Why the White House should strip Fox News of its press credentials, part infinity:
DAILY BEAST: [Fox News host Jesse] Watters had urged [Turning Point USA] attendees to “go in for the kill shot” and “ambush” Fauci if they see him in public, using violent rhetoric to encourage them to confront Fauci with conspiracy theories over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The kill shot, with an ambush—deadly, ’cause he doesn’t see it coming. This is when you say, ‘Dr. Fauci, you funded risky research at a sloppy Chinese lab, the same lab that sprung this pandemic on the world. You know why people don’t trust you, don’t you?’ Boom, he is dead! He is dead! He’s done!” Watters told the crowd, referring to the baseless claim among conservatives that the virus was “engineered” by a lab Fauci funded.
Watters also encouraged supporters to film their “ambush” of Fauci so they could become famous.
“You do that—30 seconds, it’s all you need. Now you get that footage to us, you get it to Fox… Imagine Tucker Carlson teases that…,” he said.
Fauci said Watters should be “fired on the spot.” Predictably, Fox News is standing by BillO’s gropenführer-in-training:
“Based on watching the full clip and reading the entire transcript, it’s more than clear that Jesse Watters was using a metaphor for asking hard-hitting questions to Dr. Fauci about gain-of-function research and his words have been twisted completely out of context,” Fox News said in a statement obtained by Newsweek.
Imagine how the Fox News personalities who were texting their leader’s chief of staff on January 6th to protect their joint reputations would respond to a garbage rationalization like that if you switched the names “Fauci” and “Trump” in Watters’ script. Actually, we don’t have to imagine it. I know it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the Fox News team shrieked in unison like 10,000 simultaneously scalded ferrets when comedian Kathy Griffin did the stunt with the fake Trump head, and Griffin suffered real professional consequences.
It’s pretty obvious to me at least why Watters chose violent imagery when smearing a public health official who has worked to keep Americans safe from deadly diseases for decades. The network’s business model is to radicalize viewers against political opponents. Another Fox News personality recently compared Fauci to Josef Megele. She wasn’t fired either. Kyle Rittenhouse was the celebrity guest at the event where Watters babbled about “kill shots.” Viewers can put two and two together.
I believe in a free press, and I’m not saying the government should shut Fox News down, though I also believe no single contemporary entity has done more to make America stupid and enraged and violent than Fox News has. Fox News was conjured into existence to protect one of the two viable political parties from the consequences of their corrupt and/or criminal actions. Having achieved that, it has morphed into a dangerous propaganda outlet that threatens democracy itself.
The U.S. Constitution not being a suicide pact, maybe there’s a case to be made for the feds to do something about how Fox News and its imitators dump poison into people’s minds, in the same way they’d stop a strip-mining outfit from dumping toxins into a river. That’s not an argument I’m making here, and I acknowledge it’s a fraught issue.
But Democrats should stop treating that network like a legitimate news organization, starting with the current press secretary. It’s time to shut down the Psaki and Doocy show, even if seeing the daily/weekly pantsing is satisfying on some level. There’s real harm in giving Fox News an imprimatur of respectability.
I’m not constitutional scholar, so maybe our First Amendment requires Fox News to openly foment a Radio Rwanda-style atrocity before they’re sued out of existence or otherwise put out of business. But there’s nothing but norms and unearned professional courtesy keeping Fox News in the White House briefing room and claiming seats on Air Force One right now. Enough already. Kick those fuckers out.
Open thread.
JMG
There’s an easy, perfectly legal way to clip Fox News’s wings. Just legislate a la carte cable network pricing — you buy each channel or not individually, not in bundles. Since most people do NOT watch Fox, or any of the other news networks, TBH, its revenue would decline dramatically. You can’t hurt a. Murdoch any way but hitting them in the wallet.
Cervantes
Sure, but Ronald T. Dump repeatedly called for violence at his campaign rallies in 2016. It was perfectly okay then. In fact CNN gave him wall-to-wall coverage.
Chief Oshkosh
@JMG:
This idea has been around since cable started. What are the stumbling blocks to making it happen?
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: Hell, CNN gave his empty podium wall-to-wall coverage while Hillary was giving speeches.
schrodingers_cat
OT: India is inching towards ever so rapidly towards state sponsored genocide. The world needs to wake up before it is too late.
Ruckus
I’m of two minds on this issue.
One side of me agrees 100% that they are the worst, that they do everything they do to tear down the democratic process and democrats because they think that their ideal world is where they have all the money and power. An actual democracy takes that away from them. And as they don’t think that anything that helps them is wrong – because MONEY, they really need to go.
The other side says that a democracy is/can be messy, primarily because there is less control of individual thought(s) and ideals are not a simple list of ideals, and believing in those. And therefore we should be tolerant.
Here’s where it gets tricky. Even in a democracy, or possibly because it’s a democracy, there still have to be some limits. And conservatives have, in my mind stepped way the hell over the line. So far over they can’t see it in their rearview mirrors – even if they were looking. Because what faux news and conservatives in general seem to want is far, far away from anything even resembling a democracy. They want a government of the rich conservatives, for the rich conservatives and by the rich conservatives and everyone else can get fucked and starve. That such “governments” have been tried since the idea of governing first appeared and failed miserably every time has never been a deterrent to some wanting to try it again and again and again. So in actuality I’m back at paragraph one.
Gin & Tonic
@Chief Oshkosh: The sports networks would block any such move. Their programming is expensive (i.e. they paid a lot for the rights) and if it were priced a la carte at an appropriate level a lot of people (I think) would decide it’s not worth it.
Another Scott
@JMG: +1
There are all kinds of examples in all sorts of industries about the toxic effects of bundling and so forth. E.g. MS got huge from its per-processor bundling agreements with PC makers. (E.g. If you wanted to use DR DOS or CPM or IBM DOS or Unix – didn’t matter. You still had to pay MS for a copy of MS DOS. And later Windows vs DesqView. And later MS Office vs WordPerfect.)
Network effect destroy markets and create monopolies and shovel money and power to companies that aren’t those that give customers what they want – they actively work to destroy innovators. Utilities (like cable TV) have no business forcing people to pay for things they don’t want. The administrative burden for ala carte offerings is negligible now – ban it.
How, now that the cats are out of the bag? Beats me, but it’s not impossible to do.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
It was time to shut that shit down on day one. What an absolute fucking farce!
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: Nobody likes change – especially those raking in millions based on the current business environment.
