look at this asshole being like franklin roosevelt, the beloved titan of the twentieth century. cool stuff. https://t.co/82qyvrmKkI
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) November 18, 2021
if you think they were “hidden” yr not doing this right https://t.co/ygXpGDZpZa
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) November 17, 2021
the framing of this article is fucking trash, but as someone who constantly complains about "democratic messaging", i want to congratulate every dem in this story who was like "fuck yeah we're spending money on this shit, it kicks ass" https://t.co/kDyGEGgNpY
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) November 17, 2021
Imagine, helping women — Black women — have healthy pregnancies and strong babies!…
lol categorizing doulas as wasteful spending is def gonna appeal to lots of moms in the suburbs lollol
— Avi Bueno (@Avi_Bueno) November 17, 2021
"Look at all these good things that will improve people's lives and make progress on environmental issues tucked away in the BBB" is also a way to talk about the programs. Anyway, I think we've cracked the mystery of why Democrats aren't too popular these days.
— Stephen Holt (@SteveBHolt) November 18, 2021
Trees are for deserving gated communities, dammit, not tenement-dwelling urbanites!
Tree policy is public health policy. This makes perfect sense.
Trees are good: they can mitigate flooding damage by absorbing water through their roots, and holding water in their leaves. Canopies keep ambient air temps cooler. Greenspaces correlate with better mental health. https://t.co/eoil9oxLiU
— Chairman Birb Bernanke (??, ??) (@Bonecondor) November 17, 2021
troglodytes hunting for headlines about pork barrel items are going to do a better job selling the finer, very based points of BBB/BIF than Dems ever will.
— zeddy (@Zeddary) November 17, 2021
Tony Gerace
The New York Times has a new motto: “Almost as bad as NewsMax”
dm
Looks like a bunch of twits read other twits about the article instead of reading the article, which is a list of explanations for why each measure outlined is not weird and is a good idea. They don’t even waste time on Republican bullshit.
lollipopguild
You are going to plant trees and help pregnant moms? “You filthy animals!”
Arclite
We Dems truly do suck at messaging. “Defund the police,” how did we think that was going to go? I even find “Build back better” pretty confusing, even while agreeing with all of the policy changes and thinking we didn’t go far enough. But the message itself is so amorphous as to be meaningless.
quakerinabasement
Aw, hekk! Let’s start putting the word “equity” on everything! It seems to make the Repubbies itch all over.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Arclite: one the one hand, I hear you. On the other: How complicated is “universal pre-K” and “financial assistance for child care”. I don’t even have any kids and I can’t figure out how these issues don’t scare the hell out of Republicans.
Environmental issues are more complicated. People say they care, but they don’t vote that way.
I think it’s less that “Dems suck at messaging” as much as “people don’t vote on the issues they say they care about”. You can’t message down gas prices.
The horses are led to the water, they just don’t drink
James E Powell
@Arclite:
Kinda wondering where you got the idea that “defund the police” was a Democratic message.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Those things do scare the hell out of Republicans. That’s exactly why they’re hunting through the fine print of BBB looking for anything they can demonize. They are desperately trying to steer the conversation away from the headline stuff everyone likes.
Major Major Major Major
It’ll be a good bill, mostly, but what I’m really looking forward to is my friends and family getting big tax breaks on their million+ dollar houses in the Bay Area.
trollhattan
We are doing literally that in the metroplex, where “City of Trees” is targeting poor neighborhoods, which have demonstrably few shade trees, for tree-planting efforts. As y’all already know, not only do trees (mature, shade type) greatly reduce heat loading in summer, they scrub airborne pollutants.
They should have made it $5 billion, not a pipsqueak $2.5.
Yutsano
@Arclite: I mean…you’re allowed to be pre-disappointed. But if Jayapal is over the moon at what we’re getting now with eyeballs on making improvements, then I’ll go with that. Let’s see what passes first.
Mousebumples
Anyone have a good link to a summary of what’s in here?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mousebumples: This is why Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, and people like Jayapal didn’t seem overly worried about the CBO scoring.
