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I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

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The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

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Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Warren / Castro 2020!

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Warren / Castro 2020!

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165Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    She came out with a nice looking bankruptcy reform plan yesterday. It’s another black mark on the left that they prefer Shouty McWaggy to her.

  3. 3.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I’m not sure why Warren was campaigning in Brooklyn instead of South Carolina.

    The great state of Brooklyn doesn’t hold it’s primary for nearly another 4 months.

  4. 4.

    sab

    I am Warren all the way, although I also sent money to my former #2Harris and later to Castro.

    OT :I am getting braces on my teeth this year! Anyone have any experience with this? Good news is I should lose weight, since snacking is out. I am too old for this, so culturally should be weird. Tax season about to start. Will employer be ready for me in braces? Who knows

    ETA: Still sending money to Harris. I like her a lot, and even if she doesn’t have campaign debt to retire ( my guess is she does) she still needs to build a war chest for next time.

  5. 5.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Looking at the calendar, only 3 states have caucuses this year: Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming.

    Ditching undemocratic caucuses is a big reform.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Haven’t had a chance to read the bankruptcy plan yet but saw a couple of articles that framed it as a shot across Biden’s bow. As if Warren is not one of the nation’s foremost legal experts on bankruptcy. The horse race bullshit is extra exhausting this year.

  9. 9.

    sab

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:  I worked on campaigns all through high school. Then, after grad school I moved to Michigan, a caucus state. I actually stopped voting. Voting seemed pointless.

    I only reregistered when Jesse Jackson’s people signed me up as part of their rainbow coalition. And I am white.

  10. 10.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    They have a debate this Tuesday in Iowa.   For pete’s sake, it better not be about programs.  It better be about how Dump is clear and present danger to the world.

    Who ever goes after Dump the hardest will be rewarded the most in media attention and voter appeal.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Feeling the Blech this AM..

    Mine feels like cashmere.

    ;)

    Winter storm outside – colder temps, wind driven rain most of the day and all night so far.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Police in Delhi have faced criticism for failing to arrest any members of a violent mob that stormed the campus of the Jawarharlal Nehru University (JNU) in the Indian capital, while at the same time charging a student leader beaten over the head with a metal bar with two offences. Police have been accused of failing to intervene when about 50 masked men went on the rampage on Sunday evening, attacking students and academic staff, and vandalising buildings and property. More than 30 people were injured.

    Aishe Ghosh – the leader of protests at the university in Delhi – needed about 16 stitches for a deep gash in her head. On Monday she said she only survived by falling down and playing dead, adding that she felt as if she was being “lynched”. “They first vandalised a car parked nearby before besieging us. My sister managed to escape, but my friend and I were caught by the mob. They first struck me on my head with a rod before kicking and thrashing me. I screamed at them that they couldn’t do that, but they didn’t stop,” she said. Ghosh and other students have called on the university’s vice-chancellor, Jagadish Kumar, to resign over the incident.

    Delhi police have yet to identify or detain any assailants. They say they are currently examining video clips and WhatsApp chats. Meanwhile, they have charged Ghosh, and several other students, with damaging the steel bars, pick handles, and pitchforks of a group of far right wing Hindus engaged in peaceful religious expression.

    Ok ok, I changed that last bit, sue me. it actually said,

    Meanwhile, they have charged Ghosh, and several other students, with attacking security guards during a prior incident on Saturday. They are accused of vandalising a server room and of destroying fibre-optic cables.

  16. 16.

    sab

    In my misspent youth I was a bankruptcy lawyer, during the Volker recession. All my clients either had medical bills or were trying to buy houses in school districts they couldn’t afford. I had one client who was a thieving sleesebag. Just one. Everyone else was a normal person trying to get by. That’s why I quit law practice.  So much pain, coudn’t help.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax:Our rains begin tomorrow night. We’re in the 3-4″ band but on the edge of the 4-6″ band. At least the ground won’t be frozen.

    Meanwhile, my cold seems to be making a return visit.

  18. 18.

    burnspbesq

    @Betty Cracker: 

    I think that’s fair. “The Senator from MBNA” has lots of baggage from his role in the 2005 bankrptcy law changes (bankruptcy “reform,” my ass).

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    I was off the grid for most of yesterday evening, so still catching up on the latest in the Iran clusterfuck. The media consensus seems to be that Trump’s weird “all is well” tweet signals he won’t do something bugfuck crazy in response to yesterday’s missile barrage. Also, there were no casualties, thankfully. Do we believe the 737 plane crash in Iran was unrelated to the hostilities? Also, what sort of words will the demented moron read off a teleprompter this morning — more dick-swinging?

