Surprising no one, the Republicans blocked a minimum wage increase:
As expected, Senate Republicans voted on Wednesday to block debate on legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.
The procedural motion to begin debate received 54 votes for, and 42 against — short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
The only Republican who voted with Democrats to begin debate on the bill was Sen. Bob Corker (TN). “While I think the underlying policy is problematic, I think we should always debate ways to help improve the standard of living of Americans,” he said in a statement sent to TPM.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) had expressed willingness to play ball on the minimum wage but decided that hike to $10.10 per hour — phased in over three years — was too high for her. Democrats, who are aggressively touting the issue on the 2014 campaign trail, declined to budge on the $10.10 figure.
“If we don’t succeed this time … we will bring this bill to the floor again and again and again,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said before the vote. “And just like unemployment insurance, sooner or later we will get it done.”
How do they plan to get this bill through the teahadist house, or did I miss something and it already passed.
Gravenstone
Wow, Susan Collins plays the old bait and switch. Shocking!
Omnes Omnibus
It’s a stick with which to beat the GOP in an election year.
JDM
Nuclear everything. Eliminate the filibuster. Now.
JPL
How do they plan to get this bill through the teahadist house, or did I miss something and it already passed.
The same way the House plans on repealing the health care law.
jl
So, if I understand the vote correctly, Collins voted against debate, then she indicated she liked the idea in general, but would not debate it. And looks like all the other so-called GOP moderates did the same thing. Which is less than Corker. What a contemptible worthless mendacious pack of mangy pissants.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Nah, Collins simply talked a good game to burnish her “moderate” street cred with the usual suspects and then voted the way she was always going to vote.
@efgoldman:
This is a very good stick.
Belafon
Remember when Republicans were in charge of Congress and would do the same vote over and over just to beat the Democrats with them? Of course you do, John. I hope the Democrats do this one ever month until August, and then every two weeks until the election.
Chris
@jl:
Jesus, I hate moderates.
Bobby Thomson
Collins is a worthless piece of shit. She did more than anyone else to kill the recovery by insisting on stripping aid to municipalities from the stimulus.
And, yeah, the point of this vote is to get people on record, not to actually pass the bill. Republicans have 20,000 votes on repealing Obamacare so that they can say “Your representative voted 20,000 times to install death panels.” The problem is, McConnell’s the only vulnerable incumbent Republican Senator this year (spoiler alert: he won’t lose), and Americans can’t remember anything worth a damn.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
Collins simply talked a good game to burnish her “moderate” street cred with the usual suspects and then voted the way she was always going to vote.
This +1000.
Collins is the David Brooks of the US Senate.
She feigns being reasonable before falling in line with the rest of the corporate Republicans.
Applejinx
Yes, let them try again and again and again to get a minimum wage increase for all Americans.
Let the Republicans be seen blocking it, again and again, while America starves.
Bring it.
gian
is there any actual empirical data showing the supposed link between raising the minimum wage and massive job loss the republicans talk about?
I don’t think there is any because when we’ve done it, there is no massive spike in unemployment.
I’d like to see some Ross Perot charts showing this along with use of the lie word. In a perfect world I’d like to hear Joe Biden call it bullshit on a live mic
Jennifer
They need to bring it up at least 3 or 4 more times before the election. And then run ads in heavy rotation saying something like “do you currently make less than $10 per hour? Well, if it wasn’t for Senator McConnell (fill in name of Republican running for re-election) you’d be getting a raise to at least $10.10 an hour. Senator McConnell thinks you earn enough already, which is why he voted 4 times against raising your income. Candidate Democrat supports raising the minimum wage. He knows it’s important for working families struggling to make ends meet. Register and vote for Candidate Democrat.”
You get the idea.
I went over and picked a fight with the denizens of the Corner the other day; Matthew Continetti started his pitiful “rebuttal” to Thomas Piketty with an Orwell quote which was just too tempting. The question I posed to the assembled geniuses was “how do you expect a consumer economy to thrive when half of the people in it earn so little that they have no discretionary income?” None of them ever attempted to answer, but they did the usual “look over there!” stuff. It finally wound down (I guess; I got tired of it after a couple of days) with me arguing with one wingnut about what Adam Smith actually advocated as the ideal economy: one where profits were low and wages were high. Which is what he advocated. Smith would look at our economy today and classify it as ruined.
