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Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, has threatened to reconsider his state’s relationship with the College Board.
The debt ceiling legislation would end the pause on student loan payments on Aug. 30 at the latest.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida at a bill-signing event this month.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has campaigned against what he has described as “woke indoctrination” in the classroom.
Republicans are threatening to destroy the economy if President Biden doesn’t give into their demands. But the Fourteenth Amendment gives him the power to stop them.
Republicans are taking advantage of the “debt ceiling” to try to force deep, painful cuts to programs Americans rely on. If Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, America might have to default on its bills, destroying the credit of the United States and wiping out millions of jobs.
Remember, raising the debt ceiling isn’t about taking on new debt. It’s about whether America will pay its current debts.
This is a key reason why raising the debt ceiling should not be negotiable.
Ironically, Republicans had no problem raising it three times under Trump, even as they enacted major tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy that caused the nation’s debt to soar.
But now, Kevin McCarthy and his band of MAGA radicals say they’ll only raise it in exchange for drastic cuts to health care, education, veterans’ benefits, and more.
My advice to President Biden: Ignore them. Mr. President, your oath to uphold the Constitution takes precedence. And as the supreme law of the land, the Constitution has greater weight than the law on the debt ceiling.
Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment states that, “The validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.”
A debt ceiling that prevents the government from honoring its existing financial commitments clearly violates the Constitution.
So, if Republicans threaten the full faith and credit of the United States, you are constitutionally obligated to ignore the debt ceiling, and must continue to pay the nation’s bills.
Should they wish, let the radical Republicans take you to court.
Even the conservatives on the Supreme Court will likely support you. No “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution could read that document differently,
The Constitution makes it clear that Congress’s power to borrow money does not include the power to default on such borrowings.
If Republicans are going to play this game, Mr. President, you need to play hard ball.
Students walking between classes at the University of Idaho. The state will ban student ID cards as a form of voter identification, one of few successes for Republicans targeting young voters this year.
2024 presidential hopeful Mike Pence doesn't seem to understand how much Republicans hate him for not overturning the election when he demanded it. And here's another clear piece of evidence he'll ignore: when former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted praise for Pence, saying that "his patriotism, love for the country, and love for his Savior on full display," she faced a storm of backlash from MAGA supporters, who called her a "traitor," a "turncoat," a "RINO," and a "disgusting" person. — Read the rest
The bill passed by House Republicans has no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate but appeals to many of the party’s most conservative voters.
There is a moral panic about transgender issues sweeping America. While it is raging most viciously in the Republican Party — see: the odious speeches at CPAC last week; Tennessee banning drag shows and gender-affirming health care for minors; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis requesting information from public colleges about students who have sought hormone treatment and reassignment surgeries — the panic’s tentacles extend much further. There is no better moment, then, to read historian Brandy Schillace’s piece about the Institute for Sexual Research, a groundbreaking facility in interwar Germany that heralded a just, humane future for gay, trans, and non-binary individuals, until fascism arrived. Schillace is at work on a book about the institute, and you can also listen to her talk about it on a recent edition of NPR’s All Things Considered:
That such an institute existed as early as 1919, recognizing the plurality of gender identity and offering support, comes as a surprise to many. It should have been the bedrock on which to build a bolder future. But as the institute celebrated its first decade, the Nazi party was already on the rise. By 1932 it was the largest political party in Germany, growing its numbers through a nationalism that targeted the immigrant, the disabled and the “genetically unfit.” Weakened by economic crisis and without a majority, the Weimar Republic collapsed.
Adolf Hitler was named chancellor on January 30, 1933, and enacted policies to rid Germany of Lebensunwertes Leben, or “lives unworthy of living.” What began as a sterilization program ultimately led to the extermination of millions of Jews, Roma, Soviet and Polish citizens — and homosexuals and transgender people.
When the Nazis came for the institute on May 6, 1933, Hirschfeld was out of the country. Giese fled with what little he could. Troops swarmed the building, carrying off a bronze bust of Hirschfeld and all his precious books, which they piled in the street. Soon a towerlike bonfire engulfed more than 20,000 books, some of them rare copies that had helped provide a historiography for nonconforming people.
The carnage flickered over German newsreels. It was among the first and largest of the Nazi book burnings. Nazi youth, students and soldiers participated in the destruction, while voiceovers of the footage declared that the German state had committed “the intellectual garbage of the past” to the flames. The collection was irreplaceable.
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