Tuesday, July 4, 2023
Biden’s “plan” to save student debt relief, police brutality in France, a July 4 message, overheating in prisons, and more...
It’s July 4th! We hope you’re taking a well-earned break and enjoying yourself, maybe making some vegan barbecue or lying in an inner tube on a placid lake contemplating the history of the country. Alas, the news doesn’t take vacations, so we’re still here to brief you on everything going on. As for the holiday, here at Current Affairs we try not to be killjoys, but our feelings on the founders themselves are decidedly mixed. The words and spirit of the Declaration of Independence may still be stirring (well, except for the part about “merciless Indian savages”), but every year we revisit Frederick Douglass’ classic speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” What Douglass said about the disjunction between the rhetoric of freedom and the practice of enslavement still applies in an era where we have other evils remaining to be abolished. He said: “The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” In today’s briefing, we cover children being sent to work and prisoners who live in sweltering heat because states don’t provide air conditioning in cells even as global warming gets worse. Rejoice and relax, yes. Enjoy the day! But let’s also mourn our failures to make good on the promises of liberty and justice for all, and renew our determination to make a country that lives up to its stated values.
I. THE BIG STORY
BIDEN’S NEW GAMBIT TO SAVE STUDENT DEBT FORGIVENESS
On Friday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned President Biden’s student loan forgiveness package, screwing over as many as 40 million borrowers in the process. The court objected to Biden’s use of the 2003 HEROES Act to pass relief. In response to the decision, Biden pledged to pursue student debt relief under a different law: the Higher Education Act of 1965, which the administration argues gives them more direct permission to waive loans in times of crisis (though, if that’s the case, one wonders why they didn’t just use this law in the first place.)
On one hand, it’s nice (or perhaps just politically savvy) of Biden to not just roll over and let the forgiveness plan die. As we’ve discussed, it’s one of the few things he has done that would directly benefit the younger voters who are crucial to his reelection (whom he has already failed by not following through on campaign promises like raising the minimum wage and introducing a public healthcare option). But also, let’s get real: the Supreme Court didn’t overturn student debt relief because of some high-minded disagreement with him about what the law says. The law is for chumps! They did it because they disagree with student debt relief in principle and came up with a post-hoc rationalization to do what they wanted to do.
As Ian Millhiser explains in Vox, the HEROES Act is very explicit in giving the Secretary of Education the ability to “modify and waive” debt obligations in times of crisis. But Roberts fixated on the word “modify” in isolation to imply that it only allowed minor actions. He ignored the presence of the word “waive” which would seem to imply wiping out debts entirely (Justice Kagan also criticized this in her dissent.) Millheiser also points out that Roberts used the “major questions doctrine” to justify the ruling. In essence, under this doctrine, the Court assumes more authority in decisions which it determines are really, really important. Millhiser says the doctrine “doesn’t appear in the Constitution,” and is “mostly [invoked] in opinions joined entirely by Republican-appointed justices who wished to strike down policies pushed by Democratic presidents.”
The Court got its ideological wish by contorting the law’s language or just outright ignoring it. It’s hard to imagine that Biden’s attempt to use a different law to get the debt relief past the court will make a difference. Who is going to stop the Court from just doing the same thing? The only thing he could have done to prevent overt partisans from having a veto on all policy for the next 40-some-odd years would have been to pack the Court with more justices while he still had Congressional majorities. But he refused to even entertain it while he had a majority, and still refuses now that the ship has sailed. Still, Biden demurs, worried about “politicizing” the Court, even while they tell him to his face over and over that they are political actors.
STRUGGLING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO PAY YOUR STUDENT DEBT BACK?
THE NEW YORK TIMES ASKS: “HAVE YOU CONSIDERED DYING?”
(Note: The New York Times has since deleted this from the article in response to backlash.)