Pay Per View has seemed to work fine for decades. People during the pandemic have paid to see music concerts online. It works.
It can be done.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne: Glad someone else remembers the empty podium bullshit!
ian
Well, it could be worse. The fox host could have destroyed a
pricelessplastic Christmas ornament.Brant
Fauci should sue, for libel, and for a shit-ton of money , a la Dominion. Did you see how fast Faux Noise walked that back?
lowtechcyclist
What they are doing is far more deadly than the proverbial “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” that is typically used as the example of something outside the bounds of First Amendment free speech protection.
So if that example means anything, then by all means, they should be shut down.
Ruckus
@JMG:
What do you do about those that have been following and eating up the extreme right wing bullshit – like arming up and threatening everyone that doesn’t agree with them?
faux news is the mouthpiece of the extreme right, the foghorn if you will. The problem is bigger and deeper than faux news. It is our taxing system, our financial system, the way money is worshiped over everything else, like an actual democracy. Our federal legislative structure is based upon power for those that own/have the most, with 2 legislative bodies structured to that give more power to land than to the humans that live on it, which puts too much power at the mercy of those able to purchase it at the going price. For example I give you the one man from one state just fucked over 300 million of us for his and his buddies wealth. One man.
Another Scott
@Brant: Fauci is a public figure. The standards are different.
I don’t know what can be done legally, but agree that FN needs to pay a price for putting that crap on the air.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
Everybody needs to go back and watch “The Loudest Voice in the Room”, about Roger Ailes and the rise of FOX News. Ailes was a piece of racist filth who made Roger Stone look like Mister Rogers. I need to give it another look myself as soon as I find out where it’s streaming.
MikefromArlington
Remember it was Ed Henry from CNN that had Fox moved to the front row then got a cushy job at Fox shortly there after
Matt
I just wonder what Watters could possibly say that would get him fired. “You should cut open Fauci’s chest, rip out his heart and eat it” would be excused as “just a recipe”.
ETA: I’m MattF, and I’ve fixed the nym repeatedly, but it keeps reverting to ‘Matt’.
MattF
testing. I guess I had to post as MattF for it to not revert. We shall see.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: When Americans visit Versailles, when they get to either the second or third room they all say in unison, “I see why they had that revolution”.
It’s an amazing place, but it was built with a huge chunk of France’s GNP, undermining the financial stability of the country and impoverishing its citizens. Elon Musk is nearly worth what it is thought to have cost to build Versailles, in today’s dollars.
People don’t seem to make the connection between that moment of clarity and what they see happening in the US with corporations and individuals worth many billions who pay no taxes.
Another Scott
@Matt: You need to edit/clear the “autofill” information for Balloon-Juice in your browser. The how-to varies.
Be careful, you don’t want to clear everything for every site or you’ll have to re-enter all your logins, etc.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who has ended up with his company name being listed at his home address on many mailing lists because of errant autofill stuff. Grr…”)
brantl
@Another Scott: Not for factual slander, they aren’t. When you lie about what people actually did, on the record, that’s slander, and actionable. All you have to do is prove harm. Fauci can do that, in spades.
JMG
@Ruckus: In a nation of 330 million, Fox has a core audience of at most 5. Even if they all pay (and bluntly, a la carte will be very expensive to buy any individual network except maybe the Weather Channel and ESPN), that’s a huge drop in Fox revenue. Nobody’s right to watch Fox or its right to exist are threatened in any way. These folks are just being asked to put more money where their big mouths are.
Anonymous At Work
Fox “News” has admitted to being an “entertainment network” in legal filings to defend against complaints and lawsuits over conflicts of interest, journalistic ethical breaches, and defamation. That can, and should, be used as the basis for treating them as such.
Heidi Mom
A minor point, but: He “won’t see it coming”? After you’ve spread your suggestion all over the airwaves? I’m sure Dr. Fauci could have answered the question just fine at any point in this whole sorry mess, but thanks for the advance notice anyway.
BlueGuitarist
Professional associations should take responsibility. But they can’t even say Project Vomitous Lies isn’t a news organization. Other professional associations aren’t better or they’d disbar big lie lawyers, revoke medical licenses for covid lie doctors. One professional association acting against fascism would embolden others. How do we get there?
Another Scott
@brantl: IANAL, but Popehat talks about this kind of stuff frequently. My impression is that Fauci would have a difficult time in a legal suit.
Others agree. E.g. Quora from May (on a similar episode):
Fox posts this stuff because they want to rile up their audience. Fauci suing them would keep it in the news and give Fox more of what they want. It’s best for Fauci to make one statement, as he did, and move on. Or, FIDO, as raven says. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Starfish
@Gin & Tonic: Sports networks are already in the most expensive sports bundle cable packages.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
I believe that it’s false that they pay no taxes, but the structure is such that they pay a lower rate than wage earners. There was a story about Warren Buffet – worth over 100 billion/supposedly the world’s tenth wealthiest person, who has stated that his secretary pays a higher tax rate on her $50K salary than he does on his investments and that this is just as wrong as it’s possible to be.
There are also those supposedly wealthy that cheat on their taxes and because they’ve gotten the IRS stripped of a percentage of auditors and they can afford to delay/screw with the possible review process, so that it’s less cost effective to go after wealthy cheats than auditing a much larger percentage of regular tax payers returns. They play all the angles – because they can, and we all lose.
They own the enough, have enough, spend enough to control a lot of life in the US. faux news represents some who think that their money should buy them everything, including the laws and the people. Which is no different than life has been since the beginning, with one notable difference, and that is that they now have far more than enough to screw everyone else right into the ground. A different example might be Vlad’s Russia.
MattF
@Another Scott: Posting as ‘MattF’ seems to have fixed it, so it appears to be a quirk of the BJ site rather than a browser problem. But I could always be wrong about that…
Kay
I love you Betty but we don’t even regulate campaign finance. Nothing is ever going to happen to Fox News.
When the Obama Adminstration tried to depict them as entertainment rather than news the whole political media defended Fox. It hurt only Obama. Fox just doubled down on the extremism and calls for violence.
JML
@JMG: it would be interesting to see how many businesses would actually pay for FauxNews to be broadcast in their waiting rooms if it was a la carte. How many would skip on it and just run Weather Channel, Food Network, and ESPN instead, rather than show their ass on politics? It certainly would give people a clearer way to know what their dollars are supporting as consumers.
