Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to deliver!

October 5, 2023

          As the House spirals into chaos, President Joe Biden announced the cancellation of $9 billion of student debt for public service workers. Per the NYTimes (accessible to all),

President Biden canceled an additional $9 billion in student debt on Wednesday as repayments started up again this month after a three-year pause.

The move affects 125,000 people who qualify under existing programs, including for public-service workers such as teachers and firefighters and for people on permanent disability, according to a White House statement.

“This kind of relief is life changing for individuals and their families,” Mr. Biden said on Wednesday.

          The $9 billion in forgiveness for public service workers is a small portion of Biden’s plan to forgive $400 billion in student debt for about 43 million Americans, a plan that was invalidated by the Supreme Court under the so-called “Major Questions Doctrine.” That doctrine is a judicially invented artifice that allows the Supreme Court to invalidate any congressional legislation it objects to on policy grounds.

          Of course, Congress could overrule the Supreme Court’s opinion blocking the forgiveness of student debt—but that would require Democrats to gain a majority in the House, retain control of the Senate, and re-elect President Biden. Each of those outcomes is achievable. If we can achieve those goals in 2024, Democrats can also pass national legislation to protect reproductive liberty, regulate the sale of firearms, protect voting rights, ensure the equality of LGBTQ people, and expand the Supreme Court.

          Biden’s act of forgiving student loan debt for 125,000 Americans provides a glimpse of the promise of 2024 if Democrats regain control of Congress and re-elect Joe Biden. I know we are all working at full speed and do not need additional motivation. But it is helpful to recall how much better things can be if we are successful.

The race to replace Kevin McCarthy.

          Let’s get this out of the way: No, Donald Trump won’t be the next Speaker of the House, despite suggestions to that effect from Marjorie Taylor Greene. The one thing Republicans love more than Trump is holding onto their jobs. They know that electing Trump as Speaker would ensure the loss of control of the House and the defeat of Trump as a presidential candidate. Republicans will figure out that fact after they have milked their fifteen minutes of fame for nominating Trump as Speaker.

          Trump doesn’t want to be Speaker, which is a real job that requires hard work in exchange for the enmity of the Republican caucus. And if Republicans lose their collective minds and elect Trump as Speaker, he will trigger government shutdowns, legislative gridlock, and physical altercations on the House floor (among Republicans). He would quit in weeks, forcing Republicans to go through a humiliating third election for Speaker in a year.

          Trump had plenty of opportunity to step up to the Speaker’s job when McCarthy went through fifteen rounds of votes. He didn’t then, and he isn’t going to do so now.

          Finally, Trump is ineligible to be Speaker under rules passed by the Republican caucus. See MSNBC, Why Trump, despite the chatter, won’t become House speaker. Per MSNBC,

House Republican Conference rules for the 118th Congress clearly states, “A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment may be imposed.”

           Could Republicans amend their own rule? Sure! But they won’t.

          I could be proven wrong, but I don’t think I will be. Why? I believe House Republicans will put their self-interest in re-election over their faux fealty to Trump. As we saw yesterday, it takes only five Republicans to break from the party to stop the GOP caucus in its tracks.

          Okay, with that elephant in the courtroom out of the way, let’s talk about the two announced candidates. But before we do, I want to answer a question a reader posed: Did Democrats make a mistake by not backing McCarthy? Will we end up with someone worse?

          No. Democrats did not make a mistake. McCarthy said in his farewell pity party that he did not want to work with Democrats. He said,

he would not have wanted to be speaker at the cost of relying on Democrats to provide votes or making concessions to win their votes. “No. I’m a Republican. I win by Republicans, and I lose by Republicans.”

          If Democrats had begun voting for McCarthy on the motion to vacate, other Republicans would have started voting against him or he would have resigned before the vote concluded. McCarthy wouldn’t allow Democrats to choose the Speaker of the House while Republicans hold the majority.

         This brings us to Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise, both miserable candidates for the job of Speaker. Are they worse than McCarthy? That’s a high bar—or is it a low bar? (You get the point.) Both are unfit for the office, but the GOP caucus is apparently not ready to acknowledge that it cannot govern unless it nominates a candidate capable of building a coalition.

• See Slate op-ed by Norman L. Eisen, Siven Watt, and Fred Wertheimer, Jim Jordan shows he's unfit to lead the Judiciary Committee.

• See The Guardian, House speaker contender Steve Scalise reportedly called himself ‘David Duke without the baggage.”

          But here is the most disqualifying fact about Jordan and Scalise: Both objected to the count of the electoral ballots on January 6 after the assault on the Capitol! See Vox, 147 Republican lawmakers still objected to the election results after the Capitol attack. For the record, Kevin McCarthy also objected to the electoral count after the attack on the Capitol. That fact should be a red flag for every Republican thinking of supporting Jordan or Scalise.

Trump continues to attack prosecutors and judges.

          On the third day of his trial in New York state court for fraudulent business practices, Trump continued his attack on Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Engoron. He posted on his vanity social media platform:

The Trial in NYC brought by the Racist A.G., Letitia James . . .  should be dismissed in that [DELETED] and the Judge fraudulently reduced the value of Mar-a-Lago, and other assets, in order to make their FAKE case more viable. This is yet another Witch Hunt for purposes of Election Interference. Letitia is a Dirty Cop . . . .

          (Note that I deleted a racist term used by Trump to refer to Attorney General Letitia James.)

