: we agree with the court that Congress should weigh in on this important matter; but for purposes of actions we will exercise our prerogative under separation of powers to enforce the law as written until such time as Congress amends it. Essentially saying we have three co-equal branch of government and in the case of a tie between the executive and the court a tie goes to the policy we’ve set.

This is obviously a potential slippery slope; but we are already sliding down the slope where the court is a defacto super legislature / super president and that is the crisis before us today.
posted by interogative mood at 10:58 AM on July 1, 2023

Thing is, I think Biden is going to continue to be against expanding the court.
posted by Selena777 at 11:02 AM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

The memo could say: we agree with the court that Congress should weigh in on this important matter; but for purposes of actions we will exercise our prerogative under separation of powers to enforce the law as written until such time as Congress amends it.

The law as is written is found in the Supreme Court holding. That is law, in our system. Under Marbury, etc.

Do you want a notional next Trump administration to govern this way? What if they issued a memo saying, 'Obergfell is cute and all but we're instructing all Federal agencies to treat it as a nullity and will not interfere with any states doing likewise because that's how we read the Constitution.#tradlife.'

If you want to take the position that the rule of law has already failed; then fine. But the remedies that follow from that are not even more farcical legalities.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:08 AM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

It really is different than a lot of other constitutional issues because the ruling of the court does still contradict the wording of the law and this was so clearly a "Congress can try to amend the law or use their powers of impeachment any time they want" situation that was instead used as an explicitly political act by a horrible Supreme Court. And this isn't some "what were the founders really thinking" ruling where maybe the nuances of the wording have changed over time, this was passed by unanimous consent by Congress two decades ago when they were in a frenzy of giving GWB unchecked power, and many of the people who passed it are still there, and frankly they shouldn't have their asses pulled from the fire they started by the court... But yeah, deciding to ignore it is great until your decision to ignore it is pretext for someone else ignoring whatever they want. The Jacksonian approach is not a thing you can rely on to be used responsibly - I mean, its first use was to get away with atrocities.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:19 AM on July 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

the united states of america is a tactic. the united states of america is also the terrain. good things (most good things?) that happen in the area of north america where the united states of america is part of the terrain and where participation in the united states of america is an available tactic are things that happen outside of and frequently despite the united states of america, and many very bad things that happen in this geographical region can be sourced to the united states of america. same thing goes for many of the bad things and some of the good things that happen in other geographical regions — much can be sourced to and explained by the organization called the united states of america. it’s doubtlessly a very important organization.

really wish people would stop talking like the united states of america is the territory that it claims, and really wish that people wouldn’t treat participation in the united states of america (most particularly the electoral sub-organizations within the united states of america organization) as the end-all and be-all of political action, and really wish that people wouldn’t react to people “yes and”ing participation of various forms in the united states of america tactic as if those people were “no never”ing it.

likewise i wish that people would stop having parasocial relationships with the people in the federal elected government sub-organization within the united states of america organization. you do not know these people. you do not know their beliefs. you do not know whether or not what they want is what you want. all you know is a little bit about the way they’re using the united states of america tactic. people taking an informed critical stance on those people are not hurting their feelings, because those people do not know us and aren’t particularly concerned with what we’re saying. likewise informed critique does not hurt their electoral prospects, because white-knuckled dissent-nonbrooking happy-talk about the best-we-can-getness of these people with whom some folks have parasocial relationships is pretty crappy as an electoral tactic — it doesn’t convince the people you’re talking to and it doesn’t convince casual outside observers.

in conclusion: ugh.

this has been your bombastic lowercase pronouncement for the day.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:21 AM on July 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

> If you want to take the position that the rule of law has already failed

astronaut 1, background: wait, the rule of law is a fiction?
astronaut 2, foreground: always has been.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:22 AM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

The bankruptcy courts will see that activity and refuse to abet it.
posted by Selena777 at 11:22 AM on July 1, 2023

The term of art is fraudulent conveyance.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:25 AM on July 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Do you want a notional next Trump administration to govern this way?

