Lookback to NBA Cares, February 2020:
Just because ??
Share, if this put a smile on your face. pic.twitter.com/pCVb2HXhI8
— J- ??? (@MajorFactor2) December 15, 2021
Lots of serious, constructive topics I *want* to post about, but it’s too early in the morning for most of you and I’m on my way to bed…
Employment continues to rise, meaning more adults are working and earning incomes; this enhanced financial security is driving up demand, even in the face of shortages and high prices. https://t.co/VKE2IHOOEm
— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) December 16, 2021
FDA eliminates restriction on abortion pill as Supreme Court weighs case that challenges Roe v. Wade https://t.co/gV3pHkSASF
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 16, 2021
Democrats dealt setback in bid to grant millions of migrants work permits https://t.co/TyuclzTa2k pic.twitter.com/dxv5H4S9vA
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 17, 2021
Meanwhile: Our Failed Media Village Idiots…
press so desperate for drama; https://t.co/vONDPu9sMR
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) December 12, 2021
Baud
Today show this morning actually pointed out Manchin’s obstruction.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Try to imagine TFG in that NBA Cares situation.
My UK twitter feed is stirred up about an election yesterday. I gather Boris Johnson’s party lost a seat? Did that change the balance of Parliament or is it seen as a harbinger?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Harbinger. It was a solid Tory seat for like 200 years. Some jackal was talking about it last night.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
debbie
There was a miscue on NPR this morning of a clip of McConnell drooling at the prospect of welcoming Manchin to his caucus. ?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Thanks. I’ll look.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I was just reading about BJ’s troubles. A bunch of short tidbits that sketches the outlines anyway.
eta:
rikyrah
We have got to make this muthaphucka irrelevant come November 2022?
Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) tweeted at 6:25 AM on Fri, Dec 17, 2021:
Manchin’s hard line sets up a Hunger Games competition for Democratic priorities:
*Shrink the child tax credit or jettison most of the rest of BBB, or some combo?
*Will they keep SALT for wealthy people while shrinking benefits for middle class & poor?
https://t.co/U0KpBBPUVx
(https://twitter.com/StevenTDennis/status/1471818812613922817?t=Gis75XahhLljedXwEiuGlw&s=03)
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I was thinking about the same thing. trump wouldn’t be bothered though.
Geminid
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Conservatives have a comfortable majority in Parliament, and are not required to hold another general election until 2024 (they can call one before that if they think it’s an opportune time). This election loss, though, is a harbinget of Boris Johnson’s demise as party leader and Prime Minister.
JPL
@rikyrah: If they shrink it, maybe they can run on finishing the job. Childcare should be the number one priority.
NotMax
This is not a put-on. Stocking stuffer quenchables for the teetotaler. Web site here.
(Having no experience with the product, not to be construed as an endorsement.)
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Steeplejack
Ugh, Morning Joe has promoted the “useless but has a posh British accent” Katty Kay to host status. I hope this is just a holiday fill-in for Mika.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: @Geminid: Interesting. My UK friends all loathe BJ and are in a good mood today.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Double post. Why???
Geminid
@JPL: Childcare and universal pre-K. And at least some clean energy programs to go with those in the Infrastructure bill and initiatives by Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, etc.
Baud
@rikyrah:
I love how giving less generous new benefits to people to get Manchin’s vote is treated as shrinking their benefits.
Who needs Fox News?
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning! ?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Why do your UK friends hate Balloon Juice?
Baud
Never mind.
dc
Wherever Obama was in that video, it was inside. Not one mask on anyone there.
Betty
@Baud: Maybe enough public shaming can move the two saboteurs.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
BJ = fellatio. No sex, please. We’re British.
/s
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: They’re perverts?
OzarkHillbilly
The first true millipede: new species with more than 1,000 legs discovered in Western Australia
NotMax
Unusual and amazing bout of thunder overnight. Not only audible from miles and miles away but extended in duration, each occurrence rumbling 5, 8 or even 10 seconds, doin’ its thing one after another for hours and hours. It wasn’t the volume or the profusion which was amazing so much as it was the pitch – a deep and resonant basso profundo which vibrated the entire cottage as it rolled in.
Kalakal
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s almost certainly the kiss of death for Johnson. The Tories will remain in power. The election contest will be brutal and very damaging as a collection of people whose talents are in inverse proportion to their ambition attempt to convince each other that THEY ARE THE ONE. My money is on either Michael Gove or Liz Truss emerging at the top of the shit heap. I put up some stuff last night on it.
I’m delighted to see Johnson go down in flames but any successor will be at least as horrible and incomptent but hopefully without Johnsons inexplicable appeal to a large number of the Great British Public.
OzarkHillbilly
An impossible to excerpt Obit for the ages. I should dream of being so remembered.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Sooner posted it on Facebook and I reposted it here yesterday. Hilarious!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
There’s an elephant in the room right now – the resumption of student loan payments on February 1.
It’s gonna drain a lot of consumption from the economy, for no discernible purpose other than making boomers happy about austerity being imposed in younger folks.
Benw
@OzarkHillbilly: bring on the myriapede!!
germy
Little acts of kindness… he must be a Democrat.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
My kids shipped that one to me this morning. She sounds like an awesome lady.
germy
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: “A day late and a dollar short” will be my epitaph. :-)
germy
Trump’s new media empire would have been a safer bet.
trnc
“Democrats in array!” (Gasp)
Baud
@trnc:
What a stupid story.
Kalakal
Fun fact. Private Eye ( long running British satirical magazine) has for decades referred to Johnson as Boris ‘the Jackel’ Johnson. They’re riffing on Carlos ‘the Jackel’ Mendez and referring to a case years ago where Johnson was taped offering to arrange to get a journalist beaten up. The guy was investigating a crooked upper class twit chum of Johnsons with the improbable name of Darius Guppy. Say what you like about the British upper class but they can be right bastards naming their spawn. Journalist remained unbeaten, Guppy went to jail and Johnson skated.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/14/black-eyes-boris-johnson-plot-attack-reporter-darius-guppy?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Chief Oshkosh
Noted in passing…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/omicron-coronavirus-whiplash/2021/12/16/35d0eaa0-5e86-11ec-8665-aed48580f911_story.html
No mention at all as to why “a broad swath of Americans remains stubbornly opposed to the shots…” Nope, Republicans have nothing to do with that.
This from the same paper whose top editorial is: “The puzzle of Joe Biden’s unpopularity”
Yes, ’tis a puzzle.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I never met her and I miss her terribly.
germy
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh: Only Dems have agency, party 582,582.
Soprano2
@dc: It was pre-Covid, February 2020.
Baud
@Soprano2: Like that’s an excuse.
NotMax
@germy
“Is it peanut butter on top and jelly on the bottom or the other way around?”
sab
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Who says boomers will be happy about this. As a boomer, I remember when college was affordable, and it certainly isn’t now even at the community college level.
daveNYC
The UK election result is not just the Lib-Dems getting what was a utterly safe Tory seat or striking another blow to Johnson’s position as leader of the Tories. The UK is FPTP for each MP district and the Lib-Dems are the second-place finishers in a number of Tory areas. If this is any sort of a harbinger of what would happen to voting patterns in a general election, the Tories are in major trouble. Especially if the non-Tory parties form an electoral pact (basically an electoral non-compete agreement).
Johnson was already on the ropes due to the No 10 Christmas party debacle. This might see him gone. Probably to be replaced by Priti Patel, given that this is the darkest timeline.
Chief Oshkosh
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Yep, and I do not fucking understand it. C’mon, man!
Soprano2
@Chief Oshkosh: It’s awful reporting. I heard a similar story on Morning Edition earlier this week, where the male reporter was going on and on about how “people just won’t get vaccinated” without mentioning the reason why! Finally, about two minutes later, they mentioned something about Republicans and resistance to the vaccines and disinformation on the internet. It was stupid, we all know why they won’t get it but the press can’t say the truth, which is that they’d rather risk serious illness and death than help Biden succeed at anything!
narya
@germy: And I want them to have to shop for the ingredients first, preferably with a budget. And they have to go to the store themselves, and haul it all home. It doesn’t have to be a super-austere budget–unless we want to have them feed their family for a month on SNAP benefits.