Kay
I think the only possible response is to run a media campaign discrediting them. I personally would focus on the Fox personalities and how much they’re paid because Fox tells viewers everyone is corrupt and compromised, so pointing out the that the multimillionaire news personalties are making big bucks off this might penetrate.
I get frustrated because there are a lot of liberal orgs and I just don’t think they’re very effective. Democrats and liberals fund them and I ‘m not convinced we get a lot of value out of them. I just wonder if we could do much better on our side. At least look into it. Take a really hard look at what we spend and whether we get anything of value in return, as far as messages to counter Fox.
Liberals raise a lot of money. How is it spent? What do we get for it?
PAM Dirac
FDA just approved the the EUA for the Pfizer pill . Supposedly the Merck drug will be approved today as well, but it is not up on the FDA site yet.
Fair Economist
No organization supporting *assassination* of US government officials has any business at a US press conference. Fox should be barred until they fire Jesse Watters.
Kay
Fox viewers just found out that the media personalties who work there were blatantly lying to viewers about January 6th. The multimillionaires were corresponding with the Trump Administration WHILE telling viewers the opposite.
It didn’t matter at all. Everything they were told about January 6th was a lie and each and every Fox employee knew it was a lie- there’s no accountability at all. They are richly, obscenely rewarded for lying. They make tens of millions of dollars for this “work”.
zhena gogolia
@Matt: lol on your recipe comment. How are you feeling?
Sure Lurkalot
@PAM Dirac: That’s great news!
FelonyGovt
The Fox audience wouldn’t know a metaphor if it bit them in the ass.
Another Scott
Fundraising emails tell me that Fauci’s birthday is soon – December 24, 1940. He must hate Christmas!! ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@JMG: I had to give up my beloved TCM in order to drop FoxNews.
Ruckus
@JMG:
What I’m saying is that the cat is out of the bag.
If faux went away today, there is still a lot of over armed morons running around, like 17 yr old Kyle, who have been radicalized, by faux and by other organizations. Granted they are, as a group not that effective but they did seem to think that overthrowing the government on 1/6 wasn’t a bad idea. And they had a lot of help. We have a large segment of our population that already has been radicalized, how much of that is going away if faux news went away? 10% – 20%? faux is part of the problem, it is not the only problem nor is getting rid of them the only solution, it is a part.
Kay
This is Fox Business. If you watch that channel as news you are regularly fed complete nonsense as “financial news”. It just doesn’t matter. I think they could devastate their viewers financially and it wouldn’t matter to the viewers at all. They’re more than willing to sacrifice for the cause- see, covid deaths.
JWR
Another “shocker”, via Politico
mrmoshpotato
@Fair Economist:
Sorry Sun. We love you. Please don’t hold it against us.
Doug R
In Canada, the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission regulates telephone, broadcast tv, internet AND cable tv.
We also retire our Supreme Court Justices at 75.
Just sayin’
PS: Fox “news” is available on Canadian cable, but it’s on a higher tier usually bundled with other “news” outlets.
Unfortunately a lot of hotels carry it, at least the moderate budget ones we go to.
Kay
News you can use from the Fox “business” hacks. This is all the information their viewers are given, over and over, 24/7.
If you get your financial news from these gross hacks you would pull all your money out of everything and put it under your mattress. They’re hurting their viewers, who will completely miss what could have been a good economy for them, because they’re being lied to. The multimillionaire hacks don’t care. As long as they’re picking up their obscene paycheck for this trash they’ll keep churning it out.
Kay
Everyone who fell for the tearful testimony should be discredited. As predicted, even by The Onion, Kyle is cashing in on his far Right fame. So much for his dream of being “a nurse”. This is MUCH more lucrative and literally any warm body could do it.
different-church-lady
What good is having an FBI if you’re not gonna use it in appropriate situations?
Kay
Maybe it’s good Kyle won’t be a nurse. Patients everywhere are spared that. He’s less dangerous as a cable tv celebrity.
Soprano2
@Kay: How long do you think it will be until he’s a regular Fox News “commentator”? A few months? And yeah, it was OBVIOUS that those tears were completely manufactured. He never showed any remorse for what he did any other time in public.
different-church-lady
@mrmoshpotato: What good is having a Sun if you’re not gonna to use it in appropriate situations?
CaseyL
I know it’s potentially as expensive as cable, and difficult if you want to see video on a TV screen, but see if you can cut the cable cord altogether and go streaming only. An internet-only account means you’re not giving money to the cable TV division, or any of the networks thereon. I think some streaming packages include local stations.
I did this (kicked Comcast to the curb and T-Mobile is now my ISP), and am very happy with it.
Baud
Student loan moratorium extended.
Kay
I really cannot predict how I would respond to this were I the parent of this child. It is enraging.
We hear so much from angry, resentful conservatives but so little from the people in the public who are their victims. It just isn’t fair that the public has to suffer because 150 grifting Right wing media people need to make their private plane payment.
Kay
@Baud:
Ha! Great news. Good job.
They’ll get attacked for it by media/conservative activists. They want more economic suffering. We have to defend the Prez on it.
schrodingers_cat
In happier news, my set of Conte crayons has arrived! Scored a vintage unopened box on Ebay. I am getting into sketching and drawing right now.
Elizabelle
Their injuries are not life-threatening (please, please) but: massive fire at the home of former Senator/Governor Chuck Robb and Lynda Byrd Robb. WaPost:
SFAW
@JMG:
Me and my steel-toed work boots beg to differ, although in fairness I gotta be close enough to effectuate that “solution.”
Kay
@Soprano2:
I just adore how completely full of shit they all are. What was even the point of the solid week of media coverage where he spouted all that bullshit about being a nurse and his remorse and how he wasn’t political?
They really think we’re dopes. It was a month ago! He did hours and hours of lies and that’s not even counting his bullshit performance for the jury. Boo hoo, so sad. He’s grinning in every single photo except that one day.
Baud
@Kay:
I am pessimistic about this happening but you and I will give it our best effort.
VOR
@Matt: Wasn’t Watters the in-person video ambush guy for Bill O’Reilly? He has experience in this area.
cain
@Kay: We need a bill that defines what is news. Opinion shows with personalities are not news.
You don’t get to call yourself news unless you actually are doing news.
Also, I seem to remember that the Democratic party did not have Obama’s back when he did try to do something. It should have been uniform messaging all through the party. The party as a whole should just refuse to acknowledge Fox News as a news organization. If the other news networks want to go all ape shit about that – the Dems should offer to debate on air at the other channels. Which gives us more opportunity to continue to hammer Fox News on other channels.