The only reason the actual last Trump administration didn't tell the Supreme Court to go fuck themselves at every opportunity is that they got to load a free justice that McConnell had stolen into an already conservative-tilted court on day one. The fascists are never, ever going to look at how reasonable the Democrats were about respecting the Very Respectable And Not At All A Bunch Of Partisan Hacks Roberts Court and say "Oh, well, geez, then I guess the Sotomayor Court should be respected as well."
posted by Etrigan at 11:25 AM on July 1, 2023 [11 favorites]

i wonder what the limits of the actual-ness of the business are. if you’re opening a business and shoveling loan money directly into your student loans, that’s one thing. if you’re opening a one-person consulting firm and paying yourself a reasonable salary out of that consulting firm’s profits for a reasonable amount of time, and also you just so happen to be using parts of your salary to pay off your student loans, that seems like something that a good accountant can finesse, even if any finessing is necessary at all.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:27 AM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

You are not going to out-lawyer the bankruptcy trustee. This sort of thing is wishful thinking, not praxis. The mirror image of sov cit moon law.

The fascists are never, ever going to look at how reasonable the Democrats were about respecting the Very Respectable And Not At All A Bunch Of Partisan Hacks Roberts Court and say "Oh, well, geez, then I guess the Sotomayor Court should be respected as well."

What do you fail to understand about the very obvious double game this plays? If you take the invitation to suspend the rule of law because they're willing to, you lose. Spare me people who scream about fascism without any implication they've studied it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:34 AM on July 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

You hear entrepreneurial types tell it, business loans are near impossible to get, anyway.
posted by Selena777 at 11:53 AM on July 1, 2023

The best scheme I've heard involved non-recourse debt rather than bankruptcy. But all of these schemes have in common that in order to for them to be feasible, you would have to already have so much money sloshing around that student loans probably wouldn't be a huge problem for you anyway.
posted by Not A Thing at 1:39 PM on July 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you take the invitation to suspend the rule of law because they're willing to, you lose.

I'm fine with not wanting to ignore the Supreme Court because of a philosophical devotion to the rule of law. Just don't try to convince me that doing so is going to have any causal effect on the next Republican administration ignoring the rule of law whenever they want to anyway.
posted by Etrigan at 2:00 PM on July 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

i need to see a citation vis a vis the rule of law ever having existed also failing that something that makes a good case that a rule of law can exist.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:05 PM on July 1, 2023

The law as is written is found in the Supreme Court holding. That is law, in our system. Under Marbury, etc.

Do you want a notional next Trump administration to govern this way? What if they issued a memo saying, 'Obergfell is cute and all but we're instructing all Federal agencies to treat it as a nullity and will not interfere with any states doing likewise because that's how we read the Constitution.#tradlife.'

This is not a good comparison. For one, Obergfell was a court case, not a law. Two, the fact that our legislature is so captured by special interests and partisanship is not a great reason to hope for legislating from the bench. Part of the reason we’re in this mess is because Congress has basically abdicated control of any social or cultural issue to the courts to solve.

Three, Congress is a coequal branch of our government. It is not subservient to the Supreme Court and their is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that gives the Supreme Court the final say on laws passed by Congress.

At the end of the day, either we live in a democracy or we live in a kritocracy. We can’t live in both. The Supreme Court is massively unpopular and continues to get more unpopular. Something is going to give at some point.
posted by rhymedirective at 2:24 PM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

Oh, and I don’t want to abuse the edit window, so: we are now at the point where the Supreme Court is openly hearing entirely fictional disputes in order to exert their personal politics beliefs on a nation of 350 million people.
posted by rhymedirective at 2:28 PM on July 1, 2023 [17 favorites]

(june, Bluesky): i’m begging elon musk to purchase the company that has my private student loans, put them out of business due to stupidity please
posted by Wordshore at 2:53 PM on July 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

"When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time."

That has never meant "People can never change, and never do, even over decades."

Politicians, as a class of people, are especially known to evolve quite a bit as the political consensus in their party, and society at large, evolves. There are myriad examples of Biden himself doing so. So the idea that 2023 Biden is identical to, say, 1973 Biden is just unsupported by the facts.

I am struck, tho, by the number of people who think that because they've got hold of some quote, or some vote, of Biden's from decades ago that they've learned the "real truth" about him... and then proceed to ignore any more recent words or actions that demonstrate his evolution.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:01 PM on July 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Adding: It's not necessary to believe in Biden being fundamentally virtuous, according to your personal definition of virtue, to recognize that the positions he now supports and advocates for are different from the positions he supported and advocated for long ago.

