"So, Democrats have three words for this: no fucking way. It's literally life or death. We will not let Republicans blow up our health care system."
This is, hands down, the best comms work Chuck Schumer has done in YEARS. Surprisingly good.— Charlotte Clymer (@charlotteclymer.bsky.social) October 7, 2025 at 10:27 PM
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I'm about to vote on the SAME Republican budget proposal for the 6th time.
Why?
Instead of working with Democrats to lower health care costs, Republicans are forcing us to vote over and over again on a budget that would let 15 million Americans lose their coverage.
youtube.com/shorts/FoV3B…— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) October 8, 2025 at 11:48 AM
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McGovern: Republicans love to advocate for more work requirements for poor people… Let's have a work requirement for Republicans to show up to congress and do your god damn job. pic.twitter.com/XC5sje9qft
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 8, 2025
===
i am not sure mike johnson’s plan of abandoning the capitol to a bunch of snarky house dems (of which there are many) with nothing to do was a smart strategic move
— GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) October 8, 2025 at 7:18 PM
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house republicans are getting extremely outplayed here, lmao
— GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) October 8, 2025 at 7:30 PM
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"It's past time for a Republican revolt!"
Mike Johnson faces growing internal revolt over shutdown www.axios.com/2025/10/08/m…— Rod,Tia & Lola's dad (@roddsdad.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 3:10 AM
Let. Us. Savor. Axios has a strong GOP bias, so I’m assuming this is other Repubs’ way of letting Pastor Mike know that he could very well become the next TrumpCo scapegoat. Mike Johnson faces growing internal revolt over shutdown:
The longer the government stays shut down, the shorter House Republicans’ patience seems to be getting with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Why it matters: Johnson’s decision to keep his chamber on an indefinite break in the middle of a government shutdown isn’t sitting well with some in his conference — and that could put pressure on the speaker to change course.
– From frustration over the stalled vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, to questions about whether — as Johnson argues — the chamber really has no business to attend to in Washington, GOP lawmakers are beginning to get antsy.
– Upping the temperature: Unless Congress passes Rep. Jen Kiggans’ (R-Va.) bill to ensure military paychecks keep flowing, troops are set to start missing paychecks on Oct. 15.
What they’re saying: Being home in their districts hasn’t stoped some GOP lawmakers from airing their frustrations.
– “I’m urging the Speaker and our House leadership to immediately pass my bill to ensure our servicemembers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck while supporting their families, receive the pay they’ve earned.” Kiggans told Axios in a statement after Johnson ruled out bringing her bill up for a vote next week.
Other Republicans who showed signs of breaking with leadership include:
– Rep. John Joyce (R-Penn.), who expressed support for Kiggans’ bill Wednesday, posting on X, “If Congress fails to do its job, our military shouldn’t pay the price.”
– Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who is leading the charge to release the Epstein files, posted on X on Sunday:”Why are we in recess? Because the day we go back into session, I have 218 votes for the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.”
– Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told Axios in a statement Monday: “The House has so much work to do, why aren’t we coming back in session. We could be doing appropriations, passing important bills, and more,” also noting that not being in session “certainly does avoid the Epstein discharge petition.”
– Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) posted on X Wednesday: “The entire reason a CR is necessary is that Congress has not done its job in passing a timely budget. The Speaker shouldn’t even think about cancelling session for a third straight week.”…
On The Road – apocalipstick – Minnesota in late Summer
Baud
Epstein’s clients must be protected at all costs.
Jeffro
Getting closer to the lonnnnng anticipated GOP crackup every day
Jeffro
Why You Should Blame Trump When Your Energy Bills Go Up
(gift link)
Fox News presidency = bad policy = higher prices
Suzanne
I think our Dems are doing a great job with the message during this shutdown. I noticed yesterday that they’ve taken a visual cue from FFOTUS, which is to put a sign on the lectern they’re standing at with a simple, clear message “SAVE HEALTHCARE”….. which means, that in every photo of the event that gets distributed, the message gets an underscore.
Pastor Johnson’s trying to copy that with “the Democrat Shutdown”. His sign looks shitty, like he got it printed on cheap-ass cardstock.
Deputinize America
@Jeffro:
3% inflation, my ass.
Deputinize America
An aside – if I never hear the word “deal” again in my lifetime, I’ll be happy.
satby
And about that loan to Argentina, from Paul Krugman (it’s to bail out Scott Bessent):
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Jeffro: Yeah, but the old stock market aphorism about how the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent might apply here, unfortunately.
NotMax
@Jeffro
“Sir, prisons are reporting they can’t afford to use the electric chair.”
Princess
@satby: That’s even worse than I thought.
satby
But big payouts to the felon’s cronies and oligarchs he wants to emulate. It’s all about the corruption.
hueyplong
@NotMax: Almost certainly said by a burly guy with tears in his eyes. Am I alone in assuming these tough guys always water up in Trump’s presence because of the smell?
Baud
@satby:
Sounds like they’ll need a bigger bailout.
MattF
Really looks like Ds got the message. Yay.
satby
@Princess: oh, the entire article lays out in excruciating detail just how cynical and corrupt it all is. To backstop billionaire investors from losing $$, that’s all.
While the same folks make sure any poor people wanting a better life from that don’t come here.
Princess
@Baud: Yeah, I don’t know what’s up but I don’t think it’s about Trump having sex with teens. I think it’s the blackmail and all the powerful people whose secrets he promised to keep.
But I still don’t get the terror. I mean, the Panama papers caused barely a ripple. The press is happy to bury stories of corruption. A few marriages may end, big deal.
Deputinize America
@Baud:
Distressed sovereign debt has always been a racket designed to be a round robin grift. That sort of financing makes zero sense otherwise.
Another Scott
Although I’m not the audience and I don’t need to be convinced, yay for clear messages for the normies!
Meanwhile, APNews.com on the Nobel Literature prize:
Didn’t that guy used to post comments here??
Congrats to László Krasznahorkai. Well done.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Kosh III
It’s taken 24 years since the D’s lost their spine over the Patriot Act but at least they finally found their spine again. Hopefully they won’t cave again.
Baud
@Kosh III:
IMHO they’ve shown plenty of spine in the last 24 years. Nothing is perfect, but they’ve been pretty good. They just haven’t been rewarded for it.
p.a.
From the LOLGOP fbook page
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Suzanne
@satby:
The people who supported this bailout likely opposed student loan forgiveness.
This is my shocked face.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Professor Bigfoot
@Deputinize America: Unless I’m sitting at a card table, I’m with you.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@rikyrah: good morning
Another Scott
@Jeffro: +1
I look at wholesale commodity prices off and on.
Lines go up and lines go down, but poultry is up 11% in the last month (8.7% in the last year). Feeder cattle are up 48% in the last year. Eggs are down 20.5%. Coffee is up 50.7%.
It’s a crazy time to have to depend on commodities if one is in business making other stuff or selling to consumers.
“Gee… I wonder what happened to cause all this chaos??”
[ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]
Reality always gets a vote.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Suzanne:
The soybean farmers asking for a bailout also probably opposed student loan forgiveness.
It actually turned out to be an unpopular policy generally.
For some reason, I haven’t been hearing horror stories about student loans recently.
rikyrah
@Baud:
When I think about the obsession with this list…. it’s ridiculous 😡 😡 😅
If someone had written this in a script, it would be rejected for being
“Too much…. unbelievable”
Baud
@Another Scott:
Eggs are the only thing that matter.
Another Scott
@Deputinize America: + eleventy billion.
That word needs to be shunned, and the sooner the better.
Best wishes,
Scott.
New Deal democrat
@satby: There are a lot of bad medium and longer term signs that the US is in for a lot of economic hurt:
1. Per Krugthulu, “Gold is skyrocketing in value because the world is losing faith in the role of US as guarantor/backstop of global economy.”
2. The US$ is down over 10% against other currencies this year.
3. The 30 year Treasury bond continues to yield over 4.5% and remains in a range last seen almost 20 years ago, indicating investors are demanding more yield to invest in U.S. assets.
4. The S&P 500 is up over 33% from its April lows, but the # of stocks advancing vs. declining is up only about 5%. In the past 3 months, the market is up almost 10%, but the advance-decline line is only up 1%. This means the # of stocks carrying the market is very narrow.
5. The amount of electric power and investment it would take to keep AI growing over the next few years is estimated to be in the $Trillions. Meanwhile the surge in demand is causing ordinary users’ electric bills to go up.
