Hello Reader,
Your sacrifices and hard work don't go unnoticed or unrewarded. Regardless of who acknowledges you and who doesn't, you are becoming a better person every day that you show up and put your best foot forward. Also you never know who is watching or taking their cue's from you. The Law of Value states that your efforts will be reciprocated.
What I am Interested in this Week:
"Shortened Time to Forgiveness" Goes in Effect Sooner than Expected and Gets a Buff
last Wednesday the Biden administration announced student loan forgiveness for 153,000 borrowers. The subsequent amount associated with those borrowers totals to $1.2 billion. This was originally part of the SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) plan's design and set to go into effect in July of 2024. Under its original intent what is referred to by the plan as a "shortened time to forgiveness," was supposed to reduce the time it would take for borrowers of $12,000 or fewer to repay their debt from 20-25 years to 10 years or less. For people on the SAVE plan who borrowed $13,000 or more it would take them an additional year to get debt free on this plan for every additional $1,000.
President Biden circumvented that process and did so 5 months earlier than would have been anticipated, forgiving 153,000 borrowers completely in the month of February for those loans of $12,000 or fewer, making those borrowers essentially debt free. If you already have $12,000 in debt or fewer and you have made 10 years worth of payments on it as of this week you should be free of that debt. The Department of Education is set to send out emails with this information this week and will be encouraging other eligible borrowers to apply for the SAVE plan and reap this benefit. Student Debt forgiveness is an original campaign promise made by Joe Biden back in 2020, of which he tried to do once albeit in a legally weak way that the SCOTUS overturned. Click here to read an article on this story.
"I Will No Longer Be Complicit in Genocide"
Over this past weekend an active United States Air Force solider set himself on fire in protest of the horrors happening in Gaza. Aaron Bushnell who has since died, doused himself with fire starter in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C after going live on twitch, and set himself on fire where he burned alive in protest of what Israel is doing to Palestinians. He was put out and died in a hospital but his demonstration echoes as he was recorded saying the he "will no longer be complicit in genocide." The young man was 25 years old. This has happened the same week that the Prime Minister of Palestine has resigned in outrage over the genocide of his people, calling for the government to unify under new leadership. And as Israel prepares an assault on Rafah where over one million Palestinians have been forced to evacuate because of Israel's assault on Gaza. Israel plans to finish Hamas in Rafah. There are on going negotiations about a ceasefire and the freeing of more hostages, and President Biden is urging Israel not to go into Rafah. Click here to read an article on this story.
Supreme Court of the United States to Hear Case on Social Media Free Speech
In 2021 Florida and Texas legislatures passed similar laws requiring social media companies to disclose how they curate their content and blocking platforms with 50 million users or more, from banning profiles based on their viewpoints. This was done in an effort to combat what has been seen as a liberal bias on popular social media sites. Examples that can be cited for these laws especially at the time was the blocking of Donald Trump's profiles on these platforms, and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. In 2022 the Florida law was struck down by the 11th Circuit Court, but the Texas law was upheld by the 5th Circuit Court. This has created room for interpretation for these laws and they are on their way to the Supreme court this week.
The attorneys supporting the social media companies say that these laws are an infringement of their right to free speech. The attorneys supporting Florida and Texas are arguing that social media companies are more like service providers than they are free speech activists. As a service provider you can't limit what someone who uses your service says, that would be like a phone company charging a person more money or cutting off their phone all together because of their political views. Despite what happens with these laws this saga is likely to continue as this past week Florida just passed a law banning anyone younger than 16 from using social media apps all together. Click here for an article on this story.
Word of Encouragement
This week I want to encourage you to find your people. I've been singing this song for a little while now because it an increasingly important topic for me. Here at life with Ken we are support system that you can connect with for information and inspiration about life and your holistic well-being. That being said life is more dynamic than how you operate in it. Yes how you operate in life is important but what is also important is where you operate in life. Our ecosystem is vast and growing and we plan on doing more in the future, but at the end of the day you are in your life. You need to find the people on the ground who are willing to partner with you and or have room to include you in their vision. Identify the space where you can do life well and claim that territory as yours... Then use our content to learn to learn how to do life well.
I hope you have an amazing week this week!
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