ZOOM FATIGUE: Cyndi Lauper says she's ready to leave video calls behind. pic.twitter.com/FNORsUGeyv
— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) September 27, 2021
Gauntlet thrown:
Obviously I have no inside knowledge here. It is simply my impression that she a) has no interest in embarrassing herself or her party, and b) knows what the fuck she's doing.
— Seth Masket (@smotus) September 26, 2021
it's not $5 trillion and it *is* polling well. otherwise this is a perfectly responsible thing for a news show to tweet https://t.co/z3lHawsh8y
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) September 27, 2021
it has been fun* to watch objections to stuff like this shift over the years from the principle of "we can't afford it"** to "helping people is actually bad"
*awful
**we can https://t.co/F5Zj5f8iux
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) September 27, 2021
Democrats are growing frustrated by the focus on the proposed $3.5 trillion price tag for President Biden's massive expansion of social programs, saying they intend to fully cover the cost of the legislation. Republicans call the measure fiscally reckless. https://t.co/Fa1ljGIg3q
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 26, 2021
… Defending a bill not yet fully drafted, Democrats are determined to avoid a deficit financed spending spree. They are growing frustrated by the focus on the proposed $3.5 trillion spending total, arguing far too little attention is being paid to the work they are doing to balance the books. Biden on Friday said he would prefer the price tag described as “zero.”
“We pay for everything we spend,” Biden said at the White House. “It’s going to be zero. Zero.”
But the revenue side of the equation is vexing, and it’s emerged as a core challenge for Democratic bargainers as they labor to construct one of the largest legislative efforts in a generation. Their success or failure could help determine whether the bulk of Biden’s agenda becomes law and can withstand the political attacks to come.
Republicans, lockstep in opposition, aren’t waiting for the details. They’ve trained their focus on the $3.5 trillion spending ceiling set by Democrats, pillorying that sum as fiscally reckless, misguided, big government at its worst…
Part of the problem for Democratic leaders is the lack of a consensus about which programs to fund and for how long. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., acknowledge the price will likely come down and say they have a “menu” of revenue raisers to pay for it. But without certainty on what initiatives will be included, no final decisions can be made.
“This is not about price tag,” Pelosi said Thursday. “This is about what’s in the bill.”
Biden and administration officials stress the plan is as much about fairness as dollars and cents. By taxing the wealthy and corporations, they hope to fund paid family leave and child tax credits that help those reaching for the middle class, all while adopting environmental and economic policies that help the U.S. compete with China. But the haggling over a final spending target is overshadowing the policy goals they are trying achieve…
Opinion: Taxing the rich is super popular. Democrats should talk more about it. https://t.co/rD2bFy9sor
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 27, 2021
… Republicans are opposed to requiring big corporations and billionaires to kick in something, just as they refuse to fund the Internal Revenue Service to enforce existing tax laws. Every Republican on the ballot in 2022 who opposes any increase in taxes on the super-rich and corporate scofflaws will likely confronted with a question: Why are you protecting super-rich donors and corporations from paying taxes?
On Thursday, the White House hammered home the message in a written analysis: “We estimate that the 400 wealthiest families paid an average Federal individual income tax rate of 8.2 percent on $1.8 trillion of income over the period 2010–2018, the years from the last decade for which the necessary data are available.” Administration officials also stated, “Two factors that contribute to this low estimated tax rate include low tax rates on the capital gains and dividends that are taxed, and wealthy families’ ability to permanently avoid paying tax on investment gains that are excluded from taxable income.” Under the Biden plan, that would go up to a modest 26 percent for families making at least $1 million a year…
The reconciliation bill addresses both ends of the spectrum. It forces the super-rich to contribute to the treasury and common good while also reducing or eliminating costs for middle- and low-income Americans. In other words, this was part of Biden’s mandate (to the extent he had one) and contributes to his effort to make certain that democracy works for the average person.
If the great challenge of our age, as Biden says, is between authoritarianism and democracy, then reducing inequality and the influence and power of the wealthy is essential. Call it an antidote to resentment and raging right-wing faux populism.
debbie
Oh, Meghan. ??♀️
NotMax
Across the pond: Escalin may sound like a brand of amphetamine, but is in reality a self-induced migraine.
Buckle up, Britain, it’s going to be a bumpy
nightwinter.Baud
I assume that means unrealized gains on property. That’s a tough nut to crack.
Baud
@debbie:
I think she’s combining the normal annual federal budget with the 10 year reconciliation plan. It would still be a lie, of course.
