Bharat Ramamurti has launched a recurring feature that is right up my alley – Trump v. Biden, but not as a cage match or a horse race. You know, actual policies!
This week, higher education!
This week’s edition of Biden v. Trump on the issues: higher education.
A thread on what they did as President and their very different plans for a possible second term. 1/https://t.co/emCp9L31D4
— Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) February 20, 2024
Federal Pell Grants help address the cost of attending college. The typical student receiving a Pell Grant comes from a family making under $30,000 a year.
Pell Grants used to cover ~80% of public college costs. Over time, it dropped to only ~25%. 2/
As President, Trump repeatedly tried to slash funding from the Pell Grant program.
That included a proposal to take $1.9 billion in Pell Grant funding and send it to NASA to fund trips to the moon (seriously). 3/
While Trump tried to cut Pell Grant funding, Biden wanted to double the size of the Pell Grant over time so that it would go back to covering most of the cost of college. 4/
Biden has been able to secure multiple Pell Grant increases in the last few years, totaling about a 15% increase in their value. Progress towards his goal of doubling these Grants by 2029. 5/
What about student debt relief?
Let’s start with Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF): a program created in 2007 to give debt relief to borrowers who spend ten years in the military, as a teacher, as a police officer, or in other forms of public service. 6/
Trump repeatedly proposed eliminating Public Service Loan Forgiveness. 7/
While Trump failed to kill Public Service Loan Forgiveness by law, his administration effectively killed it in practice — denying relief to 99% of public service applicants on their watch. 8/
Biden vowed to fix Public Service Loan Forgiveness — and did. His Administration has now provided more than $50 billion in relief to 800,000 members of the military and other public servants. 9/
Another important debt relief program is income-based repayment (IBR), which has been around for decades.
IBR caps monthly payments at a percentage of a borrower’s income, and forgives the loan balance after the borrower makes 20 years of payments. 10/
Just like with Public Service Loan Forgiveness, the Trump Administration failed to fix problems with income-based repayment plans, resulting in borrowers not getting the relief they deserved even after making all their payments. 11/
Biden directed his administration to fix the IBR program so people could get the relief they had earned. Thanks to those efforts, nearly a million borrowers have gotten almost $50 billion in relief. 12/
https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-nearly-5-billion-additional-student-debt-relief
In addition, Biden created a new income-based repayment plan that’s much more generous. Many people will see their monthly payment cut in half. Others will see it cut all the way to $0. 13/
One other important note about Biden’s track record on student debt relief. Working with Congress, he changed the law so that student debt relief would be tax free. No one getting relief now faces a big one-time tax payment. 14/
Biden tried to provide debt relief of at least $10,000 to 40 million borrowers. Six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court – including three appointed by Trump — blocked that plan. Now Biden is pursuing other legal avenues to broad-based relief. 15/
So what would a second term look like for Biden and Trump on higher education?
Republicans want to kill Biden’s new generous income-based repayment plan. With Trump’s support, millions of borrowers could see their monthly payments jump. 16/
Trump is also likely to take another run at eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, denying benefits to members of the military, teachers, nurses, police officers, and other public servants. 17/
Biden has made clear in his budgets that he wants to continue to expand Pell Grants so they double by 2029. A second Biden term would likely mean more progress towards that goal. 18/
https://www.ncan.org/news/600417/President-Biden-Pushes-for-Another-Historic-Pell-Grant-Increase-in-New-Budget-Proposal.htm
And a second Biden term would mean more progress towards getting public servants and middle-class borrowers the relief they are entitled to under existing debt relief programs. 19/
Those are the differences between Biden and Trump on higher education. Another area with stark contrasts between the two leading candidates.
If you want to see the many links in the twitter thread, check out the ThreadReader version.
Next week on Biden v. Trump on the issues: Manufacturing and America’s industrial base.
Baud
Nice. Thanks to you and Ramamurthi.
WaterGirl
Then some clown on twitter posted a bullshit response.
