Ready…
Pres Biden just revoked Trump's presidential action to build the "National Garden of American Heroes," among other things pic.twitter.com/cKAzHeOJ0j
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) May 14, 2021
Set…
President Biden has signed a proclamation revoking Trump's October 2019 proclamation on the "Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Will Financially Burden the United States Healthcare System, in Order To Protect the Availability of Healthcare Benefits for Americans," the WH says.
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) May 14, 2021
Go!
Neera Tanden is back, in a new WH job that doesn't require Senate confirmation
https://t.co/QybAah88HO— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) May 14, 2021
“But her emails mean tweets!”
… A longtime health policy expert, Tanden will begin planning for potential policy changes that could result from the forthcoming US Supreme Court decision on Republican legal efforts to strike down the Affordable Care Act. She worked in former President Barack Obama’s administration as the act was designed and implemented.
Among other duties, the official said, Tanden will also launch a review of the US Digital Service. The service is charged with solving the federal government’s information technology and online security issues, recruiting technologists for tours of service akin to the Peace Corps.
The US Digital Service, which is housed within the Executive Office of the President, was launched after the crash of the Healthcare.gov website in 2013. Since the start of the pandemic, it has worked on a number of coronavirus-related projects for agencies across the federal government…
Tanden was a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton who became president of the liberal Center for American Progress after leaving the Obama administration.
Her new role does not require Senate confirmation.
Excellent choice. https://t.co/FsgG0Spjbl
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) May 14, 2021
Per the Washington Post:
… Tanden will be responsible, among other things, for preparing contingency plans for potential Supreme Court rulings that may result from Republican legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act. Tanden worked as a senior adviser in the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration and helped draft parts of the former president’s signature health care law.
The U.S. Digital Service is responsible for making the government accessible to Americans online.
Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, is particularly close to Tanden and played a significant role in her initial selection for the Cabinet. He was also instrumental in her landing her new job at the White House…
Same title as Valerie Jarrett and Karl Rove, for context. https://t.co/Z7Gz0AfBHr
— Reinstated Doorknob Licker (@agraybee) May 14, 2021
Baud
So where can I put the statue of myself I commissioned?
Mary G
Somebody said on Twitter that Senate communications with Biden will have to go through her. Manchin can go to the back of the line.
Baud
@Mary G:
I’m starting to think that was Twitter BS. There’s been a lot of that going on on our side lately.
Baud
Heh. Mean tweet lady is in charge of the Internet now.
RandomMonster
Biden chose an advisor for their competency, rather than for being one of his kids. It’s like he does everything differently.
MomSense
Neera is awesome and I’m glad Biden will have her on his team. So much of the animosity toward her is over the stupid ?obsession with Medicare 4 All even though their candidate is now on the same page because of the POLITICAL REALITIES.
Speaking of political realities, anyone else noticing that Biden’s supposed lessons learned about Republicans have not helped pass infrastructure or voting rights? Just like I tried to explain about Obama’s experience, most of the negotiating and compromising was with the conservative Democratic Senators. He just gave them cover by talking about working with Republicans. I know it doesn’t fit the narrative, but I’m an OG vote counter.
MomSense
@Baud:
As it should be.
Baud
@MomSense:
It’s looking like they’ll break up infrastructure into separate bills. But who knows?
Cameron
“The National Garden of American Heroes?” Let me guess – 20, maybe 30 statues and busts of Donald J. Trump….
Baud
@MomSense:
The “narrative” is always anti-Dem. Always.
SFAW
@Baud:
Do you really want to ask us where to
stickput it?Baud
@Cameron:
Biden can put them in the National Prison for American Losers, along with their inspiration. ?
SFAW
@RandomMonster:
Does Biden have a son-in-law he can put in charge of something wicked important? Because that was TFG’s genius appointment. I mean, look at the great job Jared did on everything.
MomSense
@Baud:
No, the narrative in this case was that Biden, who was at the center of the Obama administration’s legislative efforts, supposedly learned from Obama’s mistakes and decided to scrap working with Republicans in order to pass his legislative agenda. The current proposals aren’t just splitting up thre bills into smaller pieces, they also will likely cut quite a few programs and investments.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cameron: Plus a couple of Confederate leaders.
On another topic, my over-55 building announced yesterday that per CDC guidelines vaccinated residents no longer need to wear masks in the public area, including the restaurants, bars, and theater. All staff still has to wear them though. I don’t know what the rationale for the difference is.
Baud
Another Trump program disaster.
MomSense
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
You probably have some unvaccinated staff. We have had some deaths in Maine nursing homes of fully vaccinated residents. Unvaccinated staff brought in variants that caused illness. In healthier vaccinated people the illness probably wouldn’t have been a problem, but these victims were elderly people with co-morbidities.