The Thin Black Duke
Billionaires are sociopaths who want every damned penny, nickel, dime, quarter and dollar in the world and they don’t care about anybody or anything else. The non-rich are a resource to be strip-mined and discarded. People need to wrap their heads around that reality and respond accordingly, because things will only get worse.
debbie
@Baud:
Clearly, Democrats are at fault for not explaining themselves better. //
The Thin Black Duke
OT, but ever since we discussed Gabby Petito in a thread some days ago, I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind, so here’s another rant that I posted. It didn’t help. Yeah, I know the news media is obsessing about another dead blonde girl while hundreds of women of color vanish every day under the radar. Petito’s still dead, though. How is this better?
MomSense
@The Thin Black Duke:
It’s true. The prevalence of sociopaths among CEOs is well established.
Ken
By whom? Not the press, I think.
MomSense
@debbie:
Yesterday morning I actually decided to just check in on Meet the Republican Faces this Week because I hadn’t watched in years. I couldn’t believe it when she came onto my tv. She couldn’t hack the slightest bit of pushback from Whoopi or Joy but she sure as hell wasn’t challenged by Chuck Toad. It was embarrassing.
Baud
@debbie:
The media bleats about that, but it can be a big problem. The media keeps trying to make legislative sausage making dramatic, but the details are really arcane. So you have a bunch of people paying attention to the drama but not understanding what’s going on, and it causes a lot of stress.
NotMax
Flash from the past – while it may ebb and flow, the stupid is eternal.
The Thin Black Duke
Do some people really need to watch talking heads on TV news to figure out how good or bad things are? What are they paying attention to?
Baud
@NotMax:
I recently watched the The Glorias on Amazon about Gloria Steinem. It was a good reminder that the Trump voter had always been with us.
debbie
@Baud:
NPR is all drama-filled about Joe’s and Nancy’s legacies. I amuse myself by imagining the apologies they will broadcast after the legislation passes. Not holding my breath, though.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
Not this normie!
Here’s the thing. Something will be left on the table, as it always is, and that omission will affect real people. And some observers who care about this stuff have a difficult time dealing with that.
Ten Bears
Why does anyone ask that airhead anything?
Oh, right, to put thoughts in other airheads’ heads.
Pavlov’s (they look like) humans …
Baud
@debbie:
See my # 16. Whatever passes will be deemed a failure because there’ll be something that Joe didn’t get.
debbie
@The Thin Black Duke:
Thank you for your rant.
I absolutely agree on the disparity, but why do most people pointing that out seem to diminish the tragedy of Gabby’s murder in the process? It seems equally wrong to me.
zhena gogolia
Yesterday in NYT it was Ross Douthat, “Can Biden Recover?” Today it’s Charles Fucking Blow about how he’s disappointed Black people.
I guess they let the columnists rotate in dumping on Biden and it was Blow’s turn this morning.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
Nobody advocating for these other victims begrudged Ms. Petitio’s family. They are grateful that the family has answers and closure. The other families just want the same.
Peale
@NotMax: “We have nothing on our shelves because there’s no truck drivers. There’s no truck drivers because there’s nothing to deliver. We’re deploying troops to deliver nothing. And handing out rationing coupons for empty shelves. Which is what we used to make fun of Polish commies for until they took our plumbing jobs.”
Nelle
@The Thin Black Duke: Thank you for writing this. This retired composition teacher thanks you for writing, writing, writing. Keep going.
The Thin Black Duke
@debbie: It’s a distraction; a bait and switch. The racial disparity in news coverage isn’t the primary issue. It’s a mean-spirited con job to get people to avoid talking about the real problem: why is it so hard to protect abused women? Why does every woman I know has at least one horrible story to share with me?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@The Thin Black Duke: Righteous rant
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s freakin’ obvious, but the lie of white supremacy also works on blocking this realization.
They will literally die rather than give up that illusion. It’s not hyperbole now. We know.
raven
@The Thin Black Duke: Monday Morning Open Thread.
The Thin Black Duke
Which brings us back to all the money those rich bastards are hoarding, doesn’t it? It would be nice if social services had more than two nickels to rub together.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MomSense: Megan is famous for being the child of someone famous. She’s shown no other talent or skill that I can see.
The Thin Black Duke
@raven: By the way, why doesn’t Colin Kaepernick have a job in the NFL right now? God knows he’s needed. It’s painful watching that hobbit Zack Wilson of the Jets try to find the end zone.
germy
@The Thin Black Duke:
The Thin Black Duke
@Dorothy A. Winsor: White Supremacy is an affirmative action program for mediocre white people.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Her role is Trojan Horse. Her job was to mainstream the ideas of her husband’s publication, first on the audience of The View, and now on MTP and whatever newspaper she writes for. (Daily Mail?)
raven
@The Thin Black Duke: He’s done and he’s been done for a while.
Freemark
@Dorothy A. Winsor: She may have gotten her start by being the child of a famous mavericky personality, but her fame for terrible hairstyles she earned all on her own.
