The Supreme Court ruled Biden’s student-loan forgiveness is illegal, meaning borrowers will resume payments without debt cancellation this year.
The Supreme Court ruled Biden’s student-loan forgiveness is illegal, meaning borrowers will resume payments without debt cancellation this year.
Yeah, Democrats lost a Supreme Court seat because one old lady refused to retire and they lost out on months of judicial confirmations this year because a different old lady refused to retire.
(if the Republicans take the Senate in 2024 I hope it’s by a narrow enough margin that they have to worry about 90-year-old Chuck Grassley the same way we’ve had to worry about Feinstein)
Re: Feinstein, my understanding of why they’ve kept he is that, with her, the Dems have a one-seat majority on the Judicial Committee. The moment she resigns, it’s an even split. Customarily, the Senate would promptly appoint a replacement and all would be well. However, that vote would be subject to the filibuster, and the Dems don’t trust McConnell to not block it. If McConnell does block a replacement, then the Judicial Committee stays split and appointing any judges becomes completely impossible.
They’d rather deal with Feinstein’s limited availability rather than take the gamble that they’d be allowed to fill a replacement. I agree that she should absolutely retire, but there are political games that have to be considered when the stakes are this high.
It was a 6-3 decision, one seat wasn’t going to make a difference in this decision.
How do you know?
For all we know that one person could have convinced another to vote in favour of debt relief. Or perhaps when it became clear the vote was standing 5-4 it would make one of those five decide it’s not clear enough and switch their vote because there wasn’t a strong enough majority to block the executive branch.
Or perhaps if it was blocked at 5-4 it would give more options for result to be challenged or appealed.
Lots of things might be different if politicians who say they are for the people actually act in the best interests of the people, even if that means they retire.
Let’s not pretend that he conservative justices didn’t already know how they were going to rule on this. They just needed to do a little parallel construction before issuing their opinion.
Don’t forget about the other seat that the Rs blocked Obama from filling. The SC could have been a 5-4 dem majority.
That whole situation still makes me so mad. That turtle bastard refused to even hold hearings for Merrick Garland for 9 months because it was an election year, and then four years later held hearings voted on and seated Barrett after the election had started.
We should absolutely have a liberal 5-4 majority. Instead we live in a conservative 6-3 dystopia, with Republicans openly planning on denying any results they disagree with and installing whatever fucking president they want.
Surprise Rs have no principles.
Still can, we just have to avoid giving Republicans a window of Senate + WH control in which to replace Alito or Thomas. (and even if we only get one of them we get another crack at it a few years later with Roberts)
Ok, so we just have to hold out for another 30 years or so.
Thomas is 75, fat, and I assume he’s not doing daily yoga, abstaining from alcohol, and following a strict vegan diet on all of these rich-guy junkets he goes on. Alito is 73 and likewise. Pure evil can get you an awfully long way - c.f. Henry Kissinger - but even so, the odds of either of them lasting much more than another decade are pretty slim.