What a glorious metaphor, for our shared political experience: The clouds of appeal and obfuscation threaten to cover the sun of renewal and recovery. The sun, however, will not be denied, and the brightness flares through the darkness.
Fantastic, Robert. Our puny 50% was fun, though. The solar flare is quite the rarity to catch, just looking at ithe eclipss. My job at CSUN was to maintain and keep the instruments at the San Fernando Solar Observatory tuned up, so that is what we weere tuned into on a daily basis. I worked for a bunch of crazies who stared at the sun all day. Glad the skies opened up for you. Your credibility in the universe is validated, for sure.
Unfotunately, it no longer exists. The big white dome is still visible( looks like a mushroom) at the North end of the Upper Van Norman Reservoir. Look to the South from the I-210 to I-5 transition overpass. After the 9-11 scramble for security, the assistant manager of the filtration plant freaked out at this long haired bearded potential terrorist who might put enough LSD in the water to flip out all of LA , as well as foreign gradstudents and the push was on to get CSUN out of there and the site had to be abandoned back in 2015 or so. The dean of science and math asked be to work for him in the science shop, designing and machining/building precision instruments for the campus research labs. I retired in 2017.
Glad you saw a good one yesterday, Robert. My spectroheliograph worked like a champ. A very pleasant morning with friends and Tex Mex breakfast tacos and coffee. We should meet up one of these days over at Tom's and play with the kitty cats and listen to his stories.
I'm curious about what you read. I was right in the middle of it and don't remember reading anythng other than the DWP/CSUN communications. I had always negotiated the license agreement for CSUN because I was the only one involved who knew what would be required for the observatory to function. Security was the only real issue until they floated a plan to expand the filtrate settling ponds, but the peninsula the the observaroryhag been built on when the water was there could easily been the burm between two ponds. I was involved in all of these discussions regarding simple adjustments to their design that would not have impacted acre feet of basin at all. Lots of other security issues too. Eventually the hysterical assistant director was transfered to a gate station on the aquaduct up near the south end of Owens vally. Out there by himself so he could not create unnecessary panic when his paranoia took over. Open the gate at 10:00 AM. Close the gate at 4:30 Pm to stop the flow. I heard he could handle that.
From the winner of academy award for hypocritical statements, Rep. Andrew Clyde (Rep.) of Ga. "Joe Biden once again announces that he will transfer millions more in student debt onto the backs of hardworking taxpayers. "
Congressman Clyde had $156,697 of debt forgiven from a PPP loan. Source: @WhiteHouse on X
The image that’s been propagated of the Loan Forgivenesses is that four-year college graduates and grad/med/law school attendees and graduates are the beneficiaries. That’s not the entire truth: beneficiaries include people who went to Community Colleges, people who are likely to be middle-middle class.
Democrats should be emphasizing that point, since it contradicts propaganda that Biden is supporting only a moneyed class.
I wonder if anyone has reminded Clyde of that huge detail. I would love to hear the explanation about how that's different and justified.
At least one report that I saw said that much of what is being forgiven is the astronomical amount of interest that's been accumulating on the original student debt.
And on the subject of former President Trump and abortion. I firmly believe that the former President did not start out all these years ago with a moral stance on abortion; I'd bet he paid for at least one. I think he picked the anti-abortion stance to win votes, and then, as often, he began to believe his own convenient elucidation of his "values." All this based on my own fantasy, not personal knowledge.
I also find the "states should decide" announcement almost Machiavellianly brilliant --best act of tightrope walking while Burger King eating in a long time. I only hope you're right about the idea it will not serve him, as, in the end, the Confederate "State's Rights" stance as a cover for justifying a slave based economy did not serve its destined end.
Going back for a moment to my just sent previous post, I have always disliked the "God bless America" speech ending of "United" States presidents of both denominations--partly because "America" acts as if there were no Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, partly because shouldn't a God be blessing His/Her/Their "chosen" species. Today there was a moment in North America (I don't know the course beyond it) when many of us were all just human/animal/alive members of the species/earth/universe together. I'm glad for it and know this paragraph is corny.
Not corny. Yesterday gave us an opportunity to experience (or ignore) a power truly beyond our human selves. My heart unclenched for a few hours: anticipating, experiencing with friends, then relaxing into the release of an unclenched heart.
