[guest post by Dana]

During an interview on ABC This Week, Liz Cheney explained how her future goals include working to keep election deniers out of office:

“I’m going to be very focused on working to ensure that we do everything we can not to elect election deniers,” she said during a discussion of her future on ABC’s “This Week.”

“We’ve got election deniers that have been nominated for really important positions all across the country,” she added. “And I’m going to work against those people. I’m going to work to support their opponents.”

Cheney said that she would get involved in campaigns against Republican candidates who are challenging or denying the results of the 2020 election, including her GOP colleagues in Congress.

After her primary defeat, GOP Rep. Liz Cheney tells @jonkarl that she will focus on working to keep election deniers out of office.

“I’m going to work against those people, I'm going to work to support their opponents. I think it matters that much.” https://t.co/ztgdHLNV99 pic.twitter.com/cHDGCmvihJ

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 21, 2022

From what I’ve seen, Republicans are motivated to vote for an election denier-liar candidate because they too embrace Trump and his Big Lie. Another reason – although I don’t know to what extent it plays out – is that while voters might agree that Joe Biden is the legitimate president, they believe that voting against a Democrat supersedes everything else – even if it means voting for a candidate that peddles lies about the 2020 election. It goes without saying that neither group sees any real risk to our nation’s future or well-being by the increased number of elected MAGA figures in the GOP.

Here is a clip of Cheney responding to the Trump spokesman who claimed that the principles that she is fighting for are not the principles of (today’s) Republican Party. An absolutely damning statement:

What I'm fighting for is the Constitution. What I'm fighting for is the perpetuation of the Republic. What I'm fighting for is the fact that elections have to matter. pic.twitter.com/uHYt4sOgZ7

— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) August 22, 2022

The New York Times reported this week that more than 200 primary candidates for state and federal office were endorsed by Donald Trump. The 2022 primaries have 159 election denier-liars running for office. Out of that 159, 127 candidates won their primaries thus far, with 16 having been defeated. There are 16 more candidates still in the running. Here is a closer look at the election deniers/liars:

The unifying thread through the majority of Mr. Trump’s endorsements has been a candidate’s willingness to help him spread the lie that he won the 2020 presidential race. Many of these candidates either took concrete actions to subvert the election, such as voting in Congress or state legislatures to delay certification of the vote, suing to overturn results or backing partisan reviews of the ballot count. Others made clear public statements in political ads, social media posts or on the campaign trail that expressed doubts about the 2020 election.

Liz Cheney certainly has her work cut out for her. The importance of said work should not be minimized, given that it will take efforts like this to start to turn the Republican Party around and get back to foundational principles. You know, the ones that Trump’s spokesman says are now irrelevant.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

The Washington Post editorial board weighs in on President Biden’s announcement:

Under progressive pressure to force grandiose policy changes, President Biden has generally embraced sensible reforms over flashy gimmicks. But his Wednesday student loan announcement did just the opposite.

[…]

The loan-forgiveness decision is even worse. Widely canceling student loan debt is regressive. It takes money from the broader tax base, mostly made up of workers who did not go to college, to subsidize the education debt of people with valuable degrees. Though Mr. Biden’s plan includes an income cap, the threshold does not reflect need or earnings potential, meaning white-collar professionals with high future salaries stand to benefit. Student loans, moreover, are a poor proxy for household income: An analysis by policy researcher Jason D. Delisle found that, in 2016, students from high-income and low-income families were just as likely to take on debt for their first year in an undergraduate program — and students from high-income families borrowed the largest amounts.

[…]

Mr. Biden’s plan is also expensive — and likely inflationary. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that extending the loan pause to the end of the year would cost $20 billion, while forgiving $10,000 for households making less than $300,000 would cost $230 billion. Together, these policies would nullify nearly a decade’s worth of deficit reduction from the Inflation Reduction Act. Moreover, it is unclear that the 1965 Higher Education Act even grants the president the legal authority to take such a sweeping step, given that it was historically understood to permit only more targeted relief.

[…]

Mr. Biden’s student loan decision will not do enough to help the most vulnerable Americans. It will, however, provide a windfall for those who don’t need it — with American taxpayers footing the bill.

Yes.

Via Politico, I’m going to quote Democrats who have responded less than favorably to Biden’s questionable decision:

“Even some economists usually aligned with the White House, including former Clinton administration Treasury Secretary LARRY SUMMERS and former Obama administration economist JASON FURMAN, have criticized the cost of a potential student debt cancellation and warn that it could force future spending cuts or tax increases.”

Furman: “Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless. Doing it while going well beyond one campaign promise ($10K of student loan relief) and breaking another (all proposals paid for) is even worse.”

Summers: “Every dollar spent on student loan relief is a dollar that could have gone to support those who don’t get the opportunity to go to college. … Student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation. … It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions.”

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: “Debt cancellation would boost near-term inflation far more than the IRA will lower it.”

Sen. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO (D-Nev.): “I don’t agree with today’s executive action because it doesn’t address the root problems that make college unaffordable. We should be focusing on passing my legislation to expand Pell Grants for lower income students, target loan forgiveness to those in need, and actually make college more affordable for working families.”

Rep. JARED GOLDEN (D-Maine): “This decision by the president is out of touch with what the majority of the American people want from the White House, which is leadership to address the most immediate challenges the country is facing.”

Rep. CHRIS PAPPAS (D-N.H.): “[T]his announcement by President Biden is no way to make policy and sidesteps Congress and our oversight and fiscal responsibilities. Any plan to address student debt should go through the legislative process, and it should be more targeted and paid for so it doesn’t add to the deficit.”

Rep. SHARICE DAVIDS (D-Kan.): “It’s not how I would have addressed the issue.”

Rep. TIM RYAN (D-Ohio): “While there’s no doubt that a college education should be about opening opportunities, waiving debt for those already on a trajectory to financial security sends the wrong message to the millions of Ohioans without a degree working just as hard to make ends meet.”

Sen. MICHAEL BENNET (D-Colo.): “In my view, the administration should have further targeted the relief, and proposed a way to pay for this plan. While immediate relief to families is important, one-time debt cancellation does not solve the underlying problem.”

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Despite the 17-page defense of his actions on that fateful day in June, wherein claims were made that the Uvalde School police chief Pete Arredondo was a brave officer whose level-headed decisions saved the lives of other students on that fateful day in May, the Uvalde school district voted to fire Arredondo last night:

In a unanimous vote Wednesday evening, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s board of trustees fired Arredondo during a meeting also attended by parents and survivors of the May 24 massacre. Arredondo, who was not present, is the first officer to lose his job following one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history.

[…]

Arredondo, who has been on leave from the district since June 22, has come under the most intense scrutiny of the nearly 400 officers who rushed to school but waited more than 70 minutes to confront the 18-year-old gunman in the fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School.

How could they not fire him?

–Dana