RFK Jr. needs Secret Service protection. Did his siblings ask President Biden for it?

 Robert F Kennedy Jr. is a serious candidate for president of the United States. So far, he's qualified to be on the ballot in nine states and hopes to be on every state ballot when the presidential election takes place in November.

The Biden administration has repeatedly denied RFK Jr.’s requests for Secret Service protection, which has placed a significant financial strain on his campaign. As a result, Kennedy is compelled to allocate campaign funds to cover his security expenses.

Early this month, six of RFK Jr.’s siblings publicly endorsed Joe Biden for president, even appearing at a Biden campaign event in Philadelphia. “[Biden]has us thriving again, believing again, behaving like good neighbors again,” Kerry Kennedy gushed, while five of RFK Jr.’s siblings smiled approvingly.

Did any of Kennedy's brothers and sisters ask President Biden to provide their brother with Secret Service protection? Did any of Biden’s Kennedy endorsers condition their support on a presidential promise to give their brother the personal security Biden enjoys?

Apparently not. RFK Jr.’s docile relatives performed for Biden’s dog and pony show without demanding Secret Service protection for their courageous brother.  

Perhaps that's understandable. After all, who could imagine a Kennedy being assassinated by political enemies?

Israel flies the flag of no quarter. Americans are morally obliged to back Israel's play

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler," Albert Einstein observed. Indeed, it is a mark of intelligence to analyze a jumble of complicated information, come to a straightforward conclusion, and decide what to do.

Unfortunately, our intellectual elites rarely try to make things as simple as possible. Instead, they obsess about complexity and often conclude that a particular problem is so complicated that it is insolvable. Homelessness, for example, is a complex problem, so tangled and tricky that San Francisco can't figure out how to keep people from defecating in the streets.

Sometimes, however, our failure to grasp the essentials of a problem leaves us with moral paralysis. Overwhelmed by complexity and contradictions, we do nothing even when the proper course of action is so apparent that even a child can understand what we should do.

Israel is in an existential battle with Hamas. What Hamas terrorists did on October 7, 2023, is so horrendous that Israel is justified in doing almost anything to eradicate Hamas. Israel's existence is at stake. That's a simple fact.

Thus, Israel flies the flag of No Quarter.  In my view, the United States, Israel's only major ally, is morally obligated to back Israel's play. That moral obligation stems from the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration fails to grasp the simple morality of Israel's war aims. The U.S. sends weapons and munitions to Israel, but it joined the feckless call for a ceasefire that would weaken Israel and benefit Hamas.

Enabled by our misguided President, pro-Palestinian protest groups have sprung up on the nation's college campuses, revealing latent anti-semitism in academia.

Astonishingly, Senator Chuck Schumer, America's senior Jewish politician, is undermining Israel by meddling in the Jewish state's domestic politics. 

None of this underhanded and cowardly behavior will deter Israel from doing what it must do for its own survival, which is to annihilate Hamas.

In short, the unwillingness of America's political and intellectual elites to recognize the simple fact that Israel is fighting for its survival is morally indefensible and will only prolong the suffering of innocent Palestinians and Israelis.

Photo Credit: Jack Guez/Getty Images

Wages are up, grocery prices are going down, and inflation is under control! Paul Krugman slings Joe Biden's bullshit

 President Biden issued a statement a few days ago assuring us that the economy is robust and we're all getting richer. Here is what he said:

Inflation is down two-thirds from its peak, and annual core inflation is the lowest since May 2021. Wages are rising faster than prices over the last year and since the pandemic. Prices for key household purchases like gas, milk, eggs, and appliances are lower than a year ago. Inflation is down, while unemployment has remained below 4% for the longest stretch in more than 50 years.

In short, Americans have become wealthier since Joe Biden took office. Unfortunately, many Americans are so fuckin’ dumb that they don't realize how prosperous they are.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, chief spear carrier for the progressive left, asked why Americans are so down on the economy. Why are they ignoring "fancy statistics" showing that "America is doing pretty well"?

Krugman thinks many Americans have been duped by "the false narrative that the economy is doing badly."

I hate to break it to you, Paul, but that's bullshit. You may not know this, but millions of Americans living on fixed incomes in flyover country do their own grocery shopping. I'm one of those people. Every time I go to the grocery store, I am shocked by the price of food and paper goods.

