Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Come on, man.

We won’t go back.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

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

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

How stupid are these people?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

People are complicated. Love is not.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

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

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Fabulous Joe Biden!

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Fabulous Joe Biden!

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Thursday Morning Open Thread 3

(Clay Jones via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

195Comments

  1. 1.

    Suzanne

    I am really pleased about the new head of the Secret Service. (I wanted to abbreviate that, but calling it by its initials is…. not a good look.) Seriously, though…. the fact that even the SecServ (see what I did there?) is full of TFG minions proves that the yoots are on to something with ACAB.

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “I didn’t have any advance notice. None, zero, not one single bit.”

    “Yeah? Riiiight…. Sure you didn’t.”

  3. 3.

    Baud

    President Biden signed the Public Safety Officer Support Act of 2022 this week, which extends benefits to families of first responders who die by suicide.

    Anyone know which Republicans voted against this?

  5. 5.

    Baud

    @Baud:

    17 Republicans in the house voted against it.
    Boebert
    Buck
    Burchett
    Clyde
    Estes
    Gaetz
    Gohmert
    Greene (GA)
    Harris
    Hice (GA)
    Higgins (LA)
    Massie
    Mast
    Norman
    Perry
    Rosendale
    Roy

  9. 9.

    MagdaInBlack

    BIg cheers for the new head of SecServ ( ty Suzanne) Hope she does some serious housecleaning.

  11. 11.

    NorthLeft

    @OzarkHillbilly: Not clear on what you are saying here. I am sure that there have been discussions between Garland and President Biden regarding whether Trump is immune from search/arrest in the past.

    I imagine that Garland would have been told that no one is above the law and to carry out your job to enforce the laws of this country. I am also sure that Biden would emphasize that no further “approvals” or notification would be required.

    I think Joe is pretty smart that way.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A Missouri school district has decided to reinstate corporal punishment in its classrooms, allowing students to be punished with a paddle under a new policy.

    The school board approved the policy in June and notified parents that Missouri’s Cassville school district is bringing back spanking – a disciplinary measure abandoned by the district in 2001, according to the Springfield News Leader. The change to reinstate spanking came after a survey sent to parents last year revealed they wanted additional discipline and was one of their major concerns, said Merlyn Johnson, Cassville school superintendent.

    “The complaints that we have heard from some of our parents is that they don’t want their students suspended. They want another option,” Johnson told The Hill. “And so, this was just another option that we could use before we get to that point of suspension.”

    Administrators will implement corporal punishment as a “last resort” if other disciplinary measures do not work. The punishment will only be used in “reasonable form and upon the recommendation of the principal”, Johnson said.

    Parents who want their children hit can sign an opt-in form provided by the school office. Johnson said that he is still unclear how many parents will allow their children to be hit. He said forms were sent out Wednesday during open house and he should “have a number later in the week”, the Springfield News Leader reported.

    That’s one way to find out who the abusers are.

  23. 23.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Steeplejack:

    I’m still trying to figure out “TFW” from last night’s thread.

    Didn’t read last night’s thread, but it generally means “that feeling when” or something similar.

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    Alexandra Petri’s new column this morning hits the mark. A few snippets:
    Link

    Stop Improving Things Right Now! Everyone Must Suffer as I Did!

    DISGUSTING! AWFUL! I have just received word that life is getting marginally better for some people, and I am white-hot with fury! This is the worst thing that could possibly happen! I did not suffer and strive and work my fingers to the bone so that anybody else could have a life that does not involve suffering and striving and the working of fingers to the bone. I demand to see only bones and no fingers!

    . . .

    When I see unleaded paint or un-asbestosed homes, I froth at the mouth and start stomping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin. And who are we to think we deserve better than to die of sepsis? Why shouldn’t smallpox be out in the world for us as it once was? Are we too good for scurvy, now? Our great-grandparents made do without penicillin, did they not?

    . . .

    I am not opposed to this student loan forgiveness plan because I fear it won’t ease the suffering of millions; I am opposed to it because I fear that it will.

    I fought uphill battles and squinted into the night and toiled and burdened myself in the hope that my children, one day, would also get to work exactly that hard, if not harder, and suffer at least as much as I did, and have, if the Lord allows, lives worse than mine. God, please make their lives worse!

