Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

How stupid are these people?

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Come on, man.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / The Jan6 Committee Hearings: Weekend Update

The Jan6 Committee Hearings: Weekend Update

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(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)

 

Please add links in the comments for anything I’ve missed!

Sunday night massacre!

Bannon just wants to churn more chaos, and (secondarily) to push back his own trial(s). Fortunately, nothing we’ve seen of the Jan6 Committee indicates that they’re ready to give him the spotlight he’s seeking. Straight from the foremost Mar-A-Largo stenographer:

Crossing my fingers for a (metaphorical) recap…

Reader Interactions

179Comments

  2. 2.

    Scout211

    The midnight filing by the DOJ is really fun news.

    What a way to cool the media’s breathless reciting of the “executive privilege” lie.  And it also makes it clear to the Trump minions that omertà and executive privilege are not the same thing.

  4. 4.

    Old School

    So the January 6th committee has two hearings this week?  I believe Tuesday afternoon and Thursday evening.

  5. 5.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Since this post has “Proud To Be A Democrat” tag, here is a good thread on how Dems have done a whole lot to protect/expand Abortion Rights in the US.

    I think this is exactly right.  The reason the GOP fought so hard against Roe is because Dems had so much success on Abortion over the past 40 years, and it scared the shit out of them.

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    @Old School:

    It was previously announced as starting at 10:00 ET tomorrow but it is now listed as 1:00 ET tomorrow.  That’s so much easier for us west coasters.

  8. 8.

    Ken

    @UncleEbeneezer: I think the Republican anti-Roe push was also largely “what else have we got” — because tax cuts for the wealthy don’t poll all that well, and (until recently) they kept the racism and other hatred better-hidden.

  9. 9.

    Dangerman

    @Scout211: I hope they have all the tapes and not the edited version (which I assume was financed by Trump or a Trumper so of course there would be some whiteballwashing)

  10. 10.

    PAM Dirac

    I think the whining about “bad precedent” comes more from desperate self interest than bad faith. Holding privileged mediocre white males accountable is in fact a very bad precedent for the privileged mediocre white males that expect their mediocre blatherings to be respected.

  11. 11.

    Scout211

    @Dangerman: The committee has all the footage.

    British documentary filmmaker Alex Holder confirmed on Tuesday that he had complied with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee to turn over never-before-seen footage of former President Donald Trump in the leadup to the insurrection.

  13. 13.

    C Stars

    It’s interesting how people (people I know, people who talk on social media) are starting to arrange their days/weeks around these hearings. As much as I despise how our political culture has turned into a reality TV competition, at the same time, these events are just really compelling TV. Liz Cheney is giving Mark Burnett a run for his money.

  15. 15.

    p.a.

    It ain’t saved yet.

    State legislature electoral ‘nullification’ & the federalist society fascists seeded throughout the federal court system are the money boys’ play after tRump & his mouthbreathers’ failures of Jan 2021.

  16. 16.

    p.a.

    Ain’t saved yet.

    State legislature electoral ‘nullification’, gerrymanders/disenfranchisement & federalist society fascists seeded throughout the fed court system are the money boys’ play after tRump & his mouthbreathers’ failures of Jan 2021.

  17. 17.

    JoyceH

    @C Stars: I’m certainly arranging my schedule around the hearings. Reminds me of the Watergate hearings. You want to be watching live to be among the first to hear the bombshells going off.

  19. 19.

    Chat Noir

    @C Stars: Yeah, I admit do that. These hearings have been really good and informative. I also like that they start on time and usually last no more than 2½ hours. I also like watching the MSNBC prime time people to listen to their respective takes on the day’s hearings and to hear if I had the same reaction as they did.

  20. 20.

    matt

    Saw a piece by a shill who said when they see the Proud Boys they think of husbands and fathers.

    What kind of father goes and joins a Nazi coup gang?

  26. 26.

    Dangerman

    Deep thoughts … deep thoughts … how come whenever I call a business number, I’m always supposed to listen closely as the numbers have recently changed … leave them alone, assholes, quit trying to confuse us…

    OK, carry on.

  27. 27.

    JoyceH

    @matt: one of the newspapers that ran that piece has since apologized – the piece didn’t meet their editorial standards. Well, considering it was written by a Proud Boy’s wife, duh!

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    @matt:

    Saw a piece by a shill who said when they see the Proud Boys they think of husbands and fathers.

    It’s almost like the name is a PR exercise rather than an accurate description of what the group is about.  Who coulda thunk it?

  31. 31.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @schrodingers_cat: Marcotte is one of those people I remember from the Bush years that I’ve lost track of, but that tweet is absolutely fucking delusional on several levels. What happened to her

  32. 32.

    Roger Moore

    @Dangerman:

    Deep thoughts … deep thoughts … how come whenever I call a business number, I’m always supposed to listen closely as the numbers have recently changed … leave them alone, assholes, quit trying to confuse us…

    Three points on this:

    1. It’s possible that the numbers really have changed, but it’s in a part of the call tree you never get to.  The whole point of the thing is that you only have to listen to a small part of it.
    2. What counts as “recent” can be a bit fuzzy. Maybe they’re thinking “recent” means some time in the past year.
    3. They really do have to change the tree once in a while as their offerings change.