He has always positioned himself as center-left -- neither at the AOC left or Manchin right edges of his party. But what it means to be a moderate Democrat has changed quite a big over time. It meant something different in the '90s than it did in the '70s, and it means something different again now. He seems to have an instinct for finding positions and rhetoric that will draw support from the largest number of Dem voters at any given time.

Given the range of views and priorities in the party, this is a logical strategy, and a good one for getting elected and actually being able to wield power. But it will never, and can never, satisfy everyone. It's a big party, containing a range of voters, with a range of views.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:17 PM on July 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Thing is, I think Biden is going to continue to be against expanding the court.

I think Biden will continue to be against expanding the court for exactly as long as he lacks the votes in the Senate to do so. If that changed I think we'd see some evolution in his thinking. Same as doing away with... sorry, "reforming"... the filibuster.
posted by Justinian at 4:30 PM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

All the scolding about how people advocating for badly-needed court reform are sov cit moon cheese cosplay dreamers will be moot, anyways, once Trump or his ersatz offspring get in and either formally do away with democracy or pack the courts to do the same, permanently. No need for apologists to worry.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:58 PM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

People with student loans should be notified with text like the following:

At the request of / Despite the opposition of [depending on official position on the court case]. your elected officials [insert names] the Supreme Court has issued a ruling that your student loan payments must resume on [Date]. Your payment will be $[amount]. Please contact your representative in Congress if you have questions about opportunities for legislative action to reverse this decision by the Supreme Court.
posted by interogative mood at 6:16 PM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

This is not a good comparison. For one, Obergfell was a court case, not a law. .

Everything that comes out of the Supreme Court is a court case. If the White House ignored this ruling, it would be ignoring a "court case." That's incoherent.

Two, the fact that our legislature is so captured by special interests and partisanship is not a great reason to hope for legislating from the bench

There is no such thing as 'legislating from the bench,' that's a right-wing canard. Also, how does this in any way invalidate the comparison?

Part of the reason we’re in this mess is because Congress has basically abdicated control of any social or cultural issue to the courts to solve.

Wait, Congress is both captured by social interests, but abdicating all social and cultural issues? I wonder if Lauren Bobert and MGS are aware that's what they're doing.

And how do these things follow from each other?

Three, Congress is a coequal branch of our government. It is not subservient to the Supreme Court and their is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that gives the Supreme Court the final say on laws passed by Congress.

I can't with this stuff. Co-equal doesn't mean fully redundant. The Congress is not a back-up court system or executive. The Supreme Court is not a backup legislature, or commander-in-chief. There's more to the structure of the government and the separation of powers than the How A Bill Becomes a Law song and a few buzzwords.

Equally, the idea that the rule of law is a mere "philosophy" rather an actual condition that prevails or doesn't in various aspects; and among other things, how the state monopoly on violence is supposed to be tempered. How can you both complain about the loss of civil rights, and then turn around and say it's all a fiction anyway, so we might as well become authoritarians faster than they can?

The rule of law is the thing we are supposedly are defending, that the other side is rather effectively hollowing it out doesn't mean it never existed or should be abandoned. Even given the various ways its been impaired or corrupted throughout the history of the country, or the concept.

I think that's going to be it for me in this thread. At least this wretched Court term is over.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:58 PM on July 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

(Also, Trump already tried to cast it aside, that was Jan. 6, and it didn't work.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:19 PM on July 1, 2023

I can't with this stuff. Co-equal doesn't mean fully redundant.

I’m just going to respond to this statement, because I think it’s an excellent example of the sort of weird lawyer-think that has gotten us to this point.

Of course coequal doesn’t mean redundant, that’s not what the word “coequal” means, and I think you know that. But really what you’re saying is that we have some sort of logical if/then that structures the federal government: if Congress does this, then the Supreme Court can do this. Which is complete nonsense, to be clear.

What we have now is a system where 9 people, unelected and unaccountable to any democratic means of correction, can basically do whatever the fuck they want.