Jeffro
@Mousebumples: This is the #1 thing we should beat them (the Rs) over the head with: “This bill actually SAVES the U.S. money, you nitwits”
It’ll be a tough uphill slog, though. Even the “liberal” WaPo is calling it a $2T “spending” bill, not, you know, a bill full of long-overdue changes that will actually save the country money.
Betty
@Major Major Major Major: My understanding is that the Senate is cutting that back. SALT will have a dollar limit.
Cameron
Wow. Planting trees in urban areas to reduce the ‘heat island’ effect? I actually heard of that….in 1995. And the concept is a mystery to Our Liberal Media?
Betty
@Mousebumples: I have read that that is a low estimate and disappointing to Democrats. Even Larry Summers came out saying the revenue would be higher.
Jeffro
Looks like trumpov jumped in and endorsed Gosar for re-election. Dems are responding in the right way: by pointing out that in no workplace in America would Gosar’s actions be ok, and more broadly, that the entire GOP is turning pro-violence right in front of our eyes.
Don’t write 2022 off just yet, snooze media!
Woodrow/asim
Still waiting for you “this slogan sux” folx to go talk to the Black and Brown BLM activists — the ones working for years to keep blood (including, yeah, my blood) off the damn streets — and tell them, to their face, they came up with a bad slogan.
I mean, folx like you have been harping on this for over a year, now. Surely to goodness, if it’s this horrific, you have a plan for ensuing the people who created this slogan don’t harm tender ears any further than they already have, won’t harm Progressive interests any more than you claim their sloganeering did — right?
Yutsano
@Betty: Give my agency the money. We’ll definitely show how much of a lowball that is. I’d jump back to enforcement for that kind of money. Hell there better be money in there for the customer service side too.
Benw
Fuck Lindsey Graham. Barack Obama is 100x the person he is, and they both know it.
JustRuss
@Cameron: I like how FTFNYT cherry-picked the term “tree equity” to describe that, cuz it does sound kinda twee and new-agey. I can’t blame the Republicans for doing that, it’s what they do, but does the effing Times have to let the Republicans spoon-feed them talking-points?
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro: McQarthy admitted to a reporter that TFG called him this morning from the golf course. But it had nothing to do with Gosar, nothing! They’re just good friends!
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: Did we ever find out if this was just fixing Trump’s “fuck the blue states SALT taxes” thing, or does it go beyond undoing his new tax?
Major Major Major Major
@Woodrow/asim:
If these activists’ slogans were representative of what the black community wanted, wouldn’t “defunding the police” poll higher than 28% with black Americans?
The same poll finds much higher black support for “redirecting funding…”
It’s a bad slogan!
Kent
Of all the egregious dumfuckery. Tree equity isn’t about being fair to trees. It is about giving poor neighborhoods and streets the same degree of parks, greenspace, and tree cover as rich neighborhoods already have https://www.treeequityscore.org/map/#3.9/38.89/-97.56
Darkrose
@Woodrow/asim:
10 years ago today, out-of-control cops on the UC Davis campus pepper-sprayed a bunch of students. One of the recommendations from the Campus Safety Oversight Committee that has been implemented is described as follows:
So this is “defunding the police”: taking money that would normally go to more uniformed cops and using it to re-imagine campus safety. I actually like that they used the term, and then detailed what’s involved.
Woodrow/asim
My comment didn’t say “go talk to the Black community.” I was specific and direct in whom I said needed to be engaged.
We who are Black, are not a monolith.
The slogan came from those activists — people who I suspect a lot of the critics can’t even name, much less know how to connect with to have a discussion. It’s, honestly, not to dissimilar in effect – if not intent — from the GOP effort to label everything we Progressives do as animated by “The Squad,” which we know is rooted in a toxic effort to make us all look like extremists.
If people don’t like “Defund the Police”, trying to lay the blame for it on “Dems” is reductive and unhelpful at best. At worst, it elides how the Progressive community can’t really engage the Black folx who oft-animate it as a political force directly, and I’m not here for that.
If you — or anyone — want to say those activists were wrong, then state that, so we can have that discussion/debate. Otherwise, what’s the damn purpose of bringing this up, over and again?
