Lost Wind
I can’t lie: watching the news yesterday was depressing. There was a laundry list of “bad news” items that just took, as my mother would say, “the wind out of my sail”. We start with the US Supreme Court, headed to prevent the US Government from forgiving some level of student debt. Justice Gorsuch put his view simply, saying it “wouldn’t be fair” to those others who didn’t benefit or paid their debt off.
This new concept of Supreme Court fairness is troubling. The conservative Justices take the stand that everything: race, economic opportunity, education, voting; is somehow now “equal”. And since the Thomas-Barrett-Alito-Gorsuch coalition have set this arbitrary line, ignoring centuries of American history, they feel confident that “from here on out” everything should be “fair”. It’s the same logic that allowed Chief Justice Roberts to eviscerate the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Roberts seemed to think that everything, particularly racial equity, is all good and equal now. That’s “BS”, but I suppose it’s easy for Roberts to say. After all, all his friends are “equal”.
Legal Issues
There are two legal issues on student loan forgiveness. The first: does the President have the legislative authority, under the Covid emergency provisions, to act. The obvious precedent is that he does. No one fought either Biden or Trump on the PPP provisions, were businesses got trillions in “forgiven” loans to survive the pandemic. Few argued that it wasn’t “fair” to those businesses that failed. Everyone just “bellied up to the bar” and took their share of cash. But now that money might be shared with the least influential, including a high percentage of minorities, who tried to advance their education – well we can’t have that!!
The second is the legal standing of the states to bring this case in the first place. In Courts, litigants are supposed to have a real stake in the outcome of the proceedings. But the states that are suing really have nothing to gain or lose. They aren’t profiting or paying; it really doesn’t have anything to do with them. Reasonably, the Supreme Court should have “denied certiorari”, and refused to hear this in the first place. But the “conservative coalition” is vested in taking charge of America. So here we are.
Who Cares
The second depressing news item is from Texas. The Texas Radical-Republican legislature and Governor wrote abortion laws so punitive, that women facing miscarriages are unable to get prompt care. The doctors who would care for them face first degree felony charges if “it is deemed” they performed an abortion, and are now forcing women to risk their lives to “prove” they’re not seeking one. Oh, and the provision that allows for abortions in cases of rape? The “proof” is so onerous, that women can’t show it before the state mandated deadline. And now Texas is out to ban medical abortions (drug induced) as well. You can’t blame the doctors or the women; just the politicians.
Ginning Up
The third item is from Tennessee, but also includes Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Utah, and already has support in Ohio’s legislature as well. These ban adolescents suffering from gender dysphoria from receiving gender-affirming care. It not only prohibits surgical intervention (which seldom occurs before eighteen anyway) but medical intervention as well. In plain language: a transgendered child will be required to live in a body that is betraying them until they are an adult. The amount of emotional trauma and potential suicides these legislators will cause is horrific. But it’s spreading across the nation. And it’s all to “gin up” the radical voters in the gerrymandered Republican states.
It’s not about morals, or protecting the “unborn” or children, or even being fair to “Joe the Plumber” who didn’t go to college. This is all about getting votes and power. The radicals are willing to do whatever it takes to exercise their new-found power in the Supreme Court, or in the state legislatures. There’s not even a veil of decency, or concern. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt.
And we thought that was all over after January 6th, 2021.