Rebuttal:
Two sets of student loan borrowers are currently getting relief. The first: public servants, like members of the military. Under a law signed by President Bush, they get loans cancelled after ten years of service. 1/
For a long time, that law wasn’t administered properly. People did their ten years, submitted the paperwork, and didn’t get relief. The Biden Administration went back and fixed it, giving public servants the debt relief they’re entitled to under the law. 2/
The second set of borrowers getting relief are people enrolled in income-based repayment plans. These plans, by law, cap monthly payments for low- and middle-income borrowers, and after 20 years of payments, cancel the remaining balance. 3/
Like the program for public servants, this law wasn’t well administered for a long time. People made their 20 years of payments and didn’t get their relief. What the Biden Administration is doing is going back and making sure those people actually get the relief they deserved. 4/
You can take issue with these laws if you want, but it seems fundamentally unfair to tell borrowers they will get relief if they follow certain rules, and then deny them that relief when they do everything they’re asked. 5/
Next point: these are all loans provided by the federal government, not private lenders. The rates and terms are set by law. So it is not the case that providing debt relief will automatically cause rates to go up or credit availability to go down, as the original post claims. 6/
Final point: nearly 40 percent of student loan borrowers have no college degree. Lots of truckers attend or graduate from post-secondary programs, including CDL training schools. The idea that truckers don’t have student debt is wrong.
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: The information in the rebuttal seems as important to me as his original twitter thread. So perhaps Bharat Ramamurti should thank the clown who tweeted something so ignorant.
Baud
@WaterGirl: An official CNBC clown. I hope he’s at least a pundit and not a reporter.
Baud
OT. On the BJ home page, the right hand side panel disappears. It’s there when I click on individual posts.
Spanky
@Baud: It’s working fine with Chrome on a Windows laptop.
Baud
@Spanky: Interesting. I’m using Edge on PC.
dexwood
@Baud: True for me, too. Most recent upgrade of Firefox.
schrodingers_cat
Has Biden got any credit from, but mah student loans contigent for these policies?
Baud
According to this, some progressives are getting suckered.
The effort is largely failing, but I wasn’t aware of it. Now it’s on your radar screen.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard told us that he “loved the uneducated”, so we can all conclude that he’s against education. Except Trump University.
JML
@Baud: anyone who is a moderate to progressive who believes for a second that a convention like this wouldn’t be nakedly partisan and the right-wing wouldn’t use it to codify things they have no chance to achieving in any other way needs to be shunned. The idea that the GOP, who brazenly stole a seat on the SCOTUS, and has a consistent track record of naked power grabs at every opportunity wouldn’t immediately go for it again is insane. I’m stunned that people can be that stupid. Why the F would any progressive ever trust anyone connected to ALEC at any time, ever?
Unbelievable.
Baud
@JML: The “people are dumb” principle brooks no exceptions.
Jackie
@Mike in NC: He probably doesn’t like his shutdown/dissolved university, either, as it ended up costing him a shit ton of money.
teezyskeeyz
@JML: Because some of these “progressives” are just those with authoritarian impulses who want to burn down the current system but just happened to get sucked into a far left authoritarian ideology, for whatever psychological reason. The Right tends to be better at capturing those types and so there are more of them over there. The two types of authoritarians do have significant ideological differences, but there’s a big Venn overlap with regard to “hurting normies (libtards or shitlibs) who resisted burning it all down.”
Jeffg166
Pell grants paid my tuition from 1967 to 1970. I paid my first year 1966 because I didn’t know about Pell grants. Investing in the country’s future is a very good idea.
UncleEbeneezer
I love these. Would it be possible to create a unique tag, for this series of posts instead of simply “open thread,” so we can find them quickly for sharing with others as the Election gets closer? Maybe something like “BidenBetterOnLiterallyEVERYTHING”, lol.
Jackie
Off topic, but this is interesting; Biden and TIFG will be at the border at the same time!
rikyrah
Public Loan Service Forgiveness Program
I don’t want people to overlook this.
During Dolt45’s term, that shrew DeVos and that Department of Education
REJECTED 99% OF ALL APPLICANTS
Before Biden, there were only 7,000 Applicants who got their loans forgiven.
