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Supreme Court to weigh student loan debt relief plan, Manchin to vote against new DC crime law, Biden sees surge in support for 2024 run, Fox owner admits hosts endorsed election fraud claims, and more in Democrat politics.
The US Supreme Court will consider on Tuesday whether to strike down President Joe Biden’s student loan debt relief plan.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary hold in October on the Act, which Biden announced in August a program that would allow eligible borrowers to cancel up to $20,000 in debt, NBC reported.
The program would affect more than 40 million borrowers and cost an estimated $400 billion.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced he will vote in favor of a Republican-sponsored resolution to block a Washington, DC, crime law that would eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences, as well as allow for jury trials in misdemeanor offenses, while reducing maximum sentences for crimes that range from robberies to carjackings, the Hill reported. The bill was initially vetoed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, but the DC Council overrode the veto by a 12-1 vote.
“I don’t support it,” Manchin said. “I want to put people away. I don’t want to let them out.”
“I would rescind letting people out” of prison early for committing serious crimes, Manchin said, while pointing out that criminal offenders “know what they can get by with all over the country.”
The most recent major national survey by Emerson College found that 71 percent of Democratic voters are in favor of President Joe Biden as the party’s nominee in 2024, up from 58 percent in last month’s poll, the Hill reported. Surprisingly, support for Biden to run for a second term is most highly supported by 18-34-year-old voters. Only 15 percent in that age range said someone else should be the party’s nominee. In the 35-49-year-old age group, 72 percent are in support of Biden as the nominee.
Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born owner of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, admitted during court testimony involving voting machine maker Dominion’s lawsuit against the media company that hosts of the network “endorsed” false election fraud claims.
Rupert said the network was “trying to straddle the line between spewing conspiracy theories on one hand, yet calling out the fact that they are actually false on the other,” NBC reported.
When pressed whether certain hosts did more than just give a platform to baseless claims of voter fraud, Murdoch said, “Yes…They endorsed.” Murdoch also said he had found half of Donald Trump’s claims to be “bulls— and damaging,” according to court documents unsealed on Monday.