     

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NorthLeft: I am relating what every FOX viewer has running thru their heads. Whatever Joe Biden says or doesn’t say, Fucker Carlson has the narrative set in their heads.

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I am relating what every FOX viewer has running thru their heads. 

    That shouldn’t take too long. There’s not much there but this inchoate fart cloud of resentment and grievance and envy.

  36. 36.

    Suzanne

    FYI, my head is full of an inchoate fart cloud of resentment and grievance and envy, plus a shit ton of song lyrics and useless trivia that I hope might help me on Jeopardy one day.

  37. 37.

    eversor

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I don’t think Tucker actually sets the narratives.  You started hearing the Christian Intellectuals talking about Great Replacement, Losing The West, Orban, National Conservatism, and CRT months before Carlson mentioned it.  Those were the people who got him the interview Orban.

    The entire thing is a self propelling machine where all these people keep feeding into each other.   But Fox isn’t the origination, it all starts in churches and christian publications.  Tucker can amplify it but he’s not the driver.

  38. 38.

    MomSense

    I’m glad they brought in a new head of the SecServ. I knew a bunch of them when I lived in KPort (even went to weddings and baby showers) and let’s just say there was a lot of cheating while they were on the road. They also looked the other way when HW was traveling.  Didn’t seem smart to me from a security perspective.

  39. 39.

    Tony Jay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “I didn’t have any advance notice. None, zero, not one single bit.”

    “Yeah? Riiiight…. Sure you didn’t.”

    Which is then immediately followed by the realisation that this proves – proves, I tell you – that not even the lawless Kommissars of the Federal Bureau of Ideology (heh, indeedy) trust Simple Joe with important national security information about illegal home-invasions aimed at political opponents. Open your eyes, sheeple!

  41. 41.

    RSA

    @Baud: Also news stories:

    Teacher suspended for refusing to strike children

    “She obviously didn’t grow up around here,” one parent commented.

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    @MagdaInBlack: It’s not noticed enough that since W began his militarization of the police, their crime-solving stats went down.

    They find policing the CITIZENS more important than actually solving crimes…

  49. 49.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    So has the crazification factor only really gone up 1%?

    From the new Franklin & Marshall College Poll of PA voters*

    Question: ” Regardless of how you plan to vote, Which Candidate for U.S. Senate do you think is best described by the following statements? Do you think Fetterman or Oz:

    Best understands the concerns of Pennsylvanians?  Fetterman=52%,   Oz=28% , Don’t know=21%

    *manually transcribed from the dead tree version of the Reading Eagle newspaper by me. online is paywalled

    Probably buried somewhere on the F&M Poll twitter or their website.

  50. 50.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: The problem is, many people think other people’s kids who are the problem should be paddled, not their kids! I’m glad most schools don’t do that anymore, but not surprised a school in my neck of the woods would do this.

    My dad had a paddle when he was a school principal and superintendent; it was pretty rare for him to use it.  My favorite story of his was when he suspended one male high school student. He called the student’s dad to tell him his son had been suspended and why, and the father said “I’ll take care of that”. Evidently the kid who thought he was getting a 3-day vacation had to pick rocks on a field for the three days he was suspended! My dad thought that was hilarious. I suspect the student behaved better after that.

  51. 51.

    Sally

    Petri is exactly correct – how dare we move on.  Bring back the 90% marginal tax rate, right now!  It’s not fair that all those people suffered, skimped and saved all those years to pay their higher taxes, just so that these modern layabouts can pay NOTHING, well, almost nothing, in tax.

  52. 52.

    Cacti

    Regarding TFG and what’s going on with him.  It’s worth remembering.

    Reality Winner got a 63-month sentence for stealing ONE classified document.

    And that wasn’t after months of polite requests to return it, with no legal reprisals.

    Also too, “the liberal” Glenn Greenwald was just fine with that.

  54. 54.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: They wanted TFG to use the DOJ and FBI as his own personal police force to get revenge on his enemies, so they can’t imagine that other presidents didn’t do that too. To them it’s natural that Biden would order the DOJ to raid TFG’s home. Of course, he didn’t, but they’ll never believe that.

  56. 56.

    Soprano2

    @Cacti: I wish Democrats would point out more that literally anyone else who had the documents TFG had in his house would be under arrest already! This is a crime that people can understand easily, use that!

