Here’s Senator Whitehouse’s excellent opening statement:
You can watch it live via the PBS YouTube channel here.
Open thread.
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Baud
Thanks for front paging.
Math Guy
Sen. Whitehouse is a treasure. Keep shining a glaringly bright light on the behavior of this SCOTUS.
Baud
Geminid
@Math Guy: I like Rhode Island’s Senators. Jack Reed does good work on the national defense side.
Rhode Island will have a special election later this year, to fill Rep. Cicciline’s seat. That could be an interesting Democratic primary.
artem1s
Boom! I like this guy. And I like that he’s made it clear the investigation and questions about the SCOTUS lack of transparency and ethical guidelines didn’t begin with the Thomas issues. I’m assuming none of them bothered to show up.
This is what accountability looks like assholes.
Cameron
OT: why do colleges in other states have all the fun? Going down right now at the USF campus about 4 miles south of me on this beautiful Tuesday afternoon….
https://patch.com/florida/sarasota/s/io3ae/active-shooter-investigation-underway-at-usf-sarasotamanatee-reports
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Good for Luttig. We’ll see what happens.
Darkrose
@Cameron: UC Davis was locked down this morning, but not because of a shooting; there have been three stabbings in the city of Davis, in the past week, including one last night.
Betty
“Unique and eccentric” is putting it nicely. Thorough and concise presentation from one of my favorite Senators.
tobie
Dupree and Mukasey think they have the perfect response to every request for a judicial code of ethics. They keep repeating that no judicial body would have the power to enforce the code over the highest court. I hope they realize that they’re regurgitating fascist jurisprudence scholar Carl Schmitt’s definition of the sovereign, who stands outside the law since he alone enforces it. Every govt official in the US is subject to checks and balances except Supreme Court justices. They really are above the law, as conservatives see it.
lowtechcyclist
@tobie:
It’s only because they own the Court now. They wouldn’t have felt that way when Earl Warren was CJ.
tobie
@lowtechcyclist: That is absolutely true. The idea that no judicial or legislative body can exercise oversight over SCOTUS is an argument of convenience for conservatives. If they were a minority on the court, they’d be pushing a conservative President or Congress to do what Netanyahu is doing in Israel.
C Stars
@tobie:
Of course, if it was the non-GOP judges who were found to have ethical conflicts, they’d be scurrying to come up with the best punishment
ETA I see I am not the first (or even the second) one to have that thought…
artem1s
SCOTUS is the only viable pathway they have left to control and punish the people they don’t like. They’ve admitted they can’t win elections where there isn’t voter suppression and/or gerrymandering. They’ve lost the access to effect legislation in many states and the ability to legislate effectively (exhibit A: Squeaker McCarthy) even when they win elections. It’s so much easier to buy the laws and courts than actually write and pass legislation.
Math Guy
@tobie: Only as long as there is a conservative majority on the court.
geg6
Marbury v Madison should be revisited when we next have both houses and the executive. The only precedent they like.
Mike in NC
Read this morning that Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot died on Monday at age 84. I was cruising around and didn’t hear the usual ‘tribute’ on the car radio. SCTV used to poke fun at him from time to time.
Old School
Betty Cracker
Best line from Whitehouse’s opening statement up top, on FedSoc boss Leonard Leo: “He doesn’t have business before the court. His business IS the court.”
Baud
@Old School:
👍
BlueGuitarist
OT
There’s been some discussion here about discharge petition in connection with the debt ceiling issue, political wire has a story up about that (and also one about Rs wanting to change divorce laws)
https://politicalwire.com/2023/05/02/house-democrats-move-to-force-a-debt-limit-increase/
Ken
I’m trying to figure out how, under this logic, the justices could be prosecuted for any crime. “Sorry, as a lesser court you can’t possibly try me for murder.”
Geminid
@Geminid: I see there is at least one strong candidate in the Democratic primary to replace retiring Congressman David Cicciline. From NBC News, April 28:
Mr. Amo is a native of Rhode Island. His parents are from Ghana, and met in that state. He has worked previously in the Obama White House, for Senator Whitehouse, and for then-Governor Gina Raimondo.
Suzanne
@BlueGuitarist: I keep saying, because I really don’t think many of the normies who vote Democratic really get it….. the GOP and social conservatives want to fully restore patriarchy and drive women out of public life, back into the home, under dudes’ control.
I remember noting, a few months ago, that SoCons have an issue with divorce, and a few people here were like, “What?! Of course they don’t have a problem with it, lots of them are divorced or have divorces in their families”. And I’m like, “That’s why they have a problem with it.”
Here’s the Rolling Stone thing,
bbleh
@tobie: @lowtechcyclist: @C Stars: @Ken: they’re getting away with it not only because they’re Republican but more generally because Congress is effectively paralyzed. The Court is actually the weakest branch — they have no enforcement power like the Executive does and they’re subject to both process legislation and personal removal by Congress — but because the polity is so closely divided (and nearly half of it is batsh!t crazy), they’ve got maneuvering room, and these guys are the types to take advantage of every inch of it
They aren’t stupid, so they have to recognize the damage they’re doing to the court — and to courts generally. Conclusion: they don’t care.
sab
Article One bodies ( the two houses of Congress) fund and also statutorily constructed the Federal Courts ( Article Three bodies.). Lifetime appointments is in the Constitution but nothing else is. The rest is up to Congress. How many on the Court. What they are paid. Probably their code of ethics, since that has been legislated by Congress for lower courts since forever.
These allegedly brilliant lawyers did not read the text. Oops. Overstepped. Usual problem when you put second rate minds on a first
ratetier court.Baud
@Suzanne:
Do normies understand what the patriarchy is?
Baud
@bbleh:
Correct.
Suzanne
@Baud: Maybe they don’t know the term, but lots of people know what it is. The bigger question is do they want to restore or smash it.
Kay
@Suzanne:
The abortion laws in red states are really much further Right than the norm in North America and Europe. Parts of the US are now in a very small and backward club internationally as far as womens rights.
I just cannot fathom women who don’t get it yet – even blue state women! No, you’re not “safe”. Right wingers intend to roll back ALL womens rights. You will be affected! I mean, Good Christ all they need right now is 5000 votes in a couple of swing states to go from Biden to Trump and they get a national abortion ban. What would it take, exactly, for these people to wake up?
Did they see the judicial ban on abortion medication? That was intended to be national.
different-church-lady
Wait, are you telling me they’re actually trying to do something about this?
Soprano2
@Suzanne: What they really hate is their wives being able to divorce them without them having any control over it. They’d love to have no-fault divorce as long as only men could use it!
sab
@Kay: Went to vote today in the mayoral primary which actually was my city’s election, since tgh Republicans couldn’t field a candidate. I don’t like this. I don’t want whichever Mr 30% to be the mayor.
I have finally come around to the weird voting you guys in CA have. ( I know Kay is midwest. I mean the weird ballots ypu have with one party government.
Democrat all the way myself, but I do think this is what the Founders wanted. They knew about political parties, but they didn’t much like them. And they had way more experience with disfunctional government than we sweet summer 20th century Americans have. Our kids know more.
p
different-church-lady
@tobie:
Conservatives are in smash-and-grab mode. Anything they can get their hands on and run with is theirs, period.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
@Kay:
People just aren’t going to get married, to protect themselves, and to spite conservatives. I could see this leading to further brain drain in red states and declines in marriage rates
bbleh
@different-church-lady: concur. I think they’ve been that way for a while actually, or at least the plutocratic wing has, and I think it’s because they see the sun setting. (I think the crazies see it too, and that’s one reason they keep getting crazier.)