The Thin Black Duke
@germy: Thing is, Petito is dead. It’d be nice if the system could protect women before the inevitable happens. it’s installing the smoke detector after the house burned down. One policewoman talked about how she knew Petito was in a bad situation. But there was nothing else to be done.
The Thin Black Duke
@raven: Oh yeah. But other than not playing in the NFL, he’s doing OK. NIke is making sure Kaepernick is getting paid. I’m thinking about the football teams that are one QB away from being contenders. Pittsburgh certainly could use Kaepernick right now, because Big Ben is looking older than Betty White.
Betty Cracker
I thought the whole point of linking the infrastructure and reconciliation bills was to establish incentives for the factions within the Democratic Party to work together. Fringe outliers in the party’s conservative wing are trying to force a decoupling of the two bills, so if infrastructure comes up for a vote before the reconciliation bill is ready and goes down and nothing passes, it’s on them.
If congressional Republicans didn’t have a severe case of oppositional defiant disorder, they’d band together to help moderate and conservative Dems pass the infrastructure bill without progressives and then count on the bad faith of Gottheimer & Co in the House and Manchinema in the Senate to scuttle the reconciliation bill. They’d suffer no negative consequences while tearing their opponents’ party apart.
Chief Oshkosh
@debbie: I can never keep the two Blond Bot Nepotists straight. Is McCain the vapid nobody, or is that Cheney?*
*Ha! Trick question! Answer is “Both”
Raven
@The Thin Black Duke: well , he thought Hillary and Trump were the same so I’m glad he got some kind of gig.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
We’ve never need help tearing ourselves apart before.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
Cheney is awful in many ways but I don’t get the impression that she’s vapid.
germy
I don’t have a link, but I remember seeing a Republican try to explain why he voted against the bill awarding medals to the Capitol police. He said his vote was “no” against a medal for Pelosi.
So he saw the Capitol police getting an award as an award for his Democratic rival, and was against it.
rikyrah
ICYMI
Performances at the Tony Awards FORTY YEARS APART???????
https://twitter.com/bwwlc420/status/1442301397890842637?s=19
Mike in NC
@The Thin Black Duke: Can’t off the top of my head name a more mediocre white man than D. J. Trump Sr. He was their Messiah and they’ll accept no substitute.
Heading off to Logan Airport in a few minutes and hope the connections are smooth…
Starfish
@The Thin Black Duke: I have not followed this story closely. Were they in the van moving around a lot during this whole thing? If so, were police just waiting for them to go on and be someone else’s problem?
Soprano2
@The Thin Black Duke: As much as we get upset at how they cover the issues, the vast majority of people never watch a show like “Meet the Press” and have no idea what it’s even about. The truth is, most people don’t pay much attention to what government is doing beyond the headlines, which is why the headlines are so important.
debbie
@raven:
Feeling better this morning (vaccine-wise)?
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think we’ve had lots of help with that over the years, but regardless, the longer the fight drags on, the more opportunities Dems will have to reach a compromise. Maybe I’m missing something, but it sounds like Pelosi plans to call a vote knowing there’s not enough Dem support to pass it. Or maybe the factions will get their shit together on both bills this week, which seems unlikely, but who knows?
zhena gogolia
We watched the first episode of The Chair last night. What a piece of dreck. Could they perhaps have enlisted somebody who ever worked in a university, or even studied in one, to help them out?
The ageism is staggering.
Peale
Germany’s election is…about the same. Can’t say I find anything alarming or charming about the results.
Soprano2
@debbie: Today on NPR there’s quite a bit of handwringing over the problems the health worker vaccine mandate is going to cause for rural hospitals. I’m not sure whether the healthcare worker mandate has the testing opt-out or not, but if it does they aren’t talking about it. I actually heard one small hospital administrator say that the people in his small hospital who don’t want to get vaccinated will get a job at the local Casey’s convenience store. I think these people are going to find out that there aren’t any other jobs in their relatively small towns that pay as well as being a nurse or other health care professional. How many workers does that small-town Casey’s need anyway? I think I’ll wait until it actually happens that massive amounts of these people, who probably have the highest-paying jobs in their town, quit these jobs because they don’t want to get a shot or be tested weekly.
I can have some sympathy for the rural hospital administrator who has 30% of his staff threatening to quit. My question to them would be “Where are you going to find a better-paying job that doesn’t require you to get vaccinated?” In most rural areas, those jobs are few and far between.
The Thin Black Duke
@Raven: Yeah, it was a stupid thing to say, no argument there. Still, Kaepernick a rarity in that he’s a black athlete who got “cancelled” but had a plan ‘B’ to fall back on, so that’s good. The brother who kneeled next to Kaepernick is out of the NFL.
TheQuietOne
We’ve had ads running for close to a month in our local market. Liberals want to tax my social security away for their agenda. Tell Rep Davis ( dem-ks ) to protect your retirement.
They are going to fight infrastructure week tooth and nail!!