6. Meanwhile the housing market and the transportation market for goods (heavy trucking) are both at recessionary levels *now.*
7. Consumer spending is estimated to be growing on the narrowest base of upper income earners in several decades.
I have no idea how long this will take to play out. But it will play out.
Suzanne
@hueyplong:
“A big strong guy, with tears in his eyes….. he told me ‘Sir, Mr, President, it smells like you crapped your pants.'”
satby
@Baud: exactly. The peanut gallery, who can stay anonymous and face no consequences for their words, are always critical. And then take great umbrage at the idea that constant criticism is a great demotivator, both for the politicians and for the less engaged people who pay much scant attention to politics.
oldster
Those videos are good — much better.
But they still should take advice from Mamdani and **keep them short**.
If you want the attention of the kids, then you need more short-form video — 15 seconds, 10 seconds. Get in, make the pitch, get out.
Chuck Schumer’s video is over 2 minutes long. Old people watch that shit. For youngs nowadays, that’s like reading Homer’s Iliad in one sitting.
Still — I’ll happily applaud the improvements both in message and messaging. They are doing better.
Suzanne
@Baud: Everybody who was on the SAVE plan (including me) was put into a forbearance while it winds its way through the courts. It’s expected to end next month, I believe.
People hated it because it bailed out liberals, and all those gross people who have been going to college in growing number….. women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people. Bailing out conservatives, on the other hand, is hunky-dory.
ETA: I will note that, had they just left SAVE alone, they would have been collecting money this whole time.
Professor Bigfoot
@satby: I just assume they’re the white people who either didn’t vote, voted for Stein, or voted for Trump.
They’re not really on our side, anyway.
Another Scott
@Princess: The various drawings on cards for Epstein’s birthday released by his estate showed that lots and lots of powerful people knew what was going on with underage kids. There must be even worse things that are being held back.
Epstein’s little black book has been out for ages, with several famous people listed in it. It’s not so much the names that matters, it’s what contacts and discussions and interactions happened between them.
I agree we’ve heard far too little about the financial aspects. My (possibly incorrect) understanding is that it all started with Wexner, and of course he had a contribution to Epstein’s party book as well… Grr…
I assume that if there’s anything in the files explaining how he corruptly crushed the Florida charges and all the rest that Democrats and non-MAGA GQPers will work hard to run with it. Whether they’ll get anywhere depends on the public reaction and intensity.
My $0.02.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@satby:
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I’m also entitled to mine.
I stopped believing in solidarity on Election Day, so I no longer take umbrage with people for rowing in a different direction than me. Unless they’re flat out lying like the fascists do. I still believe in the importance of reality.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Gotcha. Just in time for Christmas.
Chief Oshkosh
@oldster: I guess our job, and the job of the “influencers” on Team D, is to take various snippets from the 2min video and post them in in various venues.
Baud
@oldster:
Maybe I’m misremembering, but I thought I saw a Mamdani video that was longer than 30 seconds. Not sure if it was over two minutes however.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
Good point.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud:
satby
I have to hop. If anyone is going to the Covered Bridge Festival in Porter Co. IN, you may see me if you stop in Bridgeton Old Firehouse. I’m helping friends with their booth (The Pot Slot) since their usual helper is going in for surgery. Last year something like 2 million people went through in the 10 days.
Which is getting to be too people-y for me but needs must.
satby
@Suzanne: People hated it because it bailed out
liberals, and all those gross people who have been going to college in growing number….. women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people.other people than them. EOS.lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
This. We have the ACA, for instance, because a lot of Dem Congresspersons in marginal districts were willing to vote for it, knowing they were likely to lose their seats in 2010 as a result.
And in 2021-2022, the Dems, with paper-thin majorities in both houses (which meant they needed Manchin’s and Sinema’s votes to pass anything), hung together to pass some pretty major bills to keep the economy from falling apart in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
Lord knows I’ve been critical of the Dems oftentimes over the decades for not having backbone, but there’s been plenty of times when they’ve had it, and especially in the past five years they’ve been really pretty solid.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: One of my students adored him. I’ve never been able to read one of his novels.
Shalimar
@Princess: I don’t think hiding the Epstein files is about Trump having sex with teens either. Not because he wasn’t. There is circumstantial evidence he was.
Trump owned a modeling agency that brought 12-17 year-olds over from Europe during that period. He didn’t need Epstein to find them for him.
Suzanne
@Baud: Who knows what will happen with it. This has happened before, and then I’ll get a flurry of emails and snail mail telling me something different.
One of the best parts of SAVE is that it was bureaucratically efficient. Historically, dealing with the paperwork for my student loan repayment every year has been an arduous task. Basically took all of the information from your tax return and calculated your payments. Made it easy to enroll in autopay. Payment schedule was reasonable, understandable, and predictable. Awesome. After I enrolled, I literally went to Mr. Suzanne and I was gushing about it as an example of government working really well.
So of course FFOTUS wants to fuck with that.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
But…but when John Roberts gutted the Voting Rights Act, wasn’t that supposed to fix that??
Not to mention, didn’t Karl Rove say we were making our own reality??
/R politicians
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Especially once they’re fertilized.
/antiabortion zealots
Soprano2
That’s the best I’ve ever seen Schumer communicate – straight talk, looking straight at the camera, no notes. Maybe their comms people finally figured out that visuals matter more than they thought.
Jeffro
110%
Kosh III
@Baud: I guess it’s perspective in some ways. Here in Tn D’s decided Republican Lite was the way to go. A D majority of the Legislature TWICE voted to ban marriage equality. And they got their reward by being voted out.
But sure, some like Sen. Warren have had spines and persisted.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@lowtechcyclist: I think it might be fairer to say that reality has not a vote, but a veto. (And I was today years old when I realized that “vote” and “veto” are anagrams, although it’s not that easy to mistakenly change it through a typo if you’re using a QWERTY keyboard.)
Baud
@Kosh III:
States are a very different and varied animal from national Dems, I’ll grant you
ETA: Especially in the South.
They Call Me Noni
@Shalimar: Follow the money.
Deputinize America
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
I take it you haven’t been playing Wordscapes for years like I have. I IMMEDIATELY know that veto also renders vote, just like evil turns into vile, rode is redo and doer, code is also coed….
Kirklin
re student loans (Baud and Suzanne were discussing),
Trump mulls selling student loans. Can he?
narya
@Princess: I sorta kinda disagree, in the sense that understanding the Panama Papers required understanding money laundering and the offshore money and I can see people shrugging about it, in the sense that really rich people have always been corrupt; no news there. But Epstein adds in not just an add-on for a particular person (rich, corrupt, AND a pedophile) but a whole dedicated enterprise, once that became increasingly apparent to anyone who spent any time around him.
I saw that someone–NO memory of who–basically said, Epstein met w/me about money stuff, and I agreed because of the other people around him, but now that I see the entire enterprise, I regret even meeting w him–and that was someone who had not engaged in the assault activities. I think it was a big game of using THIS connection to get the appearance of legitimacy to get to THAT connection, and then some (all?) folks were given the opportunity to assault young women and some took it. (ETA the “some.”)
lowtechcyclist
@Deputinize America:
Now there’s a word that’s dropped out of the language, for obvious reasons.
Deputinize America
@Kirklin:
The gimmick is in the notion that a future president and Congress won’t ever be able to wipe those out or pause them, and that would be absolutely constitutional.
My simple fix is to undo the bankruptcy proscription. Make them have a three year block upon graduation, then allow them into Chapter 13 filings. For the truly broke, a 1% plan will do.
Brendan In NC
@Baud: Exactly. And Schumer’s video seems to be an attempt to keep the Leader position in the Senate. That’s the best he’s done in a long time…
NotMax
Statistics are hard to come by but curious if sales on the Prime Days fall sale Tuesday and Wednesday were up, down or flat.
RaflW
There’s a just shocking newsletter up this morning from Nate Cohn, who I guess has become the chief political analyst at the NYT.
He is wildly delusional.
He just made up out of whole cloth this idea that Democrats demanded a shutdown. It’s absurd! Johnson engineered the shutdown specifically by jamming the Senate and expecting Democrats to cave.
Dems not caving is nothing like Democrats “demanding” a shutdown. Jesus Christ this is the top NYT analyst?
And that poll. When the nation is clearly on fire, health care not being #1 is understandable (economy, chaos, division all topped the list, and (quibble) health care was 2% of respondents).
But I don’t know any Americans – not even my Republican relatives – who aren’t worried about cost, access and quality of care. And the premium spikes are going to be insane! Democrats have some fraction of foresight, and Nate turns that into a lead weight, not political strategy.
Cohn goes on to say that Republicans are willing to work with Democrats on healthcare!