Ramalama
@NotMax: Nice. Not Max offering a Not Endorsement.
But the ad is funny.
narya
@Soprano2: EVERY time they do this story, there needs to be a graph, showing the gap between democrats & republicans in terms of vax rates. EVERY TIME.
Ramalama
@germy: Hasn’t that Already Been Done?
Paris Hilton made an execrable lasagna and filmed it. Everyone hated on her because she did all kinds of things like put her hands all over the food was clearly super clueless about how to assemble the ingredients. She had the vocal tone of Martha Stewart down. The Martha Stewart timbre, if you will. But the rest of her presentation was RIDDIK.
O. Felix Culpa
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Please to impale yourself on an oxidated farm implement. Enough with the generational slags already. It’s one (or two) f’cking pseudo-Dems in the Senate holding shit up. Not a whole age group.
germy
@Ramalama:
Give the billionaire men a turn.
germy
@narya:
Yes, let’s watch them cope with the entire experience. The budget, the shopping, the preparation.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Did you by any chance edit your post at #16?
Steeplejack
Some light bookkeeping this morning: renewed the license tag for the doughty Kia on line at the Virginia DMV website. Relatively painless after finding the exact right spot. I hope to get the decals by December 31, but I printed (PDF) the “Yes, I paid” extension form in case Louis DeJoy screws with mail delivery. In any case, it beats the hell out of going to a DMV office and standing in line.
Note: The times I have had to go to a DMV office in recent years the experience has been generally positive.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I had the same thought! What did we ever do to them?!?!!?!!! :-)
Chief Oshkosh
@narya:
And death rates. Use the county-by-county red/blue breakdown. This actually should appeal to Our Betters of the Press because in the same story they could point out how mean some Democrats are because we are gleeful to see the suffering and deaths of Republicans.
At this point, they wouldn’t be wrong.
Geminid
@sab: This Boomer favors extending the moratorium, and continuing modified debt relief. I can’t agree with the maximalist goal of cancellation of $1.7 trillion of debt, at least not without an act of Congress
I would like to see some polling on this matter, on both extending the moratorium and student debt cancellation, that shows opinion of various age groups. I suspect that those 60 and over are not the only age group opposing debt cancellation.
Ken
I don’t suppose you’re rethinking your spelunking hobby?
Betty Cracker
@narya: I posted this in the COVID thread but it applies here too. It’s from the NYT.
I knew there was a gap, but that really puts it in perspective.
Baud
@Geminid: I have a feeling they’ll come around to extending the moratorium in January.
Ramalama
@germy: Right. I’ll be the kitchen assistant, the PA, for both Elon Musk and Peter Thiel whereupon the creme brulee torch will find its way to the follicles upon their heads. There will be war cries and calf-like bellowing, some very bad smells emanating from their general direction, at which point someone should address the cameras and say, “It’s not like Democracy is on fire. Can someone get those men a cold compress for their foreheads?”
Leto
(way OT) @NotMax: fun story: when I was going through BIC (Basic Instructors Course) to learn how to teach, our capstone week was a practice and demonstration style lesson. 45 min lesson where we teach the objective, demonstrate it, and then have the “students” do it for a grade. Our P&E could be anything we wanted it to be, as long as we could establish objective criteria to grade on. I chose: how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Oh man, I went to town on that. Proper ways to get the peanut butter out of the jar, proper amount of jelly on the bread aka “jelly roll” which was the ratio of jelly to bread measured by picking up the completed sandwich, holding it at a 45 degree angle for a minimum of 10 seconds, and measuring how much jelly slid out the back (very serious things).
So the Lt in my class, he was the designated “trouble student”. You know, the student who’s going to cause issues no matter what you’re doing. While generally annoying, what sent his performance to Oscar level contention was when he picked up the squirtable jelly container, held it above his head, and just squueeeeeeeeeeezed. I looked over at the sound, saw it, and simultaneously laughed (internally), while giving the mandatory stink eye. I said something like, “Lt, I think that might be a bit too much.” When he went to demo his “jelly roll”, basically 5lbs of jelly slid out. I’m still trying to keep my composure (everyone else in the class had lost it), and I said something to the effect of, “Ok, well that didn’t pass. You have one more try. Let’s try to do better.” Once it was over, I was finally able to let loose and just laugh with the rest of them. I did get high scores for my presentation, including keeping my composure during that bit ;)
Kay
@Geminid:
I think they’ll extend the moratorium. They’re bleeding young people. I’m sure they’re aware of it.
I wonder how much of it is young people being extremely online. There is a LOT of what looks like mass produced and doctored “Joe Biden is senile” stuff online.
Steeplejack
@trnc:
But it’s not a “Democrats in array!” story. The niblet under the headline is:
“Continues to falter”?! WTF.
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: Speaking as a baby boomer, I just want to say the BBs are quite possibly the most selfish generation to ever be birthed.
Feel free to insert Jim Wright’s emergency “Not all” if so inclined. However, if you prefer to take it personal, that is your choice too.
Cameron
@germy: Never knew there was a guitar lick known as the “dick move.”
Baud
@Kay: From what I can see, the right has been uping their propaganda against Biden recently.
narya
@Betty Cracker: That’s completely insane. And as insurance companies stop paying for covid care for folks who aren’t vaccinated, there are going to be some serious financial effects as well. My older nephew refuses to get vaccinated (which means my parents can’t safely spend any time with him). He had a hissy fit a few months ago about how he would stop calling his grandparents if they didn’t stop bugging him, and earlier this week he was apparently talking to my mom, going on about how he’s healthy and he’s been around infected people and hasn’t gotten sick and on and on. My mom didn’t say anything, but I hope he brings that shit to me, because I will rip him a new one. It is so unbelievably selfish.
Ken
@Steeplejack: I have noticed more government agencies providing PDF receipts and proofs-of-compliance. I’m not sure if that was prompted by COVID, or just normal adoption of new technology on the government timescale. (Insert obligatory story about IRS databases.)
hueyplong
@Cameron: Eric has become a bit of a one-note guy in that regard of late.
Kay
@Baud:
My youngest sees it and sometimes shows it to me. He’s earnest, so he’ll ask “do you think this is fake?” It’s always fake. I think they’re inundated with it.
Baud
Anti-Boomerism is a genius move by the elite to weaken the power of young people. Hatred and resentment toward a entire demographic class of people is an inherently right-wing mindset, and once people get addicted to it, it’s really hard for them to escape it. It’s the same way they got the white working class and rural white America.
Ken
Omicron on line 2….
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: How is generational selfishness measured? Until and unless we have data on this, I say “fie” upon these lazy and hateful categorizations.
ETA: I’ll add that my response is also prompted by said commenter’s frequent misogynistic as well as generational slurs over the years. It’s fucking irritating.
ETA2: Bravo to Baud’s comment at #79. @Baud
germy
So Meidas Touch is another org that spreads outrage for clicks and donations (like the Lincoln Project). Who knew?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
First world problems: We’ve lost use of our driveway for a week (at least). Wednesday night a bunch of roofing supplies were dropped off, filling the back half of the driveway. Early Thursday morning a guy showed up with a huge dumpster and filled the front half of the driveway.
Then the roofing crew showed up, looked over our roof, and walked off the job.
Apparently our roof scared them. It’s an old Victorian with a full-height attic and the roof is very steep, I’d say over 45 degrees. I don’t want anybody dying on my roof, I don’t want anybody up there who doesn’t know what they’re doing and how to stay safe.
But still. It’s going to be sometime next week before a new crew can get here and even get started. And the way this job has been going, I don’t even know if we’ll see them before Christmas.