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think the moderates who are digging in their heels to get a vote on the 1st Infrastructure bill want to scuttle the second one so much as cut it back. Partly this is covering their asses: they don’t want to vote for programs or tax increases that are then killed in the Senate by Manchin and Sinema. Moderates point to cap-and-trade and carbon tax bills that passed the House under Clinton and Obama that got killed in the Senate. Then the moderates claim they got killed in the midterms because of this.
So, Peloi and Schumer have to solve a kind of Rubik’s legislative cube, getting several different blocs lined up. House Democratic Caucus leadership will be working long days adjusting substantive and procedural questions, and cajoling and wearing down holdouts at both idealogical ends of the caucus, while liaising with Schumer.
Soprano2
What compounds this is that sometimes the victims are afraid to help themselves, or feel that it’s all their fault and that they cannot get out of it, so they go along with the abuser in the hope that it will make the abuse get less or go away. The short-term answer is to support domestic violence shelters and the work they do; the long-term solution is to change societal attitudes toward these situations, make sure women know they should never have to put up with this kind of treatment, and make it shameful for men to behave in this way. Two of the most popular karaoke songs for women to sing are “Goodbye Earl” and “Gunpowder and Lead”. It’s about women feeling that the only option they have to escape is to literally kill their abuser, because the law and society won’t help them.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
I saw an amusing twitter thread of academics who joked about how beautiful the backgrounds are in that series … all wood paneling, gorgeously lit old beaux arts buildings. They compared them to the windowless, brutal cinder block structures they actually work in. Lots of anecdotes about asbestos dust, leaky ceilings and fluorescent lighting.
Baud
@TheQuietOne:
The initial reaction may be to say truthfully that it’s false information. On the other hand, I wonder if the better approach to the phone calls is for Davis to respond that they’ll tax Social Security over his or her dead body. Lean into it.
OzarkHillbilly
Union construction workers of all stripes know exactly where those jobs are: 1 1/2 hours or more away.
debbie
@Soprano2:
Exactly right.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Yep, lots of people in Bolivar and Branson work in Springfield. I was wondering how many jobs at the local Caseys that hospital administrator thought there were, and how much do they pay, because you know the workers at that rural hospital make more than the people at the convenience store. I may be surprised, but I don’t think it will be as big of a problem as they think it will be. Where are the health care workers going to go? Not to a bigger city, where the same mandate will be in effect.
zhena gogolia
@germy: The students are either bored or hostile, yet when a professor throws out the random question, “What do Camus and Beckett have in common?” one of them immediately answers, “They both were in the French resistance.”
Uh, no, that isn’t going to happen.
They seem to think that a college lecture consists of a bunch of disconnected aperçus.
No professor over the age of 55 has any idea how to connect with students or to modify their style of teaching over the years. All young professors are able to make instant connections with their students (unless they’re hopeless drunks).
I know, I know, it’s a show, but the sheer unimaginative idiocy of it depresses me. I’m even more depressed by how many people have told me I have to watch it because it’s so hilarious.
zhena gogolia
@germy: And yes, the interiors are Yale-ish. Not typical.
ETA: Oh, and if you can find an English department in the country that is just now getting its first female chair, I’ll eat my hat. Physics, yes, but then we can’t make fun of them, can we?
opiejeanne
@Raven: Kaepernick didn’t bother to vote in 2016. At that point I lost most of the respect I had for him.
Geminid
@Geminid: Reinstating the State and Local Tax exemption may be a goal for House moderates like Gottheimer, and another bone of contention between some moderates and some liberals.
artem1s
Darth Cheney’s daughter weighs in. :P
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: I can’t count the number of jobs I worked with Springfield carpenters. We all made long drives.
98% or more of those people saying they’ll quit, won’t. They have mortgages. They have car loans. They have families. And all the attendant expenses.
Jeffro
If Rubin has her facts straight, the ‘taxing the rich’ part is even more popular than spending the proceeds. THAT’s how badly Americans want to a) stick it to the wealthy and/or b) right out fiscal ‘ship’.
Wow.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Half Of Unvaccinated Workers Say They’d Rather Quit Than Get A Shot – But Real-World Data Suggest Few Are Following Through
…while it is easy and cost-free to tell a pollster you’ll quit your job, actually doing so when it means losing a paycheck you and your family may depend upon is another matter.
And based on a sample of companies that already have vaccine mandates in place, the actual number who do resign rather than get the vaccine is much smaller than the survey data suggest.
Jeffro
Yeah…and if a frog had wings… ;)
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
Yup. I watched one episode and not even the wonderful Sandra Oh could save it.
NotMax
@MomSense
Decided to give it a wide berth before it showed up based solely on the trailer.