During Biden’s Administration
SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND PLUS PEOPLE HAVE HAD THEIR LOANS FORGIVEN.
SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND PLUS.
Look at the number of lives CHANGED by an Administration that actually WANTS to help people.
Baud
@Jackie:
A sentence the NYT will never write about Trump and abortion.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Somewhat relieved after clicking through to a second article that says Cenk Uygur is the mastermind. Pretty sure he couldn’t organize a two-person PB&J sandwich production line.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
Except Trump University.
So he IS against education…… lower or higher….
rikyrah
@Baud:
Suckered..or paid?
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, I didn’t mean to worry anyone. Just something to keep on the back of people’s minds. There’s always lots of stuff happening that falls under the radar…until it doesn’t.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
No he couldn’t. But then things are actually attempting to be done on an assembly line and there are 3 ingredients in the product they are supposed to produce so one could see why it would be an impossibility with Cenk being within a couple thousand miles of it.
Geminid
@Baud: The conservatives spearheading the Convention of the States movement consider Speaker Mike Johnson to be one of their own. Politico had an article about this a couple days after Johnson was elected Speaker last fall. One of the Convention movement leaders told the reporter that when he heard the news, “I cried.”
rikyrah
Really love these posts
They bring receipts to the
‘ there’s no difference between the parties’ clowns.
Please continue with them
Ruckus
What the republican party has devolved into is rather amazing. Not that it was ever all that and a box of crackers, at least insanity hadn’t set in. But now it seems they only want to go backwards to worse than it ever was. I believe their actual policy position is: Give us the money and fuck everything else. It’s like a highway robbery cult with all the leaders attempting to act like the 3 stooges and screwing that up as well as everything else.
Sister Golden Bear
Meanwhile the governor of
East GermanyTexas is calling on the public act as secret police and inform on the parents of trans kids if they suspect the child is receiving trans healthcare, after Texas’ AG released an opinion stating that allowing minors to receive transition care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy is child abuse under state law.Republicans want a guvmint small enough to be drowned in a bathtub, unless its people they hate, in which case, all means of guvmint should be used to harass their targets out of existence.
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
They want a world that their simple minds can comprehend. But attempting the impossible almost always fails, especially when one is attempting to go backasswards at the speed of stupidity.
Jackie
@Baud: Yah, I read that and grrrred, but posted anyway because the dueling visits is the important point.
Biden will meet with Border officials (who support the frozen border bill) among others in Brownsville, while TIFG will be at Eagles Pass doing?
One event will be an official event; the other will be MAGA something.
Soprano2
@Geminid: My mother gets mail from that outfit. They’re one of the ones that I couldn’t get to quit sending me stuff even after writing “Deceased, please remove from mailing list” on a mailer and sending it back.
wjca
Which, of course, was not education either.
Miss Bianca
@Jackie: Speaking of this, I am appealing to the Jackal hive mind: is there any quick and dirty source for *actual facts* about the border and immigration issues?
I ask because in my tiny rural county, people who I used to think were pretty rational on a lot of issues (not guns, sadly, but everything else) have lost their everloving minds over OPEN BORDERS, ZOMG, and I find myself literally speechless when confronted with it.
wjca
Now to make sure that all those people (and their families!) a) know who got them relief, b) are registered to vote, and c) get to the polls in November. All of them. Wonder if there’s a publicly available list….
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: I can give you names of few immigration attorneys on Twitter. They demystify a lot of this stuff.
Also CATO institute is pretty good on immigration
Alex Nowrasteh from CATO is a good immigration analyst.
And Greg Siskind and David Leopold are the immigration attorneys I follow on Twitter.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
So am I, and the right-hand panel had been there earlier this morning. But when I refreshed just now, it disappeared. And some of the content in previous posts goes all the way to the right-hand side of my screen.
Betty Cracker
This is mindboggling: (NYT)
Certainly McConnell will endorse the loudmouthed dickhead who delights in racist taunts against McConnell’s wife and takes weird personal swipes at McConnell himself. It’s the “dignity wraith” concept we’ve seen for years at this point.
