Yeah at this rate I'm not expecting a stimulus check now.

2/3/2021 1:21:33 PM

Jesus I just saw the goal for the stimulus package is MARCH 14? That can't be right?

2/3/2021 3:14:32 PM

^if you've been patiently waiting for the vaccine, I've got some bad news for you...

2/3/2021 3:54:01 PM

Huh

2/3/2021 4:10:09 PM

^^^makes the $1400 vs $2000 stimulus check debate even dumber now. They’re really gonna wait like 3 months after the $600 stimulus and be like “see here’s the $1400 we promised, giving you a total of $2000!”


[Edited on February 3, 2021 at 6:28 PM. Reason : And yeah, I know there’s more to stimulus than just direct payments...]

2/3/2021 6:27:30 PM

Doubly so if a good chunk of those that got $600 don't get the $1400

2/3/2021 6:29:53 PM

In general, I’m ok with trying to narrow the range of people receiving direct payments and making it more targeted. But yeah...in that case, that last round of stimulus wasn’t really a “down payment” for this next round after all.

2/3/2021 6:59:32 PM

$75k is already pretty targeted tho

2/3/2021 7:27:51 PM

That’s very valid.

2/3/2021 8:07:33 PM

Setting it at 50k would leave out tens of millions of people who need assistance. It’s also based on 2019 income apparently.

2/3/2021 11:29:28 PM

Quote :

"#UPDATE US President Joe Biden said he won't lift sanctions against Iran as long as the Islamic republic is not adhering to its nuclear deal commitments https://t.co/2A9nS6ASnT https://t.co/leSZEQJhAR"

Sigh

2/7/2021 5:41:05 PM

lol trump broke the fucking deal but here we go

2/8/2021 11:37:41 AM

It's Iran, why do we feel like we need to buy them off with a lot of money?

Now they're talk of including a 3k tax credit for children into the deal. That's 3k per child. There's an upper limit but I don't remember what it was, or maybe 3k was the limit there was talk about dolling it monthly.

2/8/2021 1:03:03 PM

Who's buying anyone off? It's sanctions not withholding payments.

But also if I break a deal with you, its shitty to try to make you be the one to restart the deal.

2/8/2021 1:36:06 PM

Quote :

"I wrote about how Joe Biden could (and should) get Louis DeJoy out of USPS, despite the supposed impossibility of doing so https://t.co/bW8iaubgrv"

2/12/2021 12:50:31 PM

Quote :

"Biden privately told a group of mayors and governors last week that his proposed minimum wage hike was unlikely to happen. It's the furthest he's gone in conceding the coming axing of the $15 minimum wage provision from his first major legislative package https://t.co/gOlRYdHCUt"

Quote :

"BREAKING: President Biden just issued new ICE guidance wholly abandoning his pledge to halt deportations. ACLU says this is "a disappointing step backward from the Biden administration’s earlier commitments to fully break from the harmful deportation policies" of Trump and Obama."

Quote :

"Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called Mohammed bin Salman today to reaffirm the "strategic defense partnership" between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon says. https://t.co/09AdipeEfW"

[Edited on February 19, 2021 at 2:08 PM. Reason : E]

2/19/2021 2:07:51 PM

These seem like noteworthy points regarding arguments against the Biden administration's current "kids in cages" policy:

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1364968044729151498

I've been wondering if there's a more humane policy than what's currently being administered.

2/25/2021 2:31:53 PM

that Washington Post headline that tons of people shared/reacted to without reading the article certainly didn’t help

a whole hell of a lot of them incorrectly assumed it was more family separations/kids in cage, when it wasn’t

[Edited on February 25, 2021 at 2:52 PM. Reason : .]

2/25/2021 2:48:40 PM

Kamal Harris explicitly said those private detention centers should be closed. She wasn't vp pick yet, and she obviously isn't president, but I think she had already endorsed Biden.

