"We are not going to be negotiating over the debt ceiling," Biden's @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre says when asked about talking with GOP in Congress. "This is something that should be done without conditions." pic.twitter.com/2igR6gQIJ7
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 17, 2023
"It is important – we're not going to work our way around this. We're not going to negotiate on this," @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre says. It's a basic duty of Congress to deal with this issue, and Ds and Rs during Trump admin were able to deal with debt limit 3 times, she says. https://t.co/nuzsoJQUJz
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 17, 2023
Sorry the United States does not negotiate with terrorists.
— What Biden Has Done (@What46HasDone) January 17, 2023
Yea, verily — McCarthy can negotiate with Jeffries, and with his very own Tantrum Terrorist Caucus; he doesn’t deserve the President’s attention on this topic:
… “I would like to sit down with all the leaders and especially the president and start having discussions,” McCarthy said Tuesday at the Capitol. He noted the government is about six months away from running out of cash. “Who wants to put the nation through some type of threat at the last minute with the debt ceiling? Nobody wants to do that.”
Republicans now in control of the House have been demanding deep spending cuts as the price for an increase in the statutory ceiling on federal debt. President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats demand the limit to be raised without conditions — a message reiterated hours after McCarthy spoke.
“This is something that should be done without conditions,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked if Biden will sit down with Republicans to discuss lifting the debt limit. “We’ve been very, very clear about that. We are not going to be negotiating over the debt ceiling.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reinforced that message as well, saying it would be “reckless” to try and bargain with the nation’s debt.
“There should be no political brinkmanship with the debt limit,” the New York Democrat said in a statement…
Jean-Pierre said, “congressional Republicans are threatening to hold the nation’s full faith and credit — a mandate of the Constitution — hostage to their demands to cut Social Security to cut Medicare and to cut Medicaid – brinksmanship that threatens the global economy.”
Yellen told congressional leaders on Friday that the government will start deploying extraordinary accounting measures on Jan. 19 to avoid running out of cash. She said while it’s impossible to specify now when those measures will be exhausted, it’s unlikely to be before early June.
McCarthy said that after an initial conversation with Biden upon becoming speaker, he has not had an invitation for a follow-up meeting on the debt ceiling.
Part of the deal McCarthy struck with ultraconservatives from his party to get their votes in the drawn-out House speaker election was to use the debt limit as leverage to force budget cuts, though without specific amounts or programs targeted…
Not our monkeys, not our circus, Kevin!
ETA:
For context, roughly 25% of our total national debt incurred over the last 230 years actually occurred during the 4 years of the Trump administration. That's right. 25% of our entire national debt, all during the Trump years. https://t.co/xcNfpiZ1It
— David Jolly (@DavidJollyFL) January 18, 2023
On The Road – BillinGlendaleCA – Fall Color in and above Little Lakes Valley.
JPL
But his documents.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
AxelFoley
3rd!
Best Peasant
Has anyone brought up the trillion dollar coin yet?
Geminid
When I imagine Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise and Elise Stefanik sitting down to discuss the debt ceiling with Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, it makes me laugh for some reason.
Brachiator
Everybody knew this battle was coming. Biden has to deal with GOP fanatics who hate the idea of a federal government and who are practiced at denying reality.
These GOP idiots overestimate their power and will only end up hurting themselves, which is fine by me.
Geminid
@Best Peasant: People bring up the trillion dollar coin frequently on Twitter and in internet thought-pieces. The topic comes up here often too.
jeffreyw
“From the gentleman at the bar.”
daveNYC
Negotiation is iffy when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage.
Matt McIrvin
@Best Peasant: All the time, but there’s nothing left to say about it that will advance anyone’s understanding or cause something to happen. It’s sort of a shorthand for “if only Democrats had the IRON WILL…”
Tony Jay
Hilarious. The Squeaker made a shitload of promises to the Brain Parasite Caucus and now he wants the rest of the Government to give him cover in delivering pain to Americans.
Tell you what, Kev. Since you obviously get off on rejection and humiliation, why don’t you hold daily votes on some kind of House Resolution demanding that the President and Senate majority come meet you to discuss gutting popular Government programs? Hell, have two or three of them every day. Get CSPAN in to film the whole thing.
Given your spinelessness and the wealth of brainy talents on the Democratic side, I bet it’ll take a lot fewer than 15 votes for Jeffries’ Caucus to negotiate unconditional and automatic debt ceiling increases for the rest of your useless tenure in office.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Best Peasant: I heard Jen Psaki somewhere say the coin isn’t going to happen because Treasury refuses to create it
JMG
The simplest thing for Biden to do is simply state that the 14th Amendment says the debts of the US cannot be challenged (it does) and just keep the government running as ever.
PS: It’s not the Treasury which might refuse to mint the coin. The President can order Treasury to do things. It’s that the Fed might refuse to honor it as legal tender.
Nicole
I am curious why, seeing as how overturning Roe v Wade worked out for them at the ballot box, the GOP is now so eager to go after Social Security and Medicare. Americans already gave a pretty clear demonstration of how they feel about the gov’t taking something away, and that was a “right,” not something tangible like money.
That said, I was sent a link from my statistician brother about a study done that basically was a large-scale version of the sparrows and curtain rods theory and surprise, surprise people really do prefer to hurt the “other,” rather than help themselves. I’m still working my way through it, but it’s a very interesting read:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215633119
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s a One Weird Trick that is not going to sound legitimate to the public, and probably won’t foster the kind of confidence that’s needed to avoid an economic crisis. So I imagine the administration would rather do anything else than that. But the idea appeals to people who feel that Democrats need to be more gangster to beat the other guys
The other side’s strategy at this point is entirely focused on leveraging Weird Tricks to win and make us cry. So it’s easy to feel that we need more of our own. But I also think this is a distinguishing difference between the parties.
Betty Cracker
George Santos is even more of a scumbag than we knew. He used his fake animal rescue charity to hold a GoFundMe to raise $3K for a lifesaving operation needed by a disabled veteran’s service dog. Then, Santos pocketed the money and let the dog die while the owner begged him to release the funds.
New Deal democrat
I could swear I read somewhere that during the Jimmy Carter Administration, when the debt ceiling was breached, they simply kept on running programs as if nothing had happened, until the Congress got around to raising the limit.
Since the allocated spending and the debt limit are contradictory commands, it seems to me this remains a viable option. Yes, the Courts would get involved, but at most all they could do is give the Executive guidance on which statutory command to ignore.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Sensibly so. Money is an ephemeral concept anyway. People look too closely at it and scramble their brains.
We don’t need MAGAts adding their own coins to their pollution of the culture. It would be another wing in the QAnon museum as well.
WereBear
@Nicole: I see Authoritarianism everywhere, to the point that it has infested the culture in these surprising ways.
Surprising… to mature adults. Scary, because we don’t seem to have enough of those holding power.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
NotMax
“Debt ceiling crisis” is the “Red wave” of ’23 amongst the pearl clutching class.
In the non-political sphere, are you ready for ube?
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Which is how the wingnut mind aligns with the criminal one.
Paranoia makes them behave in ways so people avoid them, and then they never blame themselves. It’s such a distorting force it winds up in something where it wasn’t just money. It was on purpose.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
👍
MagdaInBlack
@jeffreyw: 😊
Geminid
I don’t advocate for the “trillion dollar coin” and I don’t think it’s gonna happen. But I will point out that it would need to be a 3 trillion dollar coin, if not a 5 trillion one.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: it’s a problem but I was way, way more worried in 2011, when the Republicans came to their hostage-taking with a large House majority and a unified caucus (or at least big enough that defectors didn’t matter). If the predicted red wave had happened, we’d be in much worse shape now.