What amazes me is the media pretending there’s any mystery around the outcome and the notion that fat cat donors are waiting for McConnell’s say-so to dispatch checks.
Plutocrats want what they’ve always wanted, more deregulation and more favorable tax treatment. They might wish the gift could be bestowed by someone less grotesque and embarrassing, but they’ll take delivery from Trump if that’s the only thing on offer.
TBone
Falling back in love with my college town. Rolled into town to go to post office for Freedom stamps blaring at top volume our college radio station WQSU playing George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers (Ridin’ with Biden theme hour) and discovered a new bakery Grand Opening! 😍 The Paris Bakery has some nice women of color in (possibly Muslim) headscarves making REAL treats not merely sweet! Bread, croissant, baguette, be still my beating heart! AND sweets galore! 🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j2oFsAWwU94
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: Are there any stats on how many Cisgender kids take puberty blockers? Curious to know the % as I suspect they are probably the majority of recipients of these treatments.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Few things in this world terrify me as much as a new Constitutional Convention. I honestly think it would lead to the reinstitution of slavery. That’s how bad I think Republicans are.
Kay
We represent a lot of truck drivers:
They can get their student loans forgiven too. We really, really do encourage trades training in this country. I know no one at the NYTimes or CNBC knows any of the tens of millions of people who take it, but they’re wrong- it exists and it’s ALL federally subsidized.
I love how CNBC “analyst” wants to be big man of the people but he doesn’t actually know any truck drivers so doesn’t know they often pay for training. Dopes. They’re all just dopes.
cain
@Baud: He’s panicked. Someone is putting real facts out there that can be analyzed. This is what happens to the media and some its people when you do actual journalism.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
From the material you quoted:
I agree that anyone on the left that cooperates with ALEC is surely being suckered.
But such a convention can’t codify Citizens United – or anything else, for that matter. Any amendment passed by such a convention would still have to be approved by the legislatures of 3/4 of the states before it became part of the Constitution, or anything else besides an interesting idea.
I’ve never understood the alarmism over the possibility of such a convention. It would undoubtedly pass a mix of stupid and evil proposed amendments. And a number of state legislatures, falling well short of 38, would give their imprimatur. And that would be the end of it, other than discrediting the GOP even further than it already is.
hueyplong
@TBone: The heartbeat of the Susquehanna Valley?
Citizen Alan
@teezyskeeyz:
This. People rightly mock the Prog-Left for being useful idiots. But a lot of folks seriously underestimate the extent to which they’re just as big into fascism as the Right. They just disagree on what they want the absolute dictator to do once they’re in office. “When I am president, I will abolish capitalism on Day One with an executive order,” said Jill Stein, probably.
rikyrah
Yashar Ali (@yashar) posted at 9:02 AM on Mon, Feb 26, 2024:
NEWS
Bronx medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is now tuition-free thanks to a $1 billion gift from Dr. Ruth Gottesman, a former professor.
Gottesman, whose late husband was an early investor with Warren Buffett, has made it a condition of the gift that the college NOT change its name—an unusual requirement in a world where much smaller gifts often come with the requirement that the colleges be named after the donor.
Most students at the Einstein College of Medicine graduate with $200,000 in debt; they will now be free of that burden.
https://t.co/o2XbZhe8bI
(https://x.com/yashar/status/1762131065869947148?t=rtd7CLjGlCtSfEEXF4yXFw&s=03)
smith
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m guessing this will go far beyond trying to snoop about medical treatments. Any family where the girls wear their hair short or the boys wear theirs long can expect a visit from the gender police. They sure do love their freedumb in TX.
craigie
@Baud: True for me too – Chrome on Ubuntu
brendancalling
As I sit here in the middle school and think about how poorly my students fare in terms of grades and self-regulation—and think about how college professors are already reporting that the incoming classes have no skills—I wonder how much longer higher ed can hold out. It’s really upsetting.
I also see how the parents act, and it’s just fucking SAD.
I look at these kids and weep for them. And I weep for our country’s future.