Baud
@Kay: They don’t need to cause that many young people to lose focus for them to win elections.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Left Twitter is filled with “Democrats are useless”, “they’re not even trying”, “both parties are the same” posts from young people again, and I’m wondering how much of that is astroturfed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: I have a bumper sticker that declares I am a “Handicapped Caver: Too Old, Too Fat, Don’t Care” but if I had ever let a little thing like *bugs bother me* I never would have gone caving to begin with.
** there was however this one time I crawled into a hole and got about 20′ feet into it when I was suddenly engulfed in a swarm of blood thirsty Piranha cave crickets. I barely escaped with my life. They say I screamed like a little girl, but I don’t believe it. I have a very manly scream.
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto: Ha! Great story.
Geoduck
@daveNYC: Second or third darkest timeline. The Shiatgibbon is not still President or even President-For-Life.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Plus it’s diffused to mean “anyone I think is old.”
OzarkHillbilly
By the percentage of them who are GOP voters.
Baud
@Steeplejack: Never trust anyone over 30!
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly:
Then that would be Gen X. Correction: Gen X leans slightly Dem as noted by the venerable Baud. I still dislike the generational slags, which seem just as hateful and lazy as gender and ethnic etc. based characterizationsEdited.
Yarrow
Helen Morgan is the woman who won the by-election in North Shropshire. She specifically thanks Labour voters for “lending” their votes to her (text of her speech in tweet).
The UK political system of “first past the post” means that voters are often represented by MPs who didn’t win the majority of votes in their constituency. The Lib Dems, Labour and Greens split the opposition votes so the Conservative win. The opposition seem to be getting their act together to vote “tactically” for the best positioned candidate in each constituency who can defeat the Tories.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I think there’s two groups of young people, and one is much bigger than the other. You’re talking about political, engaged, overtly Lefty young people, and I agree that Left Twitter influences them, but the larger group are like all sporadic voters- they just don’t pay that much attention. They vote for Democrats because they’re vaguely aligned with “liberal” views. I think the bigger issue is a malicious, flooding online campaign(s) reaching them. The clips are intended to be funny (in that awful mean spirited way) and they have no political content at all- they could be about a Republican.
germy
George Carlin was born in 1937, not a boomer, but he had this to say:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTZ-CpINiqg
But then again, he was the guy who said “Don’t vote!”
Yarrow
@Matt McIrvin: As with most of this BS, starts out astroturfed and/or paid left assets do what they’re paid to do and then useful idiots amplify and spread.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: In their heyday, Boomers were famously anti- whatever generational category their parents were shoehorned into. No doubt some of the outrage is Astroturfed, but I suspect a good portion of it isn’t. Today’s young folks really have been screwed over, and it’s understandable that they’re angry about it.
OzarkHillbilly
I’ve never heard of that. My own roof is 12/12 and the roofers had no problem with it. Over the years I built a number (4? 5?) of roofs that were 14/12 and 16/12. That’s what ropes and fall harnesses are for.
NotMax
@Leto
Two sticky thumbs up.
;)
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Not according to Pew. Gen X has been slightly Dem.
Steeplejack
@Ken:
True. The quality of on-line service continues to get better. One complaint I have is that my county (Fairfax) uses a commercial third party to process vehicle tax payments (different from auto tags), and that company tacks on a little vig. (Maybe used for other payments, too.) Feels like the county is needlessly enriching a private company for a relatively simple, static function. But I can see where maybe they feel that they don’t have the IT muscle to handle it.
Leto
@Geminid: I’m glad that most boomers here support it. You’re not reflective of the US at large.
You have opposition from all age groups (anything over 0%, right?), but it’s the olds that are the major driving factor in this because it’s the olds that are the legislatures. Average age of US Senate? 64. Social Security age. But you asked for some age related numbers:
Joe Biden’s Failure to Fulfill Student Loan Promise Is Angering Largest Voting Bloc in U.S.
The youngs are absolutely being crushed by this, and we still two fuckwits who are doing everything they can to stop taxes being raised on people so that we can do something about it (and everything else).
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: I sit corrected. :)
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Almost everyone is screwed over in some way. It never justifies blanket hatred and resentment over an entire demographic group. They could just as easily hate white people or males or rural people (or rural white males), but they chose to hate old people because they have given themselves that entitlement, in much the same way the GOP base has given themselves the privilge to hate the people they hate. It’s simply a poor way to respond to challenges, and IMHO it serves to cement the status quo rather than change it because it is an inherently Republican response in its nature. You can’t beat them by being them.
germy
I’m a late boomer and my wife is gen x. We’d love to see young people relieved of student loan debt. It would certainly help our spawn.
We helped where we could with their educations, but loans were still necessary.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
In this festive time of year, this is my annual reminder that it’s OK to hate The Beach Boys (their whole catalog, really) as well as Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.
OzarkHillbilly
<a href=”#comment-8371093″>@O. Felix Culpa: I really don’t care. You want to be offended, got it.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: I should have realized that people who don’t let “if it rains this entire chamber fills instantly with water” deter them, wouldn’t be bothered by a giant millipede.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t really know what Democrats can do about it. It’s obviously organized and funded but it’s like an arms race, right? They escalate so we escalate. We deregulated elections. It’s a free for all. No one knows where any of this money is coming from- the regulation is a joke.
I once got “audited” by the Ohio Sec of State for a losing statehouse campaign where I was the volunteer treasurer. The candidate was a labor person and every dollar of our “massive haul” of $2300.00 came from union members- documented, paper checks with names and addresses, easy to track. The audit was malicious- a wingnut county bd of elections employee wanted to punish me for running a Democrat, so referred it to Columbus. I ended up having a good relationship with the attorney at the Sec of State’s office and I submitted what he asked for and followed up months later to ask when I was getting my clearance letter. He laughed. He said they have skeleton staff and no budget- I could look for it in maybe….two years?
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: If you don’t care, then don’t respond. :-P
It’s Balloon Juice, so I get to express my [justified] opinion just as much as others get to say [stupid] things.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: I once helped pull dead children out of a flooded cave. I can testify that that is one of the few things that does deter cavers. In some caves there is no warning.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think it’s an objective fact — like climate change, which is also a factor — that young people today are more screwed than their parents’ or grandparents’ generation were. They don’t get the same level of help. Their prospects are shittier. It’s never a good thing to hate an entire demographic and I did not suggest that’s okay, but I do understand the higher levels of anger. There’s more to be pissed off about.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s what the foreman said. Said he’d been doing this for 40 years and that had never happened.
H.E.Wolf
@Baud: ”Almost everyone is screwed over in some way. It never justifies blanket hatred and resentment over an entire demographic group. [wise words, deleted for brevity] it is an inherently Republican response in its nature. You can’t beat them by being them.”
Amen, from this John Lewis democrat.
(If anyone needs ideas for holiday gifts, I’ll put in a plug for one of his books: Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America.)
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: I agree that the youngs have a lot to be angry about. I worry for my sons and their peers, and the younger children who come after them. They are inheriting a mess.
Kalakal
I may have just seen peak antivax/antiwoke lunacy.
The Archbishop of Canterbury put out a tweet encouraging people to get vaccinated “it’s about loving your neighbours”
Some idiot accused him of ‘virtue signalling’.
That’s literally his job
germy
@H.E.Wolf:
Isn’t the “everyone is screwed over in some way” logic also used by white republicans when people of color complain about unfair treatment and systemic racism? “You weren’t the only ones enslaved… We white people were indentured servants!”
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: Yes you do, and I get to respond that you are over reacting.
Leto
@germy: so my wife graduated in 2005. Owed just a tad over $60k. Unfortunately she married a military guy so she’s had to move quite a bit. Essentially she’s paid the stated amount each month since graduating and she still basically owes the same amount. She figures she might pay it off by age 62, 63 which is roughly another 20 years away. Every time a “loan forgiveness” program comes around, she doesn’t qualify.