Baud
@MomSense:
I think they will pass what they can pass with bipartisan support and pass some other things through reconciliation. The whole thing will be less than what was originally proposed, but all bills are like that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MomSense:
Well that doesn’t sound good
MomSense
@Baud:
We’ll see what happens.
SFAW
@Baud:
Maybe it’s just me, but I see that as being a big win for the Partei of Traitors. They’ll vote their “roads and bridges,” and nothing else, which will kinda screw over much of the good things President Biden wants to get implemented.
I really wish Cal Cunningham had kept his dick in his pants, and that Mainers* weren’t such morons. Woulda made life a lot easier for Biden and America.
* As the son/grandson/great-grandson/great-great-grandson of Mainers, their inability to see past Collins’s “moderate” bullshit frustrates the crap out of me.
ETA: And, yes, I realize I’m (perhaps unjustifiably, and certainly prematurely) doing the Chicken-Little thing.
Betty Cracker
I hope Biden cancels Space Force next just to see if the shitgibbon drops dead of rage. Also, I hope Tanden’s stint as a senior advisor in the White House makes every single one of her opponents regret not stashing her at OMB.
Ohio Mom
Of course it’s critically important to have a plan in case the Supreme Court strikes down even more of the ACA.
It just makes me despair that we need to do this —- so much energy, time, effort and expertise has to be wasted on defense, instead of moving us forward.
Baud
@MomSense:
Still a good chance the GOP can’t come up with a pay-for and we’ll have to go it alone.
@SFAW:
Depends. If there are multiple bills, you have to wait to see what happens down the line.
SFAW
@Baud:
Who could have guessed?
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: Maybe the strategy is to pass the roads and bridges part of the infrastructure bill with Republican support (I’ll believe it when I see it) and then pass the other parts of the program that are acceptable to Manchin, Sinema, et al., through reconciliation.
MomSense
@Baud:
Manchin and Sinema are no votes for even using reconciliation. Manchin is a no on most of the voting rights provisions. I hope Biden has something up his sleeve for dealing with him.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
RandomMonster
@SFAW: True! We wouldn’t have our current peace in the Middle East without Jared.
Pete Mack
I keep seeing this as “Beer Garden of American Heroes.”
SFAW
@Baud:
Understood. As I said in my ETA, I may be premature in my worries. But unless Manchin has been trying to sucker the Rethugs into overplaying their hand(s) — which seems unlikely, being a “strong institutionalist” and all that — getting a relative pittance enacted seems not unlikely. [Yes, I’m aware that even some Dems have expressed reservations about the American Jobs Act (or whatever it’s called).]
Baud
@SFAW:
Manchin has said he wants a big infrastructure bill. But I don’t know. I can’t figure him out.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
But, they don’t believe in roads and bridges
If they did , they would have done it when they controlled everything. They didn’t do shyt?
Mary G
?
Other MJS
Why does Biden hate American heroes?
sab
DeWine announced that Ohio will reject the Federal extra unemployment $300 starting sometime in June.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Keeping my fingers crossed for more than just the bare-bones. And I expect that the number of Rethugs (Senate) supporters will max out at two.
@MomSense:
Unless he’s planning to switch parties after 2022, he probably needs to come to understand that not supporting* S1 will fuck over his chances of maintaining any semblance of power after then.
*ETA: Change “supporting” to “making sure it becomes law.”
MomSense
@sab:
Maybe the unemployed will win the lottery.
ugh
NotMax
Mentioned it here at the time Dolt 45 issued the EO, will say it once again as a reminder – there already is )for over a century) a Hall of Fame for Great Americans.
rikyrah
More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) tweeted at 11:42 AM on Fri, May 14, 2021:
NEW: Republicans have found a tax increase they love – a tax on working people.
Instead of taxing the ultra-rich, Republicans want to pay for infrastructure with a gas tax, user fees, and toll roads. These are taxes that disproportionately hit the poor and middle class. https://t.co/RWO2lX5IQp
(https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1393245288970739715?s=02)
Betty Cracker
@sab: So far, SC, MS and now OH have done this. Maybe I’m missing some other states, but those are the ones I’ve heard about. I’m wondering how much longer DeSantis can hold out in this race to the bottom.
Relatedly, you can tell the overlords are really getting nervous about the serfs’ refusal to flock back to low-pay, high-risk jobs. I don’t want to jinx it, but those supplemental benefits could end up being a catalyst for a long overdue wage reset.
Baud
@NotMax:
That’s not federal though.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Child tax credit coming next month. States can’t reject that.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
God, I hope the serfs realize that in November 2022.
SFAW
@Baud:
I think making it so should be part of your 20XX platform.
