Many of the recent Supreme Court rulings are designed to punish and demoralize people.
The far-right, billionaire-backed organizations that bring the cases before these conservative clowns (who no longer even pretend to pass themselves off as fair minded jurists) hope that many of us will become so dejected that we will simply give up.
Part of their motivation is also to continue to stoke the cruel cultural fires that the GOP and far-right influencers are engineering and exploiting.
We learned over the weekend that even the case used to strip LGBTQ people of their rights was completely bogus.
The man cited in lawsuit never requested a web design from the far-right backed developer who allegedly was protecting her right to refuse service based on ‘religious’ grounds.
The Supreme Court heard the case anyway and decided 6-3 in favor of bigotry and taking away more American rights.
A big step backwards.
Again.
On Saturday, in South Carolina outside a Trump rally, one hometown Senator was booed so mercilessly he essentially gave up after failing to win over the crowd of die-hard MAGAs in the heart of Dixie.
A man who has prostrated himself at Trump’s feet for seven years and counting - isn’t MAGA enough for the toothless hordes.
I can’t help but think the never-married Senator may have some other oft-rumored attributes that the MAGA crowd was booing as well.
Just because they could - and are encouraged to do so - by the ever-lowered bar that passes for discourse when pledging loyalty to their feral king.
A news personality from a right-wing media network, (I think it was Newsmax but honestly they are all the same these days) asked a woman waiting outside the rally what she would have Donald Trump do on day one if he was reelected in 2024.
Her answer, “Arrest Biden and round up the ‘deep state’ and take them to the train station.”
She then laughed and covered her mouth and bent over her beach ball waist as if she has just told a dirty joke instead of advocating for genocide.
The small crowd around her hooted and hollered and “hell yeah’d” while the ‘reporter’ laughed and said, “you said it, not me.” his smile and eyes broadcasting his approval provided just the sort of content his bosses love.
MAGA adherents at their filthiest is big business - and sure to go viral - which means more money in the bank.
Fascism itself is big business: that should scare and disgust anyone who values the freedoms many of us attempt to celebrate this Independence Day.
Are we a nation of cowards and grifters pretending to have courage or the people so easily and often mythologized in our popular culture and lore?
Last week, we watched SCOTUS end affirmative action in our most prestigious universities and allow private businesses to discriminate against the LGBTQ communities, while striking down President Biden’s debt relief program for student loans.
Effectively telling this nation’s students and borrowers that 10 - 20k of debt relief on loans - that in many cases amounted to predatory lending - were not worthy of cancellation or consideration but an average PPP loan of 70k was forgiven for pandemic borrowers.
Most of whom were wealthier citizens, including many members of the U.S. Congress, who were all too happy to line up and feed at the public trough when the Trump administration was handing out cash like candy.
Buying their complicity and favor down the road - as a mob boss is wont to do by giving his capos a little taste after a decent score.
In reality it was a giant score for Trump - and much more money in the end than President Biden wanted to use to pay off student debt in order to give hardworking Americans a shot at a more fruitful future.
The usual GOP hypocrites took to social media and the airwaves to cheer the awful SCOTUS ruling and to admonish those who were upset by it, that they should ‘learn to honor their commitments and pay their debts,’ while not mentioning all the PPP loan money they themselves had forgiven.
Why should they? As their constituents will never come in contact with facts, and the can score so many points in their home districts with the sheer meanness of it all.
(The GOP is not counting on the college-educated to win the next presidential race, that much is certain.
Education itself has become a villain in much of their rhetoric, most especially with the greasy little meat-puppet down in Florida whose wife fancies him as an heir to Trump’s throne.
In reality, DeSantis may not come within spiting distance of the nomination especially if he has to debate Chris Christie who will eat him up like a hot plate of garlic knots at the best pizzeria in Newark).
Not a single member of Congress who spoke out in defense of SCOTUS paid back the PPP loans that they themselves took out.