Money for college is one of the top three reasons people sign up for the military. Let people make of that what they will
Edit: asked her, she looked it up; so far she’s paid $70k for $60k, and still has 16 years to go. When it’s all done, $140k in total. 40 years of student loans. Longer than a house payment. Moral of the story: don’t marry enlisted!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
My husband gets the Wall Street Journal and they had an article : “millenials were not supposed to be able to buy homes”. The premise was they are buying so are responsible for higher property prices, but I laughed out loud at “not supposed to”. Dear God. Just this kind of bland acceptance “you’re screwed and we’re not even sorry”, like it’s the tides or the phases of the moon or something. Gosh, I wonder what happened? Was it an oddly age-specific natural disaster?
Baud
@Betty Cracker: It’s fine for them to be pissed. It’s how one responds to it that matters in the end. IMHO we’re in the mess we’re in because a lot of people (not just young people) aren’t responding to challenges in productive way (whether as a result of manipulation through propaganda or their own free will).
germy
@Kay:
“Are there no boarding houses? Are there no single rooms for rent?”
Gravenstone
@Ken: Hello, asymptomatic infection. Wonder how many people *he* ended up infecting with his cavalier attitude?
Baud
@germy: White Republicans use every tactic in the book. So what?
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: While probably no great insight, anti-vaxxism has become yet another flavor of privilege. A lot words have been spent on talking about how individuals should get vaccinated to make themselves safe. Unfortunately, this narrative can be counterproductive because it reinforces that this is some sort of consumer choice. It gives permission for young people or people who view themselves as “healthy” to opt out. From an individualized personal risk/reward standpoint, it might not be worth getting vaccinated if you are ok with getting mildly sick. However, that’s a perverse ethic for a social animal. If you view vaccination from the public health perspective, these “healthy” people are among the most important people to vaccinate because they constitute the low-hanging fruit in denying hosts to the virus and removing unnecessary burdens to the health care system at little to no public or private cost.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
JMG
The only thing I know about student debt forgiveness is that if an elected official promised something during his campaign and then doesn’t do it despite having the power to do so, the voters he made the promise to will be very pissed off and will have every right to be.
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly: Overreaction? Based on whose judgment? I get to choose my reactions, and I have NEVER liked generational slurs. As Baud has noted, they’re an excuse for hating on demographic groups and unhelpful for dialogue or policymaking.
Baud
@Kay:
Given that it’s the WSJ, I read that headline as “we don’t really think your problems are true”.
Baud
@JMG: Biden promised to sign legislation to cut $10,000 of student loan debt. I don’t believe he promised to do it by executive order.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
The WSJ editorial page was always somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun. Since they were acquired by Rupert Murdoch in 2007 the “news” coverage has been drifting that way too.
JMG
@Baud: Very few voters of any age would make that distinction.
Baud
@JMG: Sure, but we shouldn’t be spreading misinformation about what Biden promised.
Leto
@Kay: here’s your counter:
(WaPo) PANDORA PAPERS | A GLOBAL INVESTIGATION
THIS BLOCK USED TO BE FOR FIRST- TIME HOMEBUYERS. THEN GLOBAL INVESTORS BOUGHT IN.
But agree that the basic premise: “You were never meant for this” is so fucked up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JMG: and that’s exactly why Green Lanternism is so toxic, and people who (should) know better should stop fucking promoting it
Geminid
@Baud: I’m not that happy about the society my generation helped build. But critics of Boomers as a class are wrong if they ignore the prejudice and discrimination that Black, Latino, LGBTQ, and all Woman Boomers faced. Over half of this age group was marginalized from the beginning. We’d have built a better world if these people had participated as first class citizens.
I’ve had the white male priviledge of my generation. I’ve made no great contributions to to a better world. And I don’t have much except for what I’ve learned along the way. Sometimes, though, I think this shows a defect of my age group. All I had to do was wait forty years to be born, Then I’d be a Millennial, and I’d know it all!
Kay
@Baud:
I stopped paying for it because of the voter fraud editorials in the early 2000s, but my husband picked it up. They are where this shit came from. Just a pack of lies. That’s not an “opinion”- it’s a pack of lies. They mainstreamed it. All of media are talking about Trump’s lies around elections but the fact is this has been going on a LONG time on the Right. They created Donald Trump. He’s what results from a 20 year “lying about elections” campaign on the elite Right. If there’s a Patient Zero for election lies it’s the WSJ.
Baud
Any news from zhena since her surgery?
Baud
@Kay: Agree. The one thing I give the WSJ is that they have a more conservative audiance. The NYT has a more liberal audiance, but they still act the way they do.
Kay
@Leto:
It kills me what they’re paying for the property. It’s too much. If there’s a downturn a lot of them are going into foreclosure. They did get low interest rates though, which I didn’t get at that age but I’m afraid that just encourages them to spend too much. We just didn’t do a good enough job as stewards of the country. I’ll own that.
Kay
@Baud:
One thing that is really hopeful to me is the broad dissemination among Democrats of an awareness of voter supression and voting process. That didn’t used to be true. It was just not a top tier issue for rank and file Democrats, and now it is. It felt like yelling into a void for decade :)
dnfree
@OzarkHillbilly: my kids say my epitaph will be “It was on sale…and I had a coupon!”
Baud
Baud
@Kay: Agree. I’m proud of the general unity of the party right now. Best in a long while. I just wish we had a couple of more Senators.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker:
Can you put up a gap graphic for those of us without NYT access?
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid:
Thank you for this. I belong to several of those groups. I enjoyed privilege in some arenas, and also struggled and was actively discriminated against in others due to my genetic makeup. Intersectionality anyone? Again, that’s why simple generational characterizations are unhelpfully simplistic.
Kay
@Baud:
Democrats need them and I think they know they need them. Obama gets all the credit for outreach to young people, and he’s due a lot of it, but John Kerry was on it first. But of course he lost so no one credits losers with anything- it’s true though- he sought out young people and he turned them out.
Leto
@Kay: It’s too much, but they’re just passing that off to the renter. Because wtf are the people looking for homes going to do? Buy one themselves? Hahahaha! Last week you were asking, “How do these people (you were referencing young people) just have $300k in cash lying around?” And the answer is they don’t. It’s investment groups. Our realtor was telling us about this last year, and there was news about this coming out during the initial phases of the pandemic when home buying started accelerating. It’s another “investment sector” that’s being exploited, and will be exploited for maximum profit regardless of the long term harm it does.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: & @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Does the Biden campaign have any responsibility here? Or is it just the dumb voters who should have realized that when Biden said he’d sign legislation cutting student debt, he meant that we’d need one party control over Congress and the White House — plus at least two extra Democrats to make up for the corrupt lobbyists-in-waiting?
This is a real question, BTW. It’s a conundrum — a politician who aims low during a campaign isn’t going to generate a lot of excitement. But if you raise expectations, don’t you at least have to be seen trying super hard to fulfill them?
I’m wondering about the shift in messaging related to BBB and voting rights and how that fits into the question of promises made, promises kept. According to NBC, Al Sharpton told Biden he’d better at least be seen trying to do something about voter suppression or black voters would be demoralized and Dems would lose Congress.
I don’t envy Team Biden the task of keeping constituencies with competing priorities happy, especially when there are very real structural constraints. But I don’t think it solves anything to just accuse the pissed off folks of being Green Lanternists. Maybe naming and shaming the obstacles would be better? I don’t know.
Kathleen
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
People can be upset about Biden not producing a promised result, even if it requires Congress. People can’t lie about what he promised to do, and he didn’t promise an executive order as far as I know.
