Below is my column in the Hill on the curious position of Democratic members of Congress opposing the use of the democratic process to address the college loan forgiveness plan. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bizarrely condemned the Supreme Court for usurping congressional authority by supporting congressional authority in the student loan case. She renewed her calls for retaliation through subpoenas, court packing, and even impeachment. She previously said that she did not understand why we needed a Supreme Court. Like Sen. Chuck Schumer, she was outraged that the Court would require a president to go to Congress before giving away roughly half a trillion dollars in loan forgiveness.
Here is the column:
“Disappointing and cruel.” Those words from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) after the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Biden administration’s loan forgiveness program may say more than the opinion itself.
The court’s “cruelty” was in supporting Congress’s core constitutional power of the purse. Schumer’s disappointment in having to address and vote on the forgiveness of hundreds of billions of dollars in loans speaks volumes about the collapse of our constitutional values.
The court’s decision on the merits of the case was hardly a surprise. President Biden was using the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003 to order the largest loan forgiveness program in U.S. history. The law is only a few pages long and was intended to assist military personnel deployed abroad in combat zones.
The idea of using that law in order to avoid getting congressional approval for such a massive expenditure was laughable. The Office of Legal Counsel considered the theory and issued a memo stating that it would be unconstitutional.
In his response to the court, Biden declared that “the hypocrisy is stunning” and that the court had “misinterpreted the Constitution.” However, during the last presidential campaign, Biden himself acknowledged that this effort would be unconstitutional.
Chief Justice John Roberts even cited former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the opinion for stating the obvious: “People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.”
Biden, however, knew that there was no way Congress would approve the loan forgiveness. Many citizens objected that they decided to learn a trade rather than go to college, and no one is suggesting that they should be forgiven their debts. Others paid their student loans back and felt like they were the victims of a bait-and-switch.
While many of us could not see any plausible way that this law could be used for such a clearly unintended purpose, University of California law professor Dalié Jiménez filed an amicus brief declaring that the HEROES Act “is as clear as sunlight” as a basis for forgiving federal student debt for nearly everyone.
The justices failed to see the light. Instead, a 6-3 majority again declared that Biden was violating the Constitution and had to go to Congress.
The same court that had just ruled overwhelmingly to support Biden’s immigration policies turned around and issued a devastating and detailed opinion as to why no such authority existed in this case.
Biden was undeterred after that ruling and promised, “I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver [the] relief.” Perhaps, but the Constitution has once again stopped him from becoming a government unto himself.
That brings us back to Schumer. James Madison designed a constitutional system with a frank understanding of the factional and petty impulses of politicians. Yet he believed that he had created a system of checks and balances that could rely on the institutional self-interest of members to jealously protect their powers under Article I. Madison believed that, despite party or ideological affiliations, “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”
In all of his study of the ancient Greek and Roman states and contemporary politics, Madison never encountered the likes of Schumer and his colleagues. Their ambition runs elsewhere, and they view the support of their authority to be an act of constitutional “cruelty.” They are calling on a president to turn them into institutional nonentities — legislators who engage in a type of empty performance art as the president governs alone.
It is a curious position for those who have campaigned on protecting “democracy.” These same figures are now calling on a president to avoid presenting this major program to Congress because they know that the majority would oppose it.
Ever accommodating, Biden is now saying that he will attempt to accomplish the same loan forgiveness by taking a “new path.” That path, of course, is not to the co-equal branch just down the street from where his lives. It is rather through a different statute, the Higher Education Act of 1965. The HEA, however, could be used only for a far more limited number of debt holders, and even this would raise new legal questions. The HEA was rejected previously because the HEROES Act was still viewed as a better avenue for the administration.
In comparison to just going to Congress down the street, the “new path” is like going from D.C. to New York by way of Los Angeles.
All of this is meant to avoid the one option left to the president — going to Congress. After all, the last thing you want in the defense of democracy is to have an outbreak of democratic process.
What is left, to paraphrase Schumer, is a cruel joke. But the ultimate joke is on the American people. Half of their representatives in Congress are struggling to make themselves (and those they represent) entirely irrelevant at this key moment. That is a constitutional debt that should not be forgiven.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
There are no powers enumerated in the Constitution that give either the PRESIDENT or CONGRESS the authority to give away free stuff.
SCOTUS is the final judgement! President and or Congress cannot over rule them!
The Left has a contorted view of “equal protection.”