Property and auto insurance costs have also spiraled upward, rising 26% over last year. Homeowner's insurance costs have risen, too—by 11%.

Krugman urges Democrats to argue that Biden inherited a damaged economy "and led us through the aftermath to a much better place."

I think that's bad advice. If the Democrats want to win this year's presidential election, they need to fall back on the political tactics that have worked so well in the past: race-baiting, ballot harvesting, and frivolous litigation.

 

Paul Krugman: Slinging Joe Biden's bullshit
Photo credit: Leigh Advisory

Pickled pig lips cost $22 a jar: Bidenomics and the inflated cost of food

I'm shocked by food prices every time I go to the grocery store. Coffee is $11 a pound at my grocery store, two pounds of bacon cost $20, and a loaf of bread sells for five or six bucks. A jar of pickled pig lips costs $22!

President Trump says food costs have gone up 40,  50%, and even 60% under Bidenomics. The Biden administration and the mainstream media say that's nonsense. However, most experts agree that food prices have increased by about 25% over the last four years.

Food prices are insignificant for the wealthy, but food makes up 31% of a low-income family's budget. For people living on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, the rising cost of food causes real suffering.

I grew up in a family clawing its way into the middle class. My mother tried to keep our food costs down by buying foods that were cheap. I ate a lot of baloney as a kid, a lot of Velveeta cheese, a lot of Spam, and beef liver. Our refrigerator never held real butter or cheddar cheese. Those foods were too expensive.

As my parents became more prosperous, our diet changed. We stopped eating Spam and ate more beef. I discovered cheddar cheese.

Biden's spinmasters say inflation is under control, and the New York Times agrees. But America’s poor know better. When pickled pig lips cost $22 a jar, that's a sign that food prices are out of control.

Economists say inflation is a time when the rich steal from the poor. This is such a time. The restaurants are packed with wealthy people eating steaks while folks living off their Social Security checks struggle to buy food. 

Has E.J. Dionne Sold His Soul to the Deep State?

E.J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist, wrote a disingenuous commentary a few days ago that appeared in my local newspaper. Dionne takes Americans to task who believe we are faced with two equally bad choices in this year's presidential election.
Dionne argues that Biden is by far the better candidate. In his mind, Americans must choose between Trump, "who stokes and exploits their anger," and Biden, "who is trying to solve their problems."

Dionne can reasonably argue that Americans should choose Biden over Trump in November's election. Without a doubt, Trump is a deeply flawed candidate. Nevertheless, Dionne's arguments in favor of Biden are nonsense.

Deonne says Biden has sought "compromise to protect our southern border," which is unadulterated bullshit. Everyone knows that millions of illegal immigrants are flooding across the Mexican border and that Biden has done nothing to stem the flow. Everyone understands that our open border is directly responsible for the epidemic of fentanyl overdoses--100,000 deaths last year.

Dionne also commends Biden for sending aid to Ukraine when, in fact, our government provoked Russia to invade Ukraine when it helped overthrow a popularly elected pro-Russia Ukrainian president in 2014. Although Dionne will probably not admit it, Ukraine is losing that war, and continued American military aid will only lead to more casualties for both Russians and Ukrainians.

In my mind, Dionne’s essay is more offensive for what he didn’t say than for what he said. Dionne said nothing about Biden’s dementia, which has gotten so bad that a five-year-old child could diagnose him. Dionne failed to mention credible evidence that Biden and his family sold Joe Biden’s influence to countries hostile to America.

Incredibly, Dionne says our government “has performed well” under Biden, when in fact, Biden has weaponized federal law enforcement, stoked inflation, and diminished our national security and America's standing around the world.

In essence, Dionne argues that Americans must choose “between a normal human being and a self-involved, spiteful madman.” But Biden is not a normal human being. Alternatively, if he is a normal human being, then America is a nation of clinically demented criminals.

Dionne admits that he's spent his career in the mainstream media, which, he says "takes on the essential work of informing the public about what is going on in the world with a sense of fairness and a dedication to the truth . . ."

And that is the heart of the matter. The mainstream media is not dedicated to the truth; it has sold its soul to the Deep State. Unfortunately, Dionne has marinated so long in the Deep State's vile brew of mendacity that he can't see what is obvious to Americans living in the Heartland--our President is cognitively diminished and up to his elbows in corruption.

