This week continued the contrast between the parties that I wrote about last week. You could focus on President Biden fulfilling one of his campaign promises by cancelling a portion of the outstanding student debt, or you could watch Republicans struggle to defend the increasingly indefensible legal position Donald Trump finds himself in.
I’m making a choice to stay positive and focused on reality rather than what-ifs: Biden’s debt forgiveness program is an actual piece of governance. Trump’s legal jeopardy is a bright shiny object that it’s easy to obsess over. Every day produces a few new details that feed new rounds of speculation, but the legal gears are turning now and they will grind out something without our constant attention.
I don’t mean you should ignore Trump and the wild gyrations of his defenders, but watch it from a distance. Check in once or twice a week, not several times a day.
So anyway, this week’s featured post puts a context around the Republican attempt to raise outrage against Biden and the beneficiaries of his student-debt policy: Plutocracy survives by pitting working people against each other. But young adults have been put in a difficult position by government policies, and a little debt cancellation is the least we can do. “The Return of the Bitter Politics of Envy” should be out shortly.
The weekly summary will catch you up on the Mar-a-Lago search controversy, which (as I said) I recommend viewing from a distance rather than analyzing each new detail. Also, a memo from the Barr Justice Department sheds some light on why Trump was never indicted for obstruction.
In other news, NASA is testing out a rocket that could send people back to the Moon. The Ukraine War is six months old, and we still don’t know where it’s going. A dark-money group gets $1.6 billion from one donor. And a few other things. The summary should be out noonish, EDT.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
Just read Return of Bitter Politics of Envy and agree at least 100 percent. I shared it with a discussion group I am in that includes a couple Trumpies, a couple Libertarians, a couple ???, and a couple liberals. Am awaiting to see the expected responses.
The document Mar-a-Lago search story still leaves one unexplored question: Why would DJT illegally take all those security-rated documents in the first place, and – when asked for their return – refuse to return them? Given his history, I can only think of two reasons: Political/Commercial Leverage and Monetization.