These guys are never going to let go of the idea that you can push a string, which is what supply-side is – total bullshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bobby Thomson: Vulnerable Dems can run on voting for it.
Comrade Mary
Of course he did: new audio and video (not yet released, but imminent) of Rob Ford have been acquired by his last remaining ally in the press. Apparently they’re just bad enough that Ford says that he’s going to rehab for 30 days to fix his problem once and for all.
Chris
@gian:
Probably not, but does it really matter? Memes like “unions destroy jobs” have very little evidence behind them either, lots of evidence against them, but they’re still very widely accepted even outside the right wing.
dmsilev
I have to say, I was especially impressed with the stunt pulled by the Nevada branch of the Kochtopus, where they used Harry Reid’s vote against cloture (by switching his vote to No, Reid gets the right under Senate rules to reintroduce the question) to claim that Reid opposes the minimum wage increase.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Cheerfully accepted.
Belafon
OT: One of the commenters over at Little Green Footballs is celebrating her one year anniversary since suffering an aneurysm. I want to see a one year post on John’s friend in 2015.
PeakVT
@gian: The empirical evidence shows that a higher MW has been basically neutral as far as the raw number of jobs when it has been implemented on a state-by-state basis. If you want to see the details search on Dean Baker’s blog.
kindness
No John you have it right. Schumer is listening to his press secretary apparently.
Davis X. Machina
Obama can do it. By leading. With his leadership. And firearmtwistingchats.
jl
@gian:
The research is mixed. Partly because there are so many dimensions to possible effects. There are several ways that changes in minimum wage can effect employment through changes in turnover, rate of hiring, layoffs, effects on job search of unemployed. And any factor that moves the equality of marginal cost away from hourly rates of compensation for a particular job will weaken the effect (and very specialized job training costs, learning-by-doing, or proportion of entry level workers promoted, for a particular job can drive the two apart).
There can also be different effects for teenagers, entry level, part time and temp, and already employed people.
So, it is no wonder that different studies get different results. I think in general, for adults and already-employed teenagers, different factors offset, and either no or very small effect.
For teenagers looking for work, or trying to get their first job, there does seem to be negative impact on employment, or increase in average job search time to get the first entry level job. Which can actually have a substantial effect on history of income growth for teenagers where hard to find a job.
So far, this ignores the macro-economic aspect. In current weak recovery where there is probably deficient demand for full employment Considering macro adds another dimension to the analysis. If minimum wage increase leads to increase spending, in regime of deficient demand, an increase could be a win win.
Most opponents exaggerate the effects of a small increase in the minimum wage. I heard a Republican Congresscritter this morning who implied that the proposed increase would increase the price of a typical McDonald’s hamburger by 50 percent, which is at least an order of magnitude too high.
raven
Did anyone else see the news piece on the proposed $15 minimum wage in Seattle. They had one fast food owners of Dick’s Drive in. They pay a very fair wage and all kinds of benefits and are scared to death that the passage would really hurt them..
Lessons from Dick’s Drive-In on minimum wage, employee benefits
Roger Moore
@gian:
No. It’s all based on a failure to grasp macroeconomics.
raven
This was a really good piece on PBS tonight. All socially conscious eateries that are really worried.
Seattle restaurant industry caught in the middle of $15 minimum wage debate
Mason
Are you not entertained???
jl
Forgot to say that Dean Baker and others at the blogs and reports at CEPR have done a number of cost-benefit analyses that show who wins and who loses, and how much, and the total net outcome.Some are quite simple back of the envelope things that are in the ball park and you can use with any teabagger kith and kin who are giving you trouble.
Jennifer
@gian: CBO (I think) estimated that a minimum wage increase could cost 500,000 jobs. I don’t know how they came up with that number, but there’s plenty of evidence from both past federal raises and from states who have raised the mw that show it as neutral. Even if you accepted the 500,000 number, that would still be a short-term figure, because the remaining 24% of all US workers currently earning $10 or less per hour will each get a raise, they will spend, this will cause growth and new jobs.
Fun fact: 40% of all US workers now earn less in inflation-adjusted dollars than minimum wage workers earned in 1968.
