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

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

[

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?

kristi noem can’t get elected dog catcher (given her proclivities), so she takes a cabinet position instead

I'm sure some incels listen to Rogan, but I imagine his audience as those jacked gym guys who work at barber shops and spend all day arguing about the Joker.

V much struggling to find paralells between Willy Wonka and Rogan. If you assume Rogan's podcast features him gruesomely killing incels while his minions sing about their character flaws, sadly that is not the case.

Rogan is the Neil Tennant of anti-woke.

Oompa Loompa Doompa Dee Doo
I have a breaking story for you
Oompa Loompa Doompa Dee Dee
Enter your email to read it for free

How do you save a democracy?
Call some pop stars from 2003?
Perhaps we can learn from the college-aged throng
No, it's the children who are wrong

kristi noem can’t get elected dog catcher (given her proclivities), so she takes a cabinet position instead

SD majority white population loves her so unless she's getting termed out as gov this isn't a problem she has in that state sadly.

More grist for the “some people’s negative experiences of the economy are not just bad vibes or failure of Dem messaging” mill: https://marylandmatters.org/2024/11/10/more-people-aged-65-face-homelessness-state-housing-officials-report/

By all statistics, Maryland is a rich state, and yet…

xxp she wants to be president tho

here we go... JFC
The FDA's brutal, unrelenting war on sunshine & exercise is about to end

“FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X. “This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma."

psychedelics the first thing that came to his mind huh

How about stopping Congress's war on universal health care?

look if RFK wants to deschedule psychedelics I'm not going to argue with him

(this is not happening - as with Trump staffing up with foreign policy neocons they're not reversing drug policy)

ah yes the war on exercise

being able to order DMT online might make the next 4-30 years slightly more bearable

A lot of acid, a charismatic leader--what could go wrong?

YEAH ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, MAKE VITAMINS LEGAL

bring back dirty foods

lol that companies don’t profit off vitamins and “nutraceuticals”, they just do it for the love of it

the worm in his head craves raw milk & mescaline, and is speaking through him

ever since since the libs got rid of leaded gasoline it’s been inflation and the minorities tryna claim power over me so i’m sayin- RFK: bring back lead bring back lead bring back lead