    I was pleasantly surprised the last time I heard a message like that, since it wasn’t just “some options” that had changed.  They mentioned specifically which section of the call tree had been updated, so those of us who don’t deal with that part didn’t have to worry.

  33. 33.

    Old School

    @Baud:

    (Is that the final hearing?)

    Doesn’t seem to be listed as so officially, but I see Rep. Thompson has said he didn’t want to go too far into July as the committee has to write their final report.

  34. 34.

    Ken

    @matt: Odd, nothing about the word “Boys” makes me think of someone mature enough to be a husband or father, no matter what adjective is out in front.

  35. 35.

    dmsilev

    @schrodingers_cat: What a bizarre claim. Did Warren ever lead any national polls, never mind her performance in the actual primaries?

    And I say this as someone who voted for her in the primary, though thanks to the miracles of “vote by mail a few weeks prior to the actual election” I think she might have dropped out by the time my vote was counted.  Whatever. Happy to have been able to support Biden in the general, and think by and large he’s done a pretty decent job given the number of crises that have come his way.

  36. 36.

    Geminid

    @Baud: The J6 Commitee will be operation for the rest of this Congress and can schedule more hearings if they want. They will also issue a very thick written report, likely with a summary.

  37. 37.

    HumboldtBlue

    @matt: @JoyceH: @Roger Moore:

    The Sarasota herald Tribune has apologized for that nonsense.

    To our readers:
    The Herald-Tribune erred Sunday in publishing a guest column on our opinion page and website with the headline “Attacking Proud Boys does disservice to caring parents.”
    A guest column from June 24 had criticized the author of Sunday’s column, and an editor felt it fair to give her a chance to respond. We strive to provide a broad range of views from our community, including opinions in opposition to those of our editorial board.
    However, the Herald-Tribune opinion page will not provide a forum for support of the Proud Boys, an extremist group that promotes white nationalist views and which has been labeled a terrorist group by two countries and has top members under indictment on charges of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. To do so is antithetical to our values as an organization and is outside of our responsibility to provide a fair forum for different points of view.
    Our editorial process failed to keep this column from being published as it appeared, which did not meet our standards. We are adding additional, higher level review of the process for accepting and editing guest columns for publication.
    We will continue to publish varied opinions from across the political spectrum on important local issues. But this decision fell short of our standards, and we apologize to our readers.
    Jennifer Orsi
    Executive Editor

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dmsilev:

    What a bizarre claim. Did Warren ever lead any national polls, never mind her performance in the actual primaries?

    I took Obama’s statement in December 2019 that women make better leaders as an implicit endorsement of Warren, but she decided to run as wine-track Bernie and crashed hard. One of my 2020 counterfactual musings is what would have happened if she had followed the Obama route instead. I’m sure Marcotte is in the “Obama is a failure!” camp.

  39. 39.

    Citizen Alan

    @matt:  Was that the piece written by the wife of a proud boy, a fact which was not disclosed disclosed in the article?

  45. 45.

    Anyway

    @p.a.:

    State legislature electoral ‘nullification’, gerrymanders/disenfranchisement & federalist society fascists seeded throughout the fed court system are the money boys’ play after tRump & his mouthbreathers’ failures of Jan 2021.

    This. This is the Rethugs run-around of “voting” that Ds need to counter. Voting is essential but the party establishment has to do more to beat the fascists.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @HumboldtBlue:

    A guest column from June 24 had criticized the author of Sunday’s column, and an editor felt it fair to give her a chance to respond.

    that just makes it weirder– it’s not a rabbit hole I care to pursue, but if somebody mentioned her in a piece they published, she must be enough of a known quantity, have some kind of public record they could have checked out.

  47. 47.

    Citizen Alan

    My recollection is that Warren was positioned well until she took a number of very stupid positions in hopes of appealing to the Bernie crowd. And then her campaign fell apart once people pointed out that the numbers didn’t work. Because, as we all know, only mediocre white guys from Vermont can spout bullshit with complete impunity.

    On the other hand, I will be forever grateful to Elizabeth Warren for her yeoman’s work in continually and publicly spanking Michael Bloomberg until he was embarrassed enough to drop out.

  49. 49.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Immanentize:

    Who knows? With the woeful state of many newsrooms, the editor is probably already on the sanitation beat, the courts beat and covering some local sports as well.

  50. 50.

    Immanentize

    @dmsilev: Everyone here knows (if they cared) that I voted Warren in Mass. And Biden in the election. That is what primaries are for! My preferred candidate lost, but my ultimate candidate won, and boy howdy am I happy for that.

    PS Amanda M. In her thread says she voted for Bernie over Biden because “she knew Biden would be a coward.”

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: IIRC, Marcotte’s claim (in 2020, when she published the article) was that data showed most Democrats thought Warren would make the best president but were afraid she couldn’t win the election, so they voted for someone they thought was more electable. I have no idea if the part about Warren is true or not, but IMO it’s undeniable that Biden’s chief appeal was electability. It’s also not crazy to think Democratic voters were still shell-shocked by Clinton’s loss and afraid of nominating a woman.