The govt may have 1st amendment issues, but the political parties do not have such restrictions.
MattF
@zhena gogolia: Better, thanks. But healing is slow if you’re a codger.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Red Rose Lefties on Twitter are already on the attack.
Baud
@Kay:
Old Man Shadow
Open insurgency is probably just a matter of time.
Or maybe not.
Maybe the public will hand the government back to them, in which case, all of the structural advantages giving large swaths of land more political power than major populated areas will lock in their rule for generations and they’ll drag us all back to the 1550’s with permanent exploited people, book burnings, and inquisitions.
Geminid
Former Senator Chuck Robb’s McLean, Virginia house burned down last night. Robb and his wife were transported to a hospital. Chuck Robb was released today; Linda Bird Robb is still being treated for 2nd degree burns.
SFAW
@Kay:
Kay, I love ya, but recall that TFG used his TV celebrity as his launching pad (or whatever metaphor works). [Yeah, I know Rittenhouse ain’t the same, but ya never know.]
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
As I have said, I think you guys spend more time on red rose twitter than anyone other than red rose twitter themselves.
The vast majority of young people are like all sporadic voters- they don’t follow politics. It’s why they’re hard to get to turn out.
Baud
@Kay:
People who don’t follow politics are the most likely to be affected by propaganda, I think. The most effective propaganda is the type that seeps into the subconscious, not the in-your-face type. IMHO.
cain
@Ruckus:
Why the fuck is he only paying her $50k salary? Seriously, the man is worth $100 billion, I would think a competent assistant would be upwards of $100k for such a wealthy man.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Trolls can be very compelling. You’re right that the normies vastly outnumber us. But considering how thin the margins are right now, pushing back against their attempts to horseshoe this administration to death might be more prudent than it appears at first.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: @Baud: Reporters who cover politics follow them and retweet them.
different-church-lady
@cain: I think he said it about 15 years ago. Still pretty cheap, though.
zhena gogolia
OT PETER JACKSON I SA GENIUS GET BACK IS THE GREATEST FILM EVER MADE
Kay
I would just like to suggest once again that the United States make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy – it solves the problem.
Bankruptcy courts are the experts on debtors and they already exist and they run great. The debtor has to take a relatively minor hit which will ensure that people don’t go crazy with student loans going forward. Nothing else is as easy as this is to solve :)
Clear out the current debtors with an income/asset qualifying test (which will satisfy the people who paid their loans and resent “forgiveness”) and start over. Just modify the bankruptcy code.
cain
@Baud:
This doesn’t sound like he plans on doing loan forgiveness – wasn’t that a campaign promise? I can’t remember.
Baud
@Kay:
Agree, but that requires legislation to pass. Meanwhile, there’s this.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: I spent 6 hours in the ER because the staff were dealing with COVID PATIENTS AND MY BROKEN ARM WAS JUST TOO TRIVIAL. mistaken caps lock (not the peter jackson one though)
Baud
@cain:
He wants to sign legislation. He hasn’t come around to doing it by executive order.
cain
@different-church-lady:
When I worked at a big corporation the admins were making at least $75k and that was 15 years ago or earlier.
different-church-lady
@cain: The past year has made it quite clear that I have been vastly undercharging for my services.
cain
@Baud: ah, ok. Hopefully, something like that will come – but not with the likes of Manchin on the docket. The man is a serious asshole.
Sure Lurkalot
@JWR: These lawsuits against the 1/6 committee need to be shut down quickly and finally. They are frivolous and have the sole purpose of delaying the proceedings.
Any legal minds have ideas here?
cain
@different-church-lady:
I hope a correction is in progress then. Like the govt infrastructure – they are a critical resource to get things done. A good administrator can really make the difference. They should be paid generously well.
Kay
@Baud:
I’m ok with the income pegged payment plans.
The majority of the debts aren’t astronomical (compared with what I see with credit cards and medical debt and deficiencies on car loans) – I think the average is 35k which is just about perfect for bankruptcy. Makes the 2k to file the bankruptcy well worth it.
It would be nice for Biden to do it, since he partially caused the problem with his support of the shitty bankruptcy reform act, although the situation is different now because Obama changed the private loan/public loan split in a good direction.
Baud
@cain:
The other problem is that Biden wants the legislation to forgive $10,000, but progressives in Congress want to forgive $50,000. Manchin probably makes the debate moot, but the lack of agreement prevents any big push on the issue.
Omnes Omnibus
@cain: I am not sure that her salary should be the focus here, but I remember hearing that story in the ‘90s so the salary may been from that timeframe.
danielx
Sooner or later some nutcase is going to to shoot Fauci or some other public figure at the urging of Faux “personalities”. He or she will receive millions in legal fee donations and be hailed as a hero in some circles. Much blathering on public airwaves will ensue about “remarks taken out of context”, “just a joke”, etc etc….I’d say they will also remark about “just a metaphor” too, except their audience mostly doesn’t know what a metaphor is and doesn’t do three syllable words in any case.
Said nutcase might well get off on an insanity plea or other grounds in the right venue or with the right judge, and end up on tour making bank a la Rittenhouse. Ten years from now he or she might well be elected to Congress, again a la Rittenhouse. Why not, electing complete dipshit morons seems to be a thing for Republicans. You’re gonna be a star, kid!
Flip side would be that if someone put one between Jesse Watters’ eyes – which I do not at all endorse, deserved though it might be – he or she probably would not make it to jail.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: You have my sympathy. In July I sat in the ER waiting room for 9 hours with my mom; she spent a whole day in an ER room waiting to be admitted because there were no rooms in the hospital. The nurse there said she had 40 patients waiting to be admitted. It’s insane what these unvaccinated people are doing to the hospitals.
If you want to be filled with rage, listen to the 1A broadcast they did this morning about Biden’s speech yesterday, and what he can do about the pandemic going forward. The panelists were criticizing Biden for being tough with the unvaccinated; they characterized it as “leaving them behind” and “giving up on them”, and said his message wouldn’t get them vaccinated. I don’t know if they’ve noticed (one of the panelists is in Canada, another was a Brit who writes for the Atlantic), but he’s been trying for almost a year to get them vaccinated! He’s tried everything, and nothing can break through “Covid isn’t real, it’s a hoax” and “Covid isn’t any worse than a cold, we don’t get vaccinated or close things down for colds”. Good God, I wanted to call in and just start screaming at them, but you can’t do that anymore, so I settled for making multiple scathing comments on the Twitter feed since there wasn’t a FB topic for the show. It was maddening to listen to these naive, fully detached from reality scientists talk about what should have happened months ago! As if the Biden administration could have seen Omicron coming three months ago.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sure Lurkalot: The fact that they are frivolous should tell you how courts will handle them.