In her attempt to rationalize race-based college admissions, Sotomayor argued that: “The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enshrines a guarantee of racial equality. The Court long ago concluded that this guarantee can be enforced through race-conscious means . . .”
“Equal protection” does *not* mean equal outcomes or equality of results. The 14th Amendment was not written to transform America into a culture of compulsory redistribution.
Equal protection means equality under the law — that the government will use its police powers to protect all (irrespective of race, et al.) from any usurpations of rights.
Sam, you gotta wonder how Sotomayor graduated from law school…unless it had “racial quotas and equality.” Even I could figure this out. GAWd what a mess.
“303 Creative v. Elenis”
The SCOTUS decision was correct. Compelling an individual to support “ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” (Jefferson)
The Left would have us believe that as soon as an individual offers a product or service for sale, he loses his rights. He becomes a mere plaything to satisfy the wishes of the public’s desire. In principle, there is no difference between a tyranny of “the public” and a tyranny of the king.
The 5th Amendment right to private property is qualified by the requirements for due process and just compensation, providing for and allowing no further qualification, and is, therefore, absolute.
The 5th Amendment right to private property provides for the “dictatorship of the owner.”
Legislation that denies a citizen his full and complete right to private property is unconstitutional.
CADA is irrefutably unconstitutional.
Only the owner of private property “claims and exercises” dominion over his private property and may deny entry, sales and services to any person.
The 1st Amendment freedom of speech expresses the freedom of thought and opinion, of which discrimination is the first step.
If government has the power to deny one form of discrimination, government has the power to deny all discrimination, opinion, thought and speech.
It does not.
Per the 14th Amendment, all citizens enjoy the equal protection of laws, fundamental laws and constitutional rights and freedoms.
All owners of private property, equally, may “claim and exercise” dominion over their property.
No non-owner of private property may “claim and exercise” dominion over the private property of another person.
No individual citizens enjoy different or superior rights and freedoms.
Denial of the freedom of thought, opinion and discrimination is unconstitutional.
The Constitution does not guarantee individual citizens any degree of success or failure in any aspect or facet of life.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
______________
5th Amendment
No person shall be…deprived of…property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
14th Amendment
No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
George: In order for the three liberal justices to come to the correct reading of the constitution, they’d have to begin by reading it. Just sayin…
Sam, …and no difference between Dems and Communists, apparently.
Jonathan: If you want to talk about a “Constitutional Cruelty” we should discuss the faulty reasoning of Justice Gorsuch in “303 Creative v. Elenis”, another case handed down by the Court this week in a 6-3 opinion that ruled an overt ACT of discrimination is protected by the First Amendment.
In 2016 web site designer Lorie Smith sued the State of Colorado claiming its Anti-Discrimination Act violated her religious freedom. The Act states that businesses open to the public cannot refuse services to customers based on sexual orientation, race of disability. Smith claimed the Act infringed on her fundamental religious beliefs that gay marriage violated God’s plan–which only acknowledges a marriage between a man and a woman–and that violated her violated her 1st Amendment rights.
The first problem is that Gorsuch refused to recognize the basic principle of “standing”. For a very long time the Court has said that, before the Court will take up a case, there must be an “actual case or controversy”, i.e., with actual real people involved. In this case Smith had no real clients, a gay couple, who wanted her to design a website. So Smith had to bring a “pre-enforcement” challenge without having a real client or waiting for the State of Colorado to act. That was the first fundamental problem that Gorsuch simply ignored. The Court should have denied hearing the case simply on the issue of “standing”. Further, it now appears the conservative majority is in the business of issuing “advisory opinions”–another no no in the history of the Court.
In a dissent by Justice Kagan, joined by Brown Jackson and Sotomayor, she pointed out that Colorado’s law stands for the principle that “the duty to serve is owed to everyone. and any business that holds itself out as ready to serve the public”. In other words, Smith is entitled to her private religious beliefs but when she offers her services to the public in general she not be able to discriminate based on sexual orientation–which is prohibited by Colorado law. There are a lot of private clubs that still discriminate against Jews and Black people. While that is reprehensible those clubs can discriminate because they are PRIVATE. Smith, on the other hand, offers her services to the PUBLIC IN GENERAL that would seem to prohibit her from discriminating against the LGBTQ+ community.
