All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tendrin]

Because qualifying opinions about politics that literally affect people's lives without concern for facts or research is an "online hobby".

That's a pretty big tell about a lack of empathy or concern for your political "hobby", Mets.

It's really funny anyone can try to say 'the FreE MArKEt' when cit comes to college costs going up when it is in fact policies introduced by the so-called 'free marketeers' who got us here. The massive defunding of public universities created this. A direct set of ideological choices made out of belief that less people ought to go to university also influenced it.

Deep state cuts in funding for higher education over the last decade have contributed to rapid, significant tuition increases and pushed more of the costs of college to students, making it harder for them to enroll and graduate. These cuts also have worsened racial and class inequality, since rising tuition can deter low-income students and students of color from college.

Deep state cuts in funding for higher education over the last decade have contributed to rapid, significant tuition increases and pushed more of the costs of college to students, making it harder for them to enroll and graduate. Overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges in the school year ending in 2018 was more than $6.6 billion below what it was in 2008 just before the Great Recession fully took hold, after adjusting for inflation.[1] In the most difficult years after the recession, colleges responded to significant funding cuts by increasing tuition, reducing faculty, limiting course offerings, and in some cases closing campuses. Funding has rebounded somewhat, but costs remain high and services in some places have not returned.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-...ts-to-students

And that's just 2008 to 2018!

[babyblob]

I think WBE has spent at least two hours a week on the series. That's an investment of time that is unreasonable to insist of an online hobbyist.

And if someone is going to use the both sides are just as bad or try to make a point they need to back it up. Pretty much every one on here post and post links with articles and news reports and such.

If a person cant take the time to defend their views and opinion then they should not get upset when some one calls them out.

And it would be overly hard. You used the few well known claim for WBE bashing the GOP profiles. It aint like the Democrats dont have their fair share of well known in the spot light people. So it should be hard to come up with some thing. Yet all the stuff is on the GOP because they are the ones doing the evil vile racist garbage they are known for and love.

But the best the GOP and their cult can do is

"Well Clintons emails, Something something Hunter Biden..."

[The Cool Thatguy]

Can someone please explain to me where this so called '300 billion' cost for forgiving up to 20K in student loans is coming from?

Other than people with student loans paying more for credit cards, home loans, and what have you.

[worstblogever]

Can someone please explain to me where this so called '300 billion' cost for forgiving up to 20K in student loans is coming from?

Other than people with student loans paying more for credit cards, home loans, and what have you.

It's coming from some folks at Wharton.

That school also gave Donald Trump his business degree once upon a time, so take that report's accuracy as you will.

But a lot of articles talking about it note that $300 billion is still less than half of our annual military budget right now. And hey, we're out of Afghanistan & Iraq, so Biden is apparently just reallocating resources. But not in a way rich people approve of.

[worstblogever]

The Wharton report doesn't have much of a discussion of the impact. The more you research, the more you're seeing an economic impact from this move that will not just put the money back in the pockets of those whose debts are forgiven, but folks at Moody's predict it will lower inflation, and could also spur a lot of movement in the housing market or other parts of the economy, now that those affected will have the financial flexibility to handle other living necessities.

So the same talking heads at Fox News complaining about inflation are whining about Biden doing a thing that will counter inflation.

Credit to WestPhillyPunisher for the analysis of Fox opinions being that "Joe Biden could cure cancer and Fox News would complain he was putting oncologists out of work."

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The Wharton report doesn't have much of a discussion of the impact. The more you research, the more you're seeing an economic impact from this move that will not just put the money back in the pockets of those whose debts are forgiven, but folks at Moody's predict it will lower inflation, and could also spur a lot of movement in the housing market or other parts of the economy, now that those affected will have the financial flexibility to handle other living necessities.

So the same talking heads at Fox News complaining about inflation are whining about Biden doing a thing that will counter inflation.

Credit to WestPhillyPunisher for the analysis of Fox opinions being that "Joe Biden could cure cancer and Fox News would complain he was putting oncologists out of work."