CaseyL
I know doing things by Executive Order isn’t preferred, since EOs are usually reversed by a different incoming Administration, but working via EOs in the face of an intransigent Congress and illegitimate SCOTUS might turnout to be a selling point in a 2024 campaign:
“Is [Policy X] important to you? A GOP President will end it the instant he’s sworn in.”
E.g.:
“Is student loan deferral important to you? A GOP President will end the policy, and start your payments up again.”
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: This is an issue that affects less than 15% of the population and it is pretty unpopular except among those who have those loans.
We need structural changes on how these loans are administered and I am okay with $10,000 cancellation but not a blanket cancellation.
BTW here are my crayons
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I like your bankruptcy idea for the student loans.
Baud
@Soprano2:
What’s the point of electing Democrats if you can’t pretend how much better you would do if you were in their place?
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: That is enraging. I never got into an ER room, I was out in the main ER the whole time, and the PA (I never saw a doctor) said that if I had to be admitted I’d have to spend the night right there. This ER was very different 5 years ago, kind of sleepy and you got a room and an MD right away.
Kay
@Baud:
The repayment plans are funny because they operate like a Chapter 13 would operate, but longer. They just have to add Chapter 7, or a Chapter 7-like discharge but why create a whole new process? We have one and it’s good and efficient. Send it to the experts. The US Department of Education could just get out of it completely.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Nominated!
Also, very nice set. I wish I had a talent.
chopper
i’m sure these conservative buffoons will forget to also upload the part of the video where fauci asks them on what planet they spend the majority of their time.
Baud
@Kay:
Maybe not ideal, but it seems like there’s more help out there for student loan borrowers than for other groups of people we care about.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Agree completely. But I’m repeatedly told that we can’t win if we attack the press/media. I think we ought to give it a try. If we are specific in our attacks, we can be effective. This situation is certainly a good place to start.
Could not agree more. Remember Planned Parenthood & NARAL endorsing Lieberman? There’s this tote-bagger like need to be seen as “above the fray” – maybe they need it to keep the money coming, I don’t know.
The liberal or “liberal” organizations tend to be about one or a related bundle of issues. The right-wing organizations – no matter what their names are – have only one goal: elect Republicans.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was in the car and wanted to punch the radio. I had to turn it off and it’s a subject that I really wanted to hear more on. “Biden is being divisive! We mustn’t shame the unvaccinated!” is the medical media’s version of the Cletus Safari. “We know these good doughty heartlanders in this Rustburg Ohio diner aren’t racist, so let’s ask them why they love trump….”
The Brit was Ed Yong, I believe. The American doctor in Canada was I think Angela Rasmussen
Baud
@Soprano2:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wow. That there are supposedly non-right-wing people who think like that is in some ways more disturbing to me than the stuff in the OP.
Baud
@James E Powell:
FWIW, some liberal organizations have to remain officially nonpartisan to keep their nonprofit status under the tax laws and, belng liberal, actually, obey the law.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
LOL! I didn’t say not to use it in appropriate situations. I just apologized to it for the incoming trash.
LeftCoastYankee
They still own the “over the air” Fox Network, local stations, and Fox Sports as well. Several ideas that could give them pain:
Kay
@Baud:
The repayment period is too long. The terms are probably better for the debtor but for God’s sake let them out sooner than 20 years. That’s a life sentence.
Here’s a 13:
And take it away from the US Department of Education. They can’t do it. They’re not good at it. They probably don’t even want it- they get sued constantly.
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I can imagine – it’s back to coddling these idiots.
Leaving them behind, indeed.. like there isn’t a vaccine that they could use. Instead, we’re supposed to incorporate their world view based on lies.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ari Shapiro (I think) was talking to Andy Slavitt yesterday on the 4 PM version of NPR ATC when I was driving. He seemed very combative and almost angry with him (roughly) – “Why didn’t Biden do this months ago??!” I couldn’t stand to listen to it, so I changed the station. Ailsa Chang is as bad or worse (and her sing-song style of reading the news is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. YMMV.).
Maybe I’m getting crotchety in my old age, but I’m finding I’m spending less time to NPR. (Not commuting every day is a factor as well.)
I still send my local stations money every year, though, because it’s important.
Cheers,
Scott.
dopey-o
“quirk of the BJ site” is 90% of the reasons i come here.
(“Quirk of the site” is not my passive-aggressive reference to Cole. “But I could always be wrong about that.”)
Kay
@Baud:
If they can’t pay their student loan they probably also have a bunch of other unsecured debt so just roll it all in.
We can stick it to the man too! :)
Plus it’s in the constitution so game over. I’ll play that card “it’s IN the cossitution!” That means it’s from God.
Mai Naem mobile
@Another Scott: i used to listen to a lot of national NPR shows . A lot. I had Sirius/XM for years and then didn’t for a few years and then restarted again. Now, I do very little NPR. I’ll listen to some PRI stuff which is the TAL kind of mostly non political stuff but that’s it. I haven’t sent money for a few years and I used to send money most years during the fund raising runs.
PJ
@zhena gogolia: WATCH HIS KING KONG AND THE HOBBIT MOVIES AND GET BACK TO ME ABOUT THAT “GENIUS” THING.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
In Europe, they allow proof of COVID infection to get into venues and the like. If it were proof of infection in the last 6 months, it isn’t unreasonable and undermines sympathy for people who are too scared to get the shot and have previously had COVID. Right now, they are the ones being paraded in front of cameras to make it seem like the Biden administration is overly harsh. I’d rather these people were too busy trying to prove they were previously infected than out making a nuisance of themselves.
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I listened to most of it, I was getting angrier and angrier. If I had been able to call in it might have been just a long, angry scream and then a hang up, but they don’t do call-ins anymore. You can tell from my posts on their Twitter feed, too. These people live in la-la land, where all it takes to get the unvaccinated to take the shot is even more gentle persuasion, coddling, and “trying to understand them”. I understand them plenty, they think Covid is no big deal and under no circumstances are they getting vaccinated! These scientists have no idea what it’s like out here where the Covid deniers live. I invite them to personally come here and try to talk these people into getting vaccinated. And yeah, it was those two and Anna Bershteyn. I was angry that the host didn’t push back on it some. The only thing I agreed with is that we needed more, cheaper rapid tests sooner. Pretty much everything else was enraging to me.
