Politics

Biden’s student debt gamble is about 2024 — not 2022 Two days on from Biden’s student debt announcement and any level-headed political cost-benefit analysis of the move would not make for pretty reading in the White House. After months of umming and aahing over the move, the administration’s rollout of the measure is strikingly undercooked. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struggled to give remotely satisfactory responses to the main objections in yesterday’s briefing. She could not say how much debt forgiveness would cost. She struggled to explain the legal basis for the executive action. Asked why affluent lawyers were included, or queried on the basic unfairness of the measure for those who paid off their debts, she could do little more than filibuster and waffle.

Let's commit a potential crime: "Every day the Iraqis turn out military communiques threatening 'severe punishment' against Iran." That line is classified, albeit from 1988. It was put into the public sphere via Wikileaks but never officially declassified. Technically it remains classified even though it is a click away. It illustrates that if there are three things that most everyone in government agrees on, they are: a) there are too many classified documents classified too highly; b) no one is going to risk their neck to be the first to start classifying less; and c) handling all that classified information is a major problem even for those trying to do the right thing. As former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said, “Everything’s secret.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on Paul’s vote. That political axiom is the crux of Joe Biden’s decision to forgive vast quantities of student loan debt. He needs Peter's and Patricia’s votes, and he is bribing them with taxpayer money. Taxpayers know it is not a costless gesture. Their backlash is likely to overwhelm any potential gains. The problems begin with the program’s cost and inflationary impact. Spending another $300 to $900 billion, the estimated cost, raises consumer demand without increasing supply. Since the program is not funded by tax increases, it will be paid for by printing money. The inflationary consequences are predictable.

It always ends up back with the Clintons, doesn't it? The laws Trump may be charged under at Mar-a-Lago appear to have been violated by both of the Clintons, yet the two were never searched, never mind charged and never prosecuted. Any action against Trump must account for that to preserve what is left of faith in the rule of law applied without fear or favor, or risk civil disenfranchisement if not outright civil unrest. The more obvious case involves former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who maintained an unsecured private email server that processed classified material on a daily basis.

Pittsburgh Fresh off the campaign stage in Arizona, where he stumped for gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Florida governor Ron DeSantis made his way to Pittsburgh for another Turning Point Action rally. This one was supposedly for Doug Mastriano (DeSantis was headed to Ohio for J.D. Vance right afterward), who’s challenging state attorney general Josh Shapiro to replace Democratic governor Tom Wolf — but his address sounded every word a DeSantis 2024 presidential speech. The polls suggest Mastriano needs all the help he can get, as Shapiro — who has already spent $12 million on ads — leads Mastriano — running a “shoestring campaign” — by a healthy margin (one recent poll has Shapiro leading by fifteen points). But DeSantis hardly mentioned Mastriano at all.

With the collapse of Liz Cheney's political career in Wyoming, Donald Trump's supporters are fully ensconced in the vast majority of critical candidacies headed into November. He and his supporters have remade the GOP, at least for the moment, into a party devoted to the Trumpian America First agenda and running on that set of priorities — at least when it comes to the lip service they give to border concerns, trade, anti-globalism and culture war issues. But will this be a Republican Party that actually delivers on these priorities should they receive voters' endorsement in November? That’s a more questionable proposition. The core problem that many traditional GOP forces have with a Trumpian agenda is one of prioritization, not of positioning.

Cheney’s last stand She may have lost the battle, but she has not lost the war. That was the defiant message from Liz Cheney as she conceded (unsurprising and widely predicted) defeat in yesterday’s Wyoming Republican congressional primary last night. “Our work is far from over,” said the scion of the Cheney dynasty who will be out of office next year. Cheney’s defeat means we now know the fate of all ten of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump in his final days in office. Four have announced their retirement. Four have, like Cheney, been ousted in primaries and two — Washington’s Dan Newhouse and California’s David Valadao — managed to survive their primaries.