  53. 53.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Citizen Alan: I think that, like Bernie– and most of the 2020 primary field– she learned all the wrong lessons from 2016, and like Bernie, confused large and enthusiastic crowds at her rallies with broad and enthusiastic support among the party

  54. 54.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    What has Bernie said or done on abortion after Dobbs? Has he even come out in favor of court expansion? Honest question, I really haven’t heard anything.

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I thought very highly of Senator Warren during the run up to the primaries. I particularly liked her plan to combat climate change.

    I still like that plan, but not its author so much. She seems intent on building her own political brand in a way that Senators like Duckworth, Shaheen and Klobucher do not, and I am wary of this.

  56. 56.

    Matt McIrvin

    I can understand a preference for a very high bar of criminality to pass before wanting to prosecute a former President, just because of the fear that it will turn into universal partisan score-settling.

    But Trump passed any reasonable bar of that sort long ago–exploiting the force of the state to reward himself and punish his enemies was exactly what he was all about, and it wasn’t even a secret–he saw nothing wrong with it, bragged about it and thought anybody who wouldn’t do it was a chump.

  57. 57.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Over a year before the election? Long months before the first primary? That’s the “more people wanted Warren” proof? Sheesh.

    ETA remember? Biden got into the primary race late — he announced at the end of April, about three months after Warren.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    Perhaps there’s a poll to back that up. That’s fine.  It doesn’t really matter. You can’t wish electability away.  At least that’s what the Baud! 20XX! campaign staff keep telling me.

  61. 61.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Warren has remained focussed on consumer protection stuff (yay) and college loan forgiveness (meh).

  63. 63.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Betty Cracker: It is also possible that people took a closer look at her and didn’t like what they saw. She placed after Biden in the Massachusetts primaries.

    2. The poll conducted long before the votes were cast in primaries signifies nothing. Most people  were hardly paying attention then.

  65. 65.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: She tweets a lot about how Biden can forgive all student loan with a stroke of a pen or some such. I am paraphrasing.

    A lot more tweets about Roe since the decision. I just checked her timeline.

  66. 66.

    TerryTime

    @Geminid: Senator Professor Warren is doing it wrong. She should be more like these acceptable women Senators instead.

    This is somehow familiar…

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @TerryTime:

    Senator Professor Warren is doing it wrong. She should be more like these acceptable women Senators instead.

    If you mean she should learn from the not very distant past and maybe pull her head out of Left Twitter’s ass, I’d agree. But my sense is that is not what you mean.

  72. 72.

    MisterForkbeard

    @schrodingers_cat: This is one of those things that’s… sorta true? As in, Biden COULD wipe out a lot of student debt. Not all of it. And it would likely get overturned. And it’s not apparently that popular, either.

  73. 73.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MisterForkbeard: It is not the biggest priority right now is my opinion.

    Also forgiving all current student debt does not address the affordability or the lack thereof of a college education. It is a much more complex issue than the tweets suggest.

  74. 74.

    Immanentize

    @MisterForkbeard: So many better ways to address the student debt issue — which Biden is doing or considering! Forgive the interest. Forgive an amount that is equal to the amount people on average owe (which is where the 10,000 or 15,000 figure comes from rather than “all debt” which is regressive.) Allow student debt discharge in bankruptcy (which Warren is an expert on). Give all college students an annuity like in Europe. Etc.

  75. 75.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Paul Ryan just wants all you jackals to know that he felt absolutely terrible about the January 6th insurrection:

    Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, “found himself sobbing” as he watched the Capitol riot unfold on January 6, according to a new book.

    In journalist Mark Leibovich’s new book, “Thank You For Your Servitude,” Ryan claimed he felt “disturbed” by the events that day, CNN reported.

    “I spent my whole adult life in that building,” Ryan told The Atlantic’s Leibovich. “And I saw my friends, a lot of cops, some of my old security detail – I’m still friends with a bunch of those guys. It really disturbed me, foundationally.”

    The Wisconsin Republican also said that “something snapped in him” that day.

    “Ryan figured the president would b**ch and moan and maybe make a big show of ‘fighting’ for his supporters for a while,” as Leibovich explained in the book. “Everyone could feel good and victimized. But eventually Trump would just leave; hopefully, he would know to do this on his own. And everyone could then just get on with their lives.”

    h/t https://www.salon.com/2022/07/11/paul-ryan-found-himself-sobbing-during-the-january-6-insurrection-book/

  77. 77.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m not endorsing Marcotte’s claim about Warren, but I think it was pretty obvious in real time that Biden’s main draw was electability — a safe white grandpa to take out crazy, fascist orange grandpa. It worked, thank dog.

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MisterForkbeard: maximalist sloganeering tends to set impossible goals that appeal to a small but noisy minority and are off-putting to a much larger and quieter constituency, especially when it leads to rhetoric like “Ten thousand dollars is a slap in the face!” and “Obamacare kills!”

    That last one was a particular favorite of some rose twitter “influencer” who blithely announced she had Covid but didn’t want her followers to worry because she was gonna quarantine in her parents’ guest house

    ETA:

    @Immanentize:

    Forgive the interest.

    Yup, a much smarter goal, but so un-dramatic and hard to sloganize

  79. 79.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: That’s what I heard as well. It makes sense so horseshoe left will oppose it.

