(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked President Joe Biden's plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with six Republican-led states which had requested the student loan forgiveness plan be halted until court proceedings for an injunction are completed.
(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington and Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Chris Reese)
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday urged the United States and Venezuela to restore relations, saying an agreement may be on the horizon as he pressed the United States to allow more Venezuelans to enter.
The United States last week announced a plan to grant up to 24,000 Venezuelans humanitarian entry via air amid efforts to deter increasing border crossings driven by economic hardship in Venezuela.
Under the policy, which was crafted with Mexico, the United States can also expel back over the border Venezuelans trying to cross illegally, a move that has faced criticism from the Catholic Church and human rights groups.
Since the plan was enacted on Oct. 12, encounters of Venezuelans recorded along the U.S.-Mexico border have decreased more than 80%, U.S. officials said in a call with reporters Friday afternoon.
Mexican officials are eager for Washington and Caracas to improve ties to alleviate the economic situation in Venezuela and to facilitate migrant returns.
"Relations between the government of the United States and Venezuela need to be restored," Lopez Obrador told a news conference. "I know they're working towards an agreement."
A U.S. National Security Council spokesperson said U.S. policy towards Venezuela had not changed.
Before the new plan was announced, Venezuelans who crossed illegally into the United States - which broke diplomatic relations with Caracas in 2019 - were often allowed to stay because it was difficult to send them back.
Since the policy was enacted, several thousand Venezuelans who entered the United States illegally have been returned to Mexico.
Lopez Obrador urged the United States to expand the Venezuela humanitarian access permits beyond 24,000 people.
"They're not enough," Lopez Obrador said. "We're going to be asking that they give out more." Earlier this week, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said he was confident Washington would increase the number.
An official for the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said it was not ruling out expanding the program "in coming months."
Arturo Rocha, a Mexican foreign ministry official, said on Twitter on Friday that the United States had already received more than 7,500 applications through the program, and that 100 flights from Venezuela had been approved so far.
U.S. officials declined to confirm the number of applications received or flights scheduled so far.
Over 150,000 Venezuelans were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border between October 2021 and August 2022, more than triple the number in the entire 2021 fiscal year, U.S. data show.
The Church in Mexico said on Friday it was concerned about the "humanitarian crisis" facing Venezuelans in Mexico, which it described as a "product of political agreements between the governments of Mexico and the United States."
Human Rights Watch also criticized the new policy, saying it was likely to benefit only a "select few" granted entry to the United States, while harming many more forced back to Mexico.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes, Valentine Hilaire, Isabel Woodford and Kylie Madry; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Christian Plumb, Bill Berkrot and Rosalba O'Brien)
On Friday's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Donald Trump's former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen argued that the clearest way to indict and convict the former president is on tax charges — similar to the charges for which he himself went to prison as part of Trump's Stormy Daniels payoff scheme.
This came during a discussion about the bombshell report that the classified documents Trump hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago resort included secret intelligence about Iran and China.
"You know, [Iran and China] are two of the specific areas of foreign policies that he needles President Joe Biden about most frequently," said anchor Nicolle Wallace.
"Everything Donald does is on purpose," said Cohen. "The way that he took the documents, the way that he had them brought to Mar-a-Lago, the way he hid them, the way he sued, he had to turn them over, he didn't turn them over, they find more documents whether it's financial or these documents. The scary part is we don't know what additional documents this man is hiding." He cited how Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to Trump demanding that he sign attesting there are no other documents he has hidden somewhere, only for Trump to blow it off.
"Do you think she'll ever get her answer?" asked Wallace.
"No," said Cohen. "He doesn't respect the process. This is the whole problem. This is a petulant child that you tell them, don't stick your finger into the electric socket. No, I can do it. I can do whatever I want. And he'll stick his finger and he'll get shocked like what's going on now. Subpoenas, lawsuits, et cetera. But at the end of the day it's not killing him. That's why I keep going back to the same thing. Let's stop the nonsense. Let's go after the low-hanging fruit. We already know he tax evaded. Enough. Why are we worried about this? Don't worry about murder, extortion — as they did with Capone, get him on tax evasion. Let's put this Mandarin Mussolini Menace behind bars, which is where he belongs."