Cameron
@Baud: Biggest constraints are the thin House majority and practically non-existent Senate majority. I would think it’s probably hard as hell to get anything passed, especially considering that the Republicans’ whole position is obstruction.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: My little deductible has flown the nest, darn it!
NotMax
Longish
readwatch for a weekend, tracking time ’til the echo of the last tock has faded. Really elegant CGI throughout.Most memorable line? “Nothing happens and it keeps not happening … forever.”
@Pete Mack
I’ll drink to that!
:)
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
You can still adopt!
SFAW
@Baud:
Me too. And I hope that I wake up 20-30 years younger tomorrow. Yours has a better likelihood of success, but given their past disinclination to translate Dem-produced benefits and Rethug-produced pain into significant voting shifts, I am less than sanguine about the possibility.
Cameron
@Pete Mack: That sounds perfect for the Riverwalk here in Bradenton!
SFAW
@Cameron:
It sounds perfect for pretty much anywhere.
Baud
@SFAW:
Yeah, I can’t think of a single time we benefited from passing a major new program to help regular people.
Honus
Someone asked in the thread last night (concerning chimney sweeps) if Dick van Dyke was dead. No, he’s not, he’s being honored at the Kennedy Center with Joan Baez, and he’s doing good:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.upworthy.com/amp/95-year-old-mary-poppins-star-dick-van-dyke-caught-handing-out-cash-to-struggling-job-seekers-2651300015
debbie
@Cameron:
No, it would have been every fucking monster the RWNJs have ever venerated.
Benw
No Slash, no hero garden. That’s just science
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: Right.
Geminid
@MomSense: So if Manchin is a no on most of the S.1 voting rights provisions, which ones is a he a yes on?
debbie
@MomSense:
This is exactly why I will not stop masking. I can’t imagine anyone with any sense who wouldn’t do the same.
randy khan
That list of actions repealed by Biden includes the one intended to eliminate moderation on social media platforms, one of Trump’s most noxious executive orders.
rikyrah
@Baud:
No, they cannot??
Geminid
@Pete Mack: trump should put up a Garden of American Zeros, at Mar-a-Loco.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Republicans always manage to portray such programs as giveaways or “special rights” to some otherized population, which sets the aggrieved babies to wailing. Maybe that’ll be harder to do with a child tax credit that nearly every parent in America gets, an unemployment supplement available to anyone who lost a job during the pandemic, etc. Also, maybe not! But I live in hope.
Have you read anything about Manchin’s proposal to reform voting rights? Can’t remember where I saw it, but IIRC, it operated on roughly the same principle, i.e., broad reform that applies to every state instead of singling out states with racist legislatures that are enacting racist voting restrictions.
debbie
@sab:
My hope is that restaurants, with their poverty wages, get no job applications. Bastards have got to up their wages.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Geminid: Do any of them specifically target rural voters? “Working class” Americans? If so, probably those.
SFAW
@Baud:
Nice job misreading/misconstruing my comment.
But just to be clear: in recent years, voters have had short memories when it comes to Rethug misdeeds or Dem good deeds. Or did voters reward Dems for Obamacare (for example) and I forgot that? The 2018 results were a response to Trump, not to all the great things Dems enacted in ’17 and early ’18 (since there weren’t any, of course).
A large part — perhaps the only part of any significance — of the Senate “takeover” by Dems was mobilizing the base. Were voters so anti-Rethug as is warranted, Tillis and Collins (and perhaps Ernst) would be former Senators.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: The other day I walked into my local Wal-Mart (I just get my prescriptions filled there, long story) and saw a sign that said they’re hiring at $16/hr. So why would somebody take a job waiting tables at $3.89/hr and get yelled at by rude tourists from NJ?
La Nonna
Il Nonno, a bit deaf and a bit dyslexic, cracked me up this morning by coming up with “Mooching” and “Cinnamon” after catching up on Democratic US Senate news. Unfortunately not so funny.
rikyrah
Secretary Marcia L. Fudge (@SecFudge) tweeted at 1:26 PM on Fri, May 14, 2021:
Public housing is infrastructure.
Affordable housing is infrastructure.
Fair housing is infrastructure.
Resilient housing is infrastructure.
Energy-efficient housing is infrastructure.
(https://twitter.com/SecFudge/status/1393271580810153989?s=02)
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Yep, and the same people who defend obscene compensation levels for CEOs as a function of the free market apparently believe the tipped minimum wage was inscribed in stone by the finger of God himself.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: A 50 state system for pre-clearance works for me. Other provisions of the Voting Rights act are still operative from Delaware to Arizona, I believe. Court orders under the VRA yielded a Democratic Congressman in 2016 (the excellent Dan McEachin in the VA 4th). A federal order under the VRA yielded two more Democratic Representatives in North Carolina last year. Fifty state pre-clearance could make a difference in states not covered by the VRA. Indiana, for example, is not covered by the VRA, but is very racially gerrymandered.