    IMHO there is no need to forgive student loan debt for a trust fund podcaster who went Harvard or Yale Law and has now decided to freelance for the Jacobin.

  80. 80.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Ken:

    Speaking of Rader, The Mindhunter on Netflix is excellent. It’s about the creation of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. Fascinating from beginning to end.

  83. 83.

    cain

    @MisterForkbeard: Bailing out the millennials who generally don’t vote and prefer to whine than being politically engaged. We could scratch their back, but not sure if they’ll scratch ours and head to voting booth…

    Yes, I’m kinda trolling.

  84. 84.

    Alison Rose

    I don’t know, seems to me like the only reason to think punishing a president or Congressperson for shit like this is “bad precedent” is if you feel that politicians are above the law. In which case, fuck your feelings.

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @cain: we had a real life test of the depth of the convictions of the on-line left (I don’t go in for the sweeping generational generalizations, myself) when Biden ended the “forever war” in Afghanistan.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @TerryTime: I wasn’t part of that “push”, I don’t even remember it. Although as I recall Warren didn’t really lose the plot until after 2016, aside from echoing Bernie’s silly gibberish about the “rigged primary”, which I confess I didn’t see as the warning sign others did

  90. 90.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That really rubbed me the wrong way, but IIRC, she said it once off the cuff in response to a question, and then walked it back. I don’t think she ever built a movement based on that lie or fundraised off of it.

  91. 91.

    Al Rennick

    @schrodingers_cat:

    How long will you and every other commenter and front pager keep ignoring the elephant in this room?

    Biden looks and sounds incredibly decrepit and frail.  The notion of re-nominating an 82 year old to serve 4 more years is insane beyond description.

    Joe needs to graciously bow out of seeking a second term and put the national interests ahead of his massive fucking ego.

  92. 92.

    Baud

    @Al Rennick:

    I haven’t listened to Biden lately, but I saw video of him this morning and he looked pretty good.  I suspect Biden will make a decision about his health in mid-2023 to give others time to gear up if he feels he can’t serve a second term.

  93. 93.

    Captain C

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    @Immanentize:

    Forgive the interest.

    Yup, a much smarter goal, but so un-dramatic and hard to sloganize

    That above, “Forgive the Interest,” seems to work quite well, and can be used to emphasize the profiteering aspect of this:  “hey, we’re just asking that someone not pay loan-shark levels of interest.”

    Also, it has a nice rhythm and an internal rhyme, which may be helpful in a slogan.

  94. 94.

    RaflW

    A bit of a sidenote, but Marcy Wheeler noted that Maggs dug up crap about Bill Clinton offering to raise money for lawyers for witnesses in his impeachment (reaching circa twenty one years back, of course, because the NYT has never ever let go of their Clinton obsession).

    An editor can argue that it is the most recent context for an impeached president, but I’d want to know if Dubya Bush fundraised for any of the many, many scandal-plagued people in his WH orbit!

  96. 96.

    C.P. Ballinger

    Elizabeth Warren and, for that matter, every other serious contender in the 2020 Democratic primaries was far more articulate than Biden and could have beaten Trump.

    Never before has a politician gotten further on less talent and intelligence than Biden.  He has zero ability to inspire, motivate, energize, or excite voters and he projects an aura of buffoonery whenever he speaks off the cuff.

  98. 98.

    Shalimar

    @schrodingers_cat: Warren was my first choice (Harris 2nd), but I would love to know what polls we’re talking about that had her as a clear favorite over Biden.  She didn’t win any states,  dropped out in early March, and didn’t even make it to Florida so I could vote for her.

  102. 102.

    Roger Moore

    @Immanentize:

    Warren has remained focussed on consumer protection stuff (yay) and college loan forgiveness (meh).

    I can understand why someone representing Massachusetts might see loan forgiveness as a big deal; her home state has the highest  percentage of the population with at least a bachelor’s degree.  Loan forgiveness would be a big subsidy of blue states by red states.

  104. 104.

    TerryTime

    @Geminid: What you said was why can’t  this woman, who I used to like, act like these other women. Uppity is paraphrasing your argument.

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Elizabeth Warren and, for that matter, every other serious contender in the 2020 Democratic primaries was far more articulate than Biden and could have beaten Trump.

    If only we could harness the collect energy of the propeller beanies of Bernie-bots and connect it to the grid….

  106. 106.

    Immanentize

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Forgive the interest

    It could be done for the govt owned debt (Fannie Mae) by straight up forgiveness or some special refinancing? But it would not apply to private bank loans, which would be a form of means testing?

  109. 109.

    dww44

    @Betty Cracker: ​
      Absolutely agree with all of that. I still am wary of Dems nominating a woman. Now, otoh, if the Republicans were to nominate Liz Cheney, she would win, just because she’s a Republican woman. What works for nationally electable GOP women doesn’t apparently hold true for Democratic ones.

    The person this household so very much likes is Buttegieg, but the married gay guy thing might be a bigger hill to climb than the woman. The truth is that we have to focus on electability and as much as I believe that Biden is getting a bad rap about the impact of his age on his ability to lead, nominating an 82 year old to the Presidency is just not a statistically viable option. We Democrats need to field a candidate who’s in his/her 50’s or 60’s.

  110. 110.