Kay
Also, someone who enters into a contract to buy a truck can return the truck and file bankruptcy on the portion not secured by the truck – student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy. If we allowed student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy we wouldn”t be in this mess.
Give the students what truck drivers get! Let them discharge debt in bankruptcy!
rikyrah
Mark Cuban (@mcuban) posted at 8:42 PM on Sun, Feb 25, 2024:
They aren’t ridiculous any more. I said this years ago and I’ll say it again, in an AI world, being trained in those liberal arts can be very valuable.
AI/LLMs and whatever comes after LLMs needs to be taught about the world as it happens and given different perspectives about the output of models
if you take AI classes to understand how to apply your liberal arts knowledge to LLMs , I think you will be more valued than people expect
Reginald Hudlin (@reghud) posted at 9:36 PM on Sun, Feb 25, 2024:
Agree, not only are liberal arts underrated, focusing on STEM to the point of folks denigrating literature, history, sociology, etc has created too many wealthy technocrats with no understanding how society works best or even basic empathy for others. Now fascism is on the rise.
(https://x.com/reghud/status/1761958410688643407?t=xq5OhEPSHNo6S7P1RW9UgQ&s=03)
TBone
@Jeffg166: my dad got me the Pell and any/every other available financial assistance. Parents paid cash for the rest. He’d give me a roll of quarters every week or two for laundry allowance.
rikyrah
BWA HA HA AH AH AHA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) posted at 11:08 AM on Mon, Feb 26, 2024:
SIDEBAR: Trump filed a “Notice of Appeal.” He must pay filing fees to the appellate ct & then file an Initial Brief.
In the meantime, TO STOP COLLECTIONS on the $454 million+ judgment, he must post a bond. If he doesn’t, then @NewYorkStateAG can start collecting on the judgment.
(https://x.com/KatiePhang/status/1762162784580595850?t=MUpNk_p8r3NAsa_2N5n16A&s=03)
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: I’m curious if McConnell is willing to accept TIFG’s public chortling ala Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott (and Ted Cruz 2016.)
I don’t doubt McConnell will publicly support TIFG, but is there a path for him without throwing away his self dignity?
laura
I haven’t received a penny of student loan relief. My union business agent position was barred from the public service loan forgiveness program despite solely servicing public sector workers. Been paying since 2002 an amount thats half of our mortgage payment. 38 large left on my balance. At this rate, it is unlikely I’ll benefit from any form of forgiveness. Do I begrudge others who’ve had the life altering experience of debt freedom? No I do not. I’ve watched so many tik toks and cried along with the posters who are so very joyful and grateful. It’d be nice to join in, but I can cope with cheering from the sidelines. It’s a Big Biden Deal!
TBone
@hueyplong: yup! They also advertised a Womens’ History Month and Black History Month combo presentation gathering that’s coming up soon. I can’t find details yet but working on it.
Kay
@brendancalling:
I was reading comments on a social media post where the teacher said students didn’t have any skills these days and don’t know how to study. There were immediately a thousand people co-signing it, until the original poster responded that she has seen this since the 1990s, then most of the co-signers went quiet :)
THEM. She was talking about them!
rikyrah
I love this for him.
Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) posted at 11:01 AM on Mon, Feb 26, 2024:
EXCLUSIVE: Ken Chesebro, who helped devise the 2020 electors plot, concealed a secret Twitter from Michigan prosecutors, hiding dozens of damning posts that undercut what he told investigators about his role in the scheme. w/ @KFILE @emsteck @alligordon_
Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) posted at 11:01 AM on Mon, Feb 26, 2024:
Chesebro told MI prosecutors GOP electors were a contingency to be used only if Trump won election suits. Said it was “ridiculous” that legislatures could step in if Trump lost in court. But on his secret Twitter, he said courts didn’t matter and legislatures should get involved
Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) posted at 11:01 AM on Mon, Feb 26, 2024:
Further, Chesebro told MI prosecutors he didn’t think Pence should be involved in picking which electors to recognize on January 6. But on his secret Twitter, Chesebro embraced the idea that Pence could throw the election to Trump with the GOP electors https://t.co/a5aGq7605s https://t.co/Wi52aeIYEX
(https://x.com/MarshallCohen/status/1762160852394713352?t=0rI9flDOw00PDiWG8VlGXA&s=03)
cain
@Betty Cracker:
Not just that but also make the govt pay for any bad outcome that comes out of it. They don’t want to bear any risks. Pollute a river and get your drinking water supplies in jeopardy? Not their problem – ask the feds to fix it and no, they aren’t going to change their behavior.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
The risk is that the amendment lingers out there for a long time, like the 27th amendment on congressional salaries.