Indeed. Biden helping working people get back on their feet doesn’t at all help Faux News or the GQP.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who made a run at the presidency as well in 2016. In our original profile, we talked about his background as a career military reservist and lawyer who is always spoiling for a war that he never seems to give much thought as to the why or how it will be fought, just that we should ABSOLUTELY fight it. Sen. Graham also is prolifically paranoid, worrying about terror threats both foreign and domestic, from roaming gangs after a hurricane that would require the citizenry to be armed with automatic weapons, or that every nation in the Middle East from Iran, to Iraq, to Syria has developed a nuclear weapon. He also justifies the permanent detainment of people at Guantanamo Bay based off the precedent set by internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, which is a pretty dark chapter of American history to use as a guideline, while claiming that Hilary Clinton “got away with murder” during the Benghazi attacks, acting like she was in on the attack on her own friend, Ambassador Chris Stevens. Oh, and speaking of his criticism of Hillary Clinton, he tried criticizing her about her usage of an e-mail server by boasting that he had never written an e-mail (because that's exactly the sort of tech-savvy guy that should be president). Oh, and he later compared that to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, because e-mails are like getting a blowie from an intern, apparently.

Anyway, during Graham's run for the presidency in 2016, we covered how he admirably tried defending his amigo, Sen. John McCain's service record to insults from Donald Trump, and for his trouble, he had his cell phone number given out by Trump, publicly. Sen. Graham's response was then to release a campaign video of himself destroying his cell phone with several implements (rather than just get his number changed). Graham has frequently been caught lying about facts surrounding 9/11 to shape immigration policy, and through the presidential debates (at least, the "kid's table" debate he was in because his poll numbers were that awful) continued fear-mongering, using every question about any topic to segue into a discussion of ISIS and declaring, "The world is a battlefield and radical Islam is everywhere." His response to the terror attacks in Paris, was to insist the United States send 10,000 ground troops to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, warning that "there's a 9/11 coming". A short time later, though, after Democrats produced some common sense gun legislation, that anyone who is found to be on a terror watch list during a background check should not be allowed to purchase a firearm or explosives (which they could use to carry out a terror attack)… well, Lindsey Graham loves the Second Amendment way more than he hates terrorism, as he voted against it. On two occasions.

Now, here's the thing about FRED and Lindsey Graham... he’s a lot like his old friend John McCain. By which we mean, he’ll pretend to be far more moderate when he has designs on higher office. Around 2015, we saw that more chill Sen. Graham, who would admist the Republican National Commitee "couldn't run a one-car funeral" after the clusterf*** of a debate plan they had for 2016. Or the time he was speaking before the Republican Jewish Coalition and flat-out admitted that the conservative obsession with being ultra-pro-life was out of hand, because "If you are going to tell a woman who has been raped she has to carry the child of a rapist, you’re losing most Americans." Yeah, that happened. And how surreal was it to see Lindsey Graham of all people defend peaceful Muslims from the sort of ideas Donald Trump was putting forth, and saying, "Leave the faith alone, go after the radicals that kill us all." Who was that man? Where had he been for the past twelve years? He actually compared the options of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz as potential presidential nominees as good of an option as being poisoned or being shot, and by February 2016, he admitted the GOP had gone "bats*** crazy" for voting for Donald Trump, and adding "If you kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you." After Donald Trump started making racist statements towards a federal judge of Mexican descent, Sen. Graham advised his fellow members of the GOP to unendorse him, saying, "if anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it". Sadly, they didn't heed his advice, began saying things about Trump like, "No one knows where the bottom is at." Similarly, we don't know that there's a bottom for how low Lindsey will go.