  59. 59.

    sab

    Biden is trending because he is old and we only just now noticed.

    Also too he has a POC woman as VP and we didn’t notice during the actual electon.

  60. 60.

    DougL

    @eversor: Many on the liberal side don’t understand just how powerfully pervasive the church is in the lives of the right wing base.  These people believe in literal fairy tales and that they’re step soldiers in a holy war.  They are very used to being told what to believe and how to behave and now those churches are ALL about rw politics and HATING Dems . IMHO we need to go after the churches and reinvigorate the wall between church and state if we ever want lasting power.  The evangelicals are largely ignorant and not-very-bright people but they are tenacious.  I of course have no real suggestions that wouldn’t prompt a ferocious backlash but this a real and growing problem we can’t ignore.

  65. 65.

    Cacti

    @sab: I don’t have a link handy, but the NYT wrote an article today about the surge in women voter registrations.

    They were careful not to attribute it to Republicans wanting to strip their rights away, and even included a caveat that some could be MAGA women, rejoicing at their new broodmare status.

    These fucking people.

  66. 66.

    sab

    @Baud: My children are wimps. I thought they could beat those leopards. I thought that was what they were learning in their charter school.

  67. 67.

    WereBear

    @Cacti:

    [NYT] were careful not to attribute it to Republicans wanting to strip their rights away, and even included a caveat that some could be MAGA women, rejoicing at their new broodmare status.

     
    This, also, will be noticed. There’s only so much a style section can do.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @DougL:

    The evangelicals are largely ignorant and not-very-bright people but they are tenacious.

    I don’t think they are ignorant, at least not politically. I learned that DeSantis signed Florida’s new restrictive abortion law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks. One would think that would piss off the “life begins as conception and everything afterwords is murder” crowd. But it appears they are comfortable with murder because supporting DeSantis works to their political advantage. They know what they are doing.

  70. 70.

    gene108

    @Cacti:

    Also too, “the liberal” Glenn Greenwald was just fine with that.

    Glen’s incompetence got her sent to jail.

  76. 76.

    Percysowner

    I was talking to my friend yesterday. She state that she hoped Biden didn’t run again, because he’s too old, but she also doesn’t see anyone else in the Democratic Party as being a good candidate. She did say she would vote for Liz Cheyney if she ran. I didn’t say anything, because it is a couple of years away and I’ll work on her when the time comes, but boy that worried me.

    Note: I’m 69 and she’s 76, so we both know old. The difference is I see what Biden has done and think he can keep on doing it, if he wants to, and she just sees him as old. This will be a problem when 2024 comes around, because I doubt she is the only one.

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    Quick check in. I want to thank you all for your kind words of support yesterday. Crisis for my Mom has passed for the moment. Doctor thinks it might have been an “absence seizure” — (whatever the hell that is gotta look it up). She is on her way back to assisted care.

    My mother had a non-malignant brain tumor operation in 1964 and again in ’76. That thing triggered a seizure disorder that has been handled primarily with phenobarbital — an old fashioned downer. They have been trying newer (and better) meds, but she has such a barbiturate addiction (from 50+ years of use) that tinkering with her meds is, well, upsetting to her system. And because of her age, they won’t give her the benzos most people get when getting off Barbies. Getting old not only sucks, it is way complicated.

  83. 83.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @prostratedragon:

    My mother’s birthday, too! She was always inordinately proud of that fact that she was precisely one year older than Lenny. Happy birthday to both, much loved, much missed.

  84. 84.

    marklar

    @WereBear: “Children should be treated gently, like muffin batter. That’s how to get the best results.”

    Battered children.  Sounds like a key plank in Conservatives’ platform.

  85. 85.

    germy shoemangler

    UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The Uvalde school district has fired police chief Pete Arredondo under mounting pressure in the grieving Texas town to punish officers over the law enforcement response to the deadly elementary school massacre in which a man armed with an AR-15-style rifle remained in a fourth-grade classroom for more than an hour, killing 19 children and two teachers.

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lowtechcyclist:

    FLA, not TLA, but whenever I see FTFY, I always have to stop and figure out which string of words makes more sense in context. Same with LGM.

  88. 88.

    Danielx

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Truly disgusting.