Kay
Manchin’s proposal on voting rights is interesting.
In order to gut the VRA, Justice Roberts invented a new legal standard. Arguably, the Roberts court would just gut the John Lewis Voting Rights Act the same way they did the VRA, under the new legal standard Justice Roberts invented. Manchin’s proposal is designed to get around Justice Roberts.
The For the People Act is much broader than “voting rights”. It’s voting rights + anti-corruption. One can’t really compare the For the People Act with Manchin’s 50 state preclearance proposal – they’re too different for a direct comparison and Manchin’s proposal is (IMO) really good on voting.
Ksmiami
@MomSense: I told everyone here that Manchin needs to be taken aside and threatened with committee leadership etc – one senator on our side blocking his own presidents agenda is utter BS
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That’s the article I was referring to — thank you!
Maybe it all boils down to not hurting Republicans’ extra-dainty feelings by pretending that statehouses run by Democrats are every bit as likely to produce overtly racist voting restrictions as red states. I mean, it’s fictional, but if that’s all it takes to get meaningful reform done, I’m willing to play along!
MomSense
@Geminid:
He wants to make pre-clearance for all 50 states which is good. He doesn’t support the restrictions on gerrymandering. The biggest problem is that he doesn’t support ending the filibuster even for voting rights which means that we need Republican support. No Republicans support any type of pre-clearance.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
What makes me mad about the UI thing is not that GOP governors jumped on the bandwagon, but that there was, once again, a bandwagon.
They don’t know that people weren’t taking jobs because of unemployment. There’s a ton of contradictory information coming out now that says that may not be true. Why did the lemmings all herd off the cliff again, and why does their damaging herding behavior always and only apply to lower income people? Where does all this smug certainty come from and why is it always applied to lower wage people? Post pandemic is a bizarre economic situation. None of them have ever seen it before. None of them “know” WTF is going on. They all arrogantly settled (once again) on lazy moochers as the problem with almost no information?
These people need some damn humility. Their arrogance is hurting actual people. They don’t know. Why are they so resistant to admitting that?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
The same people who smugly asserted that lower wage people weren’t taking jobs because of unemployment claimed for a decade that wages weren’t going up because lower wage people lacked “skills” employers wanted and so stagnant wages were (once again) the fault of the workers themselves.
“The Skills Gap”. Every smug economic pundit and CEO insisted that was the problem.
They claimed this for a decade. Then wages went up. Way up. Ooops! Their giant errors only seem to apply to lower income people, only harm lower income people, and seem to be wholly predicated on their preexisting beliefs about lower income people. It’s embarrassing for them. They need to look at it in a hard way and improve.
WereBear
@Kay:
As always, they hide their true motivations: there must be a large pool of people to kick down.
MomSense
@Kay:
I think part of the problem is just the repetition of the talking point until it becomes accepted just because it is familiar. My stepmom, who is a tried and true liberal l, repeated that line in a conversation we were having. I was surprised and annoyed but didn’t say anything because I hadn’t seen my dad for a year and a half. Fortunately my son was able to go through it with her by asking her what she would do if she had school aged children who were home and the wages wouldn’t cover childcare? He also explained that being a line cook and working in restaurants generally was in the highest risk category for COVID and would she be willing to risk her life for such low wages. She got it right away. The problem is that the bullshit Republican talking points are so simple and repeated so often. The reality takes a little longer to explain.
Baud
@SFAW:
How did I misread your comment? I agreed with you.
Barbara
@SFAW: The ACA provided no widespread benefits for nearly 4 years after passage. This still seems to elude many peope when they evaluate 2010 midterms.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
I looked up what the federal poverty line was recently and it’s like $12,000+/year. To be considered self-sufficient a worker has to earn at least 200% of the FPL. Many service jobs don’t pay that or come close. It’s disgusting that so many employers can justify these poverty wages
DeWine and the others you mention ending the federal benefit are fools but they’re also cruel. Most of these GOP govs have never had to actually work in their lives
Kay
@MomSense:
I mean, we can consider it! It’s a possibility! But taking one jobs report and spinning this whole socio-economic theory out of it along with 15 anecdotal “reports” from pizza parlor owners, many of whom turn out to be making shit up?
Do they not see the bias they have? They reach for “lazy moochers” over and over and over. THAT’S lazy, if we’re going there and we apparently are.
They have a set of beliefs about how lower income people behave. This skews their analysis. They need to look at the bias and fix it because they’re hurting the country. “Skills gap” was wrong. Incorrect. That’s NOT why wages weren’t going up, obviously. This one will be wrong too.
Baud
@Barbara:
It’s not like we started winning elections once the benefits kicked in though. It wasn’t until the Republicans almost killed it that it polled positively.