Watch below:
Michael Cohen says jail the "Mandarin Mussolini Menace" www.youtube.com
She’s an election denier who urged Jan. 6 rioters to “storm the gates,” rallied with the Proud Boys and livestreamed a “Stop the Steal” protest outside the home of the Michigan Secretary of State.
And now that Genevieve Peters has been hired by GOP Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini to help recruit and train poll workers, community leaders gathered Thursday for a press conference in front of the Macomb County Clerk’s Office demanding that she be removed from her position.
Among those in attendance was Macomb County Commissioner Antoinette Wallace.
“People are nervous that their ballots won’t be truly counted,” she told reporters, “That’s a concern.”
Also speaking was civil rights attorney Huwaida Arraf, who said Peters’ hiring is completely misplaced.
“She is in a sensitive position she should not be in,” said Arraf. “This completely undermines the integrity of our elections.”
Those concerns are based on well-documented actions by Peters that predate the 2020 election that former President Donald Trump lost to President Joe Biden.
She was present at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing for a Second Amendment rally in September 2020 along with armed members of the Proud Boys, the self-described “western chauvinists” classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Then just weeks after the election, Peters live streamed from outside the home of Michigan Secretary of State Joycelyn Benson’s home during a protest in which police said some of the protesters were armed. On Nov. 8, Benson is facing Republican nominee Kristina Karamo, who also is an election denier.
Peters was in Washington, D.C,. on January 6, 2021, rallying rioters as they broke into the U.S. Capitol. The insurrection left five people dead and 140 police injured.
“We will storm the gates,” she said into a bullhorn. “We will storm the Capitol. This is our house. We own this.”
Despite that history, Forlini has defended hiring Peters, telling The Macomb Daily she was “head and shoulders above the rest” of the applicants.
“She is very vocal and has a strong personality,” said Forlini. “I look for strong personalities when I hire. She certainly has her own view on things but nothing in the office.”
Forlini, a GOP former House member, ordered a “forensic audit” following the 2020 presidential election, even though Trump defeated Biden 53%-45% in the county. Biden defeated Trump in the state by about 154,000 votes.
The audit found no evidence of fraud.
However, Wallace said Peters needs to reconcile her previous actions before there can be trust in her carrying out her duties in a nonpartisan and fair manner.
“Maybe she should come out and support him as much as he has supported her and say, ‘I apologize,’ or ‘I was wrong,’ or maybe she doesn’t feel like she was wrong in any way, but I think we should hear that because, like I said, voters are nervous,” Wallace said.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.
President Joe Biden pledged Friday to defend Social Security and Medicare from Republican attacks but rejected calls to support a full repeal of the debt ceiling, an arbitrary federal borrowing limit that the GOP is threatening to use as leverage to enact spending cuts.
"The Republican leadership in Congress has made it clear they will crash the economy next year by threatening the full faith and credit of the United States for the first time in our history, putting the United States in default, unless, unless, we yield to their demand to cut Social Security and Medicare," Biden said in a speech at the White House.
"Let me be really clear: I will not yield," the president vowed. "I will not cut Social Security. I will not cut Medicare, no matter how hard they work at it."
Biden's remarks came during an address touting new Treasury Department data showing that the federal budget deficit was chopped in half last fiscal year—a finding the president used to hit Republicans for spending hypocrisy.
"The federal deficit went up every single year in the Trump administration, every single year he was president," Biden said. "It went up before the pandemic. It went up during the pandemic. It went up every single year on his watch, the Republican watch."
While Biden pledged to fight GOP attacks on Social Security and Medicare, he told reporters Friday that he would not support scrapping the debt limit, a constraint that Congress imposes on the Treasury Department's ability to borrow to meet its obligations—which include Social Security and Medicare benefits.
The president said repealing the debt limit entirely would be "irresponsible," a position that puts him in conflict with members of his own party and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Short of removing the debt ceiling, congressional Democrats have the option of raising the borrowing limit unilaterally during the upcoming lame-duck session. Such a move would prevent Republicans from following through on their recent threats to use the debt ceiling as leverage to force Social Security and Medicare cuts if they win control of the House, Senate, or both.