Kathleen
Kathleen
@Baud: Manchin and Sinema have voted with Dems pretty consistently. And if we didn’t have them we wouldn’t be having any conversations about pending Dem legislation.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
It is a conundrum, especially when so much attention (rightly) has to go to managing a fucking pandemic and related consequences. I get regular emails from the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach (not sure how I got on the distribution list) and they’re messaging like crazy. But there are so many issues and the Dems don’t have a Fox-equivalent news outlet, so I don’t know what they could be doing better or differently. At some point, the citizenry needs to inform themselves, which is a scary thought.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: I think it also stems from what Team B thinks of as priorities. Personally I think it’s failure on Team B part that they didn’t prioritize voting rights from the start. Everything flows from that. Want better Senators/House members? Voting rights. Want infrastructure? Voting rights. More spending on social programs to help lift the collective boats? Voting rights. What I’m not saying is that by simply passing voting rights will automatically give us wins, like the gerrymandered R states, but it does show that we recognize the principle problem with American democracy/representation and are trying to fix it.
Chief Oshkosh
@JMG: Nor should they. I’m certainly open to being corrected (having a poor memory these days), but at the time Biden made those promises, there was every expectation that the Democrats would not have the Senate and may not have been able to hold the House. To run on a specific promise in a presidential campaign under those cirmcumstances is to run on promised Executive action.
Kristine
@Ken: @Steeplejack:
I’ve been able to print out confirmation of my Illinois tag renewal for years.
Baud
@Kathleen:
Yes, I’m not saying replace them with Republicans. I just wish we had a couple of more Dems.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: it’s a conundrum, and Democrats are in a very difficult position. One large part of it is that Biden and a whole lot of people (me included) thought that Covid would be fading away by now, and between stupidity and mutations it’s not, so the economy is much worse than it is, which makes literally everything else that much harder.
And it’s one thing to say “Joe Biden has not put enough effort into this aspect of his legislative package”, quite another to present Joe Biden as the bad guy for not keeping a promise he never made with rhetoric (“stroke of a pen!”) that confirms the stubborn delusion among far too many people– not all of them young by any means– that the President, whoever that is, can be a benign dictator if they would only be bold!, that “Establishment” Democrats are the real enemy, and that Congress is a subordinate branch of government to the executive.
This is not a new issue, this it not all about student debt, or even voting rights. This is problem that goes back more than twenty years, and somehow after Bush, after trump, the left, collectively, cannot cure itself of the Cult of the Presidency
Kathleen
O. Felix Culpa
@Leto: I agree that the Dems and the Biden administration need to pivot to voting rights tout de suite. Like you say, EVERYTHING hinges on that. I’d be ok with putting BBB on the backburner if voting protections could be enacted instead.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
No it’s not. First, you can’t invent a promise that was never made in order to claim that Biden broke it.
In any event, the premise is fault. Congressional results were worse then what the polls led us to believe they would be.
Leto
@O. Felix Culpa:
It’s true that we don’t have a 24/7/365 propaganda outlet that will push lies, disinformation, bullshit all the time. We do have a 4pm- 12am time frame every Mon- Friday (with weekends being longer) on MSNBC where you’re 100% more likely to find elected Dems on the tv talking directly to people about whatever, where the hosts are consistently talking about Dem related matters, naming/shaming Republicans and pointing their viewers directly to the source of the problems: Republicans.
But if BJ is any indicator, then Dems don’t like that. They’ll critique the hosts over their delivery, over the guests they have, over the fact that they promote a bit more of a leftist framing, of… what the fuck ever. Personally I think the 6am to 3:59pm blocks as absolute trash. They’re beyond worthless, but see how many people here say they’ve tuned in to Morning Puke Funnel. Even to just check out who’s guest hosting. As much as we claim we want a Fox News equivalent, we wouldn’t watch it.
Kathleen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t know why this is a conundrum for Biden. It’s a conundrum why the most passionate members of the legislative branch don’t craft legislation for Biden to sign. What am I missing here?
topclimber
@Baud:
One recent poll finds seniors evenly split on the issue of debt forgiveness. Another only breaks out 45+, with same result.
First poll also reveals that 20% of student debt holders are 50+.
Not having much luck with hyperlinks today, so we will do it the boomer way (LOL):
Link
Link
Could it be that blaming the boomers is not only divisive, but wrong? Duh, yeah.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chief Oshkosh:
you and I have a very different memory of the summer and fall of 2020. My recollection is people thought Susan Collins was fighting for her political life, Steve Bullock was tied in the polls, Theresa Greenfield had momentum, Cunningham’s PG sexts were irrelevant, and even Jamie Harrison might pull off an upset. Florida and North Carolina were in Joe Biden’s grasp, and the Blue Wall would be solidly rebuilt. When Jen O’Malley Dillon said the race was a lot closer than polls indicated, people accused her of doom-vamping to raise money. At some point in mid-October, Nancy Pelosi said something about the Senate being a long shot and people were outraged.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kathleen: Yeah, but I still want to cut them. Mind you, with a short shiv. Because we still need their votes. But I still want to cut them.
/s (sort of)
jonas
Sobering stats this morning on our rural upstate NY county Covid-19 dashboard: 30 unvaccinated patients under age 50 have died of Covid this year (out of some 230 or so total deaths). Number of *vaccinated* patients under 50 who died? 1. That’s one. These are often parents of young kids, too. Coworkers, coaches, teachers. All because they believed some stupid shit on Facebook rather than their doctors, the CDC, local health authorities, etc.
Matt McIrvin
@Kathleen: People basically don’t understand political cause and effect, and the presidential-horserace model of political media is wired to keep them from figuring it out.
Leto
@Kathleen: @O. Felix Culpa: agreed; people are hurting, the economy is hurting, we need to get this shit patched quick! But as Obama and Biden have famously quipped, Dems are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Republicans have been all in voter suppression since 2013, tried to overthrow the government almost a year ago, and are on the fast track to bring full authoritarianism to the states post haste. Better late than never, but we just have to get it past President Manchinema first. Fingers crossed!
O. Felix Culpa
@Leto: I’m not sure that I want a Fox-equivalent outlet for the Dems, and MSNBC certainly isn’t it, both for the reasons you name and for the significantly lower viewership. I wish we had a more discerning electorate and that there were a way within the First Amendment to restrict (blow up?) the propaganda network. And no, I don’t want a unicorn for Christmas, but world peace would be nice.
geg6
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
From what I read, the North Shropshire seat has been in conservative hands for many, many years. Between this and all the holiday party scandals, Jay must have an epic comment coming any minute, assuming I didn’t miss it in some overnight thread.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: There’s a story (which sounds pretty suspect) making the rounds that Biden can scotch student debt by executive order, bypassing Congress. If people believe that, they’re gonna be pissed. This doesn’t seem believable to me, but I’ve seen it repeated in several places.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Leto:
Even long before. Roberts was promoted in ’05, and while I’m sure George W Bush was only slightly more engaged in the selection of judicial nominees, the people prepping that list for him knew who Roberts was. As Ari Berman wrote in Give Us The Vote, he’d been writing and working against the VRA for twenty years.
As I recall, they started pushing voter fraud myths and voter ID laws in the ’04 cycle?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: i’m home. that’s about all i can say
Tony Jay
@geg6:
Big smile.
I’m working on it….
Plus, y’know, I don’t want to spend hours boiling up sticky treats of crystalised invective only to find I’ve missed Flobalob standing down seconds earlier.
O. Felix Culpa
@Cameron:
Can he actually do that? (real question). I don’t see how, especially for the private student loans, but I’d welcome enlightenment.
Kathleen
@Leto: There’s never been a doubt in my mind that Biden/Harris administration put Voter legislation first on the list. Given how much damage Trump and the right have caused I also understand why it was important to demonstrate how government should and can help people. From a political perspective that strategy is helpful to the reps/senators from conservative areas. Lots of moving parts here.
My senator Sherrod Brown said several months ago he thought voting rights would pass and I agree. I think it will pass. I trust his assessments.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: Wishing you a minimum of pain and a maximum of speedy healing.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Good to hear from you. Hope your recovery is speedy.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Wishing you a speedy and low-pain recovery. Sleep is your friend.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa: Private is private. I don’t think the gov’t can touch that.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kathleen:
From your keyboard to the deity of your choice’s ears.