Under the logic of the conservative majority, if a baker or candlestick maker decides he/she does not want to serve Blacks or Jews based on a “religious conviction” that these groups are less worthy in God’s eyes, then that’s now just an exercise in “free speech”. We apparently now live in a dystopian world in which the Supreme Court can give “standing” to someone where there is no “actual case or controversy” and it can give an “advisory opinion” that puts us back to a time when widespread discrimination was perfectly acceptable–and part of the law of the land! But that is where we are headed under the Court headed by Chief Justice Roberts!
SCOTUS Syllabus : ” Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regard-
less of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gen-
der” and “will gladly create custom graphics and websites” for clients
of any sexual orientation; she will not produce content that “contra-
dicts biblical truth” regardless of who orders it. ”
WILL CREATE FOR ANY SEXUAL ORIENTATION.
NO CONTENT THAT CONTRADICTS BIBLICAL TRUTH.
Dennis got it wrong again.
If there is only one good thing about having yet another manic, crack driven commenter on this blog is one who will play with Dennis. So glad you have joined us. Make sure you are current on your rabies vaccines
Thanks Denny, I know you like attention, like the fairer sex.
No drugs no drink.
No jabs no tats.
No brats no rats.
No pharma pills.
Get it correct.
I do enjoy a good 5 cent cup of coffee.
Why do you people bother reading Dennis?
Now discuss the basic principle of “standing” in Roe vs. Wade.
Dave: Now draw an owl…
CONGRESS SHALL NOT ABRIDGE, CONSTRICT, REDUCE, TRUNCATE, SHORTEN, ABBREVIATE, TRIM, CUT BACK, DECREASE OR COMPRESS THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH
SPEECH IS A FUNCTION OF THOUGHT
FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
THOUGHT IS DISCRIMINATION
DISCRIMINATION IS THOUGHT
___________________________
The freedom of speech is not qualified by the Constitution and is not diminished by or in the ideations and components of its creation.
Freedom of speech includes the freedom of thought, opinion, choice, belief, mind, cognition, ideas, conviction, discrimination, etc.
Congress has no authority to compel acceptance, rejection, adoration, loathing, success, failure, love, abhorrence, etc., of any person, place or thing in the universe.
Discrimination is the simple and imperative ability to decide to turn right or left when one leaves his house in the morning.
Americans enjoy the absolute right to, and freedom of, speech, thought and discrimination.
It is unfortunate that you do not believe in freedom.
It is unfortunate that you believe in dictatorship; you espouse and expound on the dictatorship of thought and speech.
People must adapt to the outcomes of freedom.
Freedom does not adapt to people, dictatorship does.
Laws against bodily injury and property damage are imperative and constitutional.
_________________________________________________________________
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech,….
Standing Dennis? It’s a law which if enforced subjected her to liability. She filed an action based upon declaratory relief stating she couldn’t comply with a forced message because of her religious beliefs. She clearly had standing. Don’t know what you do for a living Dennis but your lack of familiarity with standing for declaratory relief is lacking.
Dennis, you raise some very good points. This is a very sticky issue. I am wondering if the government of Colorado could compel a business to be open on Sunday, or open 24 hrs so as not to discriminate against those who do shift work or work nights?
The Leftist-Islamic Alliance Makes its Move in France An entirely foreseeable crisis.
While the Leftist-Islamic alliance is cracking elsewhere due to the Left’s determination to normalize gender delusions and fantasies and sexualize children, in France, it has the whole country aflame, and could conceivably bring about the end of the Republic. What is happening now in France was entirely foreseeable, but few dared foresee it, for fear of being called “racist,” “Islamophobic,” and “far right.” Once again those who have been smeared with such terms turn out to have been right all along.
Cont https://horowitzfreedomcenterstore.org/products/obamas-true-legacy-how-he-transformed-america
Who Says Justice Thomas Benefited From Affirmative Action?
He graduated Yale Law School. So did Bill and Hillary Clinton. Only his credentials get questioned.
Wall Street Journal
According to the New York Times, eight Holy Cross graduates were admitted to Yale Law between 1968 and 1978, the decade that included Justice Thomas’s law school career. Why assume that he got in only because of his race? Why question the justice’s credentials but not Bill Clinton’s or Hillary Rodham’s , two of his fellow Yale Law students? The reason is affirmative action, which has made people suspicious of black academic and professional success.