People would rather get marched off to death camps than stop taking us for granted. Including a lot of Dems.
MomSense
@Kay:
I agree with you but I think in issue after issue the constant repetition of these bullshit things seeps in and ordinary people tend to repeat them just because they are so familiar. I’m not talking about economists or journalists. I’m talking about people who just watch tv. Then they talk to their friends who also hear the same bullshit repeated over and over and they say the same thing which reinforces the message.
Fair Economist
I think Biden should have gone ahead with the “Garden of American Heroes”. Just put in only people who really deserve it: MLK, Rosa Parks, Sherman, Grant …
Kay
@MomSense:
They don’t want lower income people to do better. They don’t! They rush screaming in to stop it every time it looks like it might happen. And it isn’t just “GOP governors”. They’re just jumping on the bandwagon. There’s a broader group of “experts” who keep inventing these things and presenting them as fact and, again, they ALWAYS start with negative assumptions about lower income people.
Biden can change the UI number- the compensation. What’s harder to change is 30 years of Reagan-era assumptions about wages and workers and incentives. There’s a bias and it’s a belief, not a fact.
Baud
@MomSense:
There’s an assumption that Dem policy can never hurt anybody except rich people who have to pay more taxes. That’s not really possible. There will always be some business or group who won’t do well under a fairer system. But the losers get all the media time.
ETA: You see the same thing when it comes to climate change and health care.
Kay
@MomSense:
I agree but it starts top down and then is adopted by people who read the top and repeat it as gospel. That’s where the normies are getting it. This stuff originates somewhere. There’s a source.
All they had to do was say “you know, this situation is a one-off, we haven’t seen post-pandemic with massive government intervention before so maybe we’ll wait 2 weeks for more information before we blame lazy moochers”
They couldn’t do that. It’s impossible. They had to rush in with their favorite go-to, which is always “lazy moochers”. There are variations! “The Skills Gap” was “lazy and also dumb moochers” but it’s always “low income people are at fault for this situation”. Which is handy! Because if it’s the fault of workers themselves no one else has to do anything.
Fair Economist
@Kay: I think Manchin is correct that voting rights should be applied to all states. Besides endrunning Robert’s nonsense, we need protection against states which previously weren’t problems starting to enact voter suppression.
In addition, we need robust auditing standards. Remember it’s always about projection with the Republicans. Them raising a fuss about count and ballot manipulation means they’ve actually done it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MomSense:
This. I’ve heard it so many times and it drives me crazy. But it’s simple and repeated often as you say
sab
@rikyrah: I know she wanted Interior, but I am glad she is where she is. Biden also has it right: staff your cabinet with former mayors.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Maybe it’s because Dems weren’t more aggressive in marketing the benefits to the public?
Geminid
@Kay: There is a strong belief among many that the economy is a zero sum game. The people you speak of cannot or will not understand that a thriving working class helps everyone higher on the economic ladder. I’m glad Democrats realize this, and I hope a good infrastructure program will demonstrate it.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
One of the things I like about Manchin, well, maybe the only thing, is he’s legitimately tough. He’s canny and smart and sort of mean. He sticks the knife in. His law guts the law Justice Roberts invented and put in. It’s a direct hit. I find that appealing :)
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Don’t know.
Kay
@Geminid:
I’m just hoping we’re allowed to try it. I think it will be great and people will like it.
I genuinely believe a (somewhat) prosperous working class and lower middle class is better for the country. I think it’s a no brainer. It’s 65% of people. This will work! It’ll be great for 95% of people, including most higher earners. The top 5 will be harmed, but not in any way that is profound or long term damaging and they can’t get mad and move away because the US will still be better for them than anywhere else. Anywhere else they want to live, I mean.
sab
@rikyrah: My town is having an insanely tight housing market for anything under $200,000. That is top of the line housing around here. And there is nothing available below that. Realtors aren’t even listing properties. They just keep waiting lists of potential buyers to call when a sale property comes up. People are buying without inspections, and making offers well above the initial asking price.
We have been contacted by realtors on a weekly basis. And all the landlords in my housing development went for it. Sold the houses and kicked out the tenants, who have nowhere to go. It’s insane and cruel.
Betty Cracker
There’s a very slight chill this morning (I mean it’s 69 degrees or so), and I’ve got company!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Fair Economist:
@Kay:
I like the idea for preclearance for all 50 states. Although, I’m guessing this wouldn’t undo existing anti-voter restrictions? Plus, Manchin has to know Republicans won’t support this, so a filibuster carve out is going to be necessary
Another Scott
@Kay: The GQP has a whole infrastructure of talking points and legislation drafting, as the latest MoJo report reminds us. It’s not spontaneous. Heritage and the Club for Growth and the Federalist Society are always there with their punching down talking points and new laws and appointees wait in the wings…
There was a show on NPR on mass incarceration in the last day or so. (I thought it was an episode of Throughline, but it doesn’t match their listing.). It made the point that it’s not the drug war or punishing the poor so much as the explosion in the numbers of prosecutors. They take it as a stepping stone to higher political office… “Law & Order” doesn’t mention the defense attorneys and judges in the opening…
The systems endure because people are rewarded by them, and vice versa.