UPRISINGS IN FRANCE AFTER POLICE KILL AN UNARMED TEENAGER
Last week, French police shot and killed Nahel Merzouk, an unarmed 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent. The police falsely claimed that the act was defensive until a video of the shooting was made public. Since then, protests around the country have sprung up to challenge the long history and uptick in recent years of French police disproportionately targeting people of African and Arab backgrounds (which has become more deadly in part due to a 2017 law expanding their ability to use firearms). Emmanuel Macron added fuel to the fire with absurd, callous comments about how the shooting was “inexplicable”—despite its obvious roots in France’s history of colonialism and continued lack of accountability for police. As Crystal Fleming, a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Stony Brook University, writes in Al Jazeera:
France has a long and sordid history of colonial racism and violence against people racialised as “non-white”, stretching from Haiti, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean to Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, North and West Africa as well as Vietnam, among many other populations. France has ruthlessly oppressed Algerian people in particular – including those who are French citizens. … Despite the fact that police killings in France are on the rise with the majority of victims being Black or Arab, the reality of systemic racism in France is routinely and aggressively denied by French authorities under the twin veils of colorblindness and cultural arrogance.”
Protests have erupted around the country, with hundreds of people being arrested each night (it’s worth noting that the rest of the world erupted with protest when George Floyd was murdered by police in the U.S., but we have not seen any reports about protests in the U.S. over police brutality in France). It’s difficult to know how many of the people arrested were engaged in violent behavior—there has, no doubt, been a lot of violence and property damage. But we also know that in the past, Macron’s administration has had no qualms about brutalizing peaceful protesters, too.
Ultimately, this is the latest example of France’s powerful culture of resistance to oppressive governance. Earlier this year, the country’s labor movement launched a paralyzing strike to fight against Macron’s increases to France’s retirement age. Meanwhile, the country’s yellow vest protesters are an always reliable counter to new austerity measures.
II. STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
WITH EXTREME HEAT COMES EXTREME CRUELTY
Amid a dangerous heatwave in Texas, with temperatures exceeding 110 F (hotter than human beings can safely withstand), Governor Greg Abbott signed a law eliminating local rules requiring water breaks for workers. It’s another example of how Texas and many other state governments in the South go out of their way to create conditions that will kill people. Texas and many other states across the South, including Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, also have no requirements that prisons be air-conditioned. A Louisiana inmate was quoted by the Times-Picayune: “It’s over 100 degrees in there. I lie on the floor. I barely can breathe. God, it feels like it’s suffocating!” In Texas, between 2001 and 2019, in prisons without air-conditioning, an average of 14 inmates died each year from heat; in contrast, no one died of heat-related causes in prisons with air-conditioning. The state has been forced to pay out millions in heat-related lawsuits. It is as if a certain number of people convicted of crimes were randomly sent to the electric chair regardless of their sentence. Air-conditioning for prisoners should be a basic right, but sadly, our current Supreme Court is very unlikely to rule that roasting prisoners to death violates the Eighth Amendment.
STATES ACROSS THE U.S. ARE WEAKENING CHILD LABOR PROTECTIONS
Remember when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy talked about how children needed to “get a job” to give them “worth and value”? That was not just a one-off comment. It was reflective of a larger movement to roll back child labor protections in several states.
As The Conversation reports, since 2022, Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey, and New Hampshire have all passed legislation allowing 14 to 17-year-olds to work longer and later hours. Iowa now allows children as young as 14 to work in meat coolers and industrial laundries. Arkansas, meanwhile, got rid of the need for 14 and 15-year-olds to obtain work permits, or for employees to keep age documentation on file. Ohio is currently considering a law to allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work as late as 9 p.m. on school nights, while Minnesota considers one that would allow 16-year-olds to work on construction sites. Political Science professor John A. Fliter and U.S. History professor Betsy Wood write,
“Many conservatives and business leaders have long argued, based on a combination of ideological and economic grounds, that federal child labor rules aren’t necessary. Some object to the government determining who can’t work. Cultural conservatives say working has moral value for young people and that parents should make decisions for their children. Many conservatives also say that teens, fewer of whom are in the workforce today than in past decades, could help fill empty jobs in tight labor markets. Opponents of child labor observe that when kids under 18 work long hours or do strenuous jobs, it can disrupt childhood development, interfere with their schooling and deprive them of the sleep they need. Expanding child labor can encourage kids to drop out of school and jeopardize young people’s health through injuries and work-related illnesses.”