Photo credit: The Australian

 

Help Me, Obi-Wan Nikki Haley: You're My Only Hope

Until yesterday afternoon, I was depressed about this year's presidential election. It seemed inevitable that Americans would be forced to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump as our next President. Both men are highly unattractive. Biden is a crime boss who has dementia, and Trump's flaws are too numerous to summarize briefly.

Then, the political landscape changed in an instant. Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race yesterday afternoon, and now Americans have three stark choices for our country's next President.

We can choose Joe Biden--or, more likely—the mystery candidate who will replace him when he drops out of the presidential race next summer for health reasons.

We can back Donald Trump, the runaway favorite Republican nominee. He's the odds-on favorite among conservative voters.

Or we can vote for former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley—the last remaining Republican to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

If I get the opportunity, I will vote for Nikki Haley. She is eminently qualified to be the President of the United States, and for me, her chief attraction is that she is not Trump or Biden.

I have been disappointed by dark-horse presidential candidates in the past. I supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 and later realized he's just another political hack. I once thought Elizabeth Warren would make a good president because of her stance on student loans and corporate greed. But she's just another political hack who never did anything substantive to help working-class Americans,

I'm throwing my support to Nikki Haley. To borrow a line from Star Wars, Help us, Obi-Wan Nikki Haley. You're our only hope.

Fooling All of the People Some of the Time: Retired People, Working-Class Families, and Peope Living on Fixed Incomes are Suffering Under Bidenomics

 You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Abraham Lincoln

How are Americans doing under Bidenomics? According to President Biden, we're all doing fine. This is what the President said just a few days ago:

Today’s report shows that we ended 2023 with inflation down nearly two-thirds from its peak and core inflation at its lowest level since May 2021. We saw prices go down over the course of the year for goods and services that are important for American households, like a gallon of gas, a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, toys, appliances, car rentals, and airline fares. Despite what many forecasters predicted a year ago, inflation is down while growth and the job market have remained strong. 

 Of course, that's total bullshit, and Americans all know it--at least all the Americans who do their own grocery shopping. Week after week, I go to my local grocery store and am shocked at the price of nearly everything. 

I know, however, that I am more fortunate than many of my fellow Americans. I'm retired, but I don't depend solely on Social Security to pay my bills. However, one out of seven retired Americans live almost totally on their monthly Social Security checks. And the average Social Security check is only about $1700.

Who can live on that? Nobody. 

President Biden is about to demonstrate the truth of one of Abraham Lincoln's most famous observations. Biden fooled millions of people during the 2020 presidential campaign by hiding his cognitive decline and his family's influence-peddling racket. The obsequious mainstream media pitched a wild yarn about Bidenomics that has fooled some Americans to this day. Incredibly, almost a third of Americans believe Sleepy Joe is doing a good job managing the economy.

But Lincoln was right: you can't fool all the people all the time.  Now, we are in the 2024 presidential primary season, and Biden is about to see that millions of Americans have figured out that they are losing ground economically. Retired people, people living on fixed incomes, and working-class families by the millions are going to vote for Donald Trump or Nikki Haley.

Our Year for Living Dangerously: 2024 Predictions and Premonitions from Flyover Country

 In late December or early January, pundits and commentators make predictions for the new year. This year, I’m going to join in that tradition from my home on Lake Mary in Southern Mississippi.

I’m making three predictions for 2024. I’m also sharing three premonitions about the coming year. I feel certain that my 2024 predictions will come true. I hope my premonitions will not come true, but I fear they will.

 

Prediction number one: Joe Biden won’t be the Democratic nominee for President in 2024.

 

I agree with James Howard Kunstler that Joe Biden will not be on the ballot for the presidential election in November. Biden will participate in most primaries, and he will easily collect enough delegates to capture the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nomination, but someonne else will be the Democratic Party's nominee.

As Kunstler has suggested, I think Biden will disclose that he has a serious medical condition sometime next summer. For the good of the country, he will say, he is stepping down from the presidential race and releasing his delegates to someone else.