Kay
@sab:
You want ranked choice? I always have to look to figure out what it is :)
different-church-lady
@Baud:
I think some of them do. Depends on your definition of Normie. I don’t consider it synonymous with ‘oblivious’. They may know which way the wind blows, even if they don’t obsessively reload the Accuweather.com.
Jeffro
“women’s-fault divorce” oh my
Just lying there, waiting for them at the end of a field FULL of rakes to be stepped on (some of them multiple times)
please proceed, GOP
Joe Falco
Conservatives using the Unitary Executive theory but for the Supreme Court to explain away unchecked power when their side controls the branch.
snoey
@Soprano2: Not a problem, it’s always her fault – at least according to every bitter divorced jackhole I ever worked with.
dww44
@Betty Cracker: I so agree with you, but his entire presentation was concise, logical and clear and deserves much wider distribution. I call on all of us to spread throughout the wider community as I don’t believe the new iteration of CNN will highlight his brief remarks to, say, counterbalance their just announced intention of hosting a Trump town hall. Malone and Licht are turning what was a relatively sane CNN into another right wing outlet (truly it was not that previously).
While we have to continue to push back on the right wing narrative, we need some more and powerful voices from the left, preferable speaking from a newly elevated liberal platform.. I guess we don’t have our fair share of billionaires on our side who could underwrite one?
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: Why stop there? They could go with the man is divorced, but the woman is still married.
Eolirin
@Kay: I don’t think CA uses ranked choice, they just have jungle primaries. I could be wrong.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You may have meant broader than “marry” and if so I apologize but this is much, much bigger than decisions to marry. What Suzanne is saying is that the goal is to exclude women from public life. They would have a role in the home but no public role– no work or life of their own. Mrs. Robert Smith. That. Marriage would be one of the few roles they would be permitted to have.
It was not that long ago that women went from their fathers home to their husbands home. THAT is the goal. Women who were not married remained with their fathers or took very limited, short term work.
This is not fringe in the GOP. Students for Life regularly appear as spokespeople for far Right religious conservatives. They seek to ban contraception. That is just a fact.
Kay
@Eolirin:
Now I have to look up jungle primaries. Again :)
Geminid
@Kay:
@sab: Alaska’s new voting system intrigues me. They hold an all-comer, “jungle” primary like California does, but instead of the top 2 finishers moving on to a runoff, Alaska has the top 4 advance to a ranked choice runoff.
Some outfit is pushing a similar system for other states, but they would have the top 5 advance. For some reason I think 5 is too many, but 4 might be good.
Washington state also has jungle primaries now, and Louisiana’s had them for a while.
Baud
@Geminid:
They’re not really primaries though since they are nonpartisan.
If someone gets over 50%, do they still have the second stage?
sab
@Kay: Mi don’t understand or much like ranked choice either. I just think my city will not do well going forward when the primary guy won by 18% and the next two won by 17% and no Republican even made it on the ballot. The primary was the election. I am okay except that the winner only will get about 18 percent and is expected afterwards to run a city
ETA Some point in the process the losers need to be able to say that guy is second best but he/ she was the best available. We haven’t given them that and I still accept Republicans as legitimate political partners ( yes I know.) They have actually been elected around me.
Baud
@sab:
Yep, I hate that. Need to have a system where the winner gets a majority.
Geminid
@Baud: People still call the first round a primary.
I think the top 2 finishers advance even if someone exceeds 50%.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Of course that’s what they hate. Conservatives hate that women doesn’t want to marry them and have their babies. They hate the eduction and financial independence that makes that lifestyle feasible.
They 100% want to push women — GIRLS — into early marriage, keep them uneducated and financially dependent, trap them in marriages (bad is fine), and have them produce babies.
Yes, the rhetoric on the right is about how teenage marriage is great.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kay: Racism is the straw that stirs the GOP’s drink, Kay. For some white women, voting Republican means they’re voting for a political party that will keep those uppity blacks and browns down in the ghettos where they belong.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Oh, I understand. I just think taking such extreme and fringe actions (from the POV of the broader public) will backfire on conservatives. We’ve already seen it w/ abortion bans. Before Dobbs, it was all theoretical, and I think people bought into the whole “pro-life” framing; that this was conservatives’ sincerely held beliefs and we have to respect them. Well, that illusion has been completely shattered in the last year, with draconian bans not even leaving enough room to save the life of the mother. Now, they’re trying to go after contraceptives and no-fault divorce.
There’s no fig-leaf of “Oh, I just want to save the babies”! to hide behind now. It’s nakedly about control (it always was of course).
Another reason this is going to backfire is I think a lot of men also like contraceptives, because that means having sex with their partners without the risk of an unplanned pregnancy. I’m sure there’s plenty of men who have taken advantage of no-fault divorce too.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The marriage rate is in the shitter….except for college-educated people. Those people are marrying and staying married (and they’re increasingly marrying only each other). Everyone else? Not really marrying.
The birth rate is really, really low. Average age of first motherhood is climbing. Couples that are having kids are having fewer.
The right wing is absolutely freaked out about this.
Kay
@Suzanne:
A lot of the women flee though. They don’t flee when they are 16- 20 but they don’t stick around long term either. Hence! The big push to ban divorce.
I still think we could make this a wedge issue and cleave off some WWC women. They’re not onboard IMO.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I want Biden to campaign on the “Freedom to Fuck.”
He won’t do it, nor should he, but it’s what I want.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
I agree. But there’s an issue with their plan. You need dual incomes these days (for many decades now, in fact) to raise a family
Suzanne
@Kay:
And, of course…. that endangers women. Without an education, a job, money, resources…. women cannot leave abusive situations. They cannot protect their health. They cannot protect their children or pets. It’s not just utterly dehumanizing. It will result in more dead women and children.
Soprano2
@snoey: I worked with a man whose wife announced one day that she wanted a divorce. They had been married a long time, I think more than 20 years, and he had absolutely no idea it was coming. I suspect that’s one reason he ended up divorced! He was a nice guy at work for the most part, but I have no idea what he was like away from work.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Part of the rhetoric is an attempt to convince women that living in a hovel in a shitty town is pleasing to God, and that wanting financial stability is selfish.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Ah, but don’t you see? Getting women out of the workforce will bring back the days when a white man could support his family on his own income from a job he could get with only a high school education.
Never mind that is all bullshit. It’s what they think.
Soprano2
@Kay: I share articles like that one from Rolling Stone on my FB page with comments like “This is the Republican’s latest unpopular idea, get rid of no-fault divorce”. I figure I know a lot of “normies” on FB, and if even a few of them see the article and even read the headline that’s probably more than they knew about it before. You’d think after what happened with Dobbs it wouldn’t be hard to convince them that Republicans are serious about these efforts, but they still have a hard time believing it. “Who wants to get rid of no-fault divorce?” they wonder, and my answer is “Men who want to have a woman waiting on them and taking care of them almost like a slave, and don’t want her to be able to get away from them, that’s who”. Men who want someone to take care of their every need like their mother did when they were 5 years old.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Right and we’l go back to the exact situation that was in place prior, where women were completely powerless and therefore vulnerable and therefore had to depend on men.
All these dopes with the “tradwives” and all, like it’s a game- why do they think that failed for women? What makes them think it would be any different this time around?
Baud
Current reddit thread on the wimmins subject.
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/135okj7/get_ready_for_the_conservative_crusade_against
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
A lot of that has to do with their shitty policies, too. They have only themselves to blame.
I think the really creepy part about all of this is that white conservatives want more white babies. It’s eugenics.
