Biden Regime Trots Out Their Plan To Cut Payments For Those With Student Loans

By William Teach July 3, 2023 – 10:30 am

It’s a serious far cry from Brandon’s  promise to wipe out student loan debt

(Daily Caller) The Biden administration is planning to use a generous income-driven repayment plan as its main method of easing student loan debt following the Supreme Court’s Friday ruling that blocked the administration’s plan to grant student loan forgiveness to nearly 40 million Americans.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Biden administration cannot use executive power in order to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt for non-Pell Grant recipients and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. To circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Department of Education (DOE) plans to use the Higher Education Act as well as expand income-driven repayment plans, which would cut payments for those making $32,800 or less annually to $0, according to a Saturday press release.

You have a college degree and you’re making $32,800 or less? How much debt did you put yourself in, and why did you get such a worthless degree? You could have just gone to community college or a trade school and made more.

Under the DOE’s repayment plans, borrowers who miss payments within the first year, beginning Oct. 1, will not be penalized, reported to credit or collection agencies or put in default, the WSJ reported. The DOE estimates that their expansion of income-driven repayment plans will save all borrowers at least $1,000 per year.

The department’s revamped income-driven repayment plans are estimated to cost taxpayers more than one-time outright forgiveness, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model report.

How many will actually qualify for this, if it’s about people making that little money/$15 an hour? How much damage can the plan do?

(NY Post) While everyone’s focus has been on the administration’s outrageous cancellation stunt, the DOE has been working tirelessly to accomplish an even more disastrous policy: a new Income-Driven Repayment rule.

The federal student-loan policy is obscenely complex, but under the Higher Education Act, Congress created a variety of programs to help borrowers who struggle to pay their loans.

Those include Income Contingent Repayment and Income-Based Repayment programs.

With varying terms, these programs limit borrowers’ monthly payments to a percentage of their income. IBR also includes a forgiveness provision after a borrower has made payments for 20 years.

When Congress wrote the law, they essentially gave away all the power, allowing the DOE to make all the rules

Under the new plan, in a variety of formulations, the secretary proposes to dramatically reduce the monthly payments of most borrowers, with millions looking at payments of $0, while also reducing the time to forgiveness to as short as 10 years.

In other words, while styled as a rule that simply tinkers with the details of existing income-based repayment programs, it effectively does the same work as the cancellation effort: It writes off the debts of millions of college-educated borrowers.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that the actual program costs between $333 billion and $361 billion over 10 years.

Estimates that account for tuition inflation and future borrowing costs put government expenditures as high as $1 trillion.

Except a lawsuit on this, since Article I forbids giving away Congressional power, as well as “requires federal expenditures to be “in consequence of appropriations made by law.”” Besides the lawsuit question, another is how long it will take to truly get this in place, as it will take months to get it in place and it is supposed to be very difficult to navigate.

Read: Biden Regime Trots Out Their Plan To Cut Payments For Those With Student Loans »

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Democrats Sue EPA To Force Tighter Standards On Wood Burning Stoves

By William Teach July 3, 2023 – 7:00 am

They’re going to attempt to make the stoves vastly more expensive and difficult to aquire

10 states plan to sue EPA over standards for residential wood-burning stoves

Attorneys general from 10 states plan to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying its failure to review and ensure emissions standards for residential wood-burning stoves has allowed the continued sale of appliances that could worsen pollution.

That means programs that encourage people to trade in older stoves and other wood-burning appliances, such as forced-air furnaces, haven’t necessarily improved air quality, the states say.

“If newer wood heaters do not meet cleaner standards, then programs to change out old wood heaters may provide little health benefits at significant public cost,” the states wrote Thursday in a 60-day notice of intent to sue.

The states involved are Alaska, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, as well as the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

These aren’t essentially cooking stoves, though, they are included in this, they are mostly referring to wood fed heaters. Which can be used for stoves, but, are meant to heat buildings. It’s rather surprising that Alaska is doing this, because quite a few buildings, including homes, use wood stoves to provide heat, even those that have electricity/natural gas for power, due to the high costs. It’s hard to lay lines when the ground is frozen and/or they are remote cabins. Even some that aren’t that remote. Many in lower 48 states use them as a cheaper alternative, say in Minnesota and Vermont for the winters.

The nutburgers will first say they do not want to ban stuff, then they will try and ban it, or at least make it so expensive that people can’t afford it. Oh, hey, speaking of NJ

Inside the furious debate over New York City’s new tax on drivers, which New Jersey Democrats are fighting against tooth and nail

…

To reduce traffic and pollution and boost funding for the city’s subways, buses, and commuter rail, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is championing a policy known as congestion pricing.

The policy would impose a toll between $9 and $23 on drivers who enter Manhattan south of 60th Street and use the revenue to fund the MTA. It aims to reduce the 700,000 trucks, cars, and taxis that drive into the Manhattan zone by at least 10%, while simultaneously generating about $1 billion in proceeds per year to fund mass transit.