I agree with your opinion about trump's "moral stance" on abortion. As I learned more about trump during his first campaign, I concluded that he has no true personal moral stance on anything-because he has no moral compass. He has only confirmed that opinion pretty much daily ever since. He has said in various interviews that he has never made a mistake or done anything requiring an apology. He has become rich through cons and convincing the world of an artificial value to the trump name..until it actually held that value in the business world. He doesn't feel bound by any rules, laws or norms that don't work in his favor. When he won the 2016 election, people were horrified, but many said one man couldn't destroy this country in 4 years. The spineless GOP has enabled a monster with a following that the cowards are now afraid to cross. So here we are. But, as Robert Hubbell continues to remind us, our numbers are greater if we work together and get out the vote.
We were in Mazatlán and were quite fortunate, with only high cirrus clouds. There was a large absolutely delightful Mexican family of about 12 from Guadalajara on the terraza with us. They had four separate scopes - the largest was actually a 714 mm fixed length lens with filters on an equatorial mount with a binocular eyepiece. The sun was huge with 3 crystal clear manchas (sunspots but the Spanish means stains).
Ricardo is passionate about astronomy and has his own rooftop observatory. The whole family was decked out in matching t-shirts.
My favorite moments were: watching the birds start to try to tuck in for the night; seeing all the automatic lights in the buildings and streets turn on; how cold it got when the sun was “gone”; and of course the astonishing corona. Over four minutes of totality, and then the shadow was gone, racing across the continent at 1,600 miles an hour.
We’re already talking about going to Spain for the eclipse in 2026. We’re hooked.
Bravo to you for calling abortion opponents what they are - "anti-choice", not pro-life. If everyone used that formulation, the issue would be less emotional and much more clear.
Glad you got to see the eclipse and do so while meeting friends, readers, and supporters. Safe travels home.
Reproductive liberty was forced into prominence as a political calculation. The racist people like Jerry Falwell came to understand that their segregationist agenda was not popular, so they cast about for another issue to take its place and settled on abortion. The pattern here is that there has to be somebody to put down and suppress. Indigenous native people, Black people, other people of color, people of Asian descent. Abortion also negatively impacts the aforementioned groups. To the racist white men promoting forced birth, that's a bonus.
Reproductive liberty is an important right; people should be able to plan their families according to their life circumstances. But at its most basic, abortion care is healthcare. Pregnancy is far too complicated to legislate, especially by ignorant men with little knowledge of human anatomy.
Here's a copy of the "bond". It's from the court docket. I thought it was a very weird bond form, but didn't look at it all that closely because part of the weirdness was all the excess and convoluted verbiage. It never occurred to me that a bond form wouldn't bind the surety. The standard wording is agreeing to joint and several liability if the bond condition is not met. But it does not in fact bind the surety to anything other than never having to pay OVER 175 million. Of course it doesn't bind them to pay ANYTHING, either.
The interesting philosophical question is how Judge E will rule on the "sufficiency" of the bond when there is in fact no bond before him. I could call this comment "a bond." That wouldn't make it one.
Susan, thanks for posting the link to the bond. I read the bond and am gobsmacked. There is no promise to pay by Knight Insurance company!!! Unbelievable!
And the bond falsely states that Kinght meets the requirement for conducting business in New York. Engoron wil not be happy!
I haven't read all the details of this yet, and I'm not a lawyer (I only sometimes play at being one in substack comments) but could it have been purposeful? I'm sure that Trump doesn't care about further aggravating Judge Engoron, but can it possibly cause another delay in getting on with the appeal process while it gets sorted out?
I don't think Trump or his lawyers know enough about bonds to know it didn't fit the requirements of any bond. In fact, I don't know that KNIGHT knows enough about bonds to realize what is required. Only if in negotiating this trump or his representatives said to each other "let's sneak this past the court" will there be fraud in this bit of his disaster.
As to the "excess lines" argument, this makes me pretty certain that there was no licensed broker involved as is required by NY law to write as a non-admitted insurer. You really can't get a licensed broker THIS ignorant.
His INTENT to pay back if he loses the appeal is irrelevant if James is able to slap a judgement lien on every piece of property he or his organization(s) owns. Once that's set, he will have a very hard time getting another loan from anywhere without the judgment lien being paid off. It's just a matter of James waiting till he manages to do so. Or she can foreclose, but for that to work there has to be enough equity to cover the prior obligations (like deeds of trust) AND at least part of the judgment. But hey, the State of New York can afford to wait. That interest at 9% just keeps growing.