Another Scott
@New Deal democrat: No, payments were late. Earlier B-J thread:
There were costs going forward.
Things are different now (lots more stuff to trade daily for liquidity), but it would still be setting money on fire for no reason, and would be dangerous if it lasts too long.
The main thing is, behavior continues until there are consequences, so if the GQP sees any benefits they’ll do it again…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Geminid: Why not a google dollar coin?
Frankensteinbeck
The Republican House caucus is not a monolith. McCarthy does not have the influence on any of its sides to make it a monolith. They’re united on a lot of things, like making up bizarre witch hunts as publicity stunts to show off how much they hate Democrats. They’re all assholes, and will unite on almost all issues that involve no self-risk but are mean and shitty.
This is not one of those issues. There are plenty of true believers who are so deranged with Cleek’s Law that they want to burn it all down. They are foaming at the mouth to shoot the hostage. There are also plenty of less-insane House Republicans who just want to keep their heads down, pass a status-quo budget and debt ceiling increase, and get back to the fun stuff: Hunter Biden dick pics. Enough will cross the line on both issues, if they get a vote. I really don’t understand how easy or hard the new rules make that, or what the spineless McCarthy will do. Schedule meaningless show votes first, most likely?
New Deal democrat
@Another Scott: Thanks for the info, but I think that was a separate event. The Wikipedia article says the 1989 event was an actual default on paying Treasuries, and was caused by technical reasons.
The event I recall reading about was earlier, and indicated that the Administration at the time simply ignored the debt limit and kept issuing new Treasuries. (My memory has been known to be wrong!)
Jeffro
It really is the only way to deal with these goons.
Dems should call a late-afternoon presser every single day on this: “we don’t negotiate with terrorists…the limit has been routinely raised for both D and R presidents over the years…Congress should pay its credit card…if the GQP wants to send the US (and world economy) into a tailspin, that’s on them…”
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Soprano2
OT, has anyone here ever used an online background check service? I need to use one, but I’m leery of just choosing one off the internet. I don’t want to hire someone, I just want to do a basic background check, and I need it to be able to search records of different states. Thanks for any help or advice anyone can provide. I want to apply for hubby to be executor of his son’s estate, but since there’s so much we don’t know about his life I thought it would be a good idea to do this first, just in case there are any nasty surprises out there (like maybe he never actually got divorced? Some of his friends in Hawaii told us this).
sab
@Tony Jay: I am betting the MSM will not discuss threat to gut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid aspect of all this.
randy khan)
Keep pounding on Social Security and Medicare, especially since it happens to be the truth.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m looking at the R suggestions that they can keep paying some US bills, including Social Security, while not paying others. Didn’t they suggest this once before? And didn’t Obama point out that all that stuff is automated and the programming doesn’t allow for paying some things and not others? Am I remembering that correctly?
JMG
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, you do remember correctly that that point was made by Obama. It would also be an actual default because say, a park ranger’s salary is backed by “the full faith and credit” of the US just as much as a bondholder’s interest payments are.
WereBear
I like the “strong parent’ message. Though this toddler is seriously disturbed.
Starfish
Republican Ex-Candidate Arrested in Shootings Targeting New Mexico Democrats
mrmoshpotato
Oh the Rethuglicans are threatening to torpedo the government again.
🙄🙄🙄
Maybe the children should all quit because apparently adult jobs are too tough for them.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: That seems like the best approach because the GOP is engaging in economic terrorism and negotiating with them will only encourage more hostage taking. But don’t you have to really mean it, even though you know you’re playing chicken with psychopaths?
If Dems make “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” the theme and then do end up negotiating with them, won’t they look weak? There aren’t really any good options unless Dems can make them blink without concessions. I’m not sure that’s possible.
Kay
It’s all variations on a young woman alone in the frame at first- she says “if it’s me or my unborn baby, pick me!” – or “if there’s complications during my labor, save me first!” then the frame widens and….includes her other children. Ah! Now we see why she’s worthy of ordinary standard of practice medical care- she’s already a mom!
She’s only worth anything as a mother to other children.
What a backward, archaic, women-hating country. Just appalling. Raising girls who believe they’re worth anything outside reproductive function will be more and more difficult as we lurch ever backward and imagine what it means to women who can’t or don’t want children or are outside child bearing age- just worthless completely.
narya
@Frankensteinbeck: I think it was the ObamaBros podcast (Pod Save America) that had a discussion of this; basically, the Rules committee decides what legislation goes to the floor for a vote; there is a way to force their hand, but it’s pretty tricky because you basically get only one shot at it. That’s why there was the big fight for seats on that committee.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
They have to negotiate over the budget. So any negotiating will be pitched as unrelated to the debt ceiling. And it probably will be, from the White House’s standpoint.
Brit in Chicago
@Jeffro: The thing that needs to be put front and centre is that this is to enable the nation to pay the bills for expenditures already incurred. We’ve already spent the money! Now we need to pay the bill!
I think lots of people still think that this has to do with limiting future expenditures. We need to dispell that illusion in the catchiest way possible.
Geminid
@Starfish: That guy is no Professor Moriarity. Reports are that Pena hired four different accomplices to carry out the shootings and not surprisingly, one of them turned him in; or possibly flipped on him. Police stopped a car about an hour after the shootings and found firearms and illegal drugs. It probably was used by Pena.
sab
@Starfish: He lost 26% to 74%. It wasn’t even close enough to have been a stolen election.
Another Scott
@New Deal democrat:
Reason has a well actually story that mentions five times, but nothing after the 1979 event.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Starfish:
GMA had a lead in to the story that didn’t mention the political parties.
Ken
@Soprano2: You might check with local daycare centers, churches, or charities to see what service they use for background checks. Most groups working with children and youth require them now.
Feathers
My negotiating offer would be to rescind all the budget busting crap Trump enacted. This really should be a standard thing for Dems to do when they get back into power. Stop the downward spiral. Point out that the deficit problem isn’t government spending, it’s Republican tax cuts for the super wealthy.
Also the government spending problem is defense and homeland security, not what they want to run through. Point out that the best way to cut social welfare spending is to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, so that the government isn’t subsidizing companies who underpay their employees.
Baud
@Feathers: Not negotiating over the debt ceiling means not negotiating over the debt ceiling.
Starfish
@Baud: 🤦🏻♀️
Tony Jay
@Starfish:
Why are Liberals so determined to criminalise political differences?
Starfish
@Tony Jay: Woke culture has canceled Yosemite Sam.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
They’ll get him on campaign finance, it will just take a really long time. Democrats and good government people should absolutely lobby for stringent campaign finance regulations, since it seems to be the only way we ever successfully prosecute pols. Boring old campaign finance. They can lead an insurrection and rob millions from the public and escape accountability but they all screw up on campaign finance.
It’s the single tool in the toolbox- no wonder conservatives have tried to gut every reg on it for the last 30 years.
Nicole
@Betty Cracker: Wow. That story. Awful. Someone in the comments described him as a real-life George Constanza. Next we’ll find out Santos, too, had a, “The Human Fund.”
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: Sweet!
Frankensteinbeck
@narya:
Alright. The crazies lack a majority in that by a good margin. Can it be added to existing bills? To legislation sent back from the Senate, like budgets? Congress plays these games all the time.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
“What kind of scumbag is George Santos?”
— “All of them, Katie.”
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: What a nightmare for that disabled vet and his beloved dog.
Legally, That’s gotta be fraud, right?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I once underwent an Ohio Sec of State audit as the volunteer treasurer of a state rep campaign where we raised a totalof 3200 dollars. It probably took me 30 or 40 hours to comply with demands from the state lawyer over the course of 6 months, unpaid.