    Josie

    @C Stars: I noticed that, too.
    I am almost 79, so around the age of Biden. With the exception of a bad knee, I am fully capable of everything, physically and mentally, that I could do 10 years ago. It matters how well you eat and keep up with your mental and physical activities, all of which Biden does well. This ageism crap is getting really old.​
     ETA: Pun not intended but accurate.

  112. 112.

    Geminid

    @TerryTime: I did not say that either. I said they did not seem to be working on their own personal political brand. The implication wasn’t that they were not “uppity,” just that they did not center their ambition.

    Look, if you want to defend the Senator from Massachusetts, or disparage the other ones I mentioned, have at it and stop playing games.

  113. 113.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Josie: And the very same people who are concerned about Biden’s age say nothing about either the Orange Error or the Green Mountain Man. Biden is in better physical shape than either of those two men.

  114. 114.

    Shalimar

    @TerryTime: Where did this “push” for Warren come from?  I was a big Warren fan and I don’t remember it at all.   I am sure it wasn’t by anyone I read, and the Bernie people were obsessed at the time with Bernie as the alternative, not Warren.

  115. 115.

    Immanentize

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Didnt folks call Obama “articulate?” It’s hard to keep smears straight it seems.

    But more importantly, Biden was completely articulate when it came to speaking to the heart of people who had suffered awful during the Trump years and COVID. He’s not running right now, so he doesn’t need to argue his own successes. But I suspect things will look much better by, say, Labor Day when focus on the midterm locals begins in earnest.

  117. 117.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: Plus, it wouldn’t forgive any private student debt and any debt for graduate school, and those seem to be the situations where the abuse of debtors is most severe. I get irritated by how the “forgive all student debt right now!” warriors give Biden scant praise for the student debt his administration has already forgiven, which Forbes says totals $25 billion so far. I’m sure much of it has helped people who never got a degree since it’s concentrated on those bogus ‘for-profit’ colleges. His Department of Education has also taken action to fix the program where people were promised loan forgiveness after 10 years for taking on certain jobs. It makes me think that for most of them it’s not about “student loan forgiveness” but “why hasn’t my loan been forgiven yet?” My husband is against student loan forgiveness – he says a deal is a deal, and they signed on the bottom line and agreed to pay it back so they should. I haven’t been able to change his mind about it, either.

    I also agree that loan forgiveness does nothing about the things that cause so much borrowing in the first place. To me they’re focused on the wrong part of the issue.

  118. 118.

    Immanentize

    @Shalimar: Exactly. In fact, the Berners I knew were doing everything they could to kneecap Warren. There was no 2016 push other than a very small effort for VP which was sadly doomed by the thought of just too few Y chromosomes on such a ticket.

  119. 119.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Also forgiving all current student debt does not address the affordability or the lack thereof of a college education.

    To me, this is the big issue.  If we forgive the student loan debt of everyone today, we’ll just wind up with another batch of kids who are up to their eyeballs in debt.  We need to both tackle the cost of a higher education and help the people who are stuck with debt today.

    You can say the same thing about many, many of our problems: drugs, immigration, housing, etc.  It’s not enough to help the people who are in trouble today; that’s just a band-aid solution.  If we don’t tackle the systemic problems whose symptoms we’re treating, the same problem will be back with a vengeance in a few years.

  120. 120.

    Shalimar

    @Immanentize: Jubilee is one of my favorite things in the world, but then, in this specific area of the Gulf Coast, Jubilee is when the water gets low on oxygen and free seafood washes up on the beach in the middle of the night.

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    @Josie: Virginia State Senator L. Louis Lucas turned 78 this year, and she beats on the new Governor with youthful exuberance. She and her Democratic Senate colleagues form a solid barrier to his lousy proposals that she calls the “brick wall.”

  122. 122.

    Immanentize

    @Soprano2:

    1) The people most in trouble and saddled with student debt are those who, for whatever reasons, could not finish their undergraduate education — no degree benefit, but sometimes life crippling debt to such folks. These debts are often not huge (think community colleges or state schools) except for interest.

    2) The most equitable part of Biden’s significant debt forgiveness plans has been the honest reinstatement/application of the “work for 10 years in public service and get forgiven.” Trump and DeVoss did everything they could to fuck up that program, leaving lenders high and dry. And they did a pretty good job or wrecking the program which Biden has retroactively repaired.

  125. 125.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Geminid:

    Senator Lucas has gained a lot of new admirers and supporters recently for the manner in which she hammers Youngkin.

  126. 126.

    Betty Cracker

    IMO, it’s reasonable to weigh advanced age as a factor when someone is running for one of the most demanding jobs on the planet. It’s not the only important factor, but it’s not unwarranted discrimination to weigh that, along with everything else.

  128. 128.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Roger Moore: One proposal I heard of coming from some House Democrats was a $10,000 credit that could be used by anyone, to retire their student debt or to pay for post high school education or training. I’m not sure if the number is high enough, but I like the principle both on grounds of equity and of politics.

  129. 129.

    Fair Economist

    @Immanentize: Warren has had an odd mistep on consumer protection. She’s had a big focus on supermarket oligopolies. Which are real, but in practice don’t drive up food prices, partly because *local* grocery store competition is one of the few antitrust areas which still gets enforcement. In the last big supermarket merger here the Feds forced complicated store exchanges to ensure almost everybody could still easily access at least 2 and usually 3 chains.