Some Democrats have also proposed giving the executive branch the power to raise the debt ceiling, but it's unclear whether the White House supports that idea.
The federal government is expected to reach the current $31.4 trillion debt limit sometime next year. Semafor reported Thursday that Democrats are wary of raising the debt limit during the lame-duck session, fearing GOP attacks.
Countering Biden's claim that eliminating the debt ceiling would be "irresponsible," University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers argued Friday that "the debt ceiling has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility."
"It doesn't control how much Congress takes in or how much it spends," Wolfers noted. "Rather, it says: Once we hit this limit, we'll stop paying our bills, including our debts. It's a fiscal time bomb. Keeping it is irresponsible."
During an event for the right-wing “ReAwaken America Tour" in Manheim, Pennsylvania, a speaker warned the audience that Bible prophecy about the end of the world is right around the corner.
Bo Polny, a financial analyst who bases his advice on biblical principles, spoke to the audience about fluctuating stock prices for precious metals and then gave them an ominous warning.
"We are heading into the Third Seal -- we are about to witness the Third Seal of Revelations, the financial rebalancing," Polny said.
"The Angel of Death is coming to visit these people, these people are going down," he continued. "These people that control the word think that they are pharaohs -- the present-day pharaohs you shall never see again."
IN OTHER NEWS: Mike Pence has embarked upon a sad and delusional quest
Behind Polny, an image showed the purported victims of the "Angel of Death," which included President Joe Biden and several other Democratic politicians, along with Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts.
Later in his speech, Polny declared, "When the lights come on, worldwide celebrations are coming. We are gonna see the return this year -- 45 comes back! Not by his will, but by God's will!"
Polny remarks were first noted by HuffPost reporter Christopher MathiasChristopher Mathias, who is attending the event.
\u201cCrowd cheers as speaker Bo Polny declares prophecy that the \u201cAngel of death\u201d will be visiting these people by end of year \n\nEnds speech by saying \u201c45 is coming back!\u201d\u201d— Christopher Mathias (@Christopher Mathias) 1666358277
ReAwaken America was launched by former White House security adviser and 2020 election denier Michael Flynn and Oklahoma entrepreneur Clay Clark a few months after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. As WHTM points out, attendees and organizers of the event still think the 2020 election was stolen.
"According to a poster published by organizers, those invited include Eric Trump, former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and former Trump advisor Roger Stone," the news outlet reported.
"Former Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Barnette shared in a campaign email that she will also be attending the event that shows dozens of invited speakers."
Watch video below or at this link.
By David Lawder
HERNDON, Va. (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday that inflation was not becoming "embedded" in the U.S. economy and domestic investments in semiconductors and research would help increase U.S. productive capacity.
Yellen, speaking to reporters at a technology business incubator near Dulles International Airport, said she sees no signs of higher inflation expectations over the medium term being built into wages and prices.
"I don't believe it's becoming embedded in the U.S. economy," she said of inflation when asked about recent Consumer Price Index data showing persistent increases in non-food, non-energy core inflation factors, including rents.
Yellen said the report showed more work was needed to bring inflation down, but there also were some early signs of producer costs easing, in metrics such as supplier deliveries and shipping costs, which "would feed into lower inflation over time."
In another campaign-style economic speech at the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp, Yellen said investments such as President Joe Biden's $430 billion energy and health legislation would reduce some costs for Americans and bring down inflation over time by increasing the U.S. economy's productive capacity.
Touting the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act, Yellen said this will help to reverse a research investment deficit that has put the United States at risk of losing its technology lead to China and other competitors.
"Our government's failure to invest in innovation has had wide-ranging impacts on our long-term economic well-being. At the most fundamental level, it impacted our productive capacity. That's the ceiling for what our economy can produce," Yellen said.
By one measure, the chips shortage of 2021 shaved about a full percentage point off of economic growth, as production of cars and other goods was constrained, Yellen said, adding that there is little U.S. capacity for the most advanced semiconductors.
