Read me >>> sharing illuminating journalism

[ides1056]

I digress:

Juhyo: The Snow Monsters on Japan’s Mount Zao - The Atlantic

[guido]

I digress:

Juhyo: The Snow Monsters on Japan’s Mount Zao - The Atlantic

Fabulous! Thanks so much for posting!

[Dallas Tex]

Alarmists Were Wrong about the Soleimani Strike

Great article by Hassan Hassan, worth reading.

[thollandpe]

It’s Time to Confront the Threat of Right-Wing Terrorism | The New Yorker

Right-wing terrorism, specifically the white supremacist variety, is on the rise.
A Dark and Constant Rage: 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States

According to the head of national security for the FBI, "We have a significant increase in racially motivated violent extremism in the United States and, I think, a growing increase in white nationalism and white supremacy extremist movements".

A New Face of White Supremacy: Plots Expose Danger of the 'Base'

This chills my shit.

[mzilliox]

Trump Disregards Citizens in His Rush for Polluting Projects | NRDC

hes stealing from us, from our kids...

[mzilliox]

considering stealing even more from all of us, but DOWS! COWS! Senate represents COWS!
Who puts a lobbyist and destroyer in charge of public lands? a conman and crook, thats who.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j...i8AX8Oq8cTbV-Y

[mzilliox]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...nl_most&wpmm=1

“It’s Economics 101 that tells us that when there is a difference between private costs and costs to society, that difference ought to be included in one’s decision-making,” Wagner said. “And when I say ought, of course the private individual won’t; it’s up to somebody in a position of power — let’s say the secretary of Treasury — to want to guide economic policy in the right direction.”

[Dallas Tex]

This is something I’ve thought about for quite some time. I’m glad this concept is getting some attention.


Elizabeth Warren clashes with Iowa father who calls her student loan policy unfair

[guido]

How Republicans made millions on the 2017 tax cuts they pushed through Congress - Vox

[ides1056]

I heard this author interviewed yesterday on WAMC.org. What he said resonated with me.

"In 2014 in the book "Dog Whistle Politics," Ian Haney López named and explained the coded racial appeals exploited by right-wing politicians over the last half century and thereby anticipated the 2016 presidential election. Now the country is heading into what will surely be one of the most consequential elections ever, with the Right gearing up to exploit racial fear-mongering to divide and distract, and the Left splintered over the next step forward. Some want to focus on racial justice head-on; others insist that a race-silent focus on class avoids alienating white voters.

Can either approach - race-forward or colorblind - build the progressive supermajorities necessary to break political gridlock and fundamentally change the country’s direction?

The new book is "Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America."

Merge Left | The New Press

[caleb]

Like many of you, I've done my taxes on paper forms I've picked up at the post office or library in the past. With nothing but W2 income and the standard deduction, I thought I might give it a go again this year to avoid paying TurboTax.

Poking around the interweb to find the IRS's Free Fillable Forms site, a series of ProPublia stories about the Free File Alliance and TurboTax's abuses popped up. There's a whole series, but here's where I started: Here’s How TurboTax Just Tricked You Into Paying to File Your Taxes — ProPublica

The short story is that seventeen years ago the OMB tasked the IRS with creating their own eFile system. The IRS didn't want to, so they made a deal with the private accounting world that they could create the software as long as there was a free version available for moderate and low income folks. Everyone else would have to pay. That's just a mind boggling dereliction of duty to me: the IRS was supposed to create a free electronic tax filing service for everyone, and instead they decided the private sector should do it and pay for it by charging a significant portion of taxpayers for the service.

It would be a sour enough deal if the agreement were actually carried out as written and poor people weren't charged, but what's actually happened is that tax prep companies have so effectively hidden the free option that pretty much everyone pays. This underutilization of the free option (with usage at only 3%), per Pro Publica, is costing people making < $66,000/yr more than a billion dollars in fees a year.

So, to recap, in 2003 the IRS did not fulfill its charge to create a free filing service, and instead used the opaque and mostly unaccountable rule making process to turn the task over to the private sector with weak assurances for the public interest. That arrangement has been predictably abused, causing the transfer of about $17,000,000,000 from the bottom half of society to major financial corporations so far. What a scandal.