This pattern continued through 2017, as after Donald Trump continually praised Vladimir Putin, Graham remarked, “This election makes me want to move to Canada.” He responded to Donald Trump’s deranged claims about “widespread voter fraud”, telling the public, “I don’t know what he is talking about. If he has evidence, bring it forward. If he doesn’t, he shouldn’t say things like that. He’s gotta realize he’s just not a normal person anymore. He’s not a billionaire TV star — he’s the president of the United States. His words really resonate.” Sen. Graham chided any of his Republican colleagues who might be defending Russia’s hacking of the DNC or their efforts to interfere in the 2016 elections, saying “you are not a patriot” if you celebrate such a thing. He criticized Trump for making a ridiculous claim that President Obama had done “wire-tapps” to his phones, calling on him to apologize or “his credibility will suffer”. On July 9th, 2017, after Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he’s contemplating a joining cyber-security agency WITH Vladimir Putin and Russia, Graham comments, “It’ s not the dumbest idea, but it’s pretty close.” Graham gave a less than subtle hint to Donald Trump about how to respond to white supremacists carrying out a terror attack in Charlottesville, to “do more” and to make sure to “dissuade these groups that he’s their friend”. He defended bother Robert Mueller and A.G. Jeff Sessions from Trump’s attacks on Twitter.

However… all good things must come to an end. Just when we thought that perhaps Senator Lindsey Graham might be the last Republican with a conscience… well, we got too close to Graham having to defend his U.S. Senate seat in a GOP Primary in a red state like South Carolina in 2020… and his heel turn came due. And when it arrived, it was pretty f***ing hard to miss. It was in the midst of the hearings to confirm Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh that Graham snapped back hard to the right, digging in on conspiracy theories, and defending an admitted drunk and alleged rapist in a near-spittle-projecting tirade playing out across live cable news broadcasts. He blew off protesters trying to relate their own experiences with sexual assault, coldly telling them, “Go to the cops” rather than stop and listen to them.

Since that day, Graham has been relentlessly partisan, and suckling at the teat of Trump whenever possible, because he’s so loyal to his old friend John McCain that he didn’t even let the body get cold before selling out. He’ll argue against gun control, claiming he needs an AR-15 to “fend off looters during a hurricane”, and spending most of the summer of 2019 lying his ass off about the Trump administration’s concentration camps that hold immigrants, saying “I don’t care if they stay for 400 days” (the legal allowed holding time for undocumented immigrants to be held per the law is 90 days) and for whatever reason, he wanted to make it easier for the Trump administration to keep children locked in cages.

[Kirby101]

My Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace in the last five years. My Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned in disgrace in the last five years. My Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin resigned in disgrace in the last five years. Mayor Eric Adams has some weirdness, but he's definitely an improvement over predecessor Bill De Blasio. My junior senator Kirsten Gillibrand's presidential campaign was an an embarrassment. My senior senator Chuck Schumer's accomplishments would be irrelevant in a piece about his bad qualities. Redistricting led to some really vicious Democratic primary campaigns in the New York media market, so that's an easy category to explore.

And I haven't even left my home state yet. There's plenty of material on Biden and Harris, partially because they've been major players in public life for some time.

Are there corrupt Democrats? Sure. Though I would hazard to guess not as many as corrupt Republicans. But my question wasn't about politicians with flaws, as you desperately tried to make it. It was about batshit crazy people that spew nonsense on a daily basis and have taken over your Party. Including the defacto leader. You want to equate Gillibrand with someone like Greene or Boebert? I think you will find your argument an utter and embarrassing failure.

[worstblogever]

Perhaps the most damning description of Lindsey Graham’s political personality has come from former Republican and former campaign manager for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, Steve Schmidt, who called Graham a “pilot fish”.

”The way to understand him is to look at what's consistent. And essentially what he is in American politics is what, in the aquatic world, would be a pilot fish: a smaller fish that hovers around a larger predator, like a shark, living off of its detritus. That's Lindsey. And when he swam around the McCain shark, broadly viewed as a virtuous and good shark, Lindsey took on the patina of virtue. But wherever the apex shark is, you find the Lindsey fish hovering about, and Trump is the newest shark in the sea. Lindsey has a real draw to power — but he's found it unattainable on his own merits.”

The capitulation continued in 2020, as Graham voted against witnesses being allowed in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial”, and then voted to acquit him only days later, in spite of the mountain of evidence showing that he solicited foreign assistance in the 2020 elections. On the fourth day of the impeachment trial, Sen. Graham told reporters that there should be an investigation of HUNTER BIDEN for HIS dealings in Ukraine, instead.


He was genuinely surprised that calling the incoming president to say, “aw shucks, I didn’t mean it” about all the election fraud lies and attacks on Hunter to appease Trump supporter resulted in Joe Biden telling him to pound sand. And, isn’t it just like the pilot fish to try and attach himself to the most powerful guy?