If you have beef with a part of a community, and you feel the need to drag this out, then maybe you should go squash it with the people directly, not keep pushing this narrative out on comment sections, like a dead black horse.
SiubhanDuinne
It’s so adorable how Lindsey thinks this sounds like a bad thing.
Benw
@Woodrow/asim: defund the police is one of those concepts that come from the ground level organizers that scare the shit out of a lot of people. If the police’s reaction to the BLM protests in the wake of defund the police was any indicator, it scared the shit out of the cops.
Darkrose
@JustRuss: It’s a very important concept. I’m teaching a First Year Seminar about connecting science–specifically chemistry and biology–to real-world issues. We discussed tree equity in the module on phytoremediation and environmental justice. This video has a great explanation of tree equity and why it’s important:
https://youtu.be/QFrJT8d7V_w
Biden talked about making environmental justice a key part of mitigating climate change, so I’m thrilled that the BBB includes funding for tree equity.
Starfish
@Woodrow/asim: Someone is on this nonsense today?
Today, the day when students were protesting in the capital of Oklahoma, so the governor would not kill Julius Jones?
Today, the day after a Louisiana man was paroled after 57 years?
Today, the day after the two men who were in prison for murdering Malcolm X were exonerated?
Dan B
@Woodrow/asim: The candidates I liked in the Seattle election were pummeled with defund the police quotes. They all lost. Now we’ve got a corporate incumbent mayor. I understand that it is part of a plan that makes the city safer but a lot of people believe it would not
My black neighbors are afraid to go to whiter neighborhoods. It socks.
sab
@quakerinabasement: In accounting positive “equity ” is when your assets are more than your liabilities. We can’t have that, can we. Tsk, tsk.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This reminds me of when McCain was campaigning against earmarks and they sent Sarah Palin out to squawk a few buzzwords including “research into fruit flies in Paris, France! I kid you not!” All her squeaky upper midwest screech hitting the As in Paris France! hard. That research was human genome project, which IANM mistaken was essential to the development of mRNA vaccines.
I remember Weissman from the days when he was at The washington Post and they did those on-line Q&As. He was very combative.
sab
@Major Major Major Major: My brother’s million dollar house in Marin County is about half the size of my $100,000 house in Ohio, and my lot is a lot bigger.
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: I think it’s just a partial “undoing” of Trump’s single, accidentally good policy. Not that one really “undoes” a four year old tax hike—this is a tax cut!
ETA (I’ve been tuning out the drama until we have final language so I don’t actually know where this policy stands.)
topclimber
@SiubhanDuinne: Lindsey Graham is trying to be…WTF.
Woodrow/asim
Y’all. Y’ALL.
I appreciate the commentary, pro and con, about the term.
And yet: I asked/made a very specific point. I don’t care to get shifted off it, into a broader conversation on, as I said, the “dead black horse” that is the “is ‘Defund the Police’ a good/bad turn of phrase?” topic.
I cannot, of course, make anyone post, or not. Just saying what my boundaries are — and the fact that I’m planning to go eat dinner, soon. :)
Major Major Major Major
@sab: and my SIL has a $1.5m tract house in SJ, another couple a $1m 1br in the castro. These are all choices they’ve made! Nobody’s forcing them to live there (or stuff their garages full of Teslas).
WaterGirl
@Benw: Just 100? :-)
Mike in NC
Glanced at Marc Thiessen’s latest turd in the Post, where he claims Kamala Harris is the worst VP in 50 years. I guess that’s to be expected coming from a right-wing hack. As usual, the comments in response are brutal. He seems to be a glutton for punishment.
eclare
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s like when some GQPer referred to Joe as Mr. Rodgers, and intended it as an insult. These people are deeply damaged, and I use the word people loosely.
Edmund Dantes
@Arclite: defund the police was never a Democratic Party message. It came from activists that had been fighting for decades and decades of “reform reform” that has done nothing to improve cop violence against minorities. Build back better is actual slogan from the democratic consultant groups paid the big bucks. .
