U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

lol @ the Fantano write-up

Unfortunately, his fans, the music industry, and the internet at large all sort of hate him. If he can fix that, he’s in a good spot.

I vote for Kyla Scanlon.

Yeah at the time I thought that Qunnipiac Poll from last year was really illustrative, and it goes back to the literal truth vs figurative truth point upthread.

Whether it feels true that the economy is bad or that (to the extent it isn’t) the gains are being soaked up by the super-rich, the literal truth is that household wealth actually increased quite a bit in the four years to December 2023 and the gains were unusually equitably distributed (relatively speaking; I’m not saying “equitable” in a hard sense) for the USA:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2024/04/02/wealth-gains-across-income-groups-show-a-strong-and-equitable-economic-recovery/

This doesn’t detract from the individual lived experience of people who are struggling economically but rather than just dismiss the available data on the basis that it doesn’t describe everyone’s lived experience (or their perceptions of other people’s lived experience) we do have the option of just trying to think harder about the connections between the two.

I would think the "Joe Rogan of the left" would be more like Smartless or Talk Easy or something, since Rogan isn't an overtly political podcast rather than a "hanging out" one, and balances three hours of someone like Colin Quinn shooting the shit with someone like RFK doing the same.

xp - doesn't that show that the majority of the 'wealth gains' for the bottom quintiles came in housing equity (which is not particularly useful if you're not looking to sell and as as the housing market slowed thanks to interest rate increases) and the the liquid capital of the bottom quintile dropped 20%?

When the value of your house increasing just means higher property taxes and insurance rates, how much does that feel like a win?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio

Jesus christ

i saw they were considering vivek so maybe we got off easy here

iran war feeling inevitable

rubio is more sane than ramaswamy in any scenario

Actually, it probably means we stay in NATO fwiw.

To give y'all an idea: most Cubans my parents' generation despise him as a moron, a spineless bimbo, and a come mierda....but he's not a Democrat, so he automatically gets thumbs up.

Rubio will be fired and labeled a RINO cuck before August.

I think this is why Ted Cruz keeps winning, too.

Xpost to Alfred

Maybe its just me , but could www.hulu.com be the single most important website in the history of the world? Its lavenous!!!

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 31, 2009

Damn. Scanned that one too fast. Retracting lol. Will ask a mod to delete.

Checked to see what Rubio was up to in 2009, and he was ... one of Alfred's colleagues?

as a faggot i don’t really mind that definition being there but i am also the type of person who describes himself as a faggot

so the harris campaign is $20 million in debt despite raising like a billion dollars? this is why they are still emailing people asking for money? (or so I'm told; I got off that mailing list a long time ago).

They paid Oprah a million dollars to make an endorsement appearance. Wild.

i think that money went to harpo to oranize the concert but still.

I keep requesting money from them on Venmo.

See how it feels?

Sounds like this should be a bigger scandal pic.twitter.com/7gFEN6Oid7

— Toby Muse (@tobymuse) November 11, 2024

You coulda gotten 345,323,678 anarchopunk bands for that

I wonder how much they paid Freeway

I assume they didn't pay Meek Mill, cuz he's free.

Waltz is a proponent of considering Mexican drug cartels like ISIS.

He co-led, and introduced, House legislation to provide authorities so an admin can use "military cyber, intelligence, and surveillance resources" against cartels.

Considers "Colombia Plan" a model.

— Alex Ward (@alexbward) November 12, 2024

Three-front war with China, Iran and Mexico. They’re going to have to raise the draft age high enough to put ILXor at risk.

xp - doesn't that show that the majority of the 'wealth gains' for the bottom quintiles came in housing equity (which is not particularly useful if you're not looking to sell and as as the housing market slowed thanks to interest rate increases) and the the liquid capital of the bottom quintile dropped 20%?

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 12 November 2024 01:03 (three hours ago) link

The article suggests that the bottom quintile saw such a large increase in (a) home equity and (b) mortgage debt in part because lots of people in that quintile bought property for the first time in the early years of the pandemic, assisted by wage gains and (at that point) low interest rates.

There was a similar dynamic in Australia, but because we don’t have long-term fixed rate mortgages (usually you can only fix rates for a few years), as interest rates have gone up a lot of first home buyers have had to sell (often at prices below that at which they purchased) because they can’t afford to keep their loans.

The key bit of the article is this:

“Debt is the other side of the ledger. Obviously, as homeownership increased among lower-income households, so did mortgages. The average amount of mortgages spread across all households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution went up by 16.7%. At the same time, consumer credit – credit cards, car loans and student loan debt to name the most important ones – fell especially sharply among lower-income households. Average consumer debt dropped by 10.4% for households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution. In comparison, it declined by 10.0% for households in the second quintile, by 11.6% in the middle fifth, and by 3.9% in the fourth quintile. It increased by 20.4% among households in the top fifth of the income distribution. Since more households owe consumer credit than owe mortgages at the bottom of the income scale, the drop in consumer credit offset most of the increase in mortgages. The sum of mortgages and consumer credit grew by only 2.6% for low-income households. In the second quintile, the sum of mortgages and consumer debt declined by 4.6% over the four years from December 2019 to December 2023. Households at the bottom of the income scale swapped out costly and risky debt for more secure debt that helps to build wealth through homeownership.”