Bankruptcy won't help him. A fraud judgement is non dischargeable. It may take longer to get the properties but as I said, New York can wait.
Basically, his source of capital will have dried up. Hard to run a business without that.
The abortion issue is also the IVF issue, and the birth control issue. The Democrats need to get Trump on the record for IVF and birth control as well. In fact, they should get all Republicans on the record for their stance on these three reproductive health issues. I was also reading recently an article in The Atlantic that says while birth control for women all has some problems, there is currently more money for research on birth control for men, which is much less invasive, lacks side effects, and does not require them to take it for anything other than a situation in which they are going to have sex. Still, women are going to suffer with less than ideal options rather than just trust men to take care of it, because they are still the ones who will get pregnant if there is no birth control used.
So, everyone should be educated on birth control options and how the research is developing, because that is a reproductive health issue too, and paying for research for better methods will also shrivel away if Republicans are in charge in the next election. Democrats could be making this case too. It should certainly draw out the young female voters.
Deepak Puri and Democracy Labs, thanks for the good work and posting these significant graphics. I urge all to take a good look at the loan debt map and its significance. Republicans are fond of portraying college debt relief as a giveaway program for privileged elites, not them of course, even though many of the Republicans in Congress went to the most expensive colleges in the country. But looking at the map tells us many things. One example, the state of Mississippi has the smallest percentage of people over the age of 25 with a college degree (24.78%). That means 414,000 individuals in the state have a college degree, and they are carrying $14.4 billion dollars in student debt, and 66,000 of these folks are over the age of 50. All of this debt will not be wiped out by President Biden's plan, but a lot of the accumulated interest will be. Think of what this will mean for these individuals and for the economy of the good state of Mississippi. Home repairs, dinners out, purchases of tickets to athletic events and theatre and music venues, donations to churches and civic organizations, and hundreds of other good purposes will fertilize the local economies in Mississippi and all over the country. MAGA Republicans are constantly fretting over the economy, but they restrict that worry to the richest zip codes. This loan forgiveness will make life easier for people all over the country and enrich local spending on those businesses and shops that employ millions without a college degrees. What is not to like about this?
I totally agree with your comments. My goal in creating these graphics is to connect the consequences of Republican policies with what it means for people. And let people see for themselves how it impacts there community. I overlay the maps with their elected official so then a reader can call them directly. This cuts through the Republican 'culture wars' which they use to distract the public with while robbing people in need with their cruel policies.
This map shows how President Biden's loans help veterans and the disabled. In creating this map, I was surprised to see how many borrowers were still paying off their loans into their 60's.
Regarding the $175 million bond, last night Rachel Maddow gave an in depth report on the guy who put up the money for the bond. It is extremely interesting since this guy was abusing people left and right with loan financing and became a billionaire, but now instead of fleecing people, he decides to put the current amount although he said he'd go for the full amount. It's quite a story. Look for it on MSNBC online or it might be on YouTube.
“Donald Trump and the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court have relegated women to a second-class status.” Robert, this statement is not an accurate one. Women have never had equal status under our constitution.
You note, absolutely correctly, that Republicans glory in a tax code: “ the most affluent Americans benefit from “carried interest” deductions on hedge-fund investments or 20% capital gains rates on investment income or a federal tax write-off available only to purchasers of private jets but not economy cars. These “fairness” arguments are trotted out by Republicans only when working-class Americans are beneficiaries but not when the top 1% earners receive windfall benefits.”. Please ask Biden team to wash and repeat this all over the airways.
As a side note I visited the 3 new Memorials in Montgomery, Alabama that honor the many men and women who died during the shameful years of slavery. It is a breathtaking exhibit set on 3 sites in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. If you ever get this way, please take the time to see our dark history. It gives me hope that these brave souls went through so much and survived this tragedy to become such breathtaking citizens. Yes we still deal with this in many ways but we have also come so far. The fact that these memorials were built at the site of the warehousing and auctioning of these poor people is in and of itself breathtaking. We move forward and backward in history but this is a big step forward. Let's hope it shows up at the polls in November. I am proud of my City and I rarely say that these days....