    Before my parents sent me off to a Jesuit high school*, I attended public school for grades 1-8. There were a number of psychopathic sadists masquerading as teachers/coaches who carried paddles around with them because they liked to use them and have them available as a threat. Always males, and they enjoyed beating kids until they were bruised – the more the better. Been a few decades and I can’t remember all my teachers from back then but I remember those bastards, and I wasn’t even one of their victims.

    *Ruining my life or so I thought at the time. An all male high school? And nobody knew anything about psychopathic sexual predator Jesuits at the time, although I was pretty sure some of them were psychopathic.

  89. 89.

    Mike E

    @raven: agreed, though “bad apples” doesn’t come close to describing how a pervasive/persistent toxic culture has taken hold in many departments across the country. Hard to overcome imo

  94. 94.

    Ken

    @Tony Jay: Forgive me for asking, but will we be treated to another diatribe/analysis of UK politics soon, or are you waiting until the (checks Google… Jesus) 0.38% of the UK population that’s allowed to vote chooses the next Prime Minister?

  97. 97.

    Steeplejack

    Sally Field’s mother (Maggie Mahoney/Margaret Field) coming up on Perry Mason from 1959.

  100. 100.

    Gin & Tonic

    Russia’s Ministry of Education says the percentage of the population that believes the Sun revolves around the Earth is growing.

    ❗️В России растет процент людей, считающих, что Солнце вращается вокруг Земли — Минобрнауки— Газета.Ru (@GazetaRu) August 25, 2022

  102. 102.

    Bostondreams

    @DougL: IMHO we need to go after the churches and reinvigorate the wall between church and state if we ever want lasting power.

     

    Meanwhile in Florida, the most recent summer training provided to teachers told them that the ‘wall’ was a myth and they need to stop teaching it. :/

  105. 105.

    Percysowner

    @Paul in KY: ​
     She canvassed for Obama and voted for Hillary, so not Republican. She’s more uniformed. She sees the defense of democracy, not the other Cheney votes. Now she is a fairly conservative Democrat, but she has been on the right side for most of her life. If Cheney runs, we will have to really press on the ways in which she is Republican on everything that isn’t Trump.

  108. 108.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
      It fits with what Biden said before the election about restoring the independence of the DOJ. I believe him. He wanted to restore independence and he appointed a stickler for propriety.

  110. 110.

    WereBear

    @Steeplejack: I could probably do at least a Master’s Thesis on how regional television stations shaped young minds over a few decades.

    There were different kid’s shows, horror movie hosts, late night weird things. The stuff our local UHF station cobbled together on the cheap with local talent was a great thing to experience that the Internet has brought back.

    Only now it self-sorts by inclination, not the brute force of living in geographic range.

  111. 111.

    zhena gogolia

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: She comes off so well in the hearings. It only makes me even more furious that “her” Wyoming people would vote for that idiot Hageman instead of her, when her policies ARE the ones they want. The only thing she did wrong was fail to worship their god-king. That said, anyone who’s not a wingnut who thinks they want to vote for her is not thinking straight.

  114. 114.

    RobertB

    @Danielx: The teachers at the schools I went to weren’t carrying paddles around, but that didn’t stop them from using them.  And it seemed like all the schools had a monster “Board of Education” in the principal’s office.

    It was usually the boys that would get paddled (raises hand) – I don’t remember ever seeing a girl get paddled, with one exception when the whole class got paddled for honoring 6th-grade omerta.

  115. 115.

    stacib

    @Raoul Paste: This is exactly the phrase that caught my attention, too.  How would you like to be the kid whose parent is all “yeah, hit my kid”?

  118. 118.

    Tony Jay

    @Ken:

    It’s been more or less impossible to work up any enthusiasm for reporting on the tediously interminable inevitability of the Tory leadership ‘race’. Once it came down to A Brown Man vs Anything Other Than A Brown Man, it was always going to be AOTABM, so yes, the empty-headed puff of talcum powder calling itself Liz Truss is going to be the next Prime Minister of the UK.

    Other than that, the coverage has just been a series of uninteresting vignettes where Truss says something mind-blowingly stupid and offensive to appeal to the hyper-radicalised Tory membership and then Sunak – who belatedly learned that even the appearance of credibility was a strong negative when performing for this rabid audience – tries (and fails) to one-up her by rubbing shit all over his face and prancing around the stage ritually castrating otters with his teeth.

