Although courts have already ruled that President Biden’s attempt to unilaterally decree the forgiveness of a portion of student loan debt is not legal, plans are underway to reissue the illegal decree with a new twist. Students who major in studies that provide few opportunities for remunerative employment will be given “first dibs” on loan forgiveness.

Secretary of Education Miguel Angel Cardona explained “there’s little sense in forgiving the debt of students who major in science or engineering. Grads with degrees in these subjects are in great demand in the private sector and will likely be paid well. In contrast, a student with a degree in transgender studies faces a much bleaker future because there is little to no need for such people in the private sector.”

“Our plan in the short term is to free the bearers of useless degrees from having to repay their debt,” Cardona said. “In the meantime, we need to create new laws and regulations that would make it mandatory for private businesses to employ these people to help them navigate the complex social equity requirements that the new laws and regulations will implement.”

A House Resolution condemning socialism that was introduced by Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla) passed with unanimous GOP support. Democrats, though were split on the issue with about half voting for it and half not. Salazar argued that the resolution was “intended as a message to our youth. Right now 40% of generation z and millennials see Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto as a better guide for government than the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness cited in our Declaration of Independence.”

“As history has shown, Marx’s ideas have led to tyranny and murder carried out by communist regimes,” Salazar pointed out. “The freedoms that our youth take for granted would be snuffed out if socialist policies ruled America.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) condemned the resolution, calling it “undemocratic. If our youth want communism, then so be it. The bourgeois freedoms promoted by Republicans are becoming less acceptable to the American people with each passing day. The enforced conformity of the Marxist system can provide a unifying theme for the next stage of human civilization. The House is out of line condemning it.” Jeffries’ justified his departure from his 2021 vow to “never bend a knee to hard-left democratic socialism,” citing “the new responsibilities incumbent on a person in a leadership position.”

In related news, interviews with 75 top media executives revealed that there is strong opposition to objectivity in news reporting. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle summed up the prevailing thinking, saying “objectivity has got to go.” Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, asserted that “journalism must free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” The Washington Post‘s Leonard Downie warned that “allowing the notion that different perspectives ought to get a hearing to pollute the media’s coverage of a topic will only slow down the transformation of America into the utopian progressive society that former President Obama promised would be our future.”

By John Semmens

Now that the pandemic emergency is over, House Republicans want federal employees to come back to their offices. The Stopping Home Office Work Unproductive Problems Act or SHOW UP Act of 2023 introduced by Rep. James Comer (R-Ken) was passed by a vote of 221-206.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md) called the GOP “hypocritical. These are the guys who say they want to shrink the government by cutting unneeded bureaucracy. Now they want these supposedly unneeded employees to travel into the city to work? Won’t this increased traffic congestion impede the private sector workers who actually produce products and services that customers willingly buy?”

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va) echoed Raskin’s take, saying “none of us in Congress has any idea of what these workers do or don’t do. What difference would it make to us whether the unknown activities of these federal employees takes place at home or at the office?”

The issue has been confounded by the fact that thousands of these employees supposedly “working from home” falsely “self-certified” as unemployed during the covid pandemic in order to fraudulently receive payments for being out of work. Comer cited this behavior as a reason to simplify the work environment by having the government’s employees show up at the office. Raskin cited “the small number of crooks–less than ten thousand from what I hear–seems to be petty theft compared to the trillions that have been frittered away over the last two years.”

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) suggested that “the unused office space created by the widespread use of telecommuting as the basic work model could be put to better use housing the City’s homeless population. Bringing these mentally ill drug-users to live closer to where Congress does its business might inspire them to take the problem more seriously.”

In other Capital news, a dozen students from Our Lady of the Rosary School in Greenville County, South Carolina were kicked out of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum because they were wearing hats with a pro-life message. Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III explained “pro-life is not the policy of our organization. It would be improper to allow outsiders to advocate for an unapproved political position within the walls of the museum.”