I was probably never going to get married anyway, but fuck them if that’s what they want. I’ll never help them and this just another disincentive to having kids
Kay
@Suzanne:
Wanting anything is selfish. A huge part of the anti abortion movement is women suffering like glorious martyrs to motherhood. It’s best if you almost die when giving birth. That gets applause. These people are raising girls.
I hear echoes of it in (some) womens accounts of being refused care because of abortion laws. Some of them almost apologize for insisting on remaining alive. They can’t just demand care as people. They have to EXPLAIN. Endlessly. Over and over again.
Kay
@Baud:
First comment ” imagine being the face of the ‘wife shouldn’t be allowed to leave me’ movement
So funny!
Hoodie
@tobie: It’s just an idiotic argument. The code would not be enforced against the entire Court, just against individuals who happen to be SC justices. It’s irrelevant whether there is a Court of higher review but, even if it were, there is Congress. Individual justices shouldn’t even get the benefit of the arguments in support of exempting a sitting president from certain types of litigation; the Court can proceed just fine without any individual justice.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: this is going to turn into another Dead Kennedys thread, isn’t it?
ETA: now that Omnes is here, the odds of that just increased!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
Wow, these people are really out of fucking touch, aren’t they? Do they talk to anyone outside of their bubbles or below the age of 40? Hell, age 50? I know the answer is they don’t care, but they’ve seen with their own eyes the blowback over abortion for the past year. It hasn’t seemed to give them pause at all, except maybe at the national level with an abortion ban
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I think college educated marrieds might have had fewer children anyway, economic trends aside. I don’t think the way they parent lends itself to having lots of children. They’re really conscientious parents. A lot of what happens in large families- over extended parents (time and money) , children caring for other children, would not be acceptable to them as parents. They would think it would negatively impact their children.
Manyakitty
@Suzanne: well how else are they going to restore a slave class?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Steve in the ATL:
It’s always really annoyed me that the only DK songs most people know are the ones shitting on liberals (Holiday in Cambodia, Kill the Poor, California Uber Alles, etc). They have a great catalog
hueyplong
@Steve in the ATL: Well, Republicans do campaign on the unstated slogan, Kill the Poor.
karen marie
@artem1s: The best bit? All this “state’s rights” bullshit flies out the window because they’re using SCOTUS to nationalize their hatred.
Just wait till DeSantis’s “let’s just kill everyone” sentencing “reforms” get there. Trump’s SCOTUS will endorse them.
different-church-lady
@Steve in the ATL: We could do with a lot more “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” in the world.
C Stars
Related, I think, to the issue of no-fault divorce and general backsliding on women’s rights/equality, I read an interesting article about the dramatically shrinking and aging population of Japan and though some of you here might be interested in reading:
https://www.newsweek.com/japan-population-decline-births-deaths-demographics-society-1796496
What was interesting to me is that the conservative government is offering financial incentives for having kids, but will not budge on gender equality or anything that would make corporate workplace expectations easier for parents/caregivers. For instance the kind of social reforms that would make it possible for women to work after having children (ETA, which many women are calling for). The conservative expectation is that women must give up their careers to take on full-time domestic responsibilities, including caring for both children and elderly relatives. Of course, the cost of living is getting ever higher and the financial incentives for childbearing are not enough to make a dent in long-term expenses.
Ken
@Hoodie: I just checked Article III, and it doesn’t have any carve-outs for the Supreme Court being subject to laws. For that matter, I can’t find where it says that they have lifetime appointments:
I do note “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour”, which to me suggests that the Congress can define good Behaviour in law, establish processes to monitor their behavior (say, regular audits), or even make the penalty for violations their immediate removal from office — no impeachment necessary.
(I’m not all that sure it even requires impeachment to remove one; Article II says that “civil Officers” are subject to impeachment, does that include the court?)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think any job, even ones that you can get with only a HS Diploma, should pay a living wage (which I’m sure we agree on), but yes that is they how see things. It’s completely delusional. Having your spouse work makes life so much easier and more fun with the extra income. Plus, they can be fulfilled and have a life outside of you
Kelly
In Oregon political ethics news Sec of State Shemia Fagan has resigned after Portland alt-weekly Willamette Week (https://www.wweek.com/homepage/) uncovered her consulting gig with a major weed business. Amongst the duties of Oregon Sec of State is auditing and there was an audit in progress on Oregon’s weed program. Consulting gig paid $10,000 a month on top her state salary of about $6,500.
Not that it’s a good excuse but Oregon statewide officials are ridiculously underpaid. Also Oregon Sec of State is first in line to replace the Governor if necessary. Not good but over quickly.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s already happening. The national marriage rate has dropped by more than 1/3 since 1990. There are a lot of things going into the change, but at its root I think it’s a vote of no confidence in the religious conservative worldview.
cain
@Kay:
oh yeah … guess who is going after no-fault divorce?
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/stephen-crowder-divorce-1234727777/
Stephen Crowder is trying to kill no fault divorce. I think he believes that a woman must stay in the marriage she is unhappy with
ETA – Suzanne beat me to it.
zeecube
Open thread? Looks like they located the obelisk from “2001: A Space Odessey”: Scientists Discover Gigantic Structure Under the Surface of the Moon.
Geminid
@cain: I saw part of the surveillance camera footage of Crowder berating his wife. It was pretty bad.
Fraud Guy
@sab:
I believe the language is actually cognizant on good behaviour, and not lifetime:
Suzanne
@Kay:
RBG was one of the first people to talk about this specific parenting dynamic. (And it’s one of the reasons I will admire her forever.) She noted that she had her first child when she was pretty young, but left lots of space between her kids, because those early years are intense and require a lot of effort. I did the same thing — seven years between Spawns Elder and Younger, eight-and-a-half years between Younger and Youngest.
Yes, as people get richer, they tend to have fewer children.
Roger Moore
@sab:
Ranked choice isn’t that difficult to understand from a voter’s point of view: instead of picking just one candidate, you list them in order of how much you like them. The really complicated bit is how you turn all those lists of preferences into election results. A big thing is that there are many ways of doing this that may result in different results with the same set of votes.
The simplest approach is to divide up the votes by the top-ranked candidate. Then you take the votes from the candidate who got the fewest votes and divide them up among the remaining candidates by who their next-ranked candidate is. Lather, rinse, repeat until someone has a majority. This method has the advantage that it’s easy to do with the actual ballots.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
And they would be absolutely right
Omnes Omnibus
And that is the big problem with getting people to adopt it. Person with the most votes wins is simple and easy to understand. Ranked choice can look like people are manipulatng things behind the scenes, especially if you are prone to believe that anyway.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore:
And simultaneously, educational achievement has become a much stronger line of assortative mating. (Assortative mating is how people sort themselves into couples…. It’s of course more common for both partners to be of the same race, same class, etc.). It used to be pretty common for a college-educated man to marry a woman who had not gone to college. Now that dynamic is much less likely — and the inverse is also not bearing out. Increasingly, both partners have the same educational attainment, and marriage rates are much higher for those couples with a bachelor’s or higher. And this leads to a much stronger economic sorting-out, too.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
I think it’s a shame. Because marriage doesn’t have to be a prison or explicitly religious. It can be a partnership and commitment between two people
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus:
Anything even harder to understand than then new MLB playoff structure can’t be a good thing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
The cost of formal education is a problem though and locks a lot of people out who can’t afford it. Plus, college is only really worth it if you know what you want to do and it’s a degree that can be useful. A Bachelor’s in Art History or something alone is probably not going to help. Then you end up with lots of student loan debt with nothing to show for it
How do those attending trade/technical schools shake out?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Prediction: There will be a group of white woman calling themselves Defenders of Traditional Marriage and they will be the front group of this campaign and will be get interviewed on TV shows for their wisdom. See the Moms for Liberty or Phyllis Schlafly’s group in an earlier era
And it works. IIRC that’s how Yougkin flipped Va with the vote of white women.