You just really wonder about the inequities in oversight between little fish and big fish. Doesn’t seem “just”.
BamaLib
Does anyone know of a source for the number David Jolly states in his Tweet (25% of deficit created during Trump years)? Sounds too good to be true.
OzarkHillbilly
In addition to lower minimum wages and higher rates of incarceration, “the report also finds that, on average, abortion restrictive states have half the rate of unionized workers…”, “unemployed people access the benefits they are entitled to at a rate of 12 percentage points lower…”,
One has to keep the serfs in their place, otherwise they jest might git uppity.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
ironplatinum will, or whatever. It’s simply a matter of: if this One Weird Trick will help us avoid the possibility of a Constitutional crisis, then let’s use it.delphinium
@Nicole: Thanks for this-an interesting, if depressing, read.
Ken
I think it depends on net worth. At least, when a certain former president and his family were found to have been running a fraudulent charity, the only penalty was the dissolution of the charity, restrictions on creation of future charities, and some court-ordered training. No one went to jail.
tobie
Since everything in this country is now ‘tit for tat,’ it’s important for Dems to emphasize that they made sure the debt limit was raised quickly 3 times under Trump. That’s country over party. It’s time Republicans learn that.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
IOW, red states are worse places to live than blue states across a range of metrics.
Baud
Some good news. The only black governor in the country will be sworn in today.
JMG
@lowtechcyclist: There’s nothing preventing Biden from saying the Supreme Court is wrong on the merits of the case and he’s going to ignore them too. If 34 Democratic Senators will stick with him, there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
Tony Jay
@sab:
Of course they won’t. Their editors just want to drive up clicks, and having a House Speaker mortgaged up to hilt to a menagerie of crazy ass performance goons gives them that in spades. They’ll try to insulate McSqueaky from any inconveniently factual reporting on what he actually – wants – out of any negotiations by making the Democratic Party’s refusal to enter negotiations the story… but that’s what they always do.
I don’t think the lunatics of the MAGOP Caucus are going to let them get away with that, though. It’ll be the bubble bois and grrls of the Radical Right who blow it all up for Kev by spelling out exactly what they want in exchange for paying America’s debts, forcing half a dozen or so Reps from purple districts to cut a deal with Jeffries and sweep the Squeaker’s legs.
Should become a regular thing.
catclub
@Matt McIrvin: Matt Levine explained premium bonds, which the Treasury could issue – and he thinks they should be used if needed..
Basically same face value but double the amount of borrowing per bond. The sum of face values is the thing that the debt limit addresses.
tobie
@Baud: Yes, we’re thrilled in Maryland!
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’d have to disagree with Mr/Ms Banerjee. Correlation is not causation, and one of the frequent ways in which it’s not is that the correlates are both caused by a third factor. In this case, it’s that the troglodytes who are against abortion are also against everything from a higher minimum wage to spending on decent education. And if they’re in control of a state, all these things go to shit.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m afraid Right wing states where women have a limited set of rights will just stop collecting real information on women and childrens well being. They’ve successfully done that with guns – the numbers on guns are all corrupted and cloudy, deliberately, and they’re doing it with crime stats- the information is all junk.
All the “sunshine laws” in the world won’t be any use if states like Florida and Missouri and Ohio just stop collecting numbers, or so politicize the process the numbers are all useless junk.
Kathleen
@sab: I agree with you! They’re already on the “Congress must act” script vs “Republicans in Congress must…”. Lying fascist loving weasels that they are.
WereBear
@lowtechcyclist: We can’t do One Weird Trick with institutions that are badly out of date. Playing chicken with Republicans should be easy, because they are, after all, spineless worms.
Pointing out, every day, that economic pain will be hung around their necks on a signboard should work better, actually.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: In a nutshell, yes. Not that anybody here will be surprised.
Geminid
@Kay: They may get Santos on other felonies first, possibly relating to his financial backer, Andrew Intater and his Columbus Nova investment firm.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck:
Really? Do you have ten names off the top of your head?
WereBear
@Baud: I am shocked by how much my entire life would have been multi-dimensionally restricted by now, as the gap between blue and red states increase in ways I could never have imagined.
What with one thing and another, I barely made it to HERE. Had I been hobbled by the myriad ways red states stick it to you, I probably wouldn’t have gotten even the marginal grip I’ve got now.
Ken
@BamaLib: Did he mean deficit or debt? They’re often confused — I’ve seen politicians and pundits switch between them in the middle of a sentence — though I suspect that may have been deliberate.
Anyway, here’s a table at treasury.gov that shows national debt at 20.2 trillion in 2017, and 26.9 trillion in 2020. The difference, 6.7 trillion, is pretty close to 25% of 26.9 trillion.
(To be precise, the table shows debt in 2020 as 26,945,391,194,615.15. It reminds me of a character in a book who was always suspicious of such precision. As I recall, her objection was “And what if after they came up with that number, the janitor was sweeping up and found a penny on the floor?”)
lowtechcyclist
@JMG:
True. But that would also be an earthquake in our system, with unpredictable consequences.
For one thing, the entire regulatory structure of the U.S. government depends on the courts ruling against entities that violate those regulations.
For another, it’s a huge step towards undermining the rule of law generally.
That’s scary shit.
Yes, the platinum coin is One Weird Trick, but it’s better than any of the other options I can see, other than enough House Republicans coming to their senses in time. Which is in the ‘things we have no control over’ bucket.
catclub
@lowtechcyclist: Premium bonds avoid a lot of those issues.
Kay
@Geminid:
Oh, God, campaign finance will take them long enough without anything more complex. House terms are two years. I’ll be surprised if they even get off the dime in two years. Justice delayed and…all that. I don’t know – federal prosecutors seem to move quick as lightening when they’re calling me to shake some low level, powerless federal offender down. I had a fraudulent return on a car warranty where I thought they were going to raid his house for 2000 dollars. Maybe this is just my experience.
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist: That is not what Banerjee is saying. She says, quite rightly, that not having access to abortion has negative economic consequences for women who need them. And then she says,
I had to read it 2 or 3 times before I got that she wasn’t saying abortion was the cause of the others, just that these states treat people like shit across the board.
Geminid
@Baud: I heard that Wes Moore will be sworn in on two bibles. One belonged to Frederick Douglas, who worked in a Maryland shipyard as a caulker before his career as an advocate for the rights of Black Americans.
The other bible belonged to Mr. Moore’s father, who was the Dutch Reformed Church’s first Black pastor.
Tony Jay
@Starfish: “Breaking News – Urban vigilante nicknamed ‘The Peñasher‘ foiled in what authorities are not directly denying was a heroic bid to cleanse Albuquerque of Red-Brigade worshipping Leftists who may be targeting your children for gay-grooming.”
tobie
On Mastodon I came across this link to an interview with a birdwatcher who skateboards when he’s birdwatching. Difft strokes for difft folks, I guess.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Yep, it’s all a part of the RW playbook. There is no problem if one can’t see it.
lowtechcyclist
@Kathleen:
Fuckheads. This blaming ‘Congress’ rather than the political party that’s standing in the way, is something they’ve done for generations now. And it’s a big part of why many people have no idea how bad the Rethugs really are.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Regular people are easy targets. Unlike the rich, they don’t have the money to put up a real fight.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
They were coming up with some bad crime stats in red state cities – numbers states report to the feds. Some of them were worse than CHICAGO, which as we know is the only city with crime. Chicago and San Francisco.
They needed to fix that so they simply expanded the geographical area of the “city” they were describing- shazam! Crime rates went down. If “Memphis” becomes “Memphis and the ring suburbs” crime goes down!
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly: I see now. Thanks for clarifying it for me! Apparently the coffee hasn’t fully kicked in yet.