Building a semiconductor ecosystem at home will help mitigate the risks of a severe chip shortage," she said.
Mobilizing capital toward semiconductors and clean energy, through a recently enacted climate and drugs package and boosting research and development will raise the U.S. economy's aggregate production capacity.
"And in turn, we are raising America's long-term economic outlook," Yellen said.
(Reporting by David Lawder; additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Heather Timmons; Editing by Paul Simao and Andrea Ricci)
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's former White House chief strategist, has been sentenced to four months in prison by a federal judge after being convicted of contempt of Congress.
Bannon, a longtime political strategist and vocal advocate for the Republican former president, was found guilty in July on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to testify.
"Flaunting congressional subpoenas betrays a lack of respect for the legislative branch," Judge Carl Nichols said Thursday. The judge imposed a fine of $6,500 as part of the sentence.
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack subpoenaed Bannon on September 23. He was among the first of dozens of people who have been called to testify on the violent attack that shut down Congress as it convened to certify Joe Biden's election win over Trump two months earlier.
IN OTHER NEWS: Maggie Haberman reveals the one moment when Trump 'shocked even her'
The committee said it has reason to believe Bannon has "information relevant to understand important activities that led to and informed the events at the Capitol."
The committee pointed to his presence at activities focused on blocking Congress's certification session the day before, when he said: "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow."
After Trump claimed executive privilege to block aides from testifying and to prevent the committee from accessing documents from his administration, Bannon said he would not testify until questions over privilege had been resolved.
The House then voted to refer contempt of Congress charges to the Justice Department. Each count carries a penalty of one month to one year in jail.
The Justice Department said in a sentencing recommendation that the 68-year-old Bannon should receive the six-month sentence and pay a fine of $200,000 because he repeatedly sought to delay the proceedings by hinting he might cooperate.
Bannon "has pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt," the department said.
With additional reporting by AFP
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough warned that Republicans intend to "blow everything up" if they retake congressional majorities next month.
The "Morning Joe" host has been noticing more calls to impeach President Joe Biden from supposedly mainstream conservatives, after the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected GOP challenges to his laws and executive orders, and he thinks that's a preview of the agenda they'll pursue with midterm election wins.
"I have noticed an uptick in conservative publications that I read from people that I've respected in the past, and I respect a lot of the other things they write about, but suddenly talking about impeach Joe Biden, he's a lawless president, look what he did with the student loan program -- it's lawless," Scarborough said. "Our constitution is at risk, and how dare he do this, and how dare people ever say that Donald Trump was a risk to the constitution when he's doing this, and Amy Coney Barrett goes, well, we're not even going to take this case."
"I remember saying at the time to one of them, well, why don't you go through the process and if the Supreme Court rules that it's unconstitutional -- you don't have to impeach a president, just overturn the law," Scarborough said. "That's really how it works, unless you just want to blow everything up, which is of course what apparently they want to do, they want to scream and shout impeach like they're owning the libs because they somehow think that something that's now been deemed constitutional is as bad as Donald Trump actually being part of a conspiracy to commit sedition against the United States government. I'm afraid this may be a preview of what we see in Kevin McCarthy's majority."
FROM EARLIER: 'Never expected to see it': Foreign correspondent compares Jan. 6 riot to what he saw in Afghanistan and Somalia
Watch the video below or at this link.
10 21 2022 06 10 37 www.youtube.com
Kyiv accused Russia of planning to destroy a hydroelectric dam in the eastern Kherson region, where Ukrainian soldiers have been steadily advancing and Moscow-installed authorities have begun evacuations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces had mined the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant with the intent of blowing it up, in what would amount to a "catastrophe on a grand scale".
Hundreds of thousands of people around the lower Dnipro River would be in danger of rapid flooding if the dam was destroyed, Zelensky warned in a speech Thursday to European leaders.
He said cutting water supplies to the south could also impact the cooling systems of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest.
And the North Crimean canal, which provides a crucial water supply to Crimea -- occupied since 2014 by Russia -- could be destroyed.