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@Betty Cracker: I had forgotten how loud swamps are.
Kay
@sab:
It’s just wild here because we’ve never seen it before. We just don’t get these kind of swings on property. But it’s a combination of things- I think the younger set got harmed most by the great recession so they were primed to recover and buy, then low interest rates.
I got an unsolicited offer to buy my house at a funeral by a young couple. It took me a little while to figure out what they were asking me. My middle son was there and he had to say “they want to buy your house”. They were really nice and polite but I was stuck on “seeing” my house. I was thinking “oh, no do they think it’s some fabulous house? What idiot told them that?”
Baud
@Kay:
Maybe they knew you were Kay from Balloon Juice!
germy
An old tweet, but a good one:
Betty Cracker
@sab: Yes! A 24/7 symphony of birds, frogs and insects. At certain times, the ambient decibel level has got to be louder than NYC. And that’s before the airboats. Don’t get me started about the goddamned airboats…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
I’m old enough to remember when the GOP supported criminal justice reform
Kay
@Baud:
They were cute. I remember “buy a house lust”, vividly. It’s all-consuming.
I use an auctioneer as a value witness for property in probate – he can rattle off selling prices for any address in the county at a moment’s notice, not like an auctioneer speaks in court, thank god, he’s not an idiot- he speaks normally in that setting-and he told me they all but stopped building median priced houses here after the Great Recession and that’s now showing up in supply. It’s true that we no longer have a local “builder”- the small business people who finance a development or “set of houses” really, and also build it and then sell the houses- and we had two for decades. They both retired and no one replaced them.
SFAW
@Baud:
Sincere apologies. I thought you were snarking.
Maybe I need a vacation. Or a beer or two. Oy.
Amir Khalid
I’m disappointed about one thing in the new administration: Biden has yet to come out with a statement condemning Israel for making war on Palestinians yet again. This is going to look to people in a lot of countries (particularly Muslim, but not exclusively so) like the same-old, same-old: Israel doing its worst while America turns the usual blind eye.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Well, if you’re talking Staten Island, perhaps so. But (non-Central Park) Manhattan?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Amir Khalid:
I agree
NotMax
@SFAW
When visiting Mom on Long Island, the crickets outside are so raucous overnight that I have trouble sleeping the first few nights, and resort to wearing headphones when I go out after sunset onto her balcony to smoke ceegars.
Steeplejack
@SFAW:
I, too, thought Baud’s comment was sarcastic.
tybee
you can’t drink all day unless you start in the morning.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
A couple of weeks ago, I was having a long telephone conversation with a friend in southern Maine. At one point there was so much static on the line I thought the connection had gone kerflooey. Turns out she had just wandered out to her deck for a cigarette, and the tree frogs were being exceptionally talkative. She could hear me just fine. I couldn’t hear a word she was saying over the amphibian ambience.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Sorry to hear about your travails.
Does smoking a cigar get them to move away, or at least pipe down?
brantl
@Baud: Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are going to tell you where to put that statue …../s
SFAW
@tybee:
OK, I’ll get on that ASAP.
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: I think an aircraft carrier deck is probably quieter than our swamp on a rainy evening during Limpkin mating season when the sex-crazed birds are screeching, the frogs are hollering and the airboats are speeding homeward.
Another Scott
Thread.
Click on over.
As you suspect, there’s dark money behind all the voter suppression stuff – the same people and money behind the RWNJ court-packing stuff.
That’s what we need to be fighting – not how many Manchins can dance on the head of a pin…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@sab:
She had a longish interview on NPR a week or two ago. Her knowledge base and enthusiasm was really very apparent.
debbie
@debbie:
Were, dammit.
Another Scott
I mentioned hearing a rebroadcast of this in the last day or so. A very interesting summary of mass-incarceration in America and how it’s driven by factors not often talked about (it’s not mainly the war on drugs, it’s not mainly the war on the poor – it goes back a very long time).
NPR Throughline – Mass Incarceration (original air date 8/15/2019) – transcript.
Well worth a read/listen.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker:
Up here that’s a t-shirt, top-down drive to the beach.
Kelly
@Betty Cracker: Our local plywood mill raised wages 10% a few weeks ago. It’s hard work, noisy and dusty. The raise is overdue. They’d like to run 24/7 to cash in on record high lumber prices but haven’t been able to hire enough staff.