;)
waratah
I watched Nancy on George S show and I thought she was calm confident and glowed. She looked happy to me so I am not going to worry any more. The house Democrats have been working on this since the election, and I think they also know by now to put a price they know will be lowered to get what they really want.
artem1s
@NotMax:
the rubes that have been inhaling the media’s over coverage of them are overestimating the number of people who they think will walk out with them. when they find out their colleagues haven’t been sniffing the same glue and got vaccinated months ago, they wilt pretty quickly. I see the same behavior in a lot of blowhards at work who think the way to communicate with their employers is to threaten them with something, something and then we will magically get everything they want. what they don’t understand is their competent colleagues have been praying for the incompetents to carry thru with their threats to quit for years.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: She’s the best by far, along with Holland Taylor, but Taylor’s character makes absolutely no sense.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Me too, until 50 of my closest friends recommended it.
I think academics just like to see themselves depicted by actors, no matter how ridiculous it is. I don’t share that feeling.
At least on Morse and Lewis they’re all murdering their students, which makes it a little more interesting.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: I watched The Chair because it got such gushing reviews, and I was also less than impressed by it. I didn’t hate it as much as you do, probably because I’m not an academic and therefore have less knowledge of the realities of that workplace to compare to the show’s inaccurate depiction.
But some of the show’s alleged virtues as described by reviewers are complete bullshit. One review claimed it tackled the “cancel culture” issue with rare sensitivity, i.e., without making either side look foolish. Not so much!
Anyhoo, there were things I liked about it. I like Sandra Oh, and Holland Taylor is funny. Oh’s character and her father’s attempts to raise a child with a different ethnic heritage while respecting the child’s and her own cultural customs was funny and sweet. But yeah, it was largely formulaic sitcom crap and not at all as groundbreaking as advertised, IMO.
rikyrah
@artem1s:
Folks really not feeling giving up that Direct Deposit every two weeks.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. That guy would not still be in the classroom, long before he made his “faux pas.”
Baud
@Jeffro:
People want to tax the rich, but a lot of them only want the Republicans to do it, and they’re happy to wait until they die of Covid for that to happen.
Dorothy A. Winsor
OT (if there is a T): I blogged about some micro-level revisions I made to the opening of the book I just sent my editor. I was looking to saturate the story more thoroughly with the point-of-view character’s presence.
Another Scott
@debbie: The whole Biden recovery plan all-in was proposed at something like $7T over 10 years – the pandemic/TFG depression rescue, the bipartisan infrastructure, the reconciliation bill. She’s probably adding the infrastructure and reconciliation bills’ price tags.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Jeffro: I think Rubin has her facts right about the popularity of taxing the wealthy more. The economic stimulus of the two infrastructure bills will put the political winds in Democratic sails for the midterms, and increased taxation of the wealthy would be adding like adding topsails to the ship.
And you are welcome for the tip about Hidden Valley. It’s a nice destination for camping or just a day trip. Rt. 252 from Staunton through Middletown is a beautiful ride, and Rt. 39 through Goshen Pass is spectacular. A small park at the Rockbride/Bath County line makes for a nice turn around if you don’t want to go all the way to Warm Springs
Do you have a Delorme Virginia Atlas? They are great, providing all kinds of detail including topo lines and every small stream and larger river.
James E Powell
@Baud:
We can enjoy her back & forth with Trumpsters, but we should never forget that Cheney is evil.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: I assume much has changed since I was an English major in the late 1980s. I had professors who were incoherent drunks, abusive assholes and lazy shits who made the students teach the class. They’re lucky we didn’t have cell phones! :)
Jeffro
@Geminid: thanks! Is it Middleton or Middlebrook that 252 runs through?
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Things have changed, for sure.
James E Powell
@zhena gogolia:
I’m intrigued by your take. My Ivy League professor friend said they nailed the politics. I only saw the first episode.
Kay
Arkansas has spent hundreds of thousands in federal funding to buy junk from the sleazy Huckabee family, which they then ship to public schools for indoctrination.
Every accusation is a confession. You knew the “critical race theory” accusation was covering Right wing grifters making bank on junk they ship to public schools.
zhena gogolia
@James E Powell: THEY NAILED THE POLITICS????
Jeffro
@Geminid: I do have one of those atlases, actually! Need to use it more.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
Thats a really tough fucking nut – it would trigger sell offs and cause a non-market pricing correction.
Would rather see realized capital gains taxed as ordinary income, a “per trade” transaction tax, favorable tax treatment granted to spent uninvested dividends, and a brutally confiscatory tax on futures trading.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: IIRC, Pelosi’s letter to the caucus said that they’re voting on the BIF on Thursday because that’s when the existing Transportation act expires. She didn’t say anything about the reconciliation bill. The progressive parts of the party wanted the reconciliation bill first because of the (expressed) fear that the BIF would be all that they would get. So, they’ll be nominally upset if the BIF is first. But the real goal is to pass both and I’m sure that is what will happen – they’re just working out the remaining details (and how to get S&M (and those in the shadows who don’t want to go as far as Biden) on board).