Omnes Omnibus
This is a terrible take.
Steve in the ATL
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I suspect that the number of people who take out loans to get art history degree is or rounds to zero.
eversor
@Roger Moore:
The younger generations have a vote of no confidence in religion, especially Christianity, period.
It’s funny but all the cultural tag lines of the past “marriage”, “the family” are now punch lines in mocking Christianity regardless of left or right by the majority of younger people who want nothing to do with it at all. Being a Christian is the turd in the punch bowl. Older generations don’t get that and think it’s just conservative Christianity but it’s all of it.
Which is why the hatred of immigration is so funny. If you want more Christians you’re going to have to import them from Latin America and Africa. Even then, given a few generations or even one they are going to be out of it as well! Progress!
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): College overwhelmingly bears out as a good financial decision for those who finish, in terms of lifetime earnings. The vast majority of college grads are not getting BAs in Art History, they’re getting functional degrees from public institutions, in things like business and nursing and psychology and engineering. Conversely, the vast majority of blue-collar workers are not making six figures owning a plumbing contracting firm.
So a pattern of two people coupling up who both have higher lifetime earning potential is leading to class solidification.
The trend is that marriage rates go up for people with more education.
cain
@Suzanne:
Given how much it costs to have a child… I have no idea how anybody can afford one. The rat race starts when you get pregnant and the prices seem like what I paid for college for daycare.
Even if women stayed at home as these idiots imagine – you aren’t going to be able to have a job to pay that. You’d end up a serf and looking for alms from the rich. I guess when they build a coliseum, a lot of lotteries, we have hit the end empire stage of the roman age again.
cain
@eversor: turns out children get confused when you’re not consistent on christian values and then end up leaving.
TriassicSands
I’m watching the hearing and it’s obvious that the Republicans are trying to divert attention away from the issue at hand by claiming that this is all about attacking and delegitimizing the conservative Court.
I’m waiting for some Democratic senator to point out the obvious — any legislation passed would apply to all nine members of the Court without respect to their philosophy.
When I watch hearings I’m often struck by the failure of anyone to ask what seem like very obvious questions.
Q: If any legislation passed applied to all nine members, then how could that legislation be seen as targeting either specific members or their philosophies? Ans: It couldn’t. Unless, of course, you’re a Republican and you really don’t care about ethics and you will do anything you can to protect a corrupt justice like Thomas.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed, it is a staggeringly bad take. I have enough student loan debt that I’ll probably die with it, and it was still a good financial decision to go to college.
Every bit of data we have on this subject indicates that college grads make more money. The stereotype of the grievance studies major at Oberlin who goes on to being a barista is not the reality for the vast majority of college grads.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Truth. During the last Administration, single GOP staffers in TFG’s Administration were really pissed about the fact that few women around here would date them, once they said they were Republicans.
And while the DC area is a bit of an outlier, that’s got to be a bit of a thing nationwide: while s_c keeps complaining that white women still vote majority GOP, the fact is that white women vote 20 percentage points less Republican than white men do.
Jeffro
@Suzanne: true, true, true, true, annnnd true.
oh that our national snooze media would help get the word out, especially re: #1-3
eversor
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
These relationships do exist and it’s the new normal. There’s really two growing groups of people.
The first group dates around till they find someone they actually like and if it’s mutually they try being exclusive. Eventually they move in together. For all intents it’s a marriage. Splitting bills, fighting over bills, taking vacations together, doing things together, getting a pet, arguing over chores. We know other couples like us who have been together for years and hang out with others and while some people have rings ain’t nobody got married unless their parents badgered them into it and it’s laughed at. These go on for decades, or even the rest of their lives. It’s perfectly workable. But they will not get “married” because that’s Christian crap to the younger generation.
Kids do or do not enter this situation. Rent and cost of living is so high it’s not an option to most. Or it could put you in financial peril. Also a lot of people don’t think it’s responsible to have kids given stuff like climate change.
But it all fuels religious freakouts. People aren’t going to Church, they aren’t getting married, they aren’t buying houses, women aren’t staying at home, and they aren’t cranking out 2.5 kids. Yeah no shit! You built that!
Old School
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: White women with college degrees are a hugely Democratic bloc, in some recent races there’s a 30-point gap.
White women without degrees seem to narrowly favor the GOP.
Omnes Omnibus
How’s it work come tax time?
Anyway
@Suzanne:
Single white women — huge Dem voters. My anecdata bears this out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anyway: My anecdata suggests that 95% of people vote Democratic. Just saying…
Suzanne
@eversor: I have plenty of liberal married friends and family. I wouldn’t say that anyone’s parents badgered them into it, but the overall trend is that it definitely was more intentional on the part of the couple. Not the kind of mindless step-by-step “getting married because everyone expects it” that used to be more common.
My cousin and his wife were together for like ten years before they got married. We all thought they were just going to live together forever, and the whole family was totally cool with it. And literally, they, like, went to the courthouse on a Tuesday and got married without any of us there. They don’t have or want kids. They did it for themselves. It’s so great. He was resistant to getting married for a long time because his Boomer parents had an absolute shitshow of a divorce. But once he was able to conceive of marriage as a different thing, he loved the idea.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
It didn’t work out for me, which is my own fault. I kept trying to convince myself It would be worth it in the end, but I never truly felt comfortable in the role during clinicals. I nearly flunked out towards the end of my Associate Nursing Degree. It was the pandemic hitting in my final semester that saved me, getting a ton of free time.
I don’t know what my problem was. Maybe it was just never the right career for me and I was deluding myself?
Should I go back to school for a business or accounting degree? Maybe a finance degree? I’ve never been that great with math. I already have the core classes done for general university requirements, obviously
For the accounting thing, specifically, I’ve read that the Big Four firms are the ones that hire grads out of school and they wouldn’t hire someone older like me (late 20s). I mean, maybe that’s not true?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: Of course, like with Rod Dreher, their own divorces are OK… just not anyone elses divorce.
Miss Bianca
@Old School:
Uh-huh. Unless they’re under 18, of course, right, Matt?
Jesus.
trollhattan
@Kelly: Wowzers, the quid, the pro and the quo, having a lovely lunch together. Literal bought politician.
Usually they wait ’til after leaving office to land the sweet lobbying gig.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Maybe you should consider Art History. Not completely a joke. You get more benefit from studying something that interests you than you do from studying something that people tell you will get you a good job.
Jay
@Soprano2:
I am one of “those guys”. 10 years into the marriage she suddenly really, really wanted a baby. 2 weeks later, she wanted a divorce.
Took me about a year and a half to figure out what was going on.
She basically went from her traditional Italian Parents house, to “ours”. 9 years in, after clawing and scratching financially for a long time, we were in a great financial position, (DINKs), 2 years until the house was paid off, so we could spend some.
By that time, she was Admin Union in health care, with 15 years in, so had 6 weeks vacation time a year. I had the same or more, (banked time), but my job on the other hand, blew up if I took more than a week off in a row. So I never took more than a week off in a row.
So, she would go on these two week trips with her “girls”, (1 married, 4 single), and later, I found out that they had a bit of a “good time”. So on these trips, she had the “single time” most people spend their 20’s going through, 2 weeks at a time.
So I had, in her mind, somehow gone from being her partner and lover, to being her Dad.
I never did figure out the baby thing, because I was the one good with babies, infants and children, where she had no interest, skills or patience.