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    @burnspbesq: Agree that the topic highlights a huge difference between the two! But implying that Warren released a bankruptcy reform plan as an attack on Biden struck me as a stretch.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    Do we believe the 737 plane crash in Iran was unrelated to the hostilities?

    Although we live in a time when the unthinkable is just another day ending in “y”, I have a hard time believing that Trump escalated from threatening to bomb cultural sites to taking down a passenger jet.

    Sad to say, but the plane crash actually provides an opportunity for everyone to take a pause on hostilities.

  31. 31.

    Joey Maloney

    The Guardian is linking to some amateur video that purports to be the Ukrainian Air flight in flames all the way to the ground. I say “purports” because there’s no way to say what you’re looking at besides something on fire.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    President trump’s press conference was interrupted by unrestrained peals of laughter when he told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday that although he “likes to obey the law, Iran will…” Nobody knows what trump was going to say about Iran because after 15 mins of continuous unbroken laughter, they had to call paramedics to treat a number of reporters suffering from shortness of breath.

  34. 34.

    Joey Maloney

    @Baud: I’m also wary of eyewitness reports from the ground. It doesn’t even have to be deliberate disinfo. People aren’t used to seeing plane crashes (thank goodness) – so they will misinterpret what they’re seeing and their interpretation quickly becomes the actual memory.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    Obama did not give Iran any money.Obama released Iran's frozen assets. It was their money!He did it so Iran would sign "no nuke" treaty.Trump Admin told Trump, Iran was abiding to treaty.Trump pulled US out of treaty & started war.Trump's fault.@realDonaldTrump— Scotty D (@thedoggeneral1) January 8, 2020

  36. 36.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Joe Walsh

    @WalshFreedom

    And by the way, the American people are less safe today then we were four days ago. In fact, we’re less safe today then we were three years ago.

    251Retweets 

    1.5K Likes

    I have to say, the Never Trumpers are good guerilla fighters

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    The morons on Fox & Friends are blaming Obama for financing Iranian missiles right now. I assume this is a reference to the nuclear deal that unfroze Iranian assets? They’re also blaming Obama for strengthening Putin and Iran by not invading Syria, which Republicans and Democrats alike opposed, IIRC. (I’m not watching F&F; just following @reverrlewis, who watches that bullshit for a living and posts clips, poor fellow.)

    I expect we’ll hear these F&F talking points and whatever insane shit Judge Kookypants and Sean Hannity spewed last night on Fox prime time when Trump “addresses the nation” this morning.

    Got into a friendly Twitter dust-up yesterday when I criticized Pete Buttigieg for doing another Fox News town hall. This morning’s reminder that Fox News is in charge of the “garbage in” cycle of the “garbage out” POTUS makes me even more convinced that I am right and the Pete people are wrong on this issue; Democrats should not appear on that network.

  41. 41.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Has anyone here with expertise in bankruptcy taken a look at the plan? I’m not sure making it easier to go through bankruptcy is as good an idea as reforming the crap that’s putting people in that situation (ie, student loans, medical crises, etc.).

  43. 43.

    germy

    Meghan McCain’s sneer while she demanded Warren say the word “terrorist” must have thrilled her fans at her husband’s mysteriously funded magazine.

  47. 47.

    satby

    Totally off topic, but had a little excitement last night. I was watching Inspector Lewis on my tablet and for some reason looked at my front window to see the silhouette of a man looking in (he was visible because of my neighbor’s porch light). I jumped up, turned on my hall lights and stood where he could see me on my cell calling 911. Of course no one was there when the cops showed up a few minutes later, though they carefully searched around my whole yard and garage. Spooked me a bit, my porch is set back from the street behind an iron fence, so it takes effort to come up on it.

  48. 48.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And this is where we are.

    I listened to an interview with BS this morning. At one point, he wa practically yelling at the interviewer. We need a leader who focuses on remaining calm as well as Obama did. It has to be Warren.

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: Yikes, that would’ve scared the crap outta me! You have several dogs, correct? You’d think that would keep the creepers away, but if they’re like my dogs, they’ll snooze through actual danger and bark their heads off at squirrels.

  53. 53.

    satby

    @debbie: I hate to admit it, but I’m hoping the old fraud has another heart attack that’s enough to sideline him. Don’t want him to croak, but I don’t think anything other than a crippling event will get him to get out. And he would be a disaster.

  55. 55.

    satby

    @Baud: @Betty Cracker: I admit, it was a bit scary. Especially since someone had made a creepy pass at me a few days earlier. Times like that are when I really miss my dear old Hershey dog. He was a sweetie, but at 120 lbs of Pit-chocolate lab mix he scared strangers*

    *I still have two dogs, and yes they never barked once. Until the cops got there. Big fucking help they are.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Well, in that case I wasn’t so much editorializing as much as indulging my fantasy of how a sane world with honest media would react to such bald faced fabrications.