Swapping out “bad” debt for “good” debt at long-term fixed low interest rates is a pretty good story overall (though it’s no reassurance to those who didn’t manage to buy a property before interest rates rose sharply).

But the combined debt grew for people in the lowest quintile vs dropping for those in the quintile one above, and presumably dropped in the one above that?

In other news --

Up for a potential fast-track vote next week in the House of Representatives, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, also known as H.R. 9495, would grant the secretary of the Treasury Department unilateral authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit deemed to be a “terrorist supporting organization.”

The resolution has already prompted strong opposition from a wide range of civil society groups, with more than 100 organizations signing an open letter issued by the American Civil Liberties Union in September.

“This is about stifling dissent and to chill advocacy, because people are going to avoid certain things.”
With Trump set to return to office, it’s more urgent than ever to beat the legislation back,

https://theintercept.com/2024/11/10/trump-nonprofit-tax-exempt-political-enemies/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter

xxp - those numbers seemed questionable compared to anything I've read about consumer debt in the last several years - the Fed says that consumer debt is higher across the income spectrum compared to pre-pandemic times

https://www.newyorkfed.org/outreach-and-education/household-financial-stability/the-state-of-low-income-america-credit-access-housing-jan-24

also relevant, credit card debt to income ratios

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/may/which-us-households-have-credit-card-debt

delinquencies began to rise sharply in mid-2020 and continued on (though they've declined over the last year I think)

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/may/broad-continuing-rise-us-credit-card-debt-delinquency

I would think the "Joe Rogan of the left" would be more like Smartless or Talk Easy or something, since Rogan isn't an overtly political podcast rather than a "hanging out" one

This is a large part of why its unlikely such a thing would happen. To many people Rogan codes as apolitical, and there's a whole lane of people who present themselves (with varying degrees of success) in this way, but all still come in for Trump regardless. All the Just Asking Questions crew, the kind of people that maybe they will maybe they won't who knows for a while. Before coming in for Trump.

Three-front war with China, Iran and Mexico. They’re going to have to raise the draft age high enough to put ILXor at risk.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, November 12, 2024 3:19 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

No need to worry; Elon has no doubt sold trump on a Tesla killer robot army. When it is delivered it will be three children in an ill fitting robot suit.

This is why I keep highlighting the egos involved in the new admin, confident in knowing we’ll see crabs in a barrel duking it out well before the midterms.

There's no doubt it will get very ugly very quickly. I would almost get the popcorn out except it's such a sad waste and suffering for nothing except symbolic pushbacks which will be overturned in due time (that's optimism speaking again).

In practice I've decided to filter all US news that are not speaking credibly about the demise and fuckups of his administration. The US can be considered a (semi-)pariah state for 4 years like Russia and China. Trump is clearly the only cure for Trump - his incompetence and inconsistency should be our damage control.

Checked to see what Rubio was up to in 2009, and he was ... one of Alfred's colleagues?

― jaymc, Monday, November 11, 2024

he co-taught that course, only showed to lecture and, apparently, to get ogled by swooning girls

“If what you want is a centrist campaign that’s quiet on trans issues, tough on the border, distances itself from Palestinians, talks a lot about law and order, and reaches out to moderate Republicans, that candidate existed and she just lost.” ~ john oliver on dems moving right

Where is this? He is absolutely right.

Noticed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election#Results so many of the results for Dem states haven't been added yet compared to GOP ones. Mostly big states with more votes to count I guess but also DC, MD and CT? Only 30,000 or so votes making the difference in WI.

From Washington post

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GcJ1y9AXMAAAY_2?format=jpg&name=large

This is why there were so many people killed during floods in Valencia, Spain. The local right wing administration had cut the budget weather forecasts and an early warning system, on the excuse that climate change was a hoax. There are now riots calling for their removal. pic.twitter.com/DegoE1EI2n

— Hey, Dave! (@davegreenidge57) November 11, 2024

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and, apparently, to get ogled by swooning girls

In 2009, when he already looked like plankton with a hairpiece.

plankton with a hairpiece

There are times when I could have fish-fried him

Wish we could somehow have a moratorium on "If we even have another election ..." knee-jerk responses online. We are going to have another election, whether you want one or not.

And in less than two years! We can give them their bloody noses then.

lol Alfred

i’ve never heard rogan but just heard him described as “willy wonka for incels,” does this mean we need a willy wonka for libs? because lefties dont need one, aren’t there plenty dirtbag willy wonkas?