Adaline, thank you so much for sharing this. It is is important for all of us to enlarge our expectations of our fellow citizens beyond red and blue state stereotypes if we are ever going to bring about healing and humanity across all of these United States. As Robert and others have commented about Texas recently, there are signs that the blue/red state dichotomy is beginning to fall apart. When I ask many of my friends who share the opinion that Trump must never be president again, and will vote for Biden, what they are going to do, they often say --"I live in a red state, nothing to be done here." Or, "I live in a blue state, the Democrats don't need any help here."
This narrowness and complacency among good people leads to "So what?" inaction. The individual human stories of communities, groups, candidates pushing against the grain matters so much.
Thank you Robert for pointing out the massive hypocrisy of Republican rhetoric regarding welfare. They love socialism for the wealthy and giant corporations, but want the rest of us to be rugged individualists, as MLK famously pointed out. The Democrats should be pointing out this hypocrisy 24/7, that the GOP loves big government for the wealthy few at the rest of our expense.
What a glorious metaphor, for our shared political experience: The clouds of appeal and obfuscation threaten to cover the sun of renewal and recovery. The sun, however, will not be denied, and the brightness flares through the darkness.
Fantastic, Robert. Our puny 50% was fun, though. The solar flare is quite the rarity to catch, just looking at ithe eclipss. My job at CSUN was to maintain and keep the instruments at the San Fernando Solar Observatory tuned up, so that is what we weere tuned into on a daily basis. I worked for a bunch of crazies who stared at the sun all day. Glad the skies opened up for you. Your credibility in the universe is validated, for sure.
I did not know that there was a San Fernando Solar observatory! Can you arrange a tour? (Asking for a friend.)
Unfotunately, it no longer exists. The big white dome is still visible( looks like a mushroom) at the North end of the Upper Van Norman Reservoir. Look to the South from the I-210 to I-5 transition overpass. After the 9-11 scramble for security, the assistant manager of the filtration plant freaked out at this long haired bearded potential terrorist who might put enough LSD in the water to flip out all of LA , as well as foreign gradstudents and the push was on to get CSUN out of there and the site had to be abandoned back in 2015 or so. The dean of science and math asked be to work for him in the science shop, designing and machining/building precision instruments for the campus research labs. I retired in 2017.
Glad you saw a good one yesterday, Robert. My spectroheliograph worked like a champ. A very pleasant morning with friends and Tex Mex breakfast tacos and coffee. We should meet up one of these days over at Tom's and play with the kitty cats and listen to his stories.
I've read about all this
Ransom. Why the
observatory was eventually
closed.
I'm curious about what you read. I was right in the middle of it and don't remember reading anythng other than the DWP/CSUN communications. I had always negotiated the license agreement for CSUN because I was the only one involved who knew what would be required for the observatory to function. Security was the only real issue until they floated a plan to expand the filtrate settling ponds, but the peninsula the the observaroryhag been built on when the water was there could easily been the burm between two ponds. I was involved in all of these discussions regarding simple adjustments to their design that would not have impacted acre feet of basin at all. Lots of other security issues too. Eventually the hysterical assistant director was transfered to a gate station on the aquaduct up near the south end of Owens vally. Out there by himself so he could not create unnecessary panic when his paranoia took over. Open the gate at 10:00 AM. Close the gate at 4:30 Pm to stop the flow. I heard he could handle that.
From the winner of academy award for hypocritical statements, Rep. Andrew Clyde (Rep.) of Ga. "Joe Biden once again announces that he will transfer millions more in student debt onto the backs of hardworking taxpayers. "
Congressman Clyde had $156,697 of debt forgiven from a PPP loan. Source: @WhiteHouse on X
The image that’s been propagated of the Loan Forgivenesses is that four-year college graduates and grad/med/law school attendees and graduates are the beneficiaries. That’s not the entire truth: beneficiaries include people who went to Community Colleges, people who are likely to be middle-middle class.
Democrats should be emphasizing that point, since it contradicts propaganda that Biden is supporting only a moneyed class.
Also, poor women of color attempting to get out of poverty.
What hypocrites!
Not that I 'like' this at all, but since there's no hate button...
I wonder if anyone has reminded Clyde of that huge detail. I would love to hear the explanation about how that's different and justified.
At least one report that I saw said that much of what is being forgiven is the astronomical amount of interest that's been accumulating on the original student debt.
And on the subject of former President Trump and abortion. I firmly believe that the former President did not start out all these years ago with a moral stance on abortion; I'd bet he paid for at least one. I think he picked the anti-abortion stance to win votes, and then, as often, he began to believe his own convenient elucidation of his "values." All this based on my own fantasy, not personal knowledge.