So, yes, the Supreme Court is currently acting as an unaccountable superlegislature, because you can file a basically fictional lawsuit with the intention of getting the Republican majority to enshrine their personal political beliefs into the “rule of law” of this country.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:39 PM on July 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

Co-equal certainly also doesn't mean that "all branches of government can act as though the others don't exist, or assume their functions at will when they've decided the others aren't working." There are ways in which they are meant to be 'subservient' to each others powers. And, no, it's not all written down in the Constitution. It's written down in Marbury and in other precedent and legislation. Guess who prefers as minimal and literal a reading of the Constitution as possible to control as much as possible?

By analogy, someone committing war crimes against you doesn't mean that war crimes are no longer a thing and everyone should just immediately start committing atrocities.

If you want to defend, preserve and restore a thing under attack, then step one isn't discarding it. It's going a lot harder at it.

If you're an anarchist, or some flavor of accelerationist and would brefer a further breakdown so there can be open conflict, then I don't know why we're even arguing about it; you have an entirely different view of the world.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:04 PM on July 1, 2023

If one believes in the theory that heigtened contradictions lead to revolution and/or general chaos, then it seems like the current US conservative movement and the constitutional order that enbles it to exercise disproportionate power compared to the popular support it commands is a powerful ally.

In other words, a system of "checks and balances" created in a large part to protect the interests of white (male) landowners during an era when the sailing ship was the fastest means of travel isn't exactly well suited to operating during an era of instant electronic communication, nuclear missles, and enviromental disasters like global warming.

It seems like the US coasted on the fumes of the New Deal and the Cold War liberal consensus into the 90's but ran aground by 2008. Now, in an emerging multi-polar world beset with increased war, tension, and environmental diaster, its fallen to in-fighting and factionalism that is causing it to fall behind rising powers and rendering it unable to respond to the changing enviroment or even take care of its own citizens.

The elites of both parties, who hit their prime during the triumphalist 90's and early 00's when the US believed it'd become a "hyperpower", seem oblivious to the growing danger. To name just one example, a Senator from Alambama is holding Pentagon appointments hostage at a time of increased war and hostility in both Europe and the Pacific.

Right now, the US reminds me of the Principate heading into the Third Century Crisis. We're pretty much a military, economic, or even environmental diaster away from the abyss.
posted by eagles123 at 8:25 PM on July 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

There is no such thing as 'legislating from the bench,' that's a right-wing canard.

Two words: qualified immunity. That was very much the court legislating from the bench, as they actively went against the laws Congress passed to hold cops liable for violations of civil rights.

Just because the right wing makes something into a boogieman doesn't mean it's not real - in fact, many times the purpose of doing so is to conceal what is actually happening.

Given the range of views and priorities in the party, this is a logical strategy, and a good one for getting elected and actually being able to wield power.

There's a certain sort of leftist that thinks that you can use the "bully pulpit" to force the hand of society, and that never how political power works. The Overton Window exists for a reason.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:02 AM on July 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

If ever there was a decision ripe for the "now let him enforce it" treatment, this is the one. Robert's "major questions" doctrine is some complete bullshit, but it's the kind of bullshit the Court is legitimately allowed to do, as much as I disagree.

However, as Kagan made clear in her dissent, the Court should never have decided this case. The plaintiffs completely lacked standing to sue in the first place. MOHELA or any other servicer could have had they wanted to, but didn't. States don't get to run to court over policy disagreements. That's not what the courts are there for.

It's one thing for them to make what I think is bad law, it's another thing entirely to usurp the power of the other branches of government and essentially appoint yourself king.
posted by wierdo at 1:35 PM on July 2, 2023 [14 favorites]

So this is where the idea of packing the court is now.
posted by Selena777 at 6:31 AM on July 3, 2023

So just to recap: the Supreme Court just denied loan forgiveness for 43 Million Americans.

And the Biden Administration's response, from the FAQ listed on studentaid.gov:

What is the timeline for the new debt relief program?

The Department will work to complete and implement the new rules as quickly as possible.

Totally ambiguous timeline! No promises when this will actually get done!

I qualified for the one-time emergency debt relief plan. Will I also qualify for the new debt relief?

The Department will design the parameters of the program with public participation over the coming months. However, the Secretary has directed his staff to explore policy options for debt relief that will help as many people as possible.

No promises that you'll qualify for the new program, even if you qualified for the old one!

Should I pay my student loans while I wait for the Administration’s new debt relief program?