Note that Nate spins this to say ‘impression’ that Democrats are doing better in the shutdown. It’s widely reported that Republicans are in disarray over health care and the shutdown. Republicans are losing on the politics!
Meanwhile Johnson has the House on two week recess and Thune has brought up the same dead bill FIVE times for meaningless votes. Cohn calls that Republicans willing to compromise? Fuuuuuuuuuuck.
Cohn was OK at the New Republic. I didn’t realize he’d gone to the Times 12 years ago. He’s got severe NYT brain poisoning (really, he just very obviously takes calls from Republican operatives all day long and, like all Times Politics Desk employees, hates not just Clinton but all Democrats).
Reading the newsletter, I realize why the Times is so goddam awful on US politics. Because they openly choose to be.
Scout211
In local news, in case you haven’t noticed online, the knives are out for Katie Porter since the polls have her currently the front-runner in the race for governor here.
The conservative and right wing sites like National Review (will not link) and even Politico and other national sites are bringing up old rumors of her mistreating her congressional staff and also ugly rumors from her divorce.
And she recently did not handle an interview well, which has gone viral.
Democratic frontrunner for California governor threatens to walk out of interview
All leading to this claim:
Katie Porter’s California Governor Chances Have Collapsed—Betting Markets
I haven’t yet decided who I will vote for next year, but I know a hit job when I see it. It seems like it is coordinated from the right but I don’t know for sure. But Californians, please be aware that this is a hit job and the race is getting ugly already.
UncleEbeneezer
Princess
@Another Scott: Florida charges — will that bring Bondi in? I’m losing track of the timeline.
I still can’t figure out why Trump was all release the files! then Patel and Bondi were all release the files! and then they were all nope nope nope. I mean Trump thinks he’s teflon god so I get that but surely the other two knew better, earlier.
And there may be a timeline reason for this, but why tf did Biden not release the files? I figure it’s because Democratic leaders and their big donors are also implicated in them but who cares, if it would have brought Trump and a whole corrupt system of sex and blackmail down?
NotMax
@RaflW
Cohn must have the attention span of a brain damaged goldfish. Dems have been raising the issue of healthcare since the passage of the Bigly Billionaire Bill.
Baud
@RaflW:
Liberals will never learn about the NYT.
But keep bringing the receipts.
jonas
More specifically, it’s to bail out Bessent’s hedge fund buddies who were about to lose their shirts. Oh, and not make Milei’s BFF Trump look bad. Naturally since the Beltway media is all over the federal shutdown right now, we’re not hearing a thing about this, but can you imagine the shitshow that would playing out if a Democratic president had thrown some left-wing government a $20 billion face-saving lifeline that just so also happened to benefit a bunch of said president’s well-connected buddies? Impeachment proceedings would be underway inside of a day.
Just another day ending in Y for this administration.
Suzanne
@RaflW:
They’re knitting healthcare costs into the global issue of affordability, which is smart, IMO. And there’s less emphasis on the specter of healthcare bankruptcy — which is real but relatively rare and thus feels remote — than there is on everyday monthly bills, which feel incredibly salient.
Princess
@narya: I think that’s a good description insofar as I understand what was going on.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Also, once again, the Dems are trying to prevent future harm. Of course, regular folks don’t feel it yet.
narya
@Princess: My guess about T’s “release the files” is that he genuinely had no idea how much HE was in them. Otherwise, with you, no idea why he took that position. He has such an imperfect idea of how things work, I can see that–e.g., the BOXES of crap at MAL! No way he needed all of that stuff, no matter who his masters were or what he thought he could do with it. A smart person would have been squirreling away stuff for his entire term, would have known where to look for stuff, etc.; he’s not a smart person.
Baud
Nothing stops Republicans from (1) ending the filibuster or (2) agreeing to Dem demands on health care.
Everything that says otherwise is gaslighting.
Princess
@UncleEbeneezer: the people I know personally who made Palestine their entire personality basically stopped talking about it after Inauguration Day. Maybe a few posts about the plight of the hungry. Certainly zero pressure on Trump.
I’m not optimistic for Gaza. This is a deal between the Hamas terrorists and a wicked Israeli regime, with no regard for the interests of the Palestinians. I hoped the hostages will indeed be free. I hope the soldiers will be withdrawn. I hope aid will come in. I expect the reconstruction of Gaza will be done entirely without regard for the Palestinian people. I think the Qatari leaders want it a riviera bolthole to run to if necessary . (Fun fact: I have a cottage in a place that was entirely bought up at one point by an Egyptian with plans for it to be a refuge for Saudi royals in case of expulsion. That’s my reason for thinking I know their plans for Gaza.)
I also want to say I have appreciated your posts on this subject over these long months.
Belafon
@oldster: So you’re not on TikTok?
The actual rule is to keep it shorter than a music video.
Suzanne
@Baud: Some people just have to touch the motherfuckin’ stove.
Baud
@Princess:
Trump Tower Gaza. Where Despots Earn Double Points.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffro:
Why limit blaming P-Tape to just that?
RaflW
@NotMax: I’m fairly sure he just takes calls from Republican operatives all fucking day. Total brain rot that I’m sure he’d defend as “reporting”.
Belafon
@Princess:
Because Trump was talking to an audience that believed it was full of Democrats and Trump responds to his audience. He doesn’t deliver on what he promises but he will promise it for your vote.
RaflW
@Suzanne: Seeing the estimates that a typical Georgia 60-y.o. household of two will have their premium go from $500/mo to like $2,400/mo. or more, people are going to have to decide between cancelling or going broke just on the premiums, nevermind deductibles and out of network shenanigans.
But, sure, Nate. People “don’t care” about the issue.
Harrison Wesley
@jonas: I especially liked the way Milei took the bailout as an opportunity for Argentina to sell more soybeans to China.
Baud
@RaflW:
The other thing is that the “activist base,” to the extent I witnessed it, was not all that enamored with the plan to fight over expiring insurance subsidies.
RaflW
@Baud: Agreed. And there might have been a handful of grassroots people who thought a shutdown was a nifty way to stop Republicans from passing more bad policy bills, but in my rather copious consumption of liberal shitposting, it’s just not a thing I recall ever seeing as a goal or desire. Just Nate fabulizing.
marklar
@Princess:
@UnclEbeneezer
“I also want to say I have appreciated your posts on this subject over these long months.”
Seconded.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud
: That’s because people on the other end of the horseshoe are stealth Rs.
See also the privileged children who were protesting against Genocide Joe and Holocaust Harris over Gaza.
prostratedragon
@Deputinize America: It’s almost been a fighting word with me for months now.
Deputinize America
@Suzanne:
From my observations from filing BKs, the number of people who are too broke to even file a BK (or to access the resources for a freebie) dwarf the number of those who have included medical delinquencies in their petitions.
I don’t do poverty law for a number of reasons (I did my bit years ago). If I did now, I’d advocate reallocating resources away from pointless eviction defenses and domestic squabbles over the custody of the 25 inch TV, and toward more bankruptcy filings.
The debt hamster wheel is the killer at the bottom of the economic heap.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I must not be a liberal then. I gave up the NYT after what they did to HRC.
Marleedog
@narya:
That was Howard Lutnick, and props to him, at least for that, although I do like Betty Cracker’s spoonerism of his name.
hueyplong
@schrodingers_cat: With the exception of Nixon’s tenure, the NYT has rarely been the friend of social progress or the mere concept of empathy. Whenever I see “NYT” in print, I think of efgoldman’s line.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: But you don’t understand, hedge fund managers deserve their bailout; they earned it because they’re wealthy, even though they totally knew what the risks were. Eighteen-year-olds who signed loan documents, OTOH, were not that aware of all the risks but are moochers who have to pay. s/s/s/s/s I’m not big on student loan forgiveness because it doesn’t do anything about the future, or about solving college affordability, but this bailing out of Argentina is ridiculous.
Baud
I don’t really follow right wing grifters (maybe I should), but I do recognize a few names. Via reddit.
Soprano2
@Baud: Wow, that would explain some things.
Suzanne
@RaflW: Monthly/weekly bills are the biggest stressor in probably most people’s lives. They are more real than almost everything else. Groceries, rent, mortgages, insurance premiums, childcare. Anything we do at this point to hammer on this is good.
prostratedragon
@Another Scott: Yes, the network and financial aspects could be much uglier than a simple list. Then you get to the various associated services and inputs that must be needed to keep such an enterprise running. (O boy, is that ever a euphemism.) And the possibility of certain bespoke experiences provided to a select clientele.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: Did you see the stuff about bird flu in the pandemic thread on Wednesday? Evidently that’s rearing it’s ugly head again.
