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

[worstblogever]

Just… we’re going to start with a timeline for what’s left:

• February 25th, 2021: Sen. Graham argues with the CEO of Costco about why he would pay his employees more than the current minimum wage of $7.25 and seems generally baffled about why paying employees an actual livable wage would instill loyalty and productivity from them.
• March 6th, 2021: Lindsey Graham votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he can’t be bothered to care if people need financial assistance during a pandemic.
• March 28th, 2021: Graham goes on Fox News with Chris Wallace, and begins claiming gangs would come to his house last while looting during a natural disaster because they would know he owns an AR-15.
• April 25th, 2021: Lindsey Graham claims there is no problem with systematic racism in the United States, arguing that it’s not there because Kamala Harris is currently the vice-president.
• May 7th, 2021: Sen. Graham goes on Fox News (again) to throw Congresswoman Liz Cheney under the bus for failing to adequately support Donald Trump after he incited a mob to attack their workplace.
• June 9th, 2021: Graham goes on Fox News to try to spread the conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was deliberately released by China after being created in a lab, and that if that’s the case, it would somehow remove all blame from Donald Trump for his terrible Covid-19 response over the last year of his presidency.
• July 16th, 2021: Lindsey Graham puts out one of the dumbest posts on Twitter of the month, claiming that he was willing to “go to war” in defense of… Chik-Fil-A.
• July 27th, 2021: Sen. Graham goes on Fox News and claims that crime rates were down because gun control was not as strict, and ownership had gone up. Former Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele fact-checked him, pointing out the murder rate in South Carolina had gone up 25% in the past year.
• August 10th, 2021: Lindsey Graham votes against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• October 5th, 2021: Sen. Graham meets with Republicans back home in South Carolina, and after encouraging them to get the Covid-19 vaccine, is raucously booed.
• December 14th, 2021: Graham votes against raising the debt ceiling, jeopardizing the United States’ credit rating.
• January 6th, 2022: President Biden makes remarks on the anniversary of January 6th about the lives lost that day, and Lindsey Graham dares to respond by claiming Biden was “politicizing” the violence of that day.
• February 2nd, 2022: At one of Donald Trump’s hate rallies, he floats the idea of pardoning all of the attackers from January 6th, a move that Graham responds with an understatement by calling it “inappropriate”. Trump then gets on social media to rail against Graham, and declares that he’s a “RINO”. Y’know, for not being willing to defend open sedition and an attack by domestic terrorists to go without consequences.
• February 28th, 2022: Sen. Graham votes against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have established a right to physicians to perform abortions to save their patients’ lives.
• March 4th, 2022: Lindsey Graham starts opening calling for someone, anyone, in Russia to assassinate Vladimir Putin, who yes, while an evil bastard, YOU DON’T CALL FOR THE ASSASSINATION OF FOREIGN LEADERS.
• March 30th, 2022: Graham votes against putting the extremely qualified nominee, Judge Kentanji Brown-Jackson, onto the Supreme Court. This after he spent her confirmation hearings berating her and interrupting her answers to questions with more questions (seemingly just looking for “revenge” for how the Kavanaugh hearings went).
• May 26th, 2022: Sen. Graham votes against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022, because at this point, domestic terror is a policy plank of authoritarian Republicans.
• August 8th, 2022: Sen. Graham is reprimanded by the Senate for directly impugning a colleague, Sen. Maggie Hassan, calling her “deceitful” and “dishonest” during debate.

Due to Lindsey Graham winning re-election in 2020, we had thought he would remain in office theoretically until at least 2026. But then again, he’s currently getting raked over the coals for having interefered with Georgia’s counting of votes in the 2020 election, and while he was trying to pretend his phone calls to pressure officials to declare Trump won Georgia were in his official duties as a Senator, the judge in the case ain’t having that nonsense, and made him honor a subpoena. We don’t know how exactly this plot thread from the 2020 election gets tied up, but if it trips up Graham enough to put him in jail, we’d be elated.

[numberthirty]

“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.

Someone probably could have said the exact same thing about the folks saying that inflation would not be transitory.

I'm not saying that piece is not bunk, but it is also not exactly a hit piece.

[The Cool Thatguy]

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.

There any breakdown of it, any cliff notes?

I'm just trying to understand how forgiving debt, which is actually just insane interest rates, is going to cost anyone, anything.

[worstblogever]

There any breakdown of it, any cliff notes?

I'm just trying to understand how forgiving debt, which is actually just insane interest rates, is going to cost anyone, anything.