Yes. Interest will start accruing on September 1, 2023, and first payments are due in October. When designing a new debt relief program, the Department of Education will consider ways to ensure that borrowers making payments do not reduce their eligibility for debt relief.

Also no promises that doing what you are required to do--resuming payments on September 1st--also won't impact the amount of relief you qualify for in the new program.

This messaging is fucking terrible, even if it's the "reality" for the situation. This is why people criticize Democrats and the Biden administration. The Supreme Court nullifies the prospect of debt relief for 43 million people and Democrats are all "we're working on a new program. the system takes time. maybe you'll qualify, and maybe you won't. No promises. Fuck you for pretending we care about how uncertain your life has been"

What Biden should do is up the ante: This program didn't fly, but the next one will triple the amount of relief everyone gets.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:32 AM on July 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

Wouldn't that seem suspicious to fumble the original attempt and then make bigger promises?
posted by Selena777 at 9:29 AM on July 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah I would much rather boring but accurate updates that are in line with pretty much every regulatory change process than overpromising. Maybe that's not good "messaging" or whatever but a FAQ on StudentAid.gov is not a place for messaging, it's a place for the reality of the situation. The authority they're making these changes under is not like flipping a switch.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:39 AM on July 3, 2023 [8 favorites]

But this is the classic trap that Republicans keep springing: make the government appear unreliable, incompetent, and insensitive so no one will ever trust it.

Everything on that FAQ is 100% true and it would be improper to engage in any sort of political messaging. But for everyone who applied for the relief and got an email saying that their application had been accepted, it really sucks that the official government line comes across as a giant shrug emoji.

Biden took a calculated risk with the amount of messaging that they did do in promoting the program, just like it was a calculated risk to tie the resumption of payments to the debt ceiling agreement. Those bets didn't pay off, and the administration owes borrowers an explanation and a timeline and a promise as to whether they really can get it done or not.

Businesses regularly lose their shit over uncertainty with respect to government policy. I don't see why students should be any different.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:49 PM on July 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

Businesses pretend to lose their shit over uncertainty with respect to government policy, but keep shoveling cash towards politicians that create that uncertainty. Funny, that.
posted by wierdo at 2:08 PM on July 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Activists are planing to use the same equal protection argument used to kill affirmative action to go after legacy admissions. I’m sure the court will find some excuse that the government should discriminate based on parentage is totally not racial discrimination.
posted by interogative mood at 3:24 PM on July 3, 2023 [5 favorites]

It feels existential to me in a fundamental way.

So, I'm definitely not going to tell anyone how to feel about this, but I'll tell you how I comfort myself over it. Businesses that were supportive will remain so. Businesses that were discriminatory were already out there, skating by on the fact that what's someone gonna do about it, sue? But this ruling throws down a gauntlet: Which do does a business care more about, their profits or their opinion? Because now, if they discriminate, there is no recourse but negative publicity and a boycott, and don't you suppose that those will become more popular, more utilized, now? The court decided to stoke a nation's division and anger, but that anger goes both ways. A business that relies on word of mouth and social media is a vulnerable entity. It's not enough, it's not fair and it's not right, but in terms of the concrete changes people will experience day-to-day, I try to tell myself there won't be many from this one decision. (Now, if they suddenly decide it's okay to fire us, cut our pay, throw us out of our homes...)
posted by mittens at 6:44 PM on July 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

It feels existential to me in a fundamental way. I wish I could communicate this clearly.

I'm straight but I think I get you, because I remember how I felt after Dobbs. Even though I can no longer have kids myself, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. It's been a year and it hasn't entirely gone away, either. Maybe it's grief for the illusion that US society was going to treat us like we were equal.