Betty Cracker
Okay, open thread, so I have an AITA question for y’all:
Our families come over for dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and it usually works out that my relatives show up for the former and his the latter, though there is often crossover and by long tradition, everyone knows they are welcome at both meals.
Yesterday, two of hubby’s relatives who had RSVP’d for Christmas Day called and asked him if they could come over on Christmas Eve and spend the night and spend Christmas Day here too. He said yes.
I’m kind of furious about it. We can cover the food, but having two house guests underfoot in the midst of the chaos is going to be a gigantic pain in my ass. I think they were thoughtless to ask on such short notice, and he should have consulted me before saying yes.
AITA?
Another Scott
@Mai Naem mobile: +1
PRX’s The World is very good. Many of the weekend shows are excellent – This American Life, The Moth, Reveal, Snap Judgment, etc. There’s a lot of excellent stuff on public radio – still. But NPR’s news reporting is very off-putting to me.
During the Great Recession and Obama’s term I would often try to listen to Marketplace, but would get frustrated by the lack of attention to what the government could and should be doing to increase the pace of the recovery, get people working again, etc. Kai Ryssdal is much, much better about covering those aspects of the economy now. But some of the reporters seem to be stuck in that old mode.
Don’t get me started on the hep cats that NPR has as their political reporting team now. Ayesha Rascoe is pretty good, but it always seems to me that there’s more that she wants to say but feels she can’t because of NPR’s editorial policies handed down from on-high…
Cheers,
Scott.
Mai Naem mobile
Jesse Waters was Oreilly’s producer when George Tiller was killed so its not like this mofo doesn’t know what he’s doing. What an ahole. You may not like what Fauci is saying but to amp up people against a guy with 60+years of epidemiological knowledge during this time in our history is evil. Evil is such a simplistic word but its apt. In the beginning of the pandemic I worked with quite a few people who thougt COVID was just an intentional method of culling the weak and I would tell them they were crazy etc. Now, I think the RWingers, libertarians, Russian bots etc do want to take advantage of COVID to cull the weak. Making Biden look bad is just a side effect. I think these people think they’re getting rid of the ‘welfare/SS/Medicare’ leeches. I find this whole thing just really dispiriting.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: No. He is. He should have asked you.
Mai Naem mobile
@Another Scott: maybe that Project Veritas ‘sting’ had a more long lasting effect on NPR than we think. I just seem to remember things started to slide down slowly when Juan Williams replaced Ray Suarez for a bit. Forget the content, Williams was just awful radio.
lowtechcyclist
No. You are most certainly not.
I can’t imagine my wife inviting someone to spend the night without checking with me first, even at a much less hectic time of year. Nor would I dream of doing the same to her.
I don’t know if there’s a good way to renege on the invite, but sometime after Christmas day, a word with hubby would be in order.
Mai Naem mobile
@Another Scott: maybe that Project Veritas ‘sting’ had a more long lasting effect on NPR than we think. I just seem to remember things started to slide down slowly when Juan Williams replaced Ray Suarez for a bit. Forget the content, Williams was just awful radio.
Professor Bigfoot
@cain: I seem to remember this quote from quite a while ago.
No less true, but a different time.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Time to set up the glamping site! Or rather, to let them.
japa21
@Betty Cracker:
Not in this case.
Fair Economist
@Kay:
Absolutely. Making them non-dischargeable was one of the worst provision of the 2005 bankruptcy deform. The country got along fine for centuries with dischargeable student loans, let’s get back to the system the Founders envisioned*.
*shameless conservative style rhetoric.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: No, you are not!
Even in a non-Covid year that was a clueless request from the relatives, and a – I’ll be generous here – clueless response by your husband.
In this year of Covid, not to mention Omicron, your husband screwed up big time and I would be furious with him.
Sure Lurkalot
@schrodingers_cat:
Suits their Dems in Disarray narrative. Maybe stop following the reporters who do this.
trollhattan
@Mai Naem mobile:
Hating on Fauci is like hating on the Dali Llama–does not compute. “That fucker knows what he did!” “Uh, save countless lives? The bastard.”
Soprano2
@Another Scott: I notice that the political reporters use the “try” framing a lot, as in “The Biden Administration is ‘trying to do’ x”, when with TFG it seems that they never said “try”, they just said “do” or “doing”. It makes Biden and his administration sound weak and ineffectual, and I’m not sure they even realize they are doing it.
Sure Lurkalot
@Omnes Omnibus: My interest is in what time frame they will be handled.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
They have a bipartisan bill that carves out an exception for “undue hardship” but I don’t like it because why would we treat that debt differently? It’s this weird moralistic harshness that doesn’t apply to other kinds of debt. There’s nothing super-good about racking up 30k in credit card debt buying dumb shit and we discharge that. Why is there so much weird stinginess with student loan debt? Most people pay their credit cards- they’re not enraged that other people don’t and discharge it in bankruptcy. In that sense student loan debt is MORE “moral” not less – at least they were trying to buy something worthwhile.
I just want to be normal about it. It’s unsecured debt, no different than being upside down on your truck loan or your credit cards. Roll it all in and stop the moralistic agonizing. It’s silly.
trollhattan
“Area man suffers crippling delusion”
Geminid
@Soprano2: Those NPR reporters try so hard to be neutral that I wonder if they’ve undergone mild lobotomies. If I listen to them long enough, I feel like I’ve had one too.
Geminid
@trollhattan: Ted Cruz may run for President because he’s afraid he can’t be reelected Senator. Or even renominated.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: The main purpose of the “lab leak” mythology at this point is to construct a narrative under which Anthony Fauci caused the COVID pandemic.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: AITA? Looks it up. Fuckin’ dictionary.com with the answer! LOL!
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud: I wonder what they mean by limiting repayment at some percentage of discretionary income…what is discretionary income? Could you say, buy a house, start a business and still be in such programs?
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: Your hubby totally should’ve asked, but they’re staying the night put them to work in the kitchen.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
Based on income above poverty levels.
https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/topic/glossary/article/discretionary-income
ETA: more detail
https://www.tateesq.com/learn/how-to-calculate-discretionary-income
Another Scott
@Sure Lurkalot: As you might expect, these terms have specific meanings in the program.
StudentAid.gov:
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Sure Lurkalot:
I don’t follow them but they still show up on my timeline. They are influential and my following them or not does not change that fact.