Dan B
@Major Major Major Major: Our 1500 square foot house in a neighborhood with no sidewalks, oh… they put in an asphalt strip years after all the kids grew up… is valued at $700 K. My old house on fashionable Capitol Hill has 1 1/2 baths and three bedrooms on a 3,000 square foot lot. It’s valued at $1.5 million. I bought it in the Boeing bust for $40K. The mind boggles.
Darkrose
@Major Major Major Major:
A single online sample of 1,165 Americans is not nearly enough data to support your claim. It’s also worth noting this part of the article:
Again, it’s a very small sample size, but my takeaway is that regardless of what you call it, the majority of white people in this survey don’t want any changes to police funding. Even if you call it “Reforming” or “Restructuring” or “Reimagining” the police, a majorty of white folks think everything’s fine the way it is. The problem isn’t the slogan. The problem is racism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Idaho is not the Upper Midwest. We have enough issues without you trying to tie La Palin to us.
Eolirin
@Major Major Major Major: I’m not sure lowering SALT as much as it was was actually good policy, even if it getting raised too much is also not great. We don’t want to discourage states from having higher tax rates and providing their own services. There’s far more room for states to act on providing those services than our frequently paralyzed national government.
Major Major Major Major
@Dan B: sounds like we’re talking about areas in dire need of new housing! Somebody should get on that
Sure Lurkalot
In the beforetimes the government subsidized lots of purchasing…car loan and credit card interest was deductible if you itemized. Good times.
As for “defund”, it is seems that the Republicans’ “defund social security and Medicare”, while a fool’s errand, does not garner the same outrage as “defund the police”. Even “defund the military” doesn’t.
Dan B
@Darkrose: Preach it!
This is part of the reason I’m not going to my partner’s Fox-ified siblings Thanksgiving. I did it when his parents were alive and even tried to smile when they gave us an Obama Chia Pet.
Vile.
Benw
@WaterGirl: I didn’t want to really wind up all those big Lindsey Graham fans on the site… :)
CarolPW
@Woodrow/asim: This is an amazing comment and I very much appreciate it.
Dan B
@Major Major Major Major: There are vacant lots in SE Seattle. Developers are not interested in majority minority neighborhoods. The incoming black and Asian mayor is developer friendly and will not encourage them to build more. He’s unlikely to push for more dense or multi family housing in the large tracts of single family, mostly white, housing.
different-church-lady
GOP: “It’s ridiculous to talk about tree inequity when we should be doing something to preserve economic inequity!”
different-church-lady
@Woodrow/asim:
Screw it, let’s have Keith Ellison do it.
Martin
@Woodrow/asim: I think we’re giving too much credit to the wrong place here. ‘Defund the police’ is a term that goes back to the 19th century. It’s not some new invention. That also doesn’t mean its a marketable term today, but it’s very likely it was advanced from a historical understanding of the movement and not how it would play politically with the public.
And it’s a term that has somewhat different understandings in different communities. The expression that is given to it most often that I see was the rise of EMTs out of an effort by volunteer black doctors to provide basic transportation services to the black community. That used to be the job for the police, which the police refused to do particularly (but far from exclusively) in the south. So, they responded to the call instead, argued for a professional first responder role for medical issues, and when they actually got the political opportunity to make it real, funded it either independently of the police (out of a larger public safety budget, essentially taking funds from the police) or as part of firefighting because they would at least show up when called.
I agree it’s bad messaging but that’s also because the GOP was not about to yield an inch on whether the underlying idea was a valid one or not – it was just reflexive political messaging and they successfully defined the term as ‘lets not have any cops’ because of course a bunch of racist Fox News viewers will believe that’s what black people want. To some degree you can’t control for this. It’s the same kind of dynamic that produced death panels and all that shit. You can’t always protect against crazy.
WaterGirl
@CarolPW: Agree! I appreciate pretty much everything Woodrow/asim writes.
different-church-lady
Why does all this remind me of the endless arguments about whether Occupy actually accomplished anything?
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Self reinforcing cycle. Protect people from growing tax liabilities on the micro level and you get rising property values on the macro level. I mean, nobody wants to kick grandma out of her $2M house because she can’t afford the tax bill, but how the fuck are housing prices ever going to go down if nobody ever has to sell.