Russia's goal is to halt the Ukrainian advance in the region and protect Russian troops, according to Zelensky's adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak.
Cities across Ukraine began curbing electricity consumption ahead of winter Thursday as authorities warned that heavy damage to the country's energy grid by Russian attacks would spark a new wave of refugees from the country.
"Russia's leadership has given the order to turn the energy system itself into a battlefield. The consequences of this are very dangerous, again for all of us in Europe," Zelensky said in an address to the EU council
Energy-saving measures were put in place across the country after Russian missile and drone strikes destroyed at least 30 percent of the country's power stations in a week, according to authorities.
Following blackouts in parts of Kyiv overnight, the city's mayor Vitali Klitschko urged businesses to limit screens and signage lights "as much as possible".
"Even small savings and a reduction in electricity consumption in every home will help stabilise the operation of the national energy system," he said.
Ukrainians responded defiantly.
"It's not going to change our attitude, maybe we will only hate them more," said Olga, a resident of Dnipro in central Ukraine who declined to give her last name.
"I would rather sit in the cold with no water and electricity than be in Russia," she said.
People were rushing to buy auxiliary power supplies like generators and batteries, according to Kyrylo, an electronics vendor.
Speaking of the coming winter, he said: "I think that there will be nothing that we cannot survive."
"There will be some kind of heating in any case, and the fact that it will be 16 (degrees Celsius, or 61 Fahrenheit) instead of 20 doesn't matter much. Just put on a thermal and socks," he said.
The White House meanwhile said it had evidence of Iranians taking a direct role in the war, helping Russians direct their Iranian-made "kamikaze drones" -- which are destroyed in attacks on Ukrainian targets such as power stations.
"Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground, and through the provision of weapons that are impacting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine," said White House national security spokesman John Kirby.
He added that there was also concern Iran might supply surface-to-surface missiles to Russia for use in the war.
"The United States is going to pursue all means to expose, deter and confront Iran's provision of these munitions against the Ukrainian people," he added.
The European Union and United Kingdom announced sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms firm accused of supplying Russia with drones.
However, bipartisan support for military aid to Ukraine is starting to wane in Washington, with Republicans signalling that funding could be cut after congressional midterm elections next month.
"They said that if they win they're not likely to fund, to continue to fund Ukraine," US President Joe Biden said while campaigning in Pennsylvania.
"They have no sense of American foreign policy."
Little changed along the long front lines, where Russia has been sending many of the 200,000 troops newly called up to the fight.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited a training centre for mobilised troops south-east of Moscow where he embraced soldiers and fired a gun.
Some fighters opened their rucksacks to show him what they had been equipped with, and he asked one about his family, who replied he had a five-year-old daughter.
Putin hugged him and wished him "good luck."
Meanwhile Russia continued to evacuate people from Kherson city as Ukrainian forces inched closer to the southern hub, in Moscow's hands since the earliest days of the invasion in February.
Moscow-installed authorities in Kherson said that around 15,000 people have been moved out.
Russia's Rossiya 24 TV showed images of people waiting to board ferries, unable to use bridges damaged by Ukraine.
Kirill Stremousov, a pro-Russian official, said on Telegram that the evacuations would give Russian forces more room to fight, and said they would not cede the city back to the Ukrainians.
"Remember, nobody is going to give up Kherson," he said.
But Ukrainians said the exit of civilians from the area was in fact forced deportations to Russia.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War, in its daily analysis, said that as Ukrainian forces continue to close in on Kherson city, Russian authorities "are likely setting information conditions to justify planned Russian retreats and significant territorial losses."
© Agence France-Presse
Mark Finchem, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, sent a cease-and-desist letter this week to Arizona television stations demanding that they stop airing an ad from his opponent that accuses him of organizing the Jan. 6 riot.
The ad, paid for by the Arizona Democratic Party and authorized by Finchem’s opponent, former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, says that Finchem “helped organize the January 6 protests where police were attacked.”
Finchem’s attorney called that particular claim false and said he was not involved with the organizing of the Jan. 6 protest. Finchem’s attorney, Jack Wilenchik, wrote that the stations were engaging in the spreading of “false, destructive and defamatory rumors” about Finchem.
