Possibly the biggest story today in terms of its impact on most Americans’ lives is that as part of its war on junk fees, the Biden administration announced an $8 cap on late fees charged by credit card issuers that have more than a million accounts. These companies hold more than 95% of outstanding credit card debt. Currently, fees average $32, and they fall on more than 45 million people. The White House estimates that late fees currently cost Americans about $25 billion a year. The rule change will save Americans about $10 billion a year.
As Rachel Maddow and the MSNBC election team spelled out clearly, the coming election might be our last… should TFG win. And quoting the serial psychopathic narcissist insecure pathological liar, members of the MSNBC network team suggested what they and others might do to avoid Orwellian tyranny and loss of our democracy and our basic freedoms.. this is not dress rehearsal. It’s game on
Heather's last sentence tonight, "People had better start paying attention," should galvanize all of us. It's time to get the message out, time to write letters to the editor, time to talk matter-of-factly to friends and family about just one little thing or another that maybe they haven't paid attention to but that might be important to them. The tactic has acquired a name, "relational organizing," but it's something that many of us have been doing for decades. Non-confrontational and informative, and always in digestible amounts to get people thinking without inundating them. Try it--you'll like it.
¿Wanna get people to pay attention? Well, the media could do more than pathologize American democracy for the sake of click-bait and ratings. Instead of focussing so much on Trump and the worst of his rants and short-comings, simply ignore him and drive home the crimes he has committed. Next, laugh the stupid stooge off the stage. Then, report, "Meanwhile, President Biden has taken on predatory credit card lenders, etc." https://youtu.be/FgAoGf84-3A
The media seem to be reporting this horse race as business as usual when it seems to me that everyone’s hair should be on fire given the incalculable number of ways Trump has upended our democratic systems( not to mention his incoherent speech!). I am at a loss to understand why the “experts” on the news just keep on yammering away as though Trump is just a normal candidate! This is scary.
It is always difficult to get credit for things that prevent worse problems or fix problems before they arise, or even dig out hidden issues. Biden lowering penalty fees or going after companies taking obscene profits by simply continuing high prices people got used to thinking of as due to shortages is hard for people to recognize. It's as if I addressed four out of five problems at my work or wash half the dishes - all anyone's going to see are the problems (or dishes) that remain.
These powerful but quiet unseen and unseeable things are the kinds of things Biden does for us, while Trump made big visible flashy useless walls or waved flags at loud rallies. People need physical symbols and visible enemies or at least culprits. I hope that for every over blown profit there isn't just a quiet court case or penalty payment and price adjustment. I hope the names of the companies are loudly broadcast. I hope there are photographs of examples of things we all buy with before and after price tags. Touching daily lives isn't enough if it's done by removing a touchstone of discontent without drawing attention to it (and the removal) rather than allowing Americans' free-floating discontent to simply rove on to the next target.
Judging from Trump’s lie-filled but sleep-walking victory ramblings, he may not make it to Election Day. When will the media start hammering on his rapidly declining mental health and increasingly outlandish lies?
We think Europe and the Middle East are the be-all and end-all. There is a bigger world out there, and we have a large footprint on it.
This shows how the current administration is trying to address mass migration from Central and South America by dealing with WHY people are showing up at our border….
Our country is struggling with outrageous pressures caused by migration, and SOME of what is going on is a result of policies our country has fostered - economic and political policies — that have impacted the lives of people who live to our south ….
We must not be so arrogant as to think that people from Central and South America flock here just because it’s such a cake walk to “come to America.”
The trek here is fraught with danger, crossing the border is fraught with danger, and the real possibility of being caught and sent back is a constant danger.
Why do they come? Because life in their own countries has been degraded, economically and socially {It has gotten so we hear the word “gangs,” and we don’t react. So what is new?}. And they need to find a safe place where families can LIVE.
OUR country’s policies over the years impacted the quality of their lives in their own countries, foisting corruption on them, suppressing their democracies in the service of our corporate interests.
And their countries are heating up in large part due to our decades and decades of dependence on and encouragement of using fossil fuels that have overheated the world’s atmosphere and oceans..
We have had a hand in making their countries inhospitable to their own people.
IF WE WANT THEM TO STOP COMING HERE, we maybe should have a hand in helping them put their own countries back together again??? I’m sure most people would LIKE to stay in the country of their birth, if it is a livable place.
Like this article talks about?