I mean, there are only two ways to make money in real estate – build more houses, or refuse to build more houses. Which one you pick is determined by whether you already own or not.
One of the things that really chafes for me are the SF liberals that get really serious cases of FYIGM once they rack up a bunch of equity and then do the same sort of mental bullshit that republicans do to justify that it’s really for the best, which is why opposing new housing projects because ‘it will cast as shadow on the elementary school part of the day, and kids need their vitamin D’ sounds like hippy bullshit, but it’s really protect my equity bullshit dressed up as hippy bullshit.
It’s astonishing how much more credibility you get when can walk into a city council meeting and say ‘I’m a city homeowner and I want you to build more low income housing and shelters’. They literally never see that. The only people that ever advocate for more housing units are people that don’t own. Political affiliation doesn’t even show up as a variable
I’ll add – you know how you start to get homeowners to advocate for housing construction – have them face the prospect of grandma getting kicked out of her $2M house because she can’t cover the tax liability and then have no affordable housing stock in the city for them to move into instead. I mean, yeah, boo-ya for hitting the $2M lottery, but there needs to be some countervailing force or it just spirals out of hand.
Major Major Major Major
@Dan B: yeah zoning reform is really where it’s at, and removing some of the more obnoxious barriers like CEQA abuse (in California) and excessive stakeholder review more generally.
Zoning reform is easier said than done, of course. California finally got some done, thanks to the tireless efforts of my old state Senator, which is likely to be a big deal. As @Martin explained well it is of course a thorny issue with a lot of good and bad faith flying around. Which is where state governments need to step in.
I forget if it was SF or NYC, but somebody was arguing against an affordable project because it would ruin the view from a cemetery. And the progressive Dean Preston in SF just killed (I think?) an affordable project because it would make it harder to park at Nordstrom.
Woodrow/asim
That one can point back to DeBois’ “abolition-democracy” concept of the early 20th Century, among points, doesn’t derail the fact that Black and Brown activists pushed the phrase into the 21st century public sphere. That’s clearly the situation at play, at this juncture, and I want to get that air cleared.
Nor am I invested in a discussion — much less debate — about the nuance of how the term plays out, at this time. In part, that’s because those who defame this term’s usage, certainly could give less than a damn about nuance. Moreover: that’s orthogonal to my main point, and leans into exactly the points I said I would not engage as they distract from the concerns I’m raising.
Again, I made a very specific statement. As a concession to this historical point, I will restate: of those who dislike this term, who’s willing to engage the activists who made the modern usage a thing we’re all aware of, and tell them directly this phrase is bunk?
Major Major Major Major
@Woodrow/asim: I’ve talked to activists about it, dunno if they’re the nameless ones you’re talking about. Usually goes about as well as this conversation.
MisterForkbeard
@Mike in NC: There’s a fairly concerted effort to paint her as awful for…. some reason. Not anything to do with her skin color, oh no.
She’s a pretty good VP that could probably be used a little better. But she’s front and center with Biden most of the time and is clearly involved in his decision-making process. I DO know that the far-left knives are back out for her now, and I suspect it’s getting pushed by far-right propaganda that she “protects cops” “hates minorities and the poor” and “is corporate”, because I keep seeing this pop up in a lot of places that should know better.
Cameron
@MisterForkbeard: Mr. Thiessen seems to have missed The Dan Quayle Years. Dan impressed me so much that I plotted a couple episodes for an action series to be titled “Dan Quayle, USVP.” Whatever flaws the current Vice President may have, I’m sure she knows how to spell ‘potato.’
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: I mean, abolishing R1 in CA is a pretty big fucking deal. We’ll have to see how this actually plays out, as there will be a LOT of court visits, but it’s a good step. Shame it had to come to this. I think the folks that moved heaven and earth to block various projects come out worse off here than if they had accepted less radical solutions.
Geminid
@Woodrow/asim: I wouldn’t tell the activists the phrase is bunk. It’s a valid response to repressive policing in their communities that they’ve seen with their own eyes, and experienced with their own bodies. And they did not try to turn it into a slogan for the Democratic party. Repubicans did.