Kay
@Kathleen:
Sherrod said the same thing here, at an event in response to a question. He said something to the effect of “if there’s a carve out (filibuster) it will be for voting rights”.
I think it’s a must-do for D’s in terms of the AA part of the base. They have to accomplish it.
daveNYC
@Cameron: I believe that he can kybosh the federal student loan debt without needing legislation.
Matt McIrvin
@O. Felix Culpa: The closest thing to our Fox News is satirical comedy shows (some of which are actually news-analysis/opinion shows with a thin veneer of comedy). The flip side of “why isn’t there a liberal Fox News?” is “why can’t conservatives do political comedy good?”
But the difference is that we don’t self-propagandize with the intensity that they do. This 24/7 hammering of the party line into our heads just doesn’t happen, and the satirists are often critical of “our team” in a way that doesn’t happen on the other side.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Update: Can’t get a new roof crew till after Christmas, but they’re taking the dumpster away till then so at least we get (half) our driveway back.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
I hope you’re on a quick road to recovery.
I just finished a collection of short stories by Chekhov. For some reason, I thought he only wrote tragedies. I had no idea some of his stories were LOL funny. Like the young guy running around his parents house all happy and excited because he got his name in the newspaper (for being drunk) while his mother weeps. Or the retired army guy who terrorizes his town to make them all “behave”.
Now I’m on to some Tolstoy. Just finished “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” and I’m reading it a second time, finding all sorts of details (like him fussing over his albums) that are later shoved aside by his widow.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kathleen:
I don’t think they’re actively seeking to undermine Biden, but a lot them still can’t grasp that twitter is not the voice of the people, and a lot of other people learned all the wrong lessons from 2016, none from 2018, and are only doubling down after 2020.
Kay
@Leto:
Earlier than that. The series of WSJ editorials was from about 2000 to 2004. Milwaukee was like ground zero – they were promoting this notion that the GOP would win Wisconsin but for voter fraud in Milwaukee and it wasn’t fringy people- it was the fancy people who get space on the WSJ editorial page.
It was the basis of the Bush Administration US attorney scandal. They were getting rid of USA’s who wouldn’t bring sketchy voter fraud investigations- so George W Bush did that.
They made Donald Trump. He doesn’t “make” shit himself- all he does is exploit something that already exists. Their voters have been primed for 20 years to refuse to accept election results.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Thanks. I bestirred myself to do some
extensive researchgoogling on student debt.Source.
Geminid
@geg6: You must mean Tony Jay. Commenter Jay lives in British Columbia, while Tony Jay lives in England.
Or does he? Come to think about it, I’ve never seen Tony Jay and Mangy Jay in the same room!
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
Best wishes to you.
Take care.
Baud
So I did some more research into Biden’s promises, and here’s what he said on his website (and it doesn’t mention whether it would be done by Congress or executive order, although some of the promises clearly can only be done by Congress) (more at the link).
Leto
@Baud: Google; have you heard of it? I know it was the way, way, way back of… *checks notes* 2020.
And
And
It was a promise made throughout his campaign, listed on his campaign website, spoken about in debates, and he spoke about it on his Twitter page. If you want to make the argument why he shouldn’t do this, make that, otherwise quit trying to gaslight on this because it’s embarrassing.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
To me the difference is what they have to borrow. I borrowed 1500 dollars for undergrad- the vast majority was free, other than books. It wasn’t even a bump in the road.
Betty Cracker
I think the Biden admin went with BBB first because that’s at least theoretically doable with Dem only votes through reconciliation. It’s the lower hanging fruit. Voting rights absolutely requires action on the filibuster, and IIRC, both Manchin and Sinema reiterated within the last week that they aren’t open to it. I mean, maybe TPTB know better, but from the peanut gallery, the prospects aren’t looking great
ETA: Also, does the proposed voter protection legislation address the state-level shenanigans that allow wingnut statehouses to substitute slates of electors or otherwise disqualify counts if they don’t like the outcome? I’m not sure it does. Does anyone know?
Brachiator
@geg6:
200 years.
I had been looking at some pre-election punditry predicting a close election and a Tory win. The Lib Dem victory is earth-shattering.
Tony Jay is going to have fun with this one.
Baud
@Leto: The open question is whether Biden can do it by executive order, or whether he needs Congress. No one is arguing against taking action.
IIRC correctly, one of the hangups with the legislative route is that a lot of people in Congress wanted to have more than $10,000 in debt relief.
Benw
@zhena gogolia: hope your recovery goes well!
Geminid
@Cameron: Senator Warren says this can be done through executive action. Speaker Pelosi says it would require an act of Congress. We’re talking about $1.7 trillion, and I think Speaker Pelosi is correct.
Senator Warren is well qualified to write legislation to cancel student debt, or to make it dischargable through bankruptcy, and to advocate for that. I sometimes wonder if Senator Warren is just trying to build her brand.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: Oh, totally. I graduated with about $10K in debt, which seemed like a lot at the time to a kid who had no money, but is almost laughable now. My elder son expects that he’ll never be able to pay off his law school debt, which is the equivalent of many mortgages and at a much higher interest rate.
Mike in NC
A local rag runs a columnist named Peter Funt, who is the son of an asshole named Allen Funt who had a really shitty reality TV show called “Candid Camera” back in the 60s-70s. Apparently just another fucking Trump clone who spews right wing vomit.
Leto
@O. Felix Culpa: haha, unicorns
and taco trucks for everyone! Having a lack of discerning citizenship has been a problem for this country since forever. Being proudly ignorant has been a distinctly American virtue.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was basically counting when Roberts blew up the VRA. But as you said, he’d been actively working against it for most of his career, as had other conservative groups for longer than that.
@Kathleen: I’d trust it more if we didn’t have Manchin with us, as he’s already a demonstrated unreliable actor. He’s stated that he wants some type of voting rights legislation, but I think it’s the same “we need
insurgentsRepublicans with it” style bipartisan BS. Will he pass some type of voting rights legislation in opposition to his filibuster “principle”? We’ll see.Kay
This Dominion lawsuit is great. The multimillionaire Fox anchors destroyed that company for no other reason than they’re greedy liars and doing so advanced their careers. They are going to pay dearly for that. Good. I only wish they had to pay personally.
They’re disgusting, sleazy people. Let’s go, assholes. Let’s see if you can lie your way out of this one.
Chief Oshkosh
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So you thought the double pickup in Georgia was in the bag? I sure didn’t.
topclimber
@Leto: You did see the part about the House passing a bill, right? You know, the part that is in your post.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Dems have already proposed legislation to cancel student debt, and it has predictably gone nowhere so far. I’m not a lawyer, so I have no idea who’s right on the legality of executive action. From what I’ve read, it looks like a lot of smart lawyers disagree on that question, which might make it a good issue to try, but that’s not happening either.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: I’ll trade all my unicorns for this (and other) lawsuits to bankrupt Fox and put it out of commission.
Brachiator
@Leto:
I don’t want a Fox News equivalent, and people who suggest such a thing are morons.
And yeah, I know that politics is often dirty business and politicians look for all kinds of ways to get their message across.
James E Powell
@Leto:
The economy is smoking hot, unemployment is very low. What is hurting? Who is hurting? Define hurting.
Baud
@James E Powell: Technically speaking, the economy is always doing poorly when a Democrat is president.
Baud
@Kay: Nice.
Leto
@Baud: No, you said he didn’t promise it and you’ve been corrected. How about this: start at what you minimally promised, throw it in one of your bills (ARP, BIP, or BBB) and let Congress do the rest? OR stick it in at the crazy mark ($100k) and let them
whittle it downnegotiate it down to the 10K mark. He’s skeptical on EO action? Great, stick it in a fucking budget bill and press it. He’s failed to do that. He’s being held to account on that, as he should be.I guess it just comes back to the Baud principle that you’ve expressed lately: promise nothing, and that way when you pass 1 thing everyone can be ecstatic. “He didn’t promise anything, but we got something! Huzzah!”
