Zzz…

Our democracy was born in Pennsylvania.

I'm running for Senate because I believe Pennsylvania can save it. #PASen https://t.co/VxN3yT9WqI pic.twitter.com/q8Ib3trtHC

— Conor Lamb (@ConorLambPA) August 6, 2021

Another attempt for the establishment to try and blunt more progressive momentum. This one will get likely gey ugly and I know the smears are already being lined up. At least Fetterman is a fighter and no knows his way around social media.

Bear Sun is big on TikTok but dont see much elsewhere so bringing his story here

More money makes the political world go round

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/05/student-debt-cancellation-nancy-pelosi/

THE DRIVE TO PERSUADE President Joe Biden to cancel student debt took a major hit last week when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stunned Congress with a surprise statement in opposition. The move may put her at odds with much of the public and the Democratic Party, but it aligns her with Democratic megadonors Steven and Mary Swig, the billionaire scions of the Bay Area’s oldest real estate dynasty who have deep ties to the California representative. Steven Swig has also long served as a treasurer for Pelosi in her fundraising efforts.

In November, after Biden’s election, and amid increased pressure to cancel student debt, the Swigs quietly circulated a memo among key Capitol Hill figures, making the dubious case that debt cancellation at the executive level is illegal. The argument in the memo gets much of its weight by virtue of the wealthy couple who produced it, as the Swigs are not just major funders of progressive nonprofits, but also have significantly bankrolled Pelosi and her House Democratic caucus.

The memo, obtained by The Intercept, was distributed to members of Congress by Freedom to Prosper, an organization founded by and for the Swigs. The couple has in the past directly lobbied Pelosi, according to two sources with knowledge of the meetings, in which the Swigs would suggest rhetoric or policy proposals that Pelosi would agree to adopt in some form. The source, like several others interviewed by The Intercept for this story, would only speak on condition of anonymity, citing the Swigs’ financial sway in progressive circles. (They have also contributed millions of dollars to the Democratic Party over the years.)

The couple have for many years given the maximum amount permitted in campaign contributions to Pelosi, who represents California’s 12th District which encompasses San Francisco, and Steven Swig has served as treasurer for Pelosi’s reelection campaigns since 2012. The Swigs also enjoy extended family ties to the Pelosis. Their niece worked for Pelosi from 2018 until March of this year, serving as a staff assistant, legislative correspondent, and policy associate. (The Swigs, according to a report in Mother Jones, even own mugs with a photograph of Pelosi on them, which they said they had gotten from a nephew who worked for her.)

The memo, which was designated for “INTERESTED PARTIES” and wasn’t disseminated to the general public, asserts that student debt cancellation via executive order is unlawful. “No, the President Cannot Cancel Student Loan Debt with a Pen Stroke,” a boldface title reads. The memo continues: “Recently, there has been heightened fervor around Senators Warren and Schumer’s proposal that President-elect Joe Biden could cancel student debt ‘with the pen as opposed to legislation.’ Unfortunately, that cannot happen. Attorneys on Capitol Hill say that the Executive Branch does not have congressional authority to cancel student debt.”

Despite the memo’s certainty, it’s far from clear that such an executive order is unlawful, experts say. When asked about the debate over the executive order, Marshall Steinbaum, a senior fellow of higher education finance at the Jain Family Institute and economics professor at the University of Utah, said via email, “The executive absolutely has the power to cancel student debt and there’s no excuse for not exercising it. A generation or more of students and workers have had their lives ruined by the failed experiment shifting the cost of higher ed onto individuals while corralling more and more students into the system. The failure is in the false assumption that a college degree or a masters would automatically cause earnings to increase more than sufficiently to pay off the debt. That hasn’t happened, and now it’s the victims of the policy failure who are carrying the burden while every year the government and higher ed institutions originate $100 billion more in student loans that everyone knows won’t be repaid.”

A student debt cancellation advocate who works closely with Congress added that their concession amounts to a cop-out given the near impossibility of a bill passing in the evenly split Senate. Why not, the advocate asked, just try an executive order and see what happens?

The idea of simply passing the executive order and letting the Supreme Court decide is hardly an abstraction; Biden did just that with his recent executive order imposing a moratorium on evictions. And the current pause in student debt collection at the federal level suggests that the executive has significant authority.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/july-jobs-report-2021_n_610d283de4b05f81570915af

Hiring surged in July as American employers added 943,000 jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.4% another sign that the U.S. economy continues to bounce back with surprising vigor from last year’s coronavirus shutdown.

The July numbers exceeded economists’ forecast for more than 860,000 new jobs. Hotels and restaurants, reopening and doing brisk business, added 327,000 jobs last month. Local public schools added 221,000.

The number of people who reported they had jobs surged by 1 million, pushing the jobless rate down from 5.9% in June. Last month, 261,000 people returned to the job market.

Scrambling to find workers as business surges back, companies raised wages: Average hourly earnings were up 4% last month from a year earlier.