    I’m sure that once Flobby finally gets bored of his constant post-booting holiday lifestyle and normal service is resumed I’ll be getting incensed on a regular basis, but for now it’s just sad, and grey and boring.

    A bit like the current Labour Party.

  120. 120.

    Wapiti

    @DougL: IMHO we need to go after the churches and reinvigorate the wall between church and state if we ever want lasting power.

    The 30 Years War, fought over religion, ended in 1648. Something between 4 and 8 million soldiers and civilians had died. When the US Constitution/BOR was written in 1787, the founders knew they didn’t want that again.

    They were 129 years from the 30 Years War. Closer than we are to the end of the Civil War, 157 years.

    We need to reinvigorate the separation of church and state not for power, but to preserve the Union.

  121. 121.

    PatrickG

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    A variant I’ve heard is “Assigned Cop at Birth”, used for those who grew up in a multigenerational tradition. “My pappy was a cop, and my grandpappy before him…”

  122. 122.

    JWR

    I got a “swat”, what we called corporal punishment back in junior high school, because I happened to be in the line of fire when one student threw something at another. I managed to knock whatever it was away, but all three of us were paddled, and not gently! I am opposed, as were my parents.

    Also, I missed most of the thread devoted to student aid loan relief, but there was some confusion about whether it would affect pre or post grad students. NPR tells me it will cover both, so I think that’s a bit of good news.

    Finally, today’s the day Judge Reinhart is supposed to rule on any retractions to the T***p affidavit. (Wait, was it today or tomorrow? I’m sleepy.)

  123. 123.

    Quiltingfool

    @OzarkHillbilly: Former teacher here.  Using violence to control children is wrong.  Corporal punishment was allowed in my district; I can remember it being used rarely  although that is too much.  Most parents in the district did not want anybody hitting their children, and before the principal administered a “spanking” the parents had to be notified.  Still wrong.

    What caught my eye was that parents preferred someone beating their child over suspension.  This affirms what I knew when teaching – some parents wanted the school to do all the discipline, parents didn’t want to do the hard part of parenting.  They want the teachers to be the bad guy, not them.

    I’m reminded of a single mom of a student; her daughter was a slim young lady, and tough as nails.  Tough in that one day in the hall, a bully grabbed at her, thinking she was a weak little gal, and that gal practically shoved him into a locker.  Hard.  He backed off.  I saw the whole thing and had to keep from laughing – the kid she shoved was an asshole in class.  I am ashamed, though, when he later was being an asshole in class, I reminded him that a little bitty slip of a girl bested him – he shut his pie hole damn quick.  It was wrong of me to do that, but it felt good.

    Anyway, this same girl got caught smoking in the restroom.  Principal offered to give her in school suspension instead of regular suspension.  The mom said nope, send her home, I’ll take over.  Mom told me that daughter wasn’t going to have fun on her day out – instead Mom had daughter load and stack firewood all day while Mom sat on the truck tailgate and supervised.  No beating required, and I’d say the girl would have preferred to be in school!

  127. 127.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: @Quiltingfool: I imagine both of those sets of parents also gave the kids the speech about “If you get expelled or drop out, this is the kind of work you’ll be doing for the rest of your life, so you might as well get used to it.”

  129. 129.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Percysowner:

    She did say she would vote for Liz Cheyey if she ran.

    The Republicans would never nominate her.  A black man became president and then they failed to vote him out.  The base has had the fuck enough of even pretending to be reasonable.  They’re living in the evangelical white supremacist’s image of the apocalypse, where men can become women, a black man can beat them in the most important contest in their world, they get laughed at when they justify themselves by saying Jesus told them to do it… the list goes on.  Oh, and miscegenation is everywhere on television and treated as normal.  That one horrifies them.  Being reasonable and obeying the system put them in this abusive bigot’s Hell.

    @zhena gogolia:

    The only thing she did wrong was fail to worship their god-king.

    Her crime was failing to wage Total War, and that has been an unforgivable offense since Obama was elected.  It could be Jeb! Bush and voting with the Democrats to punish him for anything would be an unforgivable offense.

  131. 131.