But back to those election fraud lies… on November 6th, 2020: Three days after the presidential election, Lindsey Graham was on Fox News with Sean Hannity and was open to the suggestion that Pennsylvania’s state legislators should ignore the will of the people and just declare Donald Trump the winner of the state’s electoral votes, even though Biden won by over 80,000 votes. On November 9th, 2020: Six days after the presidential election, Graham went back on Fox News to spread further lies about election fraud with Maria Bartiromo, claiming “a lot of shenanigans” happened. Ten days after the election, on November 13th, 2020: Sen. Graham believed his own bulls*** enough to call Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to try to convince him to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential vote there, which ends up putting him under investigation for soliciting a crime.

And therein is where he very much f***ed up. More on that in a minute.

On January 6th, Lindsey Graham was chuffed enough that he called the White House and told them he and several colleagues would be pressing for invoking the 25th Amendment if Donald Trump did not condemn the attackers on the Capitol, and the next day, Graham spoke after the failed coup attempt carried out by domestic terrorists loyal to Donald Trump fizzled out, defended the election results and certification of the electoral college vote, and called for a massive investigative effort to make sure those responsible were all found, prosecuted and held responsible….

Graham is, above all things, a craven little s***. He flipped on everything he said in his Jan. 7th speech and started backpedaling within days of these words leaving his mouth. He was on Twitter arguing against any attempts to impeach Donald Trump for inciting his followers to attack the Capitol and attempt to hang Vice President Mike Pence in a violent coup attempt. By January 17th, 2021, he was trying to lay blame it on Nancy Pelosi for having inadequate security set up around the Capitol (Pelosi of course gets no say into how much of a force the Capitol Police have present). Graham , frothing with rage, was on Fox news in February, threatening Democrats that if they called any witnesses in a second impeachment trial, it will be “opening a Pandora’s box” and he would call witnesses they wouldn’t like as well. Days after he voted to acquit Trump in his second impeachment trial, Graham said the quiet part out loud and told Sean Hannity that “the Republican Party doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell without Donald Trump” in the mid-term elections. He was even willing to give Trump praise on command, immediately giving him a metaphorical tongue bath when asked to assess his golf skills for reporters when Trump dialed him up mid-interview to prove that point.

[worstblogever]

Are there corrupt Democrats? Sure. Though I would hazard to guess not as many as corrupt Republicans. But my question wasn't about politicians with flaws, as you desperately tried to make it. It was about batshit crazy people that spew nonsense on a daily basis and have taken over your Party. Including the defacto leader. You want to equate Gillibrand with someone like Greene or Boebert? I think you will find your argument an utter and embarrassing failure.

Also, if memory serves, I profiled Cuomo and Schneiderman. Benjamin just left office, so that's on the to-do list. Adams, for his "weirdness"... we don't move the goalposts to include mayors, otherwise I'd have to bring up someone like Glenn Jacobs, aka WWE's Kane being a Republican elected, not to mention a slew of people that let people die needless deaths during the pandemic for refusing to put in a mask mandate.

What I'm saying, and have said at length, is "Both sides" is bulls***, and it continues to show that there's not a Republican on this forum willing to put the work in to back up their argument.

So much so that the scales, even with ME PROVIDING SOME EXAMPLES, are like 1131-55, as of today. I spotted the original claimant or anyone who would take up the mantle in their stead 55 profiles, and I go slow by posting "updates" a bunch of days, yet no one ever tried putting up a counter-argument, do to what's easily diagnosed as utter laziness and an inability to use critical thinking skills to admit the facts don't defend their argument.

And when I started? I didn't have this many white nationalists and domestic terrorists to call out in the GOP. They're not just "kinda racist Birther conspiracy theorists" anymore. It's people who literally tried and failed to overthrow the government.

[Mister Mets]

Because qualifying opinions about politics that literally affect people's lives without concern for facts or research is an "online hobby".

That's a pretty big tell about a lack of empathy or concern for your political "hobby", Mets.

This is a comic book message forum.