Justice Thomas’s concurrence includes several references to the writings of Mr. Sowell, a leading critic of affirmative action for more than 50 years. After the Supreme Court upheld race-conscious admissions in a 2003 ruling, Mr. Sowell lamented that he probably wouldn’t live to see the day when the court finally issued “a clear-cut statement that racial quotas and preferences were illegal.” He was wrong, thankfully. The decision was handed down on June 29, the day before Mr. Sowell celebrated his 93rd birthday.
Happy belated Birthday to Professor Thomas Sowell
🎈🎉
The little Maoist from NY is a dumb but dangerous demagogue. She would have also been a great little commissar in Stalins Russia. In short she a a despicable little thug who should be censured and removed from all committees.
Simplify!
The questions of taxing and funding student loans and taxing and funding the forgiveness of student loans should be resolved through the citation of relevant law.
One of you brilliant legal minds in attendance should cite the Constitution for the authority and power to tax citizens for the benefit of students or any other individuals or groups, understanding that Congress may tax for ONLY Debt, Defense and general (all, the whole) Welfare.
That citation will mute the naysayers; until the law is cited, no taxation for students or loans may be deemed constitutional.
The clock is ticking and the audience is waiting.
______________________________________
“THEY ARE NOT TO LAY TAXES AD LIBITUM”
Recalling the immortal words of the highly esteemed Thomas Jefferson, “The laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.”
It’s my understanding that the Alexander Hamilton and the Supreme Court have broadly construed the tax and spend for the general welfare clause so that it would easily cover student programs — see United States v Butler (1936) and Helvering v Davis (1937). Sorry George, I am going with the Supreme Court over your views.
I hope in the coming days that Professor Turley focuses his discussion and legal analysis on the Supreme Court opinions themselves, including quotes of specific passages, instead of his recent focus on reaction to the opinions (Biden, Schumer, and AOC for example). I do appreciate several commenters partially filling this void with quoted passages and analysis, but there is no substitute to hearing more from the good professor.
I’m one of those not getting shafted I want my 80 grand treasury check when the already advantaged educated and now geniuses of this nation after partying and humping their way to perdition and slacking off for years afterwards and never taking advantage of what someone else’s dime got them since they blew all they made to the wind now demand an ex post facto free ride from their criminal mob boss biden.
Hot under the collar and ready for some mostly peaceful protesting.
“i’m so schmart im so educated i did the time what did you do i got my papers im a breed in a sneed listen to me you forsaken weed…
PS PLEASE PAY OFF THE MONEY IT TOOK ME TO GET THIS STUPID AND ARROGANT, ACTUALLY I ALREADY WAS DUMB.”
Not
a
chance
Who knew that Chief Justice Roberts could lob some zingers in writing opinions for SCOTUS?!?
In short, there is no reason to believe that respondents will—even acting in good faith—comply with the Equal Protection Clause any time soon.
The dissenting opinions resist these conclusions. They would instead uphold respondents’ admissions programs based on their view that the Fourteenth Amendment permits state actors to remedy the effects of societal discrimination through explicitly race-based measures. Although both opinions are thorough and thoughtful in many re-spects, this Court has long rejected their core thesis.
Thorough and thoughtful? This is no time to be chivalrous towards the little ladies. Sheesh!
The trolls are out big time on this one. Prof Turley again strikes a so-called “progessive” nerve with lucid constitutional logic.
Skip the trolls. They’re full of it.
“In all of his study of the ancient Greek and Roman states and contemporary politics, Madison never encountered the likes of Schumer and his colleagues. Their ambition runs elsewhere, and they view the support of their authority to be an act of constitutional “cruelty.” They are calling on a president to turn them into institutional nonentities — legislators who engage in a type of empty performance art as the president governs alone.”
****************************
Au contraire mon ami, Madison encountered these scoundrels everywhere in antiquity and knew their conivances as legendary in the ancient world. He clealry saw it. It’s why he “baked in” checks and balances all through the Constitution. Benjamin Straumann illustrates (with the example of Tiberius Gracchus and the agrarian bill) the eloquent point alluded to by Madison on Federalist 63**:
“In 133 BCE, the Tribune Tiberius Gracchus clashed with a fellow Tribune, Marcus Octavius, who had vetoed Gracchus’ agrarian bill. Tribunes could constitutionally veto legislation by other magistrates. After Octavius’ veto, Gracchus asked the popular assembly to depose Octavius, an unprecedented move that was widely considered unconstitutional. The assembly followed Gracchus and proceeded to depose his colleague Octavius, but there must have been second thoughts: according to Plutarch, the unprecedented dismissal of a Tribune by the People was “very displeasing, not only to the nobles,” but even “to the multitude.”