  58. 58.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Glad you’re okay. That happened to me back when living in NYC (guy on the fire escape). Super said the best thing for me to do was to buy a baseball bat. I bought the heaviest one I could find, and my friends laughed because they were sure I’d hurt myself swinging it around ineffectively.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    Under Warren’s plan, “if a foreclosure has started, and the homeowner certifies that she has attempted to negotiate a modification in good faith, she could seek an automatic modification of the mortgage debt to the market value of the property, with interest rates reduced to achieve a sustainable debt-to-income ratio.” In other words, the face value of the mortgage would be marked down to what the house is actually worth, with an interest rate then set at a level the borrower can afford.

    Elizabeth, like me, still holds a grudge on the 2009 crash :)

    What this does as far as lenders is give them an incentive not to make bad loans, not to inflate assessments or lend more than the house is worth by inflating assessed value – it adds risk to them. It reduces moral hazard on the lender side.

    The reason people who do not have to or don’t file bankruptcy should support bankruptcy as a tool is because it’s a good process. It’s already up and running and it functions well. There’s a special set of expert courts and judges and trustees already in place and all they do is analyze debts and assets. They review thousands of petitions. They recognize fraud, because fraud looks different than just an ordinary debtor who got in over their head. It’s an orderly process with consistent rules and it’s fair to lenders. If the lender secured the debt based on the value of the asset they’ll get paid. If they didn’t, they won’t.

  61. 61.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    It’s too early for clear. I expected that to be an Onion link and was surprised to see that it was TPM. I assumed it really happened.

  62. 62.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    They recognize fraud, because fraud looks different than just an ordinary debtor who got in over their head. It’s an orderly process with consistent rules and it’s fair to lenders. If the lender secured the debt based on the value of the asset they’ll get paid. If they didn’t, they won’t.

    I gotta get to work, but this doesn’t explain Trump’s ability to miswork the system.

  64. 64.

    satby

    @Kay: if I could have modified my loan to the market value of my house when I was in Michigan, I wouldn’t have had to leave, but the mortgage company had no incentive to try to keep the house occupied. They can write off the loan as a loss and turn around and dump it on HUD. Which they did, and it sold for less than half of what I was trying to modify it to. Warren isn’t the only one holding a grudge from 2009.

  65. 65.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:
    That would have negated my wife’s need for bankruptcy in 2004. She had a deal to sell the house for $2000 less than she owed on it and the bank refused to take it, even tho new houses of app the same size in that same neighborhood were going for (iirc) $30K less.

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: If it sounds to good to be true or so ridiculous that no would ever fund a movie based on it…

    I include the link just in case somebody wants to know what really happened.

    The goat kidnapped from a porn store? That one really happened.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I think what reforming bankruptcy does that the other mechanisms don’t is address the fairness issue. It addresses the issue of the people who think it’s unfair that they operated under one set of rules (like with student loans) and people who came after them get a better set of rules. They resent that, understandably, because they say “I paid my loans”. Bankruptcy adds a hoop to jump through. It adds an impartial, expert (and they really are experts, bankruptcy courts- they’re competent- that system functions) analysis on whether the debt should be discharged. And we don’t need a new agency to do it. It’s up and running.

    So it’s not blanket forgiveness, which people resent. There’s still a reward for paying your debts- you don’t have to file bankruptcy.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    No one ever accused Trump of bankruptcy fraud (which is different than just being a terrible manager and filing bankruptcy a lot). Trump was punished for the bankruptcies too- he couldn’t get credit from reputable lenders. That’s how he ended up in bed with all these crooked people.

    Warren’s focus is consumer bankruptcies- Chapter 7 and 13. Trump filed Chapter 11. That’s for businesses. Trump never filed personally.

  72. 72.

    rikyrah

    ???
    I live in a state where, when you finish your obligation to the state, you just fill out a voter registration form and ……..poof, once it’s processed, you are a registered voter. It ain’t hard. Or ‘complicated’.

    Florida Faces A Rocky Rollout To Restore Voting Rights After Felony Convictions https://t.co/x4LqxG00lT— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) January 8, 2020

  75. 75.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: A punchline to add? There was absolutely no way I could make that headline any… anymore…. any…. I just got nothing.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    There’s a lot of blame to pass around: the majority of white people who voted for Trump, etc. But a special extra pissy fvck you to Jill Stein voters tonight. You alone would’ve tipped the scales where it mattered. You chose this despite claiming to share progressive values.— Pumpkin Spiced Primary ? (@chrisdameanor19) January 8, 2020

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah:

    you just fill out a voter registration form and ……..poof, once it’s processed, you are a registered voter.