Finchem, a state legislator from Oro Valley, has long been at the forefront of narratives around Jan. 6. The lead organizer of the rally that turned into a violent riot said in an interview that Arizona’s “Stop The Steal” movement, which fueled the actions of Jan. 6, wouldn’t have existed without Finchem.
On Finchem’s old Twitter account, which he deleted in 2021, he frequently spouted misinformation about the 2020 elections, much of which was flagged by Twitter as being incorrect. He also spearheaded an event at a Phoenix hotel in late November during which Trump’s lead attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and other pro-Trump figures gathered with state GOP lawmakers and the president’s supporters to discuss baseless theories that Joe Biden won Arizona’s election by fraud.
Joe Biden won the state by about 11,000 votes, and there has been no credible evidence of any fraud or malfeasance that affected the result. An election review run by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists and authorized by the GOP-controlled state Senate scrutinized the results from Maricopa County and found no proof of fraud.
On that Twitter account, Finchem also largely interacted and tweeted at the organizer of the event that would turn into chaos in D.C. on Jan. 6.
Finchem attended the Jan. 6 rally and marched to the Capitol, and he praised the rioters that day on Twitter. He’s given different narratives on where exactly he was on that day, and video evidence has shown he was much closer than he has previously stated.
Wilenchik, Finchem’s attorney, has also been involved in many of the schemes around the 2020 election. He has represented the Cyber Ninjas, who conducted the Senate’s partisan ballot review, and corresponded with the Trump campaign about the fake elector scheme while representing the Arizona Republican Party.
Finchem also has a history of filing lawsuits against his political rivals. He also launched a legal defense fund to “fight back” against what he sees as the “weaponization of the ‘free press,’” and last year sent a cease-and-desist to a failed recall campaign when they made similar accusations.
Finchem himself has also been the subject of lawsuits, such as a lawsuit that sought to remove him from the ballot for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The lawsuit, one of several in Arizona and across the country, aimed to use the Fourteenth Amendment to disqualify candidates because of their support of the Jan. 6 attack, claiming they are “insurrectionists” and thus unable to hold public office. The Arizona Supreme Court rejected the case.
“They basically want to do what the Nazi party did in the 1930s,” Finchem said of those who brought that lawsuit to Arizona knifemaker Greg Medford on his podcast. “They want to use the court system as a political hammer.”
Finchem has a history of comparing his political rival’s actions to those of Nazi Germany.
The Arizona Mirror reached out to the Arizona Broadcasters Association about the cease and desist but did not hear back in time for publication.
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, economists chide, but one alternative store in the southern US city of Atlanta is offering the next best thing to those struggling with spiraling prices.
Locals load up on plantains, frozen meat and other ingredients free of charge at The Grocery Spot, a small, neon-lit outlet in the Georgia state capital.
In three weeks, Americans get to deliver their verdict on Joe Biden's presidency in the crucial midterm elections that decide whether his Democrats get to keep pushing through his agenda -- or cede control of Congress to the Republicans.
The economy, and inflation in particular, are topping every nationwide poll of voters' priorities, but householders have been struggling more than most in Atlanta -- where a generation of the "newly poor" has been crushed by soaring costs.
The Grocery Spot -- which launched almost two years ago, around the time that President Joe Biden assumed office and the consumer price index began its vertiginous ascent -- says it has seen an explosion in patrons.
"Have you been to the supermarket recently?" asks Theresa McGhee, an entrepreneur in the medical industry, as she negotiates the cramped shelves at the charitable association's premises in the northwestern Grove Park neighborhood.
"You pick up a few things, it's $100," the mother, in her 50s, complains as she fills up on potatoes, granola bars and tubs of ice cream.
With its 12 percent inflation rate, Atlanta is one of the US cities where prices have increased the most this year.
McGhee is clear that "greed, greed, greed" is at the root of the crisis -- from the avarice of elected politicians to the excesses of big business.
Price rises in the 97 percent-Black Grove Park neighborhood are fueling mistrust of the American political class, potentially imperiling Biden's Democrats in the November 8 election.