Gracchus had to justify his course of action before an informal popular assembly. The challenge was to explain why the deposition of a fellow Tribune did not amount to the destruction of the power of the tribunate and of popular rights. Gracchus argued that a Tribune was “sacred and inviolable because he was consecrated to the people and was a champion of the people.” However, if a Tribune should “wrong the people, maim its power, and rob it of the privilege of voting,” he “by his own acts deprived himself of his honourable office by not fulfilling the conditions on which he received it.”
This was a revolutionary theory of representation. By exercising his constitutional veto against Gracchus’ agrarian bill, Octavius had employed his power “against the very ones who had bestowed it.” Octavius had “robbed” the People of the “privilege of voting” and had thus forfeited his office. Gracchus claimed that by vetoing the bill, Octavius had effectively ceased to be Tribune. If it was right for Octavius “to be made tribune by a majority of the votes” it must be “even more right for him to be deprived of his tribuneship by a unanimous vote.” The Tribune is conceived to act on binding instructions from the popular assembly; failing to do so will depose him. This is of course directly opposed to Madison’s “plenipotentiary” view of the tribunate.
It is instructive to compare Gracchus’ with American ideas of representation. One strand of political thought adheres to a “plenipotentiary” or “pre-Gracchan,” view (also called the “trustee conception” of representation by political scientists). According to this view, representatives are separated from those who elected them and autonomous in their decisions. This “autonomy gap” between people and representatives allows for representatives to act according to their personal judgment and conscience. Representatives are not bound by the will of their electors but free to reach the conclusions and compromises they see fit. They enjoy Madison’s “plenipotentiary capacity.”
A second strand of political thought is closer to Gracchus. The British thinker Edmund Burke famously called this the “ambassador” idea of representation. Here the representative acts on binding instructions, resulting in a much closer connection between representative and electorate. In recent U.S. politics, Grover Norquist’s famous “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” and Tea Party aspirations provide examples for this “Gracchus model” of representation—pledges and oaths are supposed to hold members of Congress on a short leash, committing them to policy and diminishing their bargaining options.
The tension between Gracchus and Octavius—between representatives as agents with a mandate or plenipotentiary trustees—played a prominent role in the debates of the American Founding. Before the Revolution, colonial legislatures adhered to an “ambassador” conception of representation where closeness was prized. In the debates between Federalists and Anti-Federalists these opposing conceptions of representation were again at stake. For the Anti-Federalists, the House of Representatives was not sufficiently alike those it represented and not sufficiently close to them—representatives were bound to be too independent from their electorate, separated by an autonomy gap.
The Federalists admitted that their conception of representation opened up such a gap. Indeed, they were adamant that representatives be insulated from the people, and they even thought the Constitution allowed for a “natural aristocracy.” For the Federalists, such insulation would only contribute to the quality of government. In Federalist 57, Madison welcomed representation by an elite. Degeneracy of this elite would be prevented by constitutional constraints such as term limits. During their term, however, representatives would enjoy the plenipotentiary capacities of Tribunes before Gracchus.”
https://blog.oup.com/2016/06/james-madison-tiberius-gracchus-representative-government/
**Madison wrote in Federalist 63: “Every man the least conversant in Roman story, knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable title of Dictator, as well against the intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to the tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community whose conduct threatened the existence of all government, as against the invasions of external enemies who menaced the conquest and destruction of Rome.” … “The Roman history records many instances of mischiefs to the republic from the dissensions between the Consuls, and between the military Tribunes, who were at times substituted for the Consuls. But it gives us no specimens of any peculiar advantages derived to the state from the circumstance of the plurality of those magistrates. That the dissensions between them were not more frequent or more fatal, is a matter of astonishment, until we advert to the singular position in which the republic was almost continually placed, and to the prudent policy pointed out by the circumstances of the state, and pursued by the Consuls, of making a division of the government between them.”
The simple truth is Congress does not have the political courage to do what it believes needs to be done for the people and desires a Supreme Court that will do it for them. We have leaders that do not have the courage to lead.
The “simple truth” is the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which provide maximal freedom to citizens and which severely limit and restrict government.
What “needs to be done for the people,” must and can be done in the free markets of the private sector.
That’s the point of American fundamental law: Freedom and Self-Reliance.
