[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

Have you seen what that silly bitch Greene is saying now?

Dems....she is the gift that keeps on giving. Too bad so few of you will fight hard and point out the sound of crickets coming from Repukes.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

is there anybody left who doesn't know?

Any publicity is good publicity for her. Jamie Raskin has rationally, eloquently destroyed her more than once on the House floor, but to her is a win-win because it's Jamie Second Impeachment/Jan. 6 Select Committee Raskin. To quote Death Grips, "I've seen footage" of her fans in Georgia and they say "she's doing exactly what they sent her to Washington to do", which apparently is fuckall for GA.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Any publicity is good publicity for her. Jamie Raskin has rationally, eloquently destroyed her more than once on the House floor, but to her is a win-win because it's Jamie Second Impeachment/Jan. 6 Select Committee Raskin. To quote Death Grips, "I've seen footage" of her fans in Georgia and they say "she's doing exactly what they sent her to Washington to do", which apparently is fuckall for GA.

yup. she's "one of them."

[The Soup Nazi]

Sorry for Krugmanizing this thread, but this is another good 'un:

Biden versus the chaos caucus

A few ways to get out of this debt ceiling mess

By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist

Let’s say you took out a large mortgage to buy a house. Maybe you made the right decision, maybe you didn’t. Either way, you signed the contract. And your next monthly payment on that mortgage is due.

So how do you respond? Do you (a.) grumble but pay the bill, since that’s what you promised to do? Or do you (b.) refuse to pay, giving a speech about how debt is bad and your family must cut spending, even though defaulting on your mortgage will ruin your credit rating and could cause you to lose your house?

On Monday, Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House, decided to go for option (b.). Or maybe “decided” is the wrong word. McCarthy may be the weakest speaker in modern history, the notional leader of a caucus seemingly united by little but its loathing for President Biden, probably including a number of members who would rather see the U.S. economy burn than allow Biden to govern successfully. It’s not even clear that McCarthy could deliver on the dead-on-arrival, vague sketch of a deal he sort of offered in a speech at the New York Stock Exchange.

The issue at hand is whether to raise the federal debt ceiling. This ceiling is a peculiar — and destructive — quirk of the U.S. budget process. Here’s how it works: First, Congress passes legislation that determines federal spending and tax collection. This legislation may lead to a budget deficit. Whether that’s a good idea is beside the point: Congress made its choices, and the Treasury Department must do whatever is necessary to honor duly enacted legislation, which may require borrowing to cover the deficit.

But under current law Congress must also vote a second time to authorize federal borrowing by raising the limit on the allowed amount of debt. And we’re only a few months from the point where America won’t be able to keep paying its bills — that is, spend the money Congress has already told it to spend — unless Congress votes to raise that limit.

Yet now House Republicans aren’t willing to raise the limit unless they are given policy concessions they would never be able to enact via the normal legislative process. Basically, they’re saying, “Nice economy you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

Indeed, failing to raise the debt limit would have disastrous consequences, laid out in a useful recent paper from Moody’s Analytics titled “Going Down the Debt Limit Rabbit Hole.” At minimum, it would disrupt the functioning of the federal government. At worst, it would precipitate a global financial crisis, possibly as bad or worse than the crisis of 2008 — because U.S. government debt, normally considered the ultimate safe asset, is the linchpin of financial markets around the world, and many markets might freeze if investors lose confidence that we’ll honor that debt.

What can be done to avoid this potential disaster? McCarthy’s suggestions about what a deal might involve are barely worth discussing. On one side, giving in to blackmail — for that’s what a deal would amount to — would set a terrible precedent. On the other, it’s not clear that McCarthy could make good on a deal even if the Biden administration were willing to go along.

Still, for what it’s worth, McCarthy seems fixated on the idea that many Americans are refusing to work because they’re living off government aid and that we should impose more stringent work requirements on programs like food stamps and Medicaid. In reality, the employed percentage of Americans in their prime working years is near a 20-year high. And furthermore, there is abundant evidence that work requirements don’t actually encourage work — all they do is throw up bureaucratic hurdles that end up denying aid to people who really need it.

But this is, as I said, beside the point. What will actually happen next?

One possibility is that faced with looming financial chaos, McCarthy will allow a floor vote on the debt ceiling, and that a few sane members of his party will cross the aisle and help Democrats raise the ceiling. As far as I can tell, that’s the Biden administration’s plan A.