    What’s been driving up prices is the *producer* oligopolies in things like cereal and especially meatpacking. They have been shameless in squeezing out monopoly profits. My veggie purchase prices haven’t gone up at all lately, I suspect because fresh veggies aren’t cartelized.

    But Warren is still going after the supermarket chains.

  132. 132.

    Immanentize

    @Fair Economist: I always thought of her supermarket focus as something I completely experienced in San Antonio — the extra cost of being poor in food, if not deserts, then arid plains. Large chains crush local small markets like Walmart did to mom and pop downtown businesses in small town Texas. What’s left is inferior quality food at much higher prices, or a trip to a nice English mostly neighborhood by car which many don’t own.

  133. 133.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @C Stars: Yes. The trolls are out in droves. I wish we had better trolls. Unfortunately, they are all so boring. They say the same things.. think the same way.. and usually have most or all of the facts wrong. Its sad. I wonder how many of these same people were attacking Warren in 2020 her because she had the audacity to run against Bernie.

  135. 135.

    livewyre

    @Betty Cracker: There’s a factor in analysis, and then there’s a smear in rhetoric. As far as I can tell it only became an issue in the latter context, because otherwise we seem pretty agreed with him around here that if he’s healthy he should run.

  137. 137.

    zhena gogolia

    @C Stars: Thanks, you’ve alerted me to the fact that I should return to work and not bother reading this comment thread.

  138. 138.

    Immanentize

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    But that is what woke education brings us, I fear!

    Fun side note — I had dinner with a long time friend of mine (our son’s were born a week apart in San Antonio) last night. She is so great and smart. She just took on the Presidency at a “great books” college. And hoo hoo! The stories she tells me would have been rejected by Sandra Oh for “The Chair” as too unbelievable, disfunctional, and clueless as to institutional liability.

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    @Josie: Louise Lucas started working at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1967 as a a draftsman, classed as an Assistant Shipfitter. In 1971 she became the yard’s first female Shipfitter. A Black woman working in a white man’s world, Lucas learned early on that she had to stand up for herself.

  142. 142.

    Ruckus

    @Geminid:

    Age is a state of mind and body.

    I’m older than a lot of the people that live in the same senior’s complex I do and most of them are younger than me by as much as 10 yrs and many think I’m younger than them. I’ve taken better care of myself and it shows. Less celebrating getting to the old stage and more trying to keep things from going bad as soon. It’s not difficult if you start early enough and are motivated, you don’t have to run marathons or anything like that but you do have to work a little bit at it. Walking, eating better (part of which is not eating too much).

  144. 144.

    Immanentize

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    OMG yes. I sat slack jawed, offered comfort and support, and occasionally said, “don’t they know they are gonna get sued?’ it was a most satisfying discussion.

    My favorite was one of the Professors complaint to my friend (this Prof. Is one of the “good” ones) that even though the accrediting investigators are aghast, there is no need to consider curricular reform because five years ago they moved one required class from the second year to the third. My neck still hurts from head shaking.

  147. 147.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: There were conversations here about Sanders’ age in the 2020 primary, especially after his heart attack. There was nothing discriminatory about those discussions either, IMO. It’s a legit concern, even if lots of people do raise it in bad faith when it comes to Biden.

  148. 148.

    Paul in KY

    @C.P. Ballinger: Boy are you full of shit. Pres. Biden absolutely clobbered ‘media maven’ TFG in the debates. He is articulate and knows all kinds of policy points, etc. etc.

    If he faces TFG again, he’ll whup his ass again.

  150. 150.

    Betty Cracker

    @livewyre: I think the best outcome for Democrats (which is what I care about above the fate of any particular Democratic politician) is Biden running again if healthy, not because it’s a great idea for 82-year-olds to run for POTUS but because that risk is less grave than a contested primary that divides the party and lets a fascist snake like DeSantis into the White House.

  151. 151.

    marklar

    @Roger Moore:

    “If we don’t tackle the systemic problems whose symptoms we’re treating, the same problem will be back with a vengeance in a few years.”

    During my dissertation defense, a committee member asked me if I was the head of NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse), would I be more likely to fund programs to prevent addiction, or programs to treat addiction?  I mentioned I’d fund the latter.  He responded with “so, during the polio epidemic, you’d have chosen to build more iron lungs instead of working on the vaccine?”

    I pointed out that as director of NIDA, I’d have a political appointment, which would lead me to focus on short-term horizons.  That is the same problem we are facing with education costs (and everything else you mention). Politicians are “now-focused”– what will help me in the next election cycle.

    Until voters learn to delay gratification, we’re going to get more of the same.  Heck, just look at how frustrated some Dems are with Biden having not reversed a 50-year project by Conservatives…I mean, he’s already had two week!

  152. 152.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Betty Cracker:  Yes, age is a reasonable factor to consider. It appears that people did consider it in 2020 and the decided to vote for Biden in the primaries and the general. I am sure it will come into play in the lead up to  2024.  Right now, I don’t see any decline in Biden’s ability to do the job, so I am not going to worry about it.  If something does happen to him, we have a very competent VP ready to step in.