You may be relived to know that this publication takes a firm stance against child labor, as explained here by Editor-in-Chief Nathan J. Robinson: “One would have assumed the debate about child labor to be long since settled. Children deserve to focus on playing, learning, and developing. They shouldn’t be sent down mines and into meatpacking plants!”
III. AROUND THE STATES
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has come out in favor of taking away voting rights for people who don’t have children, saying that “the childless have little stake in the future.”
We’ve repeatedly chronicled the ever-growing number of conservative media figures and politicians who have explicitly endorsed an end to universal suffrage in America. Musk—(for now) the richest man in the world and probably the most influential person in modern American conservatism besides Trump—is also the most powerful so far to outright call for the end of democracy.
North Carolina is pushing through its own “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The bill would prohibit the discussion of gender and sexual orientation in K-4 classrooms. North Carolina’s Democratic governor is likely to veto it, but Republicans likely have enough seats in Congress to override that veto. This law mirrors the one passed in Florida last year, which has culminated in the censorship of books with gay characters, teachers being asked to remove rainbow decorations, and at least one investigation into a teacher for showing a Disney film with a gay character in class.
Scot Peterson, the armed security guard who fled the scene rather than helping during the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, has been acquitted on child neglect charges. His act of supreme cowardice will not be held accountable. But it—as well as the similar dereliction of duty by police during last year’s Uvalde massacre—serves as a potent symbol of the idea that the presence of armed security guards in schools does very little to make students safer. After all, the Supreme Court has long upheld that police have no legal obligation to protect anyone.
New York City is experiencing record-breaking levels of homelessness, with more than 100,000 people entering shelters amid rent hikes. Around 50,000 of them are homeless migrants who recently arrived in the city, which is one of the few places that guarantees them shelter. All the while, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams just vetoed a package of bills that would have expanded rental assistance at a time when people desperately need it. Adams, who has demonized homeless people throughout his tenure as mayor, has been dismissive and hostile towards the tenants harmed by his actions, resorting to calling his critics racist in order to deflect from legitimate questions. When an 84-year-old tenant activist confronted him about his financial support from the real estate lobby, he petulantly responded by comparing her to a slave owner:
“If you’re going to ask a question, don’t point at me, and don’t be disrespectful to me. I’m the mayor of this city… Don’t stand in front like you’re treating someone that’s on the plantation that you own.”
It was later revealed that the housing activist was, herself, a Holocaust survivor …yikes.
It’s important to remind ourselves that the supposed “scarcity” of housing is artificially imposed, and something we could easily fix in the richest country in the world.
THIS WEEK IN NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT WORDS MEAN
Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn argues that the seizure of fentanyl pills is a consequence of “Biden’s open border policies.” Blackburn is far from the first to make this argument: earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene also cited a three-fold increase in CBP drug seizures to make the same point about “open borders,” while Rep. Elise Stefanik and Senator Chuck Grassley have made similar claims. But, wait a second—if the amount of fentanyl being “seized” at the border has gone up, isn’t that good? What does she think the word “seized” means? It means that more of it is being prevented from entering the country!
Somehow, these people have become so convinced of the absurd narrative that Biden is some lawless border anarchist that they are willing to say things that are self-evidently contradictory to maintain it, such as: You can tell that Biden’s border is open because of all the law enforcement going on down at the border.
IV. AROUND THE WORLD
It turns out that the dreaded Chinese “spy balloon” wasn’t actually “spying” on the U.S. at all. Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters that although the balloon “had intelligence collection capabilities…We assess that it did not collect while it was flying over the U.S.” For a few days in February, the event created a media circus and was used as grist for the war-with-China mill. Between this fabrication and the one about the Chinese “base” in Cuba, which turned out to not be a base at all, this is a signal that any “intelligence” about China’s war posture towards the U.S. should be treated with the utmost skepticism going forward.