What about plan B? There are several options. Moody’s Analytics seems to think that the Biden administration might simply ignore the debt limit, invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says that the validity of U.S. public debt “shall not be questioned.”

Another possibility is the famous platinum coin. U.S. law allows the federal government to issue commemorative platinum coins in any denomination it chooses; so it could in principle mint a coin notionally worth, say, $3 trillion, deposit it at the Federal Reserve and pay its bills by drawing down the account thereby created. (The Fed would offset any effect on the money supply by selling off some of its large portfolio of U.S. government bonds, so this would in effect simply be borrowing through the back door.)

Yet another possibility would be to issue “premium bonds.” These are bonds that offer an unusually large “coupon,” i.e., annual interest payment, relative to their principal, the amount they pay when they come due. The Treasury could auction off these bonds for substantially more than their face value, in effect borrowing without increasing the official size of the debt.

All of these plans have drawbacks, and considered in isolation they each sound a bit silly. But they should be graded on a curve — compared not with normal fiscal management, but with the catastrophic consequences if the U.S. government simply stops paying its bills.

One thing should be clear: It’s unlikely that this situation will be resolved with something resembling the deal that ended the debt ceiling crisis of 2011. Democrats have gotten somewhat tougher: They believe that President Barack Obama gave in to blackmail, and they won’t do it again. Republicans, on the other hand, have gotten a lot crazier; even if Democrats were willing to make a deal, it’s highly doubtful that McCarthy could persuade his caucus to accept it.

I wish I could offer reassurance that all of this will work out. But I can’t. When the party that controls one body of Congress has no interest in keeping America governable, catastrophe is always a real possibility.


Quick Hits

More about premium bonds.

Why not consols (perpetual bonds whose principal is never repaid)?

Debt in a very long perspective.

Debt is high. Interest payments, not so much.

[The Soup Nazi]

A sobering analysis from Foreign Affairs:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middl...state-solution

Don't "tl;dr", peoples.

[Skuj]

Fox settled with Dominion!! Around 800mil I think!!

I still have faith: Lying matters!

Now, how come Trump is not in jail yet?

[Skuj]

I just went to the Fox News site. The main headline is something about how Biden made a lot of money. I quickly scrolled down, my brain cells committing suicide as I perused......

.....not one peep about the settlement.

[The Soup Nazi]

In lighter news, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ro...-disney-world/

[The Soup Nazi]

Last Week in the Republican Party

[_tunic_]

Joe Exotic is running for president, from jail? hahahaha


it's old news I guess, but I missed it

[tw2113]

Originally Posted by _tunic_

Joe Exotic is running for president, from jail? hahahaha


it's old news I guess, but I missed it

Didn't some pundits theorize that Trump could do that?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

A sobering analysis from Foreign Affairs:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middl...state-solution

Don't "tl;dr", peoples.

it's a bit of a tldr though because there is no evident solution to that problem. none that will work anyway. the authors say "the u.s. should..." and of course it should, but the would is another story that demands a big "HOW."

to always win is a kind of curse, and israel is stuck in a dangerous course right now as a result of endless victory.

and the us is stuck along for the ride as well, cognitive dissonance be damned.

i mean, the path has been going in this direction since the lebanon war, and then later when there was a chance to fix things but they killed rabin it kept going unabated. then sharon sees the light or something and conveniently dies. and so always further to the right. seems like a curse to me.

so how do you alter the course of a perpetual turn to the right when you get a sense of victory from it? like, actually alter the course? because anyone can issue "shoulds" and jeremiads. they are free, and have no tradeoffs.

the logical conclusion, it seems to me, the authors want israel to be handed a defeat as a result of its slow creep into fascism. but it's ever so slow that nobody wants to notice, and it's just "terribly inconvenient" to notice at this juncture.

so nobody who can do anything about this will "notice" -- except for israelis themselves opposing their own descent. as they should. they're the last hope. it's a well educated country, there's a tradition of moral examination of one's actions, there's a conscience, there's some hope there. of course on the opposing camp there is also nationalism, religious fanaticism, and the ability to twist any argument into self-justification.

but for the usa to take sides here...? an unfathomable leap (even though netanyahu had no qualms supporting trump and attacking obama).

personally i don't see a way forward here. but i'm not an expert. i'm just an agnostic observer. and it looks fucking terrible. and it's easy to moralize, but coming up with actual actionable solutions is a ton harder. show me a credible one.

as far as i can see it's only up to israeli citizens themselves to decide what they will do with their own fate. i'm not saying that there aren't other people involved or affected or responsible, that there are no humanitarian or moral issues etc. no, i'm not saying that.

i mean they are the only ones with power to actually do anything at this particular juncture. everybody's future (not just their own) is in their hands.