We won’t get everything we want, but we’ll get A LOT. It will be a huge victory, and we should celebrate it – LOUDLY.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Middlebrook, I think. It used to be a stop on the Parkersburg Turnpike, an importatant route to Ohio before rail travel. A pretty little town. There is also a large roadside spring on Rt.252, about 10 miles south of Staunton. A nice short stop if you want some free springwater.
geg6
@The Thin Black Duke:
TRUTH!!!!! I’d take Kaep in a NY minute. Heads would probably asplode all over Western PA, but I’d take him over the Frankenstein monster we currently have fucking up the offense enough that even a great defense can’t fix it.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
No need for GQP House members to do that. No Labels is doing it for them.
Nelle
@zhena gogolia: Ah, so that’s why I liked Morse and Lewis so much.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud: I’m late so this example may have been given…but apparently Musk pledges stock to take out loans to fund his lifestyle instead of selling stock to do so. That’s an example of blatant tax avoidance of investment gain.
Ken
@James E Powell: You mean they show absolutely vicious fighting over tiny stakes? (At least, so the old joke about academic politics would have it.)
geg6
@Starfish:
I saw some body cam video of a police stop a few days before she disappeared. Someone in another car called 911 and reported a man hitting a woman in a white van with FL plates. When they pulled them over, the cops immediately took his side, accepting that she was the aggressor and setting him up in a hotel for the night and leaving her to spend the night in the van. Letting her know how lucky she was that they decided not to jail her. The boyfriend saying the usual abuser stuff about how she’s just crazy. And the cops just taking that as a given because she was crying and full of remorse for the argument and passive in the face of being treated like a criminal by the cops. She’s a tiny little skinny thing and he’s a strapping athletic young man and of course she beat him up!
Infuriating. And it’s the same sad story for all the Black and brown and indigenous women who are missing or murdered. Being a female, of any color, is an extremely dangerous thing.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
I saw an article on TPM (but didn’t read it) about a couple members of that “moderate” caucus saying they were voting yes on the reconciliation bill. I don’t think Nancy is stupid enough to schedule a vote on something that won’t have the votes. Not at this point, for sure.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud: last night on 60 Minutes Cheney said Biden’s agenda would destroy the economy while she voted against raising the debt ceiling. Maybe not vapid but another close by word.
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
I read some articles about it a couple of weeks ago and the lack of reality I got from the discussion with the director and actors was that none of them have any idea whatsoever it is like to be working in academia. Not even a tiny little bit.
zhena gogolia
@geg6: So far there are no adjunct faculty featured. Just one little factlet that will give you an idea.
Jeffro
@Geminid: ah very cool – thanks again!
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
Jane Smiley’s “Moo” does it so much better.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sure Lurkalot: He is not alone. It’s a common enough practice.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
Right. Since it’s technically a loan that must be paid back, it’s not treated as income. I’m not sure how to address that however. I assume smart people are thinking about it. I think you obviously don’t want to take people for taking out home equity loans, for example.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Don’t say that too loudly.
Ken
I didn’t know it was science-fiction.
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: I have one thing today about any healthcare worker who leaves because of the vaccine mandate.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Another Scott
Meanwhile in China, …
https://reut.rs/3m24Lcn
(Power outages in China because of coal shortages, tighter emissions standards, high demand.)
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
Oh lord. And the fact that adjuncts probably make up the majority of instructors at many, many colleges and universities simply never crossed their minds. Or they haven’t done an ounce of actual research about what academia is actually like in the 21st century. Or both.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@geg6: I used to teach in the dept Smiley wrote about. You could recognize some of the characters.
geg6
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I love that book sooooo much. My sister (an English professor) and I used to re-read it every August just to get ready for the new academic year.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott:
I think they will be much more upset than that. If they do that, they throw away all their leverage.
Cameron
@The Thin Black Duke: Ben’s still around? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – after all, Night of the Living Dead was filmed in the Pittsburgh area.
zhena gogolia
@geg6: I haven’t read that — I’ll have to check it out.
WaterGirl
@geg6: Yes. That was based the University of Illinois vet school where I worked.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You used to teach at the UI vet school? Or are there two different schools that claim the book is based on them?
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: I thought it was about Iowa?
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Funny, as I recall, at the time, the word was that it was about Illinois, not Iowa.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: @zhena gogolia: Smiley taught in the Iowa State English Department when she wrote MOO. She hit it big with 1000 Acres and was on leave in CA when I started teaching there, but her friends told stories about her coming out of her office and reading passages to them and laughing. When I was there, they would point to various people and say that was so-and-so from the book. She never came back to ISU. The last I heard of her she was running as ostrich farm in CA.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: Well, I suppose if she’s a good writer, it doesn’t have to be about any one place.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder if the comically un-qualified Megan McCain’s bad punditry– she either doesn’t know what she’s talking about or she’s lying– will mean Chuck won’t call her any more.