Old School
@Betty Cracker: Maybe? Has there ever been a situation where you’ve declined a request to spend the night? If there has, then hubby should have asked. If not, I would have assumed you’d be OK with it.
Mrs. School has on occasion let me know that one of her relatives is staying for us for a night or two without consulting me first. I’ve just figured that if it makes her happy, then I’ll put up with the inconvenience.
lowtechcyclist
Concerning the student loan stuff, I think a more important question is, how to make college affordable going forward. Cheap or free community college is a nice idea, but credits often don’t transfer to 4-year institutions. And sure, the Federal government can say we’ll subsidize $X or X% of your 4-year state university tuition, but that just lets the university jack up the sticker price some more.
My thought is that the Federal government should start its own university system, maybe eight or ten of them scattered around the country. That way it has direct control over what the students have to pay. It could be middle-of-the-road quality academically (no paying for superstar professors that only teach one course); be stripped down to the basics in terms of amenities to keep costs down; be located in declining towns (Flint? Scranton?) where housing is available and cheap so that it doesn’t have to build dorms right away.
The idea is that this would be an available alternative to State U. for students who might find it a challenge to pay even for State U. It would force states to hold down their tuition and room/board rates, or lose students to the Fed. U. system. (State colleges and universities used to be affordable for pretty much everyone, but that was decades ago. The idea is to move things back in that direction.)
Fed. U.’s grad programs might be thin, but that’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with telling students that we’ll make college affordable, but for grad school, you’re on your own. (And of course if you want to go to Oberlin or Swarthmore, you’re on your own.)
Realistically, this should be doable. There’s a shitload of excess academic talent out there: far more people get PhDs than have a shot at being professors, so staffing wouldn’t be a challenge.
buggrit
@Betty Cracker: No, you’re not. If I was in your position I’d already be trying to figure out where to hide the body.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
I’m in the “what was he thinking?” camp. Overnight guests versus dinner guests present an order of magnitude more work and stress.
Can I presume everybody’s triple-vaxxed? We’re going to the sane in-laws (the rare branch on the tangled family bush) and they expect that of us, and to which we’re happy to comply.
No booster, no overnight, stamp your cracker feet.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
If you talk to rank and file Trump supporters it’s really gotten ridiculous because it’s a conspiratorial mindset that has become so all encompassing there are no longer any reliable sources for them. They want to attack Biden using a government report but since they just finished telling you “the deep state” is corrupt they can’t even do that. They end up kind of flailing around pointing to “reports” from other countries. The deep state is reliable but only if it can be used to go after their enemies. Media is reliable but only when attacking Biden. They can and will turn on a dime if the attack goes the other way.
I think sometimes that it will burn out because they will give up. Nothing is reliable. It’s all malice and dark forces coming after them. There has to be an end to that. It eats itself.
lowtechcyclist
It would be so easy to game the system. Go to college, take out a shitload of loans to pay for it, declare bankruptcy the day after you get your diploma. Voila, free college!
Sure, if you’re considering grad or professional school, you’d wait until getting your master’s or doctorate or M.D. or J.D. or MBA before you declared bankruptcy. But at whatever point you expected to never have to take out another student loan, there’d be little reason not to stiff the lender
ETA: It’s a very different situation from most unsecured debts. If you declare bankruptcy with a pile of credit card debt, you’re going to have a hard time getting a credit card for a while afterwards. And if your debt is secured, like with a mortgage, they’ve got your house. So there are consequences to bankruptcy in those cases. Much less so with student loans.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Baud! U!
Another reason I should be president.
Mai Naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: you’re right. I just wonder if you can sit down and figure out if this is what you’re going to remember on your deathbed…I don’t mean to sound patronizing because I have a hard time with stuff like this myself and this is what I do. Also, if they aren’t 3 x vaxxed all this advice goes out the window.
louc
Two bits of news out there that I think are interesting.
One is terrifying and it’s in Newsweek, which has taken a decided to the right. https://www.newsweek.com/2021/12/31/millions-angry-armed-americans-stand-ready-seize-power-if-trump-loses-2024-1660953.html
The other is what makes me gnash my teeth. The US economy is so jacked, it’s upholding the rest of the world. https://www.wsj.com/articles/booming-u-s-economy-ripples-world-wide-straining-supply-chains-and-driving-up-prices-11640082604?st=u3in37ultx9ro3g&reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter
lowtechcyclist
@mrmoshpotato:
This. Totally this.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
Well, bankruptcy can be abused and it is and will be- that’s just the risk- but it won’t be “viola!” – they’ll have to qualify for a chapter 7 and take the hit of one. If everyone was willing to do that everyone would go get a shit load of credit cards and run them up, and they don’t.
The whole point of bankruptcy in the US is we want people to take risks. We want them to try things. The idea is you can fail and we won’t punish you too harshly for that so you’ll try again. I think that applies to wanting to better your situation with a college education. I suppose you could add additional qualifiers- some required period of time or “one and done” on student loans but I hate to do it because I think congress overwrites laws- I think they err on the side of hoops to jump thru because they want to prove how tough and savvy they are- “a loophole!”
Simplify. Allow for some measure of abuse. Just eat that.
trollhattan
@Kay:
That fancy brain-learnin’ is suspect, as it produces too many Democrat voters and such, so make it harder to attain by 1. cutting funding for state schools to force them to jack the prices and 2. make taking loans for said expensive schools a very hazardous gambit.
I presume they’re still pissed at the restrictions on federal student loans for for-profit colleges.
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker: Absolutely not. I would be furious too, especially with COVID.
If you don’t rely on your not right now so DH for cooking and prep, maybe he can get the guests out of your way. But that’s probably not the case with 2 big meals back to back. Maybe stick them in a kayak with some paddles and a “don’t return before” time.
Missed the opportunity yesterday to say “yo, Pete!” So adorable and man, did he pick the right heart to cleave into.
lowtechcyclist
Good thing Trump’s minions didn’t think of it for him.
zhena gogolia
@PJ: I’m as surprised as you are. I only made through 30 min of LOTR and 60 min of Hobbit, but I stand by my assessment after nearly 8 hours of Get Back.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: NO
ColoradoGuy
To Betty Cracker: No, you are not AITA. Unfortunately, your husband is. Even before the pandemic, an overnight stay of one of our friends and/or relatives took a couple of weeks of negotiations between us, for exactly the reasons you mention. It’s disruptive at the minimum, especially at this time of year. And in the middle of a deadly worldwide pandemic with millions of disease-denying saboteurs!?