Baud
@Leto: Please quote the words that I said that you claim have been corrected, so I can assess for myself. I’m happy to admit if I stated the facts incorrectly. In fact, on my own inititive, I looked up Biden’s plan on his website and noted that it didn’t mention Congress. Your hostility means nothing to me, but I’ll respond to facts.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: The DMV works very, very well in NoVA. I was surprised that even my RealID ordeal not too long ago was relatively painless.
Comedians are going to need to find a different service to rag on for poor service, or they are going risk sounding like Grandpa Simpson.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Kyle’s got himself a new career as a professional Right wing grifter. I hope the people who heard that tearful testimony (now) recognize he played them.
His one accomplishment is killing two people and he’s a celebrity.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: Nope. My interface seems to be super twitchy. I suspect it’s on my end
Leto
@James E Powell: Was the economy humming along when he took office? Trumpov’s brain trust was doing well with the economy the previous year? 2020 the economy shedded a net 9.3 million jobs, almost twice as many as 2009, unemployment through the roof… I guess Biden really was handing out free money because it wasn’t needed. You’re talking about NOW, I’m talking about THEN. Tense, as well as context, matters.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: [ Insert rant #12333678 about the stupidity of groupings based on average female reproduction times. ]
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
I had a scholarship for law school but I lost it midway thru 2nd year because I got a C. It was nice though, the way they worked it. If you lost it went to someone else. It seemed fair. Tragic, but fair :)
I cried in the bathroom. Not over the C. Over the money. My assistant at the law office has a son who just got the same scholarship. I told him my whole, looooong C story, the poor thing so, you know, ruined that happy announcement!
Brachiator
@O. Felix Culpa:
I guess I will step into it with my comments. I can understand making a case that all college education should be free. And my basic preference is for free college in exchange for meaningful community service.
And I would also increase the current student loan deduction.
But I hesitate a bit when people voluntarily load up on college and post-college debt, and then expect the government to magically forgive all of it.
However, something crappy is happening with colleges that costs have been ramping up for decades, making education practically unaffordable for many. And yet I also read about some well-heeled colleges which can underwrite the education for a big chunk of their students.
State schools were supposed to be affordable, but have failed in that mission.
It is all a big mess.
James E Powell
@Leto:
This illustrates one of the really big Democratic Party problems. A president’s or congressional majority’s failure to accomplish THAT ONE THING I CARE MOST ABOUT is reason to slam them – Al Gore’s not totally committed to the environment! Hillary voted for the war! – or stay home, or vote Jill Stein.
Republicans realize their elected officials have many things to do and forgive them for their failure to repeal the 20th century and make Protestant Christianity the official religion of the nation.
Can we celebrate, can we revel in our successes so far? Can we back our people no matter what because we are in a fucking crisis and need every vote?
Baud
@Kay:
What class?
Leto
@Baud: comment 195, otherwise you’re still gaslighting from 162. Keep it up, it’s a great look.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chief Oshkosh: nope, I thought that whatever happened in GA would be gravy on top of the much likelier Dem pick-ups in ME, NC and MT
People here were debating whether “we” would expand the Supreme Court by 5 or 7 seats.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Well, his mother did own that stock in Occidental Petroleum
For any of the rare young on this site, this was an argument seriously made by the not-a-dime’s-worth-difference caucus off 2000 that brought us the Bush Presidency, the Roberts Court, and when you factor in the loss of faith institutions that resulted from the Iraq Debacle, Donald Fucking Trump)/
Baud
@Leto:
Comment 195 is your comment. Comment 162 says
That is in response to comment 156 which argued
Biden never promised executive action, as far as I’ve found, so my criticism was valid. I stand by it absent evidence that Biden promised to accomplish his goals through executive action.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tony Jay:
I said in an overnight thread that I could hardly contain myself for excitement at the prospect of reading your election analysis. Who would have thought that a safe Tory riding in North Shropshire would end up being so pivotal !?
James E Powell
@Leto:
Present progressive, present progressive, present, infinitive, past participle.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Besides legal and equity issues, across-the-board student loan cancellation. involves a political calculation: would it help or hurt Democrats in 2022 and 2024? I don’t think there is a clear and certain answer to that question. That may be one reason Speaker Pelosi says that it would require an act of Congress. She might think it would hurt more than help, and if so she could be right.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Another Scott:
Yeah, RealID was the reason I had to go in person the last time. Had to wait awhile, but that was mainly because my brother insisted on going on the last business day of the month—a Friday—instead of waiting until the following slower Monday. But all of the clerk stations were open and cranking away.
Leto
@James E Powell: big party, big tent right? We can celebrate our successes while still recognizing the problems we face. Idk, I’m from the school of: quit fucking patting yourself on the back and get back to work.
@Brachiator:
It’s not a mystery, it’s been documented for the past two decades pretty well. Since the late 70s, early 80s conservatives made a dedicated, successful effort to defund state level higher education. Numerous backlash points: more POC attending college, punishing “the liberals” for all the Vietnam war protests that happened on campuses, more women attending college. Just part of the overall effort to roll back on numerous social programs. Here’s a good book on it: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Leto
@James E Powell: well, there’s always context but we’re skipping past that shit today.
O. Felix Culpa
@Brachiator: I agree with much of what you said. However, sometimes grad or professional school appears necessary to the person in question. In my son’s case, he graduated college with little debt in 2007 and you know what happened next, globally. So he ended up working FOUR part-time jobs, of course without benefits or time off, just to make rent and feed himself. Law school seemed like a way out of a terrible dead end. Was it worth it? He can now pay rent and feed himself (and his three rescue kitties) without stressing too much. I think the debt has become background noise to him, but I doubt he’ll ever be able to amass enough savings to buy his own home.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
Glad you’re home! All best for a comfortable and speedy recovery.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Come to California and try to get assistance from the DMV.
Philbert
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nothing new, GWB spent $50 million to ferret out voter fraud, as I vaguely recall. After they failed to find any, he fired a heap of federal attorneys.
O. Felix Culpa
@Leto: Thanks for the book recommendation! Gonna see if my library has it.
gvg
@germy:
Actually no.
Kay
@Baud:
Research and writing. My topic was “Terry stop, reasonable suspicion”. I just got lost in the subject – there are thousands of cases- and ran out of time. It was a mess, I freely admit. I knew it was bad.
I revise over and over. Write, put it aside, read it again, revise. I cut it too close and ran out of time.
I should have done secured transactions, which I loved, but maybe I hadn’t taken it yet?
Fair Economist
@Brachiator: I haven’t had a problem with the CA DMV for years. Make an appointment, go in, boom, done. Most stuff can be done online anyway.
Soprano2
@Geminid: I think one factor is that is would make entities extremely reluctant to loan money for education in the future, because what’s to keep another president from doing the same thing? I think there’s a reasonable way to do it, but I agree with you that cancelling $1.7 trillion of student debt would take an act of Congress. We need to make higher education more affordable.
O. Felix Culpa
@Brachiator: P.S. In case there was any confusion, I did not suggest that my son thinks his law school debt should be waved away with a magic wand. But some restructuring at lower interest rates would be nice. He initially went into public service (at ridiculously low pay) partly because he’s a good person and cares about the common good, and partly because it seemed like a potential pathway to eventual debt forgiveness. But, as we know, 20+ years of public service => debt forgiveness is a scam, and he moved on.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Soprano2: a lot of people on the left crave rough justice. If Bush and trump can get away with X, why can’t Democrats just do Y?
Steve in the ATL
@Kay:
Rotating tag line?
germy
@gvg:
They took those away, too.
japa21
@Chief Oshkosh: Jim is right. It looked likely that the Dems would pick up 4-5 Senate seats not counting Georgia prior to the election.
CaseyL
Good morning (here on the Left Coast, it’s still morning)!