While many New Yorkers, transportation experts, and city planners celebrated this week, critics — including Democrats across the river in New Jersey — say they’ll do everything in their power to stop the plan. The situation has laid bare tensions between the commuters who regularly drive in the city, and those who are more concerned about the environmental impact of traffic and the possibility of reinvesting in transit infrastructure.

“New York’s anti-environment, anti-commuter, and anti-business Congestion Tax is a cash grab to bail out the terribly mismanaged MTA,” Democratic Rep. Gottheimer said in a statement to Insider.

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez said in a statement to Insider that he would “not stop fighting until we defeat this plan and ensure New York is not allowed to balance its budget on the backs of hard-working New Jersey families.”

See, saving the Earth from boiling is all good and fun until people are actually impacted by the policies, and this policy will cause a bunch of issues for citizens, towns, and the state of NJ. It’s a real shame when Warmists are forced to move from theory to practice, eh?

Read: Democrats Sue EPA To Force Tighter Standards On Wood Burning Stoves »

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Bummer: Groomers At Disney Accused Of Paying Women Less Than Men

By William Teach July 3, 2023 – 6:45 am

Things are not going well for the Woke Groomers at Disney

From that last one

Cancel Culture AlligatorDisney is experiencing a string of flops as audiences grow weary of the company’s constant recycling of intellectual property as well as its all-encompassing embrace of transgenderism and other forms of radical gender ideology.

The Little Mermaid is flopping in overseas territories, making it unlikely the live-action remake will recoup its costs during its theatrical run.  Pixar’s Elemental recently experienced the worst domestic theatrical opening in the digital animation studio’s history.

Things are not well in the House Of Mouse supporting grooming kids

Disney accused in lawsuit of ‘systematically’ paying women less than men in California

Walt Disney has been accused of systematically underpaying women in California in a lawsuit that alleges the company’s female employees in the state earned $150 million less than their male counterparts over an eight year period.

The Friday filing in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeks to persuade the judge to certify a four-year-old civil suit as a class action, covering some 12,500 current or former fulltime female Disney employees who held positions below the level of vice president.

An analysis of Disney’s human resource data from April 2015 through December 2022 has found female Disney employees were paid roughly 2% less than male counterparts, the filing said. It was conducted by David Neumark, a University of California Irvine professor and labor economist.

Obviously, Disney disputes this. This suit, if it goes forward, will not help Disney, and could cause their Woke allies to turn on them. Funny if this massively Woke company is found to have underpaid women.

Read: Bummer: Groomers At Disney Accused Of Paying Women Less Than Men »

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If All You See…

By William Teach July 2, 2023 – 12:59 pm

…are evil fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Watts Up With That?, with a post on VW saying there’s “strong customer reluctance” for EVs.

Obviously, it has to be patriotic women week.

Read: If All You See… »

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Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach July 2, 2023 – 9:13 am

Happy Sunday! Another wonderful day in the Once and Future Nation Of America. The Sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Independence Day is almost upon us. This pinup is by John Thompson, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. Dissecting Leftism discusses the cost of COVID lockdowns
  2. Geller Report covers Muslims threatening a new Holocaust against Jews in France
  3. IOTW Report notes Washington now having highest gas prices
  4. Legal Insurrection highlights the Dems racist reactions to killing affirmative actions
  5. Moonbattery covers Warmists denouncing ice in cocktails
  6. Pacific Pundit highlights a WNBA player calling America trash
  7. The Feral Irishman wonders where all the machine guns came from in gun banning France
  8. The First Street Journal covers a Special Snowflake meltdown
  9. The Gateway Pundit highlights tax revenue diving in Democrat strongholds
  10. The O.K. Corral features Biden just wandering of the MSNBC set
  11. The Right Scoop notes a professor fired for teaching biological science
  12. This ain’t Hell... covers stupid people of the week
  13. Victory Girls Blog shows affirmative action dissenters illustrate hypocrisy in action
  14. Green Jihad covers St. Greta meeting Zelensky
  15. And last, but, not least, Not A Lot Of People Know That discusses pylons forced on the public to hit net zero

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page (nope, that’s gone, the newest Apache killed access, and the program hasn’t been upgraded since 2014). While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your Pinups for Vets calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me. I’ve also mostly alphabetized them, makes it easier scrolling the feedreader

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. And do you have a favorite blog you can recommend be added to the feedreader?

Two great sites for getting news links are Liberty Daily and Whatafinger.

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »

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Los Angeles Leaders Upset They Weren’t Informed Of Second Busload Of Illegals

By William Teach July 2, 2023 – 7:00 am

How dare Greg Abbott not inform LA leaders….can’t you guess what’s wrong with that?