Brachiator
@Martin:
You are joking, right? This is the kind of thing I heard years ago during the California Prop 13 debates when some supposed progressives declared that older homeowners had a duty to sell their homes so that younger people could buy them. But this was not going to make homes more affordable.
San Francisco is a small city and land will always be valuable. It’s also why you will never have affordable housing in Malibu or Laguna Nigel. In San Francisco and surrounding area the high income of tech workers as well as city zoning policies will almost always work against public housing. Hell, in much of California we would rather have homeless people piss in front of us on the sidewalk rather than build affordable housing.
The city of Pasadena has decided to become an at minimum upper middle class city as low income people are pushed out. Commercial real estate prices are still high and there are many new proposals for pricey mixed use residential and commercial buildings even though there are tons of empty storefronts.
East of Old Town Pasadena is a big piece of land including a big, closed down Avon building. This could have been a great site for some affordable housing. It is not in the middle of any exclusive upscale homes and it is convenient to the Gold Line rail station. Instead I think it is going to become a Home Depot center.
Kropacetic
@Woodrow/asim: Anyone who hates that phrase enough to persist in attacking activists should find an alternative slogan that clearly states the need for reform and make it stick.
Why are Democrats always judged by their “craziest” activists no matter what they do while Republicans are judged by their highest theoretical ideals no matter what they do?
Woodrow/asim
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve asked this question on here a few times. This is the 1st time someone has said yes.
Major^4, really, I’m not looking to start a scrum! I am saying that this drumbeat made, and continues, to make me highly uncomfortable. I really hope I don’t have to explain why; I will say that there are other topics that pint my buttons, this is just one I feel competent in discussing in some depth.
I’ve said other things about this topic, basically aligning to how WaterGirl has aligned groups like Four Directions to this community. I jettisoned those points, this time ’round, to just make the core point that maybe some cross-dialogue is more crucial than another round of messaging that aligns outside the groups who drove this term into mainstream discussion.
I’m not claiming, here, to be all-knowing. I acknowledge you answered the question. I am saying that this whole-assed “debate” feels really problematic.
I hope people set aside their desire to solve the phrase, and hear me when I say the way the criticism keeps rising here — and elsewhere — makes my hair stand on end, every time it comes up.
I wish I could, at a minimum, ignore it. You’ll never know how my stomach twists in knots, when I write about this. Yet my lived experience screams that I need to speak up, and to try to be direct in my concerns. Sometimes I’ve been harsh in that, I’m trying like hell not to do that, this time.
I hope people hear what I’m saying, and that I’m trying to say it in as constructive a way, as possible.
(Still not debating the term’s connotations or denotations, FYI. This is just about how it gets deployed.)
Brachiator
@Edmund Dantes:
I don’t think that Build Back Better is all that hot, but I won’t waste even a nanosecond arguing about it.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: it’s not great but it’s also hard to demagogue, so there’s that.
@Woodrow/asim: yeah, obviously there’s a lot of history and it’s a complicated situation, but at least from where I sat last year it swept through the progressive memeosphere very quickly and was not, by then, a slogan that reactionaries plucked from obscurity to strawman.
I don’t really feel like rehashing it either tbh. I do regret wading in today. But I’m glad we were able to engage civilly!
Brachiator
@Arclite:
BBB is just the umbrella term for a group of easily understandable spending policies. I don’t think this is hard to comprehend, just as the GOP has no problem attacking it.
Geminid
@Brachiator: Well, whatever it’s called, I think this bill will be voted on tonight, maybe right now. I wish I had C-Span but I don’t. Does anyone know someone who tweets about stuff like this real time? I know there are a few but I forget who.
Another Scott
@Geminid:
https://twitter.com/cspan is the horse’s mouth.
McCarthy is speaking at the moment. The chyron says the vote is expected to start at 9 PM.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Biden should have called it: The Big Fucking New Deal
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“Jim, how can you say AOC is a delusional narcissist?”
Another Scott
@Another Scott: McCarthy is still yammering. He’s got 8 white guys with dead eyes (one with no mask, 2 with their noses out) sitting behind him, fidgeting and looking bored. The old guy on the right took out his ancient phone and was messing with it a few minutes ago.