Belafon
@Jennifer: The description I saw said that the CBOs estimate was the worst case value.
Jennifer
@Belafon: That sounds like what I heard.
Glidwrith
@jl: Agreed. Down at the simple sound-bite level, we can argue that the minimum wage has been increased before and nothing happened other than a lessening of misery. We have also only increased it incrementally so it’s hard to see any macro effects anyway.
What actually twerps me off on this whole debate: $10.10 is STILL below poverty, especially since none of it takes effect in full for the next 2-4 years, depending in the state. I’ve seen calculations that two years in, that is the equivalent of a $0.64 raise. Big whoop-te-doo. There is a reason it needs to be raised to $15/hr AND indexed to inflation, yet apparently this is just too hard for even the Dems to fight for.
WereBear
How can an economy run when people got no jobs, got no money?
We’re doing okay now, but when we were paying off Mr WereBear’s experimental treatment we had few nickels to rub together. We couldn’t contribute anything to the economy!
rikyrah
@Gravenstone:
There must be someone running stats on the percentage of votes where that phony Collins votes with the Turtle, and why isn’t the DNC putting those ads out
Hill Dweller
The House wingnuts passed legislation making several tax cuts, costing nearly 400 billion, permanent, but refuse to pass an extension of unemployment benefits.
Comrade Mary
That poor bastard Ford is not well. He’s been smoking crack again as recently as this weekend (there’s video for sale and a screen cap in a major newspaper right now). He was also recorded ranting about his wife and describing how he really wanted to fuck another candidate at a bar on Monday.
His criminal and political issues aside, if this all pans out, the poor fucker really needs help.
raven
@Comrade Mary: He’ll get help or he’ll die. Up to him.
JPL
@Comrade Mary: The fact that he has needed help has been apparent, The question is will he be reelected?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Belafon: Here’s the Elmendorf testimony on the effect of raising the minimum wage. The -500k number was the “central estimate” of the net effect by the 2nd half of 2016. The estimated range was “very slight decrease to -1 M workers”.
I’m no expert, but it seems to me that an estimate of -500k jobs in the entire economy (over 3 years that the $10.10 increase would be phased in over) is basically in the noise. They say it’s 0.3% of total employment.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
p.a.
@jl: back-of-envelope is beyond them. I think some of the best studies look at bordering states with different minimums. The ones I’ve seen don’t show differences at a statistically significant level.
Baud
Dems doing their jobs. Voters need to do theirs in November.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Yep.
TriassicSands
As everyone already knows, House Republicans care deeply about the plight of middle class Americans and are even more passionate about those who are low income or poor. Therefore, the House Republicans will hold out for a
living-wage minimum wage of no less than $20/hour. This public service announcement has been brought to you by the Multiverse, in which not only is absolutely everything possible, it’s already happening…somewhere.
Meanwhile, back in the Universe, House Republicans would dearly love to eliminate the minimum wage altogether. In fact, given a blank check, the GOP might go for an end to child labor laws, the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, and all workplace safety regulations. Far from a do-nothing Congress, the House GOP would make the New Dealers seem like a bunch of lazy pikers if only the American people would wise up and set them free to carry out their divine mandate — the one they get directly from Laissez-Faire Jesus and Archangel Milton Friedman.
Helen
@Chris: THIS. Make a fucking decision. Choose a fucking side; asshole. We are so beyond moderate or “third way” or whatever the hell it is called. MAKE A FUCKING DECISION.
jl
@Jennifer:
I think this the CBO report you mean:
CBO Effects of a Minimum Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income
Once fully implemented in the second half of
2016, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment
by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3 percent, CBO projects.
As with any such estimates, however, the actual losses
could be smaller or larger; in CBO’s assessment, there is
about a two-thirds chance that the effect would be in the
range between a very slight reduction in employment and
a reduction in employment of 1.0 million workers (see
Table 1).
http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44995-MinimumWage.pdf
I think important to look at the results presented in percent change terms (0.3 percent). The CBO used the Current Population Survey for their data, and it shows that the average quarterly change in employment is about 0.3 percent in 2016. the 10-10 option is a permanent increase in the real minimum wage, which goes on indefinitely. the cost of the this change is about one quarter’s average growth in total employment. Not that big a deal, IMHO, when you consider it is for a permanent change.