Meanwhile, the investment guy at my bank is whistling past the graveyard. I think his view is too narrow. I think you understand what’s going on better than he does, and it’s his job to know!
Baud
This case will likely end in a whimper.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Back before he decided to completely lick Trump’s asshole, Marco Rubio had a really good plan for student loans. Rather than 7% compounding interest over the life of the loan, the borrower would pay for a one-time 2% financing fee. So there would be no balloon in costs and the vast amount of the money paid went to the principal. He introduced that bill. Of course it went nowhere.
Tons of my friends have student loans, and I can’t think of anyone who has said anything about thinking they shouldn’t have to pay it back. It’s the fact that the interest is so significant, which basically means that students are used as a profit center. That is massively dispiriting and honestly affects the way they feel about the country as a whole. That it’s exploitative.
Of course, the worst people want to caricature people with student loans as entitled, and not people with a valid grievance.
ETA: None of my friends are wealthy. My friends are teachers, nurses, primary-care physicians, social workers, engineers, etc. One of my friends is a school psych. She borrowed $50K to go to school, and her loan finally was forgiven after she paid over $170K.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Too late now, but it perhaps would have been more strategic to push Biden on interest and repayment terms rather than loan forgiveness.
Advocates wanted $50,000 in loan forgiveness, IIRC.
geg6
@Baud:
Nope, they never will because the type of people who still read the FTFNYT are arrogant and stupid, just t like the Times political analysts. My only contact with their content in years was watching the recent podcast with Ezra Klein and TaNahesi Coates where Coates obliterated Klein in the most engaging and classy way. It confirmed for me (as if I needed it) that that rag needs to die, along with all the rest of the MSM. And Klein? Such a douche, so full of himself. So ready to throw any marginalized person or group under the bus. I think I despise him more than actual Republicans.
Soprano2
This is one of my biggest gripes with them. If this was such a big deal when Biden was president, why isn’t it a big deal when FFOTUS is president? The lame “Republicans won’t listen to us” excuse is stupid. If it’s that important, you shouldn’t care about that, you should be advocating anyway. That’s one reason I was always suspicious of it, even though I know most of those people were truly appalled at what was going on in Gaza.
Deputinize America
@Baud:
Is it wrong for me to have considered touching myself over that bit of news?
Belafon
@Baud: This made me think of the story of the demon who came to corrupt a CEO but found out he was so bad that the demon caused him to do something good. Peterson has gone so far off the rails that a demon made him sick.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Blog favorite EW used to admonish Biden everyday on Twitter and say that he could cancel the student loans with a stroke of a pen or something to that effect.
BTW is it necessary that one must have struggle hair if one is a progressive darling.
Looks like EW goes to the same stylist BS goes to.
Suzanne
@Baud: The $50K ask was considered more favorable for low-income people, especially those who took out loans and didn’t graduate. So I understand why they took that path.
But I had the same thought. Like, come out and be stern and shake your finger and say, “Students are going to repay every dollar that they borrowed!”….. but get rid of the interest, and make the repayments income-based. That might have been easier to sell politically. It’s not forgiveness.
JML
@Suzanne: agreed. It’s one of the things that Cohn and the Vichy Times are missing on this: dems aren’t pushing on healthcare because of access, they’re doing it based on affordability. Premiums doubling would be a crusher for most families.
And the idea that normies don’t understand this is idiotic (which is what I expect from the media). My health care as a public employee is very affordable, but that’s because we’ve bargained for it that way for decades. It’s why people are willing to work for lower salaries in the public sector. Management pushed to double and triple people’s premiums in this last round of negotiations (this was done to try and shift the burden on the employees so they’d have more budget allocation in other areas, not because of the actual costs to provide health care) and if they’d stuck to it, my union would have gone on strike for the first time in 20+ years.
We. Were. Not. Having. It!
People know what happens to their monthly budget if premiums double.
It’s smart strategy and the GOP doesn’t have a good answer for it. They’re trying to confuse people with the undocumented immigrants Bee Ess, they’re trying to pick at corners, but no one is buying it because the message is clear and simple: republicans want to double your health care costs. democrats are fighting to stop that.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: That’s why I say they won’t be able to hide the higher prices from people. You know what you’re paying for things at the store and what your bills are from month to month.
Belafon
@Baud: Would he have had the ability to change those? Loan forgiveness was something he could do, and it can’t be reversed.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: I think very few people care what Warren looks like. Trump is one, obviously.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Are those government-sponsored loans, or private ones? From what I’ve read, the biggest problems are with the private loans, and evidently there’s not much the government can do about those. I agree it’s ridiculous to borrow $50K and pay back $170K.
Baud
@Belafon:
The Supreme Court struck down his first loan forgiveness plan, so who knows what law they would invent to stop something else?
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I agree, I think it was the “forgiveness” part that was sticking in a lot of people’s craw. It seems unfair to people, whether that’s true or not.
schrodingers_cat
@Belafon: People care. Whether it is Boris Johnson or the Orange President or EW.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Not much to be done about private loans other than allow for interest to be tax deducted, pay off the lenders directly, or reform the bankruptcy code so the loan can be discharged.
geg6
@Belafon:
Each year’s new loan interest is set by law on 10 year treasury bill auctions. So Congress would have to change that formula. Biden’s DoE did change the payment terms, adding several new options based on income. Sadly, Cheetolini’s wrestling lady who now heads the department cancelled those options as pretty much the first thing she did.
Baud
@geg6:
And treasuries are getting more expensive since people don’t trust Trump’s government.
Suzanne
@Belafon: Yeah, I don’t know if Biden could have done that directly. Lots of lawyers looked at the rule-making that existed and concluded that up to $50K was within the president’s power. Rubio’s plan about the 2% financing fee was a bill, but went nowhere.
And again….. the $50K forgiveness was thought to be most helpful to poor and working-class people. It would have been a game-changer for them. (Changing financing would have been more helpful to people like me, who enter the job market after graduation at pretty low pay, but grow it over our careers.)
But college affordability is a huge problem. We have critical shortages of all kinds of skilled professions… healthcare, engineering, etc. We are not growing enough of the people we need.
geg6
@Soprano2:
Correct. But taking the government guaranteed loans off a graduate’s plate makes the private loans a little easier to manage. However, I would love to see the ban of bankruptcy discharge on private loans taken down. That’s an easier sell to the public than doing it for federal loans, which partially come from tax payer funds.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Deputinize America: 10 year plan is fine. Otherwise Dr’s take advantage. It’s that or a specific restriction on med school graduates.
dnfree
@Deputinize America: Wordle has taught me some of those for five-letter words, like SPOON/SNOOP and MELON/LEMON.
geg6
@Baud:
The only reason federal loans a stay at reasonable interest rates is that they are capped by law. I can’t remember exactly but I think the student loans are capped at 8.5% and PLUS loans at 10%. I may be off by a half point or so.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: All of my loans are through the government (US DoE), and most of my friends are in the same boat. I recently consolidated my loans at 7%. By the time I am done, I will have paid back five times what I borrowed. (It will still have been worth it, BTW. The college earning premium is real.)
And again….. I have no problem repaying what I borrowed. That is fair.
Belafon
@Baud: He had actually done some loan forgiveness before that. The one they struck down was him trying to do a mass forgiveness using powers from the Covid acts. Though I’m sure they would have let Trump do the exact same one.
iKropoclast
Ah, the clean your room guy.
Baud
@Belafon:
A bunch of Republican states were challenging his other loan forgiveness/reform plans.
Suzanne
@iKropoclast: Remember when he wrote “Make Your Bed” as one of his Rules for Life? Groundbreaking, insightful self-help when a dude says it….. annoying nagging when your mom says it.
Peke Daddy
@MattF: Just when the shutdown is starting to bite, coordinated and sharp messaging is coming through.
Mike E
Ah, there’s the paranoid vigilante spirit! Also: There is no legal marriage for LGBTQA+ Israelis, that’s some “pride”
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Lots of doctors don’t make anywhere near as much as you think. Especially primary-care physicians. Which is why we have a shortage of them.
One of my friends is a primary-care pediatrician for a health system that is highly respected and you’ve all heard of. She’s struggling with her student loans. She has made it part of her mission to work in poor and underserved communities. She’s one of the best people I know and this country would be well-served by finding young people like her and funding as much schooling as they want. She says she is likely to die with her med school debt.
