Yo Biden, Cancel My Debt (?)
Everything you need to know for Thursday, Nov. 19: Never change, Alamance + Raleigh’s restaurant apocalypse + NC might decriminalize weed, man
Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020
7 days until Thanksgiving
21 days until Hanukkah
36 days until Christmas
42 days until this cursed year ends
62 days until this cursed presidency is over
Today’s Numbers:
1.5 million
Pennsylvania votes Rudy Giuliani told a federal court on Monday were illegally counted, based on such ironclad evidence as his assertion that Philadelphia is “a place that is well-known for cheating.”
As someone who lived in Philly, I promise you someone has already made a “Philly: Well-Known for Cheating” T-shirt, and if you want to buy me one for Christmas, I will not object.
Rudy’s appearance—his first in almost 30 years—was comedy gold:
Throughout the five-hour hearing in federal court in Williamsport, Pa., Giuliani … came under heavy criticism from opposing counsel and appeared unable to answer several questions from [Judge Matthew] Brann about legal technicalities.
Brann asked what standard of review he should apply in the case. “I think the normal one,” Giuliani replied.
“Maybe I don’t understand what you mean by strict scrutiny,” Giuliani said at another point.
At a different moment, Giuliani said: “I’m not quite sure what ‘opacity’ means. It probably means you can see.”
The judge responded: “It means you can’t.”
130,000 / 500
Nevada votes the Trump campaign wants thrown out because mail-in ballot signatures were matched by a machine and because voters were encouraged to vote by the Nevada Native Vote Project, respectively.
“Wherefore, Contestants, reserving the right to amend the Statement of Contest, pray that, by virtue of Defendant’s failure to comply with the law, President Trump be declared the victor of the Election in Nevada … or, in the alternative, the Defendants’ election to the office of elector be declared null and void, that the Election in Nevada of November 3, 2020, be annulled, and that no candidate for elector for the President of the United States of America be certified from the State of Nevada.”
Potential problems: 1) Nevada attorney Shana Weir sued the electors chosen to represent Joe Biden. They have nothing to do with certifying the election. 2) The “alleged but unproven voting issues = Trump wins!” argument seems … strained. The “disenfranchise everyone” fallback isn’t much stronger.
ABOVE THE FOLD
—> Cooper’s Racial Justice Task Force Wants to Decriminalize Weed
Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t be we? A racial justice task force convened by Governor Cooper has suggested that North Carolina—which will be the last state in the U.S. to legalize medical or recreational marijuana so long as Phil Berger runs the Senate—decriminalize possession of small amounts of the drug.
“The group will present Gov. Roy Cooper with a formal proposal on that and other reforms within a month. But any permanent changes to state law would have to come through the Republican-majority General Assembly, not Cooper, a Democrat. The state’s top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Josh Stein, supports decriminalizing marijuana.”
I will note here that Stein did not endorse decriminalization before his re-election, which might be coincidental.
From the N&O:
Unlike legalization, decriminalization wouldn’t let dispensaries open and begin selling marijuana. And nothing would change for people caught with felony amounts. But for people caught with small amounts that now would lead to misdemeanor criminal charges, decriminalization would instead lead to fines similar to a traffic ticket.
Despite evidence that white and Black people use marijuana at roughly the same rate, Black people are significantly more likely to be arrested for it, Stein said during Wednesday’s meeting of the Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice.
—> THE TIMES, THEY AREN’T A-CHANGING: As I pointed out last week, legalizing marijuana is popular. Legalizing medical marijuana is insanely popular. The only thing preventing North Carolina from leaving Reefer Madness—and the 16 other states with blanket prohibitions—behind is a bunch of lawmakers stuck in the ’80s.
LOCAL & STATE
—> Alamance County Arrests 5 BLM Supporters Because It’s Alamance County
Some supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement wanted a word with the Alamance County Board of Commissioners Monday night about Sheriff Terry Johnson and his racist goon squad. The all-white, all-Republican board apparently did not want to hear it, so chairwoman Amy Scott Galey ended the meeting before the public comment period. The activists were a little upset. Five of them got arrested, the N&O reports.