    I think I see the problem GOP Floridians are struggling with.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Exactly. I watched it here. I will never forget it. Page after page of foreclosures in the back of the newspaper. I have never seen anything like it. We had whole foreclosed streets – people had ludicrous loans- 130k on a house that has never been worth more than 80 and never will be. I knew they were inflating the value while they were doing it because I’m a local lawyer and I know what all this shit is worth- I see all the sales and all the mortgages, over years. I go to auctions constantly. I can come within 10 of the appraisers I hire just by looking at the property on the county website.

    I think they wouldn’t cram down the loans because if they had done so they would have had to admit that they were holding millions and millions in debt that wasn’t tied to an asset- that was unsecured. They would have collapsed, because that would have been a recognition that the debt was unsecured and uncollectible.  We had to keep up this fiction that they actually had some asset somewhere that secured those loans. Cram downs would have revealed real value.

  83. 83.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: That is Uber’s plan to make a profit.  Flying cars are a “paradigm-breaking transformative runcible disruptive synergistic” plan to attract huge additional inflows of venture capital.  After all, you’ve got to park your tax cut billions somewhere.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    @satby:

    We had judges get mad. They started insisting the lenders personally appear, which you can do under Ohio rules. They’d drag the national companies up here into municipal courts for pretrials and motions hearings and all kinds of things. They started rejecting their crappy complaints- send it back and make them rework it not just to comply with Ohio rules but also local rules. No 3″ header on the complaint? Back it goes! They wanted someone held accountable, they wanted some pain inflicted on the national lenders that matched the local pain they were seeing, so they used what they had. I cheered.

  86. 86.

    Melusine

    Thanks for sharing this! Put a big smile on my face this morning. She is really great with a crowd. No surprise they don’t show those clips on the news.

    As for why Brooklyn – maybe she was already traveling there for something else and decided to work in a rally. Well worth it for that video.

  87. 87.

    satby

    @Kay: well, it was a little less the loan was so inflated than the recession hit that rural area extremely hard and values plummeted. And since I had been making double principal payments, the mortgage company made extra money out of the deal when the triple whammy of job loss, recession, tree damage nailed me. It ended up ok for me in the end, but I put a lot of heart and soul into that place only to see it all swept away by the next owners. Sad.

  89. 89.

    Ken

    @Kay: Which lender had to appear in court? The local bank that originally filled out the paperwork? Or the corporation that the local bank immediately sold the loan to, so that it could be bundled with a few thousand others and sliced into credit default swaps?  Or the hundreds of owners of shares of the CDS tranches?

    IIRC one of the other things that got some judges angry was that the bundling screwed up the title process in some areas. Who holds the title to the property, when the local lender is out of the picture?

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @satby:

    The auto loans scare me now. They’re not secured. The loans no longer have any connection to the value at all. They just roll over endlessly. So the person will owe 40 on a car they can’t afford and the dealer will roll that 40 into an additional 10 on a newer car they also can’t afford. They’re just delaying the inevitable and making it worse. At some point there’s the tangible thing- the car – and the loan. I no longer even consider this is a sale. It’s some kind of …lease with an endless term and no lease rules.

  91. 91.

    Raven Onthill

    @sab: “All my clients either had medical bills or were trying to buy houses in school districts they couldn’t afford.”

    I’ll never forget sitting in a wood-paneled courtroom in San Antonio on one of my first trips, watching the families filing for bankruptcy move in and out of the courtroom to appear in front of the judge. They looked just like the family I grew up in — hanging on to the ragged edge of the middle class. Now they were standing in front of a judge, ready to give up nearly everything they owned just to get some relief from the bill collectors.

    Our research ended up showing that most of these families weren’t reckless or irresponsible — they were just getting squeezed by an economy that forced them to take on more debt and more risk to cling to their place in America’s middle class. And that meant one bad break could send them tumbling over the edge. The data showed that nearly 90% of these families were declaring bankruptcy for one of three reasons: a job loss, a medical problem, or a family breakup. – E. Warren

    Warren has a plan for that.

    “Look at history. Whenever you come across a king where everyone says, ‘Oo, he was a good king all right,’ you can bet your sandals he was a great big bearded bastard who broke heads a lot and laughed about it.

    “But some king who just passed decent little laws and read books and tried to look intelligent…‘Oh,’ they say, ‘oh, he was all right, a bit wet, not what I’d call a proper king.’ That’s people for you.” – Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

    Except Trump doesn’t have a beard.

    I think Americans want the wrong thing.

    Sigh.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    IIRC one of the other things that got some judges angry was that the bundling screwed up the title process in some areas. Who holds the title to the property, when the local lender is out of the picture?