  157. 157.

    HumboldtBlue

    England were just awarded a bullshit penalty against Norway.

    And now they have sliced through the Norway defense for goal number two!

  158. 158.

    Bill Arnold

    @Al Rennick:

    Biden looks and sounds incredibly decrepit and frail.

    Out of curiosity, are you watching full videos, or out of context video snippets played by the likes of Fox news and sometimes distributed by anti-Biden “leftists”? Always watch at least some of the context; there are a lot of dishonest propagandists out there.
    I have seen some seriously blatantly dishonest out of context clips of Biden. (Occasionally the subtitles do not match the words.)
    Guy is a definitely a bit slower than when younger, and should be (and made to be if needed) honest and self aware about his mentally capabilities going forward.
    However, he has been fighting a stutter all his life. He is neurodivergent in that respect, and people mocking him for clear stutter errors are … loathsome.

  159. 159.

    Tony Jay

    @C.P. Ballinger:

    LOL. Awesome. You owe me two keyboards and a pair of sheer white budgie-smugglers.

    Now do the others. See if you can work the phrases “overly-reliant on fading fabulousness” and “nevertheless, somehow sinister” into your dig on Buttegieg, and if you can’t harp on VP Harris’ “off-putting manliness” and “inability to master the simplest brief” I want my credit card details back.

  160. 160.

    Bill Arnold

    @C.P. Ballinger:

    Elizabeth Warren and, for that matter, every other serious contender in the 2020 Democratic primaries was far more articulate than Biden and could have beaten Trump.

    Biden beat an incumbent Republican president, and removed Donald J. Trump from office. He actually did this, in real reality. The Republicans were outplayed, and outplayed in the House and Senate races, and outplayed again in Georgia. Biden was the vehicle for this.
    Your “could have”; what are the probabilities that you assign to those “could have”s? Is your “could have” dominated by the (hypothetical) possibility that Trump could have died immediately prior to the election?
    (I will assume that you are a pro-Fascist operative, until you provide evidence otherwise.)

  162. 162.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MisterForkbeard:

    This is one of those things that’s… sorta true? As in, Biden COULD wipe out a lot of student debt. Not all of it. And it would likely get overturned. And it’s not apparently that popular, either.

    1) Sure, it might get overturned.  And I’m sick and tired of “let’s not bother showing up because we’ll probably lose” arguments.

    2) And gun control is overwhelmingly popular, but a lot of that popularity isn’t deep enough to get people to vote differently. So the same thing here: do people it’s unpopular with really care that much relative to all the other shit that’s going on? OTOH, if you’re a 20-something buried under student debt, this might be a BFD.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @MisterForkbeard: It is not the biggest priority right now is my opinion.

    Also forgiving all current student debt does not address the affordability or the lack thereof of a college education. It is a much more complex issue than the tweets suggest.

    1) As far as priorities are concerned, we all know that a smaller proportion of younger voters than older voters actually vote.  They’ve been doing better in the past couple of cycles, but they’re still a good bit behind us older folks.

    I guess the question is, is it a priority for us right now to give them a bit of extra motivation?  To me, it sure as hell is.  I don’t give a damn if they should vote anyway. Sure, they should.  But if this is the sort of thing that will increase the turnout among younger voters this fall, then fucking DO IT ALREADY.

    (I concede Immamentize’ point that it’s worth figuring out the best way to do this, e.g. forgiving all interest. It just doesn’t seem to me that it should take many months to figure that out.)

    2) No question, it doesn’t address the deeper question of affordability of a college education.  But (a) TBH, I’ve never seen it suggested that this is a simple and straightforward thing to fix: AFAICT, it’s a genuinely hard problem just from a technical standpoint, even before you get to the politics of it.  So (b) it won’t be solved until people can come up with solutions that (i) are workable and effective, that (ii) can and do get through Congress.

    So in the meantime, do we wring our hands and say, “we can’t fix the whole system, so we won’t do anything,” or do we say, “well, there’s this one thing we can do right now, that might help us in a rather important election this November”?

    Eyes on the prize.

  163. 163.

    Horatius

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

     

    As much as I love Obama as a person, he was less than half as effective as Biden and his economic policies were straight up trash. He lost his first term to the Summers/Geithner sacks of pigshit team. And he did nothing as Comey inserted himself into throwing the election.

    His track record is nowhere near as good as Biden’s.

  164. 164.

    Another Scott

    @Wyatt Salamanca: Granny Starver was secretly upset.

    Oh the humanity!!1

    ;-)

    Nice post.  It looks like it’s getting buried in the circular firing squad here at the moment though.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  165. 165.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Bill Arnold:

    Biden beat an incumbent Republican president, and removed Donald J. Trump from office. He actually did this, in real reality. The Republicans were outplayed, and outplayed in the House and Senate races, and outplayed again in Georgia. Biden was the vehicle for this.