I’m don’t think the CBO presents an estimate of the steady state ongoing cost of the 10-10 option. What happens after 2016?
The CBO’s approach is kind of disappointing. It seems to be a forecast comparing no increase to an increase, and that means it has to include assumptions about labor market conditions, profitability. And that forecast seems to be a simple trend analysis using data from the Current Population Survey.
I think this is a pretty qjuick and dirty CBO report and not very informative. Probably get a more intuitive picture and better explanation of methods looking through the CEPR site and blogs.
Me R economist, so naturally must furrow my brow over an increase in minimum wage, and officially declare it a very second best approach and necessary evil. But I would be more worried about definite effects on certain segments of the labor market, like entry level jobs for teenagers where there is real evidence of some negative effects, more than all low wage jobs.
mai naem
WTF do these assholes think? Companies are working their people to the bone. Do they think these fuckers are going to lay people off because the minimum wage got raised? They can’t. They can try to automate but most of these people are too tight to pay for that kind of automation. Republicans don’t give a shit about average working people. When will this country get it through its thick skull? They don’t give a s.h.i.t. and they never will.
Anoniminous
@gian:
No.
What evidence there is suggests it’s a NothingBurger or a boost to the local economy
kc
Surprising no one, the Democrats let them get away with it.
kc
Surprising no one, the Democrats let them get away with it.
jl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Yeah, I noticed that too. The range of uncertainty is so large, if you want to be all ‘interval estimate’ uncertainty evaluating Joe Statistician about it, the estimate says almost nothing.
Baud
@kc:
What a dumb ass comment. What are the Dems supposed to do? Shoot the GOP? Real life men and women put the GOP into office, and they are the ones that have to get them out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen: Collins has chosen her side. It is evident in her voting record on major legislation.
Geoduck
@raven:
Anything from the Seattle Times on this subject should be taken with a huge grain of salt; the guy who owns it is a total knob who relentlessly pushes anti-worker material.
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman: They’re within the margin of error, going back and forth. Ras was the latest poll, with
LePetomaineLePage ahead, nach.Small consolation — Eliot Cutler is looking at their taillights from 15% behind, securely ensconsed in third.
raven
@Geoduck: The video I posted about it was from the PBS news. I don’t really care where the stories came from unless someone from Seattle telly me the Dick’s Burgers family are liars. They pay more than the minimum, health care, and college scholarships. It’s also relevant to mention that Seattle is proposing $15 and hour.
Helen
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah but does she own it? And do the people from Maine really know that? Much as I hate lying pols I hate stupid Americans more. Pay attention or STFU.
ETA wasn’t telling you to STFU Omnes. Talking to Americans in general
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I wonder if it might even things up if the company (discontinued healthcare putting their employees onto the WA exchange) and then paid the higher wage. I didn’t see the program and have no idea about the numbers, so this is wild ass speculation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen: No, she doesn’t own it. She votes with Dems on minor legislation and that keeps her stats as “moderate.” She then flirts with Dems on major legislation but just can’t bring herself to vote for it for some reason. Just like she did on the minimum wage.
ETA: I didn’t take it that way. It’s all good.
trollhattan
@Comrade Mary: Am surprised he made it past 27.
Omnes Omnibus
OT: Presumptive Dem candidate Mary Burke is within 3 points of Scott Walker. This is good news at this point. Walker is at under 50%. Burke does not yet have the official nomination and is relatively unknown.
Kay
I went to the Republican Lawyer Dinner tonight, That’s not what it’s called but that’s what it is.
So in the rural counties, there is a rash of Tea Party challengers for seats in the state legislature. I was aware of this, but I didn’t know what the more mainstream Republicans thought about it. They’re a little put out about it, because now they have to have all these bloody primaries (the election is in May). Anyway, the Tea Party challenges to Republicans are about the health care law/expansion of Medicaid. They’re still carrying that grudge.