Nah, just kidding, I don’t wonder at all. “It’s good to have a McCain back on Meet The Press!” That’s all there is to it, to him, and to her.
UncleEbeneezer
@waratah: Amy Klobuchar was on PSAmerica several months ago and she made it sound like every Democrat was well aware of the need to pass these bills. Even the ones currently posturing or threatening to kill them. There was broad consensus that their chances at reelection hinges on it. She even predicted that we would see alot of haggling over the details but that Dems were 100% committed to getting it done. Obviously that could have been wrong or wishful thinking, but it sounded sincere and honestly everything I’ve seen since looks exactly like her prediction playing out. Fingers crossed that that is the case and we get two good (if not perfect) bills passed.
Steeplejack (phone)
Re that Acyn tweet about the Democrats’ “radical ideas”:
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: And if they are good at marketing, they encourage more than one institution to think it’s about them. :-)
geg6
@WaterGirl:
From what I understand, it’s about the U of Iowa. I believe that’s where Smiley taught and they have an amazing writing program.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s funny because it doesn’t work on any level. If they wanted an ordinary Right wing voter there are plenty of those and there are also plenty of experts, people with experience in government, etc.
They picked a celebrity Right wing voter. Went right down the narrow (and only) path that doesn’t work at all.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@geg6: Smiley’s MFA is from Iowa but she taught creative writing at Iowa State, not Iowa. Weird, I know. But true nonetheless. From her wikipedia entry:
taumaturgo
@Baud: Maybe this is the equation that what plutocrats want, plutocrats get.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Thanks, mods
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: she tries to be a never-trumper and an anti-anti-trumper at the same time, I hope someday some rude, lucid person concisely explains her shallowness, uselessness and deluded entitlement to her in front of a camera
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: I sure hope you’re right, but there’s a reason the bad faith actors in our caucus wanted those bills decoupled, and their “urgency” explanation doesn’t hold water. Maybe it was some dumb prairie chicken-like flex. That’s the least ominous explanation, IMO.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: I think that all of them know that Democrats have the majority and will be blamed. That’s as it should be. They’ll get something done. It’s all posturing until the vote.
Nancy SMASH knows how to count. Chuck too. They have got this.
Should it be much more? Yes, but we should remember how normal politics works – take the incremental win and build on it.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
opiejeanne
@geg6: Moo! I read that and recognized many of my college teachers and almost all of the politics, although her Ag College is set in the midwest IIRC and mine was in SoCal. We lovingly referred to our campus as Cow Potty, a state college that had only admitted females the year before I got there, so we heard the usual joke about men being men, and the sheep being nervous.
taumaturgo
@Betty Cracker: I believe the unofficial vote count has possibly 10 Rs joining democrats.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I feel like the idiocy with the number helps in an odd way, though. They have incorrectly stated this number over and over and over, they either get the top line number wrong or they don’t spread it out over years, which to me means the number is meaningless. Their number is “zero”. This is how people talk about numbers when their number is zero.
I thought it was good that Sinema announced she will not support any increase in taxes at all. Her number is zero. We could have saved a lot of time if she were more honest and said that months ago.
germy
Thread:
The Thin Black Duke
@Soprano2: Well said.
Kay
@germy:
It doesn’t surprise me at all. The influux has always seemed politically timed. The ebb and flflow.Remember “the caravans” right before the Trump midterms? I mean, come on.
It doesn’t matter though- “border security” is now like “ballot security”. Conservatives put in literally hundreds of state laws on “ballot security” over the last decade. Their base has gotten MORE insane about black people voting, not less.
Biden can put a moat with alligators in. The Right wing discourse on immigration won’t change at all. You can’t fix a political narrative with a policy change. The narrative continues, because it was never fact based to begin with.
Kay
@germy:
It doesn’t surprise me at all. The influux has always seemed politically timed. The ebb and flflow.Remember “the caravans” right before the Trump midterms? I mean, come on.
It doesn’t matter though- “border security” is now like “ballot security”. Conservatives put in literally hundreds of state laws on “ballot security” over the last decade. Their base has gotten MORE insane about black people voting, not less.
Biden can put a moat with alligators in. The Right wing discourse on immigration won’t change at all. You can’t fix a political narrative with a policy change. The narrative continues, because it was never fact based to begin with.
Ruckus
@The Thin Black Duke:
I do like your style.
germy
@Kay:
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy:
Great thread. Jen Budd is a former senior Border Patrol agent, and her stuff is usually pretty solid. This thread addresses a lot of the questions about how a large number of Haitians all arrived at the same border crossing at the same time.