I also find the "states should decide" announcement almost Machiavellianly brilliant --best act of tightrope walking while Burger King eating in a long time. I only hope you're right about the idea it will not serve him, as, in the end, the Confederate "State's Rights" stance as a cover for justifying a slave based economy did not serve its destined end.
Going back for a moment to my just sent previous post, I have always disliked the "God bless America" speech ending of "United" States presidents of both denominations--partly because "America" acts as if there were no Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, partly because shouldn't a God be blessing His/Her/Their "chosen" species. Today there was a moment in North America (I don't know the course beyond it) when many of us were all just human/animal/alive members of the species/earth/universe together. I'm glad for it and know this paragraph is corny.
Not corny. Yesterday gave us an opportunity to experience (or ignore) a power truly beyond our human selves. My heart unclenched for a few hours: anticipating, experiencing with friends, then relaxing into the release of an unclenched heart.
(Durham, NC, so partial but moving nonetheless.)
I agree with your opinion about trump's "moral stance" on abortion. As I learned more about trump during his first campaign, I concluded that he has no true personal moral stance on anything-because he has no moral compass. He has only confirmed that opinion pretty much daily ever since. He has said in various interviews that he has never made a mistake or done anything requiring an apology. He has become rich through cons and convincing the world of an artificial value to the trump name..until it actually held that value in the business world. He doesn't feel bound by any rules, laws or norms that don't work in his favor. When he won the 2016 election, people were horrified, but many said one man couldn't destroy this country in 4 years. The spineless GOP has enabled a monster with a following that the cowards are now afraid to cross. So here we are. But, as Robert Hubbell continues to remind us, our numbers are greater if we work together and get out the vote.
We were in Mazatlán and were quite fortunate, with only high cirrus clouds. There was a large absolutely delightful Mexican family of about 12 from Guadalajara on the terraza with us. They had four separate scopes - the largest was actually a 714 mm fixed length lens with filters on an equatorial mount with a binocular eyepiece. The sun was huge with 3 crystal clear manchas (sunspots but the Spanish means stains).
Ricardo is passionate about astronomy and has his own rooftop observatory. The whole family was decked out in matching t-shirts.
My favorite moments were: watching the birds start to try to tuck in for the night; seeing all the automatic lights in the buildings and streets turn on; how cold it got when the sun was “gone”; and of course the astonishing corona. Over four minutes of totality, and then the shadow was gone, racing across the continent at 1,600 miles an hour.
We’re already talking about going to Spain for the eclipse in 2026. We’re hooked.
Bravo to you for calling abortion opponents what they are - "anti-choice", not pro-life. If everyone used that formulation, the issue would be less emotional and much more clear.
Glad you got to see the eclipse and do so while meeting friends, readers, and supporters. Safe travels home.
Reproductive liberty was forced into prominence as a political calculation. The racist people like Jerry Falwell came to understand that their segregationist agenda was not popular, so they cast about for another issue to take its place and settled on abortion. The pattern here is that there has to be somebody to put down and suppress. Indigenous native people, Black people, other people of color, people of Asian descent. Abortion also negatively impacts the aforementioned groups. To the racist white men promoting forced birth, that's a bonus.
Reproductive liberty is an important right; people should be able to plan their families according to their life circumstances. But at its most basic, abortion care is healthcare. Pregnancy is far too complicated to legislate, especially by ignorant men with little knowledge of human anatomy.
cool eclipse pictures
Here's a copy of the "bond". It's from the court docket. I thought it was a very weird bond form, but didn't look at it all that closely because part of the weirdness was all the excess and convoluted verbiage. It never occurred to me that a bond form wouldn't bind the surety. The standard wording is agreeing to joint and several liability if the bond condition is not met. But it does not in fact bind the surety to anything other than never having to pay OVER 175 million. Of course it doesn't bind them to pay ANYTHING, either.
The interesting philosophical question is how Judge E will rule on the "sufficiency" of the bond when there is in fact no bond before him. I could call this comment "a bond." That wouldn't make it one.
https://eddsa.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/public/452564_2022_PEOPLE_OF_THE_STATE_OF_v_PEOPLE_OF_THE_STATE_OF_BOND_UNDERTAKING_1707.pdf
Susan, thanks for posting the link to the bond. I read the bond and am gobsmacked. There is no promise to pay by Knight Insurance company!!! Unbelievable!