Another Scott
We need to get everyone (possible) vaccinated, while also continuing to do the normal public health stuff. The pandemic isn’t over.
(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: A big brood of cicadas are fixing to bust loose in the Middle Atlantic, any day now.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
“her e-mails”
jimmiraybob
I am hereby proposing a National Garden of American Chumps and Losers. I’m not proposing that it be called MAGA Gardens but if it is…..well, okeedokee then.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
States can’t touch this. But this is a one-year program. It may be harder for Biden to extend it or to make it permanent.
One good thing is that we are starting to see that the stimulus payments are helping people. Also, the IRS is boosting some stimulus payments based on 2020 tax return fillings. And it is sending out refunds to people who filed tax returns with unemployment compensation before the new law excluding up to $10,200 in benefits was passed.
So despite GOP grumbling, a good amount of relief is making its way to millions of people.
NotMax
@SFAW
Nah. She’s on the top (3rd) floor of the building. They’re at ground level. Almost wish I had these puppies.
;)
catclub
The garden of earthly delights.
Another Scott
@Geminid: They’ve been working their way out in our NoVA neighborhood for about a week now. Our perpetually starving pup Ellie didn’t know what to make of them for the first new days, now she thinks at least those that are dead are tasty treats. :-/
So far, nothing like the gigantic swarm in Cincinnati in the late ’80s. It was literally impossible to walk down the sidewalk without stepping on them. I remember waiting in line at a Wendy’s drive-thru and one tried to fly in my mouth when I cracked the window. It was overwhelming…
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I will listen to/read the full transcript of this public radio program, but something is a little odd.
Dewey and Warren ran together in the 1948 election, not 1944. And by 1948, Warren had built a reputation as a progressive governor in California.
The emphasis on Warren as racist prosecutor is somewhat true, but not a complete picture of the man.
Not too sure what Warren did later in life. Some judicial post or something, I believe.
catclub
@Kay:
The top 5% will get slightly less rich, slightly less rapidly. Not exactly damage.
Cmorenc
One problem with establishing anything like the heroes garden with the likes of trump in office is the likelihood that his notion of a worthy nominee will be the same as his notion of that for “american medal of freedom” and include the likes if rush limbaugh. Likewise if a purportedly independent board was set up to be the decider of which figures get included, trump would not hesitate to stack the board at every opportunity with members inclined to follow his notions of who gets included.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: That struck me too when I was listenting to it.
Way down at the bottom they note the date correction.
But, you’re right. Warren made Brown vs. Board of Education happen, and made it 9:0. Something more was going on with him.
Of course, every generalization is false, so it’s easy to show that things are more complicated than just every successful politician since ’48 was a prosecutor. Carter ran as the more-racist democrat for Governor in GA – sometimes nasty things have to happen in politics for good things to happen.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Grover Cleveland served as sheriff and in that office carried out executions as hangman.
Just sayin’.
Another Scott
@catclub:
But they actually won’t get slightly less rich. They’ll get more rich, because the economy as a whole will do better.
What will happen is that their relative status will decrease slightly. Instead of being 2000 times wealthier than the average American, they’ll only be 1000 times wealthier…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
Time for the space cadet’s Space Force to go bye-bye.
catclub
@Another Scott:
We do not disagree.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Did the residents get their shots well before the staff?
I live in a +55 apartment complex as well and I’d bet good money that not everyone is vaccinated. We have some residents who I’ve never seen with a mask on. We also do not have a dinning room, the meeting room has been closed for over a year, the office is closed/phone only, the hot tub just opened back up with usage 1 person or 2 if from the same unit and all 3 of the staff wear masks at all times. All that said, everyone I talk to has been vaccinated and most people wear masks. Here in socal I checked out the website that tells you the percentage of republican/democrat and it’s high democrat but there is still an unreasonable percentage of republicans around here, a bit over the magic 27%. But then this state elected RR and Arnold as governor.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Probably a dead thread and I have not yet read the entire transcript, but it strikes me that the speaker’s entire thesis about the path to success for prosecutors is false.
And of course, Warren wasn’t just a prosecutor. He had been attorney general of California. Dewey had been a US attorney and district attorney, but not attorney general, which is not an office solely focused on prosecutions.
And you know who else was “just a prosecutor?” Kamala Harris.
I will really try to read the entire thing, but I am not warmly disposed towards it.
ETA: Warren went to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice without ever having had any significant experience as a jurist.
J R in WV
@SFAW:
Yes, Peace in Our Time in the Middle East, between Israelis and Arabic peoples. They are all Semitic peoples, after all, right?