TBone
@Kay: 😆
smith
@rikyrah: And he still hasn’t come up with the bond for the Carroll award. He’s trying to get the judge to stay it, but Judge Kaplan is as unsympathetic as Judge Engoron. Deadline is March 7, and E. Jean’s lawyer has made it clear they’re gonna to collect, no matter what.
If he can’t cough up $83.3 mil, how’s he going to manage almost half a billion?
TBone
@rikyrah: ❤️💙💙💙
mrmoshpotato
Another installment of Bharat’s excellent series.
smith
@Kay: I was teaching college back in the 80s, and it was true then as well.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
The other reason we wouldn’t forgive the loan on the truck is the owner can transfer, gift or borrow on the truck. We’d pay for his truck and then he’d sell it.
They can’t transfer their education – offer it for sale. So we forgive the education debt for drivers, just like students. It’s an asset but you can’t transfer it.
TBone
@rikyrah: I thank the spirits every day for my liberal arts education. English Lit major, Poli Sci minor.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: Oh Cheesebro…
Kay
@smith:
I just thought it was funny. They were onboard as long as it was 19 year olds :)
Baud
@Kay:
To someone who got a loan to purchase it
WaterGirl
@Baud: Thanks for the heads up – just saw this at 1 pm.
Fixed!
smith
@rikyrah: I wonder if Chesebro told any of that to the MI prosecutors under oath? Could there be another guilty plea looming on his horizon?
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: This is cool – I can look them up on Twitter, yes?
(thinking an article with interviews of people who know what they are talking about would be a public service!)
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Thanks.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie:
What dignity?
Betty Cracker
@Jackie: I think that horse sailed long ago. ;-)
@cain: Yep — socialize the risk and privatize the profits. That’s part of the deal for sure.
Suzanne
@rikyrah:
I will note that this includes Mr. Suzanne and a whole slew of my friends, who worked for shit salaries for over a decade, expecting the federal government to live up to its commitment, and absolutely deserve this to be made whole.
lowtechcyclist
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s back now. WaterGirl, if you did some sort of cybermagic to fix that, thank you very much!
Jackie
@Miss Bianca: This link does a good job of explaining both pros and cons of the border bill TIFG/Johnson quashed:
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/analysis-senate-border-bill#:~:text=What%20This%20Bill%20Would%20Do&text=The%20%E2%80%9Ctrigger%E2%80%9D%20authority%E2%80%94called,them%20to%20apply%20for%20asylum.
Hope it helps!😊
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
just phucking evil., they are.
TBone
I really need to get out more in mask and cheap sunglasses. We’ve got flowers blooming (maybe sadly but they were really bright yellow in the sun, the color of friendship). Gilda is playing on the big screen at 7pm! Advertised on marquis but not website.
https://www.campustheatre.org/
The Campus Theatre is a 501c3 non-profit historic movie theatre located in Lewisburg, PA. Built in 1941, and one of the few remaining single screen art deco movie houses in the country, the Campus Theatre remains dedicated to the promotion of the art of cinema and historic preservation of this architectural treasure.
Anyway
@mrmoshpotato:
Yes, great information well presented. I had never heard of him and looked him up – one of those pointy-headed elites from Havahd and Yale. :P Long-time staffer for Sen Warren.
rikyrah
@Kay:
ICAM!!