PatD
reuters.com/legal/government/trumps-war-left-inside-plan-investigate-liberal-groups-2025-10-09/
I think this could be far more consequential than we think given the inclusion of fundraising orgs like ActBlue on the list of targets. I remember how much hell the GOP raised over the IRS scrutinizing 501c3s when that wasn’t even happening on a partisan basis.
p.a.
@iKropoclast: Emotions? Thought Peterson only had one emotion. Well… is pomposity an emotion?
Betty Cracker
I don’t personally know anyone who made disapproval of the sustained assault on Gaza “their entire personality,” but 1) there HAVE been pro-Gaza protests aimed at Repubs after 1/20/25 — Google it, FFS — and 2) the drop off in campus activism might have something to do with the current fascist regime’s documented history of jailing, expelling and otherwise criminally harassing people who protest.
I agree with the prevailing sentiment that some pro-Gaza protesters are privileged, peacocking ass-wipes. But that’s true of proponents of pretty much any cause you can name.
Also, why the fuck is anyone obligated celebrate a “deal” struck by Trump, Hamas and Netanyahu before seeing any actual results? All three parties are to varying degrees liars, fascists and murderers. I’ll celebrate their deal when hostages are freed and innocent civilians stop dying.
RaflW
@Suzanne: This and health care are two areas where I become a flaming socialist.
It is in my opinion immoral for people to profit from the provision of health care, and it is likewise ridiculous for profit to be the motivation for funding education.
I don’t recall Rubio’s proposal, but a 2% cap (and having it charged up front so it doesn’t compound) seems like an okay compromise. There’s some cost to providing the money, sure. But how we lend to students now is horrible.
Likewise, I could maybe be persuaded to allow insurers to be B Corps (Benefit Corporations), but even that seems like there’s room for misuse. Is it OK for GE to make money building and selling CT or MRI machines? Yeah, probably. But even that needs regulation for safety & efficacy.
I have no illusions that any of this will change soon. But who knows? We might hurtle into a 1920s scale economic collapse soon. If so, then there would be a chance for massive change among the misery (I don’t want the misery. But it may come anyway.)
Belafon
@PatD: We all may have to make our tips to ActBlue a little bigger.
JML
I think that’s right. People have been trained (by the GOP) to hate on any benefit going to someone else that they don’t get, and trying to explain the usurious nature of so many of these loans was too complicated to message effectively. Throw in the fact that so many non-college grads feel that people with degrees look down on them, and it really started to hurt.
There was definitely a presumption that people who were already doing well were being handed a gift. It really wasn’t true, but it got to be a harder sell.
Suzanne
@RaflW:
Agreed.
Education is a public good. You want to have doctors, teachers, public defenders, judges, social workers, engineers, librarians, administrators, even designers like me….. in short, do you want society to function? Then we have to pay for it to function.
Joe Falco
I’ll never forgive Republicans that challenged the SAVE plan and delayed me being able to pay the last 8 months I had to go left on qualifying for my PSLF. And no, I couldn’t afford the higher payments switching to another payment plan to help put those payments toward PSLF. I’m riding out this forbearance to the end, and after that, I have no idea what I’m going to be able to do.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: KH was interrupted by pro Gaza protesters on her book tour recently when Netanyahu was in the US. I didn’t see or hear his or the President’s events being interrupted. Maybe I missed it.
She is a fucking private citizen now. What is the point in protesting during her events? How does this help anyone in Gaza?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
A lot of moderate conservatives I know were outraged over the loan forgiveness. “I repaid mine” with out realize the fees when they went to collage were much, much lower. The messaging wasn’t done right and there should have been more prework.
All in all shows that social media political strategists are amateurs.
Suzanne
@RaflW: I just went back and looked at the details, because it had been a while since I read about this…… Rubio’s plan wasn’t 2%, but it was a fixed financing fee and 0% interest. There was a different plan by some GOP Reps that was a 2% interest rate. So I got some wires crossed.
Either way, either of those plans would have been better than we have now.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Going by what I read about the history of the Israel and Gaza I am surprised they weren’t plotting to kill Netanyahu. The level of hate between those two groups is pretty inedible.
Maybe the FBI is all over them because of that and they know it?
New Deal democrat
@Soprano2:
Well, he’s been right so far!
It’s hard for me to get past my gut feeling that this smells to me like 1999. As to which, in case you are interested:
bonddad.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-advance-decline-line-and-maybe-ai.html
Suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: There also seems to be this narrative that student loan borrowers were “ungrateful” and didn’t turn out for Harris. It’s so weird. College grads turned out massively for Harris. Of the age cohorts, the under-45 set — who have the most college loans — voted for Harris.
No amount of data has been able to change this perception, which is how we know it’s just personal grudges.
New Deal democrat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Biden’s plan would have been a lot more popular had it also included relief for people in the blue collar trades, who e.g. underwent apprenticeships rather than going to college.
schrodingers_cat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yeah so they protest KH because they are too afraid of the people doing the Palestinians really harm.
That’s brave and effective. NOT
I can just imagine that during the Indian Freedom struggle, non violent protestors, protesting some random allies instead of the British. Btw many were killed or seriously injured during those protests. The British Empire was not all that cuddly despite whatever fiction Niall Ferguson may peddle.
All in all I think the pro-Pal protesters in this country did their cause more harm than good.
Baud
@Suzanne:
People like to compare to 2020. That’s why you have all these people trying to blame minority voters instead of white people for Trump.
Ramona
@Deputinize America: My immediate thought went to the bankruptcy proscription. Although the word I used in my head was “bankruptcy thingamajig”. Thanks for articulating this thought and expanding my vocabulary.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: There are programs for student loan forgiveness for people who practice in under-served communities. I support those completely and think they should be expanded. However, either we make education free or we restrain the ability for highly paid physician specialists to use bankruptcy to avoid loan repayment. If we don’t do the former or the later, loans become harder to get or have less favorable terms. That makes it harder for people who need them to get them.
Geminid
@Mike E: There are plenty of married LGBTQ people in Israel. They can’t get a rabbi to marry them, but neither can a lot of straight people.* So they enact civil unions recognized under Israeli law, or fly to Cyprus or European countries and marry under their laws.
* After Israel’s war with the Arab states ended in 1948, they did not write a constitution. They simply elected a Knesset which enacted their Basic Law. In some contentious areas where agreement was impossible, they adopted the Ottoman laws that the British had left intact.
Marriage law was one these areas. The Ottomans had what is called the millet system. where the clerical leaders of the the various confessional communities ran marrige and family law. So if someone was Greek Orthodox, a Greek Orthodox priest would ratify the marriage; if Sunni Muslim, a Sunni cleric would; if Druze, a Druze sheikh would; etc.
So Israel ended up with a board of Sephardic rabbis in charge of marrying Sephardic Jews and a board of Azhkenazi rabbis on charge of marrying Azhkenazi Jews, and similar systems for the Sunni, Druze and various Christian communities.
Nowadays there are a lot of Israelis who can’t get married under this system, and not just the LGTBQ community. But as they were in 1948, Israelis are too politically divided to resolve this problem, and they likewise have more urgent problems to solve.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Isn’t homosexuality illegal in Hamas, who rule using an intolerant version of Islam?
Sure Lurkalot
Total student loan debt is estimated at $1.8 trillion. The lowest estimated cost of Trump’s tax cuts to the wealthy is $5 trillion.
In an either/or world, I’d prefer to give money to people to buy their first house than their 20th.
People see loan forgiveness as unfair? Is it unfair when people make payments for years and haven’t discharged one bit of principal, owe 2 to 3 times the amount borrowed?
The “they got ponies, I got nothing” mindset is numbing. When I expressed sympathy for young people starting out what with the cost of housing, healthcare, food, a “progressive” friend moaned that maybe they shouldn’t spend money on coffee. Fucking tired trope.
In today’s dollars, my first apartment after college would cost $1,200/month. It costs at least $2,500 today. Health care? My employer paid the premiums. Subsidized my bus pass to get to work. Paid for college courses connected to my job.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: I actually know a person who was angry that her spouse got loan forgiveness, but she didn’t. It helped them as a couple but it wasn’t good enough for her.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The deal with student loan forgiveness is that it was pretty unpopular not with those whose loans were forgiven but other constituencies. That is another issue as you said we hear almost nothing about now that we don’t have a D in office.
Whereas in Biden admin we were bombarded nonstop about sob stories about student loans. Where are those people now?
Interesting Name Goes Here
@schrodingers_cat: Those people are busy brainstorming 2028’s ratfucking cause célèbre that will oddly benefit the GOP.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: That’s my understanding. But it looks like Hamas’s rule in Gaza is coming to an end. The system that follows will likely be more secular but this is one of the many things we will find out in the next months and years.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: Should read:
Isn’t homosexuality illegal under Hamas rule?