The Republicans are really confident none of the Tea Partiers will win, but I don’t know. The letters to the editor are probably 5 to 1 Tea Party. OTOH that might just be the energy of extreme rage and not indicative of a majority of GOP primary voters.
jl
Below is link for the minimum wage issue page at CEPR
Minimum Wage
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/component/option,com_issues/Itemid,300222/issue,55/lang,en/task,view_issue/
The report ‘Why Does the Minimum Wage Have No Discernible Effect on Employment?’ is a good review of recent research and some interesting hypotheses on why the estimates of effect are so small, or in some cases, so frustratingly mixed and contradictory, and that touch on some issues mentioned in my previous comment. I think it is a little too rosy on the overall picture, but people can look at the recent reviews cited and make up their own minds.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: John Doe ll is chugging along.
pseudonymous in nc
@Jennifer:
Wingnut welfare recipient, now Bill Kristol’s son-in-law. Fucker never had to work a damn job in his life.
gian
@Jennifer:
I know I’m being somewhat lazy (I’m helping with homework, and troubleshooting a minor problem, an old drive previously used for the OS, then for backup, and then just kind of left plugged in had ceased to boot up properly and was causing errors and delay in the rest of the machines boot up process)
it’s simply my memory, but in my life I’ve never seen a massive increase, or even a marked increase in unemployment immediately following a minimum wage hike.
Is Burger King not going to clean the bathrooms? are the managers going to start cleaning the bathrooms?
In my cynical lefty way of thinking the unsaid hate for minimum wage increases has to do with 1) the simple greed of getting labor as cheaply as can be gotten away with but also 2) the wealthy class’s fear of inflation (they hate inflation because it devalues the debts they hold)
this may be confirmation bias with me, but this fits more with my recollections (don’t know if I can direct link to the graph, but I’m trying)
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/28/minimum-wage-unemployment-rate-data/
http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/minimum-wage-vs-unemployment-rates-1950-jan-2013.png
Gravenstone
@Omnes Omnibus: Encouraging news about Burke.
In other things Walker related, did you see the puff piece the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did about his brat starting to get into the family business? Kid’s only 19 and claims he sees himself as somewhere between Rand Paul and Chris Christie in his views. Fucking charming …
Omnes Omnibus
@Gravenstone: Thankfully, I missed that.
pseudonymous in nc
@raven:
So they pay a slightly-less-shitty wage with benefits aimed at teenagers when fast food is not simply a high school job? We’re really having this conversation where the slightly-less-shitty employers need to be handled with kid gloves because they’re not totally fucking terrible?
Geoduck
@raven:
The article you also linked to was an overt opinion piece from the Times, which included the following passage by the article’s author Thanh Tan:
And, this from the Dick’s executive she interviewed:
So, yes, while it’s great that Dick’s pays their employees well, it certainly sounds like the company’s vice president and legal counsel is in favor of having the minimum wage abolished entirely, a sentiment that I suspect that Times publisher Frank Blethen devoutly shares.
Chris
@gian:
3) resentment and spite towards the undeserving moochers who are already being paid far too much for too little work and just don’t deserve the extra cut of profits that otherwise would’ve gone to a good, deserving, Job Creator.
burnspbesq
@Hill Dweller:
Some, but not all, of those changes are sound tax policy. For example, making Section 954(c)(6) permanent makes a lot of sense; there is no reason why a multinational should pay US tax when one foreign subsidiary pays dividends or interest to another foreign subsidiary; that money isn’t being repatriated, so why tax it as though it were? And now is as good a time as any to decide once and for all whether to have a research credit.
Making the active lending exception to Subpart F permanent, and increasing the Section 179 limit, not so much. Those are pure giveaways with nothing supporting them except the ability of small business and banks to lobby effectively.
Tommy
I don’t think I have ever mentioned this here. I went from making close to $125,000/year to minimum wage. Dot.com thing and some of mine own doing. Sure I could have taken unemployment, but I was able bodied and I worked. At a 7/11 like store on the night shift so I could look for a job during the day. That was not an easy job. Sure maybe I didn’t have to compute a lot of info. Put together business plans for large companies. But it WAS WORK!
Hard work.
Did it for seven months before I got a job as the VP of Marketing for a software company.
It made me feel “small.” People would come in and mock me, cause I was working there. Treat me like I was seven. Not knowing they knew not what they spoke of or who I was. That I might have 2-3 times the education they did. I just smiled and said “yes sir” (they were almost always white males BTW).