Baud
@Anyway:
We won’t hold that against him.
wjca
Notice that Jackie said “self dignity.” You may not see him that way, but it’s entirely possible that his self-image is different.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah: I hope he was under oath when he said some of those things. Nothing like a little perjury to get a person into deep water.
JML
@laura: yeah, me neither. It’s a bummer that I wasn’t able to take advantage of the program (paid mine off before it ever came online), and while it sucks that I didn’t get in the window…I don’t begrudge those who are benefitting. because the reason for why a policy should exist or not shouldn’t be whether or not you personally, directly get something out of it.
It’s why i can’t stand the GOP and especially the Trump Variant. because it’s all about “where’s mine” and preventing others from gaining. It’s all resentment and grievance all the time, and acting if helping another person means that you’re going to be pushed down. Life is not a zero-sum game, and the selfishness is destructive.
I had someone bitching about having to do their taxes the other day, and it immediately turned it “the worst part is knowing that MY tax dollars are being redistributed to someone else!” and I just wanted to set them all on fire.
Jackie
@mrmoshpotato: The dignity he thinks he has. In his own mind.
lowtechcyclist
So the real worry is that one of these amendments may become part of the Constitution in the year 2073 or something like that?
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: Sailed right out the barn, full steam ahead.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Could be. Don’t see anything happening anytime soon. Best that there be no convention at all.
Sister Golden Bear
@UncleEbeneezer: I would have to look, but yes puberty blockers — as well as almost all “trans healthcare” treatments — were originally developed for cis people, who are probably the majority of people using them. In particular, puberty blockers were developed to help cis children experiencing premature puberty, and they have been used for years without issues.
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: I saw the first part of your comment and immediately went off to create a category.
Biden v. Trump on the Issues
So if you click on that on any of these posts, you’ll be taken to a page that has all of them.
It was only after I created it that I saw your suggestion for the name. I might like yours better!
mrmoshpotato
@wjca: Point taken.
Citizen Alan
@laura: When the nazis on SCOTUS shot down student loan relief, I went ahead and paid off all my LLM student loans (the earlier ones from law school were paid off years ago) because I had the money set aside from the sale of my house before I ever went to St. Johns. I regret it a bit because I think I underestimated how low my monthly payments could be gotten with an income based repayment plan if we look only at my income from 2023 (I was unemployed for half the year.) That said, I do not begrudge anyone else getting student loan relief even though I never benefited from a penny of it.
Because I’m not a Republican shit-lord.
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist:
A canyon full of poo poo.
WaterGirl
@Baud: It was a stray piece of HTML code that I brought in from the ThreadReader stuff.
Fixed now. Appreciate the heads up!
Sister Golden Bear
BTW, I’m just catching up with the trans discussion in the early morning (really early for us West Coast jackals), and wanted to thank you for your support.
If people still have questions, feel free to ask away, since I’ll have more a chance to answer during the day/evening.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
But now there are other issues. see next thread.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I agree that it’s best that there not be a convention.
But every time there seems to be the possibility of one, all I hear is OMIGOD THEY’RE GOING TO REWRITE OUR ENTIRE CONSTITUTION AND WE’LL BE DOOMED!!!1!!1! People warning about it make Chicken Little sound calm and collected by comparison.
That’s what I just don’t get.
Citizen Alan
@JML:
You just described my RWNJ sister who is furious at the thought of student loan forgiveness. Because she paid off her own student loans (no idea how much, but this was back in the 80s) on a teacher’s salary. And then paid directly for college for her three kids without any of them taking out student loans. Truly a bitter, hateful woman, made worse because she’s stonewalling me on selling the property that we jointly own.
TBone
Debt forgiveness simple way to combat the selfish (fascism really boils down to selfishness): A rising tide lifts ALL boats (and insurance costs but that’s a different matter for another day).
Born Yesterday:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VDRCLhgZvZs
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: Sweet! Bookmarking for sure. Thanks.
Anotherlurker
@Baud: For me, when I get to BJ, an article appears. I read the article and when I reach the bottom of the page, instead of another article a prompt to select the next page (page 1, 2, 3..etc.). When selected, the previous article appears. It was not like this last night.