Baud
@Geminid:
Bloomberg already has a click bait article up on Trump and the peace prize, leveraging the fact that this years winner will be declared soon.
schrodingers_cat
@Interesting Name Goes Here: And we will be gaslighted that we are just imagining it. Its only 5 unknown people on the internet.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: The way the supposed progressives went to the mat for an intolerant regime of terrorists was a sight to behold. I got a lesson in real time about the power of antisemitism.
Putin hit it out of the park with Oct 7.
Ramona
@narya: I got the impression that he would give cautious answers always laying out caveats that “innocent” people could be hurt but FOX edited the videos to give the impression he was more eager to release them than he was.
Bear in mind that the majority of his life was lived in an environment where such abuses against women and girls were not taken seriously. MeToo changed that radically. He would’ve been lulled into complacency given his long experience of societal callousness to victims of sexual abuse. He really could not have realized that the zeitgeist has changed and we take these things seriously now. I daresay Maxwell and Epstein were likewise overcome by the change in mores they never expected.the
It is possible that Acosta too feared that the pre MeToo casual acceptance of such abuses deprived him of a strong enough case to nail Epstein to the wall. It seems tome that Acosta genuinely believed that the best thing he did was to have Epstein registered as a sexual offender. He did fight hard for that.
When was Bondi Florida AG?
pieceofpeace
@Scout211:
A hit, yes, but deservedly so? Katie Porter, imho, is too gimmicky and prone to not measure her words, tending towards off-the-cuff critical considerations and their effects rather than solid, qualified and well-quantified purposes. That’s not to say she’s not up for the actual work that’s involved.
I’m in northern CA and don’t see any replacement up this way for Newsom except K. Harris. The current SF Mayor Dan Lurie, will be a possible future Dem force if he succeeds with this position, which I’d guess he will. A strong, well-known family in the area, and likely has the following of the SF Democratic political folks.
JML
@schrodingers_cat: my only issue with student loan forgiveness (and I was someone who paid off their law school loans and because of parental support and scholarships/work didn’t have any undergraduate debt) was that we didn’t do anything to fix the systemic issues that got us in that place to begin with, where public higher education has been drastically underfunded in so many states that instead of graduating with $5-10K in debt it’s ballooned out to $30-50K.
Of course, I’m also a cranky bitch and part of me doesn’t want to do anything with tax dollars for people who went to private schools…
schrodingers_cat
@Ramona: Did you see Prof. Lal’s lecture on the Portuguese in Goa? I had no idea that there was an inquisition in Goa.
schrodingers_cat
@JML: Agreed. That was my issue too. That it was inherently unfair. I was lucky to have a full tuition waiver and grants even for my professional degrees. And I lived on a shoestring budget. And I rented.
But only forgiving existing loans without changing the system didn’t sit well with me.
rikyrah
@RaflW:
Meidas Touch did a fabulous Twitter Thread of the price spike in premiums of the GOP Congressmen that we should be able to knock out . The numbers in black and white.
That’s why I think it’s been terrific of Democrats to focus on this. Open Enrollment is HERE for millions. Even people who aren’t on the exchanges are getting the notifications through HR about the spike THEY will have to contribute to their healthcare premiums. And, even if they aren’t as ridiculous as the subsidy people. it’s still an increase that they are going to notice.
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I understand. I just wish people really grasped that most doctors really don’t make as much money as people think. Lots of professions, including mine, have really low starting salaries and then you climb up that ladder over the next 10-20 years. But that means that interest is growing while you’re young.
People also hear about highly paid cardiologists and surgeons and think that’s what most doctors are pulling down. They are not, not even close. And we have a significant shortage of primary care physicians in this country, as well as all types of doctors in rural areas. (And let me tell you about the absolutely horrifying shortage of psychiatrists across this country. Every time someone says that we need better mental health care, ask what they’re doing to get more psychiatrists in the pipeline.)
Belafon
@Suzanne: It was another thing conservatives could hate on Democrats for. Yes, most college educated whites voted for Harris, but there are plenty of college educated whites that felt that felt like they were being punished for following the rules rather than thinking “I don’t want others to go through what I did,” and they all vote R.
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: I haven’t seen the lecture. Please send me the link. I had read about the Goan Inquisition. It was horrible! Goa was the Eastern capital of Portugal. It had extensive slave markets.
Unfortunately, my family has no lore going back to the 15th century. I’d have loved to hear Roots type stories.
Could I possibly impose on you to share the link of Dr Lal’s Goan lecture. I find myself too lazy to search.
catclub
@Suzanne:
No money in that for them.
Geminid
@Baud: I read that the prize committee already made their decision Monday. But even if they hadn’t this peace deal has barely begun to be implemented. It’s a practical plan and it might turn out well, but we won’t know for weeks and months if it will.
So maybe Trump can win next year. But the Nobel prize does not award the prize posthumously and that could be a stumbling block.
schrodingers_cat
@Ramona: Here you go
OT I just finished watching his series on Bollywood and Indian Nationalism. I wonder if we do a film club watching these movies and then discussing them on Zoom. Would anyone be interested.
iKropoclast
I wonder about the relationship between disengaged fathers and Republican voting.
Suzanne
@Belafon: “I suffered, so you should, too. It’s character-building.” is one of the ugliest impulses I observe in people. Rejection of it is the fundamental reason I’m a liberal.
It reminds me of the people who spank their kids and say, “I was spanked as a child, and I turned out fine”. No, you didn’t turn out fine. You turned out to be an adult who hits children.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: It doesn’t, and the people who interrupted KH’s book tour are morons. But there are protests aimed at the right people, and those protesters don’t deserve to be lumped in with the idiots.
schrodingers_cat
So about the student loan forgiveness. I agreed with it on principle but not the execution. It should have tackled the root causes of the problem. IMHO.
Jackie
@Baud:
Does he live in Canada? At least, if so, his medical care and insurance won’t be impacted by Secretary Brainworm and the MAGA House.
JML
@schrodingers_cat: same. I hate that we’ve become so selfish as a nation that “I don’t benefit” is all people need to oppose something.
There were more than enough people getting crushed under their student loans (and this would have made a real difference for those people who stopped out/dropped out and accumulated debt too) that I simply didn’t care that some people who didn’t “need” it might benefit too.
Like you, I wish they had even tried to do something to address the systemic causes though. I guess that’s probably too complicated…
iKropoclast
I’m less concerned with the recipient of the Nobel peace prize than the notion that after everything Democrats left an opening for Republicans to seize the mantle of the party of peace.
Eyeroller
@Belafon: That is apparently what his daughter is claiming, according the Reddit thread Baud linked. But she seems to be a weirdo and grifter herself.
Most of the commenters were of the opinion that Peterson’s longstanding benzo addiction and his “treatment” in Russia are probably more responsible for any “inability to regulate his emotions” than “mold.” But nobody was claiming medical expertise so that’s speculation; it just seems pretty plausible.
The pneumonia and sepsis could just be from poor health. He was on a meat-only diet for at least a while, so he’s got some RFKJr vibes going.
Baud
@iKropoclast:
Voters did that. This war wasn’t going to go on until 2029.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker:
The acerbic Israeli commenter Iris Boker put it this way:
Boker thinks the plan can work though.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: You are, of course, correct. And, once again, it is just more personal grudges at work to look at what’s happening to civilians in Gaza and yet focus on fringe-y American protestors. It smacks of respectability politics.
Suzanne
@Eyeroller: I remember Peterson’s daughter saying something like “I’m allergic to everything except steak and bourbon”. Just a total group of lunatics.
Geminid
@iKropoclast: I’m not concerned about who gets the prize either.
As for political credit, I consider what happens over there to be of primary importance, and the effects on US domestic politics to be of secondary importance.
That’s been my posture throughout this destructive and unnecessary war. I don’t dismiss the effects on U.S. politics, but I try to keep.them in perspective because this war was not all about us.
Jackie
@schrodingers_cat:
Sorry, I disagree. Warren has normal hair with normal hair issues. She’s not in the same category as FFOTUS or Boris Johnson.
Ramona
@Suzanne: Some years ago, I read an article in The American Prospect on how the price of education and job training, public goods, had been transferred from companies and the government to individuals.
The main goal of education used to be to become a responsible and knowledgeable citizen. That view started to be undermined in the seventies and today, everybody thinks of education as job training. What a favor to industry!
