What A Day: You're either with us or SCOTUS

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the legality and constitutionality of President Biden’s signature student debt-relief plan on Tuesday, and the Court’s Republican-captured majority seems poised to make trouble.

• In arguments lasting more than three hours, Chief Justice John Roberts led his conservative colleagues in questioning the Biden administration’s authority to broadly cancel federal student loans because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan to forgive up to $10,000 in federal student debt for Americans making under $125,000 and up to $20,000 for Pell grant recipients has already been blocked in lower courts by other Republican-appointed federal judges. 

• Judicial analysts speculate that it’s unlikely any of the six Republican-appointed SCOTUS justices will vote to uphold the debt relief program, but Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett appeared most open to the administration’s arguments. We’re not holding our breath! The Court’s illegitimate 6-3 right-wing majority has really let its freak flag fly, but there is a slim chance based on the arguments heard so far that the court would find that GOP-led states and individuals challenging the plan lack the legal standing to sue. 

• If that happens, the court could dismiss the lawsuits without ruling on the legal merits of student loan forgiveness. Kavanaugh posited that the administration using an “old law” to implement a debt-relief program which Congress had rejected “seems problematic.” And he would know about being problematic! But without the relief program, the Biden administration’s top lawyer said that “delinquencies and defaults will surge,” when payment forbearance is lifted, which is expected to happen this summer. 

Once the conservative SCOTUS majority takes a torch to the student debt-relief program that would benefit 40 million Americans, it seems they’re ready to turn their attention to dismantling the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

• Last October, a panel of far-right judges on the also-far-right Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals effectively declared the CFPB unconstitutional, which seems like a harbinger of doom to come, but all may not be lost. Even Judge Cory Wilson, the Trump judge who authored that decision, admitted in his opinion that “every court” that had considered the arguments presented in the case has deemed the CFPB to be “constitutionally sound.” But if the Supreme Court does declare the agency unconstitutional, it will have far-reaching consequences, as the CFPB has enforcement authority over 18 federal statutes, covering everything from credit cards, car payments, mortgages, and student loans.
   

• The CFPB was originally proposed in 2007 by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) when she was a Harvard Law School professor, and three years later the Obama Administration appointed her to set up the agency in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Republicans have always hated the CFPB, just like they hate every other regulatory body meant to protect consumers or workers or the environment or to police corporate malfeasance. So now, the GOP is using its increasingly-favored tactic of undoing anything they don’t like: getting their corrupt SCOTUS majority to declare it unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court was conceived as a “non-partisan” body (lol) with final say over the constitutionality of state and federal laws. But the reality we currently face is that two hyper-conservative Republican presidents who both lost the popular vote appointed half the Court, and (depending on how you count it) outright stole at least two seats. They’re throwing precedent out the window, and not playing by the old rules, so maybe a new corrective approach is needed before they decide every civil right and protection is “unconstitutional.”

A federal judge did away with Texas’s 21-and-over age restriction and now literal teenagers there can obtain concealed-carry licenses to take handguns on to college campuses, into businesses, and even across state lines. Because teenagers with guns is the definition of “feeling safe!”

A Republican lawmaker in Texas has introduced legislation to compel internet providers to block abortion-pill websites, which could be the next frontier of the GOP war on choice. 

Not content to let Tucker Carlson rifle through it all by himself, the House GOP also intends to provide defendants in cases related to January 6 with thousands of hours of internal Capitol security footage. Yep, trying to help insurrectionists who tried to violently overturn the election beat the rap!

The Biden administration has launched a new semiconductor chips push amid a “very heated” global competition with China. 

The judge overseeing the Fulton County, GA, special grand jury investigation of disgraced former president Donald Trump said that jurors are allowed to talk about the final report, as the jury foreperson did very publicly, but it becomes a problem if the jurors begin to “synthesize the testimony” and the group’s thoughts on it. 

Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) signed a bill banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors into law. 

New banners in Washington, DC, feature a misspelling of “Massachusetts.” All of us from the Bay State will ride at dawn to seek our revenge. 

Matt Schlapp has been at the helm of the Conservative Political Action Conference for nearly a decade, but it’s looking increasingly certain that his tenure will go down in flames. Some months ago, a former staffer on Herschel Walker’s Georgia Senate campaign accused Schlapp of groping him during a trip to Atlanta last fall, but since then dozens of current and former employees and board members have disclosed a wider range of complaints against Schlapp and the broader CPAC culture under his leadership. CPAC has hemorrhaged half of its staff since 2021 according to sources at the organization. One former employee notified the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last month of plans to sue, alleging she was fired in retaliation for complaining about a co-worker’s sexist and racist comments. Of course, those still shilling for Schlapp and the organization claim that the investigation is simply meant to “silence a prominent conservative voice,” but the truth of the matter is, everyone deserves a safe and respectful work environment, even Republicans.

$10,000 + This App + 604 Days = $14,900?

You read that right – in just 604 days, a $10,000 investment in this app’s offering would have secured an eye-popping $4,900 profit. 

The app? Masterworks, the largest platform for fractional art investing.

In the same time period that Masterworks held the Cecily Brown painting in question, a $10,000 investment in Apple stock – the world’s largest company – would have realized an underwhelming $2,400 in returns.

While not all paintings see those gains, it's not the first time Masterworks has delivered impressive results for investors. 

In fact, every single one of Masterworks’ 11 sales to date has delivered a profit to their investors. That's more than $28 million in returns in just 4 years. 

New offerings are launching every week, but they can sell out in just minutes. Fortunately, What A Day readers can skip the waitlist with this VIP link.

Disclosure: “Net Return" refers to the annualized internal rate of return net of all fees and costs, calculated from the offering closing date to the date the sale is consummated. IRR may not be indicative of Masterworks paintings not yet sold and past performance is not indicative of future results. See important Regulation A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.

President Biden will tap current deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su as the next Secretary of Labor to replace Marty Walsh. 
 

Retired NFL superstar Tom Brady reportedly wants to pivot careers and do standup comedy, because I guess he wasn’t enough of a Divorced Guy™ yet. 
 

President Obama launched a leadership network called the Change Collective focused on civic engagement and the next generation of public servants.