Five people were arrested — three at the meeting and two later Monday night at the county jail on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting a public officer. In another corner of the observation gallery, a conflict involving a newly elected county commissioner nearly came to blows. … From the perspective of Black Lives Matter supporters, Monday’s arrests were the continuation of an effort to squash their calls for change.
But Tuesday, Galey said that wasn’t the case. She said she made the decision when someone in the audience called out, “Why isn’t she wearing a mask?”
She found the tone of the question hostile, Galey told The News & Observer in an interview.
Galey—recently elected to the state Senate, where she’ll fit right in—announced that the board would reconvene virtually two days later instead. The arrests seem to have happened after Terry Johnson’s deputies got their fee-fees hurt.
A 28-year-old man who goes by Haikoo X said he was picked up and flung to the floor head first Monday after he called officers “pigs.”
“There was nothing threatening in my language,” he said Tuesday. “I was using my First Amendment rights, and I was walking peacefully out as I said it.”
He said he was thrown to the ground with officers applying pressure on top of him. As a result, he couldn’t comply with deputies’ orders to put his hands behind his back. After he was handcuffed, he was guided into an elevator, where he said a deputy slammed him into the wall.
Haikoo X and two others were arrested for making a scene at the meeting and resisting an officer. Two more were arrested later for—I love this crime—”failing to leave the jail parking lot.”
—> Royale and Papa Shogun Are Permanently Closed
The Raleigh restaurant apocalypse continues apace, with three of the city’s best shutting down for good: French bistro Royale, Japanese-Italian joint Papa Shogun, and Oak City Meatball Shoppe. They join a long, long list of area eateries that won’t make it to the other side of the COVID nightmare. Here are just a few:
Cameron Bar & Grill
Chronic Tacos
Chuck’s Burgers
City Kitchen
DeeLuxe Chicken
East Durham Bake Shop
Elmo’s Diner (Carrboro)
High Horse
James Pharmacy
Jose & Sons
Linus & Pepper’s
Lula’s
Northern Spy
Oakwood Cafe
Pharmacy Cafe
Trophy Tap & Table
True Flavors (Lakewood)
Virgil’s Original Taqueria
—> REAL TALK: Without more aid from DC, more will join them. Things won’t be back to normal soon enough for a lot of places to survive.
—> Losing GOP House Candidate Alleges Fraud
After courts ordered the General Assembly to redraw the state’s congressional maps, GK Butterfield’s District 1 got a little more competitive, but, well, not actually competitive. With Durham no longer in CD1, he’d no longer win by 40 points without breaking a sweat, but unless something freakish happens, he’ll win by 8–10, no problem. That’s why no one spent any money on the race or paid attention to it, and GK ended up winning by about 30,000 votes, or 9 points, without bothering to campaign.
Anyway, Republican opponent Sandy Smith believes there’s a conspiracy afoot, and someone should alert the president ASAP!
First of all, Sandy, they’re not suing here, because Trump won North Carolina, and he doesn’t care about you. Second of all, maybe hire better pollsters?
—> The North Carolina Roundup
House Speaker Tim Moore announced changes to his leadership staff, which would be entirely unremarkable except that his new policy adviser has the most Republican name imaginable: Trafton Dinwiddie.
Durham’s Liberty Christian School, which has about 180 students, has a cluster of 26 COVID cases.
Wake County has started its first jury trial since March.
Orange County Schools gave Superintendent Monique Felder a $10,000 bonus.
—> Weather
Clear, sunny, high of 57, cold AF when this newsletter hits your inbox.
NATION & WORLD
—> The Lede: Will Biden Cancel Student Debt?
Together, 45 million Americans have racked up $1.7 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, an amount that has more than doubled in a decade. Americans owe more for student loans—things that can’t be discharged in bankruptcy—than they do for cars or credit cards. They’ve prevented younger people from buying homes and having children. And the day before the election, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, hardly a progressive hero, endorsed the idea of Joe Biden simply wiping most of it from existence.
“Getting rid of student debt. I have a proposal with Elizabeth Warren that the first $50,000 of debt be vanquished, and we believe that Joe Biden can do that with the pen as opposed to legislation.”
Indeed, they made just that pitch in September.
The legal basis: According to the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, “Congress has granted the Secretary [of Education] a more specific and unrestricted authority to create and to cancel or modify debt owed under federal student loan programs in the Higher Education Act (HEA) itself. That provision empowers the Secretary to execute the broad debt cancellation plan you [Senator Warren] have proposed.”