And the bond falsely states that Kinght meets the requirement for conducting business in New York. Engoron wil not be happy!
and good old Amit Shah has sworn under penalty of perjury that what is stated in the bond is true.
I haven't read all the details of this yet, and I'm not a lawyer (I only sometimes play at being one in substack comments) but could it have been purposeful? I'm sure that Trump doesn't care about further aggravating Judge Engoron, but can it possibly cause another delay in getting on with the appeal process while it gets sorted out?
I believe he most certainly knew his bond was fake. I believe he has no intention of ever paying this penalty, even if he loses on appeal.
A fraudster gotta fraud.
I don't think Trump or his lawyers know enough about bonds to know it didn't fit the requirements of any bond. In fact, I don't know that KNIGHT knows enough about bonds to realize what is required. Only if in negotiating this trump or his representatives said to each other "let's sneak this past the court" will there be fraud in this bit of his disaster.
As to the "excess lines" argument, this makes me pretty certain that there was no licensed broker involved as is required by NY law to write as a non-admitted insurer. You really can't get a licensed broker THIS ignorant.
His INTENT to pay back if he loses the appeal is irrelevant if James is able to slap a judgement lien on every piece of property he or his organization(s) owns. Once that's set, he will have a very hard time getting another loan from anywhere without the judgment lien being paid off. It's just a matter of James waiting till he manages to do so. Or she can foreclose, but for that to work there has to be enough equity to cover the prior obligations (like deeds of trust) AND at least part of the judgment. But hey, the State of New York can afford to wait. That interest at 9% just keeps growing.
Bankruptcy won't help him. A fraud judgement is non dischargeable. It may take longer to get the properties but as I said, New York can wait.
Basically, his source of capital will have dried up. Hard to run a business without that.
My hope is this makes the judge go back to the original figure and now they can immediately start selling off his business'
The abortion issue is also the IVF issue, and the birth control issue. The Democrats need to get Trump on the record for IVF and birth control as well. In fact, they should get all Republicans on the record for their stance on these three reproductive health issues. I was also reading recently an article in The Atlantic that says while birth control for women all has some problems, there is currently more money for research on birth control for men, which is much less invasive, lacks side effects, and does not require them to take it for anything other than a situation in which they are going to have sex. Still, women are going to suffer with less than ideal options rather than just trust men to take care of it, because they are still the ones who will get pregnant if there is no birth control used.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/04/birth-control-male-contraception-revolution/677954/?utm_campaign=one-story-to-read-today&utm_content=20240403&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=One+Story+to+Read+Today
So, everyone should be educated on birth control options and how the research is developing, because that is a reproductive health issue too, and paying for research for better methods will also shrivel away if Republicans are in charge in the next election. Democrats could be making this case too. It should certainly draw out the young female voters.
Some visual resources to illustrate Robert's notes:
Map of where President Biden's Student Loan forgiveness program is helping the most people.
https://thedemlabs.org/2023/07/18/biden-forgives-39-billion-student-loan-debt/
Cut through Trump’s bail bond B.S. with this RELATIONSHIP MAP
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/04/08/axos-bank-trump-tower-knight-bail-bond-relationship-map/
NATIONAL ABORTION BAN: Project 2025 Illustrated Guide For Trump
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/04/08/national-abortion-ban-project-2025-illustrated-guide-for-trump/
Deepak Puri and Democracy Labs, thanks for the good work and posting these significant graphics. I urge all to take a good look at the loan debt map and its significance. Republicans are fond of portraying college debt relief as a giveaway program for privileged elites, not them of course, even though many of the Republicans in Congress went to the most expensive colleges in the country. But looking at the map tells us many things. One example, the state of Mississippi has the smallest percentage of people over the age of 25 with a college degree (24.78%). That means 414,000 individuals in the state have a college degree, and they are carrying $14.4 billion dollars in student debt, and 66,000 of these folks are over the age of 50. All of this debt will not be wiped out by President Biden's plan, but a lot of the accumulated interest will be. Think of what this will mean for these individuals and for the economy of the good state of Mississippi. Home repairs, dinners out, purchases of tickets to athletic events and theatre and music venues, donations to churches and civic organizations, and hundreds of other good purposes will fertilize the local economies in Mississippi and all over the country. MAGA Republicans are constantly fretting over the economy, but they restrict that worry to the richest zip codes. This loan forgiveness will make life easier for people all over the country and enrich local spending on those businesses and shops that employ millions without a college degrees. What is not to like about this?