    Absolutely because that recording, the property records, are kind of sacred. That’s the reliable record. Everyone relies on it, for everything. It’s the last word. So when they saw that national lenders were gaming that they were personally offended. They were going back to the basics of property law, which is ancient. “Who owns this and where is the signature on the note?” It looked like chaos, like crazed Wall Streeters had reached into all these counties and just dumped a 150 years of careful recording on the floor.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    @Melusine: I’m guessing Warren was in town because she was on “The View” yesterday. And Warren even figured out how to shut that whiny-ass Meghan McCain up, at least in a brief clip I saw: she simply ignored the peevish fuck-nugget and talked to the other hosts. She’d be a great president. 

  97. 97.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: Walker “The Liberal Case for Donald Trump” Bragman was blaming Democrats’ willingness to fund the government for Trump’s aggression on Twitter. He got pretty much the response you can imagine.

  98. 98.

    MrSnrub

    @sab: My wife just got invisalign braces 3 weeks ago. She adjusted pretty quickly to the eating/drinking regimen.  The biggest problem was going to holiday parties, with continued grazing…

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The epithet you are looking for is “technocratic.”

    I’m reconciled to the fact that she’s probably not going to win. I have never had a candidate who fits my approach so utterly though, so I remain faithful.
    I AM amused that all the 1% ers who attacked her seem to have inadvertently helped Bernie, though. Dumbasses. Now you’re getting BERNIE :)
    Elizabeth would have worked with them.

  100. 100.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @sab:

    When I lived in Michigan, it had open primaries rather than a caucus. That’s one reason I never bothered to register as a Democrat until we moved to Iowa and I had to if I wanted to caucus.

  101. 101.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @debbie:

     

    https://www.amazon.com/AnyTime-Blades-Wooden-Thumper-Inches/dp/B07FB2268V/ref=asc_df_B07FB2268V/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312070217648&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14967479050292780933&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9028791&hvtargid=pla-568607122020&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=62425944432&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312070217648&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14967479050292780933&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9028791&hvtargid=pla-568607122020

  102. 102.

    Immanentize

    I just skimmed the thread to check — didn’t see anything about it so …

    Last night in a thread Quinerly said Poco died.  Save a sweet thought for that good pup. And two for Quinerly.

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In response to the violence, Mississippi’s top prison official, Corrections Commissioner Pelicia Hall, said she was working with sheriffs, private prison operators and others to make sure the prisons are as safe as possible, and she vowed that the Mississippi Department of Corrections, or MDOC, would pursue criminal charges “to the full extent of the law.”

    Hall has also repeatedly asked the Republican-controlled Legislature for more money to hire guards and to fix up Unit 29, which replaced a different maximum-security unit that was closed down in 2010 in response to litigation filed by the ACLU. The request went nowhere. This year, even before the outbreak of violence, Hall asked for an extra $78 million in funding — nearly a third of it to renovate Unit 29. Unit 29 “is unsafe for staff and inmates because of age and general deterioration,” Grace Fisher, an MDOC spokeswoman, said last month.

    The Joint Legislative Budget Committee, which sets spending priorities for the state, is recommending that representatives reject the request and instead cut the total corrections budget by $8.3 million. What happens next will be up to the new Mississippi Legislature, which was sworn in Tuesday.

    Asked if he was concerned about the prison violence and what needs to be done, House Corrections Committee Chairman Bill Kinkade, a Republican from Byhalia, said, “We have been working diligently to … resolve” the issues.

    Yeah, sure you are. Why do I think you are trying to resolve a different issue than the one in this article?

    David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said it would be easy to write off what is happening as strictly a Mississippi story. Instead, he said, it’s an American story. In state after state, he said, federal courts have intervened in prisons with high levels of violence, lack of proper health treatment and other woes, but when that oversight goes away, conditions get worse again.

    “State officials complain about federal court, but that seems to be the way to maintain conditions of basic decency,” he said.

    Fathi has no doubt that the current conditions at Parchman are unconstitutional, he said. “There’s no place for this kind of treatment in a civilized society.”

  104. 104.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Oh yeah, it’s crazy now.  Financing a car for 7 years – who other than sellers thinks that’s a good idea?  All it does is encourage people to buy cars they definitely cannot afford.  How many people will even have those same vehicles in 7 years?  I think eventually the lenders who are doing this are going to get screwed.  Are they bundling these loans in the same way they were doing mortgages? If so, perhaps that explains this insanity.

  107. 107.

