Brand X
 
  0  
Reply Fri 3 May, 2019 04:59 am
I read somewhere that the threshold could move to 100,000 donors due to the number of candidates increasing.

Cory Booker

Verified account

@CoryBooker
22h22 hours ago
More
We’re less than 2,000 donors away from hitting the 65,000 donor threshold needed to qualify for the debates. I know we can do this today. Who’s in? http://corybooker.com/sixtyfive
0 Replies
 
Olivier5
 
  4  
Reply Fri 3 May, 2019 06:03 am
@Lash,
Nothing related to policy here; only past grudges and axes to grind.
0 Replies
 
georgeob1
 
  0  
Reply Fri 3 May, 2019 06:04 am
@blatham,
Interesting observations, and I suspect those with respect to Biden and Sanders are largely correct. However Do you (or perhaps the author) believe Booker, Harris,Buttwhatever O'Rourke, or any of the other candidates are themselves ready?

Of all the candidates I suspect Kamila Harris is probably the now most likely to succeed in the primary contest. She is smart; checks most of the boxes in the contemporary favored groups ranking; has so far evaded potentially fatal gaffes, and appears to be a canny politician. I met her once, about a decade ago, in a large group in a San Francisco Restaurant at an event featuring Willie Brown: she was his then current girlfriend, and a rising new face in California politics.

The apparent self-absorption of Democrats (Harris included), and their political commentators looks to me like a serious and possible fatal weakness, not unlike what did them in in 2016. They have a very serious struggle ahead in putting together a winning party platform, given the recent lurch to the left that has emerged among them. The "Green New Deal" and various promises being recited by the candidates haven't made that any easier. The public appears to view party platforms as real precursors to action a good deal more than a decade ago, and fashioning one that satisfies both the new left and the independent voters who make the difference is likely to be very challenging.

So far the Democrat candidates appear to themselves by among the principal consumers of a new wave of left wing political propaganda, and history suggests that is can lead to dangerous (for them) illusions.

However, even here I think Harris may have an advantage, She has, in her California political career, demonstrated agility and a Chameleon -like ability to appear to satisfy contradictory political waves and trends.

However I find the prospect of her presidency to be an awful thing, and happily, very unlikely.
hightor
 
  2  
Reply Fri 3 May, 2019 02:13 pm
The Trouble With Elizabeth Warren's Plan To Forgive Student Debt

Quote:
Kudos to Elizabeth Warren for churning out specific plans that address real problems facing the country. This is what a presidential candidate should do. Last week’s chapter in the Massachusetts senator’s policy book-in-progress — coupling student loan forgiveness with free undergraduate tuition at public colleges and universities — contained, alas, only half of a good plan.

I’ve argued for the free-tuition part (along with free room and board for the poorest students). It would be expensive, more than $70 billion annually to start, though, contra Warren, I’d pay for much of it by rerouting our current federal spending on higher ed. It’s a sound step to ensure that a family’s income doesn’t deny them this proven ticket to a middle-class life.

The same cannot be said for the headline-grabber in Warren’s proposal — eliminating up to $50,000 of debt for college loan borrowers. That’s needlessly expensive, giving too much to those who don't need the help. (I speak for myself, not Boston University, where I work.)

Americans around the country trying to pay off student loans cheered Warren’s plan, and if I were so burdened, I would, too. She tried to make her proposal progressive. If your household income is less than $100,000, she’d erase $50,000 of your debt; that forgiveness goes down as income goes up, with households earning more than $250,000 getting no write-off. But that stab at progressivism isn’t enough, as a Brookings Institution analysis by Adam Looney reveals.

It found that the top 40% of households by income would get two-thirds of the savings from Warren’s forgiveness, while the bottom 20% would collect just 4%. Warren’s plan isn’t as bad as a Republican tax cut for the wealthy, to be sure. But it’s bad enough. Looney writes:

Debt relief for student loan borrowers, of course, only benefits those who have gone to college, and those who have gone to college generally fare much better in our economy than those who don’t … So any student-loan debt relief proposal needs first to confront a simple question: Why are those who went to college more deserving of aid than those who didn’t? More than 90 percent of children from the highest-income families have attended college by age 22 versus 35 percent from the lowest income families.