Hi Patrick,
I totally agree with your comments. My goal in creating these graphics is to connect the consequences of Republican policies with what it means for people. And let people see for themselves how it impacts there community. I overlay the maps with their elected official so then a reader can call them directly. This cuts through the Republican 'culture wars' which they use to distract the public with while robbing people in need with their cruel policies.
This map shows how President Biden's loans help veterans and the disabled. In creating this map, I was surprised to see how many borrowers were still paying off their loans into their 60's.
https://thedemlabs.org/2023/11/11/veterans-day-student-loans-debt-cancellation-biden-harris/
In addition to maps I also use short podcasts so people can hear about what student loan debt forgiveness means to borrowers.
https://thedemlabs.org/2023/08/19/debt-free-dreams-student-loan-forgiveness-gave-me-a-new-life/
Regarding the $175 million bond, last night Rachel Maddow gave an in depth report on the guy who put up the money for the bond. It is extremely interesting since this guy was abusing people left and right with loan financing and became a billionaire, but now instead of fleecing people, he decides to put the current amount although he said he'd go for the full amount. It's quite a story. Look for it on MSNBC online or it might be on YouTube.
Thank you for sharing these spectacular photos.
What a gift that the clouds parted just at the right moment.
“Donald Trump and the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court have relegated women to a second-class status.” Robert, this statement is not an accurate one. Women have never had equal status under our constitution.
Sadly, tragically, you are correct.
You note, absolutely correctly, that Republicans glory in a tax code: “ the most affluent Americans benefit from “carried interest” deductions on hedge-fund investments or 20% capital gains rates on investment income or a federal tax write-off available only to purchasers of private jets but not economy cars. These “fairness” arguments are trotted out by Republicans only when working-class Americans are beneficiaries but not when the top 1% earners receive windfall benefits.”. Please ask Biden team to wash and repeat this all over the airways.
Enthusiastically agree, Swbv! We need to help Robert share this message to the Republicans as well as all our fellow citizens.
As a side note I visited the 3 new Memorials in Montgomery, Alabama that honor the many men and women who died during the shameful years of slavery. It is a breathtaking exhibit set on 3 sites in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. If you ever get this way, please take the time to see our dark history. It gives me hope that these brave souls went through so much and survived this tragedy to become such breathtaking citizens. Yes we still deal with this in many ways but we have also come so far. The fact that these memorials were built at the site of the warehousing and auctioning of these poor people is in and of itself breathtaking. We move forward and backward in history but this is a big step forward. Let's hope it shows up at the polls in November. I am proud of my City and I rarely say that these days....
Montgomery is on our schedule. Will announce details when the date is nearer. thanks for your post!
Definitely worth a trip to Montgomery to experience! Others who are interested can learn more at https://eji.org
Adaline, thank you so much for sharing this. It is is important for all of us to enlarge our expectations of our fellow citizens beyond red and blue state stereotypes if we are ever going to bring about healing and humanity across all of these United States. As Robert and others have commented about Texas recently, there are signs that the blue/red state dichotomy is beginning to fall apart. When I ask many of my friends who share the opinion that Trump must never be president again, and will vote for Biden, what they are going to do, they often say --"I live in a red state, nothing to be done here." Or, "I live in a blue state, the Democrats don't need any help here."
This narrowness and complacency among good people leads to "So what?" inaction. The individual human stories of communities, groups, candidates pushing against the grain matters so much.
“ We should expect that Judge Engoron will scrutinize the bond closely—and may require Trump to secure a different bond.”
So if it is found insufficient, then what? He’s already had it delayed, and reduced. When do his actions have consequences?
Letitia James can seize Trump's asset notwithstanding the fake bond.
Will she now do that? I hope so, because another grift has been committed, this one with all of our eyes open!
Thank you Robert for pointing out the massive hypocrisy of Republican rhetoric regarding welfare. They love socialism for the wealthy and giant corporations, but want the rest of us to be rugged individualists, as MLK famously pointed out. The Democrats should be pointing out this hypocrisy 24/7, that the GOP loves big government for the wealthy few at the rest of our expense.