Who will that person be? I don’t know and you don’t know, but someone living on Martha’s Vineyard knows. The Democratic nominee won’t be a person who participated in the Democratic primaries. After Biden steps aside, the Democratic Party’s Super Delegates will nominate someone who skipped the primaries. Credible speculation says it will be Michelle Obama.

 

The mainstream media pretends that Biden is a serious candidate for another term as President, but no one believes that. His declining health is evident to everyone. Biden has some sort of cognitive disability, which is steadily getting worse. 

Moreover, the Republicans are finding evidence that the Biden family took bribes from foreign countries and stashed the money in offshore bank accounts. If substantiated, those charges could led to an  impeahment trial during Biden's second term. 

 

I think Biden will pardon himself and his entire family (including his grandchildren) before leaving office. He will then shuffle off the world stage and live the remainder of his days in an opulent and secure memory care facility. 

 

Prediction number two: Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President in November. 

 

Within weeks, the Supreme Court will overrule decisions by various state officials to keep Trump off the presidential ballot for allegedly participating in an insurrection. You can take that to the bank.

 

Trump is also facing criminal charges in various jurisdictions. I think he will beat those charges. Alternatively, any convictions against him will be overturned by the appellate courts.

 

Thus, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president, and he will face an opponent chosen by the Democratic Party’s Super Delegates.

 

Prediction number three: Americans will regret our involvement in the Ukraine war.

 

Ukraine is losing its war with Russia. It will never regain the Donbas or reoccupy Crimea. Meanwhile, the NATO countries are more and more ambivalent about their support for Ukraine. Russia has the stamina for siege warfare and prolonged fighting. The western nations do not.

 

Eventually, Ukraine and Russia must reach a settlement, and that settlement will require Ukraine to give up some territory. The longer the West waits before coming to that conclusion, the more people will die in this foolish and unnecessary war.

 

Now here are my premonitions for 2024—premonitions I hope will not come to pass.

 

Premonition number one: Urban violence. I fear an outbreak of violence in our cities during the summer of 2024, which will peak during the Republican and Democratic Party conventions. I also fear anti-Israel protests will become larger and more disruptive and will invite more violence.

 

Premonition number two. Rampant inflation. In spite of our government’s effort to deceive the American people, inflation in this country is out of control and is getting worse. In particular, the rising cost of food and housing will cause millions of Americans to suffer before the year is out. 

 

Premonition number three: Terrorists will cross our southern border and kill hundreds of Americans.

 

Illegal immigrants are entering the United States at the rate of 10,000 people a day, and they are not all coming from Latin America. A significant number of border crossers come from the Middle East and some are on the government’s Terrorist Watch List. No nation can absorb those numbers indefinitely without endangering its sovereignty.

2024 may be the year in which PresidentJoe Biden's insane boder policy enables terrorists to cross our southern border and commit a wanton and spectacular act of murder.  I hope not.

Conclusion

 

I hope 2024 will be the year when Americans take prudent steps to protect our security, our culture, and our way of life. I hope this is the year Americans will stop electing crooks and madmen to public office and quit sending their children to universities that promote racism.

 

I fear, however, that America will continue along its downward path toward financial and social collapse. If Americans don’t do something this year to remove the crooks from public office, reform our education system, and get our financial house in order, the days of American greatness will be over.

 

 

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows: Preventing the wrong people from running for President

Why Doesn't the Federal Government Just Cancel All Student Debt? To Find the Answer, Take a Look at Our National Balance Sheet

 When Joe Biden was running for President, he said he would cancel $10,000 of every college borrower's student debt if Congress consented. But Congress hasn't acted.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Charles Schumer have urged President Biden to cancel $50,000 of every borrower's federal student loans, saying he has the executive power to do so. But that hasn't happened either.

Why not? Given the hardship that student debtors are experiencing--especially since the COVID crisis began--why not just wipe the slate clean and cancel all $1.7 trillion in federal student debt?

In my opinion, President Biden and most members of Congress would like to cancel all student debt. After all, there are about 45 million student borrowers, and canceling their student loans would make them all very happy. 

But Congress can't do that, and neither can President Biden. And here's why.

Student loans are carried on the nation's balance sheet as assets. As of September 30, 2020, the United States held almost $6 trillion in assets, and about a quarter of that amount is listed as outstanding student loans. 

As of September of last year, total national liabilities amounted to roughly $32 trillion, resulting in a national debt of around $26 trillion (give or take a few trillion).