Here's a bunch of details relevant to the debtors, and how good it is for them:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/more...ness-plan.html

Forbes has a decent breakdown and analysis:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/perso...n-forgiveness/

[Tami]

Here's a bunch of details relevant to the debtors, and how good it is for them:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/more...ness-plan.html

Forbes has a decent breakdown and analysis:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/perso...n-forgiveness/

I think I've come up with a rough idea of a possibly better way to deal with the high cost of education:

1. Address the issues surrounding the cost of higher education, can they be lowered? Should they be lowered? Can it be done without sacrificing quality or resources such as libraries, lab equipment, and so on? Is this a poor management issue? Or are there other causes?

2. Address the need to support alternatives to expensive College/University education. Vocational/Technical, Mentorships, Community Colleges, specialized schools like those for Nursing, and so on.

3. Finally, my big idea:

When students apply for college, they are told the costs upfront. Then they are given these options -

1. Don't pay tuition now, but sign off on having a certain percentage of their income taxed as an education repayment tax. It would be calculated based on their current income and would end once they have cleared the repayment amount. (No interest)

2. Pay in towards the cost of the tuition, reducing the amount and reducing how much they would have to pay back. Then see #1 for the rest.

3. Self-finance through loans (unwise but if that is what they want to do....) (Possibly tied into #2)

4. Payback, not in money, but in after graduation work (Community service, working for the Govt, working for the College/University, joining the Military, or something similar)

[Tami]

[Mister Mets]

I think I've come up with a rough idea of a possibly better way to deal with the high cost of education:

1. Address the issues surrounding the cost of higher education, can they be lowered? Should they be lowered? Can it be done without sacrificing quality or resources such as libraries, lab equipment, and so on? Is this a poor management issue? Or are there other causes?

2. Address the need to support alternatives to expensive College/University education. Vocational/Technical, Mentorships, Community Colleges, specialized schools like those for Nursing, and so on.

3. Finally, my big idea:

When students apply for college, they are told the costs upfront. Then they are given these options -

1. Don't pay tuition now, but sign off on having a certain percentage of their income taxed as an education repayment tax. It would be calculated based on their current income and would end once they have cleared the repayment amount. (No interest)

2. Pay in towards the cost of the tuition, reducing the amount and reducing how much they would have to pay back. Then see #1 for the rest.

3. Self-finance through loans (unwise but if that is what they want to do....) (Possibly tied into #2)

4. Payback, not in money, but in after graduation work (Community service, working for the Govt, working for the College/University, joining the Military, or something similar)

With #1, what exactly is the government's role in this?

Spending isn't a binary where the only choices are that it's obviously essential or obviously wasteful. There are things that are defensible, but shouldn't be mandatory.

Should the government make it illegal to have a fancy student activities center? Should they provide some kind of bare minimum alternative?

I certainly agree with #2. We should have more of these alternatives available and look into reducing requirements that job applicants have college degrees.

With #3, there is a potential perverse incentive here. It's a much better deal for colleges that have law schools, since those students would be expected to make more money, and it rewards colleges for discouraging students from going in to less financially rewarding work (IE- public defense, government.) Law schools are going to want students who will get paid a lot of money to call Harvey Weinstein's accusers liars rather than anyone who might work for the Legal Aid society.

[Tami]

With #1, what exactly is the government's role in this?

Spending isn't a binary where the only choices are that it's obviously essential or obviously wasteful. There are things that are defensible, but shouldn't be mandatory.

Should the government make it illegal to have a fancy student activities center? Should they provide some kind of bare minimum alternative?

I certainly agree with #2. We should have more of these alternatives available and look into reducing requirements that job applicants have college degrees.

With #3, there is a potential perverse incentive here. It's a much better deal for colleges that have law schools, since those students would be expected to make more money, and it rewards colleges for discouraging students from going in to less financially rewarding work (IE- public defense, government.) Law schools are going to want students who will get paid a lot of money to call Harvey Weinstein's accusers liars rather than anyone who might work for the Legal Aid society.

I work for a law firm, I'm married to a retired lawyer, and not all lawyers make big bucks.

I assume you are referring to Top 1 (I should have done a better job separating the top points from the bottom ones). Universities that can attract wealthy families, students who have the money to pay their own way through school, families that can afford to make big cash donations to the schools, can afford extras. Mismanagement does happen, money that should be spent in one area might be spent on something that has no value as far as a student's education. Auditing schools (financial audits) every so often might not be such a bad idea. Especially if the school is at least partly funded by taxpayers.

It's not a matter of making anything illegal, as much as it is a matter of fiscal responsibility and accountability so that a student who either pays now or later is getting as good an education as possible for it.

[Tami]

Peltola’s lead widens in U.S. House race with another batch of first-place votes counted

Democrat Mary Peltola is slowly widening her lead over Republican Sarah Palin in the special election for U.S. House as new vote totals are released.

