Biden Extends Pause on Student Loan Payments

Joe Biden continues to lean in, and not out, of his ambition to support millions of borrowers nationwide. On Tuesday, President Biden announced an extension of the payment pause for federal student loans, while his debt cancellation plan confronts legal challenges in court.

The pause, originally set to end in January, will now extend to June 30 or until the legal challenges are resolved, whichever comes first. As of now, payments will resume 60 days after the pause’s conclusion.

“Republican special interests and elected officials sued to deny this relief, even for their own constituents,” Biden said in an announcement video on Twitter. “But I’m completely confident my plan is legal.”

The president argued that it wouldn’t be fair to ask millions of borrowers eligible for his relief plan to resume their payments while the court was still considering his plan. “I’m never going to apologize for helping working-class and middle-class families … and I’ll continue working to make government work to deliver for all Americans,” Biden said.

In August, Biden first announced the plan to cancel up to $20,000 in debt per eligible borrower. In late October, a federal appeals court stayed the implementation of the plan, days after the government had begun accepting applications from borrowers across the nation. Now the Supreme Court is tasked with the administration’s request to supersede the appeals court and reinstate the plan.

Biden believes the June 30 deadline for the student loan payment moratorium will give the Supreme Court enough time to issue a ruling.

Calls to boycott tampon brand Tampax went viral Tuesday on Twitter, purportedly over a controversial tweet from the company.

But a closer look reveals a transphobic backstory to the trending hashtag.

Tampax posted a joke to its official Twitter Monday that drew mixed reactions. Some followers found it hilarious, while others said it was “misogynistic” and overly sexualized women.

Many of the people objecting to the tweet began calling to “#BoycottTampax,” which has popped up on Twitter before. But many Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs), or cis women who are hyper-feminist except when it comes to fighting for trans women’s rights, also seemed to be using Tampax’s latest tweet as an excuse to revive attacks against two high-profile members of the LGBTQ community.

A tweet from June claimed that Tampax was sponsoring Dylan Mulvaney, a trans woman, and Jeffrey Marsh, who is non-binary. Many of the people who were upset by that news in June are now behind the calls to boycott Tampax.

The claim stems from a TikTok Mulvaney made in March about how she has started carrying tampons with her, even though she doesn’t need them, after another woman asked her for one in a public restroom and she had none. The tweet also highlighted an Instagram campaign Marsh did in November 2020 with period product company This is L. and gender-neutral clothing brand The Phluid Project, in which Marsh mentioned that people of all genders have periods.

Mulvaney’s video was not sponsored by any brand, and Tampax was not involved in Marsh’s campaign, although both it and This is L. are owned by Procter & Gamble. P&G did not respond to TNR’s question whether it sponsors either activist.

Still, TERFs found a way to get offended that people who need tampons were using them.

Adding more salt to the wound is the fact that the boycott calls come just two days after a gunman attacked a queer night club in Colorado Springs and killed five people, including two trans people, on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Among the most influential voters in America today: the rich, the well-connected, and apparently now, Taylor Swift fans.

The Senate’s panel on competition policy, antitrust, and consumer rights will hold a hearing to examine the lack of competition in the ticketing industry, announced Senator Amy Klobuchar on Tuesday. The news comes after Swift fans across the globe met exorbitant prices and exclusive availability for tickets to the superstar’s first tour in years.

“The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve,” said Klobuchar, chair of the panel. “That’s why we will hold a hearing on how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industry harms customers and artists alike.”

Further details including the hearing’s date and witnesses are to be announced at a later date.

The announcement comes after a series of statements from officials expressing interest in taking on the issue.

Last week, Klobuchar sent a letter to Michael Rapino, CEO of ticketing giant Live Nation, expressing concerns about the ticketing industry’s monopolistic behavior, and questioning Rapino on whether Live Nation’s practices were working to mitigate those monopolistic tendencies.

Senator Richard Blumenthal and Representatives Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, David Cicilline, and Bill Pascrell joined Klobuchar in expressing concerns into the ticketing industry.

Cicilline, alongside Pascrell and Representatives Frank Pallone and Jerry Nadler, called on the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission in April 2021 to investigate ticketing giant Live Nation and its potential monopolistic practices.

And then on Monday—a day before announcing the hearing herself—Klobuchar, alongside Senators Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging the Justice Department to investigate and “consider unwinding the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and breaking up the company.”

The fight spans beyond just months or even years. Decades ago, members of Pearl Jam had been advocating for the breakup of Ticketmaster’s hold on consumers. “All the members of Pearl Jam remember what it’s like to be young and not have a lot of money,” said guitarist Stone Gossard. “We have made a conscious decision that we do not want to put the price of our concerts out of the reach of our fans.”

And the struggle continues. Klobuchar, and the case of Taylor Swift—who was preschool age when Pearl Jam testified on the same issue—could help finally end it.

Donald Trump nominated three justices to this Supreme Court, but that fortunately hasn’t stopped the court from ruling in favor of the basic idea that nobody, not even Trump, is immune from the law.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court denied former President Donald Trump’s request to withhold his tax returns from a House committee seeking them.

The court’s order, unsigned and including no dissents or additional reasoning, directs the Treasury Department to finally turn over Trump’s returns. The House Ways and Means Committee have sought after the returns since 2019, after Trump refused to release them as a candidate during the 2016 election as is precedent.

In late October, a federal appeals court ruled against Trump, declining to reconsider an August ruling from a three-judge panel that also OK’d the House’s request to obtain the tax returns.

Things aren’t looking great for Team Trump generally.

Also on Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham was forced to testify before a Georgia grand jury over efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled against Trump last month as he asked the court to intervene in the legal struggle surrounding the FBI’s seizure of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago.

And in January, the court declined to stop the National Archives from turning over documents to the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.

With the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump has exhausted every possible rung on the judicial ladder to avoid releasing his tax returns—which may prompt one to wonder why someone would work so hard to avoid just releasing them!

White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci spent his last public briefing, on Tuesday, urging people to please get their Covid-19 shots and boosters if they haven’t already.

Fauci, who was the public face of the Covid response under the Trump and Biden administrations, briefed reporters from the White House for the last time before he leaves the government in December. He urged people to get up to date on their Covid and flu shots before winter.

“My message—and my final message, maybe the final message I give you from this podium—is that please for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated Covid-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible to protect yourself, your family, and your community,” he said.

Fauci has served at the National Institutes of Health for 54 years, including leading the National Allergy and Infectious Disease Institute for nearly 40.

When asked how he wants people to remember him, Fauci replied, “I’ll let other people judge the value or not of my accomplishments, but what I would like people to remember about what I’ve done is that every day for all of those years I’ve given it everything that I have and I’ve never left anything on the field.”

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, Fauci became a punching bag for the right as he pushed back on misinformation and conspiracy theories about the virus. Donald Trump called Fauci an “idiot” and a “disaster,” regularly belittled his public health advice, and then got his own Covid-19 vaccine in secret before he left the White House.