Eunicecycle
@The Thin Black Duke: That’s the best short answer I’ve ever seen.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
She has shown that the talent score of someone being the child of someone famous is often zero, which of course is her talent score.
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
Definitely read it. It’s funny and so true. A little dated in the digital age, but you know these characters.
Kay
@germy:
Trump made the exact same accusation about urban areas and voter fraud that Republicans made to pass “ballot security” bills over the last ten years. Hundreds of new ballot security laws, exact same accusation.
Anyone who has been falsly accused of a crime knows exactly how this works.
geg6
@opiejeanne:
My employer is literally a cow college at it’s main campus. There are herds of them wandering around just across the street from the giant football stadium. It’s in the middle of the state and it’s nothing but farms and the high security death row state prison for miles around it. When my parents gave us kids the choice between going to it or to the closer urban giant public university, it was no contest for me. I wasn’t going to be stuck in Cow Town for the next four years. Out of six kids, three went there and three went to my alma mater.
Just One More Canuck
@zhena gogolia: I would hope that the ‘murdering their students’ part isn’t based on reality, but having taught a course at a college once, I understand the temptation
Ksmiami
So… are any of the FPs gonna start a discussion on the Kagan article as imperfect as it is?
The Thin Black Duke
@Ruckus: As I appreciate yours, sir. Your style is an welcome influence.
Kent
@Baud:
Any investment gains, not just real estate. It could be a stock portfolio as well.
Betty Cracker
@Ksmiami: I’ve thought about doing a post on it ever since I read it last week and still might. It’s an important article, IMO.
Kent
@UncleEbeneezer: I honestly think that McConnell did Democrats a favor by dumping the debt ceiling vote on them. It effectively forces Democrats to either abandon the filibuster to pass it as a stand-alone measure. Or it forces the to include it in Biden’s reconciliation package. Either result would be a good thing and take power away from Manchin and Sinema.
Best-case scenario is wrapping the debt ceiling vote into the reconciliation package so that it becomes absolute “MUST PASS” which means that Manchin and Sinema would be tanking the entire economy, not just fucking with Biden’s agenda. It takes away their power because they can’t not pass it. Yes, they may have to go through another 24-hour vote-a-Rama. But that’s why they get paid the big bucks.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
So far I’ve watched about 1/2 the first episode. It took 3 tries to get that far. I get the premise of the show, but I think the premise is not what is said but what was done putting Oh’s character in that position. The first woman chair in a department full of people at or past their due dates, in a college that reeks of middle of some long ago century seems to me to be a story of we want to close this college because it’s no longer a realistically functional one and we don’t know what to do so let’s throw someone in the deep end and see what happens as a last resort. That has given me some minimal reason to watch. And no it doesn’t make it any less painful.
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: The “poisoned chalice” situation is definitely central to the plot, I think. I’ve seen the whole season, and I didn’t find it all that painful, tbh, or I wouldn’t have continued watching. I just found it disappointing because of the hype. I usually know better than to fall for hype, but the reviews were uniformly glowing, so…
Anyhoo, if you’re watching in hopes of an insightful denouement that has a larger message about the state of higher education, let me save you some time without revealing any spoilers: it’s basically fluff all the way through. If you’re not enjoying it, don’t waste any more of your time.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Thank you! Yes I like Oh as an actress, she is great, this roll is not. I don’t think any one person could save this and as for my take of the premise I don’t think any one person could save the department or the school. Now having said that I have seen shows that did what this one seems to be trying to do that did work after a fashion but it seems to me that it wasn’t one or maybe two characters that saved it, it was a concerted effort, not a Hail Mary, last ditch, maybe we should have done this sooner. A lot sooner.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Every accusation is a confession. You knew the “critical race theory” accusation was covering Right wing grifters making bank on junk they ship to public schools.
This.
I have been saying it’s the money for ever and it doesn’t seem to get much traction. Maybe it’s that it actually is obvious or maybe people are adding 2+2 and getting something other than 4? The grifters making the big bank are doing so selling crapy pillows and way over charging for it, or so many other things and not paying taxes on the end result. Which is why they are willing to spend 4% of their take to continue the process of screwing the rubes. It’s less than they would pay under a realistic taxing scheme and even that would allow them decent bank, screwing the marks. The thing they are afraid of is that if taxes increase there would be money to find out they are screwing the rubes and the party would come to a well earned end.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Fixed that for you… should be both, of course. Ya’ll quit right now please, so we can hire someone who gives a shit about their job and the people they’re supposed to serve!!
Ruckus
@The Thin Black Duke:
Thank you!
I’ve been out for my long walk and just finishing the post.
JustRuss
I can see why Meet the Press has to have McCain on their show–Chuck Todd gonna Chuck Todd–but using their Twitter account to megaphone her lies seems…irresponsible.
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: pleeeeease