Years of US policy has been unfair to these countries.
Someone IS trying to solve the border crisis AND do the right thing. This is an eample of the Biden administration doing the right thing, and infuencing the world to do the right thing.
You think Trump would try to make the situation at the border better by actually HELPING a country, instead of stringing razor wire? You think he’d bother to support democracy? Not just shove people in jail or send them back to gang-lands? In a pig’s eye, he would.
Thank you. It would be nice if the brainless mass media paid at least a little attention the real story of “Super Tuesday”, which is that a very large number of GOP voters did NOT vote for Cheetolini.
On Sunday, Trump met with GOP big money donors. And Elon Musk, who like Trump is worth more on paper than cash in hand - on a scale Trump only schemes of - but even then, Musk has proven how much damage he can do on a whim. And democracy is not to his taste.
In all my years of knocking on doors - and buttonholing folks on the street in between doors - the toughest moment was GOTV for Kerry in Ohio. I approached a woman in a parked car in a lot I was cutting through. I assumed she was waiting for someone, but having lost her job and home, she was living in her car. She was interested in talking and asked how voting would help - if she even could vote although she was registered and usually voted. The best I could come up with was that Democratic administrations were better on social safety net issues. But it seemed arrogant to say even that. Let alone talk of democracy, which we didn't much in those days.
And democracy. It is a hard sell to people who want change with simple answers, even when the answers are lies. And especially when irrational habits of mind (religious or ideological) have taken hold, feeding on an immediate gratification preference for blowing things up (whether as apocalypse or revolution) to working them out. Biden is all about working things out.
"People had better start paying attention". That is for sure, but those already paying attention have solid sources of information. Reaching the others is what the rest of us are responsible for. GOTV, Phone bank. Post cards. Follow Jessica Craven and others for what and who to connect with. It is up to US!
The inevitability of a Trump second term seems to be fading ever so slightly and rather slowly. I dare to hope that it will pick up momentum and Biden wii get a second term to complete the work he's done for the American people. Fervently hoping so!
And, in other news, the Ukrainians reported sinking another piece of the Russian Black Sea fleet. We dare not forget our allies who still need Congress to act and who are accomplishing more than is reported.
As Rachel Maddow and the MSNBC election team spelled out clearly, the coming election might be our last… should TFG win. And quoting the serial psychopathic narcissist insecure pathological liar, members of the MSNBC network team suggested what they and others might do to avoid Orwellian tyranny and loss of our democracy and our basic freedoms.. this is not dress rehearsal. It’s game on
Me thinks he protests too much: Trump is worried about money! So, does the mass deportation of US citizens include his wife?
Heather's last sentence tonight, "People had better start paying attention," should galvanize all of us. It's time to get the message out, time to write letters to the editor, time to talk matter-of-factly to friends and family about just one little thing or another that maybe they haven't paid attention to but that might be important to them. The tactic has acquired a name, "relational organizing," but it's something that many of us have been doing for decades. Non-confrontational and informative, and always in digestible amounts to get people thinking without inundating them. Try it--you'll like it.
¿Wanna get people to pay attention? Well, the media could do more than pathologize American democracy for the sake of click-bait and ratings. Instead of focussing so much on Trump and the worst of his rants and short-comings, simply ignore him and drive home the crimes he has committed. Next, laugh the stupid stooge off the stage. Then, report, "Meanwhile, President Biden has taken on predatory credit card lenders, etc." https://youtu.be/FgAoGf84-3A
The media seem to be reporting this horse race as business as usual when it seems to me that everyone’s hair should be on fire given the incalculable number of ways Trump has upended our democratic systems( not to mention his incoherent speech!). I am at a loss to understand why the “experts” on the news just keep on yammering away as though Trump is just a normal candidate! This is scary.
Here in SoCal, “cease fire” protestors interrupted Adam Schiff’s speech.
They’re going to love life if trump gets back in.
It is always difficult to get credit for things that prevent worse problems or fix problems before they arise, or even dig out hidden issues. Biden lowering penalty fees or going after companies taking obscene profits by simply continuing high prices people got used to thinking of as due to shortages is hard for people to recognize. It's as if I addressed four out of five problems at my work or wash half the dishes - all anyone's going to see are the problems (or dishes) that remain.