          Trump accuses Judge Engoron of “fraudulently” reducing the value of Trump's assets, and says that A.G. James was a “Dirty Cop.” I cannot understand why such language has not resulted in severe sanctions against Trump.

          Dennis Aftergut reviews Judge Engoron’s existing gag order against Trump in The Messenger, Trump’s Consequences for Crossing the Line: A Gag Order That Opens the Door for More. Aftergut explains that Engoron’s order opens the door for Judge Chutkan to issue more expansive relief:

Trump is facing an October 16 hearing on a motion by special counsel Jack Smith for a gag order in D.C.; that's where Trump's federal indictment for criminally conspiring to overturn the 2020 election is set to be tried in March.

While what just happened in the New York case is very different from the situation in the federal case, Trump just handed D.C. federal district court Judge Tanya Chutkan a first-ever precedent for limiting Trump's speech.

No judge wants to act in the absence of a prior ruling in the same direction, particularly as to a gag order motion that presents highly sensitive First Amendment issues. [¶] It’s a safe bet that as the D.C. trial date approaches, Trump will continue, even escalate, his vile attacks on the administration of justice. [¶] A stalwart federal judge like Tanya Chutkan will not be intimidated; indeed, her judicial spine likely will only be stiffened by [such] threats . . . .

          Trump is pushing the envelope, whether he intends to or not. I noted a few weeks ago that Trump seems to be losing control of his emotions and thoughts in a way that suggests a mental breakdown or a progressive cognitive decline. Or he could be seeking a confrontation, betting that no judge would jail him. While jailing Trump would be traumatic for the nation, it will be far worse to do so after violence occurs.

          A story by Lucian Truscott in his Substack blog lends great weight to the notion that Trump is looking for confrontation. You will recall that Trump visited a gun store in South Carolina and made a show of buying a gun. When the media noted that it was illegal for him to buy a gun while on pretrial release for 91 felony counts, his spokesperson claimed that Trump did not actually complete the purchase transaction.

          But as Lucian Truscott explains, the real story is that Trump selected the gun store in South Carolina as a signal to white supremacists that he stands with them. See Lucian Truscott, The mainstream media completely missed the story when reporting on Trump's visit to the South Carolina gun store.

          Truscott writes:

Candidate Trump’s stop at a gun store in South Carolina on Monday wasn’t just an offhand visit:  His eight SUV convoy doesn’t do anything without advance planning days or even weeks ahead of any event Trump attends or location he visits. 

He made a decision to stop at Palmetto State Armory in Summerville, South Carolina, because he knew that that specific gun store was where the racist shooter in Jacksonville, Florida bought the guns he used to kill three Black people at a Dollar General store in late August. 

On the receiver of one gun, the [Jacksonville] killer had painted a swastika right next to the engraved name of the store where he bought it, Palmetto State Armory.  It’s just one month after the killings occurred.  Memories are strong, and emotions in the Black community are still raw.

          As Truscott notes, the choice of the Palmetto State Armory store was no accident. The store is well-known “among gun people for its connections to the racist Boogaloo Boys,” whose members were involved in the kidnap attempt of Michigan Governor Whitmer and were present at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville (about which Trump said there were “good people on both sides.”).

          There is more detail in Truscott’s deeply researched article. Check it out.

          Here’s the point: The evidence suggests that Trump is intentional in his provocations. He knows exactly what buttons he is pushing. Federal and state judges should assume so when evaluating whether Trump should be jailed pending his criminal trials.  

Opportunity for reader engagement.

I received this note from long-time reader Ruth Jaeger about AIRLIFT (“Turning non-voters into voters.”)

We at Airlift agree that getting more young people to vote will be critical in this next election and all future elections. Although some people may believe Florida is no longer a battleground state, we don't think we should give up on it if we're going to play the long game. We are really excited that Rep Maxwell Frost will headline our From the Frontlines program on Tuesday, October 17, 2023, at 8:00 PM Eastern / 5:00 PM Pacific. Here is the registration link. Shaping a New Florida: Youth Power

The youngest member of the 118th US Congress, Maxwell Frost, is so much more than his youth. His ten years of political activism and his BIPOC and bi-cultural heritage have shaped his vision for a new Florida and a pathway to a thriving democracy. Once a volunteer with Airlift’s partner group Dream Defenders, Congressman Frost will be joined by Nailah Summers-Polite, Co-executive Director and founding member of Dream Defenders

I think your readers will be inspired by hearing from Rep Frost and the Dream Defenders, a grassroots group focusing on the youth vote.

Concluding Thoughts.

          The drama surrounding the election of the next Speaker of the House will be a powerful distraction. While the selection is an important event in the life of our nation, try not to dwell on unknowable outcomes. The Democratic caucus is in the capable hands of Hakeem Jeffries. The next four weeks will be vital to Democratic success in 2024—because of what will happen in Virginia and Ohio in November 2023!

          Moreover, now is a critical time for laying the groundwork for registration and GOTV efforts in 2024. Do not relent in your efforts because of worry about the next Speaker or the need to pass a budget (or extension) before Thanksgiving. The antidote to anxiety is action—especially when that action occurs in community with others!

Democrats are in a strong position. Let Democratic leaders do the hard work of negotiating with political nihilists while we support leadership by giving them the electoral victories that they need to regain control of the House!

          Talk to you tomorrow!