2/25/2021 5:39:56 PM

Some of this too, aside from the morals, comes down to just about bad politics, like with the $2000 checks. You talk a big game with a muddy message and then just immediately start negotiating with themselves. If you think you can get away with $1400 why not start with $2000 and let Republicans or fucking Manchin "negotiate" you down to $1400. With this camp, come up with a plan like immediately building a bunch of new non-detention style facilities and get "negotiated" down to using shit like temporarily. They're giving up on stuff so quickly with just the slightest of pressure. Student loan forgiveness is another great one, Biden says "I don't think I can do that".....you don't THINK?!? Your the president and you campaigned on this, can you at least KNOW before you give up??

2/25/2021 6:41:44 PM

not nearly enough time to build new housing for unaccompanied minors

better to improve the conditions on the infrastructure that currently exists

2/25/2021 6:52:25 PM

The news of this opening would have hit much softer if it was accompanied by a plan to phase them out, even with time. My example was just off the top of my head, I'm not president with a massive team, I'd hope they could come up with a much better plan than me


Also plenty of examples of Dem officials being outraged over HHS detention centers holding mostly unaccompanied minors

[Edited on February 25, 2021 at 6:58 PM. Reason : E]

2/25/2021 6:55:54 PM

in a perfect world, yes

but I’m not gonna fault them too much for not having a plan for new facilities while dealing with the most catastrophic health crisis in over a century

they have protocols they can easily improve on and that’s much better than just letting the unaccompanied minors in and figure it out on their own

2/25/2021 7:18:53 PM

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-administration-to-release-new-guidelines-after-khashoggi-intelligence-report/

Sucks to be Biden- talk about a lose-lose situation after inheriting someone else's mess.


https://thehill.com/policy/finance/540097-mnuchin-expected-to-launch-investment-fund-backed-by-gulf-money-report

Meanwhile, Steven Mnuchin has had plenty of time to cozy up with the Saudis and now he's going to enrich himself with an investment fund and totally get away with it.

[Edited on February 25, 2021 at 8:06 PM. Reason : .]

2/25/2021 8:06:08 PM

^^probably shouldn't have spent years, including 9 months during the pandemic, calling it a moral crime they would end. They didn't campaign on "we will imprison children still but make the prisons nicer!"

Fuck man they could even just say "we will have a plan to close this place by _____", thats better than nothing.

2/25/2021 8:10:16 PM

they aren’t imprisoning kids, tho

they’re housing them while they connect with their sponsors

2/25/2021 8:14:10 PM

Got a feeling you weren't that charitable when they were run by Trump

[Edited on February 25, 2021 at 8:25 PM. Reason : you're not under arrest you're just being detained...for 30-60 days"]

2/25/2021 8:22:19 PM

I’m more charitable because he doesn’t have a fucking white nationalist running his immigration policy

2/25/2021 8:25:30 PM

The same exact policy is better (despite the president and his allies decrying it for 2 years) bc it's being implemented by a different person.

2/25/2021 8:27:32 PM

here’s a quote from the original piece that started all of this, from an activist who has been on the ground for years:

Quote :

" When I read they were opening again, I cried,” said Rosey Abuabara, a San Antonio community activist who was arrested for protesting outside the Carrizo camp in 2019. “I consoled myself with the fact that it was considered the Cadillac of [migrant child] centers, but I don’t have any hope that Biden is going to make it better."

Biden can 100% make it better. it’s a layup. there’s no reason to believe that he/his administration won’t. give them more than a few days to judge them on improvements made on a policy run by a white supremacist.

2/25/2021 8:32:59 PM

President Trump is imprisoning children bc he hates Mexicans!

President Biden is detaining children to help them! Oh and they get nice pillows and SpongeBob!


Also if hes gonna make these improvements that are good enough to make this OK, maybe he should tell us the improvements? Feels much easier to give credit for what someone is going to do when they tell you and you don't just have to guess.

2/25/2021 8:37:00 PM

or you could just judge him on what he’s done as opposed to what you’re worried he’s not gonna do

what’s your alternative?