Thus, if Congress simply wiped out all those student loans or President Biden canceled them through executive action, the nation's balance sheet would look significantly worse than it already does.  Instead of holding total assets of $6 trillion, our government would have only a little more than $4 billion.

Simply put, the federal government pretends that all that student-loan debt--closing in on $2 trillion--will be paid back.  And that fiction cannot be maintained if Congress wipes out all student debt or allows large numbers of distressed debtors to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy 

If you are a student-loan debtor, you have benefited from the moratorium on making monthly loan payments--a moratorium that won't be lifted until May 2022.

But just because you haven't made any student-loan payments over the past two years, don't get your hopes up that Congress will simply forgive all federal student debt.  It won't do it because it can't do it. The Federal government's balance sheet simply can't take the hit.

Joe Biden wants Congress to give all student borrowers $10,000 in debt relief: Too little? Too much?

 This week, Joe Biden called on Congress to give all student borrowers $10,000 in debt relief on their federal student loans.  "It should be done immediately," Biden said.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Charles Schumer say Mr. Biden's plan is not bold enough. They want him to use his executive powers to give all student borrowers $50,000 in debt relief.  Senator Schumer said that relief of that magnitude would wipe out all federal student-loan debt for 75 percent of college borrowers and provide at least partial relief for 95 percent. 

So--is Biden's proposal too little or too much?

As I have said for years, a flawed relief plan is better than no relief plan. I support any congressional or presidential action that would grant some relief to the nation's 45 million student-loan debtors, who collectively owe $1.7 trillion in college loans. If $10,000 in debt relief is the only arrow in Mr. Biden's quiver, I say he should let it fly.

But both the Biden plan and the Warren-Schumer proposal are flawed. First of all, a $10,000 write-off of each individual's student debt will do almost nothing for the nearly 9 million borrowers in income-based repayment plans. Their debt grows larger by the day because the loan payments aren't large enough to pay off the accruing interest.

Moreover, Mr. Biden wants Congress to approve the deal, which will take weeks, if not months.  After all, the student-loan catastrophe is a political hot potato that Congress might not want to pick up.  

The Warren-Schumer proposal is far more comprehensive than Biden's. As Senator Schumer said, this would eliminate all (federal) student-loan debt for most Americans. But Warren and Schumer want Biden to take this action on his own hook.  Does he have the authority to forgiveness $50,000 in student loans for millions of debtors?  

Who knows?  Ultimately, a federal court would have to rule on that question.

As Senator Schumer averred, a $50,000 Christmas present would relieve most recent college graduates of all their federal student-loan obligations. For those folks, their college degree would turn out to be free--or almost free. That would make many young Americans very happy, and most of those who bothered to vote cast their ballots for Joe Biden.

But there are moral hazards to the Warren-Biden scheme that are not inconsequential.  I think it is a mistake to allow college graduates to walk away from their student loans while doing nothing to force the universities to bring their costs down. 

Giving a few million Americans a get-out-of-jail-free card on their student loans will only encourage the universities to continue charging too much for a college degree and perhaps even tempt them to raise prices further. What do tuition costs matter if the government is going to step in from time to time and give students a free ride on their loans? 

And once the feds step in once with a $50,000 bailout, students will get it into their heads that they will do it again. So why worry about those student loans? How will kids pay the rent on their luxury student housing?

No. It would be much better for Congress to pass legislation--with the next President's support--that would give distressed debtors easier access to the bankruptcy courts. Let the bankruptcy judges sort out who is really broke and deserves debt relief.

Regardless of what Congress or the next president does, the student-loan scandal will not be fixed overnight.  It is the huge friggin' elephant in the room that has blighted millions of Americans' lives.

But I think it would be a mistake for our national leaders to wipe out perhaps a trillion dollars of student debt and leave the taxpayers stuck with the bill. 

Americans have grown skeptical about the value of a college experience at universities mired in sexual-assault scandals (Penn State, UCLA, Baylor, Michigan State, LSU, etc.). They wonder why our elite schools harbor so many blowhard professors who teach students nothing more than most of them are victims of societal bigotry.

Ain't there at least some good things about American society--its culture, literature, democratic values, respect for human rights--some American virtues worth studying and nurturing?