We are all online hobbyists (perhaps a handful of posters of professional reasons for being here, although they're less likely to post on controversial issues...)

Recognizing this is not a mark of a lack of empathy.

Suggesting that it's wrong to point out that we're online hobbyists is a mark of a lack of perspective.

And if someone is going to use the both sides are just as bad or try to make a point they need to back it up. Pretty much every one on here post and post links with articles and news reports and such.

If a person cant take the time to defend their views and opinion then they should not get upset when some one calls them out.

And it would be overly hard. You used the few well known claim for WBE bashing the GOP profiles. It aint like the Democrats dont have their fair share of well known in the spot light people. So it should be hard to come up with some thing. Yet all the stuff is on the GOP because they are the ones doing the evil vile racist garbage they are known for and love.

But the best the GOP and their cult can do is

"Well Clintons emails, Something something Hunter Biden..."

On this board, we're encouraged to back up what we say with links. And that's fine. It usually doesn't take that long (and if it does it could mean someone's wrong or that once they finish the necessary obscure information, it's a really useful.)

But it's a bad argument and frankly disrespectful to insist that someone undertake a project that is going to be time-consuming.

The only thing that would be proven is that an argument is bad since it could still be possible for there to be enough bad candidates of both parties to continue with daily updates (given the sample pool is any politician on the level of candidate for statewide office or higher), even if one party is still consistently worse.

[Mister Mets]

Unemployment Insurance skips over people who have jobs, but we still have it.

Disaster relief for hurricanes skips over people who don't live in places where that sort of thing happens, but we do that too.

College loans have become more and more predatory as time has gone on, so forgive my inability to care about leopards with no faces to eat.

Unemployment insurance has a clear process. A situation in which people who are unemployed at a particular time get $10,000-$20,000 is a different scenario. There is also the question of whether generous unemployment insurance contributed to the labor shortage.

With hurricanes, the disaster relief is expected. Should students taking out college loans now expect the equivalent of a couple months salary to be forgiven at some point in the future?

I don't quite get the leopard eating party comparison here. The left is in charge of universities.

It's really funny anyone can try to say 'the FreE MArKEt' when cit comes to college costs going up when it is in fact policies introduced by the so-called 'free marketeers' who got us here. The massive defunding of public universities created this. A direct set of ideological choices made out of belief that less people ought to go to university also influenced it.



https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-...ts-to-students

And that's just 2008 to 2018!

The cost of going to college (a separate question from tuition) has risen well in excess of inflation. A big part of the driver is state funding since education subsidies will tend to lead to higher costs. If you want to reduce the costs, colleges and universities need an incentive to be smarter with how they use ridiculously large tuitions.

If you want someone to be able to get a four year degree for $64,000 it has to be possible to have a university where the cost per student is $16,000 a year.

[Kirby101]

And Cuomo did have to resign over sexual harassment allegations. So shall we compare inappropriate touching to the Rapist in Chief or Matt Gaetz who traffics teen girls. "Both Sides!" Sure.

[Mister Mets]

Can someone please explain to me where this so called '300 billion' cost for forgiving up to 20K in student loans is coming from?

Other than people with student loans paying more for credit cards, home loans, and what have you.

It comes from the Wharton school. Where did you get that figure?

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.ed...an-forgiveness

It's actually much higher than three hundred billion.

We estimate that debt cancellation alone will cost up to $519 billion, with about 75% of the benefit accruing to households making $88,000 or less. Loan forbearance will cost another $16 billion. The new income-driven repayment (IDR) program would cost another $70 billion, increasing the total plan cost to $605 billion under strict “static” assumptions. However, depending on future IDR program details to be released and potential behavioral (i.e., “non-static”) changes, total plan costs could exceed $1 trillion.

[Jack Dracula]

It comes from the Wharton school. Where did you get that figure?

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.ed...an-forgiveness

It's actually much higher than three hundred billion.

“Estimate”
“Up to”
“About”
“Assumptions”
“Depending on”
“Could exceed”
Not much definite information here. Just a lot of speculation and big numbers getting thrown around.
Seems like a report designed as a prop for those against the program to use in their arguments.