Day 1353: "Everything was nice."

WTF Just Happened Today

Thursday, October 3, 2024

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1/ Biden’s student loan forgiveness program can proceed after a federal judge let a temporary restraining order expire. The lawsuit was brought by seven Republican-led states that argued the Biden administration’s rule would be detrimental to income tax revenue. U.S. District Judge Randal Hall, however, found that Georgia lacked standing to sue because the state failed to show it would be harmed by the plan to forgive $73 billion in student loan debt held by millions of Americans. Instead, Hall directed the case to be transferred to Missouri. The Republican-led states asked a federal judge in Missouri to rule by Friday on whether to continue blocking the proposal. (NBC News / Reuters / CNBC)

2/ Trump promised to revoke Temporary Protected Status and deport the Haitian migrants who are legally living in Springfield, Ohio, if he is reelected in November. Following a 2010, 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti that killed around 220,000 people, Obama added Haitians to the TPS program, which allows migrants to stay in the U.S. when their countries are unsafe to return to. Despite spending weeks spreading debunked conspiracy theories that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Trump continued to disparage them, saying that placing thousands of migrants in the town “doesn’t work.” He added: “You have to remove the people. You cannot destroy — we cannot destroy our country. You had a beautiful, safe community. Everyone’s in love with everybody, everything was nice, it was like a picture community.” Trump also falsely claimed that over 30,000 migrants have moved into Springfield in recent years, but the number is between 12,000 and 15,000 in the entire county – not just the city. Trump has previously said he wants to deport between 15 and 20 million immigrants if reelected. (Axios / Politico / New York Times / CNN)

3/ A former Colorado county clerk was sentenced to nine years in prison for tampering with voting machines under her control during the 2020 election. Tina Peters was convicted of four felony and three misdemeanor charges for allowing MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell – a pro-Trump activist and a prominent promoter of the false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump – to use another person’s security card to access to the Mesa County election system in May 2021. The county’s machines later had to be replaced when data, including passwords for the machines, was posted online. “Your lies are well-documented and these convictions are serious,” Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters before he handed down his sentence, calling her a “charlatan” who used her time in office “to peddle snake oil.” Barrett told Peters that “the damage is immeasurable,” and “I’m convinced you would do it all over again if you could […] You’re as defiant a defendant as I’ve ever seen.” (Associated Press / New York Times / WTF Just Happened Today? for more news and headlines, brought to you by Matt Kiser. The WTFJHT Podcast is narrated and produced by Joe Amditis.