(And yeah, I know people with other marginalizations feel this all the time. I wish society didn't do things that made us feel this way and I wish we could stop them when they try.)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:02 PM on July 3, 2023

n.b. i am so not a finance guy i am posting this at least halfway because i want someone who knows what they're talking about to tell me i'm wrong

okay so. the student loan thing

there's these financial instruments called slabs (student-loan asset-backed securities) that are tied to the value of the incoming money streams from student loans, iirc arranged into tranches based on likelihood of the borrowers in the set of loans to pay. sort of analogous to the mortgage-backed securities that drove the 2008 crash

anyway, there's a fair bit of money tied up in these things and i recall reading a lot of speculation earlier in the pandemic about how the money people need neither of the following things to happen:

student loan forgiveness
large numbers of defaults on student loans

and so therefore ever since a ton of people with student loans lost their livelihoods in 2020 we've been locked in a "no one pays anything for a while and how long that while lasts no one knows" holding pattern in order to stave off both defaults and forgiveness. but! because student loan forgiveness is popular, the democrats can't dismiss it out of hand, but also because of point 1 above they won't do it, either. therefore: punt — institute it in an ineffective way that will nevertheless take a while to unwind into failure, keep the freeze on repayments going for as long as possible, attempt to use forgiveness-but-we-mean-it-this-time while campaigning

bullshit/not bullshit/potentially not bullshit? slabs: threat, menace, or nah it's not like that?
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:35 PM on July 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

but! because student loan forgiveness is popular, the democrats can't dismiss it out of hand, but also because of point 1 above they won't do it, either. therefore: punt — institute it in an ineffective way that will nevertheless take a while to unwind into failure, keep the freeze on repayments going for as long as possible, attempt to use forgiveness-but-we-mean-it-this-time while campaigning

These leftist conspiracy theories about how the Democrats aren't really trying to do the things they're trying to do are endlessly annoying. And endlessly stupid.

To poke just one obvious hole in this one: SCOTUS overturning Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, right as forebearance is expiring, isn't at all well-timed from a campaign perspective, given that the 2024 campaign season is about to begin.

And the Biden admin has already set in motion alternate mechanisms for attempting to accomplish forgiveness. They are trying their damnedest, whether or not everyone believes it, or understands it. (The minutiae of the federal regulatory process are mind-numbing, I admit, and I only have a dim grasp of it despite following it for my job.)

Whether SCOTUS lets the next attempt at loan forgiveness stand or not is anyone's guess, of course.

I understand the appeal of conspiracy theories: They're simple (too simple), and they posit that everything is under control, even if the bad guys are in the driver's seat. They eliminate the nerve-wracking uncertainty that comes with recognizing that actually, nobody knows what's ultimately going to happen, and there is no master plan. It's just ignorant armies clashing by night.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:15 PM on July 4, 2023 [8 favorites]

These leftist conspiracy theories about how the Democrats aren't really trying to do the things they're trying to do are endlessly annoying. And endlessly stupid.

I’d go even stronger: they’re actively harming the causes they claim to support. This kind of nonsense makes the people repeating look at uninformed and unconcerned about real problems at best, and tools of the right at worst. It’s time to seriously reconsider your choices when the likes of Steve Bannon wouldn’t ask you to change a thing.
posted by adamsc at 5:23 AM on July 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

They are trying their damnedest, whether or not everyone believes it, or understands it. (The minutiae of the federal regulatory process are mind-numbing, I admit, and I only have a dim grasp of it despite following it for my job.)

If lots of people doubt that the administration is trying their damnedest, isn't that by definition a messaging issue? Isn't it their responsibility to manage the optics and convince everyone that filing Form 311-J to initiate the federal rule-making process counts as doing something? And isn't it up to them to convince people that's the only thing they can do at this point?

It annoys me that the response to so many complaints has been to de-legitimize people for not knowing how the system works, not knowing that the administration is really trying their hardest, not knowing that there's absolutely nothing that can be done--it's the responsibility of politicians to manage expectations. If they can't convince people that they're trying their damnedest, then they're not doing their job.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:56 AM on July 5, 2023

isn't that by definition a messaging issue?

It's almost as if there were a vast sea of media outlets controlled by Republicans ever-anxious to find new ways to normalize Trump and explain away white racists and go on cletus safari and lift up dead-ender dingbats like Kennedy or West and interview totally normal everyday off the street people who absolutely don't turn out later to be officials in the local republican party.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:16 AM on July 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

Isn't it their responsibility to manage the optics and convince everyone that filing Form 311-J to initiate the federal rule-making process counts as doing something?

If you know how to convince people that anything that even smells slightly of bureaucracy isn't by default a broken and useless thing please share, because you'd be fighting against generations of everything from propaganda designed to delegitimize government, to frustrations in line at the DMV, to legitimately awful bureaucratic processes that genuinely seem designed to make it harder for those in need (see every red state's state Medicaid signup process at this point).