After we separated, we met, once a month to discuss finances, property, etc, (it was civil, rather than lawyer to lawyer). Just before Christmas, she broke down during one of our meetings. Turns out, the guy she had a “fling” with, on the two week trip just proceeding the “I want a divorce”, she had invited to spend the 2 week Christmas break with her. He had built her up about how great the two weeks would be, over 3 months, then had ghosted her just before Christmas.
By that point in time, I had accepted that the marriage was over, and was unrepairable.
trollhattan
@Old School: Dude should sack up if he wants to be in politics. My god, what a twerp.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus:
My anecdata suggests that 95% of people are just out of their minds no matter who they vote for. (It’s been that kind of week…)
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Lots of small firms (like architecture firms) hire junior-level accounting staff to do their books. I mean, if I were you, I’d probably try to climb the ladder in nursing. But I’m not you.
I literally have an art degree. Took scads of art history courses.
trollhattan
@Baud: “Stephen Crowder.” What, Boyd was unavailable?
Paul in KY
@cain: I have one. He’s a wonderful little boy, but is hella expensive, at times.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’d be OK settling for something I can tolerate and earns a living wage, honestly, at this point.
different-church-lady
@Jay:
Ugh. This is doing nothing to help my faith in humanity.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I think there’s pluses and minuses for both types of families. I think a lot of kids only really works if there’s sufficient income. If not it just doesn’t make sense – you really do have to spread it too thin and that creates stress, which often makes for poor parenting, and on and on. My son and his spouse made a decision to have only one child because they want to live (always) in a city (although maybe not always the one they’re in) and don’t anticipate ever having a large living space or a car.
trollhattan
If you’re a permanority, you give up on winning elections and amuse yourselves with recalls.
But wait, there’s more!
I’ll bet.
Baud
@Kay:
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head regarding the real problem: the modern devotion to quality child rearing. My parents didn’t believe in that and I turned out great.
Suzanne
@Baud: “What do these here parents think they need car seats for?! I didn’t ride in one, I didn’t die.”
trollhattan
West by gawd Virginnie has added a little spice to the public schools.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-65455991
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne:
Also, you can literally get an art degree from SCAD!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I graduated 3 years ago, never took the NCLEX, and never got a license. I’ve forgotten a ton already and I never had that firm a grasp on the skills and knowledge to start with.
However, that bit you mentioned about architecture firms hiring accounting grads sounds promising. I tend to want to follow The Path you’re supposed to take when it comes to these things. I generally like the idea of working for a big company because it usually means more stability and more room to grow, but that’s not the only way
Kay
@Baud:
I always had them leave the table when they were being bad. My daughter calls this “banishing” when I suggest it for her daughter- only at my house- I would never tell her to banish at her own house. I started to defend it and then I remembered sending her to her room and forgetting she was up there so she fell asleep and only came down the following morning. No banishing it is!
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist: Of course they wouldn’t! Never forget how the GOP hounded Abe Fortas off the court over a matter of $20,000!
trollhattan
If my kid is in one of their classes I’d give the poor thing whiplash with how fast I’d be yanking them out of there. Stay classy, San Diego.
Eerily reminiscent of the Hobby Lobby suit.
lowtechcyclist
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Also, just like any other big outfit, the Federal government has accountants. And Federal agencies have rules against discriminating on the basis of age, as well as race, sex, etc.
I’m in my 25th year as a Federal government statistician, and it’s been a great career. Obviously working environments vary across the government just like anywhere else, but it’s a good place to get your foot in the door, and might be a good place for the long run as well.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s worse than that. Childcare for kids too young to go to school is now as expensive as sending a child to a private university. Most families can’t afford that even with two incomes. Unless they can find someone to look after their child until they’re old enough to go to school, they can’t really afford to have children. It’s no wonder the birthrate is collapsing.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Parents today won’t even let their kids put their feet up on the windshield.
@Kay: If she doesn’t banish, what does she do?
schrodingers_cat
@trollhattan: I know that BJP affiliated Indian and Indian American RWNJs are gunning for her after she introduced the anti-caste discrimination bill. She is an Afghan immigrant and pretty impressive.
Old School
Bonus: The expression on the woman behind him when he says that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Are you going to get a degree from an Ivy, near Ivy, flagship state university, or fancy private LAC? No? Then don’t worry about jobs with the Big Four accounting firms. That will not be your path. And why accounting? Any interest in it? Or are you just looking a job stats?
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I have no idea why anyone thinks this.
Kay
@Baud:
They talk to her. Both of them. One on each side. I don’t think I could stand that much attention :)
trollhattan
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks, that makes sense. I thought it was a tell when they complained about discrimination against Hindus and not against people of Indian or South Asian descent.
Kicking some butt, for a freshman ETA Senator. I approve!
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Random thought.
Medical offices and medical specialty clinics hire (and treasure) back room staff to wrestle with insurance forms and payments. Having nursing training could give you an edge in such a setting.
The Moar You Know
@Roger Moore: disagree. It’s simply what happens when people under the age of forty can’t afford a roof over their heads, never mind a baby.
That describes America in 2023. All of it.
Conservatives want white people to have babies? Fucking fantastic. How are they going to afford it? Show your work.
They can’t do that because it can’t be done. Not for any ethnic group of childbearing age.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: Size and job stability-opportunity do not correlate. Ask me how I know.
Omnes Omnibus
OT: I am done with House of Dragons if they do this.
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know: Silly, they pop out so many they get a reality show. Easy peasy! (Pay no attention to the lecher brother. He’s godly!)
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed. I literally cannot think of a business of any size that does not have accountants/controllers on staff or third-party. I could see that translating into cost estimating, general contracting, etc etc etc.
I will also note that a dear friend from college, who was a creative writing major, went on to a MS in accounting and has a great career, in addition to a great avocation of writing. So I don’t love the shitting on art history.
But if you don’t like accounting or you don’t have an aptitude for it, then WTF, why torture yourself?
Suzanne
@trollhattan: I have generally enjoyed my job on a day-to-day level more at small firms. More flexibility to make your job your own.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Comedy gold, Jerry.
;)
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: & @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I had a similar thought about medical offices or hospital facilities. Also, if you don’t mind signing on as a minion for Evil, Inc., health insurance companies might value that training.
gvg
@Steve in the ATL: No, you would be wrong. It would be about the same as all others. It costs what it costs. The thing is, not as many choose it because almost everyone has an eye on potential earnings. Where THAT goes wrong is when people keep trying for the “well paying” majors they aren’t actually good at or that their parents insist on. That racks up pointless debt.
Art majors often end up doing something else, but so do engineers and other majors sometimes. Especially over time.
The Moar You Know
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m hard pressed to find worse. On my last programming job the number of team members who had a degree in software development, or anything to do with the discipline at all, was zero.
The best programmer I ever worked with had a BA in Religious Studies.
I’m on year twenty of doing ITSEC for the DoD and my degree is in sociology.
But it does matter for marriage. Every member of my family/extended family has a college degree and is married to someone with a college degree.
gvg
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Try some aptitude testing and maybe some trial jobs in a field to see if you’d like it. Does your college have a good career counseling center? Go ask experts.
raven
@Old School: Ask him about the house on 30A with huge “Trump Won” banners hanging down three stories! I yell fuck TRUMP every time I drive by !!!
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
Holy shit, where is this happening?
When the kiddo was last in full-time day care (2014), we were paying $180/week, which comes to ~$9400/year. I don’t know what private universities cost in 2014, but I know it wasn’t anywhere near that cheap.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s been suggested to me as a possibility. I could ask my parent’s accountant about it, he’s always been very friendly and helpful
The Moar You Know
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): DID YOU GET A DEGREE YES/NO
If yes, you can literally apply for any entry level position in anything and probably get it.