The Chinese not-spy balloon drifts menacingly over Myrtle Beach, SC/Russotp/Wikimedia Commons The world has learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. According to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, militaries worldwide have compiled nearly 10,000 nuclear warheads. The bulk of the 86 new ones added this year were by China and Russia, with India, Pakistan, and North Korea also adding to their arsenals. Meanwhile, both Russia and the U.S.—who hold the vast majority of the world’s nukes—have reduced their compliance with the New START disarmament treaty. It’s a good time to remember that the prospect of a Third World War has to be treated very seriously and that we must do everything in our power to prevent it.
2023 might be the hottest year on record. According to the E.U.’s global observation group, the first few days of June reached 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels—the threshold set by the Paris Climate Accord as a point of no return for climate change.
Graph showing correlation of measured global average temperature from five organisations, with some records dating back to 1850. (The "0" value for each dataset is the average of its values for 1951-1980)/Wikimedia Commons Former far-right president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has been barred from seeking office until 2030. In January of this year, after he claimed that his opponent Lula da Silva’s electoral victory was mired in fraud, his oafish supporters stormed the country’s legislature to prevent the peaceful transition of power. It’s nice to see that Bolsonaro is actually dealing with political consequences for whipping up his supporters into attempting a coup, unlike a certain other aspiring coup-leader we know.
The U.S. still owes reparations to Nicaragua based on a 1986 ruling by the U.N.’s International Court of Justice. The United States was found to have repeatedly violated international law by arming and funding the Contra paramilitary organization while they committed numerous human rights violations. The U.S. also put mines in Nicaragua’s ports and imposed an embargo on the country. Throughout the 1980s, the U.S. funded the Contras illegally (under both American and international law) in an effort to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, Nicaragua’s president and Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega wrote, “The nation’s right to development was irreparably affected” as a result of U.S. interference.
Former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was blindsided during an interview on French TV by some tough questions about his support for the Iraq War. After Kerry condemned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, interviewer Darius Rochebin asked:
“Why isn’t Bush judged in the same way? ... Was it not a crime of aggression to enter into Iraq on the basis of a lie?”
Kerry stammered and lied his way through an answer:
“Well, we didn’t know it was a lie at the time [Many reporters actually did know Bush was lying, and they were ignored]…
After the reporter pushed back, Kerry said:
I’m not going to re-debate the Iraq war with you here right now. We spent a lot of time doing that. I [was] opposed to going in. I thought it was the wrong thing to do [This is a total lie: Kerry voted for the war and defended the decision through the 2004 campaign.]. But we gave the president the power, regrettably, in the Congress, based on the lie. And when we knew it was a lie, people stood up and did the right thing. [No, they didn’t—nobody in the Bush administration faced consequences for lying, nor was Congress’ war authorization revoked.]”
LONG READ: Greece has elected its most right-wing government since the end of its dictatorship in 1974. Moira Lavelle writes in Jacobin:
“The nationalist Spartans gained support especially quickly over the past month. In his first postelection speech, the Spartans’ founder Vasilis Stigkas thanked Ilias Kasidiaris, a historic leader of Golden Dawn [a violent neo-Nazi group], for his backing. Kasidiaris is currently in prison, convicted for his part in the criminal neo-Nazi organization that was found guilty of a murder and racist beatings across Athens. … Founder Stigkas has ties with several other neo-Nazi parties in Greece and was once leader of Political Spring, a single-issue party opposed to the renaming of North Macedonia on the grounds that Macedonia is Greek alone.
CREATURE OF THE DAY: The Lamprey
The Great Lakes are full of aquatic vampires, and it’s proving alarming to some humans who just can’t handle the rich diversity of the natural world. According to The Wall Street Journal, blood-sucking sea lampreys are being spotted in greater numbers in all five lakes. These eel-like parasites have several circles of teeth which they use to latch onto fish and drain them of their vital fluids. The Journal quotes the legislative affairs and policy director for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission saying the lampreys are “unquestionably the stuff of nightmares.” The lampreys have “remained largely unchanged for more than 340 million years,” which is 340 million years of freaking out every other creature on Earth with the misfortune to encounter one.
July 4 fireworks over the French Quarter, New Orleans. Photo by Nathan J. Robinson.