A central issue
Could it be that forced pregnancy will keep Republicans from taking over?
Abortion and Donald Trump will both appear on November’s ballot. On Tuesday, Pat Ryan, a Democrat and a decorated Iraq war veteran, upset Republican Marc Molinaro in a special congressional election in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley. Ryan won 52-48 after pre-election polls had painted him as the clear underdog.
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On the campaign trail Ryan made abortion a central issue. “Choice is [on] the ballot, but we won’t go back,” he posted to Facebook hours before the polls opened. “Freedom is under attack, but it’s ours to defend.”
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There is a clear backlash against the US supreme court’s evisceration of the rights to privacy and personal autonomy.
Whose rights to privacy and personal autonomy? Not everyone’s; only women’s. I doubt it’s mere clumsy writing that made Lloyd Green obscure that fact. Avoiding the word “women” has become second nature to many journalists and opinion writers.
Tudor Dixon, Michigan’s Republican candidate for governor, spoke of the upside of a 14-year-old rape victim carrying the child to term. “The bond that those two people made and the fact that out of that tragedy there was healing through that baby, it’s something that we don’t think about,” Dixon told an interviewer.
Weirdly, even there he manages to avoid saying “girl.”
Anyway, I hope he’s right about the backlash.
When I’m at my computer I’ll link to the Jack Posebiec tweet. Talk about setting yourself on fire.
Well Biden just Executive Ordered a 10k into the handout mostly to people who would’ve voted Democratic anyways, so we’ll see how well that goes over.
Here’s the tweet. Quiet bit out very loud – fuck women, they’re nothing but breeding slaves.
BKiSA, my understanding is it’s not a cash handout, but debt forgiveness up to that amount, and provided you earn less than $125k. I did see someone scoff and claim that anyone with a degree would be earning more than that. The result was a flood of teachers, social workers and engineers saying nuh huh, and saying they had salaries ranging from $35k (social workers) to $50-80k (teachers) to $80-110k (engineers). I doubt it will move the dial much for Republicans, but then at this stage what would persuade a Republican to vote Democrat?
Anyone who could say anyone with a degree is earning more than that is terribly out of the loop. Even college professors start so far below that, and often with large student loans, plus years of penury working as a post-doc.
Absolutely right iknklast. I have a postgrad degree and worked first as a research scientist for a Government organisation and then as a consultant in private practice. My partner left school at 16 and became a trade qualified hairdresser and then worked in a variety of sales roles. I reckon I was well into my 40’s before my lifetime earnings eventually equalled hers. Largely because she was earning money from day 1, while I was not. But also because once I did start earning my income was significantly lower than hers at that point. I was very fortunate that I got out of the University system before it started to charge large fees and students were forced to take on debt. I left University with $5 to my name. Not great, but a whole lot better than being in 10’s or 100’s of thousands of debt.
And here’s a couple of interesting tweets about the Student loan forgiveness.
Take away is that those staffers are eligible to have up to $80k of their student loans forgiven. Something to keep in mind when reading statements lambasting poorly paid social workers getting $10k forgiven.
Not to mention that the delightful MTG has appeared on TV saying that forgiving loans is completely unfair, when she had $188k in PPP loans forgiven. It’s a good thing these people can’t feel shame. My cheeks would burn so bright my brain would melt.
Oy.
I have a graduate technical degree and I worked in a technical field. It is possible my annual earnings, adjusted for inflation, were that high at some point in my career, but it’s borderline. My final few years working were nowhere close to that level. And that’s in an area that many people consider lucrative.
And what have Democrats done to secure the right of abortion for women, other than talk about it on the campaign trail? I guess in the Senate they have voted to confirm pro-abortion-rights SCOTUS justices, but that ship has sailed, at least for now. What have House members done?
GW, what do you want them to do?
He? The interviewer? Because Tudor Dixon is a woman.
Here’s a bit of relevant background to student debt…
Rob @ 7
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me another huge difference between the benefit given to House staffers and the current debt forgiveness bill (other than the amount) is that the House staffers continue to get this benefit, while the debt forgiveness bill is a one-time thing.
As you note in #13, free college (for some colleges) has been proposed; such a program would (in theory) continue into the future and reduce the debt of many people. I suppose there are a lot of political reasons that a one-time benefit has been (successfully!) championed, and it’s a fine idea, but it’s not as if it is going to make college affordable for future students.
I mostly care from an electoral politics kind of standpoint… It’s the sort of thing that activates people’s karmic instincts.
I guess it could be argued that the forgiveness to House Staffers is a condition of employment and has been done officially in some manner – presumably approved by Congress or whatever organisation sets allowances and pay for staff; whereas the debt forgiveness is Biden doing something on fairly shaky legal ground. I think he’s right to do it, but even a lot of the commentators I’ve seen approve of his actions say the chances of it surviving legal challenge are slim.
That probably comes into his calculation though. If it’s not challenged, the right thing gets done and needy people benefit. If it does get challenged, then the GOP look, once again, like hypocrites who get off on bashing needy people, once again. There is of course an election coming up.
Even back in the days of Reagan, Thatcher and all the other conservative leaders ascendant at the time (who I thought were awful people doing bad things), the sort of behaviour we’re seeing from the GOP, MAGA, and fellow travellers would have resulted in annihilation at the polls, possibly for a generation. Now it’s just meh, that’s ok because they hate jews, blacks, gays and liberals. I’m not convinced the world is in a better place than it was 20 years ago.
GW @10 – the House Democrats have passed bills securing the right to abortion. These have yet to pass the Senate, largely on the back of Manchin. I suspect without a super majority, the Dems couldn’t get any abortion access bill through the Senate. And if they lose the House in November, they won’t be able to pass it in the House, either.
I looked into the bill further, and saw that there is an income-based repayment plan. If I understand it correctly, the remainder of any new (or existing?) loan would be dismissed if payments have been made for X number of years, and payments would be limited to Y percentage of income without increasing the time to dismissal. This does sound like a good forward-looking way to help students, and far more important in my view than the partial forgiveness of existing debt.
Income Based Repayment (IBR) has a few gotchas though. Many modifications to the payment plan or terms reset the clock. Perhaps more importantly – any dismissed / forgiven portion of the loan is treated as taxable income (much like any other loan forgiveness in the US). In certain areas of the income/loan graph it’s more advisable to save up for the eventual tax bill rather than try to pay down the principal.