The Moar You Know
@Soprano2: Intelius. It will be a couple hundred bucks for the works.
Geminid
@catclub: I could name a few off the top of my head, and more if I checked a list of Republicans who defected from their caucus in the last Congress to vote for the Infrastructure and CHIPS+ Bills.
Of course this is speculation now, because the problem is not so acute that Republicans’ loyalty is being put to the test. Yet.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, they have me and I love a good fight :)
If you’re wondering where our federal prosecutors are, they’re prosecuting low level, usually one time offenders by calling their lawyers and trying to scare them. I decided since no one powerful is afraid of them anymore I don’t need to be either.
Gin & Tonic
The US National Park Service bringing truth:
lowtechcyclist
Qevin: “Who wants to put the nation through some type of threat at the last minute with the debt ceiling? Nobody wants to do that.”
You mean, nobody except a majority of your caucus, very much including the people pulling your strings. If NOBODY wanted to do that, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
Delk
That 25% = 4 years of trump quote needs to be placed on nonstop repeat. Along with Jared’s Saudi deal.
narya
@Frankensteinbeck: One of the things Kevvie had to give up was seats on the rules committee to the crazies, I think . . .
Geminid
@Kay: The federal investigation into Intrater and his cousin Viktor Vekselberg is going on already. On last September 6 FBI agents searched Vekselberg residences in Miami, New York City and Long Island.
Intrater was Santos’s biggest financial backer in both his campaign and apparently his “business” too, and Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg in turn is Intrater’s biggest investor. So Santos may be caught in the Vekselberg net.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid: One big difference is that those bills were going to be voted on, regardless.
Now that Qevin is SINO and the Rethugs control all the committees, we’ll probably need several of them signing a discharge petition. (Assuming that’s still in the rules; I assume there’d have been discussion of its absence if they’d removed it.) A defection there is a bit of a bigger leap because it can affect the outcome.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Absolutely disgusting, Kay. Just absolutely disgusting.
Enraging.
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist: Like I said I had to read it several times before I got it. I don’t know if Banerjee said it badly or if the reporter wrote it badly but it was easy to get confused.
narya
@Gin & Tonic: There are a couple of accounts like this–various parks, lakes, etc.–and every one I’ve seen has been absolutely awesome. The one for Lake Superior was . . . truly superior.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: They do the same thing with STL, and it’s easy because STL is not in any county. If one looks at the entire metro area, you’d get a whole different picture.
M31
@Gin & Tonic:
lol the Park Service is bringing the goods in the replies too, lololol
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, the situations are not equivalent, although reports were that Republican caucus leadership whipped hard on the CHIPS Bill.
I just brought them up because someone questioned the existence of possible defectors and wanted names. That’s where I would look for prospects, especially the ones like Dan Bacon (NE) who are ready to retire.
sdhays
@lowtechcyclist: Last week, there was some discussion around another option for the Treasury involving accounting mumbo-jumbo related to bonds sold during COVID – something about bonds being worth considerably more on paper than their actual value, but the details aren’t relevant. It’s just as gimmicky as the trillion dollar coin, but it’s all finance markety so it might be a lot more comfortable for people who find the trillion dollar coin too…easy?
I think Democrats aren’t willing to reach for the administrative gimmicks (at least until it’s absolutely necessary) because it would just rescue the Republicans again from not having any consequences for not being a minimally functional political party. Just taking away another responsibility isn’t a long term solution, as unpleasant as this dance always is.
davecb
Jay Quo, at https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/the-deadbeat-limit?sd=pf argues that the debt cieling “is NOT raising your credit card limit, it is making your car payment.”
A government arguably can’t refuse to pay out for budget items that it has already approved, notably paying wages and debts. It would be fraud in Canada.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: :-) I’ve got a couple of good lawyers too. Fortunately, I haven’t needed one for quite some time now. Here’s hoping it stays that way.
mrmoshpotato
Bed Bath and Beyond – Offline Shopping
Never saw this until recently. Bravo!
mrmoshpotato
@M31: Someone was having fun.
Kay
@Geminid:
Oh, I’m glad. We’ll see if anything comes from it.
The NY/Russian mob connection seems to be a real problem for US politics. Maybe their city/state prosecutors should start looking into it. Between Trump and allhis Russia financed scumbags and now Santos they seem to have an organized crime problem and it isn’t The Godfather from the movies.
Bring back Rudy Guiliani! Tough On Crime. No… scratch that- he’s an insane authoritarian liar too who is also all Russian-mobbed up.
New Deal democrat
@Another Scott: Thanks. It appears that my memory invented something unreal once again….
sdhays
@lowtechcyclist: The discharge petition is still there, but I understand that the Squeaker can delay a vote for months if he wants to. But that would be pretty politically risky at that point – the obstruction would clearly be ALL on him, and it might trigger a completely new governing coalition.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I love my people. It’s what I like about my job. When I started I liked other lawyers and judges and my clients. Now I just like my clients -DESPITE their sometimes criminal tendencies :)
My daughter is a PA and I want her to take an easier, fancier job she was offered at an expensive university treating student anxiety attacks because they might get a B in calculus, because I think she works too hard but listening to her hem and haw and delay the move I think she found “her people” and she’s going to stay in a rural underserved area. You have to find your people. Students are not her people.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I think my people are dogs.
catclub
@OzarkHillbilly: I am going to search the internet for the puppy bus they told on about on npr this morning.
Redshift
@Delk:
Reagan racked up more debt than all previous presidents combined. W came close.
Republicans deliberately create debt through tax giveaways to their rich donors and then pretend to care about debt to try to force someone else to make spending cuts they’re too cowardly to make themselves.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I think it will take shorter time because so many people are investigating him, and the obviousness of him.
gvg
@OzarkHillbilly: I think that is confusing cause with effects. In other words, states full of mean asshole voters reliably vote for policies and politicians that implement mean and stupid economic and health policies. Then you get a bunch of bad results. I say this because the bad wages and other effects preceded the abortion restrictions by years.
NotMax
@Geminid
There’s a coterie who feel McCarthy ran roughshod over them in his wheedling to get the position and have a bone or three to pick with him. Biding their time and voting for the reality of the situation instead of deluded bloviation will be one of their paybacks, methinks.
sab
@Kay: I think everyone on law enforcement side is to afraid of the Russian mob to enforce much of anything.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh thats funny. I’m a little afraid of dogs- partly an attack while I was in the postal service, partly I didnt grow up with them in the house. My father was a neat freak eccentric and he thinks animals in the house are dirty. I loved only one dog- the greyhound rescue we got for my daughter. She was the sweetest thing. Just pure good. Dumb as a rock but all love. My husband cried for a week when she died.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: That was SO GOOD.
delphinium
@sdhays: This-Dems need to keep emphasizing the House Reps need to take responsibility and do their jobs. And that cuts to social programs are not part of this.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: My parents’ family lawyer did trust and estate work. Our family lawyer does traffic stuff and criminal law. Kids ( sigh.)
WaterGirl
@catclub: Are you talking about the doggie daycare bus?
Someone posted that here ahile back and it was awesome.
OzarkHillbilly
@gvg: See my comment at #86.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
good for Jolly as far as he goes, but I’d like to see a similar analysis on the increasingly memory-holed Bush years, when we started two wars and had big round of two top-down tax cuts
Kay
@rikyrah:
In this one case it would be more fun to beat him. But people never want to admit they got snookered. They may re-elect him rather than admit this clownish hustler tricked such a suposedly savvy electorate with a GIANT political media industry headquartered all around him. He was in their fucking backyard! The political media center of the world!
I mean, we got the Ohio fraudster who ran against Kaptur and Ohio basically has no real media left.