Seriously, I would call up the would-be guests and say “not this year, just can’t do it, so sorry” and give them the name of the nearest motel. And make an excuse for your husband, saying he was busy and not thinking straight at the moment.
lowtechcyclist
The thing is, it’s hard to run up a bunch of credit card debt in a way that’ll make it easier to get through the tough time after bankruptcy when you won’t be able to get one.
I’m sure some people do run up their cards then declare bankruptcy, but most people would be able to realize that if they did that, their party would come to an abrupt end, and life would suck for years afterward.
But with higher ed, you get to a point where you’re done, you’re not going to need to take out more student loans.
You’re right, it would be no strings attached. Maybe a clarinet. ;^)
Central Planning
@Kay: I had RSV about a month ago. It sucked. But at least it wasn’t COVID. If it were my kid, I would be livid.
Dan B
The White House added the first LGBTQ media outlet to the WH Prss Corps, the Washington Blade
Imagine if the black press had just been added.
James E Powell
@Baud:
That’s some catch, that Catch-22.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: Put them to work and run their asses ragged. They won’t repeat.
stinger
@Gin & Tonic:
So some of them go out of business. Invisible hand!
mrmoshpotato
@louc:
What’ll they do if their fat, orange, fascist, Soviet shitpile, mobster, conmanbaby god keels over before November 2024?
Baud
@Dan B:
Seat ’em next to Doocey!
mrmoshpotato
@Spanky:
Onions ain’t gonna chop themselves!
Brachiator
@JMG:
People are moving away from cable. This issue may fix itself.
You also note that people might not add any news channels at all under this pricing model. How is this a good thing?
lowtechcyclist
It’s been clear for a while that Trumpism doesn’t really need Trump himself. He’s now basically a symbol, the iconic representation of their rage and grievance. If Trump himself can’t carry the banner, there are plenty of Republicans fighting to be Trumpier-than-thou who can pick it up.
Another Scott
Very well done.
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist: True. Unfortunately.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
With the clarity of digital broadcast signals, you’ve got to be a long way from a TV station to not be able to get it for free with a decent antenna. So the vast majority of people will be able to get the network news over the airwaves.
mrmoshpotato
This sounds like “Get fucked, Flynn!”
Kay
@Central Planning:
3 months old! I’d be having a heart attack. Take it from one of the covid patients. “I need this”. I’d be in jail.
Bill Arnold
@different-church-lady:
The Sun is big. Very big. The “Fox News” personalities would be akin to a homeopathic fart, to the Sun. Metaphorically, of course.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: Dunno if you’ve seen this from IamHappyToast.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack (phone)
Tentatively good news:
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
Going from analogue to digital broadcast we went from getting all the stations quite decently to none at all. Looks as though digital broadcast is more line-of-sight dependent than the old system. Per the FAA reception map I’d have to put a big-ass mast on the roof to get reliable digital reception. Just nope.
FWIW most of the antennas are 21 miles south of the city surrounded by farmland and because we’re flat as a pancake, tall buildings and a bit of the earth’s curvature are not our friend.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack (phone): What? You mean we’re not doomed? Unpossible!1
Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mike in NC:
Apple TV and Fubo.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: Great!
Mo MacArbie
Now there’s a visual.
Ksmiami
@louc: they won’t be around by 2024 if they continue their antivaxx trend.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack (phone): : How is the post surgery recovery coming along?
Bill Arnold
@James E Powell:
One way for ordinary people to engage with the press is to stake out a small collection of journalists with twitter accounts, choosing e.g. centrists averaging ~10 (or fewer) replies per their tweet linking a news article written by them. Those people will read the replies including criticism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mo MacArbie: He’s mellltttting!
J R in WV
@MattF:
The B J site uses your browser to stash your “nym” and email addr on your computer in a cookie. You can change what it saves by using a different nym or email addr, and the email addr doesn’t have to be a real one if you don’t want Watergirl to be able to contact you.
If you accidentally mess with one or the other of those parameters, Watergirl will have to approve that “new” nym, and then you will have to change it back if you want to use your original nym, as you appear to have done now.
H-Bob
@opiejeanne: I read that Versailles cost around a half of the amount the French spent on the War of the Spanish Succession. That war had little benefit for France, only for Louis XIV’s son, while Versailles is an on-going tourist attraction. Also, don’t forget that Louis XIV had continual wars (often concurrent wars) throughout his adult reign, which also cost beaucoup coin.
Another notable point about that war is the 3 main figures (Louis XIV, Churchill and Prince Eugene) each got a famous palace (Versailles, Blenheim and the Belvedere).
Mike in Pasadena
Steeplejack (phone)
@schrodingers_cat:
Pretty well, thanks for asking. Almost out of the sore zone and into the nuisance/itchy zone (sutures). Swelling continues to go down, albeit more slowly than I would like. In-person appointment with the doc on January 20.
Nettoyeur
@Brant: Fauci is a public figure, so libel suits unlikely. But lifting press credentials for advocating violence might be useful.
Another Scott
@Baud: I glance at Schumer’s Twitter feed around once a day, and he often has #cancelstudentdebt tweets.
I decided to finally look at the details.
1) It’s for federal student loan debt only (obviously).
2) It’s up to $50,000 – not any amount.
Warren.Senate.gov:
That’s a compelling argument. It’s not clear to me why they picked the $50,000 number but it’s defensible. (I had around $10k in federal student loans accumulated in ’79-’83.) And it’s not clear to me why they think he has the authority under existing rules and regulations. It would be much, much better if they rolled it into the next Reconciliation bill than simply having Biden take the heat.
While such loans should also be in bankruptcy, as Kay argues, I don’t think that should be the greatest part of the solution. Bankruptcy has all kinds of negative consequences, and too many schools dumped too much debt on their students and the students should not be punished yet again for that. The federal government should eat the losses (as it does when guaranteed private loans default).
Cheers,
Scott.
Brant
@Another Scott: No, it isn’t “just your opinion” when you fat-out lie about what someone did, that you claim cost lives.It’s slander and it’s actionable.
Another Scott
@Brant: Anyone can file a lawsuit about anything. What usually enters into the decision to do so is, among other things, the cost and the probability of success. I haven’t seen any lawyerly discussion indicating that he would be likely to win if he did so. Have you?
These charges against Fauci are nothing new. He didn’t pursue legal action against the people behind the “Plandemic” video nor Judy Mikovitz who was a purported major critic.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.