I’m confused.
MacBook Air OS Monterey
Miss Bianca
@Jackie: Thanks!
JML
@Citizen Alan: yeah, if it was the 80’s it would have cost her a heck of a lot less than anyone from the 90’s on, unless of course she went private. Some of these student loan deals are dreadful and people have piled up unsustainable debt, and way too many didn’t even get their degree (often the biggest tragedy) because the finances caused them to drop out. Cutting down people’s debt is a good thing for society.
(I’m also usually skeptical of people’s claims when they say they got no help, did it all on their own, etc. There’s usually something left out of the story)
Gravenstone
@WaterGirl: This clown appears to be NBC’s business correspondent!
laura
@Citizen Alan: same, I’ve paid my JD off and am paying on the LLM. I should be wearing a helmet to protect the investment.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: No worries. I tried looking up stats but didn’t find anything solid. Either way, it sure as hell wasn’t anything causing any kind of huge panic or a large political opposition until Transgender kids started using them.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Yeah, that was me. I set the # of front page posts to ONE so I could see which post was causing the issue.
Then I forgot to set it back to 7!
oops!
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I will.
I made a new category for these posts:
Biden v. Trump on the Issues
So if you click on that on any of these posts, or at the link in this comment, you’ll be taken to a page that has all of these.
And as a bonus, you’ll be treated to an image of handsome Joe in his corvette.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: not magic, but I did fix it. :-)
WaterGirl
@Gravenstone:
That’s sad. Pathetic clown. NBC must be so proud!
Cheryl from Maryland
@UncleEbeneezer: THIS. My 20something godson (cisgender) asked me if puberty blockers were really necessary. I asked him to think back to his 6th grade self and wonder how he would treat a female peer with fully developed breasts. He said to me, “Yeah, I guess puberty blockers are necessary”.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: I had this conversation once, and asked why a convention would be more dangerous than Congress passing amendments since they’d have to be ratified with the same threshold anyway.
The other person pointed out that the Constitution approved by the Philadelphia convention wasn’t treated as an amendment under the Articles of Confederation; they defined their own ratification standards and bet on them politically sticking. The claim is that if there’s a new constitutional convention, we’re in an uncharted political realm where we can no longer rely on the existing Constitution dictating terms. The process could develop a momentum of its own.
Anotherlurker
@Anotherlurker: Wow. Condition I described at #105 is now gone and all is back to normal.
Thanks WG!
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: I know so many people who are pissed off about student loan forgiveness. The interesting thing is that they frame their objections in quasi-“progressive” terms: it’s a giveaway to the rich, it’s a giveaway to the bankers. Some say college would be cheap if the government just got out of it and let the market fix it.
Soprano2
@Kay: That’s probably the best benefit all our maintenance worker hires get – they are required to get their CDL within 6 months of being hired. It’s all on-the-job training, and the city pays for their license when they get it. That’s a credential they’ll have forever debt free.
Soprano2
@Kay: Yes, I’ve been hearing this my whole life. When people my age start in I always say “People our age now were saying that about us when we were the age of those kids you’re talking about”. When they say “But it’s different today, now it’s true” I say “They said the same thing then”. Old people always think the young people are hopeless.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: At best a convention would be a humungous diversion of attention and energy from real problems., I think. At worst, it would bring out every last crank with a political hobby horse to ride, and unite them with a Red/Brown alliance. I suspect the fascists would come out on top of that one because they’re better organized and funded.
rikyrah
@JML:
Yeah…to moochers in all those Red States.
prostratedragon
@Citizen Alan: For the record, I agree and have thought so for 20 years or more. It’s a basic part of my framework.
Almost Retired
@TBone: In the small world department, a “step brother” I acquired in my 50’s when my Mom remarried is a professor at Susquehanna University. Never been there, though.
Hob
@Cheryl from Maryland:
I’m guessing he’s neither read nor watched Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, in which the character Laura, and everyone else’s attitudes toward her, make it pretty clear how hellish that could be. But he’s lucky to have someone like you to talk with.