    This. Who in their right mind would want to go back and re-run 2020 with a different Dem nominee?  Especially given that under our absurd system, what mattered wasn’t Biden’s 7M popular vote margin, but the handful of states he won by five-figure margins?
    I was a Warren stan in 2020, but I wouldn’t want to bet the fate of America on the possibility that she could have re-created that win.
    And the fact is, Biden’s done a damn good job as President so far.  His biggest ‘failures’ have been due to the combination of unified GOP opposition and the intractability of Manchin and Sinema, and Warren wasn’t going to have any more luck with Manchin or the GOP than Biden did. (Who knows what goes on in Sinema’s head.)
    Oh, and the media’s done its damnedest to tear him down, which is why his low approval ratings.  And if anyone thinks any of the other potential Dem nominees, most definitely including Warren, would have fared any better, I’ve got a bridge to sell them.​

  166. 166.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    He lost his first term to the Summers/Geithner sacks of pigshit team.

    yawn…..

  167. 167.

    MisterForkbeard

    @lowtechcyclist: I do think you’re overlooking what happens if this gets overturned. That seems like a really big fucking deal. It’s not a “well maybe it won’t work out” situation – it’s a “it could cause real and lasting damage” situation.

    People that had some relief get it taken straight away and blame Biden for doing it wrong. Huge amounts of negative press. Lots of “he should have known” or “if the SC was going to turn this down, Biden should have fixed the SC”, etc.

    We know this is how it’ll go down, because that’s how the entire abortion thing went down. Democrats spent 50 years protecting that right and they’re getting shit on by the left because the Republicans finally won their big court case about it, after Dems explicitly warned them this would happen if Trump won.

    So there’s a real possibility that college debt relief would go well or be a net positive. But there’s a huge possibility that it wouldn’t, even if it didn’t get repealed or done. Like I said earlier, it’s just not that popular and I don’t expect it to magically make a bunch of young people vote either. And especially if it gets taken away.

  169. 169.

    debbie

    One of my asshole brothers actually posted on FB that there was nothing to see on 1/6 and liberals should just move along, My spiteful self couldn’t help but ask whether the shit-smeared walls would take their place alongside the Declaration of Independence, they are that emblematic of the movement. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet.

  170. 170.

    Miss Bianca

    @C.P. Ballinger: Funny how all these folks whose nyms I’ve never seen before are all of a sudden here trying to get us to jump onto the “Biden is senile!” bandwagon.

    Fuck off, chuds.

  172. 172.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MisterForkbeard: ​
     

    Right now, Biden’s approval is -50 (19% approve, 69% disapprove) among 18-29 year olds. I don’t think we can screw the pooch much worse than we already are with that age group. We’ve got one obvious lever to try. Sure, it could backfire, but in a group where you only have 19% approval, it can’t go much lower.

  173. 173.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: How do the various levels of student debt relief poll among this group? Only a minority of the younger cohort have student debt. There is polling out there, and I think the Biden administration pays attention.

    I would approach these proposals very carefully. This is not an issue of principle, like civil rights, but a practical one. And while it’s easy to focus on the potential political gain, there is also potential political loss, and it’s a question of how much. Polls are imperfect, but I think they have relative value on this issue

    I would add that Biden’s approval rating does not neccesarily reflect potential voting. As others point out, his 33% approval is a significant number, but one poll showing this has him pulling in 44% to Trump’s 41% when respondents choose on that matchup.

  174. 174.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: The nym “C.P. Ballinger” rang a bell. So I checked and sure ‘nough, it was the name of Paul Ford’s character in A Big Hand for the Little Lady. Ballinger is the gruff banker who conspires with card sharps Henry Fonda and Joanne Woodward to bluff five local businessmen out of a giant pot in their annual poker game. His motive is vengeance.

  175. 175.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid: Also I suspect those under-30s are most likely to fall into the “Anything Less Than Everything Is Nothing” hole. This issue has been distorted into a can’t-win proposition by twitter.

  176. 176.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: Another lever to try is a very favorable job market. May be this can be pressed harder than it has been so far. This is something that almost all young people benefit from, not just a minority of them.

  177. 177.

    Geminid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wonder how different members of this group sees the problem. Some of those claiming to represent them certainly advocate this, but I am very sceptical in general about these “spokesmen.”

    Again, I want to see polling. I’ve seen some, and I know there is more. The current moratorium on payment expires in a month and a half. I expect it will be extended again, but I think that’s when we’ll see a push in Congress for legislation addressing the problem, and hopefully there will be another wave of polls. And also analyses of just which people owe student debt, and how much. There are many assertions out there that need to be fact checked, I think.

  178. 178.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: It is funny how people talk about a concerted effort to undermine the President and VP in media, social and other, and then Shazaam! three soreheads pop up the same morning. Maybe they were tasked with enlightening the centrist boomers and backwards Gen-Xers on this forum.

    They make me appreciate commenter Taumaturgo. That person perseveres in a hostile climate, kind of like an Ailanthus tree in mid-20th century Brooklyn. Compared to these guys- and I’m damn sure they’re guys- Taumaturgo seems like a jackal. In a certain way.

  179. 179.

    Bill Arnold

    @Geminid:

    Ballinger is the gruff banker who conspires with card sharps Henry Fonda and Joanne Woodward to bluff five local businessmen out of a giant pot in their annual poker game. His motive is vengeance.

    Interesting, and dang. Should have done the due diligence on the nym before replying. (But my reply stands. (On a few levels.)) (I did check The Archives, both new and old, for the nym.)

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