America is not a theocracy; one should not conflate law and morality.
Charity is dispensed at the back of the church to those the church deems worthy and in need.
Dear Prof Turley,
I attended school with [financial] help from the so-called ‘GI Bill’. Iirc, a leftover program dating back to WWII and Vietnam. There were no ‘loans’ involved. The gov. simply mailed me, through the school, a [supplemental] check every month I was in school for services rendered. Money well spent, both times.
That’s probably why Sen. JOe Biden worked tirelessly, in the highest levels of gov., over his illustrious career to institute new GI ‘guaranteed’ educational ‘loan’ programs, the HEREOS act and whatnot. One would be hard pressed to find a gov. program, or war, he opposes now that he did not help establish. And vice versa.
Of course, I choose to attend only the finest ‘liberal arts’ college in America – with a strong remedial ed program. It worked. By the time I graduated, the gov. owed me money.
Imagine my surprise, then, when my daughter informed me a few years ago she owed around $50k in student loans (a 4yr. specialized school) – still! Wtf, she had worked in school and I had given her money almost every Week – and did not know she had even taken out such loans. (to make matters worse, she has now paid them off Before Biden’s forgiveness – so, if it weren’t student loan bad luck, she would have no luck at all.)
There has to be a better way .. . perhaps, a new railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean and a 3 year stint in the Peace Corps.
*point of order. U.S. Attorney Weiss’ untrammeled investigation into Hunter Biden is not over despite any recent plea agreements. .. that was just a vicious rumor before the latest allegations came to light.
“CONGRESS IS NOT TO TAX AD LIBITUM”
“The laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.”
– Thomas Jefferson
________________
Congress has the power to tax ONLY to pay Debts and provide for the common Defense and general (i.e. all or the whole) Welfare (i.e. roads, water, electricity, sewer, post office, etc.).
Congress is not a wishing well, charity, personal benefactor or sugar daddy.
I don’t read “student loans” in the Constitution.
Student loans are a function of the free markets of the private sector.
All you parasites, dependents and goldbricks, submit your supplications to JPMorgan Chase, the Bank of America, etc.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;….
_________________________________________________________________
“This is not a democracy. Everybody doesn’t get to do what they want to do. Everybody doesn’t get to do what they feel like doing.”
– Nick Saban
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Merriam-Webster
republic
noun
re·pub·lic ri-ˈpə-blik
1 b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
George: I especially like the phrase “citizens who are entitled to vote.” Solves a lot of questions, doesn’t it?
The V.A., the G.I. Bill and the HEROES Act are all unconstitutional.
They may be viable as a cost or expenditure of the DOD.
It worked for me.
I oppose the very concept of student ‘loans’ .. . but I’m not adverse to [some] school product liability claims.
*I know people who have $50k student loans attending fashion, hair design and philosophy schools.
If the government wrote me a treasury check for 50 grand or a million it would work for me, too.
@Shakdi
And given that a lot of the original loans went not toward tuition but things like TVs, sure, I trust the checks will go toward the loans. 🙄🙄🙄
If you can find it in the yellow pages, the government shouldn’t be buying it for you. Ronald Regan.
dgsnowden: The problem started under Obama when the government took away student loan lending from banks and credit unions and “nationalized it.” Then said one could not file bankruptcy on a student loan. Who created the problem? It should have been left in private hands.
Only a Democrat, Schumer, AOC, Warren et al, would see a Court decision that states that an outrageous Executive Order that spends FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS needs to be passed by the Congress, the party that has “the power of the purse” and then screech that the Court is “trying to legislate”??? No morons, the Court is saying to the Congress that they have to legislate.
The second most aggravating aspect of this issue, after having to see three Justices, The Little 3, all vote against a majority opinion that they either know is right or that they should know is right, is watching as the media doesn’t once ask AOC, or Schumer, or KJP or any screaming Democrat, about the fact that Pelosi and Biden both said that this power wasn’t in the president’s quiver of powers.
As for “Anonymous” and the other liars above, Coivd was no longer close to being an “emergency” as Joe Biden, the man now screaming about the supposed legality of the EO, said and even argued when trying to end Title 42 at the border. How is it not an emergence at the border, but it is an emergence in order to use the Heroes Act? Also, using the Heroes Act, an act meant to assist MILITARY PERSONAL that were being deployed to actual danger zones in order to give loan relief to gender studies, social engineering studies, woman’s studies, as well as grad school future doctors, lawyers and engineers is SICKENING.