That Warren would tax the uber-rich to pay for this debt forgiveness doesn’t justify wasting those dollars, when they could be used for more pressing needs. For all the upper-middle class’s economic angst, its financial situation just doesn’t merit a big giveaway.

This isn’t to say that we should settle for the status quo on student debt. An analyst at the Urban Institute told the New York Times that covering $10,000 of each borrower’s loans would have helped many borrowers. More to the point, it would wipe out debt for “virtually all the borrowers who are low-income, who don’t have a bachelor’s degree, who dropped out of college, who are struggling most.”

We also could revisit bankruptcy laws, under which student loan holders have a harder time seeking relief than other types of borrowers.

Why didn’t Warren propose a more modest forgiveness? Perhaps she truly believes in an expansive approach that would benefit fully three-quarters of all student borrowers. Perhaps there’s also a dash of political self-interest mixed in; as Times columnist David Brooks noted, Democratic primary voters tend to be highly educated and might reward a candidate who’d ease their loan pain.

But policy should focus on helping those who need it most. That includes getting more low-income students into college. Proposals for free public university tuition, advocated by candidates like Warren and Bernie Sanders, would be a step in the right direction. Like a more modest loan forgiveness program, free public college would give some help to upper middle-class families and an enormous hand to the needy. It needn’t be a handout; we could embrace Australia’s income-based repayment, under which former students reimburse the taxpayers once they’re graduated and in the workforce.

Far from some radical notion, free tuition existed at some public universities founded after Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act, including California’s, which had some of the world's best-regarded colleges before state budget cuts forced the adoption of ever-rising tuition.

Warren deserves credit for free-tuition advocacy and for serious thinking about big problems. Talking about college’s potential to rebalance the off-kilter social scales in our inequality-ridden era may seem scant to the pure joy and self-improvement of learning. Yet no less than Plato considered widespread education a conduit of justice, promoting harmony among individuals who felt they’d had the same chance to compete in life.

The present administration is led by a chief executive ignorant of recent history, let alone antiquity. Perhaps his successor, whenever he or she takes the oath, will tweak Warren’s plan and run with it.

wbur
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 03:34 am
@georgeob1,
Let's just take this
Quote:
However Do you (or perhaps the author) believe Booker, Harris,Buttwhatever O'Rourke, or any of the other candidates are themselves ready?

I could forward a list of personal characteristics which I would deem essential to "readiness" for this post but god knows who'd agree with me (or even how close I or another would be to getting this right). And that's going to be true even outside of the biases arising from partisan-based preferences.

That said, the first tier characteristics I want would include honesty, work ethic, intellectual curiosity and love of learning, open-mindedness and ability to listen to others, a high level of empathy with others, and a high sense of duty to the community (nation) far outweighing any urge towards self-aggrandizement. In my mind, Harris and Warren lead the pack in approximating what I think essential.
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 03:40 am
@hightor,
It's a good piece.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 03:43 am
Quote:
Be Skeptical of Biden’s Sudden Surge
It’s true that the former vice president is polling well. But the 2020 race is still wide open.
https://bloom.bg/2H2cHXZ

You'd think folks would have figured out by now that polls this far out are close to worthless, if interesting. The press are more than happy to push these stories because they understand that the "horse race" style coverage garners attention and clicks. We don't have to play along. And we shouldn't.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 05:13 am
@blatham,
blatham wrote:

Let's just take this
Quote:
However Do you (or perhaps the author) believe Booker, Harris,Buttwhatever O'Rourke, or any of the other candidates are themselves ready?

I could forward a list of personal characteristics which I would deem essential to "readiness" for this post but god knows who'd agree with me (or even how close I or another would be to getting this right). And that's going to be true even outside of the biases arising from partisan-based preferences.