    Soprano2

    @debbie: Was that Wilmer’s interview on “Morning Edition”?  The one where he didn’t seem to be able to answer the quite logical questions from the interviewer?  I was surprised he didn’t even mention getting Iran back into the nuclear deal, unless I missed it. I thought he sounded completely unprepared for absolutely predictable questions.

  110. 110.

    satby

    @Immanentize: yes, they went to the vet yesterday. Quinerly has been sharing some beautiful Poco pics on her Facebook wall in tribute. RIP to Poco, and condolences to Quinerly who loved him so much.

  111. 111.

    lamh36

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: no one is campaigning in SC anymore, I mean why would they ??‍♀️.

    I mean who cares bout that electorate  now?  they’ll fall in line behind whoever white folks voter for in Iowa/NH is what I’m hearing.  Why try to court them any longer, it’s not like they got many options anyway amirite ?

  112. 112.

    satby

    @Immanentize: my two doofus dogs only barked when the cops showed up, but their beds are in the basement and they were probably snoozing. If he had been at the back door or one of the windows they would have heard him. They’re only medium size, so they don’t make strangers as nervous as my good boy Hershey did.

    I’m not really very worried now, though it scared me at the time. It’s a solid house and it would take a lot of very noisy effort to break in. So it’s fine.

  113. 113.

    Elizabelle

    @lamh36:  Calling bullshit on that remark.  I doubt that is even factually accurate WRT Elizabeth Warren.

    Bitterness is not a good look.

  114. 114.

    satby

    @Soprano2: he’s not prepared, and I think it’s because (like Trump) it would ruin his fun and grifting to actually win. He’s in it for the adulation and the cash.

  115. 115.

    Josie

    @satby:

    You need a corgi.  Duncan hears everything, and goes crazy barking if someone even passes in the street.  He sounds much bigger than he is.  People who ring the doorbell are backed all the way off the porch by the time I open the door.

    Stay safe.

  116. 116.

    satby

    @lamh36: wtf? I get that you’re mad Harris quit, but if black voters back Biden by a huge margin it might make sense for a cash strapped campaign in 4th place to prioritize a state where they’re doing better.  Most of us on this blog backed and donated to Harris and I wish she had lasted until South Carolina, but she wasn’t getting the support she felt she needed.

  117. 117.

    Immanentize

    @Elizabelle: Just checked a campaign tracker for S.C.  it looks like 9 candidates visited the State in December.  Although one of them was the unheard of (for me) Robby Wells?  Interestingly, no Biden in December either. Two, Patrick and Booker, already went to SC this month.

  118. 118.

    Immanentize

    @satby: on the Biden point, I see he has published a list of 100 faith leaders supporting him in South Carolina. It seems his campaign has been busy in S.C.

    @lamh36: Thanks for sending me on these searches.  It doesn’t support your theory, but it made me learn a bunch in a short time about the South Carolina primary contest.

  119. 119.

    Baud

    @satby:

    It might not have been Harris’s time regardless, but it does suck that Iowa and NH keep going first.  Many people have been complaining about that for a while.

  120. 120.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Federal Judge Invites Scammed Students to Propose Additional Punishments for Betsy DeVos

    The courts have had it up to here with Department of Education (DOE) Secretary Betsy DeVos and her agency’s repeat—and apparently ongoing—violation of court orders that require her to stop milking scammed college students for student loan repayments. And now, it’s the students’ turn to potentially bring some pain.

    In a terse and harsh two-page filing on Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim called out DeVos for her unlawful efforts to extract those payments from the student victims—who are plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the DOE over those illegal actions taken to force and coerce federal remuneration.

  123. 123.

    Elizabelle

    @Immanentize:   If anyone would bother to sign up with the SC Democratic Party, you will see that candidates visit the state constantly.  I’ve been on their mailing list since 2008 and admire them profoundly for their hard work in a red state.

    Crap like what lamh put up bothers me because (a) it’s not factual but more scarily (b) someone on twitter or a blog probably told her and others that the non-POC candidates have no interest in the African American community.  Which is bullshit, when you unspool it.

    I know a lot of people here feel they are woke enough to not get taken in, but I’ve seen confirmation bias over and over on this blog.

    People:  who benefits if we drive a huge wedge between Democratic voters?

    Stop attacking the Democrats.  They are not an existential threat to you.

  125. 125.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: It certainly does suck that Iowa (not a primary so they can be first) and New Hampshire (really?) go first.  But as long as I have been aware of politics, people have complained about this yet it seems unpossible to change the set up.  Candidates have no incentive to try — they get the rules that are and don’t dare insult voters by telling them to sod off.  Once the primaries are over, the voting order four years hence is about as small a priority for the parties as possibly imaginable.  Not that it should be, but the immediate needs certainly become the enemy of the long term necessity.