The NYTimes were too busy contracting out for their 50 thousandth anti-woke op ed. Three solid years of anti woke panic while the world burns. Glad we handled the threat of the Oberlin student council.
rikyrah
@Baud:
I am happy as can be about this, but I’m still sort of stunned.
So many attempts for Black candidates to get over the statewide hump in Maryland. It was a hump, election after election, until it wasn’t. And now, two Black candidates have won statewide.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I cry every time I lose one.
Nelle
@sab: I’ve wondered if that is why initial critics of TFG folded so quickly and thoroughly. Russian mafia threats and Putin isn’t a hesitant, dithering fellow.
Soprano2
@Kay: Don’t forget about all the ties the NRA has to Russians.
OzarkHillbilly
Yep. When my ex finally went to prison all my legal troubles went away.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
But right above that she explicitly says: “There is strong empirical evidence that abortion denial and abortion bans have negative economic consequences, from prolonged financial distress to lower wages and earnings, employment, educational attainment, and economic mobility.” That clearly implies causality by enumerating what those specific consequences are
At the very least it’s the sort of click-bait construction that we deplore when the media does it about an issue.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Discharge petitions (if the new rules even allow them) are rarely successful because congressional caucuses are usually too cohesive for such an extraordinary measure to succeed. A debt ceiling crisis could break that norm.
Also, the Motion to Vacate the Speaker’s chair could also be used. Don Bacon might put that motion on the floor and with a few other defectors ditch McCarthy with the help of the Democratic minority.
Then, the Democrats could “reluctantly, for the good of the country,” help Bacon and company elect a caretaker Speaker like Tom Reed or Charlie Dent so that critical legislation could be passed.
This idea was floated during the Republican Speaker imboglio. It was much derided and deservedly so, because conditions ruled it out. Potential defectors see it as a last resort, an emergency measure. And Democrats were not interested. It was in their interests to give the Republicans the rope they wanted to hang themselves with. Democrats did not need to own any part of the Republicans’ dysfunction, but rather wanted the Republicans to prove their incapacity to govern.
Those conditions may change in a few months if the debt problem becomes a debt crisis. I’m not saying it will happen, but I’m not ruling it out either. And by April, some Republicans might be so fed up with Gaetz and Boebert and the other loons that they’re desperate for an excuse to leave that crazy caucus.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I used to have to show her where her water dish was after I washed the floor. It was like caring for a really sweet disabled person. Her racing name was “Hello Jilly!” which sounds so spunky and…winning it just made me laugh. This girl was NOT a competitor. Thank God I got her out of that lifestyle.
I can’t have another one. What if I don’t like her?
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are correct, and it matches that bullshyt tweet from Lee of Utah about ‘ who is really for regulation on the national level’?
Um, everyone who isn’t a maniac.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: there is also a dog who takes a regular metro bus to the doggie playground and then back home.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Somehow it’s *this* tidbit of information that makes me finally decide there is, in fact, a place for violence towards Congress critters.
artem1s
except it wouldn’t. it would probably start a Constitutional showdown of the legitimacy of the debt clause and the Federal banking system. If these jackasses want this to become a MAGAt SCOTUS decision what makes you think the ONE WEIRD TRICK is going to keep that from happening?
Redshift
@davecb:
It is, there’s not really any argument about it. It’s like the filibuster, a quirk of history that has been distorted for power.
Goopers like McCarthy always lie and pretend deficits are caused by spending, not their tax cuts. In addition to not negotiating with terrorists, what I’d like to hear more from Democrats is:
Democrats believe our country should pay its bills. Apparently Republicans think we can make a budget and then just refuse to pay when the bill comes. We believe the US government should act responsibly, not like a crooked businessman who stiffs contractors.
(Yeah, they’ve been pulling this scam since way before TFG, but voters have short memories, so we might as well take advantage of it.)
Miss Bianca
@Kay:
All right, Kay! :)
OzarkHillbilly
We all know it does… For the women who need an abortion and are denied them.
Like I said, I don’t know if Banerjee said it badly or if the article was written badly. But in the sentence that follows,
She is obviously not implying causation.
CaseyL
@mrmoshpotato: That was really fun!
Relatedly, I wonder if young people (not sure how young; maybe starting with the current preteen generation?) will see social media as too alienating, and greatly reduce how much they use it.
There have been a few stories about youngsters rediscovering the joys of in-person everything; socializing in particular.
I also wonder how much the nostalgia for “mid century” fashions and home furnishings has to do with post-millenials wanting a life more like that of their grandparents. We who lived through those times know the 70s-90s were hardly a golden age, but the kids see a less complicated, less compromised time period. One where people did things together without a lot of elaborate preparation, one where things like concert tickets were affordable, one where you could road trip across the country free as a bird, etc.
This is always the lure of nostalgia, an imagined Better Time Long Ago. But an anti-social media movement could be a real earth-shaker, however driven it is by a too-rosy view of the past.
Redshift
@rikyrah:
And had the gall to bring up food safety as something that would definitely be fine with “private and state regulation.” “Private regulation” is such an oxymoron that it must be a libertarian thing.
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: Holy hell, I just read this story from a local New York paper. Santos executed this particular fraudulent grift under the name Anthony Devolder, and I think it quite likely that he changed his name so that this kind of scamming would be harder to uncover.
Soprano2
Don’t forget the crime panic while crime was actually decreasing. I’ve become pretty cynical about that here – I think when people say crime is going up here they actually mean either “I see more black people” or “I see homeless people in the city”. Crime is not really that bad in my city, the worst things are property crimes and car thefts where many times people left the keys in their car! They police say that over half the time when a car is stolen the keys are in it somewhere and it’s unlocked. Who does that in a city of over 150,000 people?
Steeplejack
@gvg:
Good point.
Geminid
@Kay: The Santos-Intrater connection intrigues me, and new reporting shows it goes back to before Santos’s 2020 campaign. I’m not counting on it to result in indictments, but just on the campaign finance front Intraters’ money is already known to have made its way to Lee Zeldin as well as the Nassau County Republican Commitee. Santos’s funny money raises so many questions there may be provable crimes there that go beyond campaign law violations.
That idiot is already using his Twitter account to shitpost on Democrats, and his Twitter heading has an interesting feature: a picture of Santos and Elise Stefanik. I’m not sure why he would do that.
Redshift
@Geminid: And it makes you wonder if the Nassau County Republicans went public on wanting him to resign in part because they don’t want law enforcement looking into that connection too deeply…
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Amazing.
Gin & Tonic
@Redshift: Are you suggesting that the machine which produced Al D’Amato might have a corruption issue? Say it ain’t so!
oklahomo
@Baud: To hell with half measures. Create an Infinity Coin and fix the problem forever.
kindness
Right wingnut Republicans think the debt limit thingy is a twofer for them. In their fever gripped minds they think that by refusing to pass debt limit bills they can blame Democrats for not being able to run the country and then when the world economy goes down the tubes those same Republicans think they can again blame Democrats for ruining the world economy. The really sad part is with Fox News & Republican Pravda in their back pocket 40% of Americans will swallow their bullshit whole and blame everything on Democrats. Our Media is leading us to fascism in order to get more eyeball clicks.
Geminid
@Redshift: Yeah, the Nassau County Republican Commitee say they were shocked! just shocked! that Santos turned out to be a crook, and I think they’ve returned $120,000 of Intrater’s money.
But they knew Santos was a fraud, even though they say that since Santos’s purported address was in the Queens portion of the district, it was the Queens County Republicans who failed to vet Santos properly.