What was most stunning to me was the single mothers that worked with me. How hard they were working and not getting anywhere. It was sad on so many levels I don’t know where to start.
Don’t know why I just said this ……
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
My somewhat-more-conservative co-worker and I were discussing the Donald Sterling situation today (we’re both local to it) and she agreed with me that, in addition to the racism, it was pretty horrifying that Sterling thought that he was giving his player employees a gift by letting them work for him (saying that he “gave” them the houses they bought with their salaries, etc.)
Omnes Omnibus
Fuck, Verizon just used the Pixies’ Gigantic in an ad. I shall be over in the corner being sad.
Cassidy
@Omnes Omnibus: Sprint has been using it for several weeks. I giggle every time.
handy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hey that rent and those groceries aren’t gonna pay for themselves.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Omnes Omnibus: This is good news, indeed – fantastic, even.
@Kay: You’re in Ohio, as I recall, as are many of my Democratic relatives – specifically, in a suburb of Columbus. But there is one cousin who’s sooo Republican/Tea Party that I’m preparing how to “unfriend” her from my FB page. I’m hesitating, though, because she’s the only Teahadist I have in my FB feed, and it’s a look into the mind of these folks that I don’t usually experience. But, dear god, she’s a cousin! I don’t understand how this could happen in our family.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Fat Kate Middleton:
I have one of those too. I hid her feed. No unfriending; no reading.
Chris
@Tommy:
To point out that minimum wage is already a shittastic situation for anyone to be stuck in, much worse if you have no prospects of “going anywhere” and your customers reinforce the notion that you must be worthless if you’re working there? Ah, for the days when “dignity of work” wasn’t just a slogan used to tell the poor they should be happy in their place.
@Mnemosyne:
It’s very much a mainstream opinion – not the only opinion, but a popular one – among rich people that the rest of society has what it has as a gift from them and that they’re the ones carrying it all on their backs. “Have you ever gotten a job from a poor person?” is the condescending way it’s usually phrased. Sterling just went overboard.
Cassidy
Chris Rock on minimum wage
http://youtu.be/QFIpgqXtSnQ
? Martin
@raven: Hmm. $15/hr is $30K per year.
I’m not at all opposed to that as a national minimum wage, but having such a large disparity with other areas will cause some problems.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Is it Verizon or is it the Apple ad that uses Gigantic that’s co-branded with Verizon?
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks. I’d forgotten that option.
Omnes Omnibus
@? Martin: It was an iPhone ad. So it may be the Apple ad. It doesn’t make it better.
Tommy
I saw a strange thing today. Now I don’t mean this to sound like the middle age guy starting early to yell “get off my lawn,” but I’ve seen it before. I am a walker. I like to walk. Not so much for health but cause I like the sun on my face and I tend to have some “good” ideas when I walk for work. Clears my head so to speak. I do it daily. At least 4-5 miles.
Within a block or so of my house there are three basketball hoops. Super nice baskets (wish I had them as a kid). Often a single person out playing. Today in a block two people, one person, another single person.
I see it time and time again.
I wonder, in what world do we live in where those kids don’t (about the same age I think) don’t agree to play together. A game of horse. 2 on 2? I recall, and I live in the house I grew up in, we could field a baseball team against a team. If we didn’t have enough players, you only had one “field” (left or right) to hit to.
We had almost full on football.
You know I don’t have any children and 44. Is this the world we live in?
Omnes Omnibus
@The Fat Kate Middleton: I’ve done it to two people. The one I mentioned and a really good friend from college who had gone full on libertarian – he read only some of J.S. Mill’s work.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Maybe you don’t live in a basketball town.
ETA: Yeah, you are approaching get off my lawn territory. Don’t go there. Things change.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s this ad.
Highly regarded ad BTW (unlike a number of the more recent ones from Apple), in part because it’s not the Pixies playing but a crowdsourced version of the song.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve only unfriended one person – my granddaughter, of all people. I explained it to her – you really don’t want Grandma reading the incredibly raunchy, offensive comments of your friends to your posts. Her posts, btw, were entirely sweet and appropriate.I might friend her again, and use what you’ve suggested.