I think the best thing they can do in this situation is stick the landing and prove that it's doing something, they can use whatever messaging they want and it's not going to shift entrenched opinions one iota, so they just need to do the thing. Doing the thing while making it seem like nothing more than dry boring bureaucracy the whole time may be inadvertently even more valuable in the long run because it will help undo at least some small part of the damage done against the reputation of government and the value of education in civics.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:54 AM on July 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

If you know how to convince people that anything that even smells slightly of bureaucracy isn't by default a broken and useless thing please share, because you'd be fighting against generations of everything from propaganda designed to delegitimize government, to frustrations in line at the DMV, to legitimately awful bureaucratic processes that genuinely seem designed to make it harder for those in need (see every red state's state Medicaid signup process at this point).

But that's my point. The criticism is that Democrats aren't doing enough to solve the student debt crisis. In response, some Democrats are effectively saying "We are doing something, you just don't understand the significance of what we're doing"

If Democrats want people to believe they're doing something, they have to convince them that they're doing something. And yes, that's a very difficult proposition given how long Republicans have been poisoning the well, but that's just the reality of the situation. You can't just blame people for not getting enthusiastic about ambiguous timetables and opaque bureaucratic processes. It's up to Democrats to demonstrate that they are fighting, and if people think Democrats aren't fighting, it's because of terrible messaging.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:38 AM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

> These leftist conspiracy theories about how the Democrats aren't really trying to do the things they're trying to do are endlessly annoying. And endlessly stupid.

To poke just one obvious hole in this one: SCOTUS overturning Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, right as forebearance is expiring, isn't at all well-timed from a campaign perspective, given that the 2024 campaign season is about to begin.

And the Biden admin has already set in motion alternate mechanisms for attempting to accomplish forgiveness. They are trying their damnedest, whether or not everyone believes it, or understands it. (The minutiae of the federal regulatory process are mind-numbing, I admit, and I only have a dim grasp of it despite following it for my job.)

you’re probably right.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:49 AM on July 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Based on the pushback in this thread I don’t think there is anything more that can be done from a PR perspective. It seems to be an article of faith among some that Biden is evil and if we had a true leftist all our problems would be solved.
posted by interogative mood at 10:27 PM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

It seems to be an article of faith among some that Biden is evil

7/14/23: Biden administration announces $39 billion in student debt relief following administrative fixes [CNN]

If people in this thread can't find the intellectual honesty to admit that Biden is one of most successful, left-leaning presidents this country's ever had, well I just don't know.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 12:59 PM on July 14, 2023 [7 favorites]

I’m sure we’ll hear the litany of complaints in the usual places and podcasts about how this is actually more evidence of how shitty Biden is as we head towards Biden’s inevitable defeat.
posted by interogative mood at 1:12 PM on July 14, 2023

I did not vote for Biden, and I could have offered a laundry list of reasons why not, all of the lefty variety, and I want to tell you when I got my email from the Department of Education today saying that some or all of my loans were going to be forgiven because of that 'administrative fix,' I felt like I had actually experienced that rarest of things, a campaign promise followed through on.

As for messaging--well, we are now hearing a lot more mainstream media outlets talking about the shape of these programs and what they're expected to do, so the messaging is getting out there (I personally didn't understand what they meant until I saw them described on Wonkette of all places, but now the rest of the media seems to be catching up).

I reserve the right to gripe and gripe about anything I like--I'm old now, I can do that!--but HOO BOY, is the whole "the supreme court defeated biden's plan so everybody's going to be poor due to student loans" not the actual story.
posted by mittens at 1:54 PM on July 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

Ahh that's awesome to hear that you're among the group affected by the latest change! I finally ran the numbers on what the SAVE plan is going to do to my payments yesterday with the extension to 225% of the federal poverty level and capping at 5% of discretionary income and wow - I'm moving to a new place soon and was worried about loan repayments restarting at the levels I was expecting with my new home payments too but now I'm feeling a huge relief, not quite the difference between surviving and thriving but a LOT of budgeting anxiety just eased up.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:52 PM on July 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

IMO “the left should be satisfied with Biden because he’s the most left wing president since FDR” are somewhat oblivious to how big the crisis we are in is.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:39 AM on July 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just want to note that:

“the left should be satisfied with Biden because he’s the most left wing president since FDR”

is not a good faith reading of the statement:

If people in this thread can't find the intellectual honesty to admit that Biden is one of most successful, left-leaning presidents this country's ever had, well I just don't know.