Soprano2
@CaseyL: Honestly, as I get older I understand nostalgia better. That feeling that in times past you understood everything better, that things made sense and weren’t constantly changing. Even though it’s not true, I understand the appeal.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
Maybe. But in the meantime, stories like this should be highlighted across the internet and forced into MSM narratives, including being brought up to McCarthy at every press interaction.
Delk
@CaseyL:
Gen Z and flip phones
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: I saw it as a YouTube ad a few days ago and bust out laughing.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist:
(repost) TheVerge (from 2013):
The clear language of the US Code on the Mint making commemorative platinum coins has nothing to do with the national debt book-keeping. Wishing it away doesn’t make it so.
Talking about it every time the GQP has control over part of the Congress is a distraction.
The House must, and will, do its job. We need to keep our eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And that thieving, war criminal shitstain handily wiped out Bill Clinton’s budget surplus!
Miss Bianca
@Delk: Pal D and I were talking about this just the other night! How Da Yoots were discovering that there’s relief to be had in *not* being plugged into everything, everywhere, all at once, all the time.
I stripped my Android system and went to a Linux-based system on my phone. I still get all the functionality I need, but I don’t get the constant nudging to check my gmail or FB or whatever the hell Google thinks I should be looking at to harvest my eyeball clicks.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Explanation/discussion in thread.
mrmoshpotato
@Delk: HA! The headline alone is enough.
stinger
If McCarthy had really cared about holding the debt ceiling hostage, he wouldn’t have kept it as a last-minute bargaining deal with his own caucus. It would have been part of his stance from the git-go.
McTurtle has goals: one-term Democratic presidents, zero Republican votes for Dem bills, zero Dem votes for Republican bills, Supreme Court judges for me but not for thee, etc. McCarthy’s only goal was to get “Speaker of the House” after his name in Wikipedia, and now he’s achieved that. He doesn’t care about anything else. He worries me much less than does McTurtle; in fact, not at all.
sdhays
They’ve been saying for decades that they want to run the government more like a business, and that’s certainly the way Trump and Elmu do business.
Anyway
@oklahomo:
Yes! Now we’re talkin’….
Betty Cracker
@Barbara: The name change might have also been a cynical bid to cash in on his Hispanic heritage. Before and after he was exposed as a fraud, Santos often said he was everything Democrats fear: a gay, Hispanic conservative.
From what I understand, the district he won isn’t solidly GOP, so at first I thought it was odd that Santos was throwing his lot in with the Gaetz and Bannon wing, but it makes sense because he can depend on them to give him a pass on his many depravities and scams.
Mike in NC
Republicans have been pushing for massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare for decades, so they won’t stop now while they have a tiny edge.
Renie
@Soprano2: I’ve found Been Verified to be good but not all states will disclose divorce information.
Citizen Alan
@Ken:
Some of the most frustrating conversations I’ve ever had in my life have been with republicans who use national debt, budget deficit, and even trade deficit interchangeably because they have no fucking clue what any of the mean.
sdhays
@mrmoshpotato: Alan Fucking Greenspan actually testified in Congress that having a budget surplus was horrible and must be stopped. After making the budget deficit into a crisis during the Clinton years.
At the time, he was revered in the press and political elite. Huge mistake for Clinton to keep reappointing him. Such a blatant liar operating in total bad faith.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
If they could, they’d vote to posthumously impeach FDR.
//
Mike in NC
Read an article about the people in Kevin McCarthy’s district a few days ago and they were mostly fucking nuts who think he’s “not a true conservative”. Photos in today’s newspaper showed a lot of Bakersfield is now under water.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I love all doggies but I’m a cat person because dogs are (it seems to me) a lot more work to take care of. They’re so much more dependent.
Sometimes dogs don’t like me and it breaks my heart. I know some who are afraid of men, probably for terrible trauma reasons in their past, though nobody knows.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
Yup. And if the bastards could do away with those pesky child labor laws…
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t think I have any people. My particular dogs and cat. That’s pretty much it. Everyone else irritates me, including my John.
UncleEbeneezer
Xavier
What the Democrats should say is “Popularly elected majorities in Congress voted for these public benefits. We aren’t going to negotiate with a minority of hostage takers that are threatening the full faith and credit of the United States if those benefits aren’t rescinded.”
Captain C
Fixed that for ya Squeaker.
TriassicSands
It comes as no surprise that McCarthy will immediately make a fool of himself by overstepping his authority and responsibility. The only interest Republicans have ever shown regarding fiscal issues is a fervent desire to gut the social safety net and punish poor people and further enrich the already wealthy
Naturally, the only tool McCarthy and his mob of neo-fascists have is to take hostages.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: The New York 3rd CD that Santos represents was thought to favor Democrats slightly, but Republicans had a strong year and Democratic turnout was poor. That’s how Santos won, and that’s a one reason McCarthy is not pressuring him to resign, because Republicans will likely lose a special election there.
I guess McCarthy is hoping this controversy will die down. He’s a very hopeful guy.
Kelly
Sorta routinely raised. How many times have the Republicans ran this stunt? Every Democratic statement should list by date each time we’ve been through this. Also I’d like to pull a wedgie on every Democrat that got in the way of raising the debt limit last session when they had the chance. The filibuster supporters to.
rmjohnston
I kind of think we should negotiate with the terrorists here, just not on their terms. The offer should be something like “you vote to eliminate the debt ceiling or all your security clearances are revoked. Any Member of Congress or the Senate who shares non-public executive branch information with any other member lacking clearance, shall have all their clearances revoked. Any committee upon which sits a Member or Members lacking clearance will not have access to non-public executive branch information except in closed sessions excluding such members.”
Geminid
Captain C
@Baud: Make it a googolplex, and tell the Republicans you’ll negotiate once they’ve written out the digits.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: Anne Laurie, who I believe has family roots in the area and keeps in touch, said the recent redistricting made the district a bit redder with the addition of more territory in the Copland parts of Queens. And I believe NotMax said his mother lives in the suburban part of the district.
@Betty Cracker: the NYT had a long write-up on the race that said the Whatshisname (did that ever fit better?) was very good at playing the different GOP factions in the district against each other, telling everybody what they wanted to hear. I find this odd because his affect is so weird, I’m surprised he was an effective grifter, but I knew he was a weird grifter before I ever saw that affect on TeeVee, so I’m not really an objective observer, I suppose.
Captain C
@Brit in Chicago:
Messaging: “Republicans are your ne’er-do-well cousin Kevin who borrowed three grand from you and now wants to stiff you.”
Kelly
@Geminid: I truly do not understand the Manchin or any other Democrat’s opposing the debt ceiling raise. Seems like driving past the last gas station when your gauge says you can’t make it.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: That is Trumpian Level scumbaggery!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kelly: Manchin has an aide text him the amount of the national debt every day. “Debt ceiling” is tailor-made to appeal to his simple-minded notions of fiscal probity and responsibility.
Kelly
@Kelly: Or heading into winter with bald tires you can easily afford to replace. Or not replacing your leaking roof in the summer when you have plenty of money.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I always had a rescue cat over the last 30 or so years w/kids but what I have realized since the last one died and I haven’t replaced her is I like how cats look. The truth is I had decorative cats. A transactional relationship- they got rescued, I got a beautiful thing to look at. They’re just pretty things.
But the greyhound was a real friendship. Like, a friend with a brain the size of a pea. Greyhounds are lanky and bony and she loved to go in the car with me and she was good company, so I took her everywhere. Once I stupidly flipped a car on a snowy Michigan state route (passing, like a fucking idiot) and she wasn’t restrained and I heard her bones hit the roof. I felt so bad. She was old at that point and I think her joints hurt.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: Semantic question: are Brazilians considered “Hispanic”?