  126. 126.

    satby

    @Josie: I’m still in a rescue group and I’m always on the verge of taking another animal. But I prefer my gentle giant types. And I’m at an age where I need to scale back my herd. I still have 6, both dogs and cats. And in the three years I have been here, had 6 more pass on (3 of each). I’m pretty serious about not leaving a house full of animals needing new homes if something ever happened to me, and getting old enough where I need to consider these things. Corgis are cute, but I’m not adding to my herd ?

  127. 127.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    It’s hard to change but we moved away from caucuses this year, and those have a much longer tradition than Iowa and NH as first in the nation.

  128. 128.

    satby

    @Baud: I agree, but it is what it is. And Iowa boosted Obama’s chances so it’s not always a bad thing. Campaigns have to work with the situations they’re dealt, just like presidents have to. I was a Harris backer, but many of my black friends weren’t.

  130. 130.

    Soprano2

    I heard an interview on “All Things Considered” last night with Brian Hook, U.S. Special Representative to Iran and most likely a Trump sycophant.  Ari Shapiro did everything but say to him “The Trump administration lies all the time, why should we take your word for what happened?”, while Hook babbled and talked over him, saying what were obviously prepared remarks and not answering questions as all.  I have to give Shapiro credit, he pressed Hook several times about what evidence they had that there was an “imminent” threat, and why should we believe you when you say “Trust us”.  It made it obvious that there must not have been any imminent threat, because Hook had no answer to the question at all!

  131. 131.

    Josie

    @satby:

    I understand completely.  I have been in the same process and only got Duncan after extracting a promise from my youngest son to take him if I am gone.  He is probably the last pet I will have unless I take on a senior dog at some point.

  132. 132.

    Baud

    @satby:

    Campaigns have to work with the situations they’re dealt,

    Or they can pretend the whole thing is rigged. :-). That seems to work with a lot of our voters.

  135. 135.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: and they’re still garnishing my SS in spite of both the original law and the borrowers defense documentation I submitted three years ago and last year. Plus the servicer keeps dinging my credit as a loan in default though payments have regularly been paid for two years through the garnishment, plus they keep contacting me to try to get me to roll the old loan into a new Direct loan. It’s a complete clusterfuck.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    I watched some Fox news coverage while waiting for my car yesterday and what I love about it is how they’re denying Trump started a war while cheering and promoting the war he started.

    The warmongers must not be confident they can sell this pack of lies if they’re still hedging their bets.

    They’re gross. I get that they’re paid tens of millions to spew this garbage into the national bloodstream but they’re horrible, sleazy people who lie constantly, bottom line.

    Lying constantly isn’t a viewpoint or opinion. It’s just lying. They could all be raving Marxists and they’d still be liars.

  137. 137.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: There is always an “imminent threat” There was before the Suleimani was killed and there certainly is after. It’s an empty statement.

    @satby: That sucks.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    Noah Shachtman
    @NoahShachtman
    · 11h
    NEW: Rudy Giuliani — hired by Iran’s MEK to get it off the terrorist list — is in Trump’s ear and cheering the recent Iran actions. Soleimani was “directly responsible for killing some of my MEK people,” he told The Beast. “We don’t like him very much.”

    No one elected the former mayor of NYC to run the country- in fact, he lost the only national race he ever entered, yet we’re stuck with this sleazy piece of shit running the whole country as long as the low quality hires are in charge. We can’t get rid of him, even though we roundly rejected him in an election.

    You can’t even fire these people. You’re stuck with them for life once you make the tragic error of hiring for them anything. This ridiculous, embarrassing crew of ancient Trump cronies run everything.

  141. 141.

    glory b

    @sab: “…trying to buy houses in school districts they couldn’t afford.”

    Yeah, in my community we call that “the ones with no black kids.”

  142. 142.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Soleimani was “directly responsible for killing some of my MEK people,” he told The Beast. “We don’t like him very much.”

    Hmmmm, that sounds suspiciously like Rudy has dual loyalties.

  144. 144.

    Immanentize

    @glory b: I had to put my last cat, Maria Theresa, out of her misery 8 years ago and thinking about it still makes me a little teary.

  145. 145.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: I understand that, but this guy couldn’t give one fact or say one thing that would back up their contention about this being a response to an “imminent threat”.  That tells me they ain’t got nothin’, which isn’t surprising at all for this administration.

  146. 146.

    Soprano2

    @glory b: In my city this has been somewhat mitigated by our school district having choice among all the schools in the district, so you can send your kid to a school across the city from where you live if there is a spot for them.  We also have a center city school that used to be the “bad” school; the district put the International Baccalaureate program there, so now all the music teachers gripe about how that school “stole” their best musicians from them.