Neither did the GOP pundits and former Trump officials like Larry Kudlow, whose wife’s business received a loan for her oil paintings of her husband’s neck tie collection, which she creates in their country estate in Connecticut.
To be fair it wasn’t just Republicans who took advantage of the situation.
I know wealthy entertainers that received millions in PPP loans and were subsequently forgiven of their debt.
Free money is hard to resist, especially with those that have already developed a taste for it.
Those with more resources were able to get more access to PPP funds because they have accountants and lawyers to handle the paperwork.
Money is relatively cheap for the wealthy.
It’s very expensive to be poor in the United States of America.
From payday loans to predatory lending, the young and financially vulnerable become cannon fodder in a capitalist system designed to protect the rich.
Our student loan system has been a crisis for the millions of students who may not ever get out from under their debt.
They now have to enter into uncertain futures and postponed progress because of high interest loans they took out when many of them were teenagers.
I can speak from experience on this issue myself, though I am far from the neediest among those currently carrying debt, it has certainly been a burden and one I have carried for decades.
I have been paying back the loan I took out in the mid-90’s and have never been in default.
I have had some forbearance through the years and have never made even a small dent in the principal, owing more today then when I first borrowed.
The 10k relief I qualified for under President Biden’s plan would have done away with the interest-only payments I have been making since my 20’s.
In my early 50’s I would finally be able to tackle the principal, instead of sending over 200 bucks a month away and watching my debt increase with each year that passes.
I am one of the luckier ones in this equation, my debt is relatively minor compared with many borrowers, especially in the medical education field.
The scenario I described is amplified across the country and disproportionately effects African-American and minority borrowers.
You can be damn sure the Supreme Court knew this when they made their 6-3 decision in favor of the conservatives.
We now live in a country where the highest court in the land is essentially owned by a handful of billionaires.
It’s no surprise they continue to rule in their favor.
Most especially Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch - all three of whom have been exposed as receiving financial benefits from wealthy benefactors who had business before the court.
In Justice Thomas’s case, his nephew even had his education paid for by the same billionaire who bought Clarence’s mothers house (no student debt for the Thomas clan).
The same man who wipes his mouth with the Führer’s linen while the Thomases have a nice chuckle, as their ‘dear friends’ and frequent guest.
Of course I am speaking of the execrable Harlan Crow, a man who has probably done more than any other American, outside of his compatriot and financial carbuncle, Leonard Leo, to destroy the court and refashion it into a Christofascist kangaroo court.
Clarence himself by the way is a beneficiary of affirmative action - and the man who ultimately killed it with his own hand.
Decades after the program helped him achieve degrees at Holy Cross and later, Yale Law school; before becoming the GOP’s toady and turning his back on the Civil Rights progress that literally helped create his esteemed career.
He was clearly a creep, guilty of sexual harassment; his ascension to the Supreme Court has always left a lingering stench.
Thomas has clearly lived up to his worst potential, along with his fellow conservative judges who seem to be reveling in their current corruption of the American people.
Expanding the court would be the only way to undo the damage that has already been done in the near future, although there doesn’t seem to be any appetite for that in the executive branch of the Democratic party.
At least at the moment - we will see what fresh horrors arrive in SCOTUS’s next term.
For now, the judges are free to luxuriate in the summer homes and super yachts of their billionaire buddies.
A court indebted to the wealthy few is bad thing; some of the bills came due this past week.
We are a weaker nation as a result of their rulings.
Diversity is our strength.
We need opportunity and equality for all Americans regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation or economic status.
We are at an all-hands-on-deck moment for humanity and the life of this planet: we need every color and character to shine their awareness and talents on the issues before us as a people.
We are ultimately all one: we are all in this together whether we choose to realize it or not.
This Fourth of July holiday we would do well to remember those principles and rededicate ourselves to protecting and honoring what really matters: each other.
A great day to read this piece of writing again thank you Noel
I really need to know if you are on telegram. I am talking to someone who is supposed to be you and I don't believe it is. Especially when money became a topic