Omnes Omnibus
@? Martin: That’s the one.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Fat Kate Middleton:
I don’t know; being defriended by one’s grandmother must do wonders for her street cred.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah. I’m laughing.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL. If I could step far enough back to take a pic, they would all be in the same pic. People playing a team game by themselves within feet of each other ….
I am 5’4. The guy next door as a kid 6’3. Behind me, well he almost went the the Olympics for the high jump. To say I got dominated in basketball in my own driveway, my hoop, would be an understatement. But we still played all the time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: How many of the kids are off at soccer practice? Or lacrosse? The world changes.
ETA: Mayberry isn’t Mayberry anymore.
ETAA: I never played basketball as a kid. I rode my bike and went to the pool. And made broadswords and battle axes out of sheet metal and fought my best friend with them. Roll with the changes.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve done it once as well.
I posted this to Facebook hours after she got shot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7046bo92a4
After she got shot, you know in the head. I NEVER post anything political to Facebook. I did here. One person said “so she got shot in the melon, who cares.” I didn’t have to say anything. My other Facebook friends just whooped ass. It got ugly.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Well soccer, sure. We are a hotbed here for the sport. Lacrosse? I am not sure anybody in my town even knows what that is.
max
Here you go, Omnes:
max
[‘She was testifying under oath!’]
Omnes Omnibus
@max:
Well, yeah.
Tommy
@max: Not to belittle what happened to her ….
But this is just cool, funny, well spot-on:
Kay
@The Fat Kate Middleton:
My sister in law Angela is a Tea Partier (Indiana faction) and she doesn’t really bother me. It’s shooting fish in a barrel with her, so I can just let it go. I’m not on Facebook but my kids tell me her Facebook stuff is awful. I don’t see it.
These aren’t Tea Partiers. They’re just Republicans. We get invited I think honestly just to mix the table up a little.
I was surprised they were so cranky about the Tea Party because they generally present a united front, but I think this is a little close to home for them. We haven’t had a lot of Tea Party activity. They won a bunch of local races early on 2010, 2011, but the Republicans wrested back control in short order.
I was egging them on. “They’re primarying SANDY? That’s so unfair!” I don’t even know who the hell she is but I figured I’d help them along on the BETRAYAL theme :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: They went to my undergrad. At least, Ms. Wasserman did.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Ms McMillan is also an alumna. I am very proud.
max
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, yeah.
Totally midwestern! Because after recent survey I realized my step-dad had gone to a big party school (Iowa).
Upper-class New Yorkers shocked, apparently.
max
[‘Charging her for a felony in a ridiculous scrum is stupid, but no one said NYPD was intelligent.’]
Omnes Omnibus
@max: I knew her equivalent 30 years ago. I think Cecily McMillan is a fantastic person.
Chris T.
I propose a slogan: “$20.14 in 2014!”
max
@Omnes Omnibus: I knew her equivalent 30 years ago. I think Cecily McMillan is a fantastic person.
Yeah, she seems all right. But she was at Zucotti and obviously that was a hotbed of terrorist atheist communists, if I recall my Bloomberg correctly.
Speaking of nuts!
He’s *peacefully* threatening to defenstrate the Senate majority leader. Because he’s not a violent terrorist, he’s a heavily-armed pacifist!
max
[‘The Senate is a maritime institution! It doesn’t have jurisdiction of Nevadan cows!’]
hitchhiker
@Tommy:
Yup. I had to work in a Starbucks for about a year and a half. At age 50. For the insurance, which my family had to have.
Two degrees, big resume, and my 20-yr-old radically stupid supervisor was always nudging me to SMILE at the customers. People don’t understand how it feels to haul yourself out of bed and face it that this shit sandwich right here could seriously be as good as it’s ever likely to get. You’re going to go suck up to fools, you’re going to do it for crap wages, and you’re goddamn well going to smile about it.
This is what bugs me the most . . . if you haven’t ever faced a potential life sentence of scraping by with no way out, you really should just shut the fuck up about the minimum wage. But instead, the people who get to blab about it on the teevee are 100% the kind of folk for whom it is not and never will be a real issue.
Omnes Omnibus
@max: She got called the Paris Hilton of OWS. I find that really funny. Perfect for Lawrence: WASPy and preppy, but oddly lefty at the same time.