These powerful but quiet unseen and unseeable things are the kinds of things Biden does for us, while Trump made big visible flashy useless walls or waved flags at loud rallies. People need physical symbols and visible enemies or at least culprits. I hope that for every over blown profit there isn't just a quiet court case or penalty payment and price adjustment. I hope the names of the companies are loudly broadcast. I hope there are photographs of examples of things we all buy with before and after price tags. Touching daily lives isn't enough if it's done by removing a touchstone of discontent without drawing attention to it (and the removal) rather than allowing Americans' free-floating discontent to simply rove on to the next target.
Judging from Trump’s lie-filled but sleep-walking victory ramblings, he may not make it to Election Day. When will the media start hammering on his rapidly declining mental health and increasingly outlandish lies?
The problem here is that Joe Biden is a great President who is running a bad campaign.
“I don't worry about anything. I don't worry about the money. I don't worry about money.”
Money pouring in from Russia.
We think Europe and the Middle East are the be-all and end-all. There is a bigger world out there, and we have a large footprint on it.
This shows how the current administration is trying to address mass migration from Central and South America by dealing with WHY people are showing up at our border….
< https://www.thenation.com/article/world/americas-skewered-path-in-guatemala/>
Our country is struggling with outrageous pressures caused by migration, and SOME of what is going on is a result of policies our country has fostered - economic and political policies — that have impacted the lives of people who live to our south ….
We must not be so arrogant as to think that people from Central and South America flock here just because it’s such a cake walk to “come to America.”
The trek here is fraught with danger, crossing the border is fraught with danger, and the real possibility of being caught and sent back is a constant danger.
Why do they come? Because life in their own countries has been degraded, economically and socially {It has gotten so we hear the word “gangs,” and we don’t react. So what is new?}. And they need to find a safe place where families can LIVE.
OUR country’s policies over the years impacted the quality of their lives in their own countries, foisting corruption on them, suppressing their democracies in the service of our corporate interests.
And their countries are heating up in large part due to our decades and decades of dependence on and encouragement of using fossil fuels that have overheated the world’s atmosphere and oceans..
We have had a hand in making their countries inhospitable to their own people.
IF WE WANT THEM TO STOP COMING HERE, we maybe should have a hand in helping them put their own countries back together again??? I’m sure most people would LIKE to stay in the country of their birth, if it is a livable place.
Like this article talks about?
Years of US policy has been unfair to these countries.
Someone IS trying to solve the border crisis AND do the right thing. This is an eample of the Biden administration doing the right thing, and infuencing the world to do the right thing.
You think Trump would try to make the situation at the border better by actually HELPING a country, instead of stringing razor wire? You think he’d bother to support democracy? Not just shove people in jail or send them back to gang-lands? In a pig’s eye, he would.
Thank you. It would be nice if the brainless mass media paid at least a little attention the real story of “Super Tuesday”, which is that a very large number of GOP voters did NOT vote for Cheetolini.
On Sunday, Trump met with GOP big money donors. And Elon Musk, who like Trump is worth more on paper than cash in hand - on a scale Trump only schemes of - but even then, Musk has proven how much damage he can do on a whim. And democracy is not to his taste.
In all my years of knocking on doors - and buttonholing folks on the street in between doors - the toughest moment was GOTV for Kerry in Ohio. I approached a woman in a parked car in a lot I was cutting through. I assumed she was waiting for someone, but having lost her job and home, she was living in her car. She was interested in talking and asked how voting would help - if she even could vote although she was registered and usually voted. The best I could come up with was that Democratic administrations were better on social safety net issues. But it seemed arrogant to say even that. Let alone talk of democracy, which we didn't much in those days.
And democracy. It is a hard sell to people who want change with simple answers, even when the answers are lies. And especially when irrational habits of mind (religious or ideological) have taken hold, feeding on an immediate gratification preference for blowing things up (whether as apocalypse or revolution) to working them out. Biden is all about working things out.
"People had better start paying attention". That is for sure, but those already paying attention have solid sources of information. Reaching the others is what the rest of us are responsible for. GOTV, Phone bank. Post cards. Follow Jessica Craven and others for what and who to connect with. It is up to US!
The inevitability of a Trump second term seems to be fading ever so slightly and rather slowly. I dare to hope that it will pick up momentum and Biden wii get a second term to complete the work he's done for the American people. Fervently hoping so!
And, in other news, the Ukrainians reported sinking another piece of the Russian Black Sea fleet. We dare not forget our allies who still need Congress to act and who are accomplishing more than is reported.