[Edited on February 25, 2021 at 8:41 PM. Reason : .]

2/25/2021 8:40:45 PM

He's barely done anything so far

^my alternative is that he should tell us his plan. A good start would be releasing any minor with a sponsor within an accelerated time frame, I'll say 10 days. Another one would be eliminating the private companies from the mix, I have zero trust in detention centers run for profit. I don't think it should be on me to come up with a plan though, Americans voted for him bc he said he would do these things, seems like we should expect a plan, at minimum.

[Edited on February 25, 2021 at 8:46 PM. Reason : E]

2/25/2021 8:43:45 PM

so you’re more upset at what you don’t know than what you do know

[Edited on February 25, 2021 at 8:48 PM. Reason : .]

2/25/2021 8:44:53 PM

"Trump should release these children!!" "oh yea whats your plan"

Quote :

"based on what?"

I don't even know what this means. You said I should trust him based on what he's done, all hes done is make promises and sign a couple ok exec orders. He also spent 8 years as VP of a president deporting people left and right.

2/25/2021 8:48:52 PM

Yes I think it's a pretty low bar to expect our elected officials to tell us how they will execute their campaign promises. Especially when they reopen a center that they campaigned against, that's a step in the wrong direction. If it's part of the plan, ok, what's the plan?

2/25/2021 8:50:35 PM

Quote :

" A good start would be releasing any minor with a sponsor within an accelerated time frame, I'll say 10 days."

I know that I don’t know enough about the process to know that this is a viable option. do you? it’d be great if it was, but I’m not familiar enough with it to demand this.

it just seems to me that the best course of action, in the middle of a public health crisis, is to vastly improve on existing systems for the time being, and to incorporate new and better policy as we get out of the pandemic.

2/25/2021 8:56:15 PM

They're doing SOMETHING, they just opened this facility, should those resources have gone to the pandemic. Are all the other govt agencies focusing on the pandemic.

Also the American government is massive and Biden's campaign was massive. It would be very disappointing to find out that they campaigned on this and havent even started planning

They did something they campaigned against and I can't even ask for a PLAN?

2/25/2021 9:09:22 PM

they took over a federal government that was actively decimated for 4 years

I’ll be right there with you if activists on the ground report that the facilities are awful and that the children are being institutionalized/treated horribly

but until then, I’ll hold out hope that things are much better than before

2/25/2021 9:15:29 PM

On another note, I'm curious the political impact of Harris overruling the parliamentarian. Put a very popular bill on the floor and make Manchin and Sinema vote against it. Unfortunately some other dumbass Dem senators might revolt too, senators love their "norms"

2/25/2021 10:35:57 PM

Quote :

"He's barely done anything so far"

Dude. He's been in office for...[checks notes]....36 days...

You're still not quite grasping how much of a mess Biden has to clean up, let alone the fact that the Republican Party is dying a long, slow miserable death, albeit incredibly vocally on cable news/social media.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-republican-party-is-now-in-its-end-stages/618132/

Quote :

"The Republican Party is, for now, more of a danger to the United States than to the world. But like the last Soviet-era holdouts in the Kremlin, its cadres are growing more aggressive and paranoid. They blame spies and provocateurs for the Capitol riot, and they are obsessed with last summer’s protests (indeed, they are fixated on all criminals and rioters other than their own) to a point that now echoes the old Soviet lingo about “antisocial elements” and “hooligans.” They blame their failures at the ballot box not on their own shortcomings, but on fraud and sabotage as the justification for a redoubled crackdown on democracy. Another lesson from all this history is that the Republicans have no path to reform. Like their Soviet counterparts, their party is too far gone. Gorbachev tried to reform the Soviet Communist Party, and he remains reviled among the Soviet faithful to this day. Similar efforts by the remaining handful of reasonable Republicans are unlikely to fare any better. The Republican Party, to take a phrase from the early Soviet leader Leon Trotsky, should now be deposited where it belongs: in the “dustbin of history.”"

It's gonna be OK...