    Miss Bianca

    @Quiltingfool: I still have flashbacks to the paddlings that happened in my suburban public elementary school back in the 70s. Usually always boys, and the same boys. Nowadays I can look back and see that these boys likely had some learning difficulty or disability that was interfering with their ability to concentrate in class, so they would act up. They weren’t bad kids by any means.

    And I agree that what the “paddling vs suspension” means is that these parents don’t want to have to deal with disciplining their own kids. They want the school to raise their children for them.

  132. 132.

    NotMax

    Greetings from Noo Yawk.

    First time viewing/using BJ on a phone. I don’t rightly see how y’all do it on a regular basis.

  133. 133.

    soapdish

    Good morning everyone, quick question about the student loan debt relief program: is the $125k annual figure based on one’s *federal* taxable income?

  134. 134.

    Geminid

    @NotMax: Glad you had a safe trip.

    You’ll get used to visiting Balloon Juice on a phone. At least, I did. I’ve never done otherwise.

  135. 135.

    Steeplejack

    @WereBear:

    True. So much “local color” programming disappeared with the spread of corporate ownership and the advent of the Internet.

    Perry Mason is a check-in habit a few times a week with me. A calming fantasy of a world where justice prevails. MeTV at 9:00 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. ET on weekdays. Yes, I know I can stream it, but that’s not the same.

  138. 138.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quiltingfool: What caught my eye was that parents preferred someone beating their child over suspension.

    That caught my eye too, tho I had a different thought. I figured it might be because if the kid was sent home, the parent would lose a few days of work. shrug

  140. 140.

    Scout211

    News from COVID.  Our oldest finally got COVID this past weekend.  I told him to ask his doctor for Paxlovid but the doctor refused due the meds he was on.  He is vaxxed and boosted so he is getting through the week okay.  But the news about Paxlovid is that it doesn’t really work for those under 65.  Link

     

    WASHINGTON — Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill appears to provide little or no benefit for younger adults, while still reducing the risk of hospitalization and death for high-risk seniors, according to a large study published Wednesday.
    The results from a 109,000-patient Israeli study are likely to renew questions about the U.S. government’s use of Paxlovid, which has become the go-to treatment for COVID-19 due to its at-home convenience. The Biden administration has spent more than $10 billion purchasing the drug and making it available at thousands of pharmacies through its test-and-treat initiative.
    The researchers found that Paxlovid reduced hospitalizations among people 65 and older by roughly 75% when given shortly after infection. That’s consistent with earlier results used to authorize the drug in the U.S. and other nations.

  142. 142.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Percysowner: Like Baud said, sounds like a “normie”.

    Normies are so frustrating, because you think they care about the results of politics, and therefore would gain an excellent understanding of how politics works. But they either don’t know or don’t care, and are overly influenced by the BS media narratives that are out there.

    It’s like the appliance salesperson who is talking up all the various features of the different models, and the customer only cares about getting the color they like.

  143. 143.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @OzarkHillbilly: if the kid was sent home, the parent would lose a few days of work

    It’s a genuine concern if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, like so many families. Sucks that US employers aren’t required to provide more time off for family matters.

  147. 147.

    Steeplejack

    Clearing my “good takes” cache . . .

    If you have a problem with the student loan cancellation because you already paid off your loans, just pretend it’s a tax cut for the rich that you also never got but mysteriously didn’t complain about.

    — Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) August 24, 2022

  149. 149.

    Scout211

    @soapdish: I would think it is based on your Federal tax returns.  Link

    But here is some information that may help.

     

    Nearly 8 million borrowers may be able to receive debt forgiveness automatically because the Department of Education already has their income information, FSA says.

    The Biden administration will launch an application in the coming weeks for borrowers to provide their income information or if borrowers are unsure if the department has their income information already. FSA says the application will be available before the federal student loan repayment pause ends on December 31.
    Borrowers can sign up for updates on when the application is open at the Department of Education’s subscriptions page.

  150. 150.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    and looking at Filipowski’s feed:

    Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski 2m

    Megyn Kelly joins the chorus of MAGA calling for Fauci to be hauled before committees if they take the House: “F*ck you, Dr. Fauci! You get a congressional subpoena, you’ll show up or you’ll get the Steve Bannon treatment.”