The party has relied heavily on the African-American vote in its bid to win the state, which was already hotly contested in 2020.
One manager of the store, who goes by the name Slugga, has already made up his mind that he won't be voting in three weeks, however.
"I don't see the point," the 39-year-old African-American man tells AFP.
Slugga, who was raised nearby, sees politics as little more than a never-ending drama of partisan squabbles.
"Who's going to help our future?" he asks, the sleeves of his black hoodie bunching as he digs into the pockets of his blue jeans.
"You'd be surprised how many people have worked all their life and can't make ends meet," chimes in a woman in a long black coat, preferring not to give her name.
"They give you just enough money to remind you how screwed you are," agrees a volunteer, putting away boxes.
The Grocery Spot spends more than $400 a week on diesel to drive around Georgia looking for unsold goods, which it redistributes in its store.
Every day that it is open for business, almost 500 people walk through its doors before it runs out of stock.
"There is this newly poor demographic that no one is taking care of," Matt Jones, the association's founder, tells AFP.
"I'm here for the teachers, the Uber and Lyft drivers, the Walmart employees," says the Marine Corps veteran, who describes himself as "anti-government."
"I think it's bullshit for the government to come in and say we want to give you a grant and support you, when this is what they should be doing," he adds.
At The Grocery Spot, shopping operates in a "pay-what-you-can" honesty system, with customers invited -- but not obliged -- to offer a small sum as they check out.
A saleswoman noisily shakes a bell that resonates throughout the store with each donation.
The association is also active on social media, using its accounts to raise cash.
"We always wanted to be our own superheroes," says Slugga, leaning against the graffiti-covered truck the store uses to collect its fresh produce.
"I feel like Robin Hood," he says as he watches the shoppers filling their baskets. "This many people ate today."
On Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an emergency application from a right-wing group in Wisconsin to block President Joe Biden's student loan relief plan, according to Bloomberg News court reporter Greg Stohr.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), had filed the application on behalf of the Brown County Taxpayers' Association, arguing the president lacked the authority to implement the program and further claiming that taxpayers are injured by the plan by having to pay for it with either inflation or future tax increases, relying on a rarely-used legal idea called the Major Questions Doctrine.
Biden enacted the plan under the HEROES Act, a 9/11 era law that allows the executive to establish certain programs in case of a national emergency, which the president is invoking as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. WILL argued to the court that this was unlawful.
"The Plan is a massive new federal spending program on par with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which was touted by the White House as a 'once-in-a-generation' and 'transformational' federal law," said the complaint. "In a different way, the Plan — which will wipe away untold assets off the United States’ balance sheets by unchecked presidential fiat — will be transformational to our separation of powers, the rule of law, and the power of the President. Almost anything can be a national emergency. If a President can do this, then he will have been transformed into an officer who not only executes the law but also makes it."
IN OTHER NEWS: 'Some kind of a plant': Disgraced ex-Fox News anchor hurls conspiracy theory at John Durham
Barrett, who was appointed to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat by former President Donald Trump in the final days of his presidency, and who held the deciding vote in overturning Roe v. Wade, did not give a public explanation for her decision not to refer the matter to the full court.
However, there were key problems with this complaint, the main being that it is unclear the plaintiff is truly injured in any way that gives standing to challenge the program. Historically, simply costing taxpayer money has not been interpreted by courts to be a sufficient injury — particularly given it's not even clear the student loan relief program's cost will actually result in a tax increase for the specific people suing. WILL even acknowledged this in the complaint, writing, "Applicant is aware that prudential notions of standing are an issue here ... Applicant is aware of the concern that federal courts should not be transformed into forums for the abstract litigation of questions in which litigants without a concrete stake in the matter press claims that do not discreetly affect them."
The application page for requesting student loan relief went live this week. Under Biden's plan, individuals making less than $125,000, or married couples making less than $250,000, can apply for up to $10,000 in forgiveness for regular loans, or $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients, along with several other reforms to how interest is calculated and how existing income-based repayment plans work. Another lawsuit challenging the program, filed by several Republican state attorneys general, is still in progress.
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