He’s dragging it out, as expected. All they know how to do is stand athwart History yelling Stop…
Cheers,
Scott.
JCJ
@Cameron: Also, since this is 2021 50 years would go back to 1971. I tuned 10 that year, but I believe Spiro Agnew was VP at that time.
Cameron
There’s loyalty for you.
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/kevin-mccarthy-says-marjorie-taylor-greene-and-paul-gosar-would-get-committee-assignments-back-if-gop-takes-the-house-in-2022/
Another Scott
@Cameron: McCarthy is still yammering. He’s been going close to 90 minutes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott:
Ruckus
In my mailbox this evening were two pieces of somewhat surprising mail.
First an invitation to a FREE luncheon seminar from my local pre-planning experts, Smart Cremation.
Second is nice large card with some coupons for Grassdoor orders and an invitation to become a Grassdoor driver. You’ve never heard of Grassdoor? Me neither but apparently you can have your cannabis products delivered to your door now!
My utility bills takes 7-10 days to go about 5 miles from me when I send them my payment with a full price stamp but just look at the great stuff that gets to me that only paid bulk bullshit rates.
sab
@Another Scott: So if we restore talking filibusters we’ll have this. Sigh, but worth it.
Another Scott
@sab: It’s their last gasp.
Even if one isn’t a political junkie, one can look at the peanut gallery behind him and see that it’s just a show. Even they aren’t taking it seriously.
The old guy on the right seems to be playing Tetris or something…
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@Brachiator: I’m not saying they have a duty to sell. I’m saying that having a growing tax liability at least softens your opposition to new construction because unlimited property valuation growth now comes with a cost. Sure, you don’t want to be underwater, but maybe settle for a 100% increase in equity rather than the 900% I’ve seen since 1999. If my taxes had gone up 9 fold over that time, I’d be asking a LOT louder for them to build more, and in reality, I’d have sold and moved because a $20K property tax bill would really have hurt the budget.
SF doesn’t have horrifically bad housing density, but it’s less than half of that of Hoboken and only slightly higher than fucking Hawaiian Gardens. The real problem isn’t San Francisco, it’s the rest of land on the way to San Jose. San Jose is 94% zoned R1. I think that’s the lowest zoning density of any major city in the US. It has 4x the land area and hardly any more people. And most of the space between the two cities is worse. Palo Alto is similar to San Jose and sports a *median* home price of $3.5M. It’s hard to believe there are places with worse zoning policy than Houston, but a lot of California is up to that challenge.
I’m pleased that my city – long a haven for that kind of nimbyism has shifted largely to mixed use mid density. Yeah, it’s the usually shitty four over ones (not that the concept is bad, but the architectural implementation is usually fairly horrendous) but it’s at least served to stabilize housing prices and those parts of the city, thanks to greater density have become more walkable social spaces.
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jayapal suggested the same thing. I don’t think AOC is necessarily wrong here.
Martin
@Ruckus: My wife just got an advert for some sale that ended 4 days ago. DeJoy is doing some work over there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
if nothing else, Kevin is making for some funny tweets
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
It IS a Home Depot.
Fake Irishman
@Martin:
go a bit easier on Houston. First, the place actually passed a decent form-based zoning code a few years ago. Second, the relative lack of use planning has made it easier to densify inner neighborhoods, and finally it taken some initiatives on loosening parking minimums, promoting accessory dwellings and privileging high development transit corridors over the last several years. This place has changed or I 20 years on the urban planning front, mostly for the better.
Fake Irishman
@Fake Irishman:
Also, despite being scaled back, this BBB bill rocks! Even a bill that simply made all the little tweaks to Medicaid that this one does would be very worthwhile as a stand alone bill, as would a bill that added hearing benefits to Medicare. A bill that simply had universial preschool or the climate provisions of BBB would be game changing in their own rights. Let’s not get too bogged down frighting over SALT or in the weeds over the merits of defunding the police as a slogan that we lose sight of that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Kropacetic
Genuine self-sacrifice is against Republican American values.