Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Student Loan Payments Paused for Millions Amid Court Fight Over Relief Plan

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While praising the Biden administration’s move “to stave off this reckless attack from extremist politicians and judges,” advocates stressed that “broad-based debt cancellation is the only solution.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 7-19-2024 by Common Dreams

Image: The Prospect/CC

The Biden administration responded to an appellate court temporarily blocking one of its student debt relief programs by pausing payments for the 8 million borrowers already enrolled—a move welcomed by advocates, even as some called for further action.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona acknowledged in a statement that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling against President Joe Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan “could have devastating consequences for millions of student loan borrowers crushed by unaffordable monthly payments if it remains in effect.”

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Targeting Corporate Landlords, Biden to Unveil National Rent Control Plan

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“The rent is too damn high—and rent control is a real fix,” one group said, praising the proposal.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 7-15-2024 by Common Dreams

Rent control rally in Seattle, 2019. Photo: Seattle City Council/flickr/CC

As former U.S. President Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination and announced his running mate on Monday, Democratic President Joe Biden prepared to unveil a proposal that would cap annual rent increases at 5% for tenants of major landlords.

After Biden briefly previewed the proposal during a press conference last week, The Washington Post reported on the planned announcement Monday, citing three people familiar with the matter. The Associated Press separately confirmed the plan.

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Teamsters President Urged to Cancel Republican Convention Speech

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One Teamsters official warned the union leader’s scheduled appearance “only normalizes and makes the most anti-union party and president I’ve seen in my lifetime seem palatable.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 7-12-2024 by Common Dreams

Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien testified at a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) in 2023. Photo: Teamsters

Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien is facing mounting internal pressure to cancel his planned speech to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, with the union’s vice president at large accusing the labor leader of kowtowing to a viciously anti-worker party and a GOP presidential hopeful whose first four years in the White House were marked by open attacks on the labor movement.

John Palmer, the Teamsters’ vice president at large, wrote in an op-ed in New Politics earlier this week that O’Brien’s scheduled appearance at Donald Trump’s invitation “only normalizes and makes the most anti-union party and president I’ve seen in my lifetime seem palatable.”

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With Attention on Presidential Contest, GOP Goes on Austerity Rampage

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One leading Democrat warned Republicans’ spending proposals would “demolish public education” and “let corporate price gouging run rampant.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 7-6-2024 by Common Dreams

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaking with attendees at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2023 Annual Leadership Summit. Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

With much of the public’s attention on the looming presidential election and high-stakes jockeying over who will take on Donald Trump in November, congressional Republicans in recent weeks have provided a stark look at their plans for federal spending should their party win back control of the presidency and the Senate.

The appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2025, which begins in October, is currently underway, with congressional committees engaging in government funding debates that are likely to continue beyond the November elections.

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Britain’s new prime minister has a chance to reset ties with the White House – but a range of thorny issues and the US election make it more tricky

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By Garret Martin, American University School of International Service. Published 7-5-2024 by The Conversation

Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria cast their votes in the 2024 General Election. Photo: Keir Starmer/flickr/CC

The new U.K. prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, will have just a couple of days to settle into the job before facing his first test on the global stage.

Having presided over a landslide victory for his party on July 4, 2024, Starmer will head to Washington, D.C., for a crucial NATO summit starting July 9. Days later he will host over 50 European leaders for the European Political Community meeting.

Amid many global challenges, Starmer has an opportunity to show that the U.K. is back on the world stage. In particular, with many Western leaders facing serious headwinds at home – think Emmanuel Macron in France or Olaf Scholz in Germany – Starmer has a chance to re-establish the U.K. as the key partner for the U.S. in Europe.

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Planned Parenthood Warns House GOP Appropriations Bills Attack Global Health

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The “slate of dangerous and unpopular provisions” includes “eliminating the Title X family planning program and reinstating the Trump-era expanded global gag rule.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 7-1-2024 by Common Dreams

A Planned Parenthood exam room. Photo: Planned Parenthood

As the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives uses the appropriations process to promote the GOP agenda ahead of the November elections, Planned Parenthood Action Fund on Monday highlighted how the spending bills attack health within and beyond the United States.

“Once again, anti-abortion rights politicians in Congress are manipulating the federal appropriations process to push for a recycled slate of dangerous and unpopular provisions to block access to sexual and reproductive healthcare across the country and around the world,” states the new PPFA memo.

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‘Truly Evil’ Clarence Thomas Offers Defense of Guns for Domestic Abusers

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“The Thomas dissent is only further proof that he is simply a threat to America,” said the father of a mass shooting victim.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 6-21-2024 by Common Dreams

Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Screenshot: Library of Congress

“Thank goodness. Also, Clarence Thomas is truly evil.”

That’s how one progressive pollster responded Friday to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 ruling in United States v. Rahimi, which upheld a law prohibiting individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm.

Critics across the political spectrum called Thomas’ lone dissent in the case “insane” and blasted the right-wing justice as “fucking awful,” a “corrupt lunatic,” and a “contemptible POS” who “continues to undermine the safety of women and disgrace the court.”

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Project 2025: How Trump Win Would Imperil Worker Organizing Gains Under Biden’s NLRB

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The right-wing agenda “offers a playbook for how an administration could jeopardize the NLRB’s ability to protect organizing workers.”

By Julia Conley. Published 6-20-2024 by Common Dreams

Just before oral arguments in an American Federation of Government Employees’ lawsuit against the Trump administration, AFGE and other unions rally to protest the Trump administration’s anti-union executive orders. in 2018. Photo: AFGE/flickr/CC

With longtime labor lawyer Jennifer Abruzzo at the helm of the National Labor Relations Board, serving as general counsel, the Biden administration has worked to reverse the decadeslong trend in the U.S. of weakened labor laws—achieving a high rate of workers voting to join unions, requiring thousands of workers to be reinstated at their jobs after being illegally fired for organizing, and increasing the number of workers who are eligible to unionize.

But as the Center for American Progress (CAP) warned in an analysis published on Thursday, all that progress and more could be erased if former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the November election, were to win a second term in the White House—enabling him to put the right-wing plot Project 2025 into action.

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Lindsey Graham Blocks Democrats’ Attempt to Pass Supreme Court Ethics Bill

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“Senate Republicans just showed how out of touch they are with what most Americans want—a Supreme Court free of corruption.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 5-13-2024 by Common Dreams

Senator Lindsey Graham speaking with attendees at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2023 Annual Leadership Summit at the Venetian Convention & Expo Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats to pass Supreme Court reform legislation by unanimous consent, thwarting efforts to establish a binding ethics code for the nation’s top court as two of its right-wing justices come under fire for taking billionaire-funded luxury vacations and flying flags associated with the January 6 insurrection.

The Democratic legislation—titled the the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act—advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee nearly a year ago without any GOP support. The bill would give the high court 180 days to adopt a binding code of ethics and establish new recusal requirements surrounding justices’ acceptance of gifts.

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Fresh Calls to ‘Reject AIPAC’ After Analysis of GOP Money in Dem Primaries

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“George Latimer in New York and Wesley Bell in Missouri are trying to become Democratic members of Congress off millions of dollars of money from rich right-wing Republicans,” said one group.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 6-9-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: Ted Eytan /CC

Politico reported Sunday that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is “the biggest source of Republican money flowing into competitive Democratic primaries this year,” sparking new calls for candidates and voters nationwide to #RejectAIPAC.

“If you don’t want Republican megadonors to choose your next Democratic congressperson for you, then there’s only one option: #RejectAIPAC,” Naftali Ehrenkranz, digital director at Get Free, said on social media, pointing to the reporting.

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