If no, you are fucked eight ways to Sunday
Government work is a great place to start IF you have the degree.
Betty Cracker
I’m a college graduate married to a non-college graduate. In my peer group, that’s pretty rare.
The Moar You Know
@trollhattan: You go twenty miles inland and you go from where I live – Liberal Coastal California – to Nazi country. That area in particular was where Tom Metzger made his last stand in California. It hasn’t improved much.
Suzanne
@gvg:
I was an art major. I have a BFA. I worked in advertising for a little while before going back to graduate school in architecture. Of my art classmates from college, a couple still work as graphic designers. One is a middle school art teacher. A couple are firefighters. Quite a few work in arts production, like video and graphic production. Quite a few work in marketing in firms like mine that chase RFP work and need good visual skills.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m a fan of approval voting. It hits the sweet spot of being much better than plurality voting while still being very simple to explain and implement. Vote for as many candidates as you like; the candidate with the most votes wins. It rewards candidates who have broad-based appeal over polarizing ones, which IMO is exactly what we need.
schrodingers_cat
@trollhattan: Also, caste discrimination is illegal in India and has been since 1950 when the Constitution was adopted.
NotMax
@raven
Been meaning to link a cartoon from days of yore for you.
:)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
I did, actually. Two year degree from a public college. I feel like for a nursing degree, people will wonder why I didn’t do anything with it though
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I married ex-Mr. Suzanne after I finished undergrad, and he does not have a degree. The degree in an of itself was not the issue, but he couldn’t understand why I was focused on my career, working overtime, spending early career years trying to build reputation, etc, and he thought it was ridiculous that I wanted to go back to school. It became a huge part of our breakup. The degree was just a preview of a huge cultural compatibility gap.
The real Mr. Suzanne and I met when we were both in graduate school, and we are much more aligned on that stuff.
zhena gogolia
@gvg:
I see this every fucking day, unfortunately.
schrodingers_cat
What’s the percentage of the population with at least one college degree?
42% according to the last census.
The Moar You Know
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You go to the local office of any big health insurer in your area and they will not give a flying fuck what you did or did not do because you have a degree in nursing. 4 year would be better, and you might want to work toward that, but right now those folks are desperate.
Health insurance is where you want to land. You will never see a patient never mind touch one.
Old School
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I had a professor in college that put it this way: “I discovered I could stand working with numbers when lots of other people couldn’t.”
You’ve said you weren’t great with math, but for the most part you just need to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide (or know how to get a device to do that for you).
The main question would be whether you could stand to be working with numbers all day.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Democrats obviously know this (and it shows in their campaigns) but it doesn’t get talked about a whole lot.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I just want to say one word to you… Plastics.
Gary K
@Kay: It’s the system in which you rank your choices!
schrodingers_cat
Also the R nutjobs in Congress or the Supreme Court are not lacking in college degrees. Boebert is an exception.
Suzanne
College degree data is easy to find. From census.gov:
O. Felix Culpa
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Wouldn’t the first order of business be exploring what you might actually want to do? Through actual research, talking to people in the field, etc. Find out what the work involves on a day-to-day basis. What is a typical work environment like? Does it sound like a good fit for you? Once you’ve clarified your goal(s), explaining a change becomes easy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
Hey, that sounds like something to look into. Thanks!
You all gave me some good solid advice. I’ll do some research
Kay
@Gary K:
Right but then how is it counted?
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
Al Jolson’s role in “The Jazz Singer” might be considered an exception to the shul.
:)
zhena gogolia
@Baud: He is not going to get that reference. But then you knew that.
Jay
@different-church-lady:
s’was okay. I got to date around, pick up new skills, (emotional and otherwise), the met the love of my life, we shacked up for 10 years, then got married, (spousal legal rights), had hard times, wonderful times and are still together and madly in love after 30 years.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: As long as you did, I’m satisfied.
trollhattan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Know somebody working as a nurse who got a degree in administration then landed a sweet hospital administration gig that combines the two.
It’s one possible path.
The demand for nurses is phenomenal, at least in California.
Kelly
I’m a retired IT guy. The best programmer I ever worked with had a BA in Biochemistry. Not far behind was a Theater major. She worked set design. A Geology major and a couple History majors in my top 20.
TriassicSands
The star witness, as far as I’m concerned, has been Professor Frost. The two Republican witnesses have opinions, she has knowledge and history behind her testimony. Former judge Fogel also has knowledge and experience in dealing with judicial ethical issues and was a useful witness. Mukasey and Depree were, it seemed to me, one trick pony witnesses, who really couldn’t make a sound case against a meaningful SCOTUS ethical code. Dupree really seemed mostly to be a partisan. The fifth witness, Kedric Payne, was the least effective Democratic witness and spent most of his time being questioned by Opie Kennedy defending or denying his tweets and retweets. Sheesh.
Republican witnesses: Two, both white guys.
Democratic witnesses: Three, one white guy, one African American guy, and one white woman.
schrodingers_cat
@trollhattan: Same in MA. And with an aging population of Boomers the demand is going to increase.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I didn’t get it either.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: I said I was satisfied.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat:
From the movie “The Graduate.” Career advice given to the newly graduated Dustin Hoffman character. A long time ago now and meant as a joke (although not by the advice-giver) even then.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
Think Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The reference to plastics is what I didn’t get.
Sure Lurkalot
@Omnes Omnibus:
100% agree and I believe the commodification of college has resulted in the dumb electorate we have now. A degree is “worthless” unless it’s a meal ticket and K-12 has become the super sorter for what restaurant you can get a reservation at. It won’t be long before there are just a handful of universities that offer courses in the humanities, history or the arts.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: I haven’t watched the Graduate.
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: Ah, Not Max got there first. Thanks.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
No time like the present.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
https://youtu.be/eaCHH5D74Fs
Dan B
Florida again: Just passed a law that allows medical providers and payers the tight to refuse service to LGBTQ people
Seems like the next step after outlawing abortion and trans rights.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: There are so many work environments for nurses, other than bedside nursing. And I feel like it’s one of the most portable degrees…. not tied to any city or environ.
Kelly
I always tell high schoolers planning college I did not know Computer Science existed as a major when I went to college. I took a programming class, discovered I had a knack for code, enjoyed tinkering with code. Graduated with a BS in CS.
Roger Moore
@TriassicSands:
It could be if it were written selectively to cover only specific kinds of bad behavior. For example, if it talked about taking vacations with people but not other kinds of suspect socializing, it could reasonably be seen to be singling out Thomas. This makes it important to write the law broadly and generally, rather than focusing specifically on the kinds of unethical behavior that have been in the news recently.
zhena gogolia
@Sure Lurkalot: Some fancy NE liberal-arts colleges are choosing this moment to get rid of Russian. (And not because they’re replacing it with Ukrainian, in case you were curious.)
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore: If, somehow, society were to come up with a three-income family as the norm, corporate America would simply raise the heat on the frog until you needed four incomes to make it work. And most people would just go along with it as long as they could continue to waive their smartphone at things to get merchandise.
TriassicSands
@schrodingers_cat:
The percentage I found for bachelor’s degrees was 33.7%. The 42% may include AA degrees that, at least when I was growing up, were not considered to represent graduation from college.
What’s weird in that statistic (33.7%) is that it is given for Americans 25+ years old, when traditional graduation would be at either 21 or 22.
Bachelor’s as highest degree = 23.5%
Graduate or professional = 14.4%
Bachelor’s plus graduate = 37.9%
AA = 10.5%
As is not uncommon the numbers don’t always add up.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Just watch baud’s clip at #198. The movie is not worth it.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Local news on the radio and the local chucklefuck news guy mentions a change in California law to fight “so-called climate change”. He’s had Covid three times (so far) so I’m sure the local MAGA bobbleheads are nodding along in agreement.