Kelly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Since my hair has gone thin and grey I now keep it about a 3/4″ long. To short to get enough grip to pull it out and not enough fuel to set it on fire.
Paul in KY
@Kay: So I guess if she has no children and this would be her first…she’s fucked?
What a shitty situation to be in!
Paul in KY
@Nicole: I think George Costanza might be a step up from him.
scav
Ah yes, Kitchen Table Economic Policy. Ozzie & Harriet, or maybe the Father Knows Best crew, the Cheevers, something iconic in B&W. Parents at table, minor amusing dinnertime squabble about the cost of the Beev’s new fishing rod or a new hat for Princess. “THAT’S IT!!” screams Father, flouncing out! “I’M STARVING THE KIDS AND STIFFING ALL THE CREDITORS! IT’S THE AMERICAN WAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!”
brantl
Got to go to a job interview, folks. Wish me luck.
Baud
@brantl:
Good luck.
Don’t mention Balloon Juice.
Kay
This is the racism story the NYTimes and the Atlantic want to tell. Not “about” racism. Instead about elites who feel they are being unfairly maligned because youngsters on Twitter yell at them and they’re no longer cool contrarians on college campuses but are instead cranky middle aged men.
That’s a story and it’s the one they chose. They could have covered racism or sexism. Instead they decided to focus exclusively on whether efforts to mitigate the effects of racism and sexism have “gone too far” or are upsetting to their editorial writers. Such a weird, coddled world.
Kay
@Paul in KY:
Tik Tok and young women “creators” are addicting to me. My daughter will send me a link and I’ll end up watching a 19 year old woman in China fight with her grandmother. I’m fascinated by what they come up with. But this one makes me sad for them. We should save their lives in a medical emergency because they have value whether they have children or not. That they feel it would be somehow “selfish” so insist on modern, standard of practice medical care just for themselves makes me cry. How can one raise strong girls in this? What about old ladies like me? We’re being redefined as brood mares. Appalling.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Good question — people from Brazil probably fall into the Latino but not Hispanic category since Spanish isn’t the primary language.
@Kay: ” a friend with a brain the size of a pea” made me laugh because I’ve known dogs like that too, including a greyhound who lived next door to us years ago. Anecdotally, there seems to be a fairly wide range of intelligence levels in dogs.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
So for 13 years I go to let this dog out (fenced yard- greyhounds are FAST) and for 13 years she defers to me and wants me to go out FIRST. We do this dumb dance 3 times a day for YEARS. Just a sweetheart. Also, I can protect her from squirrels and errant grocery bags and crickets that spook her :)
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: I consider them so. Unless they just showed up from Germany circa 1946
Or are honest-to-God Indians.
Paul in KY
@brantl: Best o luck to you. Take Baud’s advice.
Sister Golden Bear
Speaking of terrorists, the Christofascist Republicans are trying to pass many horrific anti-trans/anti-LGBTQ+ laws. To quote Alejandra Caraballo:
No she’s not exaggerating.
The latest, West By Good Virginia bill, SB 252 would define “obscene matter” as exposure to transgender people. It would make it a felony to share any content regarding transgender people with a minor. Half of dozen other red states have proposed similar bills. They’re (intentionally) so vaguely written that it’s possible I and other trans folks could be arrested simple being out in public if there’s children around.
Oklahoma SB 408 — cynically named the “Women’s Bill of Rights” — would eliminate the legal recognition of trans and intersex people in the state.
Meanwhile today North Dakota’s Senate is debating a bill that would criminalize using pronouns not associated with a persons DNA. The senator who’s pushing it is getting hammered on how he’d enforce it, and finally says that he’d require genetic tests. Which shows he knows shit about sex and genetics — there’s six viable genetic sexes, plus intersex people, plus various conditions (e.g. androgen insensitivity disorder) that causes someone’s body to appear different that their DNA. Oh and there’s also people with chimeric DNA, i.e. they’re a mix of both XX and XY chromosomes.
Soprano2
@Kay: My niece who had the miscarriage in December turned out to be OK; she didn’t need any more care, but what if she had? The Catholic-affiliated hospital sent her home after she and hubby sat in the ER waiting room for hours; on a Friday they told her to follow up with her regular doc on Monday after they did NOTHING for her other than take her vitals. They didn’t do anything to make sure there wasn’t anything left in her uterus from the miscarriage! No exam, nothing but taking her vitals. It’s enraging what they have to put up with in MO now because docs are afraid and this is a Catholic hospital. I honestly don’t think she would have been treated this way before Dobbs, even by this hospital.
Helen
In a past life, I coded ethnicity for dept of health reports. People from Brazil were not coded as Hispanic using federal coding rules.
Soprano2
That is one of the dumbest laws I’ve ever heard of being debated, and I live in MO so I hear a lot of dumb shit from the government. Wouldn’t that also run into 1st Amendment problems? How can they regulate what pronoun I call you? That is INSANE to even think about! Are we going to make people strip down if we aren’t sure what gender they are? Nuts, just nuts the things these people think about. I bet there are real problems in North Dakota they could be debating, instead of this.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Dogs are way more demonstrative about their love, and some dogs love just about everyone. But a cat’s friendship and respect are earned, not trivial to get, and I’ve come to recognize the signs. Even with my violent monster Luna, I can tell.
Paul in KY
@Kay: You speak the truth, as always, Kay.
You can have more kids..can’t have another ‘you’. (The logic for saving the already-here person’s life)
Kay
@Soprano2:
My daughter is a medical professional and an independent sort and she gets cranky if I mother her too much but I couldn’t resist warning her off Catholic hospitals for her childbirth. I didn’t need to – she said “yeah, not happening”.
I’m not asking for a lot here. Modern medical best practices instead of religious dogma when womens lives are at risk. Not to be a bitter old hag (I am, proudly) but this would not even be up for debate if it were men. Can you imagine?
“‘The clerics tribunal has decided you must bleed out in the bathtub for 48 hours before we allow treament”. They’d be fucking taking hostages in hospitals. The NYTimes and the Washington Post would be paying 15 reporters to cover it, instead of having women write these pathetic pleas for mercy where they have to reveal their entire life history and they don’t even get paid for the work. It is enraging to me.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I think that all mammals have the same general intelligence range as people.
Now, that might mean that a genius 3 toed sloth is still stupid, but there are really, really dumb 3 toed sloths and genius ones. Probably goes for birds too.
Geminid
@Kelly: Manchin did not say he opposes a debt ceiling increase. He just wouldn’t support attaching one to a “must pass” lame duck session bill like the Omnibus or NDAA.
If you look up “Manchin news” you can probably read about his rationale. You might not be satisfied with it though.
lowtechcyclist
@sdhays:
The problem is, the set of people being rescued is orders of magnitude larger than the set of Republicans.
I don’t want to say to them, “it’s your job to put out the fire before it burns down the neighborhood,” and hope they come through. I want to put out the damn fire before everyone gets burned.
Paul in KY
@Helen: What were they coded as?
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Voters out Republicans in charge of the House. They aren’t innocent bystanders. Sucks for the rest of us, but once again, you can’t negotiate with terrorists.
Captain C
@Kay:
The Five Families convictions that Rudy took credit for certainly helped clear the way for the more vicious and organized Russian mob in NYC.
M31
a sentence that usually has dire consequences, but in this case I agree
Captain C
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: For that matter, IIRC Reagan at least doubled the national debt at the time (* googles *)–nearly tripled it. His years’ debt was more than twice the two centuries accumulated national debt up until then.
Paul in KY
@M31: I pondered whether to include that or not…
buggrit
@Soprano2: If it was a Hawaii divorce you might give this a go:
https://www.courts.state.hi.us/legal_references/records/jims_system_availability
Betty Cracker
General question about dogs: Has anyone addressed a pet’s weight problem, and if so, how exactly did you go about it?