2/25/2021 11:01:43 PM

Quote :

"Dude. He's been in office for...[checks notes]....36 days... "

I was responding to tgl keep up butt out


And Republicans almost control the senate and just had major gains in house of representatives. Not to mention losing the white house by a tight margin

2/25/2021 11:21:58 PM

I mean, I actually dislike TGL as a person (or at least whatever his online "persona" is), but that doesn't make him wrong.

Also, you both butted in about a joke I made to someone else in a thread about fucking Brexit, so miss me with the "I wasn't talking to you" bs

2/25/2021 11:39:19 PM

So has he done something or has he not had time to do anything can't be both

And I didn't say that I wasn't talking to you, I asked you to catch up before you jumped in

Not sure why you felt the need to attack tgl to get at me though

2/25/2021 11:49:36 PM

I get that you get some kind of therapeutic value coming here and airing all of your grievances, but IDK if it's working out very well for you. Biden is a bland, boring centrist and the GOP is like stage 4 cancer. Sorry we don't live in an ideal world, but you really can choose to spend less time fixated on the 24/7 doomsday cablenews/social media cycle that's making you sound so miserable/bitter. Lower your damn expectations and be happy that Trump lost.

2/26/2021 12:13:49 AM

Believe me buddy I'm miserable/bitter for reasons that expand far beyond politics (present company included)

But thanks yet again for trying to talk me out of engaging in the political process. Enjoy the privilege of being fine with the status quo.

"lower your expectations" FOH man that's a great way to get that stage 4 cancer to spread

2/26/2021 12:18:51 AM

legit hate to hear that you’re miserable

2/26/2021 12:37:26 AM

Ha, thanks, partially tongue in cheek, I've got it better than many/most but it's been a challenging year/4 years

2/26/2021 12:47:56 AM

Quote :

"But thanks yet again for trying to talk me out of engaging in the political process. Enjoy the privilege of being fine with the status quo."

You aren't engaging in it; you're complaining about it without really understanding why it's so broken in the first place, which is understandable, but I don't think it's making you feel any better. It looks like it's making you feel worse The only thing you can actually do is vote, protest, or write your representatives. If you think you'd do a better job, run for office. Shit, I don't even live in NC (or wherever you live), but I'd donate to your campaign because clearly you've got a lot of passion/anger that could be put to productive use and you'd be more productive than 95% of current American politicians.

As for me, I gotta run ZOOM meetings all day and teach people that really have difficult lives about what's 'real' and what's "fake" on the news and social media, and they're actually paying attention/learning/doing OK, for the most part. They give me hope because they actually fucking care. They're not the people in power, but they might be one day, and instead of being negative/bitter, we try to focus on what they want, instead of what they don't like/doesn't work.

I really do wish you well and I hate that this country sucks right now, but I honestly just come on here to either make jokes or argue for the sake of checking my own biases/privileges.

Warts and all, TWW keeps it real, and I guess that's why I can't quit.

[Edited on February 26, 2021 at 1:28 AM. Reason : .]

2/26/2021 1:27:15 AM

Quote :

"You aren't engaging in it; you're complaining about it "

TWW isn't my life man jesus, asking me to lower my expectations is asking me to disengage. If I had no hope of change I wouldn't bother.

Quote :

"without really understanding "

Fuck. Off. My god. If you think I sound angry when I interact with you it probably bc you are simultaneously the most condescending and the least knowledgeable poster on this board, I've tried to avoid directly insulting you (I think?) but I'm tired of your "you're a moron buy I hope you're OK" bs. you seriously spew nonsense and fail at putting forth a consistent and coherent argument. And then you regularly attack the person instead of the argument. DTR was more condescending but he was at least internally consistent with his arguments. Is that keeping it real?

Imagine how insane it is to think you can know my emotional state solely from my interactions about politics on tww. And imagine being surprised that I get mad at my elected officials when they don't do what they say they were gonna do. Anyone that cares should do the same.

2/26/2021 10:10:41 AM