Another bus with migrants has been sent from Texas to Los Angeles

A bus carrying 41 migrants from Brownsville, Texas, arrived in Southern California on Saturday – the second such shipment from the region in two weeks.

The Texas-funded bus arrived at Union Station at 12:40 p.m. Intake of the migrants began shortly after they arrived with a legal orientation, according to Angelica Salas, executive director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Members of the group, which included 11 children, came from Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela, Salas said at a news conference.

City officials became aware of the upcoming arrival on Friday and mobilized by working with a coalition of nonprofit groups and faith-based organizations to accommodate the group, Mayor Karen Bass’s spokesperson Zach Seidl said in a statement.

The mayor’s office said it was “not formally notified” before learning that migrants were heading to the city, according to the statement.

Are all the mayors of border cities informed when illegals cross into their towns? Have many mayors been informed when Biden’s DHS flies illegals into their towns in the dead of night? Were citizens of those towns informed prior? Where they given the option of having a whole bunch of people dropped off in their towns?

Bass called the move “a political stunt” in an interview last month with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“I think it’s despicable to use individuals like this,” Bass said. “I think that doing this, if he was sincere, he would have contacted Los Angeles, he would have told us people were coming, he would have told us who the individuals were, but they didn’t do that.”

Yeah yeah yeah, why so upset when you’re getting all the people you asked for being a sanctuary city?

Read: Los Angeles Leaders Upset They Weren’t Informed Of Second Busload Of Illegals »

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BBC Is Very Concerned That Texas Will Become Too Hot For Humans

By William Teach July 1, 2023 – 3:00 pm

No, no, this is not scaremongering at all

Will Texas become too hot for humans?

Texas is in the grip of a relentless heatwave – but how much hotter could summers get in years to come?

It’s 9.15 pm in San Antonio on 17 June. At this time, young children would usually be asleep and their parents enjoying a balmy summer’s evening. But not this year, when temperatures have reached triple figures in parts of Texas, and extreme humidity has made it feel hotter still, even after sunset. (snip)

Texas has warmed between one-half and one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. “In the coming decades … summers are likely to become increasingly hot and dry, creating problems for agriculture and possibly human health,” warns the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It predicts that 70 years from now, the state will have three or four times as many days per year above 100F (38C) as it has today.

The National Integrated Heat Health Information System’s Climate Explorer tool also offers a worrying glimpse into Texas’s future. It predicts that Austin and Travis County’s average daily maximum temperature in June could rise to 99.7F (37.6C) between 2060 and 2090 if no steps are taken to mitigate the potentially crippling effects of climate change. Austin’s Office of Sustainability’s estimate is even higher with a summer average high temperature of 103.8F (39.9C) at the end of the century for the city.

First, what happens if this does not happen? Who pays the price with their careers for this fearmongering? Second, that 1F to 1.5F is entirely normal for a Holocene warm period. This is all about stoking fear to entice people to give up their freedom and money to government.

State Department didn’t track carbon footprint of climate summit flights

The State Department didn’t keep tabs on the carbon pollution associated with flying hundreds of federal officials to the last two global climate summits, the Government Accountability Office said in a report made public Thursday.

Failing to do so ran afoul of a 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden that directed agencies to track the greenhouse gas emissions their operations produce, including official air travel, GAO said.

The report was requested by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who have all criticized the administration’s climate policies.

“Americans are tired of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. who don’t practice what they preach when it comes to protecting the environment,” Capito said in an email to POLITICO’s E&E News.

Surprise?

Read: BBC Is Very Concerned That Texas Will Become Too Hot For Humans »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 34 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach July 1, 2023 – 1:00 pm

…are horrible fatty chips making people fat which is bad for ‘climate change’, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Da Techguy’s Blog, with a post on a silver lining Democrats won’t like from the SCOTUS election decision.

Read: If All You See… »

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Brandon Regime Trots Out Plan B For Student Loan Relief

By William Teach July 1, 2023 – 10:30 am

It’s not forgiveness: it’s relief, since it only did away with $10K for most and $20K for Pell Grants, leaving people who took out loans they wouldn’t be able to easily repay based on their degrees with lots of debt

(Fox News) In the opinion, Roberts cited then-Speaker Pelosi’s words saying the president did not have the power to cancel federal student loan debt.

“As then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi explained: ‘People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not,’” Roberts quoted Pelosi’s July 28, 2021, press conference. “‘He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.’”

So, sure, why not try plan b, which they had ready to go, knowing that plan a wouldn’t survive because it was un-Constitutional. Do they think plan b will survive? They would have used it first

Biden reveals Plan B for student debt forgiveness

The Supreme Court on Friday dealt a fatal blow to President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel student debt for tens of millions of Americans.

But Biden student debt relief isn’t dead yet.