    In the same post-2016 panic in which they hired Hugh Hewitt and Peggy Noonan, and rumor had it they wanted to fire Joy Reid, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Donnell, MS/NBC hired Megyn Kelly, and in a matter of months had to pay her tens of millions to go away. Then Nicolle Wallace became their second biggest star based on her raw hatred of Donald trump.

  152. 152.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    “F*ck you, Dr. Fauci! You get a congressional subpoena, you’ll show up or you’ll get the Steve Bannon treatment.”

    As I said the other day, quite apart from the question of media biases, it’s pretty clear that the media is becoming more and more unprofessional.

  156. 156.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: I don’t know what they’re paying her at Sirius, but I can’t imagine between her years at Fox, the NBC buy off and I can’t imagine she hasn’t ground out a book or two for Regnery, she doesn’t have millions in the bank, but this looks like she really, really misses the sweet dopamine that comes with having a camera pointed at you.

  160. 160.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Percysowner: A friend of ours said something similar recently and it really disappointed me.  She was coming from a position of “why do we still get stuck with an old, white man.”  Which I get.  I’m a big believer in representation and want more women, PoC, LGBTQ people etc. in positions of power.  I supported Kamala, Gillibrand  and Warren early on in the 2020 Primary.  But I also think her logic comes dangerously close to completely disregarding all experience, knowledge and achievement in an effort to make Identity the ONLY factor.  Biden has done some truly great things.  Way more than I thought he would.  And he’s the only candidate we know that can beat Trump, because he’s already done so.  I think the institutional knowledge that Biden has from his years in the Senate and as VP were his biggest asset in 2020 (just as they were for Hillary in 2016) and still are now.  Wanting to toss aside Biden after all he’s done just seems really foolish unless 1.) Biden wants to step aside or 2.) there’s somebody younger, a woman, PoC etc., who is an even better candidate who can definitely beat Trump in 2024.  As much as I love VP Harris, I don’t really see anyone who has a better chance than Biden in 2024.  And that election is just too damn important to take any chances, imo, when we will likely again need record turnout on our side.

    Fwiw, our friend is very progressive but only slightly more politically-engaged than a Normie.  Anyways, I suspect this Old Biden narrative is being pushed by Russia but it’s sad how many people on our side are already taking the bait.

  162. 162.

    Ken

    @sab: Perry Mason: fantasy world where they have a full trial at the arraignment, with all the witnesses in the room.

    And one of the witnesses confesses to being the real killer, clearing Mason’s client.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    @Percysowner:

    There can be a pretty large difference between 69 and 76. Between 2015 and 2017 I had 20 people I knew pass away. Only one was older than me and he was 1 yr older. I was 66-68 yrs old during that 2 yr period. Yes there are a lot of people who live decades longer but there are also a lot that don’t, for a variety of reasons. A lot of people don’t take good enough care of themselves. A lot have health issues over and above normal. One’s perspective can change as well, you have to want to live and be healthy and even that doesn’t always work. But without that perspective it rarely does.

  168. 168.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I would guess that if Fauci got a congressional subpoena, he’d honor it without being threatened by Kelly. He’s not afraid of answering questions and has the advantage of not having committed a crime.

    I would guess he’d come before a Congressional committee and testify with just an invitation — no subpoena necessary — as he’s done many, many times in the past. But the Republicans are more than capable of starting out by issuing a subpoena just because they can. Dick-waving.

  169. 169.

    Steeplejack

    @sab:

    😹 And it’s not like Law and Order and the other current shows are much better; they’ve just updated and streamlined the tropes for our sophisticated, “meta” age.

  171. 171.

    sab

    @Steeplejack: My world isn’t like Law and Order. My city’s cops shot random young motorists to smithereens, and refuse for a full year to charge a neighbor who is terrorizing a young black woman. They finally had to charge him when he shot her and her aunt, disabling both.

  174. 174.

    Another Scott

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I got paddled once in middle school.  I was messing around at the lunch table with a friend and an empty 1/2 pint milk carton ended up flying down the table a few spots, wholly unintentionally.  Someone ratted me out, and my friend and I got whacked.

    2-3 teachers took us down to a different room, the paddle was brought out, and we each got 3 whacks, I think.  I kept protesting that it was an accident and we weren’t doing anything warranting such treatment.  The friend took his hits like it was no big deal.  I was so shocked and upset and humiliated that I was crying when I walked back into the lunchroom.