The “Little (Affirmative Action) Three” must be impeached for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as they are derelict and negligent in their duties, they are failing to fulfill their sworn oath to support the clear and evident, meaning and intent of the Constitution, and they are attempting to void and nullify the Constitution as direct and mortal enemies of the Constitution.
The Constitution provides maximal rights and freedoms to citizens, severely limits and restricts government, and provides no “emergency powers” to any level of government.
Congress may suspend habeas corpus ONLY in a case of Rebellion or Invasion.
________________________________________________________________
Article 1, Section 9
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Congress has no power to tax for the HEROES Act and the HEROES act is unconstitutional. Funding for heroes must come from the DOD/VA.
Congress has no power to deny the rights, freedoms, privileges and immunities provided by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
READ BELOW
Rough week for you at the Supreme Court George — unlike you, all 9 justices (1) recognized and accepted the 14th amendment in the affirmative action case and (2) did not question the constitutionality of the HEROES Act in the loan forgiveness case.
Troll less, read more, and perhaps you can get into college and graduate with a marketable degree.
“In a 6–3 decision, the Court ruled that race-based affirmative action in college admissions violates the 14th Amendment.”
https://reason.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-on-affirmative-action-eliminating-racial-discrimination-means-eliminating-all-of-it/
Zalevs, The justices disagree on whether affirmative action violates the 14th amendment but all the opinions in the case accept and recognize the validity of the amendment — George does not (perhaps you are unaware of George’s position).
Have you ever read American fundamental law?
The totally corrupt Supreme Court of 1869 found something that is not in the Constitution, a clause denying and prohibiting secession. It you can find it, please post it here.
The totally corrupt Supreme Court of 1860 refused to find the truth, that Lincoln’s acts were illegal and unconstitutional in his denial of secession, his war against a sovereign foreign nation, his imposition of martial law, his confiscation of private property, his abject dereliction, negligence and failure to enforce extant immigration law, etc., while, at least and finally, Chief Justice Taney struck down Lincoln as having no power to suspend habeas corpus. The “Reconstruction Amendments” are the result of a wholly unconstitutional “Reign of Terror” and must be fully and completely abrogated, putting America directly back onto the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Lincoln was a budding communist.
The totally corrupt Supreme Court of 1973 created a federal right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, which we all know now through Dobbs was erroneous and unconstitutional.
Next question.
Sorry George, I am going with the views of the Supreme Court in 1869 (Texas v White) and 2023 over your views.
And you may go with the views of the jury in L.A. that O.J. Simpson was not guilty, that abortion was a constitutional, federal right per the SCOTUS, 1973, and that affirmative action is constitutional as has been done for 62 years. Why not. You make it all up as you go along – you don’t cite fundamental law – you can’t.
The entire historical debacle that was “Crazy Abe” Lincoln hinges on secession.
You are forced to prevaricate because the facts do not support Lincoln’s position denying secession, causing everything corollary to Lincoln’s denial to be unconstitutional.
Once again, for the umpteenth time, please cite the Constitution for a prohibition of secession.
When you can’t and don’t, we may all know, definitively, that secession was constitutional and everything Lincoln did, including the Karl Marx engendered “Reconstruction Amendments,” was unconstitutional.
One final thought from Justice Scalia (2010 letter). “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, “one Nation, indivisible”)”.
A friend of mine at church is a retired attorney, a big wig in VA legal circles, and former Chief Staff Attorney for the VA Court of Appeals. We recently spoke about the trend of SCOTUS Justices ruling along party lines. He said something that has stuck with me and comes to mind with the recent trend of decisions by SCOTUS and Federal Circuit Judges. He said when he worked along the side of VA Judges, they would look at the legal case presented to the Judges, and then consult with the US Constitution, Constitution of Virginia, Virginia Administrative Code, etc, before making a decision. He lamented it appears that disposition is no longer the case today from what he sees.
I read Sotomayor’s opinion on the Affirmative Action ruling. Her first sentence, in the first paragraph, gave away her lack of intelligence, dishonesty and ideological agenda. To wit:
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enshrines a guarantee of racial equality. The Court long ago concluded that this guarantee can be enforced through race-conscious means in a society that is not, and has never been, colorblind. In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), the Court recognized the constitutional necessity of racially integrated schools…..
(….)