Just hours after the court’s conservative majority rejected his loan forgiveness program as a drastic overreach of executive authority, Biden moved swiftly to resuscitate his efforts to cancel debt by invoking a different legal authority. (snip)

But Biden’s second attempt will face a range of major challenges, both practical and legal, as he embarks on what’s going to be a lengthy regulatory process that’s likely to stretch well into next year ahead of the presidential election.

For starters, the White House is barreling toward a deadline this fall as it prepares to resume collecting monthly payments from tens of millions of borrowers who have had their debt frozen since March 2020.

So, what is it?

Biden administration officials acknowledged Friday that their Plan B option — the Higher Education Act path — would involve far more bureaucratic hoops and regulatory minutia than the administration’s first plan, which was quickly implemented once Biden announced it last August.

“This new path is legally sound,” Biden said. “It’s going to take longer, but, in my view, it’s the best path that remains to providing for as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.

It’s a convoluted measure that will be difficult to implement and even start. Which will not survive judicial review, most likely. I slightly feel for these folks in that the government has bailed out many banks and businesses, but, then, I do not think they should have been bailed out. You take the risk, and other people really shouldn’t have to pay for your risky behavior. If you invest a boatload of money in a business venture and it goes bust, no one is helping those individuals. Nor should they. If you put your money in a shaky bank operating on principles like DEI rather than sound, established, safe principles, well, you can get your FDI insured $150K, and that’s it. You made the poor decision to keep your money in that bank. If you take out $100K in student loans for a degree in Medieval Art History or Feminist Studies, or heck, get a law degree but aren’t that good, that’s on you. Pay your bills

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced Friday that student loan repayment would continue as planned this fall. But he said the administration was taking new steps to ease the resumption of payments, which will include the tens of millions of Americans who were promised relief under the now-defunct program.

The Education Department said it would create an “on-ramp” 12-month transition period in which borrowers won’t get dinged on their credit reports for missing payments, though interest will continue to accrue. Department officials had earlier this month told loan servicers to develop an initial 90-day period of what they internally call a “safety net” period and to be prepared for subsequent extensions.

Those people should have been saving since the Wuhan Flu pandemic started, since 1) the relief of a portion of their loans might not happen and 2) they would still be left with debt that had to be paid regardless. If one owed $40K and had $10K lopped off, they still had to pay on the $30K, right? These folks should have been saving for the resumption of payments. I wonder how many did, and how many pissed it away while taking lots of fossil fueled travel to take selfies and TikTok vids, along with having all their food delivered? And, really, they shouldn’t have taken out loans they couldn’t pay.

I’m personally OK with not killing them on their credit reports (though, it’s already there and doesn’t usually help, with loan companies seeing what they already owe as debt). I’m also fine with doing something like reducing interest, since Democratic Party run colleges are essentially over-charging because it’s so easy for the kiddies to get loans.

Read: Brandon Regime Trots Out Plan B For Student Loan Relief »

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UN Praises China On ‘Climate Change’ Investment

By William Teach July 1, 2023 – 7:00 am

No mention on all those human rights abuses in China, or that they use what is essentially slave labor, and child labor, to build all that green energy stuff

UN deputy chief praises China’s investment in tackling climate change, forging ‘new development pathway’

“The challenges are many and they are serious”, Amina Mohammed said, highlighting the plight of the planet.

“Almost all our indicators on the climate and ecological crises are pointing in the wrong direction.”

She praised China’s role in being an innovator and believer in the power of multilateralism to overcome challenges through collection action, pointing out that over half of the world’s new renewables are projected to be in China, both this year and next.

“This gives you a flavour of just how critical China is to tackling climate change and protecting nature”.

As one of the world’s largest economies and a major emitter of greenhouse gases as well as a major investor in renewables, she said China had an opportunity “to set the example of a new development pathway that decouples growth from emissions. One that ensures a renewable energy and climate-resilient future we strive for that is equitable, just and balanced.”

Good thing she didn’t take a long, fossil fueled flight to China to say this….oh, wait, she did. Anyhow, China is really just dumping all those solar panels and wind turbines in markets around the world, especially 3rd world nations to win their favor. And making lots of investments in those nations to woo them away from the US, Canada, Australia, and the EU. And Russia. It’s an economic scam for power and control and influence. China could care less about the climate cult.

Back in Beijing yesterday, the Deputy Secretary-General held meetings with Government officials, which included the Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, the Executive Vice Foreign Minister, the Minister of Environment, and China’s Special Envoy for Climate Change.

She outlined the benefits of financing and aligning China’s development objectives with the SDGs. Ms. Mohammed also expressed the urgent need for all leaders to embrace a just transition amid the climate crisis.

She further expressed the importance of an ambitious and action-oriented dialogue among leaders at the UN General Assembly in September at this crucial midpoint of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris climate accord.

This is all simply falling into China’s trap.

Read: UN Praises China On ‘Climate Change’ Investment »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL
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