The Free File Alliance expires in 2022. Until then, I'll be doing my taxes old school.

[JJohnson]

This is something I’ve thought about for quite some time. I’m glad this concept is getting some attention.


Elizabeth Warren clashes with Iowa father who calls her student loan policy unfair

As someone that's paid all of my student loans off myself, we desperately need to reduce the debt incurred and by two generations and counting for education. It would boost the US economy and benefit everyone in the long run. Enough of the "woe is me, I paid so everyone else should too" ethos. Look to the future, not the past. I'm glad Sanders has brought the issue of student loan debt and forgiveness to the forefront.

[caleb]

^ I wondered how long Warren would keep the selfie line going. It leaves her very open to opposition plants.

I'm not necessarily saying this guy was a plant, but who waits in line for hours to give a third place primary candidate a piece of their mind, of course with someone taping?

[mzilliox]

This is something I’ve thought about for quite some time. I’m glad this concept is getting some attention.


Elizabeth Warren clashes with Iowa father who calls her student loan policy unfair

Do think the the Mother of the last black slave in this country was mad because all of the other kids got to be born free?
Seems a bit selfish to deny a better future because you participated in the past and present. Isn't this country all about creating a better and better way forward? hasn't every generation had more opportunity than the one before? should we deny that to people because we didnt have it? it sounds like he wants a refund, maybe he should have just voted better.

But thats sort of the Trump way no? Get people all mad about their own selfish lot in life, give them a reason to blame something else, mention the past, as though things haven't improved, and make folks react to that.

[Christian Fox]

Do think the the Mother of the last black slave in this country was mad because all of the other kids got to be born free?
Seems a bit selfish to deny a better future because you participated in the past and present. Isn't this country all about creating a better and better way forward? hasn't every generation had more opportunity than the one before? should we deny that to people because we didnt have it? it sounds like he wants a refund, maybe he should have just voted better.

But thats sort of the Trump way no? Get people all mad about their own selfish lot in life, give them a reason to blame something else, mention the past, as though things haven't improved, and make folks react to that.

I think it's pretty selfish to borrow 300 grand to study 17th century Russian poetry at Oberlin* and think it's ok for strangers to pay it back for you. I agree there should be a push for a better future, but there has to be a sensible way to restructure student debt in such a way that good choices are rewarded and impractical behavior is discouraged. Warren is desperate, and this issue panders to two crowds: the young indebted and their parents.

*not sure if that's a thing, I made it up to sound impractical

[Dallas Tex]

Do think the the Mother of the last black slave in this country was mad because all of the other kids got to be born free?
Seems a bit selfish to deny a better future because you participated in the past and present. Isn't this country all about creating a better and better way forward? hasn't every generation had more opportunity than the one before? should we deny that to people because we didnt have it? it sounds like he wants a refund, maybe he should have just voted better.

I truly don't have any idea how race got injected into this, but If I had to guess I'd say it comes from someone's having an emotional need to pretend they are the big savior of a population that differs from them in appearance. Can I inquire if anyone from this population that you are 'helping' has asked you directly for your help? And let me guess.............. you live far, far, far away from any people that don't look exactly like you. I'd have to say that you, like many in your generation, are suffering from 'racial obsession' defined by the need to inject race into every topic & interaction. But hey that's another discussion.......


I thought the guy that confronted Elizabeth Warren had it dead right. Dude in the example, and his kid, busted ass to pay for school and stay out of debt. Why should his buddy, and his buddy's kid, who earned more but spent & lived frivolously be rewarded with cancellation of debt, making their education free????????

If debt cancellation ever occurs (lets hope not), it'd better refund every nickel to those good folks that re-paid their loans as expected. It should also refund the amount spent by kids that worked their way through school and never incurred debt in the first place. Else you are ENCOURAGING bad behavior.

I never understand the left's reluctance to ever 'swim upstream' for solutions, they seem to always prefer 'downstream' remedies. I seldom if ever hear any discussion of the dishonesty of a university department head encouraging some teenager on the value of going $100K in debt for a degree in 'Comparative Social Theory'.