Had a Covid scare this week. I had some symptoms, figured they were a minor sinus infection, but they came back. So I hustled off to get tested – through the auspices of Employee Health, which meant I got an appointment right away.
Being fully vaxed and boosted, my worry was only about spreading the virus, not getting hammered by it. Plus having to tell anyone I saw over the last week that I might have infected them.
Happily, the test came back negative. So I have something, but it ain’t Covid. Yippee!
(As to what I do have – now I’m thinking it might be an allergy. I’m officially an Old, and apparently my system is now taking exception to things that never bothered it before.)
Kay
@Steve in the ATL:
I just love when they intersect with reality- crash into seriously pissed off people who want to get paid. It’s all fun and games and Sean Hannity’s private jet until it isn’t!
Brachiator
@O. Felix Culpa:
Seems totally reasonable. And I do not mean to criticize or downplay the fact that students are trying to improve their lives. This does not require justification.
And as I noted, there are lots of problems with the education system, but hopefully some room for improvement.
Yep, stuff like this makes sense.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s not surprising to me; everything in our society has been about them literally since they were born. They are so huge that they control a lot of stuff, and feel it’s their right to do so. I was born in 1961, and although they count me as a BB I don’t feel like one. I don’t have much in common with a person who was born in 1950 as far as life experience is concerned.
japa21
Been following the Leto-Baud feud on this thread. Admire both, but do come down on Baud’s side on this one. Sorry Baud, my approval is usually a kiss of death.
O. Felix Culpa
@Brachiator:
The first creates the condition for the latter. *All* we need are vision and political will. :)
Kay
Good. They can’t really do anything because schools aren’t federal but since no one understands that it won’t matter, and the BULLY PULPIT!
You’re all wrong. Youngsters must be in school. Joe Biden knows this :)
Brantl
@debbie: Hard not to argue with McTurtle’s internal logic, though : “He’s a major-league obstructionist, without any rhyme, or reason? He must be a republican!”
Tony Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh now there’s a deadline! 8-)
“Just give me 48 hours, Chief. You owe me that. If I haven’t broken it by then, well, I’ll take what’s coming. I won’t fight it.”
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
damn
Brachiator
@Fair Economist:
I hate it when people do stuff like this. You should know better. Personal anecdotes do not necessarily tell the whole story. I have also had good service.
But the widespread and ongoing problems of DMV and EDD have been clearly documented and there is no way that you do not know of these problems. Hell, I think there was a story about how the Sacramento DMV had a special service window so that politicians working at the state capitol did not have to encounter delays.
And of course, things got crazier during the pandemic. From one story:
I also note that the DMV service has improved at some offices. But overall, it is still a mess.
Kalakal
@Tony Jay: No pressure. Just as soon as you stop laughing
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Keeping this down here for the sake of bloggy comity and shit, this is a good brief write-up of the student debt issue. This (IANAL) would appear to be the legal argument that Biden has the authority to cancel 92% of student debt
I don’t know what, if any, is the legal counter-argument
Soprano2
@Kay: That’s so insane, especially coming from the same people who will tell you that people in their 20’s being able to buy homes in the ’50’s because of things like the VA and FHA loans is what built the middle class!
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There might be a good political counter-argument, that a moratorium extension and selective debt relief would not incur the political blow back that wiping out everyone’s total college debt would.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: oh, the politics of the Green Lanternism on this issue are horrible, and instead of making their case, the GL twitter caucus goes right to “Biden bad”
Kay
@Soprano2:
Right? What happened to “the ownership society”? That was a Right wing trope for a while.
One thing I’ve noticed in my practice that is kind of nice is that single young women are buying property, and not upper middle class either- they’re buying 80k fixer uppers. I think they’re amazing. It would not have occurred to me that I could or should. It’s the low interest rates.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Don’t know, but Google found this interesting nugget:
The dates are a little confusing, but the post is dated November 5, 2021.
rikyrah
@Leto:
JOE BIDEN NEVER MADE THAT PROMISE.
Ksmiami
@O. Felix Culpa: the thing that really hurts wrt student debt is the outrageous and fixed interest rate handcuff. Unlike home mortgages that can be refinanced as rates fall, there’s no mechanism for student loans. And yes Biden could actually demand lenders reduce rates to a prime plus 1 percent. It’s not loans forgiveness per se but if your rate goes from 8 percent interest to 3, that’s a huge reduction in payment
Soprano2
@Brachiator: Where you are is basically where I’m at. College has become unaffordable for most people – let’s work on that, rather than forgiving all the debt people took out to attend college, because if we don’t work on the cost we’ll just have to do it all over again in 10 or 20 years. You shouldn’t have to take out the equivalent of a mortgage just to get a college degree. Plus, if all the debt is just erased, good luck with anyone else ever getting a student loan again.
Geminid
@Ksmiami: Or, the administration could refinance student debt, and charge a rate, say, 1% over the ten year treasury note. ( or I think it could; my knowledge of finance is general,and theres not a lot of that either).
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If Joe Biden cancels all student debt, you could rely on the people shouting the loudest about this problem to find another reason not to vote Democratic in 2022 and 2024:
“Don’t let this warmongering party bribe you by paying your college loans, when it hasn’t delivered a Green New Deal or justice for the Palestinian people!”
I think it’s also safe to say that a portion of people whose debt is cancelled will vote Republican:
“I’ve got mine, screw those lazy poor people who want their hands in my wallet.”
Steeplejack (phone)
@Soprano2:
I think the government can forgive only debt that it holds. So private lenders would not be affected.
Soprano2
@Kay: When I sell my mother’s house, I’m going to insist it not be sold to some investment group. It offends me that so many young people cannot buy homes because these assholes snap up everything with cash. One good thing in my family is that somehow all four of my nieces and nephews, who are in their 20’s and early 30’s, have managed to become homeowners. I helped two of them with a loan to make it possible, and I was more than happy to do that. I got paid off with no problem, so it was wll worth the investment in their future.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Here in WV the DMV has vastly improved over the years sine I started driving. In the long ago there was only one DMV office where all business had to take place, at the statehouse, hours away from most of the state.
Now routine license plate renewals take place at the local court house, costs an extra $0.25. More complex stuff takes place at a large number of branch offices, where you take a number and have a seat, and get called to window # B17 (etc) when your time comes.
WV isn’t perfect by any means, but the DMV does OK. During the height of the plague last year on line services worked pretty well also.
Layer8Problem
Statehouse? The Charleston statehouse? That would have been rough. I just had to get a duplicate title for my late mom’s bomb of a car. Out of state I did it all with a phone call, a little online, and mail. And even with Covid it came back faster than her death certificates.
tam1MI
Another step that would help greatly with student loan debt is making it dischargeable in bankruptcy.
J R in WV
@Layer8Problem:
It was terrible, and if you got in the wrong line for your task you had to start all over. There were a ton of little businesses that would help you fill out forms, take your money, and go to Charleston to return with your new vehicle docs the next day, those are thankfully all gone now. Changed for the better a couple of decades ago now.
WaterGirl
@Leto:
We want it as an alternative for the gullible people who watch Fox.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: What a nightmare. I’m so sorry.
On the other hand, maybe you dodged a bullet? If the crew took one look said “holy shit we are in over our heads” then you are better off with a different crew in the long run.
Still sucks, though.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: Wondering if you happened to see my reply in the other thread where I pointed out that you can test negative for a few days before you test positive. So one test is not definitive, unless you test 5 or so days from onset of symptoms.
WaterGirl
@japa21: I’m trying to figure out whether there’s something in the water or if it’s the time of year for people to be stressed and touchy.
Bill Arnold
@Matt McIrvin:
On a cold reading without looking at people who research these influence networks, there is approximately enough artificial amplification to reach desired levels of voter apathy etc.
Anyone amplifying “Democrats are no better than Republicans, and maybe worse” is a de-facto Republican, by helping Republicans to do better in elections. Is a Enemy of the United States of America. Is a Fascist. Whether witting or unwitting.