If not--if America is in the toilet and worthy of nothing but contempt, why must students spend four or five years in college and borrow $50,000 or $60,000 to get a bachelor's degree in cynicism? Didn't they learn to be cynics in high school?

Massive student-loan forgiveness is now a mainstream idea: Even Al Jazeera is on board

Around 45 million Americans owe a total of $1.6 trillion in student loans, and approximately 20 million of those debtors are not paying them back.  Betsy DeVos, President Trump's Education Secretary, admitted more than a year ago that only one out of four student borrowers was paying down principal and interest on their federal loans. "In the commercial world," DeVos observed, "no bank regulator would allow this portfolio to be valued at full, face value."  

So why not just forgive all this festering debt--debt that is preventing struggling Americans from buying homes, having children, or saving for their retirement?

That notion is now a mainstream idea in American politics. Senator Bernie Sanders got the ball rolling when he called for wiping out all this debt.  Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed something slightly less radical--forgiving student debt up to $50,000.  And Joe Biden, the Democrats' presumptive nominee for the Presidency, wants to forgive all debt owed by individuals who attended a public university or a historically black college (HBCU).

Even Al Jazeera, an Arabic-focused news organization, based in Qatar, wants to forgive all federal student loan debt.  America is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the 1930s, Al Jazeera reporters pointed out, and the U.S. needs to prioritize relief  for "people, not profit." Al Jazeera calls for canceling all student loan debt, which would "help those hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic to "rebuild their futures."

Writing off all federal student debt is not a crazy idea, especially, as I just said, a bunch of it isn't being paid back anyway. But does Congress have the political will to do it? I don't think so.

After all, the straightforward solution to this crisis would be to simply allow overwhelmed debtors to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. Bills have been introduced in Congress that would accomplish just that, but those bills have gotten nowhere. 

I've said this before, and I will repeat it. Congress should allow insolvent Americans to file for bankruptcy and discharge their student loans like any other consumer debt: credit cards, car loans, and business obligations. 

And all Congress needs to do to accomplish this sweeping reform is to remove two words from the U.S. Bankruptcy Code: "undue hardship." It is the "undue hardship" language, after all, that the federal courts have interpreted so harshly, and which has denied bankruptcy relief to millions of honest student-loan debtors.

Of course, if Congress abolished the "undue hardship" standard, it would need to appoint a lot more bankruptcy judges to deal with a torrent of bankruptcy filings. And the judges would need to make sure that people who have the financial wherewithal to repay their loans don't fraudulently apply for bankruptcy relief.

In my view, calls to wipe out all student debt are irresponsible because politicians know this is never going to happen. Bankruptcy reform provides an orderly and fair way to give unfortunate student debtors a fresh start while guarding against fraud. 

Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness is seriously flawed, but it is a step in the right direction

Joe Biden announced his plan for student-loan forgiveness in a Medium commentary posted a few days ago.  He proposes to forgive all federal student loans for persons who earn up to $125,000 a year and who acquired their loans to attend a community college, a public college or university, or an HBCU (historically black college or university).

Biden's debt forgiveness plan is a step in the right direction, but it is seriously flawed.

First, Biden's plan does nothing for people who racked up student debt to attend for-profit colleges. We've known for a long time that the for-profit college industry has preyed on disadvantaged populations--people from low-income families, minorities, and first-generation college attendees.  On average, students leave their for-profit institutions with more debt than they would have acquired had they attended a public university.

So why not extended student-loan forgiveness to people who took out loans to attend a for-profit institution?

Second, student debtors who enrolled at private universities get no relief under Biden's plan unless they attended a private HBCU. This makes no sense to me at all.

Why should students who studied at Xavier University, a Catholic university in New Orleans, get debt forgiveness, while students who attended Loyola University, another New Orleans Catholic school, receive no relief at all? Are students who attended HBCUs more worthy of assistance than students who attended other colleges and universities? I don't think so.

Finally, Vice President Biden's proposal gives no relief to people who took out private student loans. Let's remember the fact that the so-called Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 explicitly made private student-loans virtually nondischargeable in bankruptcy.  Then-Senator Biden supported that bill and voted for it.

Why should a student who took out student loans from Wells Fargo or Sallie Mae be denied debt relief while students who took out federal loans get their student debt completely wiped out?