Ramona
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I occasionally like to kick back and savor a slice of edible inter-group hate :-)
iKropoclast
Democrats and Republicans have both been on the wrong side of this issue for decades. Democrats didn’t have to end the war. They only had to provide some basic accountability. .
They could have done it during the Obama years or the Biden years or at literally any time in Congress. They chose not to. Over and over.
Now I know Trump’s strategy of bluster and bullying won’t produce consistent results or be of much help except in the cases of small, easily shoved nations and dependent partner nations.
There is nothing I can point to that Dems did while they were in charge to improve this situation save for showing up at the negotiating table which is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. I understand the law even said we should have stopped certain weapons transfers because they were being used against aide groups.
Democrats fucked themselves on this issue and are looking to blame anyone but themselves.
laura
@pieceofpeace: Xavier Bercerra is definitely up to the task of Governing California IMHO. Acumen and temperment, not a show pony, but a work horse.
Baud
@iKropoclast:
That’s fine. People should just vote for the Republicans as the party of peace then.
Professor Bigfoot
@RaflW: Third leg of that stool— corrections/prisons/judiciary.
There should be no such thing as a ‘for profit’ prison.
schrodingers_cat
@Jackie: She has better hair than Vt Jesus and crazy Boris. I will give you that
But the hair in the video linked above is distracting. YMMV.
Suzanne
@Ramona: Exactly right. We’ve pushed the cost of training the skilled workers and professionals that society needs from the taxpayer and the employer to the individual.
iKropoclast
@Geminid: Right, but he comment In responded to was about the Nobel, which is farther still down the list of concerns.
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: Thank-you! Are we talking about movies by Satyajit Ray? I’ve always intended to watch some but never got around to it.
iKropoclast
I mean I’m not buying it and I explained why, but I know they’re trying to sell it and I suspect a fair few barely engaged people will fall for it. Republicans thrive on the spurious.
And elected Democrats covered themselves in shit trying to have it not quite both ways, but one and a half ways.
Baud
@iKropoclast:
They sell all kinds of lies that people buy. I’m not blaming Dems for that. I acknowledge that Dems haven’t solved all the world’s problems. Everything unsolved is an opportunity for Republicans.
schrodingers_cat
@Ramona: No they are mostly commercial Hindi movies.
Deewar
Lage Rago Munnabhai
Mother India
Bhumiputra
Lagaan
Mr and Mrs. Iyer.
Roja
Rang De Basanti
and so on..
pieceofpeace
@laura: Oh, I agree!
JML
@Ramona: correct. a fundraising consultant I worked with called it the biggest scam industry has ever perpetuated on higher education, the idea that all graduates must be “ready to work” on day 1 after hire from college. I’d argue that the federal government is still more willing to train people even if formal training programs are mostly gone (Presidential Management Fellows still exist, which is essentially a 2-year training/paid internship program).
Frankly, it was a stupid move my industry; it off-loaded some training costs, but also made it much more likely they were going to churn entry-level employees, which has a substantial cost of it’s own. But there are a lot of idiot MBAs out there who believe in churning employees as an inherent good…
iKropoclast
Please point me to any incidence where Democrats made any real effort here. Not just some effort by one Congress-individual with no cosponsors. Show me the brave Senate filibuster over our defense appropriations I must have forgotten. Show me Biden enforcing the laws on the books.
Anything that wasn’t just them doing words.
Ramona
@Ramona:
@schrodingers_cat:
I do remember, in the seventies, my maternal grandmother (the only grandparent) I knew singing a song in Konkani about Mahatma Gandhi coming to Goa. My Konkani wasn’t good even then.
Konkani has so many flavors that the flavor my father’s family speaks is unintelligible to me who was raised by mother’s family.
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: My Mongolian hairdresser strongly recommended Lagaan to me and I started to watch it but then got distracted.
Of the ones you’ve mentioned, I’ve only seen Mother India when I was about 13. I remember being scandalized seeing Nargis play Sunil Dutt’s mother when I was used to knowing them as a married couple ;-)
Little did I know growing up in the seventies in India that I was living through the Golden Age of Hindi movie music!
I’d love to watch these movies ‘with’ you!
tam1MI
@Princess: I’m not optimistic for Gaza.
Neither am I, but at this point they have no choice. Any hope for a better deal for them vanished the second Trump was sworn in.
tam1MI
@RaflW: But, sure, Nate. People “don’t care” about the issue.
None of the people HE knows care.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I freely admit to it.
It’s personal.
When those idiots demanded that Black folks abstain from voting for the sake of the Palestinians, that was personally offensive, and at this point I’m far more concerned with what happens here than what happens “over there.”
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: A small treat for you youtu.be/_HVXJ8BAJM8?si=wFx8StM19HWM6isO
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
The meat diet might have some explaining to do as well:
The Jordan Peterson All-Meat Diet (James Hamblin, August 28, 2018)
Ramona
@Professor Bigfoot: Amen!
Kathleen
@UncleEbeneezer: This to the eleventyith power. BTW I also really appreciated your comment about this on a thread from yesterday.
Kathleen
@marklar: Thirded.
iKropoclast
Over here we’re funding a system of murder and exploitation, not just there but here and everywhere else.
The idea that it’s more okay to exploit people and facilitate murder abroad than it is here is giving…colonizer.
schrodingers_cat
@Ramona:Prof. Lal lectures on the movie after the students have seen it. Then they do some scholarly readings on the movies.
Most of these movies were huge commercial hits. I forgot to add Purab aur Paschim to the list I have watched about 60 percent of them.
Interesting, I thought Lagaan wouldn’t be interesting if one didn’t care for cricket.
BTW I had the opportunity to have dinner at CCI. I have a cousin who is a member
I understand the Goan version of Konkani quite well but the Saraswat version from coastal Karnataka is unintelligible to me. I had many Goan friends growing up.
Kathleen
@Interest ing Name Goes Here: They’d better get the 2026 Strategy together now! What will the new cudgel/litmus test be after NY mayor’s election and peace treaty in Gaza?
schrodingers_cat
@Ramona: Thanks!
Kathleen
@Baud: Imagine him getting a peace prize after declaring war on US citizens!
iKropoclast
The peace treaty is a start. There is plenty of work left to do in terms of rebalancing out foreign policy in the region. A lot of that work will need to be done in Congress.
Helpful policy suggestions from our Congressfolk to build on the potential of this ceasefire would be greatly appreciated. They might also find it a great opportunity to reengage their Republican colleagues on the idea of positive engagement with nations abroad, investment and training and the like.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: You mean the same “base” that criticizes Dem leadership on social media, simps for DSA pols and urges others to withhold votes from Ds and doesn’t bother to vote.
They are not the base even if they call themselves that.
iKropoclast
Israel Blows up a Palestinian hospital.
Democrats: Why is this happening to us?
Also Democrats: These people we want nothing to do with should vote for us if they know what’s good for them…
tam1MI
A lot of moderate DEMOCRATS I knew were outraged. To the point of purple-faced fury. They would bring it up, unprompted, and just start RANTING. It was the number one Biden policy that they hated, above all others.
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: what is CCI?
You are way ahead of me in the Konkani department!
...now I try to be amused
@RaflW:
I’m more a social democrat than a flaming socialist. I recognize that free-market capitalism is good at providing goods and services people want, but it’s less good at providing goods and services everyone needs. (The latter are called “price inelastic”, if I remember my Econ 101 correctly.) Before we officially had high inflation, prices in three categories exceeded the overall rate of inflation: health care, housing, and education.
In one area you can call me a flaming socialist: If We the People decide something needs to be done and the private sector can’t or won’t do it, then the government must do it.
tam1MI
I agree on this. Their cause was noble, but their strategy and tactics were horrendous.
schrodingers_cat
@Ramona: Cricket Club of India, they own the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.
schrodingers_cat
@Ramona: I am a bit rusty, though. No practice.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Suzanne: I don’t live in Gaza. I live here. The actions of the protestors here have contributed significantly to the degradation of the place I call home. I’m sure this has been pointed out multiple times before and far more eloquently than I will, but I can’t help anyone else when my own fucking house is on fire. That’s something the moral crowd continually forgets about or glosses over.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Those people are idiots. There was no universe in which anyone should abstain from voting, and the ask of Black people specifically to abstain is offensive in the extreme.