My husband and I have had several dogs over 25+ years of marriage, but Pete is the first one who’s ever been classified as overweight. He had a checkup yesterday, and the vet said he’s “just a smidge” heavy and should lose a pound.
I blame his Frenchy half. Our Boxers and Bostons were/are svelte creatures!
Kay
@Soprano2:
Jessica Valenti is a feminist author and she’s started a daily compilation of how women in red states are being denied basic modern health care. I pay for it but she’s a female so of course she offers it free, because women don’t need to eat or pay rent or something.
Anyhow, ultracool liberal Chris Hayes with his feminist wife law professor Tweets that Valenti is the only person doing this work.
I’m thinking “PAY HER, Mr. Hayes. You’re paid millions. Pay her 100k a year”. Put her on your show once a week. She can do the rundown there.
Maybe if she writes an op ed for the NYTimes where she opens a vein and recounts some intensely personal pregnancy experience and begs for mercy – for free- she can get a fucking platform. Just disgusting and even liberal men don’t get it.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Democrats can hold Republican feet to the fire and still take extraordinary measures when and if they have to keep the nighborhood from burning down. Just watch.
Kay
@Soprano2:
This is her if anyone else wants to pay her for her work. Women actually do have to buy food and heat. They aren’t Brides of Christ Martyrs/She devil witches or whatever. They’re people.
If I see one more woman spilling her guts begging for mercy in some elite publication and not getting paid I’m going to start taking hostages in hospitals.
cain
@Soprano2: They’ve lost their damn minds. It’s all old politicians trying to put the kibosh on everything.
They should look at the popular shows it’s all “woke”. It’s what the market demands in terms of programming. They are trying to stop the inevitable.
Tony G
Good for Joe! No negotiating with these fascists. What I’d like to see (and what might be queued up) is: 1) A public description of what chaos will probably occur if the thugs refuse to increase the debt ceiling. 2) A public description of the impact of the “spending cuts” that the thugs are demanding. Make it clear that it is the REPUBLICAN PARTY (not “Congress”) that is treating chaos In order to make spending cuts that will hurt non-wealthy Americans. Name names.
HumboldtBlue
@M31:
Sister Golden Bear
@Soprano2:
A number states already have laws that require doing so if someone claims a student athlete is trans.
In the past there were laws nationwide requiring “gender appropriate clothing,” usually at least three pieces, and sometimes people accused of violating it would be strip searched to determine their gender. It was often a pretext for police harassment of LGBTQ+ people.
Admittedly the ND law is so ridiculous that even the Republican committee chair was extremely skeptical, but it shows where their heads are at.
Sister Golden Bear
@M31: The nice thing about online interviews is you don’t need to wear pants.
Soprano2
@buggrit: Thanks, but it would have been in California.
Kelly
@Geminid: My former Congressional Rep Kurt Schrader had a running US Gov Debt total at the top of his web page for most of his tenure in Congress. Another reason I didn’t respect him.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: Naturally, the really terrible violations happen to children and teenagers first.
Tony G
@Tony G: “threatening chaos”. Bad typing by my typing department!
Geminid
@Kelly: Schrader was a jerk. If he were an honest man he would have included a box showing how much of that debt he voted himself to incur in spending bills.
I was sorry to see Democrats lose that seat but I won’t miss Schrader. I generally like the members of the Blue Dog Caucus; in fact my Congresswoman, Abigail Spanberger is a Blue Dog and I think highly of her. But Schrader was a bad Blue Dog. Bad Blue Dog! BAD BLUE DOG!!!
Tony G
@Captain C: That’s right. Saint Ronnie was a monster who fooled the rubes because, as a grade-B actor, he knew how to act like “Friendly Old Uncle Ronald”. His disastrous presidency proved that deficits don’t matter as long as they’re caused by tax cuts for the rich instead of spending on those Other People.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Have you thought of fostering? You can do a good thing, and maybe find out whether you can love again?
Tony G
@Tony G: Reagan was the last bad president that my father — an old labor-union Democrat — had the misfortune to see before my father’s demise. He saw what Reagan was from day one — a puppet controlled and operated by billionaires.
WaterGirl
@Geminid:
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I have experience with the weight issue with dogs and cats. I switched the cats to a high-end cat food and the weight just fell off of them.
For the dog, “diet” dog foods did nothing except want them to eat more because they thought they were STARVING. Again, I had good luck going with a high-end food.
You can also supplement with pumpkin to help them feel full with less high calorie food.
Except for the one cocker spaniel – that was a thyroid issue and the pounds just dropped off once she was on meds. Does Pete have any skin issues? That was a big tipoff to the thyroid issue.
That’s all I’ve got.
Timill
@Betty Cracker: We just fed them less for a while, and they dropped the excess weight no trouble.
I’m guessing your experience might be different…
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Huh — will try pumpkin, thanks! Pete doesn’t have any skin issues, and we already feed them high-end food, so I don’t think that’s the issue. He’s just a pig is all! We’ve always let our dogs graze and never had a problem with that, but we might have to change that regimen. Pete does get lots of exercise, but it’s dangerous to overwork these types of dogs, especially in the heat, so most of the control will have to come from intake.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I hope you don’t break out in hives when I tell that you Rodney Davis landed on his feet, at a K Street lobbying firm.
And Nikki Budzinski was in Champagne the other day, touting a federal research grant for the University of Illinois.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: He must get some exercise & will have to be placed on a diet. He probably will not like the diet part. Good luck!
Paul in KY
@Tony G: He was a better actor than he was given credit for. He sure could kick ass on the ‘genial older dude’ role. The fucker.
J R in WV
In the Constitution, 14th Amendment, Section 4 it says
It goes on to repudiate any debt incurred by the Confederate States, which is why Confederate Money is only as valuable as its collectable desire by southerners like my sister-in-law, who found my Virginian Grandmother’s art work built around multiple CSA flags with genuine CSA money fanned out below the flags highly desirable.
A well done painting, she was good at it, but repulsive and despicable to people who believe in the actual Constitution and USA, as opposed to the CSA. It was in a closet in the guest bedroom where my mom put it away where no one could ever see it in her house. Sister-in-law was overcome with desire for it te instant she saw it. As we were taking turns selecting things we desired as we worked to close up the family home, Wife and I were happy to give it to her as something we didn’t want at all…
Anyway, the Constitution makes the debt limit illegal in a plain black letter statement, as quoted above. So this whole issue is a red herring, if I have my allusion straight. . . . . ;~)
Now I will read some of the very many comments I missed while running critical errands in town.
The car suddenly started showing speeds on the dash in KPH, which I noticed when I was going 115 on the freeway coming home the other day. Oops I said. Fortunately I didn’t slam on the brakes and get rear-ended, as I noticed the “KPH” on the speedometer. Was strange tho. There’s a button on the dash to switch back and forth which I learned from the service manager guy at the dealer. Wow! What fum…
J R in WV
@Ken:
OH come on!! You know as well as I do that the janitor puts that penny in her pocket !
WaterGirl
@Geminid: As long as it’s not Rodney F. Davis in Champaign! :-)
$370,000 – I wonder how far that goes these days.
Tony G
@Sister Golden Bear: I tried a face-to-face job interview without pants one time. I didn’t get the job!
sab
@Betty Cracker: My pitmix is a porker. She plumped right up when we got her. Levelled out eventually, but at a very plump level. If we try to diet her too much she might eat one of the cats. ( Joking.)
She is very restrained in her eating, but she looks like a fire hydrant on legs. We let her get too fat and now neither she nor we can figure how to get it off.