I imagine that legal conclusion might not be unanimous. But put aside for the moment the question of can and focus on should. Is spending a trillion bucks to forgive student loans—or more precisely, using government funds to pay off lenders—the right way to stimulate the economy? For that matter, it good politics for a new administration?
In the Washington Post, Adam Loomey points out that such a move is regressive:
Many student loan borrowers are advantaged, well-educated high earners. About 56 percent of student debt is owed by those with masters or professional degrees, and almost 35 percent of loan balances are owed by individuals in the top 20 percent of the income distribution. Many student-borrowers need relief, but well-off borrowers who are thriving—thanks, no doubt, to their college degrees—do not. …
In sheer magnitude, canceling $50,000 in student debt would rank among the largest transfer programs in U.S. history. At a cost slightly above $1 trillion, it would equal the total amount spent on cash welfare since 1980. And its largest effect would be to improve the finances of college-educated workers, who have already tended to be winners in an economy marked by ever-rising inequality.
—> HOWEVER: Regardless of the merits, means-testing programs is a good way to make them unpopular. If a program is seen as helping “the poor” as opposed to “the middle class”—most people consider themselves middle class—it’s more likely to generate a backlash.
No matter how it’s done, there will be attack ads about “giveaways” starring people who “scraped and saved” to pay off their loans.
Keep in mind: Most Americans haven’t gone to college. Any loan forgiveness program will give Republicans an opportunity to further market themselves to paint Democrats as the party of elites.
—> CONTRA: Over at The Root, Michael Harriot dismantles the various anti-forgiveness arguments.
The Republican base is largely whites who didn’t attend college. Studies show that when white people attend college, they become more progressive. Plus, Black people would benefit more from debt forgiveness, and, as someone once told me: “Democrats want to inflict their policies on Republicans. Republicans want to inflict pain on Democrats.”
But recent polls show 65 percent of Americans, including many Republicans, support policies that erase student debt. A year earlier, the number was 58 percent. Republicans were once opposed to “socialized healthcare” and mandates against private insurers but now they support it because they like it.
—> FWIW: Biden seems inclined toward a more modest approach. President Trump paused payments through the end of the year. Biden can continue that policy once he takes office. House Democrats have proposed forgiving $10,000 per person in student loans, which Biden has endorsed. He’d probably rather any broad loan forgiveness come from Congress.
“What is more clear is that the secretary of education can cancel student debt for borrowers who were defrauded by their colleges. This has been happening for years, though Secretary Betsy DeVos has rolled back Obama-era rules that made the process easier for those students to seek relief. There are thousands of borrowers who say they were defrauded by now-defunct for-profit colleges like Corinthian and ITT Tech and have been waiting for years for the Education Department to process their claims.”
—> THAT’S COOL, BUT: I’ve been paying grad school loans for a decade, and I’m pretty sure I owe more now than when I started.
—> The Brief: 7 Stories to Read Today
12 million Americans will lose unemployment aid at the end of the year. “Deadlines set by Congress early in the pandemic will result in about 12 million Americans losing unemployment insurance by the year’s end, according to a report released Wednesday—a warning about the sharp toll that inaction in Washington could exact on the economic health of both individual households and the economy at large. According to the report …, those Americans will lose their unemployment benefits the day after Christmas—more than half of the 21.1 million people currently on the benefits—due to deadlines Congress chose when it passed the Cares Act in March amid optimism the pandemic would be short-lived.”
Republican governors, acknowledging reality, adopt mask mandates. “A growing number of Republican governors, including some who had written off mask mandates as unenforceable or unacceptable to freedom-loving Americans, are now requiring people to cover their faces in public—a response to escalating coronavirus outbreaks overwhelming hospitals across the country. After eight months of preaching personal responsibility in place of mandates, these governors have brought their states in line with much of the world by instituting the simple requirement backed by science but, in the United States, shot through with politics.”