The Division of Elections released an update late Friday with an additional 12,400 votes counted since Tuesday. Peltola increased her lead from 7.5% to more than 8.5%. She now holds 39.6% of the vote. Palin has 31% and Republican Nick Begich follows with 27.8%.

The additional votes counted include early, absentee and questioned ballots from multiple districts.

In this ranked choice election, the candidate with the least first-place votes will be eliminated first. Their ballots will be redistributed according to the voter’s second choice. The division won’t begin ranking candidates until Aug. 31, the deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive.

The winner of this election will serve the remainder of the late Congressman Don Young’s term until January.

[Zauriel]

I

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.

Illinois has more corrupt politicians than New York. Four Illinois governors were convicted and went to prison. Three of them were democrats. Strangely, I can't think of any Repulican governor of Illinois aside from George Ryan who was caught breaking any laws.

Otto Kerner Jr.
Dan Walker
George Ryan
Rod Blagojevich

[Kirby101]

Illinois has more corrupt politicians than New York. Four Illinois governors were convicted and went to prison. Three of them were democrats. Strangely, I can't think of any Repulican governor of Illinois aside from George Ryan who was caught breaking any laws.

Otto Kerner Jr.
Dan Walker
George Ryan
Rod Blagojevich

Probably because more Democrats have been elected Gov in that State, which has a long history of corruption. On the Republican side, you have child rapist and GOP leader Bennis Haskert.
But again, not about corruption, about batshit crazy idiots who do nothing but spew ignorant and dangerous bullshit.

[Kirby101]

Wow Tami, the Times is on the same page as me. Who'd a thought?

The CIA sent a top-secret cable warning agents that too many informants were getting killed or turned into double agents, report says
https://www.***************.com/cia-...t-2021-10?op=1

And Trump had documents with the names of assets according to the affidavit.

That we can believe they are connected is in itself troublesome.

[WAKANDA FOREVER!]

Nothing to see here

[Mister Mets]

I work for a law firm, I'm married to a retired lawyer, and not all lawyers make big bucks.

I assume you are referring to Top 1 (I should have done a better job separating the top points from the bottom ones). Universities that can attract wealthy families, students who have the money to pay their own way through school, families that can afford to make big cash donations to the schools, can afford extras. Mismanagement does happen, money that should be spent in one area might be spent on something that has no value as far as a student's education. Auditing schools (financial audits) every so often might not be such a bad idea. Especially if the school is at least partly funded by taxpayers.

It's not a matter of making anything illegal, as much as it is a matter of fiscal responsibility and accountability so that a student who either pays now or later is getting as good an education as possible for it.

Yeah, I was referring to Top 1.

I would agree with detailed audits of any school that receives a penny of local, state or federal funding.

I know it seems obvious that there will still be expensive private colleges if students are willing to pay for those bells and whistles, but some of the arguments about university spending suggest all expenses should be taken care of by the government. In that case, the main way to keep costs down is to ban things that are too expensive.

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.

The mayor of New York City doesn't count? He beat out a recent cabinet member in the primary.

As a general rule it would seem that anyone in elected office who has more constituents than a congressional district is eligible (this would include prosecutors, city managers, county executives, etc.) as is any legislator who has more constituents than a typical comparable state legislator (so New York City council members should count as those districts are larger than state assembly districts.)

Illinois has more corrupt politicians than New York. Four Illinois governors were convicted and went to prison. Three of them were democrats. Strangely, I can't think of any Repulican governor of Illinois aside from George Ryan who was caught breaking any laws.

Otto Kerner Jr.
Dan Walker
George Ryan
Rod Blagojevich

California would also be a target rich environment.

[Tami]

Yeah, I was referring to Top 1.

I would agree with detailed audits of any school that receives a penny of local, state or federal funding.

I know it seems obvious that there will still be expensive private colleges if students are willing to pay for those bells and whistles, but some of the arguments about university spending suggest all expenses should be taken care of by the government. In that case, the main way to keep costs down is to ban things that are too expensive.



The mayor of New York City doesn't count? He beat out a recent cabinet member in the primary.

As a general rule it would seem that anyone in elected office who has more constituents than a congressional district is eligible (this would include prosecutors, city managers, county executives, etc.) as is any legislator who has more constituents than a typical comparable state legislator (so New York City council members should count as those districts are larger than state assembly districts.)

California would also be a target rich environment.

As long as we are clear, Banning things is your idea, not mine.

The Government has the EPA to monitor the environment, the CDC to deal with medical issues, OSHA to look after worker safety, no reason why the government can't monitor the education system to make sure that everyone gets a fair and solid education.