    Not a good day.

    I had one of the teachers for a class a year or so later.  (He was memorable because he was in a wheelchair.)  I don’t know if he recalled the incident – he probably was good about not showing his cards – but I remember it pretty viscerally nearly 50 years later.

    So, yeah, not a fan of corporal punishment.  There are better ways to get a student to pay attention to proper behavior.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  178. 178.

    Soprano2

    @UncleEbeneezer: I would point out how many women and POC he has in his cabinet, and how many he has appointed as judges to the federal bench. It’s not all about the president being a woman or POC.

  179. 179.

    CaseyL

    @Immanentize: Whew, very glad to hear your Mom is back at her assisted care facility.

    Getting old is very complicated, when new conditions jostle alongside established chronic ones and make treatment an exercise in tiptoeing through minefields.  My Mom is, thank goodness, doing great for her age.  Her sister, who was always the most vigorous, most active, of the two, is the one now having a lot of physical issues (she has Reynauds and possibly RA) – and the constant pain is also affecting her mental state.

  180. 180.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: IMHO things like spanking are the lazy person’s way of doing discipline. It’s meant to humiliate and frighten the student so that they don’t do it again. Having to think of more creative ways to punish students is seen as “soft” by way too many people. That kid my dad sent home declined three swats with a paddle. I bet he was wishing he’d taken those on the second day he had to pick up rocks all day!!

  181. 181.

    Geminid

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: My friend Stephanie could be called a “normy.” She pays little attention to politics and would watch a mediocre sports broadcast before she’d watch excellent political programming. She does catch radio news on her commute.

    But Stephanie votes every election and always votes Democratic.  She’s just a very shrewd person who can tell the good guys from the assholes without spending a lot of time studying the matter.

  182. 182.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I remember reading an article about corporal punishment many years ago. A vice principal said he just wasn’t gonna do it any more after a teacher sent a first grader to his office. He said (from distant memory) the notion of a six-foot, two-hundred-pound white man beating a six-year-old Black girl with a wooden board sickened him. The strongest advocate for keeping corporate punishment in that school was the special education teacher. That just about made me cry.

  184. 184.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Soprano2: This friend in particular, likes Biden and started with “don’t get me wrong, he’s doing a great job…” so I don’t think she’s really strongly in favor of someone else (she will happily vote for him in 2024), but it just showed how fast this sort of Biden Is Too Old sentiment is spreading which is not surprising but still scary.

    It’s also worth mentioning that this was part of a conversation that largely revolved around the problem lack of women in positions of power in the art/museum world (and in the world in general).  So the context is crucial.

  187. 187.

    kindness

    I just finished going over this morning’s WaPo and am (but probably shouldn’t be) astounded at the number of people writing that Student Loan debt forgiveness is going to doom the Democratic Party’s election hopes.  All their reasonings are bile filled jealousy and selfishness that Republicans would use.  Now I have to figure most the comments to that extent were bots or Russian, so a lot of them got Ignore Used so I’d never have to read their whiny asses again.

  189. 189.

    Violet

    @Another Scott: I taught in public middle schools for 25 years and even ran a classroom for students with behavioral problems. Never needed to resort to physical punishment. It wasn’t always easy, but winning over trust takes time and patience.

  190. 190.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @kindness:

    This is why we haven’t gotten reparations we’re owed. It’s not the money, it’s the fragility of those who will not get any. The anger of not being centered. And the desire to destroy that which they cannot have.

  193. 193.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @SiubhanDuinne: I know in this context (and site) that LGM means “lawyers, guns, and money”, but my first reaction is always “little green men”, which I learned years ago in an intro to astronomy class.

  194. 194.

    something fabulous

    Poop. Got to the thread too late for the obligatory:

    “You rang?”

    But since it *is* obligatory…

  195. 195.

    Ruckus

    @Danielx:

    First week of 7th grade we had PE. We’d just had play time before that.  Watched the PE teacher pick up the kid next to me by a hand around his throat under his chin so he didn’t have to bend down to yell at the kid. Kid’s feet off the ground but just at the right height to do some serious damage. I was thinking, I wonder what would happen to me if he picked me up and I gave him a swift toe in the junk. Cause I’m pretty sure that if I did or didn’t do that, one of my parents would. I never had to find out.

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