The Pfizer COVID vaccine is safe and 95% effective, even for the elderly. “The coronavirus vaccine being developed by Pfizer and German biotechnology firm BioNTech is 95 percent effective at preventing illness, according to an analysis performed as a trial of the experimental shot reached its endpoint. The study also notched a safety milestone, with two months of follow-up on half of the participants, and Pfizer said it plans to submit an application for emergency authorization within days. The experimental vaccine had already shown promise in a preliminary analysis announced last week, but the trial sped to completion faster than anticipated because of a spike in coronavirus cases.” [Ed. note: Silver lining?]
Trump wants to punish pharma for not announcing the COVID vaccines before the election. “President Trump is infuriated that Pfizer and Moderna announced their coronavirus vaccines are highly effective after Joe Biden was declared the victor in the presidential election—a move Pfizer's CEO insisted wasn't politically motivated. Now the president is trying to get back at the pharmaceutical industry in the waning weeks of his administration. The Department of Health and Human Services may soon release a proposal to lower drug prices in the Medicare program through what’s known as the ‘most favored nation’ price. The policy, dreaded by the industry, would require drugmakers to accept the lowest price from the government for medicines paid by comparably wealthy countries in Europe and elsewhere.”
The Pentagon announces cuts to troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq. “The U.S. military will halve the number of troops it has in Afghanistan within the next two months, Pentagon officials said Tuesday, as President Trump seeks to move closer to keeping a promise to end wars abroad despite concerns that the decision could undermine negotiations with the Taliban. … [Acting defense secretary Christopher C.] Miller said the military will carry out Trump’s orders in both countries by Jan. 15, with troop numbers reduced from about 5,000 to 2,500 in Afghanistan and from about 3,000 to 2,500 in Iraq. The response: “The best indication yet that congressional Republicans accept Trump’s defeat in the election has been the flurry of statements decrying the Tuesday announcement …. Many hawks on the right noted that Trump’s timetable is clearly driven more by politics—trying to keep a 2016 campaign promise on his way out the door—then conditions on the ground, which have rapidly deteriorated. … Meanwhile, Democrats who routinely upbraid Trump offered measured and nuanced statements of general encouragement, with lots of caveats.”
Trump just wants to watch it burn. “President Donald Trump's order of a further withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq is the latest foreign policy move on a growing list in his final weeks in office that are meant to limit President-elect Joe Biden's options before he takes office in January. The White House has directed newly installed acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller to focus his attention in the remaining weeks on cyber and irregular warfare, with a focus on China in particular, an administration official tells CNN. It is contemplating new terrorist designations in Yemen that could complicate efforts to broker peace. And it has rushed through authorization of a massive arms sale that could alter the balance of power in the Middle East. The Trump team has prepared legally required transition memos describing policy challenges, but there are no discussions about actions they could take or pause. Instead, the White House is barreling ahead. A second official tells CNN their goal is to set so many fires that it will be hard for the Biden administration to put them all out.” [Ed. note: WTAF?]
Reuters: 52% of Republicans believe Trump “rightfully won” the election. “Altogether, 73% of those polled agreed that Biden won the election, while 5% thought Trump won. But when asked specifically whether Biden had ‘rightfully won,’ Republicans showed they were suspicious about how Biden’s victory was obtained. Fifty-two percent of Republicans said that Trump ‘rightfully won,’ while only 29% said that Biden had rightfully won. … 68% of Republicans said they were concerned that the election was ‘rigged,.’” Monmouth: 77% of Trump voters think Biden won because of fraud. “Among Trump voters, 26% are angry that the incumbent lost, but more (36%) are angry at the idea that Biden won. While 60% of Americans believe Biden won the election fair and square, 32% say he only won it due to voter fraud. Three-quarters (77%) of Trump backers say Biden’s win was due to fraud.”
—> Et Cetera
We’ve now hit 250,000 COVID deaths, more than experts predicted in the spring.
The FAA has cleared the Boeing 737 to fly again. You go first.
GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, who is holding up the Biden transition and putting lives in danger, is a “deeply moral person” in a “terrible situation,” her friends tell a credulous CNN.
California Governor Gavin Newsome and officials from the California Medical Association attended an extravagant birthday dinner for a lobbyist at an elite fine-dining restaurant while the rest of the state is under COVID restrictions.
New York City’s school system will shut down because of COVID concerns.
Unless the White House and Congress reach a deal by Dec. 11, the federal government will shut down. Chief of staff Mark Meadows says he can’t guarantee that won’t happen.