Dexter's new approach
Sully been mostly bad lately, but he did highlight a revealing study about perceptions about healthcare insurance. People were asked if they would pay an extra 25c at a business if it meant the employees were given HC insurance. While Democrats overwhelmingly approved, only 30% of Republicans approved and more said they would stop going to a business that employed this policy.
I don’t even even know what to say. The working poor are shit to them. It’s sick.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dexter’s new approach: What was Sullivan’s opinion on what should be done? My guess…. While sad, the business owners were within their rights to fuck over their workers.
Kropadope
@max: It’s amazing, rebelling against the government for ending the free lunch. I wonder what Bundy will do when he finds the land no longer irrigated or maintained well enough to feed the herd.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: I thnk the issue is that Rs are unwilling to even private, bootstrappy subsidize health insurance.
Kropadope
@Kropadope: Oops, I mean to say the boss is the good guy in this scenario.
Dexter's new approach
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t agree with Sully on a lot of of things. I was attributing him for bringing the study to the public discussion. A study that made conservatives look almost sadistic.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dexter’s new approach: And Sullivan’s view is?
pseudonymous in nc
@Kropadope:
Umair Haque on Twitter today:
Dexter's new approach
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ I was attributing his site which is common and correct. There was no point in my post(s) that gave weight to Sully other than the attribution. The point was the results were revealing. Let’s not lose that point.
Dexter's new approach
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ I was attributing his site which is common and correct. There was no point in my post(s) that gave weight to Sully other than the attribution. The point was the results were revealing. Let’s not lose that point.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dexter’s new approach: Okay.
Dexter's new approach
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you. And I’l repeat what I started with: Sully’s been mostly horrible lately.
JustRuss
@pseudonymous in nc:
If you read the article, Dick’s owner trots out the old “instead of expecting better wages, the poors should improve their skills” trope, as if everybody who works at fastfood and Walmart could up and quit for all those high paying jobs that are just going begging, and of course no one would take their place.
Thunderbird
@Helen: Yup. To quote a friend: “Pick a side and start losing friends like the rest of us.”
JGabriel
gian:
jl:
In general, yes, the research on minimum wage increases is mixed. But none of it, as far as I know, shows that raising the minimum wage will lead to massive job losses. Even in the worst case, the job losses are small.
Furthermore, as jl also notes:
This this this. In the current job market and low demand economy, anything that puts money into the hands of people who will spend it, will help strengthen the economy and increase employment.
.
boatboy_srq
@Chris: Collins is NOT a moderate. She made Snowe look liberal when first elected, and at the time that was saying something. Maine hasn’t sent a moderate to the Senate since Cohen.
Collins LOOKS like a moderate simply because she’s not b#tsh!t-crazy like most of the GOTea caucus. Without the Teahad she’d merely look somewhat reactionary.
Someguy
@efgoldman: Exactly. Everyone knows it wouldn’t get to the House floor, even if it passed the Senate.
And everybody knows the Senate Dems wouldn’t pass it, if the House was poised to pass it.
Can’t cut off that corporate money spigot.
Just a stick to beat the Republicans with. That is all.
evodevo
@pseudonymous in nc: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb62fpsyhC4
The Raven on the Hill
I don’t think the Dems are going to make a point of this during most elections, because it’s easy to vote for a bill you know isn’t going to pass. If the R’s suddenly flipped, or if the Dems got a veto-proof majority of House and Senate, it would be a much harder fight. The conservaDems would bail, and some, perhaps most, of the centrists as well.
Remember 2008-9.
Meantime, it is Labor Day almost everywhere else in the world. Solidarity!
My Truth Hurts
$10.10 an hour 3 years from now is too much? Do these assholes have any idea of how much basics like housing, food and energy costs and how little even $10.10 an hour will cover in 3 fucking years? That’s $404 a week BEFORE taxes. $1616 a month, again before taxes. If the average apartment costs $800 a month to rent than these people are suffering on such a small amount. 50% of their gross income goes just to housing. How much is left for food, energy, health care? Forget about being sick or taking time off. Just work your fingers to the bone until you die, because “freedom”!
My god, get rid of these sociopaths. They are destroying this country