  147. 147.

    glory b

    @rikyrah: And now, AOC is saying that the party should split, that in other countries, she and Biden wouldn’t be in the same party, and we need liberal and progressive parties here.

    I know people say she’s so smart and she should be in leadership, new, fresh young faces, blah, blah blah, but really? She doesn’t know the system any better than that?

    Then again, she also said that Bernie was responsible for parents being able to cover her healthcare with CHIP. Um, I think that was Hillary’s bill?

  148. 148.

    glory b

    @Soprano2: Yes, I know some districts try work arounds, that helps.

    I also know that the “left behind” schools, the ones where the best and brightest left, are hurting. It’s a hard problem.

  150. 150.

    GOVCHRIS1988

    @Elizabelle: The ONE thing folks need to stop in regards to a differing opinion from a black woman, I.E. a black voter is to dismiss what she has seen by saying in effect that, “This ignorant negro must be getting her opinions from other nefarious sources since I guess we can’t think for ourselves.(Funny how that opinion seems to flourish around Sanders/Warren/Buttegieg supporters I encounter, then wonder why their black voter ratings are just above roaches.)

  153. 153.

    GOVCHRIS1988

    @Elizabelle: Oh yes, seeing a “woke” Democratic primary electorate attack a black female prosecutor, Attorney General and U.S. Senator for….

    A.New England U.S. Senator that talks down about the black president who GAVE her a job.

    B.A backbencher U.S. Congressman and Senator that believes we’re stupid since we aren’t as gullible as the hoard of dudebro high middle class supporters that want to piss of their wealthy probably Republican daddies by cosplaying socialism.

    C. Some small town college town mayor who couldn’t get elected statewide in his own state who believes that black people are an afterthought until he notices he needs to win the primary and election with our support.

     

    Yeah, nearly 13 years after we elected Barack Obama, if we are “bitter”, we have goddamn good reason to and don’t need to fix our face to cheese as if we are zip coon to make you comfortable.

  155. 155.

    Elizabelle

    @GOVCHRIS1988:   Scoot, troll.  Go take your ugliness somewhere else.

    Fuck off

    PS:  I did not say any of that at all.  You did.  If I was not clear enough above, go fuck your polarizing, trolling self.

    Sincerely, Elizabelle

  156. 156.

    GOVCHRIS1988

    @Elizabelle: Lamh, you were right about this trick. See what happens when you break their white centered reality with real shit. Yeah, keep acting like that boo boo kitty. Its workin for you.

     

    This is what YOU said.

    @lamh36:  Calling bullshit on that remark.  I doubt that is even factually accurate WRT Elizabeth Warren.

    Bitterness is not a good look.

    And then you said this…..

    Crap like what lamh put up bothers me because (a) it’s not factual but more scarily (b) someone on twitter or a blog probably told her and others that the non-POC candidates have no interest in the African American community. Which is bullshit, when you unspool it.

    I know a lot of people here feel they are woke enough to not get taken in, but I’ve seen confirmation bias over and over on this blog.

    People: who benefits if we drive a huge wedge between Democratic vote

     

    Don’t get fuckin mad at me because you said some ignant ass shit and got called out on it. You started on some bullshit and got chin checked. Deal.

  159. 159.

    Gelfling 545

    @glory b: I taught in one of the “left behind” schools. Magnet schools would harvest our best performing kids & then the district would send people to rant at us about why our students weren’t performing as well as those schools. They chose to ignore the fact that 41% of the student body had documented learning disabilities, mental health diagnoses and visual/hearing/ other impairments or a mixture of them all. Then, if any of the kids they’d taken proved to not be giving them what they wanted they’d send them back just before testing so as not to lower their school’s scores. Ih has worked out ok for a few but across the board, it’s been a mess at the elementary level. It’s been slightly more successful at the high school level.

  161. 161.

    tam1MI

    @Soprano2:

    Was that Wilmer’s interview on “Morning Edition”?  The one where he didn’t seem to be able to answer the quite logical questions from the interviewer?

    I heard that interview and was struck by how he kept refusing to answer the interviewers questions and then got all huffy when she kept politely insisting he answer them.

  162. 162.

    Melusine

    @Betty Cracker: Yes, I saw that! Beautifully handled. Meghan barely had time for half a flounce before Warren rolled on. Loved that video of her ginning up the crowd. I hope she wins. ? We need people who know what they don’t know and aren’t afraid to ask for quality help.

    Loved the way she framed the creation and NECESSITY of the CFPB with the toaster story. She’s good at breaking down complicated topics.

  164. 164.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Trump filed Chapter 11. That’s for businesses. Trump never filed personally.

    Small comfort to all the small creditors who never got paid for the work they’d provided.

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