Life in rural Oregon among the stoopids…
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne: Accounting has similar flexibility across sectors and locations, although the CPA designation doesn’t always transfer automatically between states. But lots (probably most) of accounting jobs don’t require a CPA. And, as an earlier commenter noted, the “math” involved is mostly basic arithmetic. Adding and subtracting. Occasionally percentages. But that’s why G*d made calculators.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: I tend to agree. I think it’s gotten a bit dated.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
best job I ever had was in a small (hardware) tech start up. I started in the stockroom and in 5 years was in the Materials Group. By year ten, they were flying me around to put out fires and install best practices across their North American sub Divisions.
schrodingers_cat
@Kelly: I have done it for research (written my own code, in FORTRAN, C and C++) but I don’t enjoy it much. Its a means to an end that’s all.
NotMax
@Dan B
So if orientation is the criterion, carries the implication that the same services could be denied on the basis of heterosexuality.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: The only good element is Simon & Garfunkel.
Suzanne
@TriassicSands: They usually count adults 25 and up with degrees in the census because some people take a gap year or need an extra 1-2 years to finish. I have quite a few family members who finished their bachelor’s degrees long after age 25, but I believe that it’s because earnings start to diverge between grads and non-grads by age 25 on average.
different-church-lady
@Jay:
Very glad the second time was the charm. While I’ve never suffered your lows, I also haven’t achieved your highs.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I was similarly disappointed when I watched the Way we were. I had heard so many people praise it to the skies.
Kelly
@schrodingers_cat: Means to an end describes my cooking ;-)
I should have finished my comment that the advice I offered is “Be open to the vast spectrum of possibilities a good university offers.”
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Both are very much movies of their time, and haven’t aged well.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Holy christ, I once did a project for a trade group that represented the kind of cheap branded crap that companies give away (pens, paperweights, day-glow stuff, etc.) They used the quote from that film earnestly, with no hint whatsoever they understood the mockery from the film.
TriassicSands
@Roger Moore:
Of course, but I don’t think there is any way that would either be considered or have any chance of passing. It seems pretty clear that all the justices enjoy travel and gifts of various kinds from myriad sources.
However, there is probably only one justice that has had a wealthy friend buy a house and let the justices mother live in it. But that may be the most suspect behavior of all and it would probably only apply, in fact, to Thomas, but it would be absurd to pretend that that kind of transaction should be allowed.
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Maybe home care? That is in some demand now I believe.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
It still has its moments, such as the cameos of Marion Lorne and Buck Henry..
;)
Dan B
@NotMax: Unlikely, doncha think? Especially since the law specifically mentions LGBTQ.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, Gawd. Again the song is the only salvageable element.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: On the other hand, someone played “Evergreen” the other day and I was like, “Holy cow, this is… this is excellent singing!” (Yes, I know it’s from another film.)
lowtechcyclist
@Dan B:
My wife was born and raised in Florida, and at her retirement party last week, people were asking her if we were going to move down there (we’re in MD now) once I followed her into retirement at the end of the year.
We’re both cis and het, but no fucking way we’re moving to a state that treats people like that, it doesn’t matter where we grew up.
Sure Lurkalot
@different-church-lady: Well, we have many laboratories of democracy passing child labor laws so that 14 year olds can work at the meat processing plant. Don’t name your children, just call them Income #3, Income #4….
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Oh, I forgot Marion Lorne was in it. She never topped Strangers on a Train, though. One of the most hilarious scenes in film history.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: That’s a surprisingly excellent song, and of course she sings it very well. It’s difficult.
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia: I can’t listen to Barbra Streisand. I’m sorry. So freaking overwrought. SuzMom, for whom Barbra is a feminist icon, would slap me if she heard me say it. But I can’t stand the shrieking.
JPL
@Old School: I wonder if she has a go fund me page.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
Back in the day, I thought it was a great movie, but I don’t think it’s held up well.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: I used to feel that way. She’s still not to my taste, but I think her technique is superb.
Her version of “Just One Look” from Sunset Boulevard is brilliant.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
The Way We Were: mockworthy treacly schmaltz from the day it was released.
Quiltingfool
@Betty Cracker:
Me, too…except it isn’t that rare in my rural area. Thing is, my husband is wicked smart and had he been born into a family with resources I think he would have had no problem getting a mechanical engineering degree. I have a masters degree (education) and was a teacher; he has always made more money than me, because he knows how to do lots of stuff – carpentry, floor installation, welding, and so on.
I always said he is a diamond in the rough.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
No, no, that’s what was so weird about hearing Evergreen for the first time in ages: she’s gentle and subtle, almost pillowy. It was such a surprising contrast to the way today every singer just brays and lets the auto-tune mop up the rest of it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Dan B: At some point, doesn’t this run into equal protection issues? IANAL, obvs.
I hope the DOJ takes an active interest in this overtly discriminatory legislation.
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia: She did an album with Tony Bennett that I didn’t hate, but that’s because I like Tony. She has skills, absolutely….. just so grandiose.
I used to call Celine Dion “power shrieker”. When Celine isn’t SINGING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGSSSSS!!!! and then here comes the big KEYCHANGE!!!!, I really like her. It’s a style thing.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
One thing I’ve noticed is people who get engaged and then take forever to get married. I think this is mostly to mollify their families. It seems like some people who are nominally against cohabitation are willing to accept it once the couple promises to get married. So they get engaged to keep the family happy and then take their own sweet time to get married.
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
Yes, I’m aware that people take longer than four years or take a gap year. But if you only count people 25+ years old at one specific point in time, haven’t you excluded the people who just finished their Bachelor’s degree at, say, 20-23?
Count everyone 25+ years old with a BA/BS on July 1 in 2022. Many thousands of students 20-23 years old just graduated in late May or early June in 2022, 2021, or 2020 and won’t be counted if they aren’t yet 25+ years old. Is that number so insignificant that it doesn’t have much of an effect on the total percentage. But it’s not the most accurate total. That’s all I can think of to explain why younger graduates aren’t included.
My point is that if you count everyone 21 and up you get virtually everyone, but if they start at 25+ they are missing younger graduates.
Or am I missing something else?
O. Felix Culpa
@different-church-lady: With respect to the braying, I blame “American Idol” and that ilk. All power ballads all the time.
Jay
@Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!):
Home Care is in huge demand, mostly because the front line jobs pay garbage compared to the hoops needed to get the job. Home Care here pays $15hr and you need a car, Bosley’s,(a pet store) pays cashiers $20hr, the local DoggyDaycare pays $25hr.
A living wage here was last calculated in late 2022, before skyrocketing rents and food inflation at $24.08hr.
JPL
@Jay: I almost suggested somehting like that, because you learn so many basic skills.
Suzanne
@TriassicSands: I think that when they count, they’re counting people who finish the Bachelor’s by age 25, not at age 25.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Suzanne: I feel the same about Beyonce. Don’t tell the other gays.
Geminid
@zhena gogolia: I like Barbara Streisand’s version of Laura Nyro’s “Stoney End.” But that’s simply a great song.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne:
I know what you mean. But “Evergreen” in A Star Is Born is pretty tasteful, as is “Just One Look.”
Speaking of often tasteless but a peerless talent, the King sings “Bridge over Troubled Water”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLbOBoa8vD8
I just heard this in the car this morning and had to brush the tears away in order to drive.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: Now, in that case I prefer Nyro’s version!