I support any legislation that brings assistance to overburdened student debtors--including plans proposed by Senator Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former VP Biden.  So Biden's plan, imperfect as it is, has my support.

But wouldn't be simpler and fairer to amend the Bankruptcy Code and allow beaten down debtors to shed their student loans in bankruptcy like any other nonsecured consumer debt--regardless of where they went to college?

After all, the bankruptcy judges have the authority and the expertise to reject bankruptcy claims that are fraudulent or brought by people who have the financial means to pay back their lawful debts.

In my view, Biden's student loan relief plan is not well thought out. If implemented, it will ignite bitter resentment from people who are burdened by college loans taken out to attend private universities or for-profit colleges. And it will undoubtedly offend people who took out private student loans that are nondischargeable in bankruptcy because of a law Joe Biden helped enact back in 2005.

Joe Biden wants to forgive your student loans if you attended this Catholic university but not if you attended another Catholic school located in the same city.

Joe Biden and the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act: "It's not personal. It's strictly business."

The 2020 presidential election is about eight months away, and I'm not going to tell you how to vote. If you hate Trump, you'll vote for Biden. If you think Biden is suffering from dementia, you'll vote for Trump.  And by election day, Biden or Trump will probably be your only choice.

Regardless of their political affiliation, all student-loan borrowers who are drowning in debt will want the next President to do one thing: reform the bankruptcy law. Specifically, they will want the next President to pressure Congress to repeal the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 and to remove the "undue hardship" language from the Bankruptcy Code.

The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005--named with unintended irony--made it more difficult for Americans to discharge credit card debt in the bankruptcy courts, and it made the bankruptcy process more expensive and more difficult for beaten-down debtors.

 According to Senator Elizabeth Warren:

After the bill passed, bankruptcy filings went down permanently by 50%, and the number of insolvent people went up permanently by 25%. By making it harder for people to discharge their debts and keep current on their house payments, the 2005 bill made the 2008 financial crisis significantly worse: experts found that the bill “caused about 800,000 additional mortgage defaults and 250,000 additional foreclosures.” 

The law also made private student loans almost impossible to discharge in bankruptcy. Before its passage, debtors could not discharge federal student loans in bankruptcy unless they could show "undue hardship." After the bankruptcy reform law was passed, private loans were also nondischargeable unless a debtor could show undue hardship.

The law was a Republican-backed bill, which Senator Ted Kennedy scathingly criticized. “This legislation breaks the bond that unites America, it sacrifices Americans to the rampant greed of the credit card industry,” Kennedy said.

But many Democratic senators crossed party lines and voted with the Republicans.  One of those aisle-crossing Democrats was Joe Biden. Senator Biden claimed the new law would cut down on abuses in the bankruptcy system. In fact, there was little evidence that debtors were scamming the bankruptcy courts.

In my view, Biden disguised his motives for voting in favor of the bankruptcy reform bill. In reality, Biden was doing the bidding of the corporate banks, which have donated millions to his campaign coffers over the years. To borrow a quote from The Godfather, Biden's vote wasn't personal; it was strictly business.

Now, however, Mr. Biden is singing a different tune. As reported by Matthew Yglesias in Vox,  Biden recently changed his position on the 2005 law. He now endorses the views of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who have called for its repeal.

This is good news for student-loan debtors, but I think Mr. Biden needs to express his change of views more forcefully. Student debtors need to hear Biden explicitly call for the repeal of the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act and the abolition of the "undue hardship" language in the Bankruptcy Code. If he does that, Biden will win a lot of votes in the November election.

Biden and the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act: It wasn't personal. It was strictly business.

I fell asleep during the Impeachment movie. Did I miss anything?

Like millions of Americans, I watched Impeachment, The Movie. Unfortunately, I fell asleep near the end, and when I woke up, I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.

In my own defense, Impeachment was a very long movie--more than three years, almost as long as Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.  I got up to go to the bathroom during the Mueller investigation, and I never got back on track.

And of course, when a movie is three years long, you gotta have some popcorn. I was smart enough to buy the Value Tub--the one that gives you unlimited refills. It was expensive--$250 plus tax, but I got 127 refills, so it was a pretty good deal.

But the popcorn breaks added to my confusion. I missed parts of the movie when I was making all those trips to the concession counter.