But they are also fringe idiots. They do not matter. And it is a category error, it is reductio ad absurdum, to conflate them with the overall moderate position. The position that many Democrats — including me — share is that October 7 was terrible, Hamas are monsters, and that the Netanyahu regime’s response has been utterly disproportionate and reprehensible. And that war crimes against civilians are happening with American-supplied weapons. And there has been a rise in both antisemitic violence, as well as anti-Palestinian violence. And that it is should be the position of well-meaning Democrats that both of these things are terrible, inhumane, and corrosive to our common project. We can stand for the rights and freedom of our Jewish citizens and our Arab citizens, both…. regardless of how Jewish or Arab Americans vote.
The grinding, grinding, grinding on the moronic behavior of campus protestors — who have no influence over anything and who don’t represent more than a sliver of the population — starts to read as an excuse to overlook very real Islamophobia.
Anyway
Two people I know that had their student loans forgiven were ecstatic (and grateful) beyond words. Showed me the text/email from JB/KH and talked about what they could do with the extra $250-300 each month etc etc Not the same heft as online randos
tam1MI
Respectability politics can be remarkably successful.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Suzanne: So are they fringe or are they powerful enough to matter? Because at this point it sounds like you and a few others are eager to pin things on insidious Islamphobia instead of recognizing that some of y’all motherfuckers got played like a harp. And considering that you accused me of being reductionist, it’s kind of ironic.
Suzanne
@Interesting Name Goes Here: I can be concerned about my own country, as well as others. Ultimately, we are all linked together.
tam1MI
Off the top of my head, the Camp David Accords and the Good Friday Agreements.
iKropoclast
A lot less political pushback for a black woman if she adopts the manner and priorities of the white man.
Suzanne
@Interesting Name Goes Here: The murder of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy, the shooting of three Palestinian college students in Vermont — one who is now paralyzed for the rest of his life ….. the stabbing of a young Palestinian-American man in Texas, the attempted deportation of Mahmoud Khalil…… these are very real examples of Islamophobia and hate crimes happening here in your own country. Not “over there”.
gvg
@geg6: I don’t think private loans have any ban on bankruptcy discarge, only the government keeps that right.
geg6
@Suzanne:
Thanks for saying it so eloquently that I don’t have to post the much less measured response I was planning.
tam1MI
Well, if we are going to get into atrocity poker, it would be remiss not to mention the shootings and stabbings of Jewish people by maniacs screaming “Free Palestine”!
Our side of the aisle has a problem with Islamophobia. It also has a problem with antisemitism. If you want to paint those criticizing the tactics of the Gaza protestors as Islamophobes, well then we’ll see your accusation of Islamophobia and raise you an accusation that the Gaza protestors were antisemites all the way down.
Kind of counterproductive…
geg6
@gvg:
Nope. Private educational loans cannot be discharged under bankruptcy. They are the problem.
schrodingers_cat
@Interesting Name Goes Here: They are both fringe and the voice of the youth and all powerful. Whatever is needed to win the argument.
iKropoclast
The Camp David Accords were a good start. They were also 50 years ago, before I and probably half of voters were born. The US also turned their back on these accords through successive R and D administrations, allowing Israel to spend decades nibbling land off through settlement and perform several discrete instances of leveling Palestinian cities and blockading of food and energy.
The Good Friday Agreement was also excellent. It seems to have created decades of peace in the affected region. And it was spearheaded on a bipartisan basis by Ted Kennedy and a Republican Congressman from upstate New York whose name escapes me and signed during the W Bush years, if I’m not mistaken. Congressional Democrats did support it, though.
Also the affected region was Ireland and Northern Ireland. Close to my heart and bloodlines, and important, but not subject to the biases that I perceive clouding D judgment on middle east issues, those biases being Islamiphobia, pro-Colonialism, and some smaller degree of generalized anti-religious sentiment.
gvg
@JML: There is also the fact that earlier generations when they went to college got a better deal. They didn’t have to take out as many loans, they earned better and were able to pay them off easier and they just did not comprehend that it was not possible to work the same way for the more recent generations. Things like the minimum wage not being a real living wage any more, there were fewer jobs that didn’t need a full time worker who didn’t have a school schedule and didn’t already have training, and there certainly weren’t enough near colleges. They really didn’t understand that in the past states had paid a larger share of the real cost of school, so their “tuition” charges had been more subsidized than they are now. They thought the colleges had gotten greedy and the kids were soft and thats why the cost went up, not that they were responsible when they wanted lower taxes and said they hated education with their votes. There were also demographic reasons that some generations had a harder time getting wage growth and profiting as much from college. Add in that the US and the world economic trends have a big say and nobody can guarantee prosperity.
The older people sometimes act like its all just repeating their past. My parents were able to work their way through college. Few people can now. That was around 60 years ago.
Suzanne
@tam1MI: Some of the Gaza protestors are antisemites. And fuck them. I don’t associate with them. They do not speak for me or anyone I know.
But again: characterizing the moderate position with the extreme position is a rhetorical tactic that is meant to delegitimize it. It stems from seeing some people’s humanity more clearly than others. We should resist that. It is fundamentally inhumane.
gvg
@New Deal democrat: Not really. There aren’t enough of those anymore I don’t think. They are’t enough of the voters or even relatives of voters. I am also not aware that there are a lot of them with student loans that are crushing them.
Also I am pretty sure he did include that. He was always pretty proUnion, it just didn’t get much attention. But I think I read about it early on.
Geminid
@iKropoclast: The Camp David Accords were berween Israel and Egypt. They created a durable peace between the two nations, but they did not address Israel’s role in the Occupied Territories.
You may be thinking here of the Oslo Accords signed in 1995(?), which were only partially implemented.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Exactly right — thank you!
Citizen Alan
@Baud: TBH, I regret paying off my student loans when and how I did. I should have just made the monthly payments and used the money I gave the loan providers for a down payment on a house. And then used the money I spent on the house to reduce my income for purposes of determining how much I had to pay monthly on student loans.
iKropoclast
Oh, yes, thank you.
Citizen Alan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: My RWNJ sister once told me that the only two issues she cared about were student loan forgiveness and immigration reform. She was vehemently opposed to both. Re student loans, she’s in the Virginia Foxx camp. “I paid off all my student loans [from the 1980s when it was probably just a few thousand dollars], so everyone else ought to as well!”
Citizen Alan
@Ramona: I have been quite surprised to see that the Dept of Ed has not been opposing bankruptcy adversary proceedings to discharge student loan debt, at least in our district (and I assume everywhere since the AP is always against the Sec. of Ed.). My suspicion is that they’ve laid off so many DOE lawyers that they can’t effectively respond to all the APs over student loans and have decided that it’s bad business to pay lawyers to fight against some poor schlub who has a minimum wage job and just filed for bankruptcy and who owes a relatively small amount (like $50k or less). But it’s been a surprise. I regret not working harder to get clients to seek student loan discharges when I was in private practice. I clearly remember two clients who I thought might be eligible, even in the execrable Fifth Circuit, but neither of them would do it because they both felt obligated to pay back their student loans. (One of them had been in a disabling car wreck and she simply was in denial over the fact that she was never going to work as a nurse again.)
Iron City
@schrodingers_cat: Maybe the beam got askew on the treadle?
Ramona
@Citizen Alan: Ooh, I hope this news filters to most of the people who need such relief!
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Suzanne: Where is their outrage? Where are their protests? Sure, Khalil had attention for about 30 minutes, and then as soon as the administration forgot he existed, so did the Free Palestine folks who had glommed onto that cause. The others were never so lucky. There was an article posted from the Guardian yesterday talking about, among other things, a little girl who had been attacked in a park in Dearborn. Where’s her protests and marching?
Do you really think that people like me don’t care? Or are you just really eager to not have to confront that elephant in the living room?
Suzanne
@Interesting Name Goes Here: Many of us have related our experiences seeing pro-Palestine demonstrations in recent months. I’ve seen some. I can think of a valued commenter here at BJ who noted that he participates in a peaceful pro-Palestine protest on a regular basis. Again, you are creating this caricature that pro-Palestine protestors are uniformly acting in bad faith, and I think that’s incorrect.
And again, I think it is the worst kind of category error. And, because people are not instruments, the cause of Palestinian human rights is a worthy one even if Arab-American voters didn’t vote the way I wanted them to. That’s what it means to have a principle: you hold it even when it doesn’t get you anything.
Kosh III
@schrodingers_cat:The British Empire was not all that cuddly despite whatever fiction Niall Ferguson may peddle.
Yeah, a more accurate account of British crimes would be from Shashi Tharoon.
schrodingers_cat
@Kosh III: Tharoor is okay. Vinay Lal’s lecture series on the British Empire in India is pretty good. Lal teaches at UCLA.
Also see some latest research from Caroline Elkins and Jon Wilson who highlight the moral depravity and cruelty of the Empire.