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
In addition, this gap is opening up:
And that gap’s probably a good deal wider for adults in their 20s and 30s than for older adults.
zhena gogolia
@O. Felix Culpa: And the dreaded melisma!
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Yeah, I can go the rest of my life without hearing her sing “near, far, wherEVER you are” one more time.
Dan B
@O. Felix Culpa: It also runs into the Patients Bill of Rights. ACLU will probably join some other groups in a suit.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: LOL!
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: That gap is why they now want to keep women back in the home and marry us off early!
trollhattan
@Kelly: I could more easily have majored in Morse Code. :-)
My uni computer experience involved 1. punch cards 2. desktop statistics calculators. We rode horses, as was the fashion of the day.
After I graduated they invented the internet. That eventually gave me some career options.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
I never saw the movie because I couldn’t stand the song.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist: She and Mariah Carey. Aural poison. Just hit the fecking note already…..
Redshift
@Baud:
I think they understand what “taking us back to the 1800s” means. (It’s pretty clear they’re not just going for the 1950s any more.)
O. Felix Culpa
@trollhattan: Aural perfection, on the other hand, would be Ella Fizgerald singing The Cole Porter Songbook. That is, Ella singing just about anything.
Layer8Problem
@Suzanne:
If she’s going to shriek, than make it “Don’t Rain on My Parade”. That always made me want to run out and find a tugboat to sing it on. This would be a bad idea for all in earshot.
Back in college the guy next door to me in the dorm had a literal shrine to the woman in his single. He was all in. But he was a decent sort and kept the volume rational.
Chief Oshkosh
@Geminid:
Boy does that guy give off “Handmaid’s Tale” vibes. Creepy.
Geminid
@zhena gogolia:
“Never mind the forecast. ’cause the sky has lost control.
‘Cause the fury and the broken thunders, come to match my ragin’ soul.
And now I don’t, believe, I want to see the morn–ing.
Going down the stoney end…”
Just a wonderful song.
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
That could explain it, but that isn’t really how it appears — at least it’s not clear.
This is the language I’ve seen:
Doesn’t that appear to you to exclude people younger than 25? (Usually a plus sign follows the 25.)
Betty Cracker
@Quiltingfool: Mine is a diamond in the rough too. Plays piano like an angel. Deep thinker. Funny and kind. Willing to put up with a pain in the ass like me. I lucked out!
different-church-lady
@O. Felix Culpa:
Believe it or not, I once knew a musician who couldn’t stand Ella because she was too good: “Who can listen to a pure silver bell ringing that long?”
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
No question. But it makes me wonder what the deal is. Do other Western countries have a gap like that, with young men just not getting through college like women are doing? Or are we some sort of outlier?
Baud
@lowtechcyclist: I wonder if American men are told trade jobs and business are for them, which might make them less interested in college.
kalakal
@Kelly:
I graduated as a chemical engineer and then after a bit moved into IT. I spent the next 25 years doing that, mostly as a contractor. In that time I only worked with one person with a CS degree. Philosophers, biologists, historians you name it.
Kind of mirrors my friends from university generally, about the only ones doing what they studied are doctors, a couple of physicists and my IT friend. The rest all went into “graduate” positions just what they graduated in was not the point
O. Felix Culpa
@different-church-lady: That’s some bass-ackwards thinking!
ETA: I particularly like her collaborations with Louis Armstrong. Such different styles, but they clearly respect and enjoy one another.
ETA2: Also brilliant is the way she recovers from flubbing Mack the Knife in her live concert in Berlin. So your musician friend has a point: even her mistakes (and recoveries) were perfect.
karen marie
@Kelly: How hard could it have been to call the ethics commission?
That she didn’t tells me she knew it was out of bounds.
karen marie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My father’s sister had eight kids. All eight went to college, all eight are successful adults.
My parents had three kids. None of us finished college and none of us are successful adults.
Dan B
@Dan B: And how are Doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies going to know a cis LG or B is gay? Marriage certificate? Personal disclosure?
Steeplejack
Sorry if this has been posted already.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dan B: Gaydar?
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
From what I understand, most of the other first world countries are seeing big gains in women’s educational attainment. I don’t know if their gap is as large as ours.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: Heh. You took the word right out of my mouth. Gay broken legs probably come singing Judy Garland or maybe Bette Midler.
Suzanne
@TriassicSands: The way I interpret that, it’s anybody age 25 and older with a degree. They could have gotten that degree at 18, 22, or whenever.
Chris T.
@bbleh:
I assume “they” here means the SC-Six, so I must say: objection, facts not in evidence.
I suspect about half of them aren’t stupid and do realize this, but you’ll need to show this first…
O. Felix Culpa
@Chris T.: Another option: they aren’t (too) stupid, they know what they’re doing (to some degree), AND THEY DON’T CARE.
James E Powell
@Suzanne:
I thought they went for Trump like 65-35.
Dan B
@O. Felix Culpa: How homophobic and stereotypical! I’m going to tsk tsk, turn, and sashay away.
Suzanne
@James E Powell: I think it’s proving to be a bit different in different elections.
From 2018:
So the point spread my differ, but the bottom line is the same — white women with college degrees are a very Democratic bloc.
cain
@trollhattan:
oh fuck their concerns – these Indians are literally bringing a discriminatory practice against other castes into this country and they want to whine about it?
Fuck off with that nonsense.
Jaybird
@Omnes Omnibus: Much better than if they were married, actually, assuming they both make about the same amount of money
O. Felix Culpa
@Dan B: Heh. Well, my appendicitis came replete with the Indigo Girls. Or was it k.d. lang? Whatevs. ;-)
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Thread’s probably dead, but there’s no math in accounting beyond arithmetic. You’ll deal with lots of numbers, but you don’t need to apply any mathematical operations to them beyond arithmetic.
If graduate with an accounting degree public accounting firms will hire you or you go into corporate accounting. The public accounting firms may not be Big Four, but there’s a who lot of sizes in between the Big Four and a solo accountant.
How detail oriented are you? Accounting is pretty much being detail oriented and knowing what rules to apply when.
Central Planning
@Steve in the ATL: AND you can take scads of SCAD classes in Atlanta!
schrodingers_cat
@cain: They have the support of HAF – Hindu American Foundation which is just another head of the RSS hydra but they like to keep that on the down low.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Yes that’s what I thought. I found both the lead characters to be extremely annoying.
cmorenc
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Nurses are in VERY high demand, especially hospital nurses, who are now paid decently, at least in urban areas. Architecture OTOH (and ipso facto the accountants working for them) are vastly more vulnerable to economic downturns. And if you are iffy about the effort to up your grasp of nursing, you are really really unsure you will grow into liking or competence at accounting.
Plus most hospital nurse jobs you work 3 days/week with a 12 hr shift, with the other days off and ability to pack your shift runs to get even longer runs of days off, which don’t count toward your vacation days or personal time off allowance y younger daughter is a hospital RN)
Timill
@TriassicSands: If you count degree attainment at age 25+, you’re getting (roughly) the highest degree they will get, not just the degree they’ve currently got.
bbleh
@Chris T.: alas, I’m out of scopolamine, and the ninjas are on vacation so I can’t kidnap and interrogate them.
But ima go with Ockham here and say they are both cognizant of what they’re doing and okay with doing it, which includes being okay with what they might call “redirecting” the court or some other euphemism, but which from all available evidence — of which they cannot be unaware — is not just “eroding” its legitimacy (and that of the Judiciary generally) but systematically undermining it
There is a strong strain of nihilism in modern Republicanism — or in the case of protected mandarins such as the Supremes, perhaps more “après moi le deluge” — but either way, they quite evidently don’t care.