Debt cancellation falls into the category of encouraging bad behavior. The more consequences that are removed from bad decisions & bad behavior, the more bad decisions & bad behavior that we will see in our society.

[becomingblue]

As someone that's paid all of my student loans off myself,

Why did you do this?

[mzilliox]

Your bold section seems to support impeachment right?

I get it, im not actually sure where i stand on free college yet, but we have free high school, and its been suggested that College is just the new high school. I dont have kids, This will never apply to me. I already paid up, no college debt here, yeah, i have an economics degree to farm. and I'm glad, college made me a better person.

But if its the way the country goes, and education becomes free, i am comparing it to the end of slavery, not trying to make this racial necessarily, just the first thing i thought of that was a massive change in society. I could have chosen women's right to vote too. Sorry to trigger you. So if ever the country decides to vote for free college, then my comparison is overly dramatic but it stands. The last person to not benefit from that which helps everyone else can decide for themselves if the future is now better or worse, even if they had to pay the fee.

Ill just let you stew in the rest of whatever you wrote about me, im not interested in me, just these ideas. Im from Southern California, everyone lives there, I'll let you create all kinds of fantasy about me beyond that.

[vertical_doug]

Debt cancellation falls into the category of encouraging bad behavior. The more consequences that are removed from bad decisions & bad behavior, the more bad decisions & bad behavior that we will see in our society.

Kids should do what the wealthy do. They form a corporation and the corporation enrolls in college and borrows money. The student is merely an employee of the corporation there to perform the work on behalf of the corporation. If after graduation, the corporation can not service it's debts, the corporation declares bankruptcy and defaults. The student fortunately, is just an employee, so he is free to leave and look for a new job with no consequence. If he was really clever, he was paid a large dividend recently financed by the corporation which issued junk bonds just before declaring bankruptcy because they told the market business prospects looked good.

Glenn. Moral Hazard is very real, but in our present system, it only applies to the poor. What are the lyrics of the Dylan song ' steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal alot and they make you king'.

[theflashunc]

I truly don't have any idea how race got injected into this, but If I had to guess I'd say it comes from someone's having an emotional need to pretend they are the big savior of a population that differs from them in appearance. Can I inquire if anyone from this population that you are 'helping' has asked you directly for your help? And let me guess.............. you live far, far, far away from any people that don't look exactly like you. I'd have to say that you, like many in your generation, are suffering from 'racial obsession' defined by the need to inject race into every topic & interaction. But hey that's another discussion.......


I thought the guy that confronted Elizabeth Warren had it dead right. Dude in the example, and his kid, busted ass to pay for school and stay out of debt. Why should his buddy, and his buddy's kid, who earned more but spent & lived frivolously be rewarded with cancellation of debt, making their education free????????

If debt cancellation ever occurs (lets hope not), it'd better refund every nickel to those good folks that re-paid their loans as expected. It should also refund the amount spent by kids that worked their way through school and never incurred debt in the first place. Else you are ENCOURAGING bad behavior.

I never understand the left's reluctance to ever 'swim upstream' for solutions, they seem to always prefer 'downstream' remedies. I seldom if ever hear any discussion of the dishonesty of a university department head encouraging some teenager on the value of going $100K in debt for a degree in 'Comparative Social Theory'.

Debt cancellation falls into the category of encouraging bad behavior. The more consequences that are removed from bad decisions & bad behavior, the more bad decisions & bad behavior that we will see in our society.

So what's the alternative? Not go to college? By some estimates, as many as two thirds of jobs in the country today require at least an associates degree just to get in the door. Pair that with a skyrocketing cost of education thanks to both states and the federal government stepping back their support of higher education, and you end up where we are with $1.5 trillion-plus in student debt.

Much like the mortgage crisis, you're applying microeconomic logic to a macroeconomic problem. Student loan debt is an existential threat to our economy. We start seeing a downturn in the economy that leads to a wave of student loan defaults, that credit crisis becomes the housing market meltdown all over again. And it just so happen to be a form of debt that's harder to remove through bankruptcy than taking a house back in foreclosure.

Personal responsibility? Get outta here with that nonsense.