So fill me in. I thought the Mueller investigation concluded that Trump was not guilty of colluding with the Russians, but later in the movie, Hillary Clinton said that he was.

And then Trump was accused of making an illegal phone call to the president of Ukraine. And that had something to do with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and all the rest of Biden's children. But that was never explained.

But here's the part that really befuddled me.  The impeachment trial in the Senate was triggered by an anonymous whistleblower whose name was never revealed.  And Representative Adam Schiff, the chief prosecutor, claimed he had never met the guy.  Huh? To me, that part of the movie just wasn't believable.

Obviously, the director of the movie, Nancy Pelosi (who played herself in the film), should have cut a lot of the scenes. In my opinion, the movie could have been cut down to about a year and a half.

And there were casting errors.  The guy who played Robert Mueller was obviously miscast. He was supposed to be this bulldog investigator with ironclad integrity, but he came off as some sleepy old guy who was trying to find the remote on his television.

I tell you this--I am not going to watch that movie again. I'm too old to watch three-year movies.

But I'm pumped about the sequel, which comes out next summer--Impeachment: The Empire Strikes Back! This one is about the expulsion of Adam Schiff from the House of Representatives, and Joaquin Phoenix plays Shiff wearing Joker makeup.

I can't wait to see it, and I understand it's only about two months long.

Joaquin Phoenix playing Adam Schiff in Impeachment: The Empire Strikes Back

This essay is also posted at my blog site on American culture: Saints of Flyover Country, flyoversaints.org.

Student Borrowers Beware: Joe Biden is a Lackey of the Banks

Fourteen years ago, Congress passed a so-called bankruptcy reform law at the behest of the banking industry. One provision--inserted solely for the benefit of the banks—made private student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy unless the debtor could show “undue hardship.” The banks justified this heartless legislation as a way to reduce interest rates on private student loans. They argued that the additional protection for creditors would make it possible for banks to loan students money at a lower interest rate because defaulting borrowers would find it virtually impossible to discharge their private college loans in the bankruptcy courts.

This legislation benefited Sallie Mae, Wells Fargo and other major players in the private student-loan market, but the U.S. Department of Education issued a report in 2015 arguing that this provision should be repealed.

This is what the DOE report had to say:

There has been no evidence that the 2005 changes to bankruptcy caused interest on student loans to decline or access to credit to increase significantly. As private student loans generally do not include the consumer protections, such as income-driven repayment plans, included in federal loans, the undue-hardship standard for bankruptcy discharge leaves private student loan borrowers in financial distress with few options.

According to an article in International Business Times (IBT), Senator Joe Biden was an enthusiastic supporter of this Fat Cat Assistance Act, which made it harder for insolvent student-loan debtors to obtain bankruptcy relief. As IBT’s David Sirota observed:

Though the vice president has long portrayed himself as a champion of the struggling middle class--a man who famously commutes on Amtrack and mixes enthusiastically with blue-collar workers—the Delaware lawmaker has played a consistent and pivotal role in the financial industry’s four-decade campaign to make it harder for students to shield themselves and their families from creditors, according to an IBT review of bankruptcy legislation going back to the 1970s.

Indeed, Ed Boltz, who was president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys in 2015, observed that “Joe Biden bears a large amount of responsibility for passage of the bankruptcy bill.” In fact, the New York Times reported that Biden voted for the bill four times: in 1998, 2000, 2001, and in March 2005, when the bill finally passed the Senate by a vote of 74 to 25.

And—surprise, surprise!—as of 2015, the financial industry had donated $1.9 million to Biden over the course of his career. Now Joe is launching another campaign for the presidency.

So if you get an opportunity to vote for Joe Biden, keep this mind: he is a lackey of the banks. And if you are a student-loan debtor who supports Mr. Biden's presidential bid, then you are an idiot.

References

Christopher Drew & Mike McIntire. Obama Aides Defend Bank’s Pay to Biden Son. New York Times, August 24, 2008.

David Sirota. Joe Biden Backed Bills to Make It Harder for Americans to Reduce Their Student Debt. International Business Times, September 15, 2015.

U.S. Department of Education. Strengthening the Student Loan System to Better Protect All Borrowers. Washington D.C., October 1, 2015. [Note: This DOE report has been removed from the web.]