That said, the first tier characteristics I want would include honesty, work ethic, intellectual curiosity and love of learning, open-mindedness and ability to listen to others, a high level of empathy with others, and a high sense of duty to the community (nation) far outweighing any urge towards self-aggrandizement. In my mind, Harris and Warren lead the pack in approximating what I think
essential.


I’ve been musing about a Biden/Harris ticket. How’s that strike you?
georgeob1
 
  0  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 05:53 am
@snood,
snood wrote:

I’ve been musing about a Biden/Harris ticket. How’s that strike you?


I believe the evidence so far suggests that is likely the Democrat's best bet.

They've got to get Joe through a tough year with no fatal gaffes or issues emerging from a very long political career , and that may be a challenge. In addition they still face the issue of putting together a winning political platform that the new left in the party will tolerate: difficult but probably doable.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 06:09 am
@snood,
Quote:
I’ve been musing about a Biden/Harris ticket. How’s that strike you?
At this point in time, it seems good. But we don't know what the near future holds. For example, it now appears that Giuliani is working with the government in the Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden's son (if anyone imagines that emerging claims will be true then they about as dumb as can be). That seems likely to be a nothing burger but right wing media will push this for all it's worth. Consequences unknown.
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  -2  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 06:11 am
Maybe Biden’s Ukraine problems are why Obama won’t endorse Biden...
Lash
 
  -3  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 06:18 am
This is also pretty damning: Biden really likes Dick.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-dick-cheney-comments-resurface-amid-2020-campaign-2019-5
Progressives are taking this really seriously. Early in The Case for Biden thread, snood brought evidence of a really odd thing Biden did—lying about an event he said had happened to someone else, saying it had happened to him. He’s a very bold, cool liar.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  2  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 06:24 am
@Lash,
Lash wrote:

Maybe Biden’s Ukraine problems are why Obama won’t endorse Biden...


Wtf kind of abysmal idiot would be expecting Obama to already be backing one of the Dem candidates at this point? I’ll answer my own question: The only kind of assbackward troll that would want Obama to endorse a full year and a half before the election is someone rooting only for the dems to fail, or Bernie to win the Democratic nomination (which might be redundant).
blatham
 
  2  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 06:27 am
Quote:
A federal court in Cincinnati struck down Ohio’s congressional map Friday, finding the state legislature’s Republican majority drew an “unconstitutional partisan gerrymander” in 2012 that amplified GOP power far beyond the party’s actual popularity.
WSJ

That Dems are calling for non-partisan redistricting maps while Republicans are adamantly against such a system alone tells you more than you need to know about motives. And about actual regard - honest or faked - for democracy.
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  0  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 06:35 am
@snood,
What kind of man doesn’t have enough confidence in the person he hand-picked to be a heartbeat away from the most powerful job in the world to say, “I can attest to the fact that this man would make an excellent president.”?

Maybe he prefers someone else.
blatham
 
  4  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 06:36 am
@snood,
Give her some slack, snood. She just really hasn't had time to think this through as she's been deeply engrossed in her copy of Obama's book.
snood
 
  3  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 08:17 am
@blatham,
Yeah, fer sure. That, and “researching” the examples I provided of Obama’s work.
0 Replies
 
Brand X
 
  -2  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 08:19 am
@Lash,
It seems there are people that want to give Biden credit for his experience while simultaneously not analyzing that experience, it's called a mistake.
snood
 
  2  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 08:26 am
@Brand X,
Brand X wrote:

It seems there are people that want to give Biden credit for his experience while simultaneously not analyzing that experience, it's called a mistake.


It seems there are people that want to condemn Biden for some of his words and actions while simultaneously not giving him any credit for his experience.
livinglava
 
  -1  
Reply Sat 4 May, 2019 08:40 am
@snood,
snood wrote:

It seems there are people that want to condemn Biden for some of his words and actions while simultaneously not giving him any credit for his experience.

Who cares about condemnation and/or credit when nothing comes out about any ideology and/or vision for the public to evaluate?
 

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