Because the Court’s opinion is not grounded in law or fact and contravenes the vision of equality embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment, I dissent.
She erroneously and presumptuously tied the 14th Amendment to Affirmative Action, as if rejecting AA is the same as being deprived life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. Here is the verbiage of the 14th Amendment:
Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
After Sotomayor’s opening sentence globally referencing the 14th Amendment, she leaps to Brown v Board of Education on a long winded, emotional, pearl clutching rant, none of which have anything to do with the 14th Amendment re: Affirmative Action. Nothing at all. She wrote her dissent purely on emotional grounds which is to say ideology. Sotomayor didn’t even bother to read the verbiage of the 14th Amendment. Like Kentaji Jackson who cant define a “womyn” and refuses to consult with basic biology, both Sotomayor and Jackson give the middle finger to the US Laws.
Here is Sotomayor’s truly rich arrogance:
Because the Court’s opinion is not grounded in law or fact….
The “wise latina” is blind as a bat and dumb as a brick.
She and Jackson are quota fillers and frankly a blemish on SCOTUS.
I didnt get into college because of Affirmative Action. I got into college because I applied to Jesuit colleges as a graduate of a Jesuit high school. That was more than enough for the colleges to take me seriously as a high school applicant. There wasn’t even a box on my college applications to check as to my ethnicity. Nobody cared. Sure I was subjected to racism in college but I proved them all wrong, and it has made me a far better person.
It is Sotomayor and Jackson who are being racist. One would think they would consult with the Senior Justice of SCOTUS who suffered racism in the Deep South of Georgia as a child and still overcame it all. Jackson has none of this lived experience. Alas, Justice Thomas threatens the political ideology of Sotomayor and Jackson which is why they dissented. The US Constitution is merely a suggestion for them, just like with Biden and Democrat Senators Schumer, Warren, Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Richard Blumenthal, et al.
Our legislators are afraid to legislate.
“CONGRESS IS NOT TO TAX AD LIBITUM”
“The laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.”
– Thomas Jefferson
________________
Congress has the power to tax ONLY to pay Debts and provide for the common Defense and general (i.e. all or the whole) Welfare (i.e. roads, water, electricity, sewer, post office, etc.).
Congress is not a wishing well, charity, personal benefactor or sugar daddy.
I don’t read “student loans” in the Constitution.
Student loans are a function of the free markets of the private sector.
All you parasites, dependents and goldbricks, submit your supplications to JPMorgan Chase, the Bank of America, etc.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;….
_________________________________________________________________
“This is not a democracy. Everybody doesn’t get to do what they want to do. Everybody doesn’t get to do what they feel like doing.”
– Nick Saban
___________
Merriam-Webster
republic
noun
re·pub·lic ri-ˈpə-blik
1 b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
“entitled to vote”
BUYDEM!
How do Joke Buydem and the communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) get votes?
They buydem!
They shower their symbiotic, subservient minions with endless “free stuff.”
Their problem is that the Constitution does not allow for the taxing or funding of vote purchases.
The Constitution allows for the taxing and funding of ONLY Debt, Defense and general (i.e. all or the whole) Welfare.
Why is the vote restricted in a republic such as America? Because votes can be bought.
Yes it’s so far gone it’s ridiculous now. It’s a big fiat lottery only the recipients are now almost always a selected sub group paid off not for the general welfare but for specific reasons and not general to the population usually caused by former government illegally meddling tossing around other lottery subset targeted wins and having disastrous consequences like Obama’s tyrannical fed takeover of student loans in 2010 in this case.
So you finally read the Constitution.
No, that was junior high school, SON.
Up on deck, Moore vs US,
A Wealth-Tax Watershed for the Supreme Court
https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-moore-v-u-s-wealth-tax-patrick-bumatay-ninth-circuit-83610ed
Whats new? The Democrats want to overrule the law that allows shoplifters to cause your prices to go up so why not overrule the law that will eventually cause your taxes to go up. They want you to believe that they can just say poof and the money will appear out of thin air. I believe that they really do think you are stupid enough to buy in. As to the students who want their debts forgiven, they are no different than the flash gangs stealing all they can from Walmart right in front of the police and the head sherif of the nation is pushing the shopping cart full of goods for them. What else can be expected when it’s just one thief helping other thieves to stuff the stolen goods into the trunk of the car.
Mark dice proves on the beachwalk in California a lot more than 50% believe it and at least 50% have no thought about it whatsoever.