--

furthermore... i think that perhaps american scolding could only foment a greater siege mentality and further push them to the right...

[The Soup Nazi]

Got this email from Gavin Newsom/Campaign For Democracy PAC:

If you want to see the outcome of Ron DeSantis’ Stop W.O.K.E. Act, look no further than changes made to a First Grade Social Studies text about Rosa Parks.

Old Version: “The law said African Americans had to give up their seats on the bus if a white person wanted to sit down.”

Changed to: “She was told to move to a different seat because of the color of her skin.”

Further edited to: “She was told to move to a different seat. She did not. She did what she believed was right.”

 

That’s right. She was just told to move to a different seat. That’s it. It’s insane.

When asked, the publisher said they made the change in response to their "interpretation" of Ron DeSantis’ bill.

Just two weeks ago, I was in Alabama at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, the place where the Montgomery Bus Boycott was organized in 1955 — the day after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to follow a law requiring Black riders to give up their seat to whites.

It is at the same time a chilling reminder of how far we’ve come and a reminder of how people like Ron DeSantis are so eager to take us back.

If this is as enraging for you as it is for me, here’s something you can do about it today:

Please contribute $3, or whatever you can afford, directly to the Florida Democratic Party where they are working every day to replace far-right Republican legislators who support the Stop W.O.K.E. Act with Democrats who will fight against the DeSantis agenda.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

...

i can't quote inside your quote. but the motherfuckers...

[!@#$%!]

tucker carlson now going to newsmax or to be sued into oblivion? or both?

place your bets...

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

tucker carlson now going to newsmax or to be sued into oblivion? or both?

 

[The Soup Nazi]

A comment by a YouTube user:

"Fun fact about testifying: you're NOT allowed to answer a question with a question. I haven't heard Carlson make a declarative sentence in years!"

[The Soup Nazi]

Predictably, several media outlets and a large swath of the great unwashed are bothsidesing this: Fucker Carlson on the right, Don Lemon on the left, now let's go have a beer. MORONS.

[The Soup Nazi]

Damn fact-checkers, man.

No, Tucker Carlson Has Not Died

The television host was recently ousted from Fox News.

Claim:
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson died on April 24, 2023.

Rating:
FALSE

On April 24, 2023, news broke that influential Fox News host Tucker Carlson had been ousted from the network. Fox News said it had "agreed" to part ways and that it wanted to "thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor."

Soon after the news spread, Twitter users claimed that Tucker Carlson had died.

 

On April 25, 2023, another Twitter user posted a digitally edited article with a fake headline claiming "Tucker Carlson has died from suicide."

 

We have found no evidence that is the case. The above tweet also appears to replace the headline of this CNN article with a fake one. If Carlson had died, it would have been major headline news. There is also no official confirmation from Carlson's representatives and his family.

Instead, the news headlines have been dominated by Carlson's ouster from Fox News. His departure came a week after Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over the network's dissemination of election lies; Carlson also was exposed for disparaging his colleagues. A former booker also filed a lawsuit against Carlson alleging sexism on his show.

During his time at Fox, Carlson was hugely popular with viewers. He was often accused of racism and of propagating the "great replacement theory," which posits that Americans are being replaced by immigrants. He has also been the subject of numerous fact checks on this website.

This is not the first death hoax surrounding Carlson. In May 2017, a rumor spread that he had been killed in an automobile collision.

Death hoaxes about celebrities and public figures are common, and often emerge when a big news story brings the individual into the spotlight, which results in more engagement with the fake news. In our past analysis of death hoaxes, we learned this form of junk news, designed to get gullible readers to pay attention because a famous person is involved, is often clickbait, or in rare cases simply misreporting based on a misunderstanding.

Given that there has been no official confirmation from Carlson's team, and no real reporting on this, we rate this claim as "False."

Bummer.

[choc e-Claire]

@goatedtranny is a 10/10 username, oh my god.

[The Soup Nazi]

I love the part that says, in all seriousness, "Given that there has been no official confirmation from Carlson's team [that the guy croaked himself]..."