Asserting that Biden is among the most successful left-leaning presidents that the US has had is not the same as being satisfied with his work: it's entirely possible to believe the former and still be dissatisfied with the latter. IMO, disingenuous readings of plain statements are what make politics threads here--which are otherwise typically quite informative--really tendentious and too often tedious.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:48 AM on July 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

Think of it more as “Biden is not the bottleneck”. He gets a lot of blame because he’s the President, and because outrage clicks spread further than information, but that effort should really be directed at lower-level positions so we don’t keep being in the situation where hanging onto the presidency is barely staving off disaster.
posted by adamsc at 7:50 AM on July 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Honestly, any debate about Whither The Degree Of Biden's Left-ness always falls down for me when I remember that Biden's opponent for the office of the presidency was Donald Trump.

Yeah okay sure there were other candidates in the primary, but people voted in the primary (presumably) and that's who we ended up with, so....?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:26 AM on July 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

It seems to be an article of faith among some that Biden is evil and if we had a true leftist all our problems would be solved.

I think for a lot of us, he is a relatively successful president in the customary Democratic POTUS mode: nudging the nation left where he feels it's prudent, giving it a confident shove when he feels he can get away with it.

It's not so much that we're disappointed in him as uneasy. Because the last guy from the other side absolutely was not an incrementalist, or even one who kept a steady pace and was strategically assertive when he thought he could carry it.

He was a goddam lunatic fascist who didn't so much nudge or push the nation his way as drop kick it down a hill.

I'm very uneasy about Biden, even as he's a successful, lefty president within his mold. The thing is, the other guys broke the fucking mold, and they've been working hard to rig the game so they can do even more, faster next time.

I am not confident Biden's "reminding America what reasonable governance looks like" pace is going to do enough to stabilize democracy as is truly needed during the interregnum between GOP administrations intent on rapidly implementing a Christo-fascist dictatorship.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:30 PM on July 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

You can blame "Democratic messaging", but ultimately I don't know how the Democratic party can fix a broken media ecosystem that fails to give the public a clear idea of the administration's policies.

Most people I know who lean left (which is most people I know) are reasonably intelligent and pay some attention to the news, but it's astonishing how few of them know much about what the administration is doing on a whole host of issues.

The media is just terrible at putting things in perspective. They'll spend a week obsessing over an oil lease in Alaska, but barely mention the guarantees of no further development in huge tracts of the state that was part of the deal (or the fact that local native tribes pushed the administration to support the deal).

They rarely talk about the vast offshore wind farms being planned off the East, West, and Gulf Coasts. They almost never mention all the regulatory changes being made to reduce carbon emissions from buildings and vehicles, clean up oil and gas drilling operations, enable long-distance power transmission lines, or regulate "forever chemicals". They don't talk about the huge environmental justice push, across multiple agencies, that is a signature effort of this administration. They don't talk about the record pace at which Biden has appointed progressive judges, including vast numbers of black and female judges.

If you follow the "smarter" news outlets, you will get snippets of the above news, here and there. But it's never properly put into an overall context, and each development is typically mentioned once and then forgotten. So nobody retains a good overall picture of the administration's accomplishments. Almost nobody sees that this is actually a major historical inflection point -- a moment when this country (the federal government, at least) is finally taking climate change (and a bunch of other environmental catastrophes) seriously, and is responding vigorously.

Meanwhile, many people -- even the aforementioned relatively smart lefty people -- still make far more of their political judgements on a combination of, effectively, social media gossip and vibes. They aren't conscious of how much they judge politicians on aesthetics and personality. Add in generous helpings of ageism and ableism (Biden is old and has a speech impediment, therefore he's probably senile), and stir.

I can't drive myself crazy worrying about it. The news is broken. People are people. Things are what they are. It's up to each of us to pay close attention and use our critical thinking skills.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:00 PM on July 16, 2023 [8 favorites]

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