Thanks to Kushner we don’t have to worry about the death toll of Arab civilians, the destruction of olive groves in the West Bank, the harsh living conditions in Gaza, none of that is an issue thanks to Kushner!! And TFG — who appointed Kushner to all those many roles in the White House!!! Genius to burn, wasn’t it!?!????
James E Powell
@Baud:
It wasn’t until opposing Obamacare was the polite way to say that they hated the black guy that it polled positively.
J R in WV
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
So they can determine that residents “no longer need to wear masks” — as opposed to “are no longer required to wear masks” which was the CDC guidance, wasn’t it? I bet there are a ton of residents in that facility that still “Need” to wear masks for many other health needs!
Or was the CDC’s new guidance even worse worse than I thought it was?
Original Lee
@Kay: We are also getting regular unsolicited inquiries about our house, and also about my mom’s house. Poor Mom was puzzled as hell the first few times, and now is in a quandary because she is preparing to put her house on the market. She is already working with a Realtor and hopes to be ready for showings in about a week. The Realtor told her the market for existing housing is so hot right now because new housing starts dried up during the lockdown. Once new housing gets cranking again, the market overall will start calming down. So Mom is working her butt off to get everything ready to go ASAP in order to take advantage of the hot market. (Average elapsed time between putting on the market and a contract in her house value range is 5 days, usually above asking price and often cash offers.)
Kay
@Original Lee:
I don’t know what we’re going to do. We don’t need a big house anymore, or even a house really when my youngest leaves in September but I don’t want to move twice and my husband is older than I am and wants to retire. We were going to retire to Michigan- Lake Michigan – but now I think I want to live closer to our grandchild. She’s in NY. It’s just too far away. I would like to see her more. My other grandchild will be in Denmark so I won’t see her more than once a year. I like kids. Not all of them and not all equally but generally I like them. I like to spend time around them.
There IS this kind of boomy feeling and it’s tempting to sell. Fear of missing out. A close (older) friend is selling her house and moving to Pennsylvania, where her family is from. I was really surprised. She’s been here 30 years but she keeps getting offers on her (beautiful) house so she’s just going for it. It is too big a house just for her and she wants to spend time with her brothers. I think the pandemic made people think about what they do and why they do it. It’s good in that sense.
Ruckus
I have no idea about this.
Ksmiami
@Kay: Poughkeepsie area is lovely and not as expensive or manic as the greater nyc area
Kay
@Ksmiami:
Thanks. They live in Ithaca which is crazy-expensive for houses and doesn’t have any for sale anyway. I don’t want to be in my daughter’s back pocket- we both like some room- but she has a demanding job and I think I could genuinely help with the baby. Just take her sometimes, be a back up for sick days, etc.
I would be completely at home in the Trumpster areas outside Ithaca :)
No different than here, really.
Geminid
@Kay: I got to spend time in Courtland County on a couple of working vacations last year. The farm I stayed at was 25 minutes southeast of Ithaca, and it was some of the prettiest country I’ve seen. But my hosts explained that the winters there are long, cold, snowy, long, and cold.
Ithaca is on a lake, and is considerably more temperate.
J R in WV
@MomSense:
Manchin is more crooked than a dog;s hand leg. His wife has been appointed to a leadership position as co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission, a New Deal type of program to help lift the eastern mountain region out of abject poverty. In that position, Mrs Manchin will direct the spending of hundreds of millions of federal dollars.
Perhaps President Biden will just wait for some of that precious federal money to wind its way into the Manchin’s family fortune? At which point President Biden may have Joe and Mrs Joe Manchin over a very painful barrel — ya think?
J R in WV
@Kay:
There’s a Great Lake (two actually) within easy driving distance of Ithaca… in case Mr K wants to be on/near a great lake. Plus the Finger Lakes — which would probably be expensive, tho.
Kayla Rudbek
@Kay: Calvinist theology masquerading as economics, in my opinion.
catclub
Should have sent Yo ‘semite Sam.
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
Ksmiami
@Kay: college towns have gone crazy wrt real estate lately but there are some beautiful upstate ny places close to ithaca
Lacuna Synecdoche
Deleted by author.
Uncle Cosmo
FTFY. Senior year at Hopkins a couple of us drove up to Cornell on a scouting trip in the dead of winter. High for the day, 13 F. I spent the next year in grad school there. The roads were kept clear but the sidewalks were left untouched from the first snow before Thanksgiving for the sun to melt the following April. Sandwiched in there was a two-foot Sunday blizzard that closed the campus for the third day in its >100-year existence. Temperate, my royal Italo-American arse…
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
as Mix-a-Lot knows, it’s facedown — while i pubch your ticket.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Gin & Tonic: to stand up for my fellow fistpumpers for a moment, those